Chapter 137: Isn’t Putting Beans in Songpyeon a Bit Much? (2)
Chapter 137: Isn’t Putting Beans in Songpyeon a Bit Much? (2)
{What do Koreans do for fun during that festival called Chuseok?}
Two days ago, when Hayward casually said that while enjoying chimaek, Jinseo told him about several games.
Yutnori, jegichagi, kite-flying, and so on.
But Hayward, who had once enjoyed a far more stimulating form of entertainment called “games” when he visited Korea in the past, only reacted with obvious disinterest.
{Then how about Korean card games? It just so happens it’s break time, so I’ll teach you.}
Jinseo took Hayward, Craid, and Julien into the Additional Trailer.
An hour later, Jinseo returned to the kitchen, but the other three showed no sign of coming out at all.
After spending the entire night in the Additional Trailer, the trio came out as go-stop masters.
Hayward, who was proficient in all sorts of games, watched Jinseo play a few hands as a demonstration and immediately understood the rules of go-stop.
Julien didn’t particularly enjoy card games themselves, but he realized the fun of using his exceptional memory to predict which cards would come out next.
Craid often kept winning streaks going with his particular instincts, but he also had just as many losing streaks, so he mostly repeated breaking even.
Having learned go-stop in three different styles, the trio wanted to share the fun of go-stop with others too.
The place their steps led them to was beer street.
Among people sitting in chairs drinking, the sight of people laying down cushions and playing go-stop on the ground naturally stood out.
When someone joined the go-stop table out of curiosity, Hayward would give up his spot and teach the rules from behind, and that was how the trio began spreading go-stop.
Just deciding wins and losses in go-stop was fun enough, but once a wager was involved, it became even more exciting.
Instead of betting money, they enjoyed the winner’s rights and fulfilled the loser’s obligations by making the loser treat everyone to bunsik.
“Ah… you got stuck with pibak.”
“Julien, go buy three rolls of gimbap! Mine’s vegetable gimbap! Craid, yours is tuna gimbap, right? And you, sir?”
Shff-shff-shff-shff.
Hayward shuffled the hwatu cards with practiced hands, and Julien scratched the back of his head and walked to the nearby bunsik shop.
It was too hard to beat Hayward when it came to gambling with a wager on the line, not just casual play.
But strangely, the people who joined midway ended up getting fed more often than paying for bunsik.
Instead, Julien and Craid—the ones who started the table—lost the most, and the bunsik they treated others to had already reached thirty servings before they knew it.
But go-stop itself was so fun that neither of them got angry even though they kept buying bunsik.
Still, there was one thing they absolutely couldn’t tolerate: people trying to ruin a lighthearted game table.
“Freeze.”
Hayward grabbed the drunkard’s wrist hard as he was dealing.
“Do you take me for a… ah, what was it? Anyway, don’t try to fool my eyes!”
While the trio had been playing go-stop all night in the Additional Trailer, Jinseo had gone in to bring them late-night snacks and, while he was at it, played a gambling movie on the wall-mounted TV.
Recalling a scene from that movie, Hayward made a menacing face.
“Craid, I should pull out an adamantium greatsword.”
“My sword isn’t adamantium.”
“Anyway!”
On the second day of Chuseok, the guards standing in front of the tourists waiting to enter were dressed differently than usual.
“Look at what those guards are wearing! It’s so exotic!”
“It flutters, but at the same time it feels neat and proper. I want to try wearing it… What country’s clothing is that? Is it dwarves’ traditional attire?”
“No, it’s Korean traditional clothing from the homeland of Lee Jinseo. I think they called it hanbok?”
After passing the guards in posse outfits and entering Dwarf Town, the tourists immediately began looking around in a daze.
If the day before, the thick smell of jeon and makgeolli in the air created an unusual festival atmosphere, then this time, the wide variety of hanbok in vivid colors felt mysterious just to look at.
“Huh? Everyone’s wearing clothes I’ve never seen before.”
