Was it when I was in middle school?
There was something my PE teacher once told me.
"Hey, you brat."
The teacher smacked my backside with a baseball bat. He did it because I'd beaten the living hell out of a gang of bullies who harassed me every day, calling me a penniless bastard.
"You've got a talent for physical work. But does that mean you should use it to beat people up? Yes or no?"
This was after I'd attended a boxing gym that offered a week of free lessons.
Apparently, one of those bullies was even training to become a boxer.
Hmm... They were all about the same, so I couldn't tell.
"You're smart, too. You should be studying instead. I reckon if you put your mind to studying, you could even get into Seoul National University."
If I'd listened to my teacher that day and devoted myself to studying, might I really have gotten into a good university in Seoul?
But I didn't.
I should've listened back then.
Still, I have no regrets.
Ever since I was little, I'd dreamed of being a carpenter.
A carpenter who built houses with a hammer in his hand!
It was all because of something my father had always told me.
Learn one trade well, and you'll never starve.
And so I never went to university.
After all, carpentry didn't require a degree.
As soon as I graduated from high school, I plunged headfirst into construction work to become a carpenter.
But becoming one was harder than I'd expected.
There were several kinds of carpenters, and the kind I wanted to be was someone who made beautiful interiors.
They were called interior carpenters, and it took at least one to three years just to find a crew willing to take you in.
It was as hard as getting hired by a major corporation.
For starters, I went from site to site, doing my best to catch the eye of an established carpentry crew.
Then, at twenty-two, after making my presence felt all over construction sites at such a young age, I caught the attention of a fairly skilled crew.
And so I was chosen.
Why do I say "chosen" like I was being granted some special favor? Because, to put it nicely, I lived like their butler. To put it less nicely, like a slave.
They claimed they couldn't teach their skills to every stray dog or cow that wandered in, and that they'd only teach someone who could endure the grueling work.
It was all bullshit.
Just excuses because they were afraid someone would steal their livelihood.
From what I'd seen, the world of carpentry was survival of the fittest.
When a talented young craftsman appeared, an older craftsman would immediately start losing work.
And if that younger craftsman was easy to communicate with, all the more so.
Jobs dried up the moment you fell even slightly behind.
Maybe that's why the foreman and my seniors were especially reluctant to teach me anything.
As the youngest member of the crew, all I did was arrive first every morning, tidy the site, and serve each man an expertly mixed instant coffee tailored to his tastes.
One time, I got the water-to-coffee ratio wrong.
The foreman, who'd arrived thoroughly drunk first thing in the morning, took one sip and hurled a hammer past my face.
Construction sites were far more primitive and barbaric than you'd think.
Vicious curses flew around, and so did hammers.
I put up with it, day after day, just to learn the trade.
While cleaning, I watched the others work and stole their techniques with my eyes.
Even while hauling as much as a ton of materials a day, I learned by watching them.
"You bastard! Can't you move your ass any faster?!"
Learning a trade really wasn't easy.
Well, what could I do?
This was the life I'd chosen. I'd just have to grit my teeth and endure it.
If only I had a good teacher, couldn't I become a skilled carpenter much faster?
That thought often sent me wandering from site to site, even on my days off.
But wherever I went, no one was willing to teach me their skills.
Finding a master was damn near impossible.
If one ever appeared, I'd serve him with all my heart.
When it came to getting along with people, I was damn good at it.
I knew how to read a room, prepare what was needed without being told, and take on the dirty work without a word of complaint.
Always ready for anything!
That's me.
Still, there was one thing I hated about carpentry.
Working away from home.
The hardest part of the job.
When you were sent away for work, you had to live in shared accommodations.
As the slave—no, the adorable youngest member of the crew—I had to get up before everyone else to make breakfast every morning and prepare dinner every evening.
And since most carpenters were alcoholics, I had to wait on them while they drank, too.
The foreman at least liked to proclaim himself a professional, so he didn't drink much at lunch, but come evening, he went wild like a horse let loose from its reins.
One or two bottles per person with dinner.
Then another two or three before bed.
During one forty-day assignment, the bill for alcohol alone came to an astonishing ten million won.
Since the youngest had to keep drinking whenever someone poured him a glass, carpentry made me feel as if I was drinking a lifetime's worth of alcohol.
Everyone showered their beloved youngest with so much affection I hardly knew what to do with myself.
A place where verbal abuse and violence ran rampant, and drinking, singing, and carousing were everyday affairs.
I'd endured five whole years in a place like that.
For one reason: to learn the trade.
Maybe they'd finally teach me something.
Maybe if I worked hard enough, they'd open their hearts and accept me!
But that damned foreman and those seniors never properly taught me how to do the job even once.
Damn it....
I had a knack for physical work, so I'd managed to reach a decent level just by watching.
But the fact that they refused to teach me caused me an incredible amount of stress.
And whenever I returned from an out-of-town assignment, that stress reached its peak, so I blew off steam through video games.
The genre was RPG.
The game's name was <World of Freedom>.
As the name suggested, it was a game with an extraordinary degree of freedom.
What happened in the game naturally depended on what the player did.
You could hunt, trade, or farm. It didn't matter.
Even in the game, I became a carpenter who built houses.
The reason was simple.
