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Dawn Traveller - Chapter 05 - Two Lives Part II
Yeon Woo turned two in the dream world.
He could control the time he spent in the two worlds to a point. He learned this naturally by going back and forth between them as a baby.
He was not forced into the other world unless he was physically or mentally strained; and even if he was tired, if he managed to quickly rest his head for a while or take a nap, he was not forced to move between worlds.
‘I will definitely stay here like this.’
He needed a strong motive to stay in the ‘real world’, but in contrast, he only needed to fall asleep to go to the dream world.
He imagined himself having two bodies in both worlds, and using that image he could come and go quite freely.
The only reason he stayed in the dream world much longer than reality was his interest in it.
When Rendal and Riley went out to work raiding tombs, he could join in on their adventure on Grona’s back, not minding the fear that came with it.
In contrast, the ‘real world’ days consisted of going to preschool, coming home, doing homework and going to sleep.
The most he could do was watch cartoons on TV under his family’s watch!
He still had ten more years of school left, and even if he enjoyed those years, it was still a pretty average life.
The real world was tedious compared to a life of life and death in the dream world.
‘There’s nothing to watch after Egg Seller Pukkaka ended.'
His life was in danger several times, but there was more benefit than the rushes of adrenaline that he often experienced.
And what’s more, he could waddle around the wet dungeon and move his arms freely. So much so that he could fling away the poisonous centipedes by himself when Rendal and Riley weren’t looking.
He grew mentally in the real world, too.
One negative thing about that was that he slowly started to lose interest in kids his age at his preschool. It was normal for boys to start fighting over simple matters, and being preschoolers, they made it into the biggest deal when there was a nosebleed.
'They should at least cut off a limb or bend his spine. How boring.'
As much as he went exploring in the caves, his tolerance for fright got even stronger.
Things like monsters throwing huge boulders at him was so familiar that it was as ordinary as eating a meal.
A huge, flying axe spinning just past his neck was only enough to shake away the sleep after a meal.
‘Burp—What a good meal. Now it’s digesting.'
He had realized that fatal danger did not come very often because of the amazing skill level of his parents, Rendal and Riley, and Grona.
But even he knew that people in that world often died pointlessly because of the smallest reasons.
There was no such thing as vaccinations in that world.
People died from illnesses, and friends and family were often slaughtered by monsters.
And even though they grieved with all of their hearts, the next day, they lived on with a new sense of hope.
You could say that they were very positive and enthusiastic about life, but it also meant that death was familiar to all of them.
*
Riley spoke, picking up Yeon Woo.
“Bubba, shall we go out to the market?”
Yeon Woo already understood everything in that language perfectly.
Of course, he did not fully understand the strange language that Hersey seemed to speak a lot, and he had not had chance to learn the sophisticated language of a noble, but it was enough for him to have no trouble understanding ordinary conversations.
“Kyahahaha!”
Yeon Woo swung his arms about and gave her a wide smile, as if telling her that going anywhere was fine. He was acting as if he didn’t understand.
Riley, unknowing of her falling for her baby’s cunning ways, gave him a bright smile.
“My kind Jys. You’re going to become a great man when you grow up, aren’t you?”
Yeon Woo headed towards the market in Riley’s arms.
He was usually carried outside the house, because of the fast carriages and horses that often sped by.
In this world, he was called by the name ‘Jys’.
He had been named after ‘Jys Ballerd’, a legendary explorer of the past. According to his father, Rendal, Ballerd had been known as an explorer but there was a rumour he was actually a tomb raider.
If one dug up a grave and showed it to the world, they were an explorer, and if they did it in secrecy, they were a tomb raider.
‘There are so many fascinating things here.’
He was busy observing every fascinating thing around him with his mom.
The market traded many things, including magical items.
“Wookihill. Won’t you buy an apple?”
“Different types of mushroom. It’s delicious in soup~”
He saw a lot of green-skinned merchants, they were part of a merchant and trading tribe called Preke.
