Cardboard House Doesn’t Tear 3

T/N: Chapters 0-2 retranslated

Chapter 3

A Belated Discovery of Career Aptitude

The day of liberation arrived.

I hurriedly got up from the straw bed and headed towards his office.

The afternoon hallway, as usual, was enveloped in a tranquil atmosphere, with dust motes dancing in the sunlight filtering through the opaque windows.

But today, it felt unusually refreshing, and I was filled with emotion.

In the usual musty office, Hwaruan was waiting for me, sitting at his desk by the window.

“Hwaruan.”

“Ase.”

I approached him and shook his hand. And finally, I asked.

“Is it over now?”

“Of course. You’ve worked hard. Ase, your body looks somewhat decent compared to 5 years ago.”

Hwaruan’s unusually gentle tone, like a drill instructor on graduation day, felt strange.

“Naturally, who taught me?”

But I agreed.

As he said, I had become stronger.

My body used to be flabby, with a beer belly and cellulite poking out here and there, from attending classes during the day and entertaining professors in the evening.

But my current body, honed by Hwaruan’s hellish training and countless battles on the brink of death, was different.

My entire body, now in its 30s in this different world, was filled with a vitality I hadn’t felt even in my early 20s.

“Ase, don’t get cocky. You’ve just improved a little.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“If you’re grinning from ear to ear like that, and I couldn’t even notice, I should quit being a mercenary and raise sheep instead.”

He chuckled and replied.

“Come to think of it, you’re not Ase anymore. What was your name again? Kim Pyeong…”

“Please don’t make innocent people’s names explode and call me Golf-eong Jihouse*.”

I had carefully folded away the past in my heart, keeping it safe until I needed to unfold it again.

Meanwhile, Hwaruan’s expression changed slightly as he heard my otherworldly name.

“Cardboard House? What the hell kind of name is that? Is it the name of the orphanage you were in?”

“Golf-eong, Jihouse. Please don’t make fun of my name.”

Actually, it was Cardboard House. I had given it a slightly orientalist, Far Eastern aristocratic feel.

Kim Pyeong-ju (金怦宙). A good name, chosen with good words, containing the wish to become a good person.

But the invincible 90s nickname-making method, where if your last name was Kim, your nickname became Kimbap, and if your last name was Park, you became Park Hyeokgeose, prevailed, and my nickname became Golpanji, using only the first consonants.

• Hey, Golpanji. I saw your Chinese characters, and it says ‘house’? Cardboard House?? Are you homeless??

• Aeee~ Aeee~ He lives in a cardboard house~

• Pyeong-ju’s house is~ a Cardboard House~ Even homeless people don’t live there~ It’s a beggar’s house~

But the moment a kid who had aced the Hanja (Chinese characters) test the day before added his pure malice, I suddenly became a homeless child, and my nickname from elementary school onwards became Cardboard House. That damn Minsik, the early adopter guinea pig.

It was a name that encapsulated the nostalgia of my childhood. I couldn’t exactly name myself Baby Kim or Deer, could I?

“This crazy bastard. Using a title in the middle of your name?”

But it seemed our Hwaruan didn’t appreciate my naming sense. How sad.

“Ase, were you a noble by any chance?”

“I guess you could say that?”

In my neighborhood, it was rare to find a family that wasn’t royalty or yangban (aristocracy). So I thought I could use it too, right?

“But you’re not here, are you? You’ll get in trouble with the nobles for using a middle name like a commoner.”

“Hmm. Then what would be good? Gainer Cashnip?”

“Instead of some scary, unknown name, just put that title or whatever it is in front and call yourself Golpion. Golpion Jihouse.”

I agreed. Even I thought it was a bit much. What am I, Southeast Asian?

Anyway, from today onwards, Kim Pyeong-ju, the graduate student of otherworldly history, disappeared until he returned to Earth, and only Golpion Jihouse, the free man of this world, remained.

For some reason, the flame of hope in my chest grew, but it was quickly extinguished by Hwaruan’s words.

“So, what are you going to do with your life now?”

Ah.

“…I don’t know.”

