NTH 123

“A deadly poison is a deadly poison for a reason.”

His arm was covered in dark, unsightly scars. There were many parts that looked as though they had festered and just barely healed. Just looking at it made him feel the pain of melting skin, and his brow furrowed on its own.

“Doesn’t it hurt? How on earth did you get so injured?”

“There were times when it splattered while I was boiling the deadly poison, melting my clothes and seeping into my skin, and animals that had been fed the poison went wild and bit my arm. I suffered so much, I thought I would die before I even found the gumiho. So whenever I made the deadly poison, I always researched the antidote alongside it.”

Chaewoo’s heart pounded kung kung. Since Yonggeol was a hunter who lived a life of wandering aimlessly every day, it was highly likely that he also carried the antidote on his person. As he diligently pondered how to find out the location of the antidote, a small bottle suddenly appeared before Chaewoo’s eyes.

“This is it. I always carry it in my bosom. If you drink this, the poison in your system will be washed away as if it were never there. It’s a shame that it doesn’t restore the skin that has already been damaged by the deadly poison, though.”

Chaewoo stared, mesmerized, at the deep red liquid. If he stole that antidote and gave it to Gu Minho, his internal injuries would disappear in an instant. He just had to somehow make Yonggeol stay at this house tonight, and when he fell asleep, secretly steal the medicine, give it to Gu Minho, and have him escape.

But when and how should he bring up the suggestion to stay here tonight…?

“Chaewoo, we’re back!”

“Your hyung-nims have graced us with their presence!”

“Why are you not sounding the trumpets!”

Hearing the boisterous shouts, Chaewoo and Yonggeol stood up at the same time. The three hyung-nims who had gone to dig for medicinal herbs were returning, waving their hands.

The eldest hyung-nim, Woongrae, spotted Yonggeol first.

“Oing? You’re not from around here. Who might you be?”

Before Yonggeol could introduce himself, Chaewoo quickly interjected.

“He’s a hunter who catches tigers and even monsters. He came to ask for water because he was thirsty, but the stories he told were so interesting that I kept him here.”

Chaewoo deliberately emphasized the part about ‘the stories he told were so interesting.’

The hyung-nims particularly loved to talk. Every time they went outside the mountain and came back, they would endlessly recount what they had seen and heard to Chaewoo. If he said Yonggeol’s stories were interesting, they would surely hold on to Yonggeol, wanting to hear them for themselves.

“I see, I am Woongrae, who digs for medicinal herbs. The eldest brother of this swarthy group of men.”

“I am the second, Gaedol.”

“I am the third, Mansun.”

Yonggeol greeted the suddenly increased number of homeowners with a bright smile.

“I am a hunter named Yonggeol. Thank you for lending me water and a place to rest.”

Woongrae, as if things had turned out perfectly, brightened up and said to Yonggeol.

“The slash-and-burn farmers who live on the mountainside said they caught a wild boar and are having a big feast. We’re going to take Chaewoo and go there now. If it’s alright with you, why don’t you come with us, enjoy all the alcohol and meat you want, and tell us some interesting stories too?”

At the words ‘alcohol and meat,’ Yonggeol’s face brightened noticeably.

“Is that really alright? I was planning to stay on this mountain for a few days anyway, so I have plenty of time.”

“That’s great! Let’s go right now!”

And so, Chaewoo and Yonggeol went to the mountainside with the three hyung-nims.

It was a place where the most slash-and-burn farmers had gathered and lived, as it was relatively wide and flat in this rugged mountain, and water was easy to come by. By the time they arrived, a wild boar was already being roasted whole, and the savory smell wafting on the wind was so heavenly it was ecstatic even before eating.

Woongrae introduced Yonggeol to the slash-and-burn farmers. The down-to-earth and cheerful Yonggeol quickly and naturally blended in with the farmers. Chaewoo, while drinking very little alcohol, carefully observed Yonggeol whenever he had the chance. He was drinking like a fish, not refusing a single drop of the alcohol the farmers poured for him, saying it had been a long time since he had such a good time.

The feast continued late into the night. The women had gone home early, and the three herbalist hyung-nims, including Woongrae, and the men of the farmer village had fallen asleep, scattered here and there where the drinking party had been held. When the temperature dropped at dawn, they would wake up on their own and find a place to shelter from the cold dew.

Chaewoo, who had been constantly looking for an opportunity, stealthily approached Yonggeol, who was asleep among the men. He waved a hand in front of his face to check, pushed the shoulder of him who was lying on his side to straighten his posture, and then observed his state; perhaps because he had drunk so much, he was fast asleep, even snoring with a deureureong.