They were very skilled in taming wild horses, and had great stamina, so they weren’t tired even after a day of walking around. A lot of them apparently picked the job of a merchant because they have a great sense of smell and could detect monsters from afar.
“Oh, what a pretty earring!”
“Fuhuhu. You have a good eye. This is a rare item made by dwarves across the Kederen Mountains.”
“Really?”
“It’s been years since I started working in this city. Just trust me and pick one.”
Riley took interest in the jewelry.
Jys read the merchant’s mind.
'Kehehehe, she fell for it. Even though dwarves did make it, it was rejected by them and thrown away. Humans are so easy to trick.'
Jys did not warn Riley of trivial things like this.
It wasn’t rare for women to have interest in jewelry, anyway.
What was important was that you got what you wanted and it suited you. Riley might become unhappier if he stopped her from getting what she wants.
Just like Yeon Woo in the real world when he couldn’t get the toy robot that he wanted!
‘In this world, you should think after you get what you want, even if it turns out to be bad...’
Even though he was not old, even with both ages in the worlds added up, he had a greatly understanding mind because of his ability to see through others' thoughts.
Riley bought jewelry, meat and vegetables, and even fruit farmed by dark elves.
Jys’s family was financially stable because they had a reliable business of tomb raiding.
They had huge piles of shining gold coins in the spell-bound basement of their house!
It was not much compared to nobles, owners of huge industries or tax collectors, but they were quite successful among the middle-class families.
‘Here, status meant everything. Even skill may not be acknowledged without a high status. But tomb raiders on the other hand, are treated well if they are skillful enough. There will be no shortage of jobs, either. How may nobles die here each year and are buried in this continent?’
The tomb raiding business was not even affected by floods or droughts.
Sometimes, floods even helped clear away debris and reveal new entries to hidden tombs.
The only problem was the constant risk of monsters and getting discovered and hunted down by the authorities!
Jys walked around with his mother while sipping the sweet fruit juice that she had bought for him.
Just going outside provided Jys with fascinating things.
Suddenly, all the merchants and villagers stared east.
“The terrorist Issla hunts again, today.”
“Tsk tsk. I wonder who will be eaten this time…?”
“We should be careful not to be eaten, too.”
Far away, above the castle walls, huge black dots were flying around.
Wyverns, the kings of the skies!
Nobody but the best sorcerer or summoning mage could hunt those creatures.
A skin that not even a steel blade can cut, unbelievable speed, and a violent temper.
It was truly a relief that they didn’t hunt often in towns because there were plenty of food out in the plains and fields.
Jys watched the wyverns from Riley’s arms.
‘It looks really strong and scary. How good would it be if we were able to ride them?’
At that moment, Jys’ eyes met with one of the wyverns'.
It was a long distance, but the wyvern's amazing eyes seemed to have no trouble.
‘I wonder what it's thinking?’
Jys, out of curiosity, read the wyvern's thoughts.
'What a chubby, delicious-looking, young human.'
He should have had stopped reading the thoughts there. But his curiosity got the better of him.
'I want to eat him whole and want to chew him up. Yum yum…'
In this world, Jys was still nothing but a delicious snack to the monsters.
*
Yeon Woo’s age grew steadily in the real world as well, and he turned 7.
There was a big difference between a 6 and 7 year old in this world.
He only had one more year of kindergarten, and after that came preparations for elementary school.
Ignorance is bliss. He read the thoughts of the older kids in elementary school and found that they wanted to go back to their younger years.
'Good times. Lucky, his mom doesn’t pester him about studying. Ah, I remember when I was like that…'
There was a huge difference between going to preschool, mindlessly playing around and officially going to a primary school.
The pressure builds up in the latter years of primary school to get into a good middle school, then after that, the pressure is to get a good employment.
Child or adult, the reluctance to age was the same.