I had only thought about the most important goal and hadn’t considered the next important thing.

Let’s think for a moment before giving him an answer.

My major was humanities, specifically the history of Earth, which was another world in this world.

Moreover, I hadn’t gone back in time, and there was nothing I could do in this different world, which was a patchwork of elements from various eras.

Plus, I wasn’t a revolutionary or an ambitious person. I just wanted to live quietly, ride the flow of time, return to Earth, and revise and submit my thesis.

It’s been 5 years, and I’m still having nightmares about my thesis being fossilized, not about killing people?

Imagine waking up from a dream where your professors and lab mates call you an “idiot” and say, “This person is not a member of our lab, desu.” Damn it, it would drive anyone crazy. That’s why I spent my sleepless nights swinging a sword instead.

Therefore, my ultimate goal since being thrown into the snowy field has been one and only one.

Submit the revised version of my thesis after dimensional travel.

It’s been 5 years, how am I going to revise and submit it? I’d have to warp the timeline too.

Dimensional travel is already difficult enough, how can I warp the timeline too? But if I can’t, I can’t submit my thesis?

People commit suicide for the most trivial reasons, and it’s not like I’m going to kill myself because I can’t handle this. I can transcend worlds and warp time to change my mistakenly submitted thesis into a revised version, can’t I?

It’s not like I’m going to study hard right now and learn dimensional travel magic.

If I wanted that kind of development, I should have been thrown into Hogwarts or the College of Winterhold. It was wrong from the start.

To take someone who only served 2 years of public service as their military duty, throw them into a snowy field, make them roll around on the battlefield as a slave for 5 years, and then tell them to “learn dimensional travel magic!” Does that make any sense?

If that’s the case, they should have thrown me in front of an academy or a gymnasium, a place overflowing with knowledge and youth. The title could be “I became a Yellow Monkey Thrown into the Middle of an Academy.”

If an academy is too much, they could have just sent me to a university. These days, protagonists who are archaeologists in different worlds are all the rage.

Let’s get back to the main point. I don’t have any skills.

I can’t use magic, I can’t feel mana, and I know almost nothing about this different world.

All I’ve learned is how to use a sword and a bow.

Cheat ability? I only have the ability to translate the language of the people in this different world.

Status window? I don’t have that. Status window. Status window. Spicy fish stew.

This is the bleak situation. I’m truly fucked.

“I, I don’t know what to do right now. Should I pack my things and leave?”

“Ha.”

Hwaruan sighed.

“So, you’ve lived for 5 years swinging a sword without knowing what to do next? You have no sense of agency in your life. How did you even get here from the Far East, Ase?”

“It’s quite strange to hear that from someone who made me diligently swing a sword for 5 years, Hwaruan.”

“Who told you to become a slave? I’ve seen many idiots in the 30 years I’ve been a mercenary, but you’re the first idiot I’ve seen who willingly entered a slave transport carriage.”

“Congratulations. You’ve discovered a new type of idiot. But how could I have known that that crazy transvestite was a slave trader? And if it weren’t for that, I would have frozen to death. It was actually a wise decision.”

Ignoring my passionate protest, Hwaruan chuckled and waved his hand dismissively.

“Forget it, you idiot. I’ll give you three choices. Whether you’re useless or not, you’re still my disciple.”

Hwaruan placed two papers on the desk.

A mercenary group application form and a letter sealed with wax.

He picked up the application form first.

“First, as you know, this document is an application form to officially join our Hwaruan mercenary group. Honestly, a promise is a promise, so I was going to let you go, but honestly, it’s a shame.”

“Excuse me? What’s a shame?”

What just came out of the mouth of that heartless bastard? Is he saying it’s a shame that I’m leaving after he’s squeezed every last drop of value out of me?

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Hwaruan tapped the armrest and continued speaking.

“I’ve recruited and seen many mercenaries come and go in my time, but I haven’t seen a promising talent like you in the last 20 years. The guy before you wasn’t as good as you.”

“Not the first?”

“……”

“……”

In the ensuing silence, Hwaruan looked at me as if I were an idiot and carefully opened his mouth.

