Chapter 71
“Who’s there?”
As we crossed the farm’s fence, a middle-aged guy who looked like he knew his way around livestock came out to meet us and asked. He had a club at his waist that looked perfect for killing livestock thieves or wolves.
“I’m an adventurer passing through. Do you rent out Hamals here?”
Before he could mistake us for thieves and take the first swing like last time, I quickly introduced myself. Once I explained why we were here, the guy relaxed his shoulders.
“What, if that’s all, why didn’t you come in through the front gate?”
“Heh heh. This farm’s so big I couldn’t figure out where the front gate was. Are you managing this huge farm all by yourself? That’s impressive.”
“How could I do it all by myself? I’ve got people helping me.”
After I gave him a little flattery, the guy brightened up and let down his guard completely. But sir, honestly, this isn’t that big of a farm.
“You said you came to see the Hamals? Come this way.”
─Clomp, clomp.
We passed through the farm’s pasture and headed to the stable full of Hamals.
─Neigh…….
Up close, every last one of these Hamal bastards had the face of a lab guinea pig that’d been injected with euthanasia drugs.
Just looking at them was draining my energy. Fran flinched, too.
“T-they look so listless. The Hamals I saw when I was little weren’t like this……”
Even Fran, who’d seen Hamals before, was saying that, so I could only give the owner a look. Was this because you raised them like crap?
“They get especially sluggish when the weather turns cold.”
The farmer said it confidently. Well, whether that was true or bullshit, I could just ask the bastards directly.
“Hnnh? (Is something bothering you guys?)”
While Fran asked the owner about the rental fee and how to rent one, I asked in a quiet voice.
The Hamals looked a little surprised when I spoke to them in their own language, then answered.
“Hrrh heeeing. (Winter makes us sleepy.)”
“Heehing. Heeeing. (Yeah. Sleepy.)”
These fuckers really did seem like lazy bastards.
Or were they animals that hibernated? I had another question, but that was something I could ask the owner. So I immediately asked what had been bothering me.
“Hrrh hing hihinghi? (Why don’t you like carrying people?)”
“Heeh hing hihihinghit!! (We want to carry people!!)”
“Heeh hing hihihinghit!! (We want to carry people!!)”
“Ugh!!”
“Eek!”
The Hamal bastards had suddenly launched into that animal specialty: speaking in unison. The two people behind me, who’d been talking, jumped in surprise.
“W-what?! What did you do?!”
“Huh? Me? I didn’t do anything!”
I played dumb with a Vector-style denial. I just asked a question, and they suddenly started freaking out for no reason. How was I supposed to know?
“Whoa, whoa!!”
Fortunately, once the farmer calmed them down, the Hamals went back to their usual gloomy, on-the-verge-of-death expressions. The owner clicked his tongue and said to Fran,
“Didn’t I tell you? They’re gentle by nature, but they don’t like people riding on them.”
I guess they’d been talking about that. I asked what I’d been wondering.
“If they don’t like carrying people, why do you use them for transportation?”
“Because they’re gentle.”
What the fuck kind of circular reasoning is that? So you’re saying you force them to carry people and work because they’re docile.
While the farmer went off to talk to someone again, I asked a Hamal.
“Hing hihing hingi? (Why don’t you let people ride you?)”
“Hweehihing he. (It itches.)”
“Hweeeing hwinghihing. (Our bodies itch.)”
“Your body?”
Their bodies itched when people or cargo rode on them? Was their skin sensitive?
No, if it were a skin problem, surely the herders would know. Even if they had a ridiculous amount of fur, they probably shaved it in summer.
“Want to try riding one?”
The farmer came back after talking things over and opened the stable door. He led one of the animals outside and saddled it.
I didn’t hesitate to climb onto the Hamal.
─Prrrrr?
After snorting and taking a few steps, the Hamal suddenly got a raging hard-on and reared up.
“Heeeing hwinghihing!!!!!! (It doesn’t itch!!!!!!)”
“Whoa!!”
Why the fuck was this bastard doing this again?! Afraid I’d fall, I clamped my arms around its neck.
“Hrk!”
I choked it with my superhuman strength, and the bastard made a weird noise and calmed down. As expected, a crazy bastard only understood a beating!
“I-incredible!! The Hamal let you ride on its back so easily!!”
The farmer shouted like a math grad student whose understanding of the universe had just been shattered.
