The Automobile Mari Competition (3)
"Rrrm rrm rrm rrrm."
Even on a mountain road, some stretches climb steeply while others barely rise at all.
"Ugh, the steeper it gets, the slower we go."
The Ttareungi had slowed to walking pace as the slope steepened beneath them.
"Hmm. Want me to get off and push?"
"I'll push, so you hold the handlebars."
"Okay, got it."
Since Dae-il, being the boy, was better suited to pushing anyway, the siblings swapped places and Dae-hee took the driver's seat.
"Heave-ho!"
"Take it easy. Slow is fine."
"Rrrm rrm rrm rrrm."
Just as she said, the engine didn't seem to be straining under any particular load.
Whenever a steep incline appeared, the two would dismount and push, and during the climb they witnessed truly staggering numbers of dropouts.
If it were a broken part, it could be fixed—but every single one of them had suffered engine failure, and there was clearly nothing left for them to do.
"Whew... You're not supposed to mess with the engine, I guess."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
All they could do was huddle together in twos and threes, watching the siblings climb the hill with envy in their eyes.
Most likely, once the recovery wagon came around, they would load their machines onto it and head back the way they came.
So they had been riding for roughly ten hours when—
"Wow. This hill is seriously high."
"I know, we've slowed to a crawl."
The moment they finally crested the unusually towering hill—
Whoosh!
A warm wind rushed over the siblings' faces.
"Whoa! What's this?"
"Are we through?"
"It's a grassland! There's a grassland ahead!"
At last, the two had passed beyond the mountain range and entered the open plains.
"Yes! Let's keep going—my turn to drive!"
"You got it!"
The siblings moved so smoothly in sync that they looked like partners who had worked together for decades.
Well, Dae-il was nineteen and Dae-hee eighteen, so maybe you really could say they'd been teammates for eighteen years.
The siblings' run went smoothly. Before the terrain turned mountainous again, there were plenty of flat stretches and downhills to coast through.
Sixty-five hours after leaving Sinsi, they were winding up the hill road toward Choryeong.
Squeak squeak squeak squeak.
Something in the gearbox Dae-hee had built was slipping, and the sound was steadily growing louder.
"Hmm. That noise is getting worse."
"Ugh... No help for it, then. Next time we stop, I'll do some maintenance and swap out one of the drive belts."
At Dae-il's worried look, Dae-hee made the call to service it. On matters like this, it was entirely her jurisdiction.
"We've still got a long way to go, though... ugh."
"All we can do is hope she holds together."
The gearbox Dae-hee had designed transferred power through drive belts made of rubber, and with time and heavy use, they inevitably stretched loose.
They had been adjusting the tension as they rode to keep the belts pulled tight, but it seemed they had finally reached their limit.
They had packed spares—but since these weren't factory-made parts but something the two had crafted themselves, it was a little worrying.
"Let's just do what we can as long as we can!"
"Right. No point moping about it yet!"
And so the siblings climbed on and on.
"Whew. We must be heading somewhere cold. Let's get that thing out."
"Mm... Yeah. Better that than letting our bodies take a beating for nothing."
Apparently they'd prepared one more thing, because they pulled off to the side of the road and started unpacking something from the cargo hold.
Clatter clatter.
"That's number three there. Don't mix them up."
"I know! Why do you think I labeled every single one? I have eyes too, you know!"
As they jammed the rods into sockets here and there across the Ttareungi and its sidecar, the machine began to transform into something rather like a hedgehog.
Were they expecting someone to attack them?
Click.
Then they fitted glass panes between the rods.
Flutter.
"Now put it on and keep an eye on the direction."
"You worry about your own half!"
Finally, they spread a canvas overhead and lashed it down on all sides—and just like that, a perfectly serviceable windbreak was complete.
"There we go! Let's keep moving!"
"Watch that the glass doesn't fall out. If it drops and shatters, we're really in trouble."
"Got it!"
So their cold-weather countermeasure had been a full windbreak.
As long as the wind was blocked, the cold was bearable enough. Clever kids.
Better still, with the whole thing enclosed like this, some of the heat from the engine filtered inside and warmed the cabin, so the cold hardly stood a chance.
Eeeeeeek!
"Oppa! Train coming!"