In real life, I was still the youngest hand on the crew, never properly taught a thing, but at least here I could live out my dream as an expert.
The race I chose was Barbarian.
With their great strength and stamina, they were perfectly suited to labor.
The downside was their low intelligence, which meant they couldn't use magic.
But in this world, as long as you had the money, people would teach you skills.
Hammering, sawing, even how to construct buildings.
They explained everything in great detail, down to the finest points.
It really felt as if I'd become a carpenter in medieval times.
The game was so historically accurate that it showed exactly how carpenters of old built houses.
I'd even used techniques I learned in the game at real construction sites.
Had the developers consulted some S-grade master carpenter or something?
The more I played, the more charming the game became.
I was practically ready to sing the praises of its developers for preserving every last detail.
Unless you positioned every nail correctly and matched the dimensions of your materials precisely, your building wouldn't come out right.
It was thanks to that attention to detail that I was able to improve.
When I learned techniques in the game and then went to work, even the foreman, who usually had nothing for me but abuse, occasionally tossed me a compliment.
But there were so many differences between medieval and modern techniques and equipment that there wasn't much I could actually put to use.
Even so, unlike reality, <World of Freedom> taught you whatever you didn't know, freely passing on every technique.
I was delighted that I could learn.
Even if the one teaching me was just a game NPC.
Sometimes I wondered.
Why do people learn skills?
No, why am I so obsessed with skills?
Just to make a living? Or to look better than everyone else?
I felt a little differently.
Skill was proof of one's existence.
And the ability to survive.
Anyone could make something with their hands, but making it well meant changing the world in a way that only "I" could.
Whether that meant driving in a single nail or finding a way to open a single door.
That was how skill bore witness to a person's life.
You could tell just by looking at their hands whether they'd ever done real work.
That was why I was so obsessed with the word "skill."
Not simply to earn money.
But to survive.
But what was the point of thinking like that?
My crew wouldn't teach me a damn thing.
The foreman should be like the characters in that game and teach me every technique without holding back.
No, better yet, it'd be nice if I could just enter the game and live there. Then I'd be able to learn skills whenever I wanted.
If I could be reborn, I'd want to be born a barbarian.
And I'd want to spend my life there holding a hammer, too.
Unlike people in the real world, barbarians didn't try to swindle one another. They were all simple and guileless.
They lived solely to improve their combat skills.
That was probably why I was the only player who'd chosen carpentry as a profession for a Barbarian character.
Most players used them exclusively for combat.
Anyway, I didn't need to worry about any of that now.
"Heh heh."
Once this next assignment was over, I'd finally get to learn the trade!
Two of the older guys on our crew had decided to break off and form their own team.
That meant the foreman needed someone useful, so he'd told me he would finally teach me the skills.
And tomorrow was the day.
***
"Kid, bring over some two-by-fours and furring strips!"
"Yes, sir!"
"And bring about fifty sheets of plasterboard over here."
"Right away!"
Today, as usual, I hauled about a ton of materials to where they were needed.
It was exhausting, but I was in a good mood.
The thought of finally being able to learn the trade once this assignment was over kept putting a smile on my face.
Counting my time doing general construction work, it had been a full eight years.
For eight years, I'd done nothing but work without receiving any proper instruction.
I'd learned just how valuable an asset a skill could be.
Some people might think a carpenter was just another construction laborer, but that wasn't true.
Interior carpentry was a skilled profession.
It was a job where you had to pay attention to even a single millimeter, and the finished product varied depending on your skill and construction methods.
"Come on, hurry up so we can get back to the mainland."
This assignment was on Jeju Island.
Beautiful scenery, a refreshing sea breeze, people passing by with smiles, couples kayaking across the sparkling sea. It was a perfect place.
If only I weren't working here.
I couldn't enjoy the beautiful scenery while I was stuck working.
Still, I was happy.
"You bastard! Pay attention!"
"I'm sorry!"
I'd been scolded for letting my eyes wander toward the people and the view for a moment.
My senior had only scolded me because he was worried I'd get hurt.
It absolutely wasn't because he was always angry.
When you thought about it, the members of my crew seemed even more barbaric than the Barbarian character in the game.
They got angry, cursed, and fought whenever they were in a bad mood.
Come to think of it, these guys were the real problem.
"Hey, go attach this and come back. Then we're done for the day."
"I'll get it done quick!"
POP! POP! POP! POP!
The sound of the nail gun firing filled Jeju's beachfront.
Passersby glanced over as they walked past.
But I didn't have time to pay attention to them.
Precision without sacrificing speed.
Something was sticking out of the wall.
If I worked over it as it was, it'd definitely cause problems.
I had no choice but to take out my hammer.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
I hammered hard at the protruding section to flatten it.
As I struck the frame with force, it felt as though the entire three-story building was shaking.
Then it happened.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"
"Look out!"
I looked up at the urgent shouts and saw something falling from the height of the third floor.
CRUNCH!
There was a tremendous sound, and my vision blurred.
The last thing I saw was a hammer lodged in my head.
Ah, I was finally going to learn the trade.
If I died like this, it'd be too unfair to bear.
I can't let it end like this!
But my consciousness faded into darkness.
And when I opened my eyes again, I'd been reborn as a barbarian.