“Fertilizer? What’s that?”
“Yes. Fertilizer. It supplies energy to the ground as well. You can think of it as a stew that the earth eats.”
“Then what about the ashes we spread earlier?”
“Hrmm. They’re different energies. If fertilizer is stew, then think of ashes as fish you eat once in a while. That’s how you should see it.
Now then, I’m going to make fertilizer. Is there anyone here who will try making it properly for the sake of this village’s farming from now on?”
As expected, Radek and Rena, who trust me, volunteer first.
“Then we’ll make fertilizer led by Radek and Rena, but the rest of you must help as well.
If you flip over the pile of straw gathered for donkey feed, there will be rotting material underneath. Lay that down as a base, spread the collected donkey dung,
cover it with straw again, and lightly cover it with dirt. We need several of these, so Marek and Milo, dig a patch that can make one more for now.
Now, this is another kind of fertilizer. Nina, would you like to try this one? Lay some rotting straw here too, and now this is truly important. This year’s harvest depends on this.
So listen well. From now on, when the villagers need to pee, you must do it here unconditionally. Only urine. Do not defecate here no matter how urgent it is.”
“Wait, what is that!”
“That’s absurd!”
“I know this sounds strange, but this is how it must be done. Since you’ve decided to trust me, please just do as I ask this once.
We humans must take from nature and return to it, so think of urine as one of those ways.
But you can’t use it right away; you have to let it ferment like this. There are only a few villagers anyway, and you all just relieve yourselves in the forest.
Even if it’s a bit embarrassing, you must do it. Shall I put up a wall or something?”
“Alright.”
When Rena says yes first, Marek and Milo say yes as well. Then their wives say yes too, and the other women hesitate before finally agreeing.
Even if I get used to everything else, what I absolutely cannot get used to is not washing.
After going a few days without washing, feeling uncomfortable, at first I would put hot stones into a wooden cup to warm the water and only give myself a cat’s wash,
but then I made a slightly larger washbasin and washed my neck, armpits, and groin as well.
For my teeth, I picked pine needles and used them like toothbrushes, or soaked them in water to rinse. I just wish summer would come quickly so I could wash in the lake.
I absolutely cannot get used to my back hurting when I sleep. I need to make a mattress or something.
While looking around the village, I marked a few places where bird feathers had fallen or where bird droppings had fallen.
Beside the lake in the forest, in the forest beside the village, and on the hill behind the village. I set snares in three places.
I also made the village children a trap by constructing a wooden box, propping it up with a stick, and attaching a string to catch birds when they enter.
He looks to be about a teenager? He ought to be running around and playing to his heart’s content, yet he cannot. When I showed him this, he was overjoyed.
The next day, I went out to check the snares, and oh… they had all caught something. Three rock doves. Today, it’s bird meat.
The next day, the snares had birds again. And the day after that too. The birds of this era seem so innocent that they easily fall for these things.
The caught doves are boiled into soup, and I tell Dora and Eva, who do the cooking, not to throw away the feathers but to collect them all and give them to me.
The feathers I receive are disinfected with flea-repelling pine needles and then carefully stored. The children sometimes catch sparrows with the traps too, and I collect every single one of those feathers without discarding any.
The bird entrails are not thrown away; I dig a pit outside the village and leave them there to rot for fertilizer.
I had no idea this would cause trouble.
◈ Rena’s Story
Ri has been bringing birds every day recently. And he doesn’t even take a bow. How on earth does he catch birds? Curious, I secretly followed him, and…
There is simply a dead bird wherever he goes. Oh my, oh my, he merely raised his arm, and a dead bird rose up with it. Then he grabbed the bird, made a strange hand gesture, and left.
How did he do it? The next place, and the next place, were all the same. Just how did he do it? What kind of person is he? I am going mad with curiosity.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Waking up early after a long while and stepping outside, I hear what sounds like work coming from near the village entrance, so I go to check.
‘What are they doing from morning?’
The moment I open the nearby palisade. It was not a person.
‘It’s a bear.’
A real bear, which I had seen once at an amusement park over twenty years ago and never since—one I had only seen on television—is now right before my eyes.
The bear also stops eating and looks at me. Recently, after catching birds and saying I would make fertilizer, it seems to be digging up the place where I had set aside the entrails.
‘Ah… you came to eat the bird entrails. I should have thrown them far away.’
It seems satisfied with eating and shows no intention of attacking me. Just then comes the sound of a door opening, and someone follows behind me. Rena.
Rena, having seen the bear, freezes, and Rena, who barely covers her mouth with her hand at my gesture, barely manages to keep from screaming out.
Matching my retreat, Rena slowly backpedals, and I too slowly back away. The bear sees this and goes back to eating the entrails. Then it simply left…
‘Whew… that brief moment felt like hours. My legs are trembling from the tension. What if it comes again?’
It is not ‘what if’—it will certainly come again. Because it saw prey like me and Rena in addition to the entrails.
I gather the villagers for a countermeasures meeting. We cannot all move away in this winter, and since it is certain someone will be caught and eaten if it comes and finds nothing to eat, the opinion is that we must catch it unconditionally,
but naturally, no one knows how to catch it. I suppose it ended up this way because I, knowing that the children without fathers had ended up like that because of the bear, grew excited and insisted we must catch it.
‘Ha… how do you catch a bear. I need to talk with Radek first.’
After the meeting, I gather with Radek, Marek, and Milo to speak.
“How shall we catch it?”
“Well. Does anyone know how to catch a bear?”
“We thought you would catch it for sure, so we assumed you would ‘snap’ catch it just like with the wild boar.”
