[What is life, anyway? You just live as it comes]
[What is life, anyway? You just live as it comes]
Since one barbecue grill wasn't enough, I set up a pan on a gas burner and started grilling more.
The campus couple must have smelled the meat and gotten hungry, because they came up to prepare their dinner.
"Ah! I told you we should've bought instant rice! Who cooks rice from scratch?"
"But it's nice to cook rice here, isn't it!"
It seems that unlike us, they brought raw rice to cook from scratch. The mark of a travel novice is glaringly obvious. When you go on a trip, you have to think about the hassle and prepare accordingly. There's no convenience store nearby, so if they wanted to cook rice from the start, shouldn't they have become hermits instead of campers?
But there was no way people these days could cook rice properly. Ugh! Don't put it on the fire right away, wash the rice first!
I couldn't just watch, so I intervened and snatched the pressure cooker away.
"Doesn't look like you know how to cook rice, I'll help you out."
"Ah, thank you. I'm sorry about this..."
"Then go over there, eat some meat, and help with the grilling. I'm the only one grilling, so it's a bit tough."
Since everyone else was just eating, I was the only one busy. Sion fed me wraps occasionally, but I still couldn't eat properly.
While the campus couple was grilling the meat, I opened the lid of the pressure cooker again to check inside.
It's flooded in here, a total flood. Forget washing, are they making porridge? Why did they pour so much water?
I first washed the rice with a bottle of mineral water I'd brought. The most important thing when cooking rice is washing it first. You have to wash it quickly and thoroughly so it doesn't have any off-flavors and tastes good.
Washing it with valley water is fine, but considering environmental issues these days, it feels a bit iffy. So, I wash it with bottled water.
After washing, I add an appropriate amount of water. How much? Just enough so that when you put your palm on the rice, the water comes up to your wrist. That's just right.
Preparation done, I covered it and put it on the fire. If it were the old days, I would've had to cook rice in something like a cauldron instead of this pressure cooker, which would be even tougher. Long live technological progress.
With more people eating and more people grilling, my job became much easier. Since a pressure cooker takes care of itself if you just adjust the time and fire, I'll leave it for a bit.
"Wow, Boss Choi-nim, one icebox is filled with nothing but meat. How much did you spend?"
"Well, I didn't look at the receipt."
"Damn, this is why money is good. No worrying about the budget."
"We have meat too."
"Pork belly from the market? Hey, the quality and quantity are completely different."
I bought it while walking around, and since I bought it thinking about eating a lot without worrying about money, it's incomparable to the students' wallets.
When you're having fun, the more people, the better. Or just eating with Sion, just the two of us. It's good to be noisy on a trip. That's why I accepted that campus couple, too.
Time passed while we were eating. Thinking the rice was about done, I turned off the fire and let it steam until the pressure released.
And once the steam had escaped, I opened the lid.
Delicious, freshly cooked rice with steam rising from it was complete.
"Kkeuuu! Look at that shine! Is this really the rice we brought?"
"Unless it's really old rice, it's usually fine if you just cook it well. Without know-how, you end up with half-cooked rice, porridge, or burnt rice, though."
"We're really lucky we met Boss Choi-nim. If Seung-jin hadn't guessed wrong, we would've been eating burnt rice."
"Hey, it's all thanks to me. Right?"
"I don't know if it's lucky or unlucky."
I scooped the rice into disposable plastic bowls with a spoon and said,
"Who wants some freshly cooked rice?"
Everyone, without exception, raised their hands.
I distributed the rice into the disposable bowls, and I sat down and took a spoonful myself.
The combination of hot rice and meat was fantastic. It was actually better than beef. Come to think of it, beef is good as an appetizer for alcohol, but if you're going to eat it with rice, pork belly is better.
First, you take the steaming hot rice, put a piece of pork belly dipped in oil on top, add kimchi—or, depending on your preference, kimchi that's been stir-fried on the grill—and eat it all together, and Kkeuuu!!!
