Built for the Wilderness
Ever since we'd found the valley, our lives had grown a good deal richer.
"We should move our base over this way."
The valley sat right beside us. A short walk away, raspberry bushes hung heavy with fruit, and dry branches for firewood were easy to gather. Best of all, a short climb brought us to a high ridge with a clear, open view of the sky.
"We could send a rescue signal from up there, too."
Choi Yuri nodded. We packed our few belongings and relocated our camp closer to the valley. On the ridge, we gathered large branches and arranged them into an SOS — just in case a helicopter happened to pass overhead. Anything to make ourselves a little more visible.
"Well then..."
I looked out at the valley. Clear water sparkled under the sunlight.
"Want to wash up?"
"..."
No answer. We were both sticky and grimy; a wash was long overdue.
"...Want to go first?"
"...!"
Choi Yuri's face went scarlet in an instant.
"...Boss."
"Yeah?"
"Are you seriously..."
She stuck out her lower lip.
"...doing that on purpose?"
Thump, thump. Her little fists drummed against my arm.
"Hey, hey — that hurts."
She stopped swinging and covered her face with both hands. The tips of her ears had gone conspicuously red.
"How can you say something like that so casually—"
"I was just being considerate. Letting you go first."
I looked at her with a face that genuinely didn't understand the problem.
"Then should I go first?"
"How can you say something like that so casually—"
Choi Yuri stared at me without a word. At last she let out a long sigh and muttered under her breath.
"...Idiot."
"...?"
"It's nothing!"
Flushed to the ears, she hurried off toward the valley in short, quick steps. I watched her back for a moment and smiled to myself.
Playing dumb is harder than it looks.
I wasn't an idiot. I knew perfectly well why she was reacting that way. I had at least that much sense. But teasing her, or saying the sensitive part out loud — that would only make things awkward for both of us when we still had to live together.
And if she keeps reacting like that, I'm in trouble too.
We were deep in an empty mountain valley with not a soul in sight. Add to that a young, pretty Choi Yuri — and Kang Taeseong's body, still in its prime, with desires that rose unbidden at every turn. She had no idea, but I was holding myself back in more ways than one.
Endure it. Just endure it...
Pretending not to notice was the most comfortable option for both of us.
Choi Yuri hesitated, then spoke.
"B-Boss."
"Yeah?"
"...You can't peek."
I snorted a laugh.
"I won't look."
I thought for a second, then added,
"Want me to just go way over there? Then you could wash without worrying."
"No!"
She shook her head in a panic.
"Why not?"
"...Because I'm scared."
Her voice grew smaller and smaller.
"...You can't stay too close, but you can't go too far either..."
"That's a lot of conditions."
"S-Sorry..."
I couldn't help smiling. It was bothersome and a little ridiculous, but it didn't feel bad.
"All right. I'll stay right here, okay?"
We put a reasonable stretch of the valley between us. I turned my back and sat down on a nearby rock.
A moment later —
Splash, splash.
The soft sound of water being kicked about drifted over. The sound of cupped hands scooping water. The sound of hair being swept back.
"Ugh... it's cold..."
Even a small, shivering voice.
I cleared my throat for no particular reason.
Feels like my patience is being put to the test.
Whenever I heard what sounded like skin being scrubbed, I tried as hard as I could not to picture Choi Yuri.
Time crawled by far more slowly than it should have. The ordeal stretched on and on —
"Boss."
Her voice finally came.
"I'm done washing. I'll get dressed real quick. Just a second."
"...Take your time."
You don't have to give me a play-by-play, I thought, and let out a quiet sigh.
Rustle. The sound of clothes being straightened followed.
"You can... look now."
Only then did I turn around. Choi Yuri was wringing the water from her hair with her hands in place of a towel, smiling awkwardly.
"Your turn, Boss."
"...Got it."
I smiled and started toward the valley.
The truth was, Choi Yuri had never been in a relationship.
