Daily Life of the Ancients (1)
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
"Whew. Whew."
"Aigoo, Jorangi, let's slow down now. Nobody's chasing us. That's right, let's calm down."
Jorangi was gasping for breath. Thinking she might be exhausted, I stroked her neck—and wouldn't you know it, she slowed right down to a gentle walk.
Could she actually have a talent for training?
Thump, thump.
"Wow? You really understood me?"
The world of animals is truly fascinating and mysterious.
Anyway, when was I supposed to get home? The road ahead stretched on and on and on.
Losing my tent was a shame. It's probably sitting in that village back there—should I just flip the whole place over?
"Ugh... too much hassle."
I'll just pull out a big sheet of cloth when it's time to sleep and have us all huddle under it together.
My subspace was stuffed with all sorts of random junk anyway. Dig around and something useful is bound to turn up.
The more I think about it, the more worked up I get? I should've at least lobbed a boulder their way on the way out.
Relax. Relax.
"Hee hee hee."
Come to think of it, it's kind of funny? Didn't we just film a whole movie—travel, kidnapping, assault, daring escape?
It actually felt like a proper adventure. Something to brag about, at least.
"Hey, Jorangi, aren't you cold?"
"Pii?"
"Not you. You're in the warmest spot in the whole world right now."
Dambi poked just her face out from between the folds of my clothes and answered for herself.
Jorangi's winter coat had been coming in thick since autumn, so she seemed perfectly fine in the cold. She marched on, sturdy as ever.
"Ah, right. Maybe I should drape a blanket over her?"
I dug out a rather large cloth from my pocket and wrapped it around my own body, leaving it long enough not to drag between Jorangi's hooves.
Making her actual clothes was a bit beyond my sewing skills for the moment.
"Hee-haw?"
"Just walk, it's less cold this way, isn't it?"
Maybe because of the snow, she didn't even stop to graze on the roadside grass—just kept pushing straight ahead.
We traveled on, losing all track of the days, until at last Haseo came into view in the distance.
Home was close now.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
I was quietly passing by Haseo when a thought crossed my mind.
'A little bit of a shame, actually...'
I'd been about to simply ride on past, but something felt incomplete about ending the journey just like this.
It couldn't hurt to let Jorangi rest for a while, even if she shrugged off the winter without a care—and I wanted to see how people were living these days, too.
"Want to stay in Haseo for a bit?"
"Neigh."
"Eee."
I really, really wish I could talk with these two properly.
They answer every time I speak to them—it's honestly amazing.
There were a few villages around the walls of Haseo fortress, so I stopped at the community hall of the nearest one.
Ask the village chief or whoever handled administration, and they might just help me find a place to stay, right?
"Hello."
A fake name would be safer. What name could pass for close to Haneul...
"I'm a traveler. My name is Ha-eun."
"Hmm. In this winter?"
"Actually, I passed through here in autumn heading west, but I was captured. I barely managed to escape."
Barely wasn't exactly the word, but I bent the truth a little—told them I'd gone west, been kidnapped, and only just slipped away in secret.
It's not as if they could march off west to verify the story anyway.
With the lie mixed only lightly into what was nearly all truth, nobody seemed to suspect a thing.
"You've been through so much."
"Could I find somewhere to stay? I'm willing to do any kind of work."
Looking around, this village had plenty of empty houses, I'd wager. Hands would be short, too.
"Would you prefer an empty house on your own? Or would you rather stay with someone?"
I could live alone, but apparently there was an older woman living by herself—the idea seemed to be that I'd keep her company and help with the chores. Probably a look-her-over-first sort of arrangement.
They don't seem very wary of me, though?
I glanced down at myself—slender, delicate-looking. Maybe I just seemed too weak to be a threat?
If I'd been a man, this wouldn't have gone so smoothly.
"Either is fine with me."
"Then you'll stay with Daka. I'll take you there—get up, now."
"Thank you."
The place I was led to was a hwanghoe ondol house, roomy enough for three or four people—the sort that was becoming common these days—with a wooden storage shed and stable right beside it.
They must have picked it because I had a horse with me. Such thoughtful attention to detail—the village clearly knew how to look after newcomers.
"Hello. I'm Ha-eun."
"Welcome, dear. Just call me Daka."
"Yes. Nice to meet you, Daka."
Daka greeted me warmly—a kindly, homely woman with the look of any neighborhood auntie. If the two of us walked down the street together, anyone would take us for mother and daughter.
Hmm. Although... our faces are a little too different for that.
"It's late, so let me show you to your room first."
