“—Hey, hey~ how long are you gonna keep fucking sleeping? Get up already!”
A buzzing voice rumbled right next to my ear.
What the hell? Whose folksy grandpa voice was that?
“—You little punk, son of the Mountain King Mother of Jirisan who inherited the energy of Taebaek, why are you so pathetic? Wake up! Get your head straight before other bastards notice!”
A thunderclap exploded inside my eardrum.
“Wh–who’s there?!”
I jolted up.
—or tried to. I only felt myself flailing.
My mouth opened, but my body didn’t move a millimeter.
It felt like I was wrapped up tight in sticky spiderwebs.
“—You don’t need to know anything yet. Just wake up, you rotten brat! If you slept that damn much, then get up! The sun’s already rising!”
I didn’t even know him, but he was yelling at me like I owed him money.
“—Still, you did good. You threw away your own life and built up a huge piece of good karma. Heh heh, I rubbed the Heavenly Lord’s Mirror of Heaven-Reversal with everything I got from buying your life, and woke you up.”
Mirror of Heaven-Reversal?
He was saying things that made zero sense, ringing in my ears like echoes.
Wait—what? Didn’t I… die?
My mind was blank.
In that fog, the last thing I remembered surfaced.
Kkiiiiiiiik!
Kwaaang!
Bbeok!
The scream of a slamming brake.
The burned-rubber stench of tires skidding.
People shrieking their lungs out.
And the crunch of my stone-hard skull cracking—way too vivid.
Just earlier that evening, I’d filled my stomach with an extra-large cup rice and wandered through Noryangjin.
July 2020, the year that reflected the times.
Greasy, unwashed youths who hadn’t shampooed for days drifted like zombies toward cram schools.
The world in 2020 was harsher than ever.
Factional wars across the Middle East, the U.S., Europe, and China had intensified.
International interests clashed, trade retaliation escalated, and export routes were blocked.
Household debt hit new records every day. “Safe asset” real estate had completely lost its mind.
Everywhere—the internet, the news—people whispered that Korea was facing a second IMF crisis.
Huge companies and small ones alike were collapsing. There was almost nothing an individual could do.
America tightened its safeguard measures, and China’s trade barriers aimed at crushing Korea were massive.
Caught between them, South Korea was nothing but a sandwich nation.
Namu Amitabul. Amen…
And then—fuck!
The securities firm I worked at went bankrupt.
In IMF-crisis-like conditions, the company went belly-up, and so did I.
I was this close to becoming a full-time employee!!!
I tried to find another job, but companies were evaporating like foam melting in the sun.
I settled in Noryangjin—the refugee camp for lost youths.
I aimed for a Level-9 civil service job, but the difficulty was practically bar-exam-tier.
I was starving, so I scraped together my remaining money for another extra-large cup rice.
After eating, I wanted to see the Seoul skyline from the Hangang one last time.
Tomorrow, I’d have to head back home to the countryside.
Seoul was bone-dry of part-time jobs too.
My final Seoul supper.
Dozens of people dove into the Hangang every day—my one extra body wouldn’t change anything.
Enjoying the unfamiliar fullness in my stomach, I dragged my cheap slippers along the sidewalk.
Ahead of me walked a lower-grade elementary kid.
Still clueless about the world, he hummed a cartoon theme song.
In one hand he held his phone, nose buried in a game.
Must be nice~.
A jobless bum like me, and a kid whose job is simply “student”—total opposites.
I wished him happiness. Someone like him shouldn’t end up like me.
The light was green.
The kid and I crossed side by side.
Despite staring at his phone, he followed the signal perfectly.
Then I saw it.
A red sports car blasting through the red light like a Siberian red bear that hadn’t eaten for a month.
Holy shit… my soul got shaken clean out of me—my body froze solid like limestone.
I saw the plate.
5882.
Damn it! Looked like it meant “Oppa, hurry up and die.”
The humming stopped.
The kid also saw the incoming car, and froze like he was playing freeze-tag.
He was in danger.
I’d lived long enough, but he hadn’t.
I threw myself forward!
No time to think.
Ka-yah! I would snatch the kid away with lightning speed like in the movies—
Bullshit!
In movies, your body moves like lightning. In real life? Total crap!
My feet wouldn’t lift, stuck like they’d been glued down with industrial-strength bonding adhesive.
I stared blankly at the hell-bound sports car as my body ignored my will.
We were about to become classmates in the afterlife.
And then—like a lie—my foot moved.
Even on a stomach full of cup rice, strength surged through me.
I wrapped the kid in my right arm.
It was already too late for us both to dodge.
Using the recoil, I threw him.
The kid flew toward the roadside.