Whenever she told people she was a lifelong single, every last one of them looked surprised. Judging by her looks alone, she seemed like someone who must have dated plenty. In middle school, in high school, even after she became an adult and entered university — confessions never stopped coming. And yet Choi Yuri had never once been in a relationship.
The reason was simple.
Because I've never met a guy I actually liked!
Her taste was a little unusual. Handsome men. Smart men. Kind men. The kinds of guys most women went for somehow never stirred her heart.
A bear of a man.
That was the ideal type Choi Yuri had always talked about. The preference she'd mentioned on the bus hadn't been an exaggeration — it was the unvarnished truth.
Her hobby was watching documentaries. One of them had stuck with her more than any other.
The King of the Mountain Is the Bear.
It was a documentary about the lives of bears in the wild.
— Within the mountain that is its territory, the bear wields overwhelming influence.
— Whoa...
That massive frame. That raw vitality. Savage when it needed to be, yet ordinarily content to quietly guard its domain. As a child, Choi Yuri had watched with shining eyes.
And now, as an adult, she was looking at the man in front of her. The man who was, somehow, strangely bear-like.
"Let's use this as our base camp and work from here."
Kang Taeseong surveyed the surroundings as he spoke.
"There's high ground just a short climb up, so it's good for sending a rescue signal. And if we use the valley as a landmark, we're less likely to get lost."
His judgment was thoroughly practical. He treated the mountain like his own home, as if he'd been stranded before. Using the newly discovered valley as a hub, he gradually expanded the area they could safely move through.
...What is this feeling?
Choi Yuri stared blankly at Kang Taeseong's back. Something about the sight felt strangely familiar. Or rather — like something she had seen somewhere before.
A bear...?
The bear documentary from her childhood. The thought flashed through her mind, and she shook her head hard.
Come on.
Comparing a person to a bear was far too rude, no matter how you sliced it.
But then the suspicious evidence kept piling up right in front of her eyes.
"These berries are safe to eat, too."
Kang Taeseong picked a few small fruits from a tree as he spoke.
"No toxins, and the taste is... edible enough, at least."
"Mm! They're sweeter than I expected!"
"Don't eat too many."
And that wasn't all. While they were scouting the area around the valley, a massive black shape emerged from the underbrush beyond the trees.
"...!"
A low-slung body. A thick neck. Hard muscle showing through coarse fur.
A wild boar.
The moment she saw it, her breath caught in her throat. The way it rooted through the dirt and huffed out rough breaths was intimidating all on its own.
...It's that big?
The boar was far larger than she'd imagined. Completely different from the ones she'd only ever seen in photos and videos. Her legs locked up. She needed to run. Her mind screamed it, but her body wouldn't take a single step.
That was when it happened.
"Stay behind me for a second."
With that short phrase, Kang Taeseong stepped smoothly in front of her. His broad back filled her entire field of vision. Instinctively, she hid herself behind him.
"..."
Kang Taeseong stared at the boar without a word. For a long while he simply stood there, locked in a silent standoff. She had no idea what he was actually doing. Maybe the boss had his own special method for dealing with wild boars. All he did was hold the animal's gaze.
"..."
How much time passed like that?
Huff.
The boar, which had been breathing low and hard, went still.
Squeal—.
It turned its head. Then it showed them its back and vanished into the forest.
"...It's gone."
Kang Taeseong muttered it as if nothing had happened. But to Choi Yuri's eyes, it looked completely different.
The boss just beat a wild boar...!
It was like watching a massive bear silently drive an intruder out of its territory. He hadn't growled. He hadn't thrown rocks or made any threatening gestures. He had simply taken one step forward, as if to show who owned the mountain — and the boar, overwhelmed by sheer presence, had turned and withdrawn on its own.
That was how it looked to Choi Yuri.
...That's so cool.
The thought rose unbidden.
Identifying edible berries at a glance, driving off a wild boar — as these abnormal feats kept stacking up, Choi Yuri finally couldn't hold the question in.
"Boss."
"Yeah?"
"What are you, really?"
Kang Taeseong tilted his head.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean..."
She was genuinely curious.
"You haven't spent years living out in the mountains or something, have you?"
