‘Kill.’
My body is a mess, but just once.
It is possible if you seize the opportunity and squeeze out your strength.
And that opportunity comes when the bastard’s gaze is turned away from you.
“You piece of trash, you little slave. Do you know how many days I’ve suffered because of you!”
The guy grabs his hair and pulls himself up.
“Get up, kid. If you don’t meet your group, I’ll tear off your flesh and eat it. From now on, you’re my emergency rations. Hehe.”
The bastard tried to move forward, dragging the staggering body of Yi Mak-san.
At this time, Yi Mak-san intentionally dropped something from his pocket.
“hmm?”
His gaze was drawn in that direction.
A small, round piece of metal that sparkles in the rain.
It’s a pendant that looks like silver at first glance.
The moment the narrow-eyed guy bends down to pick it up.
‘Now is the time!’
Imaksan, who was standing next to him, stretched out a pair of handcuffs made of iron chain. In an instant, he wrapped them around the man’s neck and pulled him down, covering him as if he was being dragged.
Back mountain position followed immediately by a back choke.
“Ouch!”
Instead of his forearms, he uses the chain of the handcuffs to press against his carotid artery. He places his legs under his armpits and binds his arms so they can’t move.
When his hands could no longer reach the gun, the man desperately tried to break free from the chains.
Tendons bulged out on the arms of the struggling man, and the nails of the struggling man scratched his skin.
Because he had put so much force into the handcuffs, the skin on his wrists was torn off and blood was dripping down.
The bastard’s eyes were bloodshot.
His face turned pale and then pale.
The desperate struggle ended in a massive convulsion, causing the creature’s body to sag.
But Imaksan did not release it right away.
Usually, consciousness is lost in 10 seconds, and brain cell damage occurs after 4 minutes.
Only after confirming that the man was completely dead did Yi Maksan relax his grip.
His physical strength was already weak. He had to squeeze out every bit of his strength before he could kill him.
“Gasp···, gasp···, if it were usual···, this kind of kid···.”
Panting heavily, Yi Mak-san reached out to the corpse with trembling hands.
He was separated from his group anyway. It didn’t look like anyone would come here any time soon.
I found the handcuff key in my bosom.
Bam.
He dropped the bloody handcuffs to the ground and placed all of his clothes, belongings, and equipment on Yi Mak-san’s body.
‘Are you small or is this body big?’
Lee Mak-san muttered while looking at the corpse.
It feels like white people’s clothes are a bit too small.
Since I had no body type to compare it to, I couldn’t even properly figure out my own height.
‘That’s because I didn’t eat. I feel fine.’
First of all, the limbs were intact, and the arms and legs were long and straight. The fingers were thin and long, but the hands were rough and coarse, perhaps due to the hard work.
Imaksan moved around belatedly to figure out his body and adapt.
Then I filled a water jug with rainwater and took the bastard’s long coat and cowboy hat.
Yi Mak-san looked at the naked corpse while chewing on dried beef jerky.
Not only is he not feeling guilty, he is just indifferent.
There is no way that emotions that did not exist in a past life could arise in this era of the Western Frontier.
Jo Yu-gang, possessed by Lee Mak-san’s body, had no hesitation in killing.
“Thanks to you, my first start in the West will be quite fruitful. Use it wisely.”
If that guy hadn’t shown up, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of a full setup like this.
Lee Mak-san turned away from the corpse and stopped after walking a few steps.
‘I almost left something important behind.’
A small metal pendant that fell to the ground and caught the enemy’s attention.
Surprisingly, it was the same thing Eric had given me.
Although the necklace chain wasn’t attached, the pendant had the same material, shape, and design.
‘This is what brought me here.’
According to the permeated memory of Imaksan.
While he was running away from slavers and wandering the wilderness, he stumbled upon the pendant.
Although the reason is unknown, it was clear that Jo Yu-gang had been summoned into the body of Lee Mak-san.
