"That thing is the spider from back then?"
MUTTER, MUTTER....
With the untimely appearance of an enormous spider cursed fiend, the whole village is in an uproar. At the center of the gathering were Black Spider and Gaeddong.
"What in the world is this...?"
The middle-aged village chief, who heard the news belatedly, came as well and gaped. The sight of Gaeddong sitting calmly and squarely atop a terrifying spider bigger than an ox was past bizarre and into the realm of stupefying.
But that absurd situation actually made the people calm down.
Since the situation made so little sense, they instinctively raked together every related ground in their memories in a hurry, in order to make sense of it somehow.
And as it happened, in the villagers' memories there clearly remained a shared recollection that could explain this spider cursed fiend's existence.
The old man Gok, a renowned physician who had once treated the patients of this village, and a spider the size of a puppy kept by Yu Ran, who was presumably his granddaughter.
If one said that spider had grown that big in the few years since they last saw it, then things roughly fit together.
And so the villagers accept it, for the time being. It might not be quite like a prodigal son come home, but was Black Spider not, in any case, a native returned to its home soil?
"Well, in any case.... Welcome back, then."
And so they even greet it warmly.
But beyond that, they did not know what they were supposed to do.
That was to be expected, since just as no one knew for what reason, where, and doing what this enormous spider had been living all this time, naturally no one knew why it had come back to the village either.
Just then, one young man of the village happened to recognize the hunchback puppet hanging at the spider's flank.
"Huh? Isn't that puppet Elder Physician Gok's?"
"That thing?"
"It is. I saw it once myself when I was little."
Most of the villagers seemed at a loss as to what this meant. That was to be expected, since the old man Gok had refrained from puppet arts in front of others.
Only a few among the young men recognized it. Long ago, at Yu Ran's whining, the old man Gok had gathered the children and performed a puppet play before them exactly once.
In any case, once even the old man Gok had been brought up, a certain context began to form among the villagers.
Black Spider might not be a person but a spider cursed fiend.
But even so, it had been raised for a time by the old man Gok, so as its filial duty as his child, would it not be right for it to visit its father's grave?
***
And so, after three years, Black Spider came to visit the Gok Family Clinic.
There was no longer any messy spilled blood or any smashed puppet fragments, but even so, since human presence had been cut off for a long while now, the residence was simply desolate.
Only, in one corner of the courtyard the old man Gok's grave had been prepared, and now and then young men of the village came and tidied it up.
Before that grave, Black Spider and the villagers who had come with it gather and stand.
Where the old man Gok had once been and what work he had done and what debts and grudges he had piled up, the villagers do not know. Judging by his end alone, there was every possibility that he had been a dreadfully wicked villainous fiend.
But it was also plainly the truth that over the past ten years he had settled and lived here, he had treated the sick without taking a single coin.
So to the villagers the old man Gok was simply a benefactor, and each of them bows his head with due courtesy. Even Gaeddong, who had been riding atop Black Spider, groans his way down and observes a silent moment quietly.
While the people paid their respects that way, Black Spider merely rolls its eyeballs round and round. This enormous spider only looks down at the small burial mound.
Death.
The deaths of cursed beasts are fleeting. It is ordinary to be eaten by a stronger opponent and leave behind not even a trace.
Human death, apparently, was a little different. The tinge of emotion the villagers show is unfamiliar. Black Spider's cognition reaches the principle of it.
They honor the dead with due courtesy. Understanding that context, Black Spider lowers its eyes. It bends its forelegs slightly and stoops its upper body a little, as though bowing.
There is no particular emotion in it. It merely grasps the situation mechanically and selects the appropriate action.
***
In any case, after that, discussion among the villagers continued over what to do about Black Spider.
For one thing, there was talk of how it would be only right for someone to take Black Spider in and look after it, but no one actually came forward readily to do so.
That was to be expected, since Black Spider was an enormous spider, and judging by its bulk alone it was obvious that its appetite would be immense as well.
For the villagers of a poor country hamlet this was not something they could bear, so their worry was natural too.
But this worry was soon resolved.
On the very next morning after Black Spider settled at the Gok Family Clinic, a few young men of the village brought a little raw chicken and the like to feed Black Spider, but Black Spider was nowhere to be seen.
They wondered at this, but the next day Black Spider brought back a hefty boar and dropped it with a thud in the courtyard of the Gok Family Clinic.
It seemed it had crawled all the way deep into the nearby mountains to hunt it, and it was a boar tough enough to be troublesome to hunt even if several grown men set on it together.
In any case, the villagers were relieved at the fact that Black Spider knew how to look after itself. But they still could not tell why Black Spider had come back to the village.
Judging by its settling at the Gok Family Clinic, it seemed to be something to do with the old man Gok, but there was no telling.
It was not as though a beast like that would know the duties of loyalty and filial piety.
Then one day, by chance, Gaeddong and the other young men of the village came to see Black Spider handling the puppet.
They had gone over meaning to look in on how Black Spider was getting on, as usual, and as it happened Black Spider was at that moment firing threads and moving the puppet.
"...Whoa."
Even to the eyes of ignorant village youths, Black Spider's puppet arts were astonishing.
The puppet danced freely at will, so that the sight of it was like a living human dancing.
After it had danced one full round that way, the puppet stopped its motions and sank down with a clatter, and only then did the puppet's condition come into the young men's view.
It was grievous.
Its body, which must originally have been clean, had grown worn and dirty here and there, with nicked parts all over.