But what the hell, you blind-ass Beast Tamer bastard? Does it look to you like I got on this fucker easily? I almost fell and died just now!
“Tell me your secret, your secret!! If you do, I’ll rent you a Hamal for free!! No, you can just take the one you’re riding right now!!”
“I’m not sure. I just got on, and it worked.”
I got annoyed at his ridiculous pleading. I seriously had no idea why these walking horse-dung generators were acting like that.
“Th-that can’t be right……”
The farmer circled around the Hamal I was riding, flustered. Fran, who’d been watching him curiously, said,
“Could I try riding one, too?”
The farmer grumbled that he didn’t know why it was happening, but at Fran’s words, he scratched his head as if giving up.
“Ah, to hell with it. Go ahead. I’ll go get the rental form and ledger.”
After the farmer said that and went into the hut, Fran’s face lit up with excitement, as if she’d finally let out everything she’d been holding back.
“Nord. What did the Hamals say? Why do they have so much energy even after letting you ride them?”
“Beats me. For now, they say the reason they don’t like carrying people is that it makes their bodies itch.”
“It makes them itch?”
“That’s what they say, so it’s probably true. You should try riding one, too, Fran.”
They must have their reasons for acting up like this. Fran followed my suggestion and climbed onto the Hamal.
“Damn, you’re good at that.”
I’d been about to help because of the height, but she hopped right up by herself. Look at our Fran, light on her feet.
But once light little Fran climbed onto its back, the Hamal drooped like a dog whose food bowl had been taken away.
“Hing……”
─Tremble, tremble.
It was even trembling to show how much it hated this. What kind of brain did these bastards have, that they’d rather carry a big macho guy like me than a light, soft, lovely girl like Fran?
I scratched the Hamal’s body, which was drooping like a pair of balls in summer.
“Hweeeing hwinghihing? Hwing? (Where does it itch? Here?)”
“Hwiheeehing. (The other side.)”
“Hwing? (Here?)”
“Hihehhehinghing! (A little lower!)”
While the farmer was gone, I kept talking to it and scratching the places it said were itchy.
On the fifth time I scratched it, the Hamal shivered. I wondered if the bastard was about to piss itself, but apparently it wasn’t itchy anymore.
“Heeeing hwinghihing!! (It doesn’t itch anymore!!)”
“Quiet down!!”
“Hrk!”
─Thwack!
I shut the Hamal up with a quick jab to the neck. What a fucking drama queen. How was this thing supposed to be a lazy animal?
“Looks like you’re getting along fine. Will you be renting one?”
I was testing how it felt to ride by climbing on as well when the farmer returned. I got off and took out my wallet.
“We’ll rent it for a few days. How much?”
“Hamals are slow and lazy, so the rental fee is one copper a day. You can’t load anything on their backs, so they’re only useful for farm work, and even then they slack off.”
One copper a day. That was damn cheap.
“Thirty copper, including the deposit.”
The price jumps three thousand percent the moment you say it? I was a little dumbfounded, but paid with a trembling hand.
“When you return, I’ll refund the amount minus the fee for however many days you rented it. Don’t think about running off with it. Livestock counts as property, so the guards will treat you like a bandit gang.”
“Don’t you worry about that.”
I paid and climbed onto the Hamal. Judging by the look on his face, the farmer wanted to ask why the Hamal was so eager, but I had no intention of telling him.
‘What would be the point of telling him how?’
It wasn’t like other people would figure out where these guys itched, and if this man got rich using what I’d told him, I’d be so jealous I’d die.
Besides, it wasn’t worth writing up as a paper. In this other world, biology had no prospects, like Korean literature on twenty-first-century Earth.
‘The value of academic fields in this world is determined by whether they make money or benefit the nobles.’
Though I guess that was true of medieval Earth, too.
It was an open secret that archaeologists in the past had distorted the histories of various countries and recorded them however they pleased.
─Clip-clop, clip-clop.
We left through the front gate the farmer had pointed out. Since I didn’t know how to ride, Fran held the reins. And this macho Nord wrapped his arms tightly around his girlfriend’s waist.
“Heeheeheeeing!!! (This is fun!!!)”
The Hamal got excited at the thought of running with people on its back. I got swept up in its energy and shouted along, too.
“Starting today, your name is Ttareungi!!”
I got excited and grabbed the reins Fran was holding, then snapped them down.