“No, then does that mean all the clothes those people are wearing are hanbok?”
“Look over there! It looks like there are women’s hanbok too. Can’t we try wearing them too?”
When it came to clothes worn on Korean holidays, there was nothing else you could think of besides hanbok.
Once it was decided that Chuseok would be introduced into this year’s autumn festival, Jinseo acquired various hanbok and showed them to the festival staff.
Most people had seen what hanbok looked like through the drama DaeXgeum, and after trying on real hanbok in person, they liked it quite a bit.
At first, Jinseo had brought them with the idea of dressing only the food truck people and the guards at the entrance, but Stella—who had come along to take care of Angelica—thought differently.
{I want to have more people wear hanbok. May I try making them?}
For a full two weeks leading up to the Francia Continent’s first Chuseok, she devoted herself entirely to making hanbok, and thanks to that, most of the festival staff could greet Chuseok wearing hanbok.
“Stella, you really worked hard.”
“Worked hard? Other people worked harder than me.”
Wearing a hanbok with a red jeogori and her hair tied with a daenggi, Stella had deep dark circles under her eyes.
“And there’s still more to work on. I have to finish making the outfits for the next festival too.”
When Stella followed Angelica up to Falstead Castle, she didn’t come alone.
Many women from the workshop she had been running moved to Dwarf Town, and in an empty workshop provided by the dwarves, they could make all kinds of hanbok.
“Still, I’m glad everyone can wear the clothes we made.”
To Stella, the Korean clothes she’d seen through dramas and films on the large TV, and through photo books, were fashion innovation itself.
But considering the sensibilities of the Francia Continent, while making them wasn’t the issue, most of them were too much to actually wear outside.
Fortunately, hanbok had nothing to be nitpicked about in that regard.
Especially when it came to exposure, hanbok was even more tightly covering than the existing clothes on the Francia Continent, so there was no problem at all.
“By the way, thank you so much. Without that tool you brought, that thing called a sewing machine, it would’ve been really hard.”
Thinking it might help Stella, who was struggling from sewing all day, Jinseo had brought a sewing machine.
The manual sewing machine his grandmother used and his mother inherited was practically an antique, but to Stella, it was innovation itself.
Jinseo wrote the instructions for using it in Korean and handed them to Fedora, and Fedora translated them and taught Stella.
Dwarf technicians who found the machine’s operating mechanism interesting produced copies, and mages even went as far as researching a structure that operated automatically through magic rather than manually.
“Thanks to that, everyone here can wear hanbok, so I’m truly proud.”
Stella smiled warmly as she looked at the mercenaries standing guard in the posse outfits she made.
And beyond them, most of the people gathered around the food truck were wearing hanbok.
The male dwarves wore peasant outfits, and they suited them so well that Jinseo kept taking photos nonstop with his smartphone.
“So this is the hanbok that Korea’s royal court chefs wear? Hahaha…”
Paulo wore the outfit of a Joseon royal-court chef, a daeryeongsuksoo, and burst into hearty laughter, and the bunsik street cooks wearing the same outfits were happy in a different way.
Because they got to wear the same clothes as the cooks from the drama DaeXgeum—the drama they’d enjoyed the most.
“But those clothes the clergy are wearing—aren’t those the ones that show up in the latter half of DaeXgeum?”
“Really? After JangX-i became a medical woman, I lost interest and stopped watching, so I didn’t know.”
“No, that’s when it gets even more interesting. Why didn’t you watch?”
While the cooks chatted as they looked at the clergy’s medical-woman outfits, Fedora—after fixing her attire in front of a large mirror—stood beside Jinseo with a solemn expression.
“Brothers and sisters, the traditional Chuseok rite called charye is about to begin. Please remain quiet.”
As Fedora, wearing the medical-woman outfit and a garima, announced the start of the charye, everyone fell silent, and Jinseo and Jason took out a folding screen and spread it behind the ritual table.
This is so strange.
Wearing a modernized hanbok, Jinseo swept his gaze over the people gathered before the ritual table.
