A Remarkably Pathetic Master
It’s usually wise to ask the right questions before trying to teach someone anything.
Gawol, who had been silent for quite a while, finally spoke up.
“That’s strictly medicine, you know. Drink too much of it, and a severe stomachache will send you straight to an early grave.”
What was he on about? Did he really think I wanted to drink that bitter herbal brew again?
“What I meant wasn't to give me more medicine, but to mix me another cup of that plum syrup. That's all I'm saying.”
Sweet and tangy—maybe because it had been so long since I’d had any, it tasted all the better.
If he had stirred it in just in case the medicine tasted too bitter for me, I'd actually be a little touched... The guy could be surprisingly considerate when he wanted to be.
Swish, swish.
My tail wagged in eager anticipation.
“Well? Can't you?”
And Gawol answered with pristine, innocent eyes:
“Does it look like I can?”
Droop.
“Stingy jerk.”
“Think whatever you like.”
May all your hair fall out, you bastard.
“Your glare is looking remarkably disrespectful...”
“You told me to think whatever I like.”
“Did you just murder me in your mind or something?”
“Ahem...”
As the warmth of the campfire gradually weakened, Gawol tossed in some sweet wormwood he had gathered nearby. Then, blowing a stray leaf clinging to his hand toward me, he said, “Whew—that should be enough to keep the pests away.”
Why blow that in my direction...?
“Ugh... Just smelling that, I'm starting to feel sorry for the bugs.”
It was potent enough to drop a human, too.
“If you feel that sorry for them, start by stopping that crackling qi you're circulating right now.”
“Ah, that's completely different.”
Mosquitoes were undeniably evil.
Glancing up at the sky, the gathering dusk and damp air made me realize quite a bit of time had slipped by.
“Hey, what time is it?”
“Hmm.” Gawol checked a pocket watch he produced from who knew where. “Around nine o'clock. Why do you ask?”
“Nine, huh... That's plenty of time. Let's go!”
Go where? To train, of course! I was going to teach him how to ward off mosquitoes.
“...Pardon? Wait a moment.”
Zip it.
“Just follow me!”
“Aaaagh! M-My butt's getting dragged on the dirt!”
Ah, sorry.
I dragged Gawol all the way down to the stream.
“Ah, what is wrong with you?! Seriously!”
“Hold your horses. It's much easier with water.”
It wasn't like I could go pelting rocks at him, after all. To train, one had to begin by consciously reacting to small, randomized impacts, and water droplets were tailor-made for that.
I held my tail stiff and upright so it wouldn't get soaked, planted my feet wide, and settled into a firm stance.
“Now, stay still...”
Splash.
I dipped my right hand into the water, pulled it out, and aimed it straight at Gawol.
“All right~ here it comes!”
Just as I swung my hand forward—
Splash!
“Gah—wh-what the?!”
A sudden wave slammed square into my face, forcing my eyes shut. There was only one possible suspect behind such an ambush: that punk Gawol.
“Hey! Why the hell did you splash water in my eyes out of nowhere?!”
“Just hold on a second! What kind of crazy training is this all of a sudden?! Huh?”
Gawol's voice was infuriatingly calm compared to what he had just pulled. Who in their right mind throws water in the face of someone trying to teach them?!
Accompanied by the sloshing sound of wet footsteps, I felt his presence drawing near. Then, using some cloth—whether his sleeve or collar, I couldn't tell—he dabbed the water from my eyes.
“Phew... Better?”
First you give me the disease, and now you play doctor?
“More or less... yeah.”
Wait a second, my vision was still a blurry mess... Before I could even rub my eyes, Gawol tapped my shoulder.
“Now then, explain yourself.”
“Explain what?”
At that, Gawol sighed as if I was asking the most obvious question in the world.
“Hah... What was the point of suddenly dragging me down to the water? Well?”
Don't you get it yet? It's obviously...
“Obviously, I brought you here to teach you something.”
“And what exactly are you teaching me?”
Huh...?
“Ah... did I not say?”
“No.”
...Did I really not?