Kkiiiiiiiiiik!
A horribly late brake shrieked across the road.
KWAANG!
A firework exploded.
And then I was flying like a bird.
My breath caught.
Strangely, my body didn’t hurt at all.
My damn soul must’ve bailed before me.
Then—pick!
My skull shattered like a cracked stone.
Because I’d grown up hearing people call me “stone-head,” I didn’t die instantly.
There was no pain, but I vaguely saw dark-red blood pooling on the asphalt.
People screaming as if their throats would tear, the hideous stench of burning tires.
And then, a long, long blackout swallowed everything.
“—Listen carefully! Those brats who only love their precious little kids—those snake-spawn descendants of Nüwa and the emperor—smash them all! And the children of Nagi and Nami, who stole my brother’s fire and crawled into bed with the snakes—break them too! I stayed quiet and now these things think I’m some millennium-old pushover! Ahh! They’re not even worth a fistful…”
Whack!
His furious nonsense echoed.
My mind grew clearer.
Wait—hold on. I’m… not dead?
I couldn’t smell anything, feel anything. No pain at all.
But the buzzing voice was annoyingly loud.
‘Who are you?’
I asked the mysterious being.
My mouth didn’t move, but apparently telepathy worked.
“—You’re the firstborn. You have to show those bastards what the dignity of a firstborn looks like! Got it?”
Firstborn? Well, I am the eldest son, but… do you know me?
It was a voice I’d never heard before.
My real grandfather passed away when I was little.
“—Ah, these sly, conniving snake and shadow brats are going to burst my liver. I made you all heavenly descendants, and you wag your tails at the neighbor’s mutts?! Those damned neighbor mutts are laughing at us!”
His thunderous roar rattled my eardrums.
Vivid as if he were alive, but completely indecipherable.
Whatever it was, he was pissed.
And yeah—his personality was no joke.
“—Listen… never forget today. Don’t go around playing saint and forgiving your enemies like you’re Jesus or Buddha! Don’t you dare pull that dumb holy-man crap!”
Yes, yes~ I’m barely scraping by here, sir.
I sold that kind of self-sacrificing kindness years ago to buy instant noodles.
Jesus and Buddha appeared in his speech, like he was buddies with them.
“—A useless bastard is useless forever! Keep that in mind! Crush those snake and shadow bastards so they never dare act up again! Burn away the pent-up rage I’ve held for thousands of years! Otherwise…”
You’ll be dying under me for half a millennium, got it?!
His threats sucked.
I was already dead—couldn’t die twice.
“—Well, I’m off.”
The grandpa who’d been beating his own drum announced he was leaving.
Not that I cared.
My head was still a mess.
“—Ah! And before I go, I left you a little gift.”
Go? Where? And what gift?
He sounded like a scammer.
What, do even grim reapers run voice-phishing now? Suspicious as hell.
A hundred questions flashed and vanished.
“—It shouldn’t be allowed, but you’re so damn incompetent I stuffed it in. Still! Son of the Mountain King Mother of Jirisan, getting your ass beat by kids and getting blown up—what shame! Anyway, live well, kid! Human life in this so-called hundred-year era is short as a mayfly’s nose hair. Make some noise, enjoy life as you please~ just handle what I told you to do and then do whatever your heart pulls you toward…
Live~. After living life, I realized it’s nothing special~.”
Holy shit.
That grandpa was definitely crazy.
The chance of me coming back to life with my skull smashed open was zero.
But even if I died, I felt proud.
I’d never had a chance to do good in life, and I finally did something big.
I saved the kid…
And since it was a crosswalk accident, my parents would get a nice chunk of insurance money.
I might be a disgrace of a son, but Mom, Dad—please put pizza and fried chicken on the memorial table every year!
If possible, please upgrade the canned beer to draft beer.
Thank you so, so much for everything.
Your useless son,
Jang Tae-san
I offered my final letter inside my head, chest swelling with emotion.
A tear even pricked up.
Huh? What? This… this hot, sticky feeling—what is it???
Rrrrrring! Rrrrrring!
Suddenly, my alarm clock exploded with a monstrous clang right beside my head.
“Huh—!”
I screamed at the horrific racket and shot up.
My eyes flew open.
“…?”
What the—my body… moves?
The bulldozer grandpa voice was gone.
Light filtered in.
Objects slowly came into focus.
This place… was ridiculously familiar.
What the hell?
A tiny room—barely big enough for a nose hair.
The spare room of my rural home from high school.
Filthy old wallpaper and the earthy smell of dust—my cramped, cramped room.
An old computer, a hanger…
And on the wall beside the desk, a big Nonghyup calendar stood out clearly.
“2… 006. July???”