“So I should enjoy the time I have. This moment only comes once, after all.”
Yeon Woo decided to play as maturely as he could for the rest of his year as a 7 year old.
Since in the other world he was still a baby and could not move as freely, he had more things to do in this world, where he could move as he wanted.
‘How should I play? It should be enough for me to say that ‘I had a good life’ when I’m older.’
Since he heard a lot of phrases from other people, he sometimes used expressions that were very unlike his age.
He learned to have many different perspectives of the same thing from reading the adults’ thoughts and there was no end to his mind.
Hersey especially, often said philosophical things, and they were mostly right if he thought about them for long enough.
His mental age, including his years in the dream world, was 9, and they were very special years.
There was an obvious difference in the way he and other kids his age thought.
It was to the point where he had them wrapped around his finger.
“Yeon Woo, let’s build towers with our blocks!”
“I don’t really want to… You’re better than me at that.”
“Can’t you play with me anyway? I came here just to play with you…”
“It’s obvious that I’m going to lose, but if I build it faster than you, will you give me your toy robot?”
“Okay!”
And a moment later…
“WAHHH!!”
Yeon Woo’s tower was taller than other kids’ by a mile.
Poor children, being so easily manipulated!
Even at home, he did not feel less mature than his older brother, who was 2 years older than him.
‘Now we are at the same age.’
The age gap would get larger as he aged in the other world, because to Yeon Woo, it was like having two sets of time flowing for him.
He made it his responsibility to look after his snot-nosed younger brother and his unnecessarily kind sister, who always tried to bring him the first of yummy-looking sweets.
“Yeon TaeJin, YeonYul, what are you going to be when you grow up?”
His pronunciation improved when he went to preschool.
“A scientist!”
“I want to be a Korean tea…cher…”
“They’re good dreams. I will make them come true for you, so trust and follow me.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Okay!”
They probably wouldn’t remember when they grew up, but he decided to look after his younger siblings well. Wouldn’t that be the meaning and purpose of family?
“Dear brother, do you want a candy?”
“I decided to stop eating those because they rot my teeth. Do you have any chocolate?”
“I have one that a boy gave to me!”
“It’s not good for a girl to go around getting chocolates from boys… they’re all debts, in the end, debts.”
“I won’t take it from now on.”
“Hm… take it, then give them to me, for now.”
“Yes sir!”
*
Yeon Woo, and Jys.
In between switching through the worlds, Jys turned three.
There was an old saying talking about years turning into wisdom, but he had spent his time in that world rolling around in his room and playing with the fireplace.
When he turned three, the time came for him to start learning to speak basic words and sentences.
Even though his pronunciation was a little off and awkward, his understanding of their language was perfect.
“The monshters attacked the chity today too!”
The city that Jys lived in, Teres, was a big city with strong and high walls to protect it.
Sometimes, there were nights when mobs of monsters came down to the city and fought bloody battles with the soldiers.
Whenever that happened, Jys watched, fascinated, through his window, with the battle far away; in the distance.
Thanks to the way his house was mounted, up high on a hill, he could watch the battle very clearly, like watching a movie.
‘The mob is very big today. Is it because it’s harvest season?’
He thought that the battle would not last long, like usual.
It was common for the slow-witted monsters to try and break the walls of the city and end up retreating because they could not get through the soldiers.
Of course, there were instances when the monsters managed to get through and kill people, or even ending up destroying the whole town completely, but they were very rare.
It had been so, because the soldiers hunted down large mobs of monsters regularly and the walls did their jobs very well.
But the monsters’ breeding speed was so fast that small towns and villages often suffered heavy losses from them.
‘There are so many. And they’re not retreating easily, either.’
With a fire arrow, the battlefield lit up brightly.
Jys’ household wasn’t the only one watching. His neighbours had kids crowded around their windows, too.
The future goals and dreams of most children there were knights, warriors and mages.
