Let's Make a Calendar
Let's make a calendar.
Navigation required two things. One was a ship. The other was dates and time.
Hopping between coastal waters and rivers was one thing, but the moment you headed into open ocean, you needed to know the date and the time to figure out exactly where your ship was.
"All right. So you understand that the seasons change, yes?"
"Heh heh."
Too hard for you, kid? You look like your soul left your body.
"I thought the World Tree, where Haneul-nim resides, was the center of it all..."
Now you're talking like a geocentrist?
"For now, just measure everything as precisely as you can. As the measurement technology improves, we'll keep discovering errors — so the research never stops."
"We should establish a dedicated institution for it. I'll begin gathering people at once."
Here I was trying to build a ship, and now we're making a calendar first.
Well... fair, I suppose. The potatoes don't care what season it is, but every other crop has to be planted at the right time. Having actual dates would be genuinely useful.
Thud. Bang. Thud. Bang.
Total chaos over the construction of one building. Why right next to here, of all places? It's not like the area lacks empty lots...
Jiwoo is going to get pummeled by Cheol for this.
Look — Cheol's fists are trembling.
Crash and clatter.
Oh. And there he goes, sprinting for his life. I guess today's meeting is adjourned. That, friends, is how terrifying inter-floor noise can be.
Hang in there, Jiwoo. As long as your hands and your head survive, you'll manage somehow. Probably.
"Ahaha. Let's leave it there for today, shall we?"
Somebody has to wrap up the meeting, and it might as well be me.
"Yes, Haneul-nim. Until next time."
In the early days the agenda had been so packed we'd hammered away at it for months on end, but now that most things had taken shape, we met only about once a week. Very convenient.
"Haneul-nim, you look pleased today."
"Mm. The meeting ended early."
"The Chancellor did bolt out of the room a moment ago..."
"Yeah. Jiwoo's legs are about to be clubbed into paste, aren't they?"
Wait. Mira? Why has your face gone white as a sheet...?
Whoosh —
Huh? What's going on? She's ditching me and running off? What? What is this? Now I'm curious, dammit.
"Ehehe."
Tap-tap-tap!
I hauled up my skirt and went clattering after her.
Wow, she's fast. Ooh! Found them — over there! Mira, Cheol, and Jiwoo, all three together!
I ducked behind a nearby pillar and watched.
"Grandfather! I was wrong!"
"Did I, or did I not, tell you to prep your materials outside?!"
THWACK.
"Urgh."
Is that a person or a shrimp? He smacked him once in the belly and the man folded in half like that?
So Jiwoo's sturdier than your average human, I see.
Oh, Mira. This is not the time to be wringing your hands over there, is it? Your boyfriend is dying~
"Ghk! C-could you at least show him a little mercy? Can't you let it go just this once?!"
Oh, Jiwoo finally snapped. Right words, worst possible timing — and now he's getting beaten for them too.
"Eeek! You insolent whelp!"
Uh-oh. He's grabbed the club. That's dangerous.
Dash!
"Stop! Grandfather!"
"What the — Chief Secretary!"
At last, our Mira takes the field. Although — if he's your lover's grandfather, are you supposed to call him Grandfather?
Ah, I could really go for popcorn right now. Where does one acquire corn? I don't think I've ever seen it around here.
"Grrk! Mira! This is between me and my grandfather — step aside!"
Please. Construction sites make noise sometimes. You two argue as well as each other, grandfather and grandson.
"Then at the very least, put down whatever it is you're holding!"
"Not a chance! We settle this today!"
Mira's got a set of lungs on her too. Doesn't lose an inch to Cheol.
"I will not raise our child without a father!"
"..."
"...?"
Wait, what did she just say...?
"Waaah... Cheol, please, spare Jiwoo's life."
"Chief Secretary? What do you mean by that?"
"Mira? What are you saying?"
Whoa... so they weren't just lovers? Mira should be twenty-nine this year, and Jiwoo twenty, no?
Wow. Mira, you absolute legend.
She trails around after me, slathers on all the good cosmetics, eats all the good food — and then hooks a young one. No wonder she's been less clingy with me lately.
"Sob, sob, sob..."
"..."
On one side, Jiwoo's face, which clearly read we are so, so screwed. On the other, Cheol's, which read triumph. She was the one always chasing this man and that man, wasn't she? Said it was quite the dilemma?