Chaewoo carefully put his hand inside Yonggeol’s fur vest. It was because he remembered him putting the medicine bottle he called the ‘antidote’ into his bosom. When he felt the touch of something small and hard in the inner pocket and extended his fingers, Chaewoo was momentarily flustered by the unexpected situation.

‘There are two medicine bottles.’

Chaewoo, careful not to wake Yonggeol, gently sandwiched the medicine bottles between his fingers and pulled them both out. As soon as he had taken out all the medicine bottles, Yonggeol let out a big breath with a poooo and sharply turned his body to the side, causing Chaewoo to be so surprised he almost fell on his bottom. He stealthily retreated without making a sound, and as soon as he was out of that place, he turned around and started running.

Holding the water pouch, the medicine bottles, and the wild boar meat he had packed in advance firmly in his hand, Chaewoo ran vigorously along the dark mountain path. He hadn’t been able to visit even once during the day, so he was worried about Gu Minho’s condition. He wanted to hurry up and give him the antidote to make him better, but the fact that there were two medicine bottles bothered him.

To think of it simply, the red medicine Yonggeol had shown him was of course the antidote. But did Yonggeol really carry only the antidote?

The deadly poison applied to the arrowheads would weaken over time, becoming less potent as it thinned and evaporated. If he shot something with an arrow, the poison would be wiped off on the target, leaving only a minute amount on the arrowhead. To be able to reapply it in such a case, Yonggeol must also always carry the deadly poison with him.

「What if hyung-nim finds some precious-looking plant, but it’s something you’ve never seen before? How do you know if it’s a good plant or a bad plant for the body?」

Chaewoo recalled the question he had asked his eldest hyung-nim, Woongrae, when he was young. At that time, Woongrae had clearly answered like this.

「You have to feed it to something. You can never know if it’s a medicinal herb or a poisonous plant just by looking at it.」

「Who do you feed it to?」

「We feed it to easy-to-get creatures like rats, squirrels, rabbits, chickens, and goats. They don’t eat it well if it’s not what they usually eat, so we extract the juice and sprinkle it on their food before feeding it to them. After doing that, if there are no problems, we grind it up and make a plaster to put on a wound, and if it seems a bit safer, we try eating it when a person is sick and see what changes occur.」

He had said that the reason the illiterate hyung-nims became excellent herbalists was because the old herbalists had diligently passed down the knowledge and experience they had accumulated in that way. Until he arrived at the abandoned house where Gu Minho was, Chaewoo repeatedly mulled over Woongrae’s words, ‘you can never know just by looking.’

In the end, he had to feed it to something to know.

Arriving at the abandoned house, Chaewoo opened the door and went inside. Gu Minho had his eyes open. Due to his cold personality, he was never very welcoming, but now he seemed to lack even the energy to lift his head and acknowledge Chaewoo.

“Minho, I’m here. I’m so late today, right? I’m sorry. But I have good news instead. I think I’ve found the antidote.”

Gu Minho could only speak human language when he transformed into human form. However, Chaewoo knew that even when Gu Minho was in his original form, it was possible for him to ‘hear and understand’ human speech.

Gu Minho, who had lifted his head with difficulty, had an expression that seemed to say, ‘What are you talking about, an antidote? How could someone like you get something like that?’ Even though he was looking at a fox’s face, he felt as if he could hear his voice vividly, so Chaewoo gave a faint smile.

“I’ll tell you the details later. For now, we need to figure out which of these two is the real antidote.”

If he told him that he had met the enemy who killed the large gumiho, who could be his mother or father, or perhaps a relative or teacher, a furious Gu Minho might go wild. Chaewoo decided to postpone that story for later.

As it happened, the live mouse that Chaewoo had tied up with a string yesterday was still in the corner of the room. He had intentionally left it there in case Gu Minho got hungry when he regained some energy. There were so many rats on this mountain that it was a serious problem, so Chaewoo did not feel sorry for the mouse at all. Not just Chaewoo, but no one who lived here felt any tender emotions for the troublesome rats.

“Wait a moment while you drink some water. I’m going to check if the medicine is safe.”

Chaewoo, who had poured the fresh water he had brought into Gu Minho’s dish, took out the two medicine bottles he had carefully brought. He first uncorked the medicine bottle that had an ominous black color. After prying open the mouse’s snout and dripping a few drops of the medicine in, he forced its mouth shut, and the mouse, after resisting for a moment, just squeaked with no particular reaction.

A sense of foreboding washed over him. If the black medicine was not the deadly poison, there was a possibility that the red medicine, which Yonggeol had called the antidote, was the poison.