"Yes. Thank you."
She must be a truly diligent woman. The room didn't look like anyone had used it in ages, yet there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere.
A single small wardrobe stood in the corner.
'So this is where I'll be staying for a while.'
The next day I took a proper look around the house. There were hunting tools everywhere—a bow, spears, even a dagger.
Her husband, and perhaps her sons too, must have been hunters. The kind who went out and never came back...
"Daka, shall I gather some firewood?"
"The forest is dangerous for a woman to walk in..."
She clearly needed it, but worried for me anyway. She was afraid something dreadful might happen to me out in the woods.
Still, it felt like something I really ought to do. From what I'd seen the night before, the only fuel they had was twigs.
Axes were hard to handle, so it seemed she scraped by on gathered branches—and doing that in the dead of winter was a recipe for falling gravely ill.
"Don't worry. I'm strong enough to travel alone, and I can fight, too."
I rolled up my sleeve and proudly flexed my bicep. Yep. Barely worth looking at.
"Pfft. What a cute little thing you are."
"Ugh..."
Everyone does this to me.
"We don't need much, so stay out of the deep forest—just gather branches nearby, dear."
Her face was full of worry.
"All right. I'll go with my animal friends. They warn me ahead of time if there's danger."
"Squeak!"
Even Dambi, who rarely shows herself to strangers, poked her head out to put in a word.
She seemed to be sizing up whether Daka was a good person. Do animals just know these things by instinct?
"Oh my! What an adorable little friend!"
"Yes! She's a marten—her name is Dambi. She absolutely loves potatoes."
"May I give her a little something?"
"Of course! Raw potato is fine."
Daka broke apart a raw potato, and Dambi went zipping over to collect it. If it ever came to it, I could leave Dambi in her care without a worry.
"Well then. I'll take the horse and go find some wood. Do you have an axe?"
I wasn't planning to use it, but hauling an axe along would make me look less strange, so I'd better take one anyway.
"You'll really be all right?"
She worries far too much. If I put my mind to it, I could knock that entire fortress down, ma'am!
"Don't you worry. Dambi will warn me."
"There should be some of his old things in the shed."
So there it was. She'd had a husband. Did this era even have a concept of remarriage? I'd have to ask when I got back home.
"Yes. I'll be off. I'll start working with you tomorrow."
With no firewood in the house, wood had to come first—I probably couldn't start proper work today anyway.
"Good. I'll let them know. Be careful out there."
"Will do~"
The shed turned out to be decently large, yet held no firewood at all—just a modest pile of branches.
When the men die off to hunting and hard labor, food you can earn by working—but this kind of hardship, firewood and daily survival, that's what grinds a household down.
So many things to fix when I get home. That's three already.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
People stared at me in wonder as I rode past on horseback.
Probably because hardly anyone kept a horse for personal riding. She'd eat just about anything, sure, but she still ate quite a lot.
Whoosh, whoosh.
"Nobody around, right?"
After checking my surroundings carefully in a suitably secluded stretch of forest, I felled a tree in an instant.
Green wood, this—into the subspace it went, to be stacked at the back of the shed and seasoned before it could burn.
This time I took a dead tree as well. You need ready-to-burn dry wood for the meantime, after all~
"Jorangi, you carry these."
"Nnngh."
Worried she might get scratched on branches, I wrapped the wood in cloth and loaded it onto her back.
"All right, let's go~"
Feels like we're heading back a bit early, though? Eh, we'll just walk home slowly.
No wait—better to hurry. Jorangi must be cold. Winter's showing off its last fits of spite before spring arrives.
"This should last you through several winters, no?"
By the time we returned, the shed was packed solid—green logs stacked toward the back, seasoned firewood stacked toward the front.
I couldn't exactly trek out every single day for an armful of twigs, could I? If it looked too odd, I'd just sneak the wood home through subspace.
"And I thought life had gotten better..."
Maybe it's because there's no political system in place yet. But this, of all things, is the one thing I can't touch.
Still—anyone tries anything funny, and I will tear it all down with my own two hands.
Creak, clatter.
While I was lost in thought, Daka must have come home.
"Welcome back."
"Oh? You're back early."
"Of course! I'll get the fire going—come inside."
"Yes, thank you, dear."
Ordinarily, the hearth and kitchen sat outside the house proper. But the corridor connected to the interior, so it worked exactly like the kitchen of an old-style Korean home.
That's just what happened when you built with ondol flooring, apparently. Nobody had ever taught them—it simply came out that way.
And I'd stacked a full load of firewood in the kitchen too, ready for immediate use.