“That is because the children’s fathers died to the bear, so I was agitated as well.”
“Let us try it this way for now.”
Coming out after the meeting, Marek calls me over.
“Take this.”
He hands me a glove. It is shaped so that only the thumb and index finger are covered up to where the nails show, while the other fingers are left completely exposed.
“What is this?”
“It is a glove I made to use when shooting a bow. It is also the reason I was driven out here to this place.
Well, I wanted to stop that and clear the fields to farm by now, hehe. But even if it is not for a bow, it should help you.”
‘Since all game belongs to the lord, if one cannot catch animals, did he make this secretly? Wow… it fits well.’
“I do hope it goes according to plan. Otherwise, we might all die.”
At those words—that we might all die—my body suddenly trembles, and tremendous pressure builds. I was spacing out and failed to ask why he had been driven out.
Around the time I was spending my days picking stones from where the snow had melted… that bastard appeared again.
‘The bear.’
I realized it because, having woken up early and heading toward the village entrance, I heard the sound of something digging and eating at the place where the entrails were buried.
Fortunately, Radek had also woken up and was coming out, so I informed him the bear had come and prepared. I had slept in an empty house designated as the decisive battle house, so preparations were finished quickly.
Opening the door, I face the bear again. As I retreat backward like last time, it simply stares. Fortunately, it is focused on eating. It is going as planned.
I grip the spear prepared in front of the house with all my strength and hurl it at the bear.
‘What the…’
Feeling strength drain out drastically unlike usual, the spear flying through the air looks like slow motion.
‘Is this that phenomenon where people see things in slow motion right before an accident?’
The spear flies and properly embeds itself in the bear’s flank.
‘For now… it worked.’
Roaring in pain from the spear lodged in its side, the bear looks at me. There is no one for it to see but me. The bear charges at me.
“No one come out!”
I shout and flee according to plan.
‘Pass two houses, turn left, circle the house and turn left again, pass two more houses, turn left, then run straight. To the designated house opposite.
What kind of bear changes direction that well? Whoa, thank goodness I only passed two houses; if it had been three, I would be dead?’
Thinking this, when I am about to be caught from right behind, I feel the wind from the bear’s swinging forepaw on the back of my head. Had its speed decreased because it swung its forepaw?
I safely entered the house, and the people waiting inside succeeded in closing the door and barring it. Unable to overcome the speed, I tumble inside and crash into the opposite wall.
“Huff… huff…”
For now, luring it and having only me enter the house is a success. Actually, I had worried what if the door simply broke or fell over,
but perhaps because we reinforced it while preparing the plan? Fortunately, we held the bear back.
The excited bear stands before the door and roars, then looks inside through a hole we had pre-drilled.
“Now!!!”
While preparing, we had drilled holes in the door and made spear rests so we could thrust spears outside through them.
I thrust the prepared spear with all my strength right through, embedding it in the bear’s eye.
“Kru-he-he-heung!”
When the bear writhes in pain and rises, I, who was at the opposite wall, had already positioned myself and pushed the prepared spear with all my body’s strength, embedding it in the bear’s belly.
At the same time, the spear aimed at its leg simply slid out the door as the bear rolled backward.
“Kwe-e-e-eck!”
Did it sense the threat of death? As the bear tries to flee, we ready ourselves to go out and chase it.
But with a spear lodged in its belly, it cannot run properly on four legs and topples over sideways.
Was that why? Luka and Marko, boys who had lost their fathers to the bear, watching from inside the house, come out and throw stones.
The fallen bear, unable to escape anyway, perhaps with the mindset of taking at least one with it, goes toward Luka and Marko and swings its forepaw.
Radek reflexively goes out and stabs the bear’s side. But perhaps because no strength was behind it, the spear fails to pierce the bear’s skin, and the recoil sends Radek falling backward and sitting down.
It swung its forepaw toward Radek but barely missed flesh, only tearing his clothes.
Was it because of the thought that I must save him? Unconsciously, without even realizing it, I grab the spear and throw it toward the bear’s head, and again that moment looks like slow motion,
a cool wind wraps around my arm, sparkles for an instant, and then the spear launches. Yes, this is not a feeling of me throwing it. It feels like the spear launched from my arm by some unknown force.
At that moment the bear is frozen still, and the spear flies slowly. It flies slowly, but I already knew. How it would fly and where it would hit.
As if I simply knew and threw it? The spear flies and precisely embeds itself in the bear’s head.
“Kru-eo-eo-eok!!!”
The bear suffers and wails. Ah, I should go finish it off, but as if all strength has drained from me, I cannot move.
Kneeling, supporting my body with both hands on the ground, I raise my head and look at the bear. It tries to rise again and flails its forelegs before falling once more,
the embedded spear shaft breaks, and instead the spear embeds deeper.
Dora and Eva come toward the children and pull them away, hugging them from behind as if to carry them off. Then, watching the bear flail, they throw stones at it with tears streaming down.
How much time passed? The bear, which had been moving and flailing for a long time, lies on its side and cannot rise. Radek, coming to his senses, runs and stabs it with the spear,
and finally the spear embeds in the bear, which only makes gurgling whimpering sounds. Once more stepping back and charging to thrust the spear, the bear makes a pained sound but still cannot move.
After stabbing with the spear several times, Marek grabs and stops Radek.
“Stop. It is already dead. It is our victory…”
Whether the tension has released, Radek slumps down, and among the villagers, some shout with joy, while others shed tears of joy at having avenged their dead.
Rena runs into the house and supports me. Supported by Rena, as I go outside, all the villagers look at me and cheer.
And so the bear hunt ended.