An Unsettling Destination
When in doubt about feeling under the weather, sleep it off. That had always been my motto.
The next morning, my stomach felt rather uncomfortable—perhaps I had eaten too much the day before—but it was bearable enough. In the meantime, Daeseong had already grazed clean all the grass around the wagon, so we hitched her a short distance away and set off to retrieve the water cask we had left behind yesterday.
“Hey, how long has it been since we left that water jug there?” I asked.
“Hmm...” Gawol pulled a pocket watch from his coat and checked the dial. “Probably about five hours.”
“That’s longer than I thought...”
Then it had to be completely full by now, right?
“Yes, quite a while,” Gawol agreed. “In fact, it’s likely been overflowing for some time.”
“I figured...”
Judging by how fast it was filling yesterday, topping off a single bottle hardly took any time at all; two or three hours would have been more than enough to fill the entire cask. It was bound to be spilling over by now.
Gawol turned to me. “Which way from here?”
“Left.” Or at least, that was how I remembered it.
“Understood.”
Trailing behind Gawol as he hauled the handcart, chiming in only once in a while to keep our direction straight, made for a fairly leisurely stroll. Come to think of it, there was something I had been itching to try since yesterday.
Flump.
The moment I hopped onto the cart and sat down, Gawol stopped in his tracks. “...What do you think you’re doing?”
“Well, if you’re pulling the cart anyway, isn’t it better if at least one of us is comfortable?” The ride was surprisingly smooth.
“You’re quite in the way, you know.”
Oh, quit being such a baby.
“Watching you ride it yesterday made it look pretty fun, that’s all.”
“.......” Gawol stood frozen for a moment, wearing an expression of pure, unadulterated disbelief.
“Come on, give me a break, will you? It won’t even take ten minutes to get there. I just wanted a turn!”
“What we ride in every single day is just a larger version of a cart, isn’t it? You can ride that all you want later.”
“That’s completely different from this!”
Hey, is riding in a car the same thing as riding inside a supermarket shopping cart?
Gawol stared at me in silence, then let out a heavy sigh and turned his back. “Hah... What kind of employer in this world pulls a cart carrying his own bodyguard...?”
He probably meant it as an under-the-breath mumble, but with my sharp ears, every syllable came through loud and clear.
There was only one thing I could say to that:
Isn’t being the first at something always a good thing? Look on the bright side.
Of course, I didn’t dare say that out loud.
After a bit of negotiation, we agreed that I would pull the cart on the way back once the water cask was loaded.
“Ahem...”
It definitely wasn’t because Gawol had glared at me like he wanted to murder me when we set the cask onto the cart. No, it was purely out of genuine guilt for making him sweat earlier.
“You have the look of someone harboring insolent thoughts.”
The bastard had the instincts of a ghost. I quickly softened my expression, turning around with the most innocent gaze I could muster.
“Hey, how can you say that when looking into these pure, starry-eyed peepers?”
“I can’t speak to ‘pure,’ but bright they certainly are... Not that it has anything to do with what I said.”
“...Is that so?” I immediately narrowed my eyes into a vicious glare. “What about now?”
“Now you just look adorable.”
You little punk.
“Stop spouting nonsense and watch the road. Can’t you see the wagon right there?”
“I see it, okay?”
Sigh. When someone glares at you to intimidate you, the polite thing to do is at least pretend to be scared. He was quick on the uptake, so why couldn’t he read the room?
Unable to let it go, I pressed him again. “Seriously, though... aren’t you scared at all? Even when I bare my fangs like this?”
“Not in the slightest. The neighbor’s cat with its tail stepped on would be far more terrifying.”
Ah. Well, a cat with its tail stepped on—fair point. Even a high school girl couldn't take one of those on alone.
“Maybe an elementary schooler, but...”
“What did you say?”
“Uh... nothing.”
Just when I thought modern habits had finally quieted down, they slipped right back out. At least it hadn't been English this time.
“L-let’s just load the water cask first.”