“Ase. Have you ever been hit in the head by my sword?”

I tried to count on my fingers, but gave up because there were too many.

“Let’s see, it seems to happen at least a hundred times, can I request permission to ask if I can ask for approval to deliberate on whether I can ask for permission to tell you the exact number?”

“You little shit, stop being pathetic and just let the past go.”

Hwaruan waved his hand dismissively and replied.

“Anyway, your talent is rare. You have a good physical base with your height, bone thickness, hand size, and lower body, and you adapted to my hellish training remarkably quickly and survived 5 years on the battlefield.”

I had to adapt to survive. I worked my ass off to keep up.

Hwaruan asked with a curious expression.

“You’re fast, you can endure hunger, so you seem to have patience. You rarely forgot anything I taught you, so you must have been a former agent, right? Which side were you on?”

Wow, his memory is amazing. A few months ago, he kept asking me what I did with my physique, and I jokingly said I was an elite agent from the Far East, and he actually remembered.

Now it was time for some bullshitting. I licked my lips. If I was going to brag, I had to do it right.

I looked around for a moment and spoke in a low voice.

“Between you and me, have you ever heard of a social service worker directly under the Military Manpower Administration?”

“Military Manpower Administration? Social service worker? Never heard of them. I didn’t even know such an organization existed in the Far East.”

Hwaruan scratched his chin at my question.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a problem if Hwaruan knew.”

I prepared a more comprehensive lie and started my story.

“When society collapses, we rise. That was our unit motto.”

Sorry, Mr. Tom Clancy. I bought and played The Division 2, so please forgive me.

“Oh. You were part of a secret organization.”

“Elite agents who hide their identities and engage in menial and unpleasant tasks at the lowest levels of society, enduring for the crisis that may come one day.”

I lowered my voice, paused, and continued.

“In the Far East, they call us social service workers. And I was one of the elite social service workers, highly regarded even within the Military Manpower Administration, the organization that manages them.”

Hwaruan asked with interest.

“Oh, but why was your body in such a state? When I first saw you, you had a good physique, but you had the body of an ordinary person, not an agent.”

I knew that question would come.

I spent about 6.974 seconds coming up with an alibi and opened my mouth.

“There’s a story behind that.”

I spun a freshly fabricated tale.

To summarize, it went like this:

Strength comes with a price. Even in the Far East, a land of warriors where almost all young men serve in the military, the social service workers, chosen from among a select few, each bear a “price” on their bodies.

For example:

• Some gain invincible defense and a deterrent force that prevents anyone from approaching them, but their entire body becomes obese.

• Some possess extreme speed that no one can match, but their entire body becomes dwarfed.

• Some can see the other side of the world, but their minds become unstable.

These prices often last a lifetime, even after completing military service and retiring from agent duties.

But I overcame it, and as a result, my body returned to its normal state.

However, the original base, like the intuition from my agent days, remained to some extent, which explained my adaptability to the aforementioned training and my excellent memory.

…That’s roughly how I explained it, and Hwaruan, of course, believed it.

It was a cliché narrative that sounded like it came straight out of a generic fantasy novel, but it was true that I was an excellent social service worker, and it was also true that I had lost 33kg through my own willpower despite being a “piggy” (a derogatory term for overweight soldiers in the Korean military).

My speed was also a result of walking like crazy back then, and my ability to endure hunger was also an effect of the diet I had been on since then.

What does good memory have to do with dieting or public service?

There’s no other reason. It’s just something I’m good at.

Anyway, after hearing the story of the secret agent from the East, Hwaruan had the expression of a new employee who had accidentally overheard trade secrets on their first day.

“But if I know this, won’t I get stabbed in my bed while I’m sleeping? This sounds like a secret from the Far East. My pillow is already stuffed with metal.”

“Did the person who was worried about that ask where I worked? This is a story that only a very small number of people in the Far East know, so as long as you keep your mouth shut, that won’t happen. Rest assured.”

“Phew. Thank goodness.”

Hwaruan patted his chest as if relieved and said.

“Ase, seriously, don’t go around telling that story to anyone who asks. I don’t usually give this kind of advice, but I’m really worried about you.”

