Chapter 53

Ding.

System

• Sleep Mode has ended.

“…O-oppa!”

I gasped and opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw wasn’t the ceiling of my goshiwon¹ but Hayeon’s face.

Oh, right. I came home yesterday.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“Huh?”

“You’d been screaming. And you were sweating like crazy.”

I was?

Before I could even ask, I understood. My whole body was soaked in sweat, and my throat stung as if I’d swallowed sand.

Why do I feel like this?

The System I had didn’t only work while I was awake. Sleep Mode let me sleep deeply and pulled my condition up to its peak at the same time.

Nothing like this had happened in Murim, or after Synchronization. And a nightmare, on top of that?

What did I even dream?

My head just throbbed. I couldn’t remember the dream at all.

Hayeon asked, worried,

“Has something bad happened lately?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“If there is, tell me. Don’t suffer by yourself.”

“Yes, nuna.”

“I’m not joking.”

Her little fist thumped my chest. Hayeon’s serious face left me with nothing to say. I scratched my chin.

“Really? No worries? Nothing hard going on?”

“I told you, there’s nothing.”

It was a lie. There had been things seven years ago, and there would be things seven years from now. There’d been days I locked myself in my room and cried, and days I drank myself senseless with Jinho hyung just to forget.

That’s enough.

There were things I couldn’t tell my mother, who’d worked until the cartilage in her knees wore down raising two young kids, or my little sister, a high-school senior now preparing for her college entrance exam.

Enduring and getting through things alone. I was used to it by now.

I flashed a grin, like nothing was wrong.

“My life’s finally about to take off. What would I have to worry about? Ah, there is one thing. How I’m supposed to spend all this money. Something like that.”

“Show-off.”

The mood lightened a little. I made a face on purpose.

“Show-off? Don’t you remember yesterday? Want me to show you the bundles of cash again?”

“I’ll give you that. You’re obnoxious, but I can’t argue.”

“I’ve hit the peak of my twenty-seven-year life graph. Nothing’s going on, so you just study hard.”

“My grades are in the top 0.1 percent nationwide, okay? I’m doing more than well enough, so don’t worry.”

Hayeon pouted and started to leave, then stopped and turned back.

“Oppa. But…”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Jin Wikyung?”

“…What?”

A name I never expected, at a moment like that.

My body went rigid.

Crunch.

I bit into a piece of freshly made young-radish kimchi. It was Mom’s cooking, the food I’d wanted so badly, but I could barely taste it.

Because of the conversation I’d just had with Hayeon.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“From you. You kept calling it in your sleep.”

And then her last question.

“Someone you know? If they show up in your dreams, you must be close.”

I couldn’t answer. I hadn’t found that answer in Murim or in reality.

No. I no longer had any reason to look for it. I had come back to reality, and Jin Wikyung was in Murim.

Then why did Jin Wikyung suddenly show up in my dream…?

My head was a mess. An aftereffect of Murim? The word PTSD surfaced—post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is driving me crazy.

I must have looked grim without realizing it. Mom asked carefully,

“Have you lost your appetite? I made all your favorites.”

“Oh, no. When did you make the kimchi? And this doenjang-jjigae is perfect.”

I scrambled for an excuse and picked up my spoon. For the first time in ages, the three of us were together at one table. I couldn’t ruin this.

It’s nothing. It has to be nothing.

Slurp.

Even so, the savory doenjang-jjigae tasted faintly bitter.

That uneasy corner of my mind soon went back to normal.

I laughed and talked with