“Right. ...Though,” Gawol trailed off.
“Uh, yeah...?” What now? What was he about to say?
He paused mid-reach toward the cask, then walked over toward me. “You lift it and move it over. Come to think of it, why on earth was I the one doing this...?”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. Technically speaking, heavy lifting was supposed to be my job... but there was an obvious issue.
“Hey, that thing is practically as big as I am, though...?”
Height-wise, I was barely a head taller, but its girth looked at least twice the width of my torso. I stretched my arms out wide and flapped them up and down. “You seriously want me to lift that? I don’t think my arms could even wrap halfway around it...!”
See? Look at these arms—how was I supposed to get a grip?
Gawol gave a resolute nod. “Then who else should do it? Between someone who can leap onto rooftops by pure leg strength alone, and someone who pants just trying to keep up with that person’s walking pace?”
“Urgh...”
Fighting dirty, wasn’t he?
Of course, it wasn’t like I didn’t have a way, but I wasn’t ready to back down just yet.
“Th-then what did you do before I showed up? You still had to load and unload it from the wagon back then, didn’t you?”
“Hah... Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?” Gawol tapped the wooden cask. “Back then, there was only half as many people drinking water, so the cask was that much lighter. When it’s full to the brim, I might be able to nudge it around a bit, but there’s no way I could heave something without handles all the way up there.”
“Too many words.”
Darn it, he was logical. I couldn’t refute a single thing.
“Hah... Fine! I’ll do it, alright? I’ll do it.”
“I say this all the time, but aren’t you supposed to be my bodyguard...?”
Whatever. A bodyguard is a bodyguard!
“My job is to go wham and blow bandits away if they jump us, not do grunt labor!” What did he think a bodyguard was?
At that, Gawol closed his eyes and patted my shoulder gently. “Setting aside the fact that you’re a debtor before you’re a bodyguard... would I ever ask you to do something impossible? I ask because I have complete faith in you.”
“...Seriously, cut the flattery.”
“Perish the thought.”
His eyes looked remarkably sincere as he said it.
Well... fine. Friends help each other out with stuff like this. Still, lifting it entirely by myself felt like losing somehow...
“Th-then let’s lift it together.”
Gawol stroked his chin at my suggestion. “You can easily lift that much on your own. Or could it be that......... Ah, never mind. Let’s lift it together.”
That sounded deeply suspicious. My mood grew just as foul as the strange ache in my head and belly.
“What? What was going to follow that ‘or’?”
I had a strong feeling whatever came next would leave a distinctly sour taste in my mouth. But Gawol dodged the question.
“Nothing. Let’s just lift it together. Here... take hold of that edge—”
“...Step aside.”
Did he really think I couldn’t do it?
“Oh... you can lift it alone?”
Of course I could! In raw physical strength, I had at least four times his power.
“Just watch me. I’ve got this.”
Channeling a faint trace of qi into my hands just like when scaling cliffs, I gripped the wooden cask as if infusing qi into a weapon.
Crackle—
“Keep your eyes peeled, okay?”
Like this—
And with that, I hoisted the cask up with effortless ease. Honestly, I could have just grabbed it from the bottom and lifted it, but if I was going to do it, I wanted to look cool.
“Well? How’s that?”
“Hmm...”
Gawol’s reaction was rather lukewarm.
Hey, that wasn’t the reaction I earned!
I cleared my throat and asked again. “Ahem. ...Well? What do you think?”
“Ah, well, given it has no handles, you lifted it far more easily than I expected.”
Now that was more like it.
“Pfft, that’s nothing! Give me a rope, and I could hoist three grown men!”
“Without using inner energy?”
“Without using inner energy.”
“My goodness...”
You saw me lift stuff before, didn't you? Forgot already?
Regardless, I set the cask securely into the back of the wagon and hopped back down.
Heh, see that?
“I can handle this much, you know!”
“Yes. Thank you for your hard work. Let’s get moving for now. It’s already eight o’clock.”