Other than being of noble blood, having strength was the only way to climb the social ranks quickly.
Because their world was so unstable, they had to at least know how to protect themselves to explore outside their hometowns.
‘There is no end to those monsters. They say that there’s always a reason for a monster mob of that size to come…’
There were a lot of territorial fights between monsters, and the species that lost the fight always tried to attack a human city.
Even through the shower of fire arrows, the monsters crowded around the castle walls.
‘Whoa, there are so many of them!’
Though he could not see clearly in the dark, it seemed like there were much more than a hundred thousand of them attacking.
The monsters climbed the castle walls with their sticky hands and feet, but even if they managed to get through the archers, at the top of the wall awaited lines of knights with swords to kill them.
But the monsters kept coming from the forest far away.
‘They’re going to have to fight through the night. These monsters are different from the ones in dungeons. They're weaker but there are so many of them!’
All of a sudden, a huge rumble erupted through the grounds.
BOOM CRASH BOOM
‘What's that sound?’
He was far from the castle walls, but the fire arrows acted as a source of light for him to see.
Something unknown came into Jys’ vision.
Something taller than the castle walls.
A monster with a body made out of metal.
“Ro- it’s a robot!”
Jys’ mouth fell wide open.
The metal creature was killing masses of monsters at once.
Tens of monsters perished every time it swung its huge sword.
BOOM!
It even ran around like its gigantic size did not impede it at all.
The sword even had flames coming out of it, resembling the way that Rendal’s sword blazed whenever Riley enchanted it.
Hersey approached the window.
“It’s a Mana Weapon.”
“A mwana weapon?”
“It looks like a Cruae. It seems that they called it over to save resources and the lives of their soldiers.”
Hersey continued to explain what a Mana Weapon was.
The one that appeared now was a Cruae-type weapon!
It was said to be made by the great Grates Empire 350 over years ago, with centuries of magic spent developing it.
It was controlled by a human inside the weapon, and had the power of one hundred knights.
“Do you want to take a closer look?”
“Yeah!”
“A young one like you wouldn’t understand, but magic isn’t only used for fighting. 'Eagle eyes' is the best for looking long distances.”
Hersey chanted a spell.
‘Eagle eyes’, a spell that was familiar to Jys as well.
Even though it was thought of as basic and low-level, it was very useful for seeing great distances in a field, looking out for soldiers and checking for monsters from afar.
Using Mana, Hersey put the spell on Jys and himself, and from then, Jys could see very clearly the battle scene that was a great distance away.
He could even see the symbol of the Grates Empire on the back of the Mana Weapon; a picture of two dragons intertwining.
The monsters tried to swing their weapons around and get them back, but it seemed to make no difference to the Mana Weapon.
Whenever the Mana Weapon struck, the surrounding monsters tried to run away but died instantly.
“Of course it’s near impossible for normal-rank monsters to fight against a Mana Weapon.”
Hersey also added in the fact that Grates Empire was causing war around the continent because they were trying to conquer the whole continent using their Mana weapons.
The city that Jys lived in, Teres, also belonged to the East side of the Grates Empire.
It was their hope to find a Mana weapon on one of his parents’ raids.
There were approximately 1400 Mana weapons in the Grates Empire, but the exact number was military information that was kept a secret.
Nobles sometimes lost their weapons in betrayals, fights and bouts of conflict, and occasionally they were even destroyed.
There were also instances when they buried the weapon with its owner if he was noble enough or part of the royal family.
After a while after the development of these weapons, other countries managed to obtain and copy the weapons to an extent, but they could not keep up with the original model designed by the Grates Empire.
Jys couldn’t keep his mouth closed as he stared at the weapon’s strength in battle.
‘I want it.’
Hersey was thinking the same thing.
'I want it. I want it. I want it.'
-
Translated by Hannah Kim
Proofread by Janowicz
This chapter was released on Monday the 28th of November, 2016.
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