Psycho in Ancient World
Copyright© 2026 by K.W
Chapter 7. Commencement
Dong Bong-su decided to start by learning the language of this place first.
But if he tried to get used to it only by thinking in his head and learning it only by listening, it would take at least a year.
That was plenty of time for him—still in a weak state like this—to die.
He could be beaten to death by Machil, die after catching an infection, or die because of some completely unforeseen variable—there were countless possibilities.
He had to learn it fast.
One month. At the latest, within two or three months.
Even if reaching native level was unrealistic, he had to at least get to the point where listening, writing, and speaking wouldn’t be a problem.
Only then could he sharply raise his chances of survival.
But how, with no books and no teacher?
Swoosh.
He forced his somewhat recovered body to move and sat up.
Isn’t it simple?
If you don’t have it, you make it.
If you don’t have a book, you write one, and if you don’t have a teacher, you just become your own teacher.
‘I’ll make a language manual first.’
A manual is, of course, a book.
To make a book, he needed paper first.
There was no way something like paper would be in a stable.
He’d been looking around at this and that, and he’d found a suitable substitute.
By finding it, he secured not only a replacement for paper, but a replacement for ink as well.
Squeak squeak
The little bastards that had been disturbing his sleep every night.
They were rats.
They were what he’d been aiming for since his body hadn’t even fully healed.
He put it into action right away.
The rat bastards were quick here too.
But the reflexes of Dong Bong-su—now that he’d recovered to some extent—were even quicker.
More than anything, the weapon of civilization called a rat trap, made using rotten wood, straw, and stones, was sharper still.
For several days, he caught rats.
Dong Bong-su skinned the rats he caught, removed the innards from the meat, dried it well in the sun, and ate it.
He dried the hides even more thoroughly and used them like paper.
He squeezed out the rats’ blood without wasting a single drop, poured it into a pouch made from rat hide, and stored it in his inventory.
In the meantime, he also made something like a brush out of horsehair.
Because it was stiff, it wasn’t ideal for writing, but it was enough.
At a time like this, wasn’t even this much something to be grateful for?
In the course of all this, he also learned one new fact.
He’d killed dozens of rats, but the experience bar didn’t change at all.
Rats were animals worth zero experience.
Even so, he didn’t jump to the conclusion that all animals had no experience.
It could’ve been because rats were too weak.
He decided to put judgment on the ‘animals give no experience’ hypothesis on hold for now.
Now he had paper, ink, and a brush.
He carefully remembered what Machil grumbled and the conversations of the people who came to the stable, and when they were gone, he took out the rat hide, the horsehair brush, and the rats’ blood, and wrote down in Hangul the pronunciations he’d heard and the meanings he inferred.
After about another month, an archaic-chinese-style language manual—filled with tiny, ant-sized letters across dozens of sheets of rat hide—was complete.
If someone in the modern era saw this book, they might even feel it was pretty convincing.
It was that neatly written, and that well organized.
Who was it that said handwriting is the window to the heart?
That must be a lie.
Look at Dong Bong-su’s handwriting.
It’s perfect.
His writing was more straight and proper than anyone else’s in the world.
If you could judge a person by their handwriting, Dong Bong-su was a complete being.
No—maybe handwriting really is a reflection of the heart.
Because his heart would never waver, no matter when or where.
From the moment the manual was finished, Dong Bong-su began to let Machil see that his body had recovered.
Because by then, he could understand most of what was being said.
But he still pretended to be mute.
His pronunciation was still clumsy, and his ability to combine words was markedly inferior to the locals’.
Even if he became able to speak perfectly, this acting might continue.
If that was more suitable for hiding his true nature, then he should do it—no matter what.
“Ugh, you halfwit bastard. So you really did become a perfect mute.”
When Dong Bong-su still couldn’t speak even though he’d recovered, Machil started calling him Ma-a-sam.
Mabyeonsam had been an insult too, but Ma-a-sam was an even worse one.
Ma-a-sam.
A new name given to Dong Bong-su because he was “mute.”
He now had four names: Dong Bong-su, Sosam, Mabyeonsam, and Ma-a-sam.
Aside from Dong Bong-su, the other three were all “aliases” that everyone in the Danri Family used however they pleased.
No one knew he was Dong Bong-su.
Behind the mask, the alias, and the perfect act of being mute—his real face and his real name, even now...
No one knew.
Around the time the seasons changed and a slightly chilly wind began to blow,
Dong Bong-su was finally able to leave the stable and wander around inside the Danri Family grounds as he’d long intended.
Of course, there were still many restrictions.
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