“Mm?? What is it—somehow it feels like my training is going a bit better than yesterday…?”
Like always, the moment he opened his eyes to train his breathing method, Sihyun habitually sat down in a cross-legged meditation posture.
And after running a few cycles of the Small Heavenly Circulation with the handful of internal energy he had left, he was feeling puzzled by the speed being different from yesterday.
Yesterday, even doing a single cycle had been insanely hard, so it was strange that it had become subtly easier in the meantime.
‘Even if my stats dropped, I trained martial arts for ten years. There’s no way I’m wrong.’
Sihyun immediately called up the status window.
“Stats.”
In an instant, it flashed, and a translucent window appeared in front of his eyes.
“Inner Power 12…? What. How is it this fast…?”
No matter how the Heavenly Demon Divine Art wasn’t called a divine art for nothing, was it really this effective?
To be precise, what he was using right now wasn’t one hundred percent pure Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Demonic Cult breathing methods built up energy fast, but the destructive nature of their energy was that strong, so once you reached a certain level, it wasn’t easy to handle. Even Heavenly Demon Divine Art—called a peerless divine art—didn’t escape that formula.
Because of that, how much had he suffered there?
So back then, with Taewoon and the system’s support, he’d mixed in a bit of a shaman’s breathing method that was especially outstanding in harmony, and created a weird divine art.
Of course, the results were excellent, and while it was already too late for him, he’d been able to pass this upgraded version of Heavenly Demon Divine Art to Taewoon before Taewoon’s level deepened.
So now that he’d been reset like this, he’d tried using it himself, and….
“This is seriously good, isn’t it?”
Even though he’d been a murim person, seeing his Inner Power increase quickly made his fingertips tingle, and his mood shot up fast.
Soon, even if it wasn’t the Profound Realm he’d reached before, it felt like he could get to the Flower Realm in no time.
“Still, I should eat first….”
Only then did Sihyun get up from the dust-covered floor and dust himself off with a couple of pats. Then he swept his gaze around, scratched his head lightly, and let out another sigh.
“No. I should clean first.”
If he ate in his current state, it felt like he’d carefully eat half rice and half dust, so Sihyun dragged his feet into the inner room where the vacuum was.
“Mm, it’s easier than I thought.”
Maybe he’d worried in advance because he wasn’t used to doing it, but once he started vacuuming, nothing happened like before—knocking something over, tearing the floor, things like that.
It just felt a little tiring because his body had returned to half an ordinary person.
In the first place, Sihyun hated bothersome things, and he hated going out even more.
No matter how the world worked now, he figured as long as he didn’t pay attention and just avoided it well, he’d be fine, so he wasn’t particularly confused.
He’d felt confused and wandered enough, and more than enough, by getting dragged into the game.
What he’d learned there was: don’t give, and don’t receive. So if he stayed like this, he believed he could live comfortably without any big twists.
“Crazy…. So this is what ramen tasted like. Wow, it’s so good.”
But after finishing the cleaning perfectly in his own way, Sihyun slurped down ramen while staring at the familiar number on his phone screen with an unreadable face.
Still, if you received a favor, paying it back several times over came before anything else.
In the first place, he’d been away from the house for three years. The jeonse contract should’ve ended, and there was no way groceries could be maintained this perfectly for that long.
But the water and electricity hadn’t been cut off, and it was especially strange that emergency food like ramen had been stocked.
‘Someone definitely managed the place… and in my tiny social circle, there’s exactly one person who’d stick their nose in this much….’
His fingertips hovered over the phone screen for a moment, then pressed down on the call button.
It was a call after ten years for him, even if it was three years in this world.
For no reason, his hands got sweaty. Sihyun hurriedly wiped his palms on his T-shirt, swallowed dryly at the boringly continuing ring tone, and—
Click.
-H-hello?! Hey, Jeong Sihyun, you crazy bastard!! Is this really Jeong Sihyun?! For real?!
But the moment the ring tone cut off, thick, filthy swearing burst out, and in the end, Sihyun couldn’t help puffing out a laugh and slowly wiping his face.
“Lee Hajung’s mouth is still filthy.”
-Hah, fuck, this lunatic, seriously!!! What the hell have you been doing, and now you show up?! No. Where are you—stay right there, don’t move. If you run again, I swear I’ll find you and kill you with my own hands.
“I’m home.”
-…You just wait….
Click.
Looking at the call that had ended abruptly before he could even answer properly, Sihyun snickered again and slumped forward weakly onto the table.
Hajung was his orphanage friend and buddy he’d been with since elementary school. Besides her, there had been two other friends, but he’d lost contact with them a long time ago.