What on earth is this?
Why would he throw himself into the Wild West?
But I stare at the strange letters engraved on the outside of the pendant.
For now, I don’t know…
Jo Yoo-kang decided to think simply.
Eric said he used his power from heaven.
He told me to pursue my dreams in the West I had dreamed of.
‘No matter what the times.’
Jo Yoo-gang, with the body of Lee Mak-san, willingly decided to enjoy a new life.
“Eric! Watch from heaven how I live!”
The voice of Imaksan spread throughout the wilderness.
Wild West.
Land of opportunity.
The age of outlaws.
Even though he had just crossed the line, the excitement and thrill spread throughout Imaksan’s entire body.
Went.
*
The rain that had been falling steadily began to weaken, and the sun appeared through the clouds.
‘There must be something to say.’
I couldn’t have just walked in to track down a runaway slave. After wandering around like that, I found a horse tied to a rock.
Heeeeeeling.
The black horse was wary of the approach of Imaksan, who was not its owner. However, since it was a horse ridden by a human, it soon became docile after being stroked a few times.
There were small bags hanging around the saddle, containing alcohol and cotton balls needed to treat wounds.
‘You can’t die from illness.’
Hygiene and cleanliness must also be taken into consideration.
Diseases that seem trivial in the future may be fatal in this age.
Without proper antibiotics, even small wounds could become infected and there was a high risk of contracting tetanus.
I disinfected the scratches from my fingernails and the wounds from the handcuffs with alcohol and wrapped them with bandages.
‘I’ve roughly finished preparing, but…’
Where should I begin?
I was lost in the vast wilderness.
I couldn’t figure out where I was or where I was going.
In addition, Imaksan was faced with a mountain of problems.
How will food, clothing and shelter be resolved?
How to overcome racial issues.
The biggest challenge was how to live as a Korean, and as an Asian at that.
Of course, returning to Joseon is also an option.
This was possible by taking a ship from San Francisco, California to China.
however.
‘What’s there when I go back?’
It is currently the time when King Cheoljong was reigning in Joseon.
Yi Mak-san is the lowest class of the Joseon Dynasty.
Even if I went back, the only difference was that I had changed from a southern slave to a Joseon slave.
Moreover, what you can gain by exercising your abilities is as different as heaven and earth.
A dangerous place where you can get everything.
The era of the Western Frontier, where one could develop one’s own definition, was the world that Jo Yu-gang had dreamed of in his previous life.
“Let’s end it in America!”
After making up my mind, I got on the horse.
Under the hot sun, Lee Mak-san, wearing a cowboy hat, turned his horse’s head to the north.
“Hey!”
Heeeeeeling!
dump.
“I haven’t ridden a horse before.”
Imaksan, who had fallen from his horse, climbed back onto his horse again, struggling.
7 years in the special forces.
7 years of mercenary life.
It was the first time I had said that.
White family and Indians
‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry.’
If I hadn’t caught a rattlesnake and roasted it to eat, I would have collapsed from malnutrition several times.
But jerky and snakes alone were only enough to sustain life; they were not enough to satisfy hunger.
‘Where can I find a path in this vast wilderness?’
Slave traders tried to sell the men as slaves to plantation owners in the South, and they traveled along the only land route connecting the West and East.
And Lee Mak-san, who succeeded in escaping by taking advantage of the opportunity, ran south for several days.
In other words, it means that if you go back, you can find your way.
So, Imaksan ran north.
My thighs were rubbing against the saddle. My buttocks were constantly shaking, and my bones were aching, but I was gradually getting used to riding a horse.
But should we be satisfied with that?
‘Let’s achieve the union of God and Demon…’
The body and speech are one, so the path of thought is the path of speech.
Then, we will achieve the new union···.
Is it because the memories of Joseon person Lee Mak-san are mixed up?
Anyway, it may sound like nonsense, but the West is a place where you never know what kind of dangers might come your way.