Moreover one foot had a toe snapped off, so that it had been wound round and round with silk, and when Black Spider quietly unwound the thread, the severed toe fell right off with a clack.
And then Black Spider stared blankly at the young men. Since long ago, whenever Black Spider wanted something it would stare fixedly at the other party like this.
Only, since it could not speak, the way of it was for the other party to ask first and confirm whether it was so.
At this, Gaeddong suddenly realized something and cautiously opened his mouth.
"Ah, could it be that you.... came looking to get the puppet fixed?"
At this Black Spider raises one foreleg and wags it up and down. Only then did the young men understand why Black Spider had come to the village.
But though they understood, they had no means of helping.
Soon one of the young men went back to the village and got a key from the village chief. Then he opened the locked storehouse door of the Gok Family Clinic.
Inside, the fragments of puppets broken and smashed here and there had been gathered together in one place.
That was all. Beyond that there was nothing much.
Before long Black Spider understood the situation as well. From the start, with the old man Gok gone, this puppet could not be repaired.
Even so, for now this much was the best there was. Black Spider rolled its eyeballs round and round and examined the parts. It gauged in its head whether it could substitute and assemble the parts that were still sound.
The result was disappointing. Perhaps a few of the parts, if used well, could substitute for existing parts.
But in the end the specifications differed. Without additional trimming and shaving, some degree of discrepancy, large or small, would arise in the puppet's balance.
Even so, it was not an entirely bad thing.
In any case the young men of the village had come to understand Black Spider's intent, and they rolled up their sleeves and set about helping.
For one thing, there was no one in this village who knew how to handle puppets. Well, it was a hamlet without even one proper physician. When someone fell ill they had to go by way of one place and another to the large town to receive so much as an examination.
But even in that large town, though there were physicians, there was no one who practiced puppet arts, so such rare craftsmen could only be found by going to the capital city or a great city of comparable standing.
Of course, setting out on such a journey required a good deal of travel money as well. Moreover, this was a farming village. The autumn harvest season had arrived, and matters had reached the point where even children were helping the adults with odd jobs.
So even if the young men of the village wished to lead Black Spider to a city themselves, it was a difficult matter. And even if they did go there, it was not certain that there would truly be a craftsman in that city who could repair the puppet.
Around that time, as it happened, a peddler came to the village. It was not a peddling operation of any great scale, but a small one that went around various districts trading chickens and grain and the like.
That peddler showed interest on hearing about Black Spider. In truth, the tale of a spider the size of an ox that understood human speech and could even practice puppet arts was a bizarre matter that anyone would show interest in.
Of course, at the time of the conversation Black Spider was at the Gok Family Clinic and the peddler was having a drink at the village tavern, so he did not see it in person.
Only, according to what that peddler said, there was an outstanding puppeteer in a town about a fortnight's travel from this hamlet.
The puppeteer's skill was said to be so tremendous that from the outside, the puppets he made were identical to living people, and there was even a rumor that high officials and grandees who had lost a child early and fallen into despair would commission from him a puppet modeled on their child's likeness in life and pay great sums for it.
In any case, the peddler's point was simple.
Among the districts his peddling route would call at from now on was that town as well, so if that ox-sized spider and someone able to control it would travel that far with him and carry part of the freight, he would pay a hauling fee and, while he was at it, guide them to that town too.
Of course, this was a remark mixed with a certain amount of jest and bluster.
That was to be expected, since the peddler had had a fair bit to drink, and to him these hamlet folk's talk of a house-sized spider that understood human speech and handled puppets seemed no more than an amusing joke.
So he had thrown in exaggerations of his own and talked big, and yet the next morning, when he had sobered up and eaten a rough breakfast, a pitch-black spider carrying a country youth on its back really did turn up right there in front of him.
"Good day, Elder Peddler. My name is Gaeddong. And this is Black Spider."
As it happened, Gaeddong had injured his leg and could not do much as a working hand anyway, so he had no reason to turn down the peddler's offer, which even came with a hauling fee.
Besides, Gaeddong himself did not want to live as a country farmer forever.
Though the dream of becoming a martial artist might be difficult in this lifetime, a life of becoming a great merchant and making great money and living in style looked good as well.
Surely a man ought to hold a great dream. Gaeddong wanted to seize this opportunity and learn the skills of a merchant.
Since his purpose accordingly matched Black Spider's, the two of them had gone together to find the peddler from the morning on.
And so the village youth Gaeddong and Black Spider joined the peddling party and left the village.
***
Along the highway a wagon runs. But unlike other wagons, what pulls it from the front is not a horse but a spider the size of an ox.
That spider was pulling two wagons at once using tough silk, and though it had traveled a long while that way, it did not look the least bit tired.
Thanks to that, a surplus equal to four wagon-pulling horses arose, and it was a bonus that the peddler's journey this far was relatively more comfortable than before.
Of course, at first there were incidents of the horses being startled at the sight of the spider and going wild, but whatever the spider did, the horses soon settled down, and afterward the horses of the other peddling parties they met along the way did not make any particular fuss at the sight of the spider either.
In any case, from the peddler's standpoint it was not a bad business either. Though he had paid a hauling fee, along the way other peddlers and travelers who saw this strange spider cursed fiend showed interest and approached, and he had closed some decent deals with them.
After traveling about a fortnight that way, the peddling party arrived at the town it had aimed for.
At last Black Spider had arrived at the town said to hold a puppeteer of outstanding skill.