Thirteen years ago—when he’d just become an adult—he’d been in a period where he looked at the world insanely pessimistically, because reality was colder than he’d expected.
He’d clung to a single dream of having his own home, living like he was isolating himself, and the people around him had slowly drifted away like that.
And yet, the one person who kept contact with him to the end was Lee Hajung. Of course, he’d never imagined she’d take care of things even during the time he was gone.
“Haah…. I was kind of awful back then.”
He’d thought there was no one who would look for someone like him, but realizing that wasn’t true made a strange relief rise up, along with guilt.
While clearing the empty pot, Sihyun lazily scrolled around his phone. Below a long list of ads and angry contacts saying they’d fire him, he saw the names of the other two friends who had contacted him again after hearing he’d disappeared.
A smile rose on Sihyun’s face on its own.
“I should contact them later too.”
Just then, while Sihyun was leisurely enjoying that bit of breathing room, he heard the sound of someone pressing a keypad, and then, with the follow-up di-ri-ring sound, the front door flung open.
“Hey! Jeong Sihyun!”
A woman with very vivid, bright red straight hair hanging long walked in like she was charging, wearing a dark suit and with a cloth covered in strange patterns draped over both arms.
“…What’s with your hair….”
“Wh-what…? No, this is because of my ability….”
Hajung, who’d looked like she was about to grab him by the collar and shake him hard, froze at Sihyun’s laugh-tinged comment, then her face flushed and she started trembling.
“Ah, fuck! You think I don’t feel embarrassed walking around like this?! But because of my ability, I can’t help it!”
‘Looks like she awakened.’
It wasn’t hard to figure out. He’d read that Hunters appeared, and “ability” had come up, so he’d assumed Lee Hajung had become a Hunter too.
“Sorry. For making you worry.”
“…You crazy bastard. Is that all? Hah, fine. When have you ever explained anything properly. I thought you ran off because you committed some crime or something….”
Lee Hajung let out a deep sigh, swept her bright red hair back, and flopped down into a chair.
Then she started inspecting Sihyun’s body from head to toe with sharp eyes.
“What.”
“Looks like you didn’t turn into a cripple anywhere…. So what the hell did you do for three years?”
“Ah…. I just went somewhere.”
“You think that counts as an excuse…. No, forget it. Just being alive is a miracle. Tsk.”
Since even he thought it was an insanely half-assed excuse, Sihyun gave an awkward little smile—then his face stiffened hard at Hajung’s next words.
“Jeongwoo and Hyeonseong died…. So I thought I was the only one left…. Huu.”
“What…?”
They were the remaining two among the four orphanage friends. Even though he’d cut contact later because of his selfishness, that didn’t mean he disliked them.
If anything, they were the only friends left who could still share the past with him.
Wasn’t he literally just a moment ago thinking he should contact them?
“An exploding Gate accident…. You know. It’s basically a natural disaster for ordinary people. Fuck. And of all times, it happened when I’d gone down to Busan….”
Sihyun couldn’t open his mouth.
Part of it was that he still didn’t know what a Gate accident even was in detail, but more than that, Hajung’s face looked like it might crumble at any moment, so even though countless words swirled in his head, he couldn’t form a single proper sentence.
“Anyway, you look fine, so that’s a relief. You don’t look like you’re planning to talk, either…. I won’t ask what you’ve been doing. So stop going dark and contact people more often, okay?”
“…I’m not like before. I contacted you first today, didn’t I….”
“Yeah, fine, I’ll believe you for now. And I ran out in the middle of work, so I have to go. Make sure you pick up when I call later, okay?”
“Yeah. Go already.”
When Sihyun waved his hand, Hajung—who’d been making a nasty face with her fist stuck out—snickered and turned around.
Watching Hajung’s back as she trudged out, Sihyun threw out a small line.
“And…. thanks. For taking care of the house while I was gone.”
“Ugh. Like you’d be the type to walk out without a word and die. And. If I didn’t even have this hope, I think I’d have a really hard time, so that’s why. Don’t worry about it. I’m going.”
Hajung rattled it off quickly without even turning back, and soon disappeared out the door.
The house that had been noisy for a moment settled back into silence. Sihyun let out a small breath and rubbed his forehead hard.
The news about Jeongwoo and Hyeonseong was a huge shock. The ten-year gap had taken away intense emotions, but even so, he couldn’t keep pretending he didn’t know this world anymore, using “it’s not my problem” as an excuse.
“By the way, am I the only one who can see the other person’s status window.”
Sihyun pressed the power button on the slightly old computer, stretched his drained body out long in the cushy chair, and briefly recalled what had happened earlier.