Little Moments of Daily Life (1)
"So what exactly are those people from that country up to?"
When I passed through that way a while back, I didn't see a single place worth stopping at.
"Honestly, it's hard to even call them a nation."
Huh? What's that supposed to mean?
"They call themselves a nation, but really it's just a few big tribes banded together, more or less."
So they're stuck in some awkward tribal-confederation state, huh.
"Hm? Then that must mean plenty of minor tribes with no real stake in it, right?"
"Minor, yes — but combined, they'd account for more than half."
"Then win them over nicely. I'll back you, so go unify them — we can put them to work on our side later, after all."
It's not as if we lack a route to the open sea, so there's no need to spill blood over this, right? Honestly, it'd be perfect to raise those kids up and let them go bother Japan for us.
"Wow, this is beautiful. You really did a fine job."
Gripped in my hand was a long tube with a disc of glass set into it — a telescope, plain and simple. How on earth had they ground the lens?
"Thank you."
"This is genuinely impressive. It must be difficult?"
"It does take several months to make a single one, but it's manageable work. Haha."
What patience this man has...
"All I can offer is my thanks for your hard work. Is there anything you're short of?"
"With the family banner you granted us, we want for nothing. Please don't concern yourself."
Is this really the reaction to receiving one banner? I'm actually touched. This one deserves a good home in my subspace too. So that makes two treasures now, after the hairpin.
"I'll treasure this as my second. The first was a gift from the founders of the blacksmiths' guild."
"You'll treasure it! Thank you so much!"
I'll have to put these on display when I build a museum someday.
"Mm, since this can see such distances, it'd be perfect up on the battlements. Keep making them steadily, and I'll pass them along to the army."
No more need to ride around on horseback just to patrol the nearby roads.
"Yes. I'll assign some of our artisans to the telescope work. There's still so much I want to try, so I need to keep researching those ideas as well."
"Right, right — the research must never stop."
Never skimp on support, for anything. Ahh, lovely, just lovely. And the magnification is genuinely impressive.
The Yuri family — every generation devoted entirely to glasswork — meant you could spot glassware on the streets without even trying. Crude stuff, mind you, made from sand scooped up off the riverbank.
Pottery, too — I wish they'd hurry up and discover glaze so they could move on to proper porcelain. They're already making glass, yet not one of them has tried their hand at glazing. They could just go fetch some white clay themselves... I suppose they're too busy digging the stuff up to build houses with.
"Who knew Northeast Asia would become such a quiet corner of the world."
Are we really so overwhelmingly strong? China can't catch its breath. Ah — right, I did pull that little terror stunt of mine, so their numbers must have thinned out considerably.
"When on earth are those Japanese ever going to become actual people?"
Still primitives, the lot of them. I hear they live off dirt they dig up. So they truly were that uncivilized a people, huh...
Once again I'd spent the morning holed up in the meeting room, gleefully grilling the kids. The stablehands had been letting horse manure drop wherever they pleased, and while we were hashing out countermeasures, one of them had the gall to propose something utterly absurd.
Plug some hole or other on the horse? I nearly ended up plugging every hole those animals had.
Phew. So this is my life. Time to reclaim a little inner peace over a cup of tea.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Oh~ come in."
Nobody was supposed to drop by today. What's this about?
"A tribute item has arrived."
"What is it?"
"A bow. It looks rather strange, though — I'm honestly not sure it even counts as a bow?"
What is it? Strange-looking, you say?
"Whoa!!! Hey!!!"
"Yes?"
"This is a horn bow!"
A bow curled into a great arc! Yes — unstrung, it bends backward on itself. A composite bow with a wooden core and different materials layered into every section! This thing is the ultimate weapon!
"Is it important?"
"Of course it is! I'm telling you, this is the ultimate weapon! Find whoever made it — now!"
"It just came up from the workshop, so..."
"Regardless — bring me whoever's in charge, and quickly!"
Good grief, why does everyone dawdle when I'm in a hurry! This is a historic milestone — a thing better than the earliest gunpowder weapons, something we could be using for decades!
Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.
