BBS (75)

Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost

 
 

〈Chapter 75〉
 

Taking the opportunity of the monster focusing on swallowing the insides, the two barely escaped. The moment they hid in a rock crevice, they vomited.

“Even after all insides were sucked out, he was alive. He sent me a gaze to save him. That was so gruesome.”

“That’s not something living in this land. It must be because of the war. It surely crossed over with Japanese raiders.”

“Let’s flee from here. We’ll die if we’re found.”

The twins carefully shifted through the forest. Their nerves fired off and they froze at even slightest sound of a branch breaking. When they at last came out on a small pathway.

“Mountain spirits-nim! Mountain spirits-nim!”

The silence was broken and shouts of people echoed. On the other side, torches were sparking.

The twins looked at each other with desperate faces.

Moving through the forest. A black shadow was chasing the torches crossing over trees and boulders.

The twins held back their shouts and quickly followed after it.

The snake with a human head instantly approached near, and hid behind a tree, staring piercingly at the people, who searched around with torches. They heard a strange ‘hiss’ sound. They realized it was a sound of smacking lips, and a chill went down their spines.

“We came all this way, but didn’t see Them. Did They leave completely?”

“Why so suddenly? Did someone do something wrong?”

“We were living so well thanks to the mountain spirits-nim.”

The people illuminated their surrounding with worry, turning around with regret. The snake stared at them and followed.

“No way, the village…”

“No!”

The twins hurriedly followed.

Their worries weren’t unfounded. The snake really chased the people back to the village. It circled around the quiet village deep in the mountains, and then silently disappeared.

“It will come when it’s hungry again.”

“We have to make them quickly escape.”

The twins exchanged glances. Firm decision appeared on their faces.

The two threw their bodies at the same time and transformed. They became monsters wearing wolf heads.

They sprinted into the town, yelling.

“Everyone get out! We want this place!”

“This is our land now!”

They swung their fists and a huge boulder at the village entrance shattered with a ‘boom!’. They shattered the fences created to block wild animals, the walls made out of stone, the big tree, under which rites were sometimes held, and everything, in a blink of an eye. When the monster appeared in the middle of a night and brandished violence, the villagers were scared to death.

“Save people!”

“If you want to live, get out quickly!”

The twins roared, while invading all houses. They seemed to destroy everything they came across, but if one looked closely, they were breaking doors and turning over the furniture, while secretly helping people pack. The two exchanged glances ‘yeah, like this’, and put more of their strength into chasing out the villagers.

In that moment, Yu Dan heard.

A strange ‘Keuk! Keuk!’ sound rang out in the distance.

The bushes shrouded in the darkness moved. The trees broke and the grass clasped, and a huge snake with a woman head appeared. It was rushing in hurry, while vomiting the insides of the people it devoured a moment ago.

It seemed like it realized that the villagers were evacuating. It was urgently dashing here, abandoning half of the meat it swallowed, out of desire to fill it with fresh insides.

“Look over there! That bastard is coming!”

Yu Dan shouted, but the twins didn’t hear him. Their minds were focused on threatening people and sending them out. No matter how he shouted, they had no idea. And only when they smelled the rotten smell wafting over from a snake, did they turned around in surprise.

“Ah…”

The people, who were hurriedly leaving, looked back. At the sight of the bizarre snake slithering with disheveled hair, screams exploded everywhere. Some of the young men instantly turned into a stone.

“No! Fools!”

“Don’t make eye contact!”

Unable to help it, twins blocked their view.

“Flee! To the place with many people!”

“If you don’t, everyone will die!”

The two children jumped and did a somersault. When they landed on the ground, they looked like two black wolves. The eyes of the villagers trembled.

“Mountain spirits-nim…?”

“We’re not mountain spirits! We’re monsters!”

“Quickly, run!”

The wall broke when the two wolves swung their front paws and stacks of stone flew in all direction. The people suddenly came back to their senses and turned around to flee.

The snake screamed in rage. It’s gaze was saying that it was going to wreck the two wolves, which ruined everything.

“We have to hold it back.”

Chaeseol calmly commanded.

“Don’t touch the wound on the back. Claw it in the last minute, create an opening to use Earth Movement and run. Until then, we have do our best to hold it. So people can escape.”

“Got it.”

They pounced on the enormous snake. The head of a women opened its mouth wide and tried to bite the wolves.

