Chapter 98
Chapter 98
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 98
Chapter Title: People on the Cliff
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Once they could eat the fruits scattered around nearby, the atmosphere in the village changed in all sorts of ways.
People's complexions visibly improved, and as evening came, instead of just lying around listlessly in their homes, more folks started wandering outside. With something in their stomachs, it seemed their bodies were regaining some energy.
The symptoms accompanying blood deficiency also noticeably subsided. If things continued like this, the number of people suffering from blood deficiency would probably decrease quite a bit over time.
The situation had clearly improved from before. But Dang Mujin couldn't be satisfied with the current state.
It was absurd to think that a few combinations of fruits and wild roots he'd discovered over the past few days could completely banish everyone's hunger. Even looking around, the edible fruits were only a tiny fraction.
Dang Mujin holed up in an abandoned hut, studying the fruits and plants that grew on Mount Nogun. He aimed to find more fruits to drive away hunger while minimizing the burden on the body.
Dang Mujin thought of it as research for improving the villagers' diet on Mount Nogun.
But in truth, it was research encompassing medicines and poisons in general, marking the point where Dang Mujin began venturing beyond the medical knowledge passed down to him and into his own territory. He just hadn't realized it yet.
*
With Dang Mujin shut away in the empty hut, immersed in his research, Namgung Myeong found himself with nothing to do.
Even watching Dang Mujin fiddle with fruits and roots, Namgung Myeong couldn't understand at all how it all worked. He could only vaguely guess at the principle that poisons suppressed each other.
As Namgung Myeong loitered around with the expression of the world's most bored person, Dang Mujin finally spoke up.
"If you've got nothing to do, how about helping out the Nogun Three Swords elders?"
"The elders? Why?"
"My current research can ease people's hunger, but it won't fully cure them. Humans can't just live on fruits and tree berries forever without health issues cropping up."
"Hmm."
"But the elders scrounge up all sorts of other things besides fruits. Go along with them and lend a hand."
"Sounds good."
He'd been itching for something to do anyway. Namgung Myeong promptly left the hut and sought out the Nogun Three Swords.
Just then, the three elders were in the midst of preparing to head out.
Namgung Myeong approached them amiably.
"Elders. Where are you off to?"
"Hunting for meat."
"Mind if I tag along?"
"It might be a bit dangerous... But you seem to know some martial arts, so you should be fine. What weapons do you handle?"
"Just fist techniques. Blades aren't my thing."
It wasn't so much that they didn't suit him; the problem was that swinging a sword around would get back to his father, and he'd end up with his wrist chopped off.
Of course, even practicing in a corner of Mount Nogun, the rumors probably wouldn't reach Anhe Province.
But with no sword in hand right now, it was easier to just say he'd trained fist techniques than explain all that.
"Fist techniques, eh. Won't help much with hunting, but you're young and sturdy, so you can at least carry the load. Come along."
Namgung Myeong and the Nogun Three Swords chatted endlessly as they headed toward the base of the peak.
Mount Nogun was dotted with needle-sharp rocky spires thrusting toward the sky, but between them lay slightly flatter bottoms. Like a sort of valley.
Upon reaching the valley floor, the thick humidity unique to dense forests enveloped their bodies. Faint presences of mountain beasts and musky scents wafted from here and there. Large animals had rubbed against trees or clawed at them, leaving several with peeled bark.
The Nogun Three Swords took Namgung Myeong up into the trees and whispered among themselves.
"Would be nice to catch a wild boar."
" Deer tastes better than boar."
"Wishing for something that doesn't come easy just leads to disappointment later."
"Even if I'm disappointed, I wanna hope a bit."
How long they waited in the trees, who knows. Pyo Chung gestured toward one side. The three leaped down from the trees in unison and charged like madmen. No sign of restraint befitting their age.
A mere wild boar couldn't withstand a joint assault from three first-rate experts. In the blink of an eye, it was butchered mercilessly.
San Jeo laid the boar on its side with a grim expression and slit the artery in its neck to drain the blood. Far more blood gushed out than from the other wounds.
"Hunting wrapped up quick today. We're lucky."
Not the deer they'd most wanted, but they'd instantly secured hundreds of catties of boar meat. Watching this, Namgung Myeong felt puzzled.
They made hunting look so easy—why had everyone been starving?
"Why do the people of Nogun Village live up on the cliffs? Wouldn't it be much better to live lower down? Plenty of mountain beasts means meat would be way easier to get."
Dang Rang answered.
"I thought the same at first. But this isn't a place for people. Too dangerous for ordinary folk."
"If beasts are the issue, just build sturdy fences, right?"
"That'd work for boars or deer. But Mount Nogun has tigers and bears that no fence can stop. And there's a bigger problem. Venomous insects."
Just then, Namgung Myeong was brushing off bugs biting his ankle.
Their venom wasn't that potent, but ordinary people couldn't endure constant bites from such pests.
"Plus, when it rains, things get serious. Flooding is routine, and rocks tumbling from the cliffs isn't rare. That's why they settled on that cliff ledge after picking the best spot."
As they chatted, the draining of the boar's blood finished.
The Nogun Three Swords wielded their swords like butchers, slicing off chunks of meat.
They took only the leg, back, and rump cuts, tossing the rest of the meat and hide roughly aside. Hyenas prowling nearby rushed in and buried their heads in the discarded boar flesh.
Over half the meat went to the hyenas.
But Namgung Myeong quickly understood why the Nogun Three Swords took only about half.
Hunting itself was easy; transporting the meat back to the village was the real issue.
The four stuffed dozens of catties of meat each into sacks and slung them over their shoulders, then climbed the cliffside path up the peak. Their arm muscles stiffened taut, the sacks digging into their palms.