"I've sent for someone, Haneul-nim, so please wait. And stop bouncing your leg — you haven't done anything to deserve a spanking."
"That's because you don't understand my heart."
Sorry to everyone else, but this is my greatest achievement yet. There's still improving to do, but what matters is that a prototype exists.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Oh! Hurry in!"
My heart's racing! Who could it be!
Bristle, bristle.
Who's this kid? Where did he come from?
"Hm? You made this?"
"Greetings, Haneul-nim. I made it."
"Aren't you a bit young for this?"
A boy of perhaps fourteen or fifteen had walked into the room. And he's the one who made it?
"Well, you see..."
"Go on, tell me. No need to be nervous."
"The bow was just too hard to draw, so I was working on one that took less strength. Along the way, I discovered that if you mix several different materials together, you get a bow that's easier to draw and far stronger."
"Hm. Well done."
So it came out of him tinkering with toys. Hmm... what do I do here? Should I call his parents in?
"Is it difficult to make?"
"Yes. It's a bit of a hassle..."
"Are the materials hard to come by?"
"No. The plains have plenty."
In the Joseon era they say the horns were the bottleneck, but apparently the materials here are easy enough to gather.
"I'll have to summon your whole family, then. I meant to give out a reward — I had no idea you'd be this young."
"Oh! Really?!"
He lit up and grinned on the spot. A kid really is just a kid, after all. I'd assumed he was one of the master craftsmen. Remarkable, for someone so young. Well — parents first, then.
"Let's call your parents in, and we'll talk again after."
"Yes!"
While the boy's parents were on their way, I ran a quick household check. The family had worked the workshop from the very beginning, it turned out — descendants, apparently, of my old friend Tur.
"You do know these are vulnerable to moisture, right?"
"Yes. If it gets caught in the rain, it comes unglued — that's what worries me."
Ah, he knows. No need to hang his head over it — that's just the chronic ailment of every composite and wooden bow ever made.
"Well then, time to improve on it, no?"
Even a lesser version that's easy to mass-produce is worth thinking about. He's going to be swamped. He'll need friends, family, colleagues. Kid, learn to delegate.
I wonder if he could even conceive of the baby arrows — those tiny yeonal darts. We do have crossbows, so that might give him an unexpected hint.
A horn bow really is quiet as anything, and it draws so smoothly. I couldn't pull it all the way back, but even with my strength I could manage a decent draw.
It's probably nowhere near the war-grade horn bows of the Joseon era, but steady improvement will take care of that.
Thwum.
I even love the sound of the string snapping back.
Shweee.
Hah~ An arrow drawn by my own two hands can really fly like this? This is so much fun!
CRASH!
"Hm?"
Well, that's a rather unfortunate ending. The green glass vase I kept flowers in had just met its demise.
"What on earth was that noise?!"
The chief secretary had already heard it.
"Kyaaaaah! What is all this chaos!"
Yes — glass shards, flowers, and water sprayed across the floor. Total disaster. I can see that.
"Why! Are you shooting things inside your room!"
Excuse me? I have a few words to say about that too!
"Where? Where exactly am I supposed to go shoot?!"
If I so much as head for the front yard, she sprints after me and won't let me!
Fine, fine. My bad. I'll just fly off somewhere far away, shoot, and come back.
"And that's your idea of a fix? You might spare a thought for whoever has to clean up! It's smash, shatter, break, day after day — we never get a single quiet moment!"
Granted, that does happen rather often. That much I'll admit. But do I really deserve a scolding for breaking my own things? My ears are about to bleed.
"Fine. You've gotten awfully bold."
"Excuse me?!"
Ah, my ears. These kids of mine have pipes of gold. I should enroll every last one of them in vocal training.
In Daehan, we keep weasels to catch rats — you see them on the streets often enough. Fierce little creatures, yet somehow they can never quite stretch out properly, and trot about tamely hunting rats all day.
"Squee—"
"You tired too, buddy?"
"Squee?"
My own little hideaway in a corner of the Temple. I'd acquired a neighbor here a while back — a cute weasel who'd swapped into a snowy white winter coat, black only at the very tip of its tail.