Oh! Right. In Daehan, once you've been paired, you cannot see another member of the opposite sex without your partner's consent. Which makes infidelity a serious crime.
"Heh heh heh. This is why I watch morning dramas."
Haha. That sly fox Mira. Watch her closely — she's acting. Anyone can see she's only pretending to cry.
Jiwoo is going to live out his days as a captive, isn't he?
A baby was already on the way, so the wedding happened in an instant.
There wasn't much of a grand ceremony yet — just words of thanks offered in the chapel, and congratulations received from the crowd.
"Sniff."
And today it's Jiwoo who's crying. Your glory days are over, buddy.
"Hohoho. Thank you all."
Mira's face bloomed wide open. I mean, she did marry into the most powerful family in the empire, didn't she? Ah, right — she's glued to my side anyway, so there's hardly anyone alive who'd dare touch her.
Oh? Is she the power behind the throne now?
A few months after Mira and Jiwoo were paired.
"Mira, isn't your belly getting a bit too round?"
"Oh my? Why, whatever do you mean? Isn't that a good thing?"
Drat. Caught me. All these excuses — the truth is I love not washing up and not getting dressed. Skipping meetings too. It's wonderful~
The door bursts open!
"Mira~!"
That damnable little bastard is here again.
Flick! THWACK!
"You son of a — this is MY house!"
I don't know why, but I got so irritated I hurled a walnut at his forehead, and good grief, was that loud? The walnut burst apart and scattered like powder. That's got to hurt.
"Oh, and this is your house, is it?!"
The moment he finds an opening, he comes over, chats for a bit, then starts canoodling. It's an eyesore.
"Oh my. Haneul-nim, are you perhaps jealous?"
"What? What did you just say?!"
Is there a single sound out of this woman's mouth that isn't nonsense?!
"If I so much as step outside, the people who adore me could circle the entire globe!"
"Well, you're not wrong. Hehe."
It stings. It stings a whole lot, actually.
Her own partner is over there, walnut-struck and rolling on the floor, and she doesn't spare him a glance. Teasing me is simply more entertaining.
"Hey! Jiwoo! Up off the floor, now!"
"Yes, yes!"
"What's going on here?!"
And this guy just wanders in for no reason at all.
"Ohohoho."
Augh. Mira's laughter, right next to my ear, stings beyond belief.
Well. That's my lot in life, I suppose...
Having apparently come up with some idea of their own, they went and built a structure on a round, circular plot of ground. It's right next door anyway, so I just quietly kept watch.
"Hm? What are these kids up to this time?"
Why are they straining so hard to look at the sun? Stare straight up at the sky, straight into the sun — what exactly do you expect to see?
Some of them are weeping rivers of tears. Did they actually see something?
"Haah..."
This is going to drive me insane.
Unable to watch any longer, I flew myself over to the neighboring building.
"Oh! Ohhh, Haneul-nim!"
"Haneul-nim has come!"
Their floor-scraping bows are impeccable. And the one who'd tried to eyeball the sun with his bare eyes a moment ago — did he actually see something? He's bowing at a diagonal angle, in a complete panic.
"Now, children. We're going to observe the sun, aren't we?"
"Yes! That's right!"
"And how were you planning to go about it?"
Ah, hearing the explanation was quite the spectacle. Their plan was simply to look at the sun directly and write down what they saw. Several of them would have gone blind.
For these friends of mine who don't even have a concept of time yet, I supposed I'd better teach them a relatively safe method of solar observation. Honestly, I couldn't see the point of staring directly at the sun in the first place.
"Here, all of you. Watch."
I made a small hole in the floor and stood a dagger upright beside it. Metal beat wood for this sort of thing. Its length might shift with the temperature, but it would still be the more accurate choice.
"What... is this?"
Unbelievable. The little fools are just staring at the dagger.
"You look at the shadow, not the dagger."
Only then did they turn their eyes to the shadow. At the very tip of the dagger's shadow, I set down a small stone.
And so a long while passed. Humans squirming and fidgeting the whole time.
"Are you lot made of string?! Hold still."
"Yes, Haneul-nim!"
No patience whatsoever, these people.
After a good stretch of time, I placed another stone at the shadow's tip.
"There. If you mark the tip of the shadow very precisely, at perfectly regular intervals, you can see exactly how the sun moves. You understand?"