Was he some kind of mountain hermit?
Kang Taeseong gave an awkward laugh.
"Nothing like that."
"Then how do you know all this stuff?"
"I just grew up in the countryside."
"..."
Choi Yuri narrowed her eyes.
Grew up in the countryside?
She wasn't a fool.
Still, something's off.
What kind of chaebol group president acted like this? He grilled meat like a pro, handled his body with ease, and now he was pulling off survival skills in the mountains. Even a countryside upbringing only went so far.
Sensing her stare, Kang Taeseong broke into a cold sweat on the inside.
It's all thanks to the system.
Finding water, reading the mountain trails, identifying edible berries — that was Observer's Eye. Driving off the boar — that was Charisma of the Wicked. Everything she found suspicious was a system ability.
He sighed inwardly. Of course the original Taeseong hadn't possessed any of these skills.
I'm no survival expert.
But he couldn't exactly come clean about all of it either. He could hardly say, I have these things called NTR Points and I used them to buy skills.
"I just got lucky."
"Hmm..."
Choi Yuri eyed him with suspicion, then finally looked away.
Well...
Better not to dig too deep. That wasn't what mattered right now. Thanks to Kang Taeseong's somehow extraordinary competence, the two of them were living a mountain life so stable it was hard to believe they were actually stranded.
"There are fish over here."
Kang Taeseong's voice came from the valley. Choi Yuri watched him from a short distance away.
"Are you going to catch them? But we don't even have a fishing rod..."
If they'd at least had a net, they could have scooped some up. No rod, no net. And yet Kang Taeseong was scanning the area as if he already had a method in mind.
"Ah. Here we go."
Saying that, he walked casually up to a boulder.
Crrrk.
"......"
Choi Yuri's eyes went wide. Kang Taeseong was lifting a massive rock — a huge boulder that had been half-buried in the ground.
"W-Wait a second, Boss—"
Surely not?
Thud.
The rock he hurled smashed into another boulder jutting out of the water. A tremendous crack echoed through the valley. Moments later, something began floating up to the surface.
Fish. One, then two — and soon so many she couldn't count them, all bobbing belly-up. Every last one of them had been knocked unconscious.
"..."
Choi Yuri was speechless. Kang Taeseong calmly started collecting the fish.
"That'll do."
He looked so natural doing it that it was somehow even more absurd.
"I mean..."
She carefully opened her mouth.
"That's such a... such a brute-force method..."
Kang Taeseong paused at her words.
"...Brute-force?"
She waved her hands frantically.
"No, not brute-force like an insult! A compliment! It's a compliment!"
"A compliment?"
"Yes. Really."
Choi Yuri looked back and forth between the floating fish and Kang Taeseong. In her mind, a scene from that old documentary overlapped with the present.
The King of the Mountain Is the Bear.
Deep in the mountains. A massive bear walking along a riverbank. The fish near the water's edge instinctively sense danger.
— To a fish, the bear is one of the most fearsome predators of all.
On screen, the bear waded into the water as if it were nothing. The fish swam hard to escape, but flight was useless before the mountain's true master.
"...."
Snapping back to reality, Choi Yuri looked at Kang Taeseong again. A man who strode through the mountains as if they were his living room. Who found food without hesitation. Who secured water, drove off a wild boar, and even caught fish in a single stroke.
"..."
Somehow, it was all too similar. Of course it was a ridiculous thought, but...
Still. He really does resemble one.
That enormous build. The raw, brute strength to match. That almost unnatural vitality no one could rival. And...
Just as dense as a bear, too.
That oblivious look on his face earlier by the valley, casually asking if she wanted to wash first — he was a bear through and through.
Having sorted her thoughts, Choi Yuri murmured under her breath.
"I knew it..."
Kang Taeseong looked up.
"Hm?"
She clamped her mouth shut at once, then let out a small sigh.
"...It's nothing."
But inwardly, she had no choice but to admit it.
The boss was definitely a bear in a past life.
Kang Taeseong really was a bear of a man.