─Smack!!
“Giddyup!!”
“Hinghe hihing. (It hurts, so use your words.)”
“Okay.”
This bastard’s suddenly so serious.
Anyway, it was good that we could talk to them. They said this one was pretty fast, too, so maybe we could cut down the time it took to get to the village.
Fran seemed excited too. Her cute booted foot gently nudged the Hamal’s flank.
─Tap.
“Ttareungi, let’s go.”
“Heeheeheeeheng!!! (Yesss!!!)”
At Fran’s command to run, Ttareungi took off at full throttle, bucking with joy. Oh, this bastard’s faster than I thought…… Fast…….
─Clip-clop-clop-clop-clop-clop-clop!!!!!!!!
Fuuuuuck, why is it so fast!!!!!!!
“Hing!!!! Hihehhehehing!! (Hey!!!! Slow down a little!!!!)”
“Huh?! N-Nord! Don’t shout right in my ear!”
“Heeheeheee───ing!!!!!! (This is fun!!!!!!)”
This little shit doesn’t understand a damn word I say!!!
This was fucking way too fast!!! Even my uncle’s motorcycle, when I rode on it as a kid, wasn’t this insane!!!
Maybe because it was a four-legged animal running on an unpaved road, the suspense was unbelievable every time it galloped!!!! I clung to Fran and screamed!!!!!
“You horse-balled son of a bitch!!!!! Slow the fuck down!!!!!!!”
“Hinghihihinghingiiinghe!!!! Hinghihihihehengheeeeeeng!!!!! (I made this person go fast!!!! I can control human speed!!!!!)”
And so we were whisked to Perfort Village aboard Ttareungi’s runaway express train, freed from the stable.
They’d said it would take about half a day on foot, but we arrived before the sun had even reached its zenith.
***
“Hee─ Heeheeheeeing!!!”
With a meaningless whinny, Ttareungi stopped in front of Perfort Village.
I got used to it a little after the first stretch and managed to relax, but for the first hour, I genuinely thought I was going to die. I even considered activating Beast Regression and jumping off with Fran before we fell and got crushed under its hooves. You fucking bitch…….
‘Still, it really is damn fast.’
I’d been planning to beat it up a few times after getting off, but I felt a little grateful it had taken us so quickly, so I let it go. It wasn’t like I held back because if I hit it and it died, I’d have to pay for 700 kilos of horse meat.
─Clip-clop, clip-clop.
We got off the Hamal and entered the village.
Perfort Village had the feel of an ordinary countryside village.
“Y-you there. Are you adventurers, by any chance?”
A middle-aged woman passing by stopped us and asked. She had a broad, sturdy build that looked perfectly suited to farm work and exploiting her husband. Was this the dark evolution of a high school girl?
“Yes. We are adventurers. Why do you ask?”
“Why do I ask? You rode a Hamal all the way here, didn’t you?”
The woman grumbled, glaring at us. I wondered what the hell she was getting so worked up about, but my elite master’s brain quickly figured out the answer.
“You think it must’ve taken us a long time because we rented a Hamal and rode it here?”
“Isn’t that right?”
“Nope.”
I climbed back onto Ttareungi and did a little rodeo.
“Heeheeheeeing!!!!!! (This is fun!!!!!!)”
“Good heavens, you scared the shit out of me!!!”
Maybe it was the first time she’d seen a Hamal dancing with a person on its back, because the woman’s legs gave out and she dropped to the ground.
“As you can see, this one’s unusual, so we got here quickly.”
I got down from Ttareungi’s back and looked at the woman, who’d rolled in the mud and gotten soaked, with an expression of utter contempt.
The woman was clutching her back and panting, as if she’d hit something the wrong way. She brought it on herself, so I didn’t feel the slightest bit of sympathy.
“The goblin extermination request was pushed back because it wasn’t attractive. We accepted it today and arrived the same day.”
I didn’t say that if they’d just raised the pay by ten copper, plenty of people would’ve come. We only needed to collect the money and leave this village. I couldn’t waste my time arguing with these thickheaded bastards.
“Fran, let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
I took Fran and Ttareungi to find an inn with a stable. The village felt quaint just to look at, but it had not even a mouse’s dick’s worth of coziness to it.
These countryside villages were closed societies, where violent crimes were easy to commit.
Even the great detective Sherlock Holmes said as much.