“Yeah, yeah, got it.”
While helping Gawol remove the chocks from beneath the wagon wheels, an unbidden thought lingered in my mind.
Sigh... He could have at least clapped for me.
Or maybe, like last time, he could have... Eek—!
A totally ridiculous thought flashed across my brain.
“Um, did you get them all out?”
“Ah, y-yeah. Let’s go.”
What on earth was I just imagining...?!
I gave my head a vigorous shake and climbed into the wagon.
Ugh, why has my stomach been bothering me since earlier...?
About two hours after the wagon set off, as I was sipping what I’d dubbed my plum-flavored soda, Gawol called out to me.
“Siun-ssi.”
“Mmh?” What is it?
“Once we cross the mountain this time, we’ll need to stop by a village. So, if there’s anything you need, you should think about it in advance.”
I swallowed the sip in my mouth and asked, “Really? What’s the village called?”
“There’s no name written on the map.”
“Hmm...”
So that meant it wasn’t a large settlement, then?
“Why are we stopping, though? To restock food?”
Gawol glanced forward toward the front of the wagon. “That’s part of it... but it’s about time to change Daeseong’s horseshoes.”
Ah, horseshoes?
“When did you last change them?”
“About three weeks ago... I believe.”
“Huh? You replace them after only three weeks?”
“Normally, they last a bit longer, but when I checked yesterday, the edges were worn down.”
“Aha...”
Traveling through rough mountain roads seemed to wear them out quicker than the standard interval.
“So the village has a blacksmith, right?”
“I don’t know for certain... but usually, there’s at least one in every village.”
“You don’t have a plan at all, do you?”
“That’s how merchant travels usually go.”
“Is that so...”
Merchant travels, huh... Come to think of it, aside from the glass bottles I’d shattered earlier, I’d never actually asked Gawol what goods he went around peddling.
Might as well ask now.
“Oh, by the way.”
“Yes? Go ahead.”
“This wagon seems to be full of almost nothing but odds and ends. What are you actually traveling to sell?”
“Hmm...” Gawol pondered for a moment before pointing toward the rear. “See that crate over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Inside are ornaments and accessories from the Hwan Empire, along with... well, a few other things.”
The crate was pretty small, though...
“Is that all?”
Gawol added with an explanation, “Well... strictly speaking, rather than selling goods, I’m traveling to secure a contract.”
“What kind of contract?”
“As you know, ships can’t dock very easily along the western coast.”
“Mm... right?”
I vaguely recalled hearing something like that from my adoptive father in the past.
“So, you could say I’m connecting Bukak, which has the highest volume of goods flowing in from the Hwan Empire, with Howon on the opposite side.”
“I see...?”
Hearing it, it sounded like a reasonable venture that could yield a steady stream of income.
“Though I don’t know if there’s anything in Howon worth bringing back.”
There wasn’t much there, as far as I knew.
“Well, grains and daily necessities that are difficult to cultivate up in Bukak are the main targets... In particular, we need to head to Geumwon.”
Pffft—!
At Gawol’s words, my jaw dropped.
“.......There?”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“Uh.......”
Wait, we were going to Geumwon?! And he was only telling me this now?!
Telling him the truth here wouldn’t do me any favors.
“Hah... Never mind. It’s nothing. I’m going to sleep, okay?”
“This early in the morning? You haven’t even had lunch yet.”
“Ah, whatever. When I’m hungry, I’ll wake up.”
My head had been feeling slightly dizzy since morning too, so maybe I was just sleep-deprived. Sleeping it off should make it better.
“Don’t wake me until I get up on my own.”
“Yes... well, get some rest. Seeing how quiet it’s been, this area doesn’t seem to be a bandit hideout.”
“Yeahhh...”
If bandits didn’t show up, there wouldn’t be any reason for me to step in anyway.
Seriously, a nap ought to help...
Rustle.
I pulled the blanket all the way over my head, rested my hands on my stomach, and tried to drift off to sleep.