"I'll pull over for a second!"
The route for this race ran along the maintenance road that followed the railway line.
Naturally, since they were never far from the tracks, trains passed by like this constantly.
The problem was that each passing train kicked up a ferocious gust of wind—once, they'd nearly been swept clean off the road by one.
Rumble rumble, WHOOOSH.
"Hold on tight!"
"Got it!"
The canvas wrapped around the siblings flapped violently in the train's wake, threatening to tear clean away.
Come to think of it, having the sidecar right beside them might have been a blessing. It kept them from being blown sideways, at least.
"Phew. Let's go again."
"It's a miracle that canvas didn't rip..."
"Who knows. They said back home it was a gift from Haneul-nim, so I figured it had to be good."
"Oh..."
Perhaps... just perhaps... there was a very real chance they'd get their hides tanned the moment they set foot back home.
After all, wasn't this essentially the same as sneaking out with Mom's gold necklace or earrings?
Dae-il had plenty he wanted to say, but he swallowed it all and kept driving. If he was going to get scolded anyway, no point borrowing that trouble ahead of time.
Hsssss, whoooosh.
One hundred and ninety hours after leaving Sinsi, the siblings were nearly at Seonnam.
"Wow... if it weren't for this canvas, we'd have frozen solid out there."
"Listen to that wind. It's terrifying."
"Hey, why aren't there any other people around? You don't think we took a wrong turn?"
"Nope. We followed the signs the whole way, didn't we? And the railway's right there beside us."
It had been a very long time since the siblings last saw another competitor. What was everyone else up to out there?
"Yaaawn. Man, we're tired."
"Yeah. It's not like we've had a proper night's sleep."
The siblings hadn't stopped for a single full rest. For days now, they'd been catnapping in turns while the other drove.
Any random pebble kicked up off the road was enough to jolt them awake.
Still, being young, they were holding up—maybe not in peak form, but well enough to press on.
Squeal squeal squeal.
That, however, was the bigger problem.
"Haah... this is bad..."
"We're almost at Seonnam... We only needed to make it as far as Mudo. What do we do..."
The drive belts had run out entirely—the last one left was squealing with everything it had.
If some metal part had broken, they could at least have hunted down a machine shop and had a replacement machined. But this rubber belt, handmade by the siblings themselves, could be found nowhere.
Rubber factories existed only around Sinsi, after all.
"Let's stop in Seonnam first and figure something out."
"Yeah."
Rolling into Seonnam without any trouble, the siblings left the Ttareungi at a fueling station and set off in search of something—anything—that could take the belts' place.
"Oppa! We need something stretchy and tough."
"What about cord?"
"Cord has no give—it'd snap right away. Worst case, we'll fall back on it, but that's a last resort."
"Got it! Let's look around!"
They'd arrived in the morning, and the siblings scoured Seonnam's tool shops and factories in earnest, hunting for a substitute—but of course, there was none to be found.
Around lunchtime, they found themselves sitting side by side, staring blankly up at the sky. It seemed the search had truly come up empty.
"Sob..."
The disappointment finally brought tears to Dae-hee's eyes.
"Don't cry! We did everything we could."
"Should we just keep going like this?"
"How far do you think we'd get?"
Half hoping against hope, Dae-il asked how long the belt might hold. They had to keep moving as far as they could, didn't they? Even if it meant pushing the whole way.
"Maybe... five ri?"
"Ah..."
They had thirty-seven ri left to travel. Pushing a machine for thirty-two of them was simply out of the question.
"Hooooo..."
"Hng..."
Dae-il let out a long sigh, and Dae-hee, past the point of hiding it, began to weep openly.
Tuuuub.
"Sob..."
Maybe she was trying to vent her frustration through the tears—Dae-hee grabbed her own leg and pinched it hard.
Strangely enough, the flesh stretched out enormously as she pulled.
"Huh?"
"Hic, hic, hic."
"Dae-hee!"
Dae-il, who had been watching this bizarre display, went wide-eyed.
"What..."
"Can't we use that?"
"Use what?"
He pointed at Dae-hee's leg. Was he seriously suggesting they flay a strip off his sister and splice it in?
"My stockings!"
"Huh? Stockings? These?"
Tug tug.
