Cardboard Houses Do Not Tear

0 – Lehu*

Tigers die and leave behind their skins.

People die and leave their names behind.

But why did I leave only unexamined master’s thesis when I died?

No, you left behind the name of ‘an idiot who put a kindling stick in his graduation thesis for a master’s degree in history’.

Congratulations, Pyeongju Kim. The Labor Standards Act did not define you as a human being, but you proved yourself as a human being by leaving your name to future generations by doing things that were not like a human being.

Actually, I might be dead. My last memory was that my eyes were closed while my heart ached like crazy.

I wonder if it was because I was drinking and writing my graduation thesis, but only realizing three days before submitting that I had put a ‘little prank’ on the references while drinking, and changed everything until the deadline, not sleeping.

Or was it because I realized that the master’s thesis I submitted was the original, not a revised version, right before I left the graduate school building after submitting it, and collapsed with a headache?

I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve experienced that the expression that my eyes go dark in my f*cking life doesn’t come only in novels.

Anyway, how long has it been since you’ve been awake while the whole place is black like an old man lying face down during break time?

My vision brightened again.

But the reality was not bright.

“Evil! Cheolju-hyung is different than that!”

When I woke up, it was a huge snowfield.

“What?”

Not graduate school.

***

Of course, the snowfield was f*cking cold. I wondered if there was a place like this in Korea.

It’s hard to breathe through my nose, so when I open my mouth, my lungs get cold and it hurts. The sound of coughing close to laughter comes out naturally.

Feeling that the edges of his face were being ripped off, he hurriedly covered his mouth with his hands, both the backs of his hands and palms red, and spit out steam.

Around the mouth, when you feel like your chapped palms are getting better, it tingles as if you’ve spread ice on the tip of your nose, followed by late dew on your eyebrows.

And then, with trembling hands, I removed the thing that obscured my vision, covered my mouth again, and exhaled. It was repeated over and over again.

It is a card of warmth to endure the cold.

It was a shame that I wore a little thick clothes because it was October when I went to work, but if I had been short-sleeved, I would have frozen to death before dew formed on the tip of my nose.

I must have walked for such a long time that I saw something in front of me.

“… Huh?”

Did I see the old tree by mistake again? If I fall down again, I don’t think I’ll get up again.

However, I carefully removed the ice drops from the tips of my eyebrows with my reddened hands, and looked at them again, but what I saw in front of me did not change.

It was a carriage.

A gigantic carriage that runs through the snowy road making white waves as if nothing happened.

“School. Under.”

It was so absurd that I momentarily laughed out loud. No, seeing that my stomach was cold, it might have been a cough that came from freezing the alveoli.

Ah, a wagon that runs like that in a snowy field where the snow is piled knee-deep?

I fell asleep after saying something like a graduate student who fell in an unknown place while writing his thesis.

No f*ck that was me.

“Wait a minute!!! There are people here!!!”

I shouted at the top of my voice and ran towards the wagon. If you can’t catch that, you’ll become a seonji bingsu today.

“Whoa whoa. …What is that again?”

The coachman, who looked around for a while at my shouting, stopped the carriage, as if he saw me running.

The twitching body reached the front of the wagon carrying his body and caught his breath. The coachman said nothing.

“Oops. Omg. Huh.”

The horses purred and snorted disgruntledly, but it was none of my business. I have to live

“Hello, nice to meet you.”

When I looked up, the coachman who greeted me so warmly said he was carrying a load.

The wagon, about the size of an overland truck, was wrapped in black cloth at the back, making it impossible to tell what was inside.

But that wasn’t the point right now.

I had to live to avoid freezing to death.

I started by thanking you, rubbing my numb hands like mad. It’s because I looked hateful for no reason, but it’s over when the carriage starts.

“Persimmon, thank you.”

“He says everything. But, don’t you think you’re not here?”

“Yes?”

“No.”

As he said that, his face was difficult to see due to the shadow of the awning, but he was clearly seen wearing a white hat, red leather gloves, and a silver apron.

Maburani in the middle of the snowy field dressed as a cafeteria lady.