“Anyway, it’s a secret.”

“It’s ‘shit,’ you little shit. Back to the main point. What are you going to do in this barren North after you leave? Shepherd? I won’t allow that. You’re a kid who should be cutting people’s throats, not sheep.”

“I think the kid is a bit too old for that.”

If there’s a kid this big, one of the parents must have had relations with a giant. Maybe they’re a giant couple. Isn’t that a truly monstrously correct statement?

“Don’t talk back. With your skills, you’ll be able to earn the title of ‘Double Mercenary’ within 3 years, at most. I guarantee it.”

I was dumbfounded by Hwaruan’s words.

What the hell is a Double Mercenary, and is he saying I’m worthy of becoming one?

“Double Mercenary? Me?”

“Yes, you idiot.”

In this different world where Caffè Mocha and magic coexist, guilds and ranks naturally exist as well.

The symbol of otherworldly romance, the primary subcontractor of love and justice, the Adventurer’s Guild, has ranks from Bronze to Grand Master.

And the symbol of otherworldly ruin, the mouthpiece of power and mercenary thugs, the Mercenary Guild, has ranks from F to SS (not the Nazis).

And each guild has its own titles. Hwaruan said so, so it must be true. I don’t know much about this world.

Anyway, there are special titles unique to the Mercenary Guild, and Double Mercenary is one of them.

“Double Mercenary…”

“Yes, it’s the one you’re thinking of.”

Double Mercenary. More precisely, this title, added after the rank like “A-rank Double Mercenary,” is a symbol that even those who treat mercenaries as money-hungry murderers show respect to. Otherwise, a knife would be flying towards their head.

Anyway, these Double Mercenaries are, as the name suggests, the model taxis of the mercenary world, who receive at least double the industry average as their minimum wage, and are specialists in chaos and mayhem, officially recognized by the Mercenary Guild.

But the only condition for a taxi passenger to demand double the fare is to ask them to cover a 15-minute distance in 5 minutes, right?

Receiving double the money means having the skills to meet the demanding conditions.

Therefore, it involves tasks that would usually be suicidal for ordinary mercenaries.

Escorting merchants through dangerous areas, acting as a commissar to prevent demoralized allies from fleeing during battle, close-range reconnaissance of enemy territory, infiltrating and striking key facilities, breaking through the front lines at the start of a battle, and protecting the army’s flag and key personnel.

In short, they do all sorts of shitty and difficult tasks as long as you pay them.

It’s a glorious title given only to those crazy killing machines who would pick up a mace instead of a rattle at an otherworldly baby’s first birthday party and immediately start swinging it.

“Of course, that’s if you choose the mercenary group application form. And this is…”

Hwaruan pushed the wax-sealed letter towards me.

“This is a letter of recommendation to the academy. As you know, I have some influence, so I get these from time to time.”

‘What the hell, going to an academy at the age of 33…’

I swallowed the words that rose to my throat.

And I resented someone I didn’t know.

If they were going to do this, why didn’t they just send me to this world when I was exactly 20 years old? Then I could have gone to the academy and become “The Black-Haired Freshman Sword Saint of the Academy.”

What kind of hipster disease did the person who sent me have, to take a humanities graduate student, already a slave in reality, and send them to another world on the day they submitted their master’s thesis to become a slave mercenary?

“But I’m over 30 years old. If I go there at this age, people will just call me senile.”

“Huh?”

Hwaruan was startled to hear the age of the slave who hadn’t spoken for 5 years. I intentionally didn’t mention it because I felt old saying 31, 32. He didn’t ask either.

“What the fuck? You’re that old? I heard people from the Far East age slowly, and it’s true.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know I was this old either. Was it the same for Hwaruan?”

“Oh, shut up. But you look so young? I thought you were just over 20.”

It might sound narcissistic, but I had heard many times that I looked very young, both from the people in the mercenary group and from others I met while working.

People who didn’t know I was a slave wondered why I was working as a mercenary at such a young age.

During those busy times, when survival was paramount, I just thought that this different world was full of kindness, with people talking nonsense to others.