The beer goes down on its own. The adults each had a drink from the beer we'd put in the icebox.
"Ah! Me too, beeeer!"
"Minors are not allowed!"
"It doesn't make me drunk even if I drink it! Just one can! Just one!"
"Just give her one can. She's getting her ID the day after tomorrow anyway."
"Yes! Boss Oppa is flexible, I like that!"
I handed Ruri a can of beer, too. The beer was cold from being in the icebox.
With the alcohol, the atmosphere became much lighter. As we chatted about this and that, the moon was already up in the sky before we knew it.
Since we were near the water, the weather wasn't too hot, and thanks to my ability, no bugs could come near, so we could rest comfortably.
The kids, feeling drowsy, went into the tent first.
With full stomachs and heavy bodies, they covered themselves with sleeping bags and blankets, and falling asleep was an instant affair.
The rest is adult time. Ah, not that kind of weird stuff, I mean it's the adults' turn to play now that the kids are done playing.
We grilled more meat, took out more alcohol, mixed soju and beer, and ate it with pork belly and Flower Sirloin, and it went down smooth.
"There's a crazy amount of trash after one round. Cleaning this up is going to be tough..."
"Well, wouldn't it not take long if there are many hands?"
"How many hands are there? Anyway, there's no place to dump trash here, so we just need to separate it and put it in bags."
The air is good, the snacks are good, and the alcohol is good. I was tipsy and in a good mood, so I spent the time laughing loudly even at jokes that weren't that funny.
The moon is high. It seems quite a bit of time has passed.
Since anything is best in moderation, we cleaned up. We organized the grill and tools, gathered the trash, separated it, and put it in trash bags.
You can't just throw trash away when you come to a place like this. Environmental problems are already serious, and thinking "just me" is what piles up to pollute the world.
"Go in and sleep first. I'm going to drink a little more."
"Ah, then good night."
I spent the time quietly drinking with Sion.
......I'm not going to do it outside like Baek-ri said earlier. Even if I did, I'd go somewhere far away where the sound wouldn't be heard. I have at least that much morality.
"It's really nice to come out on a trip like this."
"Glad we came?"
"Especially the kids were cute."
"......The kids?"
Seong-hye, Su-jeong, Aram. Girls of that age are cute.
I've raised children before, so I know well. Sion also has experience raising children, even if they weren't her own.
However, we, as a couple, have no children. We've lived together for hundreds, thousands of years, but there are no biological children between us.
There are various problems with that.
Ah, the fact that our species are different isn't a problem. The current me could do it.
"Do you want a child?"
"I do."
If I wanted to, I could do it today.
But......I'm the one refusing.
There's a reason for that. I've had many children so far, but a child with Sion carries a different weight.
I have committed sins that even if I atoned for several times the life I've lived so far, it wouldn't be enough. Someone like me won't die peacefully, there are people who hold grudges against me, and the work I have to do in the future is also an issue.
If I had a child, I'm not confident I could be there when that child needs a father. I'm not confident I could be a father I wouldn't be ashamed of.
The only person I need to protect is Sion. If everyone around me died right now but Sion could live, I would choose Sion without a moment's hesitation.
But if a child is born, the things I have to protect increase. I'm not confident I can protect that child.
"Are you scared?"
".....Something like that."
"What if things are finished?"
If my work is finished?
If my main job—the one that gets a lot of resentment—is finished, maybe it's possible. If salvation were to come down to me.
.....Salvation. If I talk well, maybe He might do it for me.
"Let's think about children later. And do you know how painful pregnancy is? Don't say it lightly without experiencing it. Especially you, it'll be a bigger deal."
"I have to try it at least once anyway."
My problem aside, Sion is also a problem. Pregnancy itself isn't the problem, but the next part, childbirth, is the problem.
No matter how I look at it, it's tough to have a normal birth with an elementary school student's body. In my view, a C-section seems like the only way it's even remotely possible.
