A Toast from the Black Tiger Master
“You want me to pour you a drink?”
The Heokho Fort Master lifted one corner of his mouth, his face wearing that look of Oh, look at this bastard, and spoke to me.
“Yes! This Heokho Fort is a gathering of mountain heroes no different from the Hwalbindang itself! I only ask the Fort Master—the greatest hero among heroes—to grant me the honor of receiving a single cup poured by his own hand!”
I stayed on one knee and raised the cup with both hands.
“Keuhhh. You black-haired little shit! Trying every trick in the book just to get free. Listen here, you barbarian bastard! If you don’t want that skull of yours smashed in after you drink, spit out what you really want!”
The Fort Master stroked his beard and fixed me with a testing stare. The smile tugging at his lips, though, completely ruined any attempt at a poker face.
I knew the flattery was blatant, yet there was no way it wouldn’t feel good.
Blurting out “Please let me go” right now would be the move of an amateur. Time to play the clown.
“Haha! Then when I stand before King Yama of the underworld, I’ll boast that I received a cup from a true hero!”
“So you really mean to say you’d throw away that gold just for a drink I pour? Keuhhh. This bastard… you’re genuinely funny. Fine! I’ll pour you one! Hey! Bring the best wine we’ve got!”
Satisfied with my answer, the Fort Master wore a pleased smile as he filled my cup to the brim from a freshly opened bottle.
“This wine is worth more than gold or jewels! I accept it with deepest gratitude!”
I bowed with an expression of pure reverence, then turned my head aside in the Joseon manner and drained the cup.
“You little shit, why the hell are you turning your head to drink?”
“Even though I am a barbarian, I still know what the Elementary Learning teaches—that one must never drink while facing an elder. How could I possibly drink while looking the supreme elder of Heokho Fort straight in the face?”
“Keuhhhhahaha. Damn, this little bastard is pure entertainment.”
The Fort Master laughed and watched me with genuine interest.
“Fort Master! Your cup is empty. Would you also grant me the glory of pouring for you?”
I deliberately picked up the bottle and bent at the waist so he could not easily refuse.
“Spoil a barbarian too much and he’ll get ideas above his station.”
“Haha. Where else will you find a barbarian with manners like mine? Having received the grace of a cup from the Fort Master, it would be the honor of a lifetime if you also allowed me the chance to pour for you.”
“Keuhhh. Fine. Pour it!”
I carefully filled the Fort Master’s cup with both hands.
“Khh. Sweet! Damn sweet! You lot! Take a lesson from this barbarian’s guts! I told you I’d smash your skulls if you couldn’t tell an interesting story, and you all just sat there with your balls shriveled up!”
“…….”
The Green Forest men of Heokho Fort could only stare at the scene with vacant faces, unable even to answer.
I get it, gentlemen. This is exactly why nobody likes company dinners. You could eat better food at home, yet here you are being dragged out to listen to unpleasant crap until you can’t even digest.
Still, if you want to survive in society, what choice do you have? You curse them out inside while smiling outside and keep clinking cups with the section chief and the manager.
I finished pouring, bowed once more to the Fort Master, and quietly withdrew.
All right. This is where the real problem starts.
The moment I stepped back, the bandit who had dragged me here earlier approached.
Don’t tell me they’re hauling me back to the cell just like that.
The Fort Master likes me and you’re still going to drag me off? Sure, I got a meal and a drink, but ending it here would be a damn waste.
“Hey! You useless bastards! Get a separate side table ready for the barbarian who worked hard! What the hell are you doing? Do I have to spell out every little thing for you to understand?!”
The Fort Master barked at his men while looking at me as if I were about to be dragged away.
“Y-yes! Understood!”
“Half-witted idiots. Shit. No talent. None at all.”
The bandit who had been ready to haul me off jumped like a startled rabbit the instant the Fort Master got angry and scurried off to fetch a side table.
Looks like I won’t be sent straight back to the cage after all.
I sat before the newly prepared side dishes and this time ate at a leisurely pace, watching no one’s face.
Receiving a cup from the Fort Master and pouring one back for him had never been only about winning his favor.
It was the custom of hospitality.
In East and West alike, accepting a host’s hospitality is an unspoken pact that host and guest will do each other no harm.
“Brothers! Please accept a cup from me as well!”
I stood before the Green Forest men with a bright, foolish grin, pretending the alcohol had completely robbed me of fear, bottle in hand.
“You barbarian bastard! Fine, pour me one!”
“My cup’s empty too! Fill it!”
“Come now! Even water has an order of above and below! I’ll start with this green-haired brother first!”
“Heh heh! This bastard’s got good sense!”
Because I had shared cups with the Fort Master, the Green Forest men of Heokho Fort were now in a position where they could no longer casually harm me. I used that opening to pour aggressively for every green-haired or green-converging bandit, working hard to win their goodwill.
“Ugh! I’m drunk! The feast is over, so I’ll just head back to that jail over there! Which brother has the key?”
I staggered in a zigzag, pointing toward the prison. Gentlemen, I’m leaving. You’re really not going to stop me, are you?
Two of the Heokho bandits seized my shoulders with startled faces and opened their mouths.
“Have you lost your mind?! A Maedamja in a prison?!”
“This bastard’s trying to get us cursed out by the Fort Master! We’ll lay out bedding in the quarters. Just keep telling Hwalbindang stories until you fall asleep!”
The bandit uncles held me back exactly like senior managers desperately dragging a junior who claims he’s calling a designated driver off to the second round.
“In that case, there are still plenty of unfinished Hwalbindang stories, so I’ll keep telling them until every last one of you is asleep.”