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
A little later, we sat down on a large boulder a short distance from the water. The water splashed on my face had almost completely dried, and my vision had finally cleared up.
“Why did I think I told you...”
“You probably only said it inside your own head.”
“Urgh—”
C-Come to think of it, he had a point.
“And in the first place, I never gave you a definitive answer saying I wanted to learn anything.”
“Ugh...”
Getting hit with two verbal gut punches in a row made me feel as though a thread-thin crack had splintered across my mental fortress for a split second. Without even having to think about it, he was completely right, leaving me utterly speechless.
Wiping the dampness from my hands onto my clothes, I cleared my throat.
“Ahem. Well, you see...” Then, I held out my hand. “Wouldn't you like to... learn properly from me?”
“I really don't feel like giving you extra rations.”
“I-I won't ask for more food!”
Honestly, I'd just suddenly gotten the urge to teach someone.
“Well then... fine.”
Jackpot!
When Gawol lightly placed his hand in mine, I clamped down tight and pumped it up and down.
“Um... should I bend down a bit for you?”
“Forget it. You don't have to.”
Truth be told, it would have been much more comfortable if he did, but my pride wouldn't allow it. If only he were ten centimeters shorter and I were ten centimeters taller, how great would that be? Standing there at what had to be easily 180 centimeters, the guy just felt annoyingly tall. I used to be around that height, too!
“Oh, by the way, there's a condition.”
“If you're going to change your tune all of a sudden, let's just call the whole thing off—”
Hey, have you never heard that a bet's a bet and a deal's a deal?
“Whoa, hold on, just hear me out. It's nothing weird.”
“...Haaah. Considering how far things have gone, what wouldn't be weird? Fine, let's hear it.”
First he broke my bones with facts, and now there was a barb hidden in every word...?
“Anyway, well...” I cleared my throat and did my best to muster the deepest, most authoritative voice I could manage. “Could you... call me 'Master'...?”
Well? Huh? It had actually been a bit of a dream of mine! In my past life, I'd even considered becoming a teacher.
At my request, Gawol's mouth dropped open slightly.
“Do you honestly believe I would ever say such a thing?”
It was the exact response I'd expected, but it was still far more disappointing than I'd braced for. Sigh... Yeah, it was my own fault for getting my hopes up.
“Well... that's fine.”
Along with my crushed expectations, everything I had perked up so enthusiastically folded right back down.
“...You look completely un-fine.”
“No, I told you, I'm fine!” Here, look. If I just flex some strength back into it— “Just a little... hrngh—!”
Nope, not happening.
“Pfft...”
Was this tail dysfunction or something?
“What a... remarkably pathetic master.”
Perk.
I heard that!
“J-Just now...!”
“Pardon? What did... Ah, blast it.”
“You said it, right? Huh? You totally said it!”
Hehehe...
“Ahem! In that case, swiftly and accurately, I—no, this Master shall impart my teachings upon you!”
“Don't drag out your words.”
Throwing cold water on me again?
“Oh, come on! Cut me some slack, will you?”
I was in the middle of fulfilling a life's wish here! Hey, hey, look, my tail's drooping again. See?
“Haaah... If this keeps up, I fear there won't be any ground left around me from all your tail sweeping. Fine, do whatever you like when referring to yourself.”
“...Thank you.”
“Don't mention it.”
He was going to agree anyway, yet he always had to make such a fuss about it.
Just as we were about to head back down to the water, Gawol brushed against my tail before catching hold of my waist sash.
“Ah, what now?”
Where do you think you're touching?!
He spoke in an exhausted tone. “Still, let's turn in for the night. It's late. Look how bright the moon is in the sky.”
What was he talking about? I knew full well he wasn't going to sleep.
“Come on~ You're not going to sleep anyway. You're just gonna read a book.”
From what I'd observed so far, Gawol always read well into the night, only turning in around midnight. Whenever I sneaked a glance, it wasn't even a novel—he was reading military strategy and treatises on the art of war... Honestly, it wasn't like he was marching off to the front lines, so I couldn't comprehend why he bothered reading that stuff at all.
At that, Gawol narrowed his eyes as if in counterargument.