Munch, munch.
"Here. Have one yourself."
We were pleasantly sharing jerky together, the two of us.
"Pipipit!"
And this little friend has one very important job: early-warning system.
"Haneul-nim!"
"Haneul-nim! Where are you?"
"Haneul-nim~"
It warns me the instant anyone comes near. Meaning: quiet down, all of you.
Munch, munch.
With all the new spices around lately, jerky has gotten delicious. Of course, for my weasel friend I also carry some that's been dried plain, without a thing on it.
"You eating well these days? There aren't many rats around, I notice — you're not going hungry, are you?"
"Squeee..."
It's so skinny by nature that I genuinely can't tell whether it's lost weight or filled out.
"Still, rats are filthy, so don't eat them — catch them and bring them to the people for a meal instead. That's better for you."
"Squee..."
Do animals actually understand what I say? It strangely feels like we're communicating.
"I'll leave some jerky here now and then, so help yourself whenever you like."
"Squeak!"
"I should head off before the witches come back."
"Squeak!"
"Catch lots of rats today too."
What on earth do rats even live on, that they never disappear no matter what we do? There are truly so many weasels in this city — their survival instincts must be insane.
Time to head out, maybe?
BANG.
Huh? Is that door enchanted? It's opening by itself?
"Haneul-nim~ Witches, you say?"
"Gahk!"
She heard me? Today's going to be a long one.
"Come along now. There's a banquet this evening."
"Right. Off I go. Mm."
So people really can pop a vein on their forehead. I believe I've seen it once before, too?
Splaaaaash.
Evening bath time, once again. An enormous hassle, but I've learned to live with it. Tensing up and resisting is useless — and if I go limp and flop around like a jellyfish, they hoist me up with sheer strength and scrub me quite thoroughly, folding and unfolding me as they go.
Where am I? Who am I?
Have I ever once bathed of my own free will? ...I don't believe I have.
The finale of the usual course is a massage. Honestly, how is this any different from a prisoner being dragged off to jail?
"Hm? Face-down today?"
A new course? She's actually climbing onto my back?
"You're heavy!"
"You'll feel lighter soon."
And then she mercilessly kneaded and pressed my backside every which way. Whoa — is she lifting my whole body up with her fingers?
"Nghhhh! When you jab with your fingers like that it hurts! It feels like you're poking holes right through me!"
"It's fine. Only one joint of my finger went in."
One joint? And how deep is that, exactly? Pretty sure my skin shouldn't be allowing even that? So this isn't a back massage — it's an organ massage?
"Urgh. Stop. Mercy. Spare me."
"We're just getting started. Muhahaha."
"You really are a witch."
"What did you say?!"
Ah. My thoughts slipped out of my mouth again. At this point it's a disease.
"You others start in too, hurry up."
"Yes, ma'am."
What more do they want? It already hurts! Huh? Hey — their hands are headed somewhere very weird?
"Nyaaagh, it hurts! Wait! I told you that spot's ticklish!"
I said no sides and no feet!
"Nyahaha—mmph... hnngh..."
It hurts and it tickles and these women are absolutely out of their minds. Why do the secretaries do this to me? Come to think of it, Daka was the true angel among them all.
I miss Daka. ...Hm? Do I have to die to see her again?
"That is ENOUGH!"
CRASH, CLATTER!
"Eek!"
"Kiyah~"
"Tch."
They only ever listen when I force them!
SQUELCH.
"Hm?"
What? Did they latch on again?
SHOVE.
"Ungh!"
The scream came out of me all on its own. A full knuckle of finger, jammed straight into my side? Isn't this assassination?
"Hey! A normal person would DIE from that!"
"Kyah!"
"You picking a fight with me?!"
"Sniff... I never knew you were such a cruel person."
Excuse me? What are these two saying? They're crying? After what THEY did to me?
"Sob... sob..."
"Hic... Mom... hic..."
You're the perpetrators here... why are you doing this to me... it's too much. Somebody call my mom too. I want to fire every last one of them.