“Good!”
I used to sleep sitting up in the cell. Now I might actually get to lie down properly.
“Wait. Where exactly are you putting this barbarian to sleep?”
I was still speaking with a happy face when green-haired Green Forest officers suddenly appeared behind me with deadly serious expressions.
These bastards aren’t trying to rain on the parade, are they?
“Haha. That’s not what we meant… We only said we’d walk him as far as the prison.”
Wow. That was a faster about-face than Hong Gildong’s transformation arts. The moment a superior showed up, the bandit uncles switched their stance on a dime.
These bandit bastards really don’t know the custom of hospitality or anything else. Things are taking a bad turn.
The officer looked at the stiffly nervous uncles and grinned.
“You idiots, why so tense? Why drag him to your cramped quarters? Hey, Maedamja! The officers’ quarters are wide open. Sleep with us.”
The Green Forest man beckoned me over.
“Haha! Thank you!”
Just like that I got upgraded from economy to business class.
“Right. We’ve got actual beds. Tell more Hwalbindang stories in the officers’ quarters and then sleep.”
“Hey! That’s too much for officers alone! We want to hear the Hwalbindang stories too!”
The bandit uncles protested in small, wronged voices to the green-haired officers.
“You lot said you were sending him to the prison.”
Exactly. A man of the Central Plains—not even a barbarian—ought to speak only the truth and act according to the principle of good faith.
You don’t just change your story the second a superior opens his mouth.
“You were listening the whole time.”
“Enough. You’ll hear them next time. Let’s go!”
I followed the officer into the quarters.
Thanks to the recent mass forced discharge into the underworld, the officers’ quarters were spacious enough that I could sleep in real comfort.
I had landed in the ambiguous position of being neither guest nor prisoner.
If I just sat around like luggage in a situation like this, a return trip to the cell was guaranteed. Time to keep proving I was necessary.
“Hey! Brothers, if you’re reinforcing the palisade, do it properly! How can you shovel like that? Give it here! This is how you dig!”
I put my weight on the shovel and demonstrated the proper technique with practiced ease.
“Ohh. Not bad.”
“I may not look it, but before I took up Maedamja work I was the personal disciple of a master carpenter.”
I puffed out my chest with a proud expression and boasted.
“You little liar. What house’s dog is named Master Carpenter?”
“You don’t believe me? I was so favored that when the master snapped the ink line on a timber, I was the one holding the other end.”
In truth that was about the only menial chore I ever did. But on a worksite like this, even the tiniest scrap of experience, boldly inflated, gets you halfway home.
“Bastard. Your shoveling does look decent. Fine. Help out for now.”
In a situation like this, wandering around and pitching in on every job in sight is the best strategy.
By naturally joining the work crews, I began to change from neither guest nor prisoner into a useful pair of hands that Heokho Fort actually needed.
And my role was not limited to labor alone.
“There was a little boy who dreamed of joining the Hwalbindang! He watched with tears in his eyes while the steward’s servants beat his father for failing to pay the tenant rent… and then…”
“And then?”
During the midday rest after lunch, I sat in the open yard and began a Hwalbindang tale. Every bandit of Heokho Fort flocked out and formed a tight circle around me to listen to the story of Hong Gildong.
“Hong Gildong put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and cried out, ‘Who dares make the future of the great Hwalbindang weep?!’ And then, like a cloud, the entire Hwalbindang appeared!”
“Keuh! That’s cool.”
“How did he know the kid was looking for the Hwalbindang?”
“You idiot. He finds them all with magic arts! East flash, west flash—Hong Gildong hyung-nim can do that easy.”
“True. I want to join the Hwalbindang too.”
“Me too. Instead of this bandit crap, I want to be a righteous outlaw.”
The bandits of Heokho Fort wore blank expressions, clearly imagining themselves inside the Hwalbindang.
This is an opportunity.
A perfect chance for custom-tailored moral education aimed straight at bandits.
“Brothers! What is so special about the Hwalbindang? Every one of you here is already a hero and gallant man just like them! Being a righteous outlaw isn’t hard at all! Just do what Hong Gildong did—never kill the pitiful ones, only rob the ones who look rich, and sprinkle a little of the surplus among the villages! That’s a righteous outlaw right there!”
Especially among the pitiful ones, there happens to be a man of truly tragic fate: born of a great Joseon house, lost his childhood friend young, lost his Dokin blood brother, reduced to a penniless Maedamja…
Even if the ransom never gets paid, you know you must never kill a man that pitiful, right?
“That’s enough to count as Hwalbindang?”
“You can become a righteous outlaw with just that much?”
“Yes! You can! Why wouldn’t you be able to? Just live while keeping a few simple lines!”
Please put me firmly inside those lines. Or else just let me go outside the lines of Heokho Fort entirely.
With the desperate heart of a man fighting to stay alive, I began giving the bandits of Heokho Fort an intensive crash course on how to become the Hwalbindang.
“If we do it like the Maedamja says, becoming a righteous outlaw is easy!”
“It’s no big deal at all!”
“Just that much and people will respect us like the Hwalbindang?”
The bandits clenched their fists tight, faces bright with sudden enlightenment.
They’re looking way too motivated…
The atmosphere had heated up far more than I intended. All I wanted was a simple moral lesson.
I figured bandits would let it go in one ear and out the other, but they were hanging on every word.
I looked at them and lightly dismissed it as the natural result of being deeply moved by Hong Gildong’s tale and therefore absorbing the moral education well.
I kept thinking that right up until the moment I realized the combination of Hong Gildong and righteous-outlaw training had gone very, very wrong.