"No."
"What?"
"I will do a natural birth."
"Hey, before talking about whether you can or not, you'll die of shock."
These days, even if childbirth is hard, mothers don't die often, but in the past, childbirth was a life-risking event.
Half of the reason was the problem of bacterial infection due to hygiene, but there was also the custom of early marriage. The body hasn't fully grown yet, so how much burden would it put on the body?
Sion is the same. If she gets pregnant, she can't change her body at will. But she can't stay in a transformed state for 10 months, either. Most of her power and abilities are sealed because she's afraid of what influence it might have on the child.
The difficulty level is beyond Hard, it's Hell mode. And you want to do a natural birth on top of that? I'd rather go cut off the head of the Absolute.
"There is still plenty of time. So, let's think about it more slowly."
"Yeah."
The night passes quietly.
I hugged Sion, drank beer, and thought about it deeply.
Morning came, and I woke up feeling refreshed. The Force Field I had spread......should I just call it a mosquito net? The mosquito net continued to activate even while I was sleeping, exterminating all mosquitoes that approached.
......There really are a lot of mosquitoes in the mountains. Just in the time I was sleeping, thousands of mosquitoes gathered here and died.
"We're going to play in the water and eat ramen for lunch, so it's better to eat rice for breakfast, right?"
"Eating a hearty breakfast is good."
I thought of the menu I'd planned in advance and prepared to cook. First, what I need is......bacon.
"Bacon! Salty and delicious bacon!"
"Meat from the morning?"
"Don't like it?"
"I love it!"
On top of that, it's imported, not domestic. Korea doesn't have the parts to make bacon because of pork belly, so bacon just releases oil and isn't very good. In contrast, abroad, making bacon and fried eggs for breakfast is a daily occurrence, so I can make crispy bacon that looks like it was fried until crunchy, just like I've seen somewhere.
But the important thing isn't the bacon. It's the oil that comes out of that bacon.
First, I take the bacon out of the plastic, cut it into appropriate sizes, and stir-fry it in a heated frying pan. Chi-ik! The salty, savory smell unique to bacon rises. It's a smell that naturally stimulates the appetite, so I heard rustling sounds from a corner of the tent where they were still sleeping.
"Add sliced garlic here."
"Garlic!"
I hope there's no fool who calls onion garlic. Garlic is garlic. Onion is onion.
I took out the garlic I'd brought to wrap with meat, sliced it appropriately, and threw it into the frying pan. Then, I stir-fry the garlic in the bacon oil. Then, an excellent flavor base is complete.
I throw in the leftover vegetables from yesterday, cut into appropriate sizes. Mostly things like potatoes or carrots. After stir-frying them once, I threw in the leftover cold rice.
I stir it around and sprinkle soy sauce evenly. Then I stir-fry it again.
When I think it's stir-fried enough, I turn off the heat and transfer it to a plate.
"Bacon garlic fried rice complete!"
"I wonder if fried rice will actually go down in the morning. But just smelling it makes that thought fly away."
"If you add kimchi to this, you'll finish three bowls, right? Breakfast is supposed to be eaten moderately, but the kids are going to overeat."
People who were drawn by the good smell came out of the tents. Seeing the breakfast menu already prepared, they let out exclamations.
"Wow! Fried rice in the morning! This is going to be delicious!"
"Eat moderately, you're going to go into the water and play anyway."
"It's a bit chilly because it's morning, but it's not like we can't go in! I'll digest after eating and then go in!!!"
The kids also got up and started eating at the table. Bacon garlic fried rice is even tastier because the bacon oil acts like lard. Since lard is pig fat anyway, the ingredients are almost the same, except for the spices that seep out.
Wagu-wagu, looking at the kids eating, that sound effect suited them perfectly. They chew, but they chew quickly, so it only takes a few seconds to swallow a spoonful.
"It's even better if you eat it with kimchi."
"Ah, you're right. Thank you!"