It was f*cking suspicious, but it’s not a crime to wear it like a dick, it was before freezing to death, so I had nothing to cover.

But I guess I wasn’t the only one who felt suspicious about the outfit.

“Oh, come to think of it, did you survive walking around this snowy field wearing those clothes? Are there any crazy kids like this?”

But the way the teacher speaks is a bit strange.

“Well, as you can see, I am on the verge of freezing to death, so could you give me a ride to the nearest town?”

“Hmm, go in there. Will it be warm inside?”

The driver, whose tongue was smeared with butter, took her keys down and went behind her.

After a while, I heard a creak and a door open, and I headed towards the back of the carriage.

I felt a sense of relief when I saw the inside of the dark wagon full of steam.

As soon as I thought that people had survived, I thought of my thesis very cunningly.

“Thank you.”

“You say everything.”

The coachman muttered something behind him.

For a while, it was a little strange that it was a wagon rather than a van, even though it was the 21st century, and that the lock was stuck on the back, but I just ignored it.

I’m on the verge of freezing, but who cares about that?

But when I went inside, people in rags were staring at me.

But you have a lot of different hair colors. Is the cargo item a beauty salon hair model?

And from the mouths of those who looked at me like an idiot, I heard so many and sticky Korean words in an instant, like a flood.

“Wow, when I opened the door with the key, I saw something suspicious and jumped out. It comes in.”

“Would you walk around in that snowy field wearing clothes like that? Is it an oriental mystical secret?”

“No, would someone with that ability throw himself into a slave wagon?”

A slave wagon? What kind of Lincoln said he would rise from his coffin and fell asleep.

I was dumbfounded because I heard a keyword that would not be heard in the 21st century.

“Yes? What?”

“What is it, you asshole? Run away.”

And it was only three seconds later that I found out what it meant.

―Chalkang!

The door was locked behind his back, and people in rags washed their faces dry.

“…Defect?”

“There’s one more guy to sell as a slave.”

The cafeteria uncle, no, the human trafficker, whose face is still invisible, disappeared with a flurry.

One conclusion came from the head that started working again due to human warmth.

Right now, I’ve turned into a tuna who was caught by the Kurume auntie who sells people.

Kurrure.

“Oops!”

Then the carriage started to set off again. In the middle of the swaying wagon, I was standing there as if I was riding the subway, and one of the people in rags scolded me.

“Yaya. Stand up and don’t bang your head. Sit roughly anywhere.”

I gladly followed someone’s advice and quietly squeezed into the crowd and sat down.

That hot sweat reminded me of the training center, adding a lot of sh*t to my confused head.

I swear on my f*cking uncensored paper that this was luck.

“Oh my God, I became a slave again after escaping from slavery.”

Being a slave was unlucky, but at the same time fortunate.

At least, it won’t freeze to death, right?

***

After a while.

I was a British in medieval Europe—the short-tongued slave who told me this was a Brit, though—I was a human mannequin in a slave auction somewhere in the North.

“This slave is a very big one! He’s from the Far East, and as you can see from his appearance, he’s good for a mercenary, and he looks like he’s got his head!”

I greeted the moderator’s introduction as politely as I could and began to stand up while handcuffed.

Then, as if seeing a strange animal, people’s eyes began to focus.

Standing sideways, bend your right knee and straighten your heel. At the same time, it puts the load on the back foot and highlights the left leg hidden behind the right leg.

At the same time, the upper body is turned forward, and at the same time, the arms gathered while wearing the handcuffs are gathered as round as possible to make the body larger.

“Huh!”

By doing so, he poses the side chest, the posture of bodybuilding that you only see on TV.

The man Kim Pyeong-ju. 28 Years old. Although he is a poopy man, his height of 186 is not inferior in Korea or here.

That’s why I showed off my muscles. It was in order to go to a slightly better place if it was being sold.

From what I heard at first glance from other slaves I wasn’t very close with, it is said that the best-selling case in this damn slave market is a nobleman’s servant.

Of course, everything else is land mines.

A slave mercenary in the north who is said to have difficulty surviving for more than two years once sold.

A shield that consumes the enemy’s arrows while advancing in a column while holding a shield.