The twins managed to cleverly dodge, and bit into the snake. They swung their back legs and kicked, leaving enormous wounds. When it kept avoiding the thing’s eyes, the snake’s venom grew to full. It coiled its crooked body around the wolves and tried to suffocate them.

The three tossed around, tangling together, and a desperate fight ensued. In a moment the snake’s whole body was bloodied. The twins also had a few bites. Chaeu’s front leg was almost swallowed whole. Thanks to harshly bashing its head, he barely escaped, but the teeth left deep marks.

“I think it has poison! Noona, I won’t be able to hold on any longer!”

“Endure just a little longer! The people will soon cross the hill!”

Black fog bellowed around the bodies of the twins. It seemed they were preparing to activate their magic. As if the snake recognize it, it started to struggle and bit violently.

In that moment.

The night sky became much brighter. The twins raised their heads in surprise.

The whole sky was filled with fire lights. The villagers were running back, swirling torches. The sound of gong[1] was loud.

“Even animals know gratitude!”

“We’re people, how can we pretend not to know?!”

“Burn and die! Turn into ashes!”

They were supported by the village women, elderly and even children. They swung small torches, while making loud noises. The twins forgot to attack the snake for a moment and just stared at them blankly.

“Fools. It won’t work. It’s not something that can be eliminated by swinging fire and making noise.”

“I guess they don’t know how scary it is. They really are fools. We gave them the best opportunity to live we could.”

The two looked at each other. It’s a short, but a long moment.

“We — can’t flee.”

“That’s right.”

The black fog that raised from the twin’s bodies disappeared.

“Is it possible?”

“Yeah, noona.”

A red fog raised. The snake felt it was something serious and started to thrash even more violently.

“Now!”

Chaeseol gouged the wound on the snake’s back. The thing hesitated for a moment, and taking an opportunity, they opened their mouths full of sharp teeth and attacked the snake’s head.

The snake narrowly avoided it and sunk its teeth into Chaeseol. In that very moment, the snake’s nape was clearly revealed in front of Chaeu’s eyes, and he bit down hard. With each bite they became more entangled, and they activated their magic.

The ground caved in. Soil pushed out in all directions like it was dug out, and an enormous hole was created. The three fell into the hole. Yu Dan, who was observing it, fell with them. Between the pushed out soil pile, they saw the sky. The whole sky was filled with swirling lights.

“Pretty…”

“Right?”

The twins’ eyes were filled with tears.

“We were happy, right?”

“Yes, we were happy in this village.”

The past flashed in their eyes like in a revolving lantern. What the mountain god said was right. For some reason their hearts were filled with anger. Day by day they made all living beings suffer.

“We have committed many sins. If we’re reborn, then…”

“We will help all living.”

The twins closed their eyes. Before all of them were covered by soil, they prayed to the brightly lit up heaven.

“Please let us do so.”

“Please let us repay our sins.”

Their earnest prayers became a string of light and raised into the sky, becoming a small sparkling sky.

“Understood.”

They heard a cold, but soft voice.

“You will achieve what You wish.”

Their minds plunged into darkness.

Death. The process of all things scattered and then gathering again from distant time and space.

The twins were reborn as small seeds. They sprouted into green saplings, growing well with warm sunlight pouring down on them.

One day, the twins were discovered by a woodcutter bachelor. He moved out the earth with trembling hands and dug them out.

“Ginseng!”

“Where did you find it?!”

The people crowded.

“No, isn’t it a child ginseng?! They say that a ginseng that looks like a child is a miracle medicine that can resurrect the dead!”

How long did it take to boil them over a hot fire? The man poured the medicine into a bowl and brought it to his sick mother. The moment she consumed the wild ginseng, color returned to the mother’s face.

That’s good.

The twins became small seeds again.

It repeated endlessly. Sometimes their bodies were broken to pieces, sometimes they were chewed by wild animals, sometimes they were dried in the sun and became a powder. They felt it all.

However, they were happy. Their hearts were fully content if a sick life could be saved thanks to them.

After numerous reincarnations, and sprouting from small seeds, a golden fox appeared in front of them. The child ginseng twins greeted him with a smile.

Hello. Please take us and use us for good work.

Then the fox smiled.

“It’s done now.”

It was a voice they heard before. At last they realized. It wasn’t the heaven that answered. It was this fox, who answered.