“Considering how your eyelids keep drooping, aren't you exhausted yourself?”
“Ugh—”
A choked gasp slipped out as he hit the bullseye.
“N-No, I'm not! I'm completely wide awake. I don't need to sleep.”
“Ah... In that case, feel free to stay awake until tomorrow morning and stand night watch. I'm tired, so I'll be heading off to bed.”
“Hey, hold on! That's not fair!”
Do you have any idea what it feels like to stand night watch two shifts in a row? Huh?!
“You do know there's only one blanket in the wagon, right? I'll be using it. You can just pillow your head on your tail.” With that, he climbed into the wagon ahead of me.
“Oh, seriously...!”
If he just went up first like that, what was I supposed to do?
“W-Wait for me!”
Leaving Daeseong sleeping soundly beside the wagon under her blanket, I followed Gawol up inside.
“Hup.”
Oops...
The moment both my feet touched the wagon floor, my eyes met Gawol's.
“Well... look who came to sleep after all.”
It was only because you left me behind!
Gawol hung the pouch filled with tree bark from the wagon ceiling, then spread the blanket across the floor.
“Well, it's just... I get bored by myself, too...”
Do you know what it feels like to be so bored you start holding conversations with your own reflection on a sword blade?
Gawol brushed off his sleeping spot and asked, “Then what in the world did you do when you traveled alone?”
“Alone...? Well, as for that...”
Pondering for a moment, well over ten different solo pastimes sprang to mind.
“Hmm... playing rock-paper-scissors with my reflection in the water, having beak-strength showdowns with birds caught in my traps, interlocking two pine needles and pulling until finding one that snapped at the exact same moment, throwing a snowball and sprinting to catch it myself—the key to that one is running ridiculously fast, you see—mff—”
Gawol clamped his palm over my mouth.
“Enough. That is far too long-winded.”
Was it? Now I felt a little sheepish.
“And besides, you actually know how to make traps? You don't just walk into them?”
Ah, so that was what surprised you...?
“I'll say it again: I'm not on the same level as a beast!”
“Nobody said you were.”
“Gnnnh—!”
Even so, in the end, I managed to curl up in the softest spot.
Not bad at all.
Early the next morning, I shook Gawol awake and headed straight for the stream.
“You agreed to take training yesterday, right? In that case, go stand over there.”
“Yeah, yeah... I wondered why you were up so early for once.” Gawol waded right into the stream, planting his feet in the water. “Fine. I'm standing.”
Good. Now stay right there.
“I'll keep the explanation brief, and I'm only saying it once, got it?”
“And what if I don't catch it?”
“Then you don't get to hear it! ...Wait, no, I'll explain it one more time.”
“Well then, go ahead. I'm listening.”
All right.
“Now then, I'm going to flick water at you from here on out—just a single droplet at a time, see?”
“Yes.”
“The moment you feel that cold touch, concentrate your qi right onto that exact spot.”
Understood?
However, Gawol's reaction was quite different from what I had anticipated.
“.........What?”
What's with that face?
“Do you honestly think that's possible?”
“What? You can't do it?”
“Of course I can't! If I could do something like that in the first place, I'd be a 5-Geom, not a 6-Geom!”
“Aha...”
He wasn't wrong at all, but honestly, it was a little disappointing. I thought he'd breeze through something like this and advance straight to the next stage... Had my expectations been too high?
After thinking it over for a second, I spoke up.
“...Wait, but if that's the case, wouldn't doing this training eventually turn you into a 5-Geom?”
“That...!” Gawol started to raise his right hand before freezing mid-motion. “Sss... That's not entirely outside the realm of possibility, I suppose.”
“Right?”
First droplets of water, then beans... wait, wasting food is bad, so acorns... acorns are useful too, so wads of fallen leaves, and then pebbles after that.
Faced with such a flawless curriculum, I found myself nodding in sheer satisfaction.
Snap!
“Eep—!”
“What are you lost in thought over?”
Sheesh, did his finger snap have to be so loud...?
“Nothing! All right, here it comes!”
Once more, I scooped up water in my hands.