But thinking about it differently, it was also possible that neither of them was poison. The black medicine could simply aid digestion, or, considering Yonggeol’s work of climbing mountains every day, it might have the effect of alleviating the symptoms of altitude sickness.

As expected, he couldn’t know anything just by looking or thinking. Chaewoo uncorked the red medicine and dripped a few drops into the mouse’s mouth. Chaewoo, who had been watching the mouse for a moment, gaped.

“No way…”

Within a few seconds of the red medicine entering its mouth, the mouse writhed and convulsed, and then it vomited up a gush of black blood. The mouse died immediately, without even a chance to use the black medicine as an antidote. Although he couldn’t find out the effect of the black medicine, this much was certain.

Yonggeol had lied to Chaewoo.

“Where did you get something like that?”

Startled by the soft voice, Chaewoo turned his head with a hwik. Gu Minho, transformed into the form of a human child, was sitting there blankly in his naked body. His complexion was noticeably worse than when he had first transformed for his bath, and his round cheeks had lost their flesh and were now sunken. Chaewoo quickly went to him and wrapped a thin blanket around his shoulders to cover his body.

“I got it from the herbalist hyung-nims I live with. But I can’t quite remember which of the two they said was the antidote…”

Chaewoo trailed off, making up an excuse as he went. Gu Minho looked at the medicine bottle held in Chaewoo’s hand with suspicious eyes. Chaewoo, who had uncorked the black medicine bottle, held it out to Gu Minho.

“I fed it to the mouse, and this must be the antidote. Do you want to try drinking it?”

Gu Minho, who had stared at it with indifferent eyes, spat out coldly.

“On what basis do I drink that? I might end up like that mouse.”

“The dangerous one is the red medicine. Why would I lie to you?”

“Because you’re human and I’m a monster. Didn’t I tell you I don’t trust humans?”

“I told you to trust not humans, but just me, this Chaewoo. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it long ago. You’ve been sick like this all this time; do you think I haven’t had a chance to kill you until now?”

“Who knows if you’re just keeping me barely alive to torment me. That might be more fun than killing me in one go.”

Chaewoo was dumbfounded, but Gu Minho was originally this kind of person. If he were to act affectionate and friendly, that in itself would be suspicious. Despite his pale complexion and emaciated body, his stubbornness made him feel more pitiful than hateful. Chaewoo pulled the black medicine bottle he had held out to Gu Minho back toward himself.

“If you can’t trust me that much, then I’ll drink it first, so watch closely.”

Chaewoo was not sure how much of this medicine he had to give to make all of Gu Minho’s poison disappear. A mouse was such a tiny creature that a few drops had an effect, but Gu Minho, a monster, might need more medicine than a human even if he was small. If he drank the portion that should be given to him, the effort of stealing the medicine from Yonggeol would be in vain.

Chaewoo let a sip of the medicine flow down his throat. He was a little scared, but he was sure it would be fine since there had been no reaction when he fed it to the mouse. As he gulped down the liquid, his Adam’s apple bobbed greatly. Gu Minho was just silently watching the scene.

“How is it, I’m perfectly fine, right?”

Chaewoo puffed out his chest triumphantly. He had never consumed poison in the first place, so even though the antidote had entered his body, he felt no change. Gu Minho still had an indifferent face.

“If you don’t take the medicine, your body will get worse and worse. You’re so thin like this, you can’t even eat a single rat properly. As you said, if being barely alive is more painful than dying at once, then take the medicine as if you’re being tricked. In the worst case, what more could happen than dying comfortably?”

Gu Minho did not answer Chaewoo’s firm words. Chaewoo, frustrated, pressed him.

“Are you perhaps afraid of dying? Do you want to continue living like this, unable to do anything, unable to go anywhere?”

“Be quiet. Just shut up.”

“I’ll shut up if you drink this.”

“I just don’t understand. What does it matter to you whether I live or die, that you’re acting like this?”

Chaewoo was momentarily stunned. That’s right, what did it matter? Even if Gu Minho were not a monster but a human, he was not a dear neighbor, and certainly not a blood relative. Then why was he hiding and taking care of him like this, even going so far as to get an antidote and trying to save his life?

“I don’t really know either. Perhaps… that’s just the human heart.”

It couldn’t be explained otherwise. The feeling of pitying someone. Wasn’t that the inherent nature of humans, not monsters? Of course, considering he hadn’t felt sorry for the mouse at all when he fed it poison, it might not apply equally to all living things.

But at the very least, the desire to save a weak being who had conversed with him and relied on him, who would surely die without his help, was definitely alive and breathing in Chaewoo’s chest.

“If it’s something like that, then I suppose I wouldn’t know even if I were to die and be reborn.”