‘But 20 years old is a bit much, isn’t it? These guys are too caught up in their fantasies about East Asians.’

Are these otherworldly bastards reincarnations of imperialistic orientalist ghosts who were baptized in the Thames River from birth?

“Don’t even think about putting gold paint on a man. It’s a bit creepy.”

“Are you crazy? Is that face really in its 30s? I should have been born in the Far East.”

“You should have. If you were Hwaruan, you wouldn’t have been dragged here as a slave by a crazy transvestite. Anyway, what happens if I accept that invitation?”

“What do you mean? You go to the academy, take classes, earn money with your own strength to pay tuition, and study your ass off. I’m not obligated to pay for you, am I?”

As expected. I shouldn’t accept that.

“Well, even if you receive the invitation, you’ll have to take some tests, but with your skills, you’ll pass with flying colors.”

But which academy is it for? Is it a place where noble children go?

“Hwaruan, what’s the name of the academy?”

“Royal Army Academy of Armia-“

“No. That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

Sending me to the military here?

“Ase. Do you think it’s easy for a foreigner to become an officer in the Britannian Central Army? Whatever. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

Hwaruan put the letter of recommendation back in his pocket and grinned. As if he knew I would say that.

If I didn’t want to be a mercenary or a soldier, there was a third option.

With that, Hwaruan pointed to the door.

“Leave the room, wander around this world, and live freely.”

Hwaruan pointed at me again. More precisely, at my hand.

“I will release you as promised. I won’t bind you with force, and I won’t try to coerce you.”

The dusty, musty office echoed with the convictions of a man who had lived his entire life that way.

“Even if you leave here, you’ve learned things from me, so you can make a living doing manual labor. But, if you leave without knowing what to do, you’ll probably end up back in the North as a mercenary.”

He was right. When people don’t know what to do, they choose what they’re relatively good at.

Just like I chose graduate school.

“I don’t expect you to stay here forever. You can leave whenever you want after a certain period, so why not work as a mercenary here and save some money?”

“…..”

I made up my mind.

I would work here and save up to 3 silver coins, and in the meantime, gather information on where to go.

3 million won as seed money for a world trip. It’s not much, but it’s still money. But what can I do?

I don’t have any money.

“Hwaruan. I can leave whenever I want, right?”

“Ase, you know I don’t lie with contracts, money, or swords.”

Hwaruan smiled his signature smile as I reached out and took the application form. It was the victorious smile he always wore after winning a negotiation.

“Then sign it, Mr. No-Plan!”

“Golpion Jihouse… is now an official mercenary of the Hwaruan mercenary group…”

As I looked at Hwaruan’s face after signing, someone else’s face overlapped with his.

“Well. Do you think you made the right decision?”

‘Yes. Pyeong-ju, you made the right decision. Don’t you think so?’

It was Professor Oh, who had invited me out for a steak and then asked about my career path, suggesting that I come to graduate school and pursue a doctorate with him.

Come to think of it, both then and now, I seemed to have been agonizing over predetermined choices.

Couldn’t I have just become an adventurer-

“Now then, welcome back, Ase!!!”

Rip!

Only after Hwaruan quickly snatched away the signed contract, as if there were no retractions, did I realize.

Ah. I’ve been tricked by a professor again.

***

“Golf-eong Jihouse”: Golpion Jihouse

• “Golpanji” : His real name, Kim Pyeong-ju (김평주), when written in Hanja (Chinese characters), contains the character for “house” (宙). This led to his childhood bullies calling him “Golpanji House” (골판지(Golpanji) 하우스(house)) – “Golpanji” being a shortened, slangy version of “cardboard.” 

• “Golf-eong” : He tries to elevate this childhood nickname into something more “exotic” and “aristocratic”. He adds “-eong” to “Golpanji,” mimicking the common “-eong” sound in Korean names (like Pyeong-ju itself). This creates “Golf-eong,”(pronounced also as Golpion) which he thinks sounds more impressive.

• “Jihouse” : He keeps the “House” part from his nickname, but transliterates it directly into English as “Jihouse.”