Colosseum Beasts From southern gladiator slaves, nutritious snacks, to living test subjects.

I showed off that I was strong because the poorer I was, the more I was dragged to a f*cking place. At least, wouldn’t the nobles take the foolish one?

…No, I was trying to show off.

But let’s think about it.

A graduate student in the Department of History who spends more time sitting than standing a day has muscles to show off?

Isn’t that a more urban fantasy than the story of a silver-haired bride who is told to prove her innocence with tears while slicing a vampire with a gun and knife?

Perhaps this is the same for other people, the emcee’s face hardened for a while after watching the side chest, the last part of her free life, of black-haired Diaspora Kim Pyeong-ju.

“Come on! Special discount price for those who are here! It starts at 4 silver. 4 Silver.”

I was dumbfounded by the emcee’s declaration of a knife-like expression.

“No, wait a minute, moderator.”

The flimsy bastard that was sold a little while ago was worth 3 silver coins. Prior to that, the man who was a bit big was sold for 6 pieces.

However, what would you think if a perfectly fine bastard was put up for sale at a price that would not even be worth it?

‘Is the boss crazy?’ No.

‘That bastard must be sick.’

Perhaps other people thought the same, no one bid on me.

As a result, I was the only one left in the display case where even the short-tongued hunchbacked slaves that had been babbling at me had been sold a long time ago.

Suddenly, regrets come rushing in. I’ll just pretend to be a f*cking savvy.

“3 Silver! Is there really no minute in 3 silver!”

The emcee’s urgent voice started echoing through the auction house again, and I became more and more nervous.

It is a well-known fact that the cheaper my life is, the more f*cked up I will go.

And that kind of place would be a place where it wouldn’t matter if a slave got sick or was missing an arm.

For example, an experiment subject, or a place like the aforementioned arrow shaft.

Perhaps, though I don’t know, slave mercenaries would be a more merciful option.

I closed my eyes tightly. Because I didn’t want to see the future that might come.

It was then that the lifeline came down in the abyss of imagination that I might go through after being sold.

“Hey moderator. Let me buy it.”

I hear the voice of an old man who is so deep that I can feel that he is middle-aged even if I just listen to it.

The moderator said in a tone like a yong-pal who sold malicious inventory that had accumulated dust in a corner for three months and ten days.

“Huh? It’s been a while since you came. As you know, there are no refunds. They sell it pretty cheap too.”

Ignoring that, the man just said what he had to say.

“You don’t say two words with one mouth. Because that is a man.”

This voice and manly way of talking. At least it seemed like he had avoided being sold to a black magician.

“But why is this guy closing his eyes? If you’re blind, it’s a bit of a problem.”

“Ah, when did I ever sell a bad guy? Hey. Eastern guy. Open your eyes.”

I heard the man stop me as the moderator tapped me.

“Don’t hit too hard. Because it hurts.”

‘Wow, look at how f*cking sad he is. This heavy feeling! Undoubtedly, the butler of an aristocratic house! Aristocratic young lady Gazua!!!’

Before I opened my eyes, I imagined the appearance of the butler in countless romantic stories.

‘Nice to meet you. The butler who will take you from now on. It’s Zengart Reich.’

A neat and polite suit with short brown hair mixed with ashes, which really shows ‘I am gentle’. A watch worn around the waist and a walking stick in the hand. A mustache adorning one side of the face.

What a gentle looking man he is!

I opened my eyes full of hope, but in the Pandora’s box I opened, only the net remained.

“Nice to meet you! From now on, I will be your master. It’s Hwaran Grunchian!”

Short brown hair mixed with ash, and heavy-looking armor that truly shows ‘I’m a battleship’. A dagger worn at the waist and a longsword held in the hand. A knife mark adorned one side of the face.

How spirited is this man?

‘f*ck. Just looking at that, he’s the mercenary leader.’

That’s right, what kind of butler am I? I couldn’t even buy my own house in Joseon.

However, slaves did not have the right to veto. Both in graduate school and here.

So I quietly took the wagon that Hwaran Grunchian had been riding and headed for the mercenaries.

I was the only slave he brought that day.