"Eat slowly, you'll choke."
"Oppa, if you eat slowly, you'll get your food stolen, too?"
".......It's not like that happened to me once or twice. Give back the tonkatsu I saved to eat! Vomit it up!"
"Ebebebe, if you can take it, cut my stomach open and take it!"
Baek-ri and Ruri were fighting, bickering from the morning. Since they're siblings, it's actually nice to see.
The campus couple also got up and came out of the tent. It looks like they slept separately, men and women. Hmm, young kids must be full of energy, but they managed to divide it well. It wouldn't have been strange if something like "Let's only hold hands and sleep!" happened.
"Ah, good morning. You guys eat breakfast too."
"Oh, Boss Choi-nim, you even prepared breakfast, thank you so much!"
I heard the campus couple decided to go back today. They said they'd play until the afternoon and then go in late in the afternoon. Still, it means we can play together until today, so they just need to play to their heart's content and make good memories.
While we were eating breakfast, Son Seung-jin, who was being scolded for guessing wrong among the campus couple, asked something.
"Come to think of it, there was a small mountain path up here. Is there a separate hiking course?"
"Hiking course? I don't know for sure, but since it was a place they were going to make into a campsite, wouldn't there be a place where they made a separate path?"
"Like hiking or a walking trail?"
This place was originally a place that was going to be registered as a campsite, but Sion bought it and turned it into our resort. It's not strange that they made a clearing here or made a path to create a walking trail.
"Shall we walk for a bit after breakfast? The sun isn't too hot, and the water is cold, so I think it would be better to go for a walk and then go in when it gets hot?"
"Hmm....."
It's not a bad opinion. Ruri says she'll just go in, but it's natural for the water to be cold in the morning. It's easy for kids like Seong-hye, Su-jeong, and Aram to catch a cold if they go in. It'll be worth going in only after some time passes and it gets closer to noon.
It's boring to just stay still during that time, so going for a light walk seems fun. There's nothing special about the mountain, but for people born and raised in the city, it's full of things to see.
"Then shall we go up for a bit?"
If they were only going to go into the water, they should have gone to the beach; it's a waste to come to the mountain, only play in the valley, and not climb the mountain. Even if it's just a walk.
Anyway, the kids just ate, so it's not good to go into the water. It's good to digest, so I decided to climb the mountain with the kids.
We won't go far, just for about 20 or 30 minutes. If we walk that much one way, it'll take about the same time to come back, so we'll digest, and the sun will get hot.
"What happens when a couple climbs a mountain? Pput!"
"........"
"Ack! Oppa hit me! This is domestic violence! Ack ack ack!"
"Ruri was wrong this time. Hit her more, Baek-ri."
"I was planning to do that anyway."
Seong-hye, Su-jeong, and Aram are at an age where they can have fun even if there's only dirt. Even though the generation has changed a lot these days, there's no way experiencing new and unfamiliar things wouldn't be fun. It's much better than being glued to their phones.
We walked little by little along the path someone had taken care of. The slope was gentle, so it wasn't bad for the children to walk.
"Ah! Look there! Wild strawberries!"
"Where? Where? Ah, it's real."
"I've only seen that on TV."
"But it's a bit far away....."
"Kids, wait a moment. Oppa will pick them."
Across a fairly wide ditch, I can see some small red fruits hanging in the bushes over there. Baek-ri responded to the children's curiosity, jumped over the ditch in one go, and picked the strawberries.
"Hey, watch out for snakes there. Snakes usually come out well in places like that."
"There are no snakes. It's fine."
When Baek-ri came back with a handful, the children gathered around and looked at the small wild strawberries, each holding one in their hand. It's easy to see regular strawberries on the market, but since it's their first time seeing something freshly picked from nature that looks similar to a raspberry, it's natural for them to be curious.
"Shall we take this and eat it?"
"Wow, it looks pretty."
"Kids, don't eat that, it'll just ruin your appetite."