And Dae-hee gave her own leg another experimental yank.
She had been wearing stockings this whole time.
"Oh!"
"Oh? Wait a second."
Dae-hee turned something over in her mind, eyes closed. Though her eyes were shut, the gears behind them were clearly spinning furiously.
Ding!
"Yes! Let's try it! There's real potential here!"
"Let's do it!"
"But durability is the question, so Oppa—run to the shops and buy out every single pair of stockings they have!"
"I'm off!"
Once she'd sent Dae-il on his way and confirmed he was out of sight, Dae-hee opened her bag and pulled out a spare pair of stockings she'd changed out of along the road.
"I can hardly show anyone myself in this state anyway."
Apparently she'd been too embarrassed to hand over stockings soaked through with her own sweat and crusted with road grime.
Rip, snap.
She tore the stockings, knotted the lengths together into one long cord, and began winding it round and round where the belt had been.
Oil smudged her face and her clothes grew filthier by the minute—but the smile spreading across her features was unmistakably that of a true engineer at work.
"Bought them all! I'm telling you, I bought out the whole store!"
Dae-il had returned from ransacking every shop in town, his face glowing with hope.
Piled together, the stockings glittered and shone. Weren't they honestly rather a beautiful sight?
"Alright then—shall we try starting her up?"
"Forget the engine. The real question is whether she moves when you let out the clutch."
"Mm."
"Rrrm rrm rrm rrrm."
The engine and fuel tank were both fine, so starting was no trouble at all, naturally.
The only question was whether the stockings carrying the power could actually do the job.
"Here we go."
"Go on, I can't... I can't watch..."
Dae-hee had squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bear the sight. Dae-il released the clutch.
Rrrm rrm rrrm—chug-chug.
"Gah!"
"She's moving! She's actually moving!"
"Kyaaaaa! Unbelievable!"
It had cost them seven hours there, but being able to keep going at all left them more than satisfied.
"You know what this means, right?"
"What?"
"All we have to do is finish the race!"
"I know! Let's go!"
Clunk-a-clunk.
Now shifting gears with practiced ease, the siblings set off down the long downhill stretch toward Mudo.
This final leg of the course was mostly road that descended bit by bit.
How many hours had they coasted down before—
Rattle rattle rattle rattle.
"Huh? This..."
"We'd better take down the canvas. The seams are coming apart little by little."
"Yeah. Better to take it down and carry it. We'll grit our teeth through the cold."
"Agreed."
The rattling had prompted them to take a look, and it turned out the rods anchoring the wind-weary canvas were half-broken.
The siblings pulled over briefly to pack the canvas away.
"So many stars."
"Huh? Oh... yeah, you're right. Is that because there are no streetlights out here?"
"It's amazing. There are no lamps anywhere, and yet you can see everything so clearly."
They'd stopped in the dead of a night so dark they couldn't even guess the hour, and mid-teardown they'd suddenly lost themselves in stargazing—clear proof they were still just kids at heart.
"Come on, let's go. The stars will be hanging right there in the same spot tomorrow night—we can look then. The race is now or never."
"Right!"
With the canvas stowed, the Ttareungi sped on toward Mudo, the chill wind biting at their faces.
"Rrrm rrm rrm rrrm."
The same steady sound as ever.
"Vvvvrrr vvvrrr. Brrr, c-cold."
"Just hang in there a little longer. The sun's coming up."
"Mm."
Dae-hee was curled up in the sidecar like a ball, half-hidden from the wind.
"Want to take a turn driving? At least your backside stays warm in this seat."
"No. Keep going."
She'd driven through the night, so she should have been resting—but the cold had kept her from sleeping a wink, and her face was turning a grayish shade of dying.
"Huuuh... how much farther is it? Why doesn't this stretch have any signs..."
Watching his sister suffer, Dae-il's heart ached a little.
"Hey? The city walls. I can see city walls!"
"What?"
"The city walls!"
"What?! Really?!"
Wasn't Mudo built right up against its walls? That meant they were nearly at the finish line.
"Bwahaha! Just hold on a little longer! Once we get there, we'll sleep until we drop!"
"Yes!"
Beside the siblings as they raced toward their destination, the sun had risen without their noticing, casting its warm light over them at last.