The fox petted the young leaves. And then grabbed their hands and made them stand up. The twins became a girl and boy, stood up and blinked, and looked around. The world was unfamiliar and dazzling.

“Where are we?”

“Hundreds of years had passed. You have worked hard during that time. You’ve got rid off of all your sins.”

“All of them?”

The twins looked down on their bodies.

“Then we can live again?”

“With such clean bodies?”

The fox smiled widely.

“That’s right.”

They realized once again. They paid the price for all their sins, but instead they had a very big debt to this fox.

This fox was helping them for a long time to pay for all their sins. And now he gave them a lot of strength to put their feet on this land again, so they could live.

“But why us…”

They heard a reply behind the fox’s back.

“I thought it would be nice to have children to kindly welcome guests.”

“And there is no one for a cleaning duty.”

Only then they discovered them. Under a tree behind him stood a middle-aged man and a young miss. When their eyes met, they smiled, and gave the two kids, who still struggled to walk, a piggyback. Their backs were very warm.

After then they descended down the mountains, the miss abruptly spoke up.

“But shouldn’t You give them names?”

“The girl is Seol. The boy is Woo(U). How about it?”

The fox replied. They stopped for a moment, and looked at the five color clouds covering the hillside of a mountain.

“Let’s add ‘Chae’. Five color snow. Five color rain.” [2]

“That’s very good.”

The miss laughed loudly.

Piggybacked on such warm backs, they descended the mountains covered by five color clouds. Leaning ears, someone caring whispered:

The bad dream is over now.

They felt a deep sense of relief. And cried. The twins buried their heads in the back in front of them.

Really. The bad dream was over.

With comforted hearts, they unconsciously fell asleep. But someone shook him awake.

He didn’t want to wake up. It was so cozy.

Yu Dan chased that hand away. But then he was shaken even more strongly.

“I want to sleep.”

“Are you really sure about that?”

At the sharp voice, he barely opened his eyes — the vicious monster Heuk Nachal was glaring at him. Yu Dan was woken up straight away and stood up.

“No, ma’am!”

He came back to his senses. It wasn’t a dream. He returned to reality. The opened book fluttered in the wind.

“What’s the matter. It’s me, me!”

“I guess You had a scary dream?”

The twins looked at him with wide smiles. They collected the pile of old books they put down on the floor, and put some in Yu Dan’s arms too.

“Anyway, now that You got up, let’s go.”

“The library will close if it goes on like this.”

Right, he made a promise.

His head was still foggy. Because that dream was too vivid. Yu Dan took the book bundle and went out of the shop.

“It’s heavy. How the hell many books did he borrow?”

“True. It’s because His desire for books is too great.”

“Even so, we’re happy that we can help with it, even if it’s such a trivial errand.”

The road was sweltering. They were soaked in sweat when they got to the bus stop. They put down the book bundles and looked if a bus was coming.

A large banner on the opposite building changed. An advertisement about a firework play. The twins looked at the night sky exploding with brilliant fireworks.

“Pretty…”

“Cool…”

They lost their souls with happy faces. The eyes of the two children were filled with dazzling fireworks.

“Do you want to go see it?”

Yu Dan abruptly spoke up, surprising himself. He didn’t expect it to come out.

The twins looked at him with wide-open eyes. A bus passed them by in that silence.

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

The two children replied at the same time.

And smiled with the happiest smiles in the world.
 

— End of 『Banwoldang’s Bizarre Story Volume 3』 —
 

*~*~*
 

[1] gong — 꽹과리 (Kkwaenggwari)

[2] “Let’s add ‘Chae’. Five color snow. Five color rain.” — ‘Chae’ for five color/colorful. Seol for snow. U(woo) for rain.
 

Translator’s thank you note:

We have finished another stretch of this journey. Have a seat and some freshly brew tea.

I once again must thank you for being here with us. For this journey is long, emotional and sometimes difficult. I thank you for willingness to take your time to appreciate this work. I thank each one of you, who were willing to spread a word about this story and invite others to join us. I thank each one of you, who left a comment under a chapter, letting me know that you’re here. I thank each one of you, who is now reading those words.

Now, please, bask with me in the satisfaction of accomplishing another thing, finishing another step, turning the metaphorical last page of the volume and closing the book. Let’s have a sip of your favorite drink of choice, and take a silent moment of appreciation.

(Also, please pat Personal Ghost (Jas) on the back for good work editing.)

 

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