"Wow... it's this easy?"
This part is easy. Now repeat it, and calculate it all with mathematics! Your heads will explode, I promise you.
But keep working through those calculations, and one day you'll have an astronomical instrument shaped like a great globe of the earth. Work hard at it, all of you. Astronomers whose names will echo through history.
Come to think of it — as long as the nation doesn't collapse, their names really will be preserved forever, won't they?
"Nnnnngh—!"
That sound is the scream of a woman bringing a child into the world. Something boiling up from the very core of her being.
It must be agonizing. I've heard that, measured on some scale, the pain of childbirth ranks astonishingly high...
"AAAAAGH! Mira! My HAIR!"
Impossible to tell whether she's calling for Mira or begging her to let go of his hair — that's Jiwoo's voice, hair seized in her grip while he stood beside her.
How on earth did I end up spectating a childbirth...
Having a baby is no small feat. There's far more, ah, fluid involved than you'd imagine, and it's messy. You end up witnessing every filthy sight imaginable. Turns the stomach more than you'd think.
That once-lovely Mira is being wrung out like an old rag.
I could not watch this a second time.
"Wah! Wah!"
Oh. The baby's finally out, it seems.
I'd seen a newborn once before — Cheol and Bomi. It was truly fascinating back then...
A moving, breathing alien lifeform!
After the birth, Mira started bringing the baby along to work.
The population was exploding at a monstrous rate, so the city was positively crawling with children. Normally the neighbors shared in raising them, but rather than leave the baby with someone, we decided we'd look after her ourselves.
I get along with children rather well, after all. Plenty of childcare experience — human and animal alike.
Slurp. Slurp. Slurp.
All fine and good, but why are you suckling on me instead of your own mother? Nothing comes out of me, you know?
Pat, pat.
She's even unpicking my clothes — an absolute prodigy. What is this child planning to become?
It's just the two of us, so no harm done, but picture it: a childless maiden, chest bared, breastfeeding out of nowhere. If anyone walked in, it would be mortifying.
"Oh my~ the baby simply adores Haneul-nim, doesn't she?"
"Take her back. She must be hungry."
That's got to be why she keeps doing this, right?
"Oh no, she ate just a little while ago."
What is with this kid? Wait — are you on your second playthrough? Or are you gearing up to do something enormous? Come to think of it, Cheol latched on and suckled exactly like this when he was a baby.
"This one's planning something big too, I can tell."
The old memory pulled a snort of laughter out of me.
"How could you possibly know that? Can you see the future?"
"No, her habits are just exactly like Cheol's."
Shall I spin you a little tale, then?
"What? That grandfather?"
"When he was a baby, you see..."
Hehehe. I treated Mira to a few choice chapters from Cheol's embarrassing history. And talking it over, it struck me — it's only been fifty years.
Primitive life had slipped into the ancient world in the blink of an eye. Back then, we lived worse than those primitives in China...
And in the end, it all began with that potato harvest. With no need to worry about food, we made it all the way here.
Thank goodness my wish, of all things, had been a potato.
Garungda, Agna, Turu, Akum, Akeru, Akaru, Muntu, Daka — are you all watching this? You're the ones who built it. Keep watching.
Today is the day of the grand assembly, and I have a favor to ask of them, so I'd best hurry.
"HANEUL-NIM!!!"
What now? Did something happen? Cheol, rushing to find me this desperately, before the assembly no less?
"Yes, yes. I'm not running anywhere. What is it?"
"No! What on earth did you tell Mira?!"
Excuse me? Are you yelling at me?
"I hardly said anything? We were looking at the baby, and I just told her a few stories about when you were little."
"GRAAAAAAH!"
Oh my. Cheol's face is redder than a bar of glowing iron!
"Your great-granddaughter latched onto my chest and suckled like a maniac too, you know. Won't even go to her own mother."
"Nnnnngh!"
Oh! An upgrade! Is that shortness of breath?
"What's the matter? You had your fill of me back in the day, didn't you?"
"...Khh."
THUD.
Oh, he hasn't fainted — he's just sunk down where he stood. That gave me a start. I genuinely thought the old man's blood pressure had finally done him in.
"Felt good, did it?"
"...Keh."
Kheheheh. I win. His soul looks about ready to leave his body.