When his parents were still alive, the charye had been performed by just three people—his parents and Jinseo.
After that, he performed it alone, in lonely silence.
Now, for the first time in his life, he was offering a ritual table in front of this many people—and not in Korea, but on the Francia Continent, an otherworld.
Just counting those gathered in front of the ritual table, there were about a hundred.
On top of that, if you included the tourists watching from a distance, it was impossible to even estimate the number.
“If it’s too long, it can get boring, so we’ll keep it simple—just pour the liquor and bow, and we’ll finish.”
After lighting incense, Jinseo took the bottle in his right hand to fill the cup with cheongju.
“Ah, that’s not how it goes…”
Out of habit from performing charye alone for the past few years, Jinseo turned around, having nearly poured the liquor himself.
“Jason, could you pour the liquor beside me?”
“M-me? Me?”
“Normally, during charye, family or relatives pour the liquor beside you, but as you know, I don’t have family, and I don’t have a single relative either.”
“Of course! I’ll fill it until it overflows!”
“Ah, it shouldn’t overflow. Divide it into three pours and fill the cup slowly.”
“L-like this?”
“Yes. Don’t be so nervous.”
Holding the cup stand with both hands, Jinseo slowly rotated it three times, then placed it on the left side of the ritual table.
In the same way, he placed the second cup on the right side, then performed two deep bows toward the ritual table.
“That’s how charye ends. If anyone would like to participate…”
“On behalf of the Heirem Order, I wish to join in honoring Lee Jinseo’s parents.”
Before Jinseo could even finish, Fedora stepped forward.
Jinseo stood to Fedora’s right and poured the liquor for her, and just as Jinseo had done earlier, she rotated the cup three times.
Then she was about to bow, but stopped mid-way and glanced at Jinseo as if asking.
“Jinseo, after this, must I bow?”
“That’s the principle, but this isn’t Korea, so you can honor the departed in your own way.”
At Jinseo’s words, Fedora knelt on both knees and made the sign of the cross.
“…May their blessing reach Jinseo’s parents, who have gone to a faraway place…”
After closing her eyes, clasping her hands, and finishing a short prayer, Fedora stepped aside, and then representatives of those gathered began participating in the charye one by one.
Charles, Angelica, Geshtain, Oswald Hamilton, and Craid participated in order, and lastly, Paulo represented the bunsik street cooks and performed deep bows, bringing the charye to an end.
“Big bro, then is the charye all finished now?”
“Yes. Now we share and eat the ritual food. But…”
Only then did Jinseo notice the many eyes on the ritual table and felt awkward.
They clearly didn’t want to stop at merely watching from behind—they wanted to participate in the charye themselves—so stopping here would be difficult in more ways than one.
“Big bro, how about leaving just one ritual table so other guests can experience charye too?”
“Should we?”
Just as Jason suggested, Jinseo set up a simple ritual table next to the driver’s seat of the food truck.
Then the guests who had been watching from behind began lining up to experience charye.
Perhaps because they accepted charye as a sacred Korean rite, not a single person caused a commotion.
The part where they had to perform deep bows passed without incident, as if they took it as a fresh experience, but the problem arose from an unexpected place.
“Big bro! We’re out of cheongju!”
“Huh? We are?”
Unlike makgeolli, they hadn’t bought much cheongju, so it was nowhere near enough for those still lined up waiting.
“Does it have to be cheongju? Can’t it be other alcohol?”
“Cheongju is the usual choice, but like I said earlier, this isn’t Korea, so it should be fine.”
When Jinseo said it was fine to use whatever alcohol each person preferred, an unusual scene unfolded, with people filling the cups with beer or makgeolli.
“Then I’ll try one more time with whiskey.”
Trickle.
Standing before the simple ritual table, Geshtain tipped his hip flask full of whiskey over the cup.
After offering it, he performed two deep bows, then ate and drank the offering.
“Is it just my imagination…? It feels like the liquor tastes better.”