IBMAW 20

The Meat Barrel Is Important

While he was holding the child, Lizzy came closer.
Juhwan held Dorothy with one arm and pulled Lizzy into an embrace with the other. Lizzy, so short she did not even reach his chest, pressed tightly against his side.

But then, as he suddenly came to his senses, he realized the child’s clothes were damp for some reason. A strange smell was also slowly rising from the side where the child’s legs were.

It seemed she had peed herself.

“….”

Yeah, definitely pee. The smell confirmed it. But Dorothy’s face looked so bright and innocent that he could not bring himself to show that he had noticed. If she did not change clothes quickly, she would catch a cold.

“####.”

When Lizzy said something to Dorothy, the child suddenly slipped out of his arms and stood on the floor.

Wasn’t she scared of the blood-covered men? Her tiny feet pattered along as she ran between the groaning men lying on the ground.

Small footprints appeared on the dirt. Crooked wet footprints, soaked with pee, lined up one after another as if someone had stamped the ground with water.

After running past the men, the child clung to the barrel filled with wolf meat. Dorothy grabbed the wooden barrel with both hands and strained with all her might. After struggling for a while, she eventually collapsed over the top of it. It seemed she had intended to carry it away.

But a child did not have the strength to lift that barrel. It was far too heavy for her. Dorothy’s face turned red as she groaned and dragged the barrel across the ground instead.

Unlike the child, Lizzy could not bring herself to look at the fallen men. She slightly turned her face away and only watched Dorothy.

“###.”

Lizzy said something similar to before toward Dorothy.

At those words, Dorothy hurriedly pulled at the barrel with all her strength until her face turned even redder.

Surely Lizzy had not told the child to bring the wolf meat inside. She had probably told her to hurry and change out of the wet clothes. And perhaps Dorothy thought someone might steal the meat if she went inside.

“….”

Dorothy’s obsession with meat was frightening. There was a stubborn determination in her that absolutely refused to leave it outside.

Maybe she used too much strength while pulling the barrel, because Dorothy suddenly let out a fart with a poot sound.

Lizzy, standing beside her, laughed as if dumbfounded. Finally, she laughed like normal again. Something swelled up in Juhwan’s chest.

Thank goodness.

Juhwan walked over to the child and lifted the wooden barrel. Since it was not that large, it looked incredibly small in his hands.

“#####.”

Dorothy’s eyes sparkled as she looked up at Juhwan as though he were a hero. It must have seemed amazing to her that he could effortlessly lift something she herself could not budge.

Just from carrying a single barrel of meat, the child looked at him like this. Becoming a hero really was easy.

A little embarrassed, Juhwan scratched the back of his neck for no reason.

Clap, clap.

The sound of hands clapping came from beside him. Turning his head, he saw Lizzy looking at Dorothy with a somewhat stern expression.

“#### meat #### inside ##.”

Pointing toward the house, Lizzy spoke. She was probably telling her to leave the meat and hurry inside before she caught a cold. As he slowly learned more words, there were also more situations where he could understand things from the context.

Dorothy looked troubled as she glanced between the barrel and Juhwan. Her little face busily shifted back and forth.

After comparing Juhwan and the barrel several times, the child suddenly smiled brightly. It seemed she had decided the meat would be safe if she left it with him.

Even if adults might find it silly, it was clearly a serious matter to Dorothy. Maybe he could feel a little honored.

Dorothy answered Lizzy loudly and ran inside. Drops of pee splattered from the child’s body as she ran.

Startled, Lizzy hurried after her. If Dorothy did not take off her clothes the moment she went inside, the floor would end up soaked with pee. Though such things probably did not matter at all to the child.

After Lizzy and Dorothy entered the house, Juhwan set down the barrel and turned around.

One of the village men had fainted, but the remaining two were still conscious. They writhed painfully and let out groans.

As he stepped toward them, Gus blocked his path. Shaking his head, he said something. It was probably a warning not to kill them.

“….”

It might be fine since it had been self-defense, but killing someone could still bring punishment. Maybe execution. Maybe slavery. Considering that the wagon earlier had carried someone who looked like either a criminal or a slave, that was probably how this world worked.

Gus pointed toward the house and shook his head again.

Yeah, I understand.

Juhwan inhaled deeply and exhaled. Getting thrown into prison, being executed, or becoming a slave would all be disastrous. Lizzy and Dorothy would be left alone. If he disappeared, the two of them would probably end up with another man.

Juhwan calmed himself slightly and glared at the fallen men one by one.

I’ll remember your faces, bastards. If you ever show up in front of me one more time, no matter what happens, next time I’ll kill you.

That was what he muttered inwardly, though he doubted he would ever see them again. Even if he left them alone, these men were more likely to die than survive.

This was the Middle Ages, in a remote rural village with no proper medical facilities. Maybe they had herbs at best, but there certainly were no doctors. No magicians either.

A man whose nose and cheekbones had collapsed inward so badly that his entire face was sunken could never survive in a place like this. And even if by some miracle he did survive, his face would never recover properly. His nose and facial bones were already crushed. There was no plastic surgery here. He might not even be able to breathe normally again.

The others were no different. One had his arm completely broken in the opposite direction, and another likely had his internal organs destroyed even if it was not visible.

After all, Juhwan had barely held back at all.

Maybe the broken arm could heal, but it was certain the man would never use it properly again. When Juhwan broke the bone, he had twisted it once more while bending it backward, enough to shatter it into fragments. If that arm ever moved normally again after healing, it would truly be a miracle from God.

“….”

Juhwan looked once more at the fallen men.

Yeah. Definitely.

If they survived through sheer luck, an even harsher life awaited them. Hell itself.

Good.

Juhwan turned his gaze away from them and let out a breath. His mind had finally calmed a little.