"Isn't this a wild strawberry?"
"It's a mock strawberry. It's true that it's similar to a wild strawberry, but the taste is bland, so it's not very good."
Looking at it up close, you can clearly distinguish it. While wild strawberries have a form where small fruits are clustered together, mock strawberries have a bumpy appearance with small protrusions on a large fruit. In fact, mock strawberries are closer to the strawberries we are familiar with than wild strawberries.
Rather, wild strawberries belong to the category of raspberries or black raspberries.
Come to think of it, I don't know about wild strawberries, but I feel like there might be black raspberries? Since most plants are in the mountains.
"Ah, do you see that heart-shaped leaf? That's Ligularia."
"Ligularia?"
"Yeah, it's a herb you can eat raw."
"Can I try eating it?"
"It's bitter, so it probably won't be good for kids' tastes."
As you walk, you see various plants.
In the children's eyes, only fruits or grasses with different colors among the green will stand out, but in my eyes, mainly edible grasses are visible. My miscellaneous knowledge has increased, but I don't actually know things like poisonous plants.
Suddenly, I examined a tree I was passing by carefully. Ah, this is a Mulberry Tree.
"Wait a moment, Baek-ri. Come here for a second."
"Yes? What is it?"
I don't know if this mountain is good. Ah, is it because I bought it before people flocked here? There are quite a lot of things that haven't been harvested near the road.
On the ground, there are still traces of mulberries that haven't disappeared. Now that the season is late, the mulberries that have already fallen from the tree have left black stains on the ground. But that's not what I need to pay attention to.
The bushes are thick and the slope is quite steep, making it hard to climb, but it's not a problem for me or Baek-ri.
Going behind the Mulberry Tree, I can see something that was hidden by the tree from the road.
"Isn't this a mushroom?"
"It's the Phellinus Linteus, the best one among them, on a Mulberry Tree."
Three or four yellowish mushrooms, about the size of an adult man's palm, were sprouting. A couple of smaller ones were also sprouting, but let's take only the big ones, promising a next time.
"Take this and give it to your parents. Tell them to boil it well and drink it because it's good for the body."
"Really?"
"This is a precious thing. Even farmed ones cost tens of thousands of won, but if it's a wild Phellinus Linteus that grew on the best Mulberry Tree......I don't know the current market price well, but it's worth at least 500,000 won."
The yellowish color and tree-bark-like head unique to Phellinus Linteus are definitely correct. It's a mushroom that's confusing in many ways, but this is the real deal.
It's like I hit the jackpot after coming up the mountain.
"Oh! Damn! I have to boil this for Dad!"
Because human hands don't reach it, things like this happen. Nature gives its grace even if you leave it alone. If you reduce your greed appropriately, you can live off that grace, but humans destroy such nature while being greedy.
It's not something I, who am enjoying the benefits of civilization, should say, though......
"Uh......?"
While I was enjoying the scent of the Phellinus Linteus, there was one smell that brushed past my nose on the wind.
The smell of blood, and not just any animal, but the smell of human blood.
".....Baek-ri, stay still. I smell blood right now."
"Blood?"
I spread my senses to collect information. And from a little distance away, there was one presence approaching us quickly, as if they had noticed us too.
A wild animal?
Is there a wild animal in our country that runs at 120 kilometers per hour, and it's not even a cheetah from the savanna?
Vroom!
At that moment, cell phones rang in both my and Baek-ri's pockets. Unless it's a huge coincidence, text messages don't arrive at the same time.......except for disaster texts.
Baek-ri took out his phone, checked the text, and instead of speaking, showed me the text that had arrived.
[KFU]
The appearance of an Original Fox Species has been reported in the Duryusan area.
Nearby residents, please refrain from going out, and if you spot it, please contact the KFU report center.
Baek-ri asked me.
"What mountain did you say this was?"
".....Duryusan."
At that moment, a fox shining with golden light tore through the trees and lunged at us like an arrow.