Training in shooting and lighting guns from horseback was also required.
Even on horseback, Yi Mak-san adapted to his unkempt body and did not rest for a moment to move as he pleased.
An endless plain stretching out like rippling waves.
We raced north for three days, following the horizon that seemed to touch the sky.
And finally.
A wagon could be spotted crossing the meadow from west to east in the distance.
From this point on, my mind started to get complicated.
I wonder how to treat a strange oriental person.
A thousand thoughts crossed my mind, wondering if I would get shot if I kept going.
Still, he rode his horse and ran.
Slowly, slowly.
When the distance was about fifty meters.
The other person reacted immediately.
“Stop! If you come any closer, I’ll poke a hole in your body!”
A man in his thirties sitting on the horse’s back raised a rifle and made a threat. The woman next to him aimed her rifle, and there was a blatant hostility in the couple’s eyes.
‘It’s the West after all…’
A white couple who look ordinary but are armed with guns.
If you get any closer, he looks like he’s going to shoot you.
This would have been entirely possible in the Western era.
Instead of speaking to them, Yi Mak-san followed them, keeping a distance of about a hundred meters.
The white couple were concerned about what was behind them, but it was too risky to just shoot them out.
There was.
In addition, it soon joins the Oregon Trail, a wagon train lined road.
Until then, I just hoped there would be no problems.
Yi Mak-san kept a certain distance while looking at the rear of the carriage.
‘It’s really amazing.’
The stagecoach ‘Prairie Wagon’ that I saw at the museum a few days ago is rolling right before my eyes.
The four-horse carriage, shaped like a boat, had an open tent at the front and back, and because it was carrying a lot of luggage, it did not move very quickly.
Yi Mak-san considered the values of the white family in his head.
Information, connections, food.
The most important thing among these is, of course, personal connections.
Even if you found a village, it wasn’t easy to get in. To overcome the hostility of the white people, you had to have the skills to ignore it or build a reputation.
As things stand, there’s a good chance you’ll get shot if you stop by the village to get a drink of water.
Racial discrimination has not disappeared from American soil for a hundred years. Moreover, it was foolish to expect a white person who met him for the first time at this time to smile and greet an Asian person.
If you want to break into white society, you have to make connections in some way. That was the first thing you had to do in the West.
‘Connections with white people···’
When Yi Mak-san was deeply thinking.
A boy poked his head out of the carriage.
Then he looked at Mt. Imak through a long telescope.
“hi.”
Yi Mak-san waved his hand and added a capitalist smile.
But maybe the smile was too much.
The boy disappeared into the tent.
“Child, you are so embarrassing.”
But contrary to Yimaksan’s thoughts, the boy went to the front of the carriage and shouted.
“It’s a skinny skeleton monkey! The monkey that crossed the ocean to find gold!”
“Cornell. No matter what, don’t you think it’s a bit odd to call a person a monkey?”
“Everyone calls me that?”
“But you don’t have to do that too.”
The mother shook her head, and the father, James, took the telescope from his son.
“Hmm. Even the clothes are similar to ours, but you’re a coolie?”
The Orientals who came to dig for gold were called monkeys or coolies, which roughly means slaves.
After the black slave trade was banned, it referred to contract workers brought from China or India.
James looked at Mt. Imak through his telescope.
The front and back of the carriage’s tent were open, so I could see just by turning my body.
Underneath the cowboy hat, he is an Asian coolie with facial features and skin color that are unmistakable.
“······For now, what you said seems right.”
“Give it here.”
The wife snatched the telescope.
“That’s true, dear. It seems like the horse and clothes the author was riding were taken from someone else… Could it be that they’re after our belongings too?”
“Since he’s not coming any closer, let’s just wait and see.”
“I’ll be watching your back.”
The strange oriental man aroused extreme vigilance in the wife and son. It was a time when if they did not kill him, they would be killed instead.