Starting the fire—sadly, I used a bow drill. Flint and steel have never once obeyed me. I simply cannot control the spark.
After pulverizing a few flints into powder in my early attempts, I'd given up and stuck with the bow drill for good.
"Oh my. You've already got the fire going?"
"Yep. This much is easy."
"Tonight it's potatoes and salted meat."
"Oh! Sounds delicious!"
What a relief. I truly hate salted fish. Too much of that fishy reek.
Heh heh. Time to deploy my own secret weapon. I have soybean oil. I'd pressed it from ordinary beans once, and it yielded so pitifully little that now only I use it.
"Let me handle the cooking."
"You can cook, too?"
Excuse me. Just what do you take me for, ma'am?
Oh dear. My pride is a little wounded...
"Trust me. This is called oil. Fry the potatoes in it and they're absolutely delicious."
I poured the oil into the stone pot in the kitchen, tossed in diced potato and meat, and got to work stir-frying.
There's one immortal truth handed down through the ages in the culinary world: anything tastes good fried. Even rubber, as they say.
Serve it up in a carved wooden bowl, and it's even easier to eat~
"Try it."
"So this is what oil looks like, then? First I've seen of it."
"Yes. It's not produced much yet, so people are still figuring out how to make it. Someday everyone will be able to use it easily."
Right now I'm probably the only one who has it. Sesame oil would be lovely, if only...
"Oh? You fry things in this?"
"Yes. Is it all right?"
"Mmm! That's good eating. Feisty and capable, aren't you—quite different from how you look."
Hm? What's wrong with how I look? Wait—actually, what would someone like me count as, by this era's standards?
In ancient and medieval times, I seem to recall beauty meant soft, plump, and generous of figure.
Am I just too much of a modern-day beauty standard?
"Oh! And I filled the shed to the brim with firewood. Stay warm!"
"Hm? To the brim? Hohoho. What a joker you are."
"Hehehe."
Right, of course you wouldn't believe me. Without my subspace I'd have had to make that trip dozens of times myself.
Try not to faint when you see it later~
The cozy dinner with Daka passed, and I went to bed early. Once the sun set, there was simply nothing to do. Oil was far too precious to burn. Eh, who knows—people will invent something convenient on their own if it bothers them enough.
Having this body is absurdly convenient. I don't even need an alarm clock.
Waking in the morning, all I had to do was toss a few logs into the hearth. The fire never quite died out overnight. Even in the small hours I'd risen a couple of times to feed it more wood before drifting back to sleep.
I am, it turns out, perfectly optimized for fire-tending duty.
"Oh? You're up already?"
"Yes. Good morning."
"Hmm. Hardworking, too, aren't you."
What now. Ever since I'd cooked last night, Daka had started eyeing me like a merchant appraising a prize stallion. It gave me the chills.
"We should eat and head out to work, right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Let's just have some quick potatoes and go."
Breakfast was potatoes I'd roasted the night before while tending the fire.
The auntie kept stealing glances at my chest and hips.
"Ha-eun, you're going to make some man beautiful, strong babies someday."
Koff.
Ahaha. I should stay a reasonable length of time and then go home. Keep this up and I'll find myself in an arranged marriage.
After breakfast, Daka took me to the village communal weaving workshop.
The women gathered together to spin and weave—cloth and silk were in heavy use all over the place.
"Today, we'll be drawing thread from the cocoons."
"Okay~"
The work was simple: boil the silkworm cocoons in water, and once they softened, find the end of the thread and unwind it gently.
It was hot, yes, but there was no real risk of burns—child's play, as work went.
"Oh my? Doesn't it burn you?"
Grabbing cocoons straight from the pot made Daka gasp; she snatched my hand to examine it.
"How curious. Your hands look like a baby's, yet you handle the heat so easily."
"Ahaha."
Let's call it a secret of my birth that I can't exactly explain.
From the limp tail of each softened silkworm I found the thread's end and began winding it onto a wooden frame. Wound like this, others could twist it into yarn or weave it into cloth.
Clack-clack, clack-clack.
From the sound of things, they had some primitive loom in use. I'd heard spinning wheels had caught on here too, but this contraption was new to me.
"Oh ho. Ha-eun's got clever hands, doesn't she? Is it because her fingers are so slender?"
"Yes, haha."
And so Daka's appraisals continued.
Before long a rumor would be circulating through the village: the girl built for bearing fine children, cooks wonderfully, works hard, and has skillful hands besides.
Wait—don't tell me they're going to change the local standards of beauty because of me?