That too was thanks to Lizzy and Dorothy smiling again.

Before he returned home, if the two of them had suffered anything even worse than what he had seen, neither Lizzy nor Dorothy would have been able to smile like that.

Today’s incident would have remained as a wound that could never be erased, casting a shadow over both of them forever.

Neither Lizzy nor Dorothy would have been able to smile at him again.

Only now did he feel genuine relief.

As though sensing Juhwan’s emotions, Gus lightly tapped his arm. Then he pushed him gently toward the house, seeming to indicate that he would handle the fallen men himself.

“….”

When Juhwan nodded, Gus smiled faintly in relief.

Juhwan walked over to the wooden boxes the men had brought.

Inside the two boxes were tools such as iron hammers, nails, chisels, cylindrical wooden mallets, and saws. Juhwan recognized common things like hammers, but some items looked completely unfamiliar to him.

In any case, such tools were probably essential for a cabin in the mountains where people had to survive through self-sufficiency. He guessed these had originally belonged to this house and were now being returned.

Juhwan carried the wooden boxes inside the house, then picked up the meat barrel and wolf hide. Through the slightly opened window, he could hear Dorothy’s voice. She was giggling loudly, apparently finding something endlessly amusing.

When Gus saw Juhwan entering the house, he turned away. It looked like he intended to leave the men behind and head down the mountain. Perhaps he was going to the village. Maybe to bring someone back.

Hmm. There might be another fight later.

Juhwan entered the cabin and shut the thick door. Inside the doorway sat the wooden box filled with tools. From it, he took out the largest hammer. Quietly, he leaned it against the wall so he could grab it at any moment.

Warm air from the hearth gradually spread throughout the cabin. But the entire house was still very cold. It seemed better than the house where he had briefly stayed when he first arrived in the village, but it could not compare to modern Earth’s insulation.

‘I need to deal with this somehow as soon as possible.’

Maybe the problem was the ceiling with a huge open gap overhead. Even without knowing for sure, he suspected that the cold air pouring in from there accounted for half the chill in the house. He wanted to fix the ceiling somehow.

There was simply too much to do, making his head spin.

Dorothy stood beside the hearth with her lower half uncovered. The long shirt-like garment barely covered her hips.

The clothes she had worn earlier had been a long dress reaching her ankles, but this outfit looked like a shortened version of it. Since the sleeves were short and it fit tightly around her body, it was probably something she had worn when she was younger.

Lizzy wiped Dorothy’s body with a damp cloth. It did not seem easy because the child kept squirming around. The pee-soaked dress was folded neatly atop the stones surrounding the hearth.

Lizzy muttered something softly, as though scolding her for moving around so much, when Dorothy suddenly looked toward Juhwan.

The moment she saw him, her face lit up with a bright smile.

“Meat###.”
“….”

A little disappointed, Juhwan thought she would call him Daddy the moment she saw him, but apparently meat had won.

As expected, food was everything to a child.

Dorothy raised both hands high and flapped them like butterfly wings, calling Juhwan over.

“Daddy! ##. Daddy!”

When he approached, Dorothy escaped from Lizzy’s grasp and threw herself into Juhwan’s arms. Startled, he caught her with one hand, but her frog-smooth little bottom was still damp.

The moment they moved away from the hearth, the air immediately became cold again, and wet skin would quickly lose its warmth.

“You’ll catch a cold.”

Juhwan hurriedly carried the child back beside the fire and set her down. Lizzy called Dorothy’s name and raised her eyebrows. Somehow, the way she scolded the child looked a little awkward.

It made him smile for some reason.

When he had first met them, the two had seemed careful around each other, almost like people who had not known one another for long. But now Lizzy nagged her like a young mother.

Juhwan already knew from spending nights with Lizzy that she had never been with a man before. So Dorothy was probably her much younger sister.

Yet watching the two together gave off the feeling of mother and daughter.

That struck him as a little strange, so he quietly observed them.

Looking at them now, they did not resemble each other at all. Maybe they were half-sisters.

But then Dorothy calling him Daddy made the situation feel strange again. Maybe she was not actually saying Daddy. Could that word mean older brother instead? But that somehow sounded even stranger.

He had no idea.

While Juhwan stood there blankly, Lizzy and Dorothy busily moved around. Dorothy checked to make sure the meat inside the barrel was safe, while Lizzy somehow tried to catch the constantly wriggling child to wipe her legs and bottom clean.

Whether it tickled or simply amused her, Dorothy laughed loudly and ran in circles around Juhwan. Lizzy kept trying to catch her but failed every time, until she finally became irritated.

Juhwan grabbed the half-naked Dorothy as she spun around and plopped her down in front of Lizzy. When Lizzy began chattering what sounded like a scolding, Dorothy immediately quieted down like a puppy with drooping ears.

Beside the bickering pair, Juhwan added more firewood and poured water over the glowing embers to make charcoal. As he scraped ashes out with a broad shovel and carried them outside, he quietly picked up the hammer leaning against the wall.

When he stepped outside, he saw several men hurrying toward the cabin from a short distance away.

Hunter Gus, the village chief, and several unfamiliar men.

Holding the hammer, Juhwan stood firmly in front of the door and waited for them to approach.

The air had grown even colder now. Winter days were very short. The sky would only begin to turn red before darkness quickly swallowed everything.

Knowing this, the village men carried unlit torches in their hands.

Juhwan discreetly checked whether the men carried any weapons besides the torches.

One man at the back seemed to have something hidden behind his waist, but the others held nothing in their hands. Two of them only had clubs hanging from their belts.

That much could simply be for protection against wild animals.

The village chief only carried what looked like a bundle of cloth tucked under his arm.

It did not seem like they had come to fight Juhwan.