The weight proved too much; Namgung Myeong and the elders had to sit and rest several times.
"...Screw the insects—wouldn't it be great if they just lived a bit lower?"
"Everyone who said that ended up dead, they say."
By the time the four crested the peak with their loads, more than half the day had passed.
Namgung Myeong collapsed in exhaustion, but the Nogun Three Swords went house to house, handing out fistfuls of meat. The villagers grinned ear to ear at the gamey boar meat.
Namgung Myeong returned to the hut and told Dang Mujin what happened. Hunting the boar was no big deal, but hauling it up was another story.
Dang Mujin replied.
"Why not have you and the Nogun Three Swords focus on hunting, and let the villagers carry the meat?"
"Things are a bit better now, but how could those scrawny villagers handle hard labor? They'd be lucky not to faint and foam at the mouth."
"Just use a cart. This peak's cliff path is in way better shape than the others—nice and smooth."
"You need a cart to use one. Besides, the path's too narrow—even if you had one, you couldn't pull it."
"Make a cart that works on the cliff paths."
Dang Mujin stretched grandly and stood up. Sitting all day had made him antsy.
He wandered the village, then returned with a crude axe.
He chopped down a short, thick shrub growing by the hut's eaves.
As Dang Mujin dragged the leafy shrub along, curious villagers gathered.
Ignoring their stares, he casually stripped off the branches with perfunctory swings and tossed them over the cliff.
Then, with broad strokes, he hacked the trunk into pieces, creating several large logs like firewood chunks.
"You're really making a cart?"
"Make a rough one to test—if it works, we'll build proper ones."
As Dang Mujin chopped away—thunk, thunk—some villagers stepped up to help.
"You gonna make a cart with just wood and an axe? Want me to whip up some wooden nails?"
"No need. Nail-free is sturdier."
"A cart without nails?"
"Yeah."
Dang Mujin cut the logs to size, then drew a dagger.
With the dagger in hand, work sped up several times over. Solid wood quickly turned into round wheels in the blink of an eye, followed by piles of wooden pieces whose purpose was hard to guess.
Work progressed fast, but there was so much to make and he worked alone, so by the time the pieces were done, the sun was nearly set.
Then Dang Mujin silently assembled them, trimming where joints didn't fit, carving new parts for any missing or lost ones.
But as mentioned before, no wooden nails were used.
By the time darkness fully fell, it was complete. But no one wanted to miss the spectacle.
Villagers munched on tree fruits and such, quietly watching Dang Mujin build the cart.
There was something captivating about Dang Mujin's skilled hands.
When night had fully settled, the odd cart was finished. Pyo Chung, who'd been watching, remarked.
"You're called a physician, but your true unrivaled skill is carpentry."
"I hear that a lot."
But Pyo Chung, the other Nogun Three Swords, the villagers, and even Namgung Myeong couldn't make heads or tails of what Dang Mujin had made.
It looked like a large rectangular box atop a single wheel. Definitely a cart.
Yet no ordinary cart. It had only one wheel.
It wouldn't even stand properly, leaning sideways.
As people hesitated to ask outright, Namgung Myeong spoke up for them.
"How do you use a cart that can't even stand on its own?"
"I thought the same at first, but surprisingly, it works well."
Dang Mujin had Namgung Myeong grab the cart's handle, then loaded it with all the leftover wood scraps.
"Put some muscle into your arms and waist—give it a pull."
Namgung Myeong tugged skeptically. It took decent arm strength, but was far easier than carrying loads barehanded.
"...Weird. Easier than I thought."
A bit unstable and wobbly, sure, but it had advantages over two- or four-wheeled carts.
Narrow enough to push or pull on tight cliff paths, and best of all, easy to turn. Perfect for winding trails.
"This should work on the cliff paths, right?"
"Seems like it. How'd you come up with this?"
"I didn't invent it—Dan Seoryeong did. I just copied it."
Back when he lived with Dan Seoryeong in Luoyang, she'd constantly tinkered with gadgets. One was this single-wheeled cart.
Normal carts have two or four wheels. Cartwrights tinkered with other parts but never the wheel count.
But Dan Seoryeong wondered if three wheels might be fun and built a small one. It wasn't much different from a four-wheeler.
She switched ideas: instead of adding to five or six wheels, reduce to one.
Not a serious effort on her part, but the little one-wheeler proved surprisingly useful. Adding two handles front and back let two people pull, adding stability.
Villagers crowded around curiously, giving it a try. Loaded with what felt like fifty catties of wood, it wobbled a bit but moved fine.
Now the Nogun Three Swords could focus purely on hunting, villagers taking turns pulling the cart—they'd eat meat far more abundantly. Maybe even fill their bellies with it alone.
Pyo Chung shared a simple impression.
"Impressive. Novel yet practical."
But Dang Mujin shrugged indifferently.
"Made from green wood, so it'll warp and break after a bit. Still, should last a fortnight or month easily."
Build something like that, then say use it just a month? Pyo Chung felt it a shame.
"Such a waste. Why not use well-dried wood from the start? Nogun Village may be poor, but we've got wood stockpiled for fuel."
"If it turns out useless after testing, wouldn't wasting good firewood be a shame? Or... since it's firewood anyway, maybe not..."
Dang Rang and San Jeo's expressions turned strange as they listened.
The mindset peeking through Dang Mujin's words was bizarre. Valuing dried firewood over such an intricate one-wheeler?
"Anyway, that's the prototype—try it out and let me know if it's useful. If it proves practical, we can make more then."
People see and accept the world differently.
And since Dang Mujin's talents differed from ordinary folk, so too did his worldview.
Yes. Unlike them, Dang Mujin was a man who would leave his mark on the world.
The Nogun Three Swords felt immense envy. But at the same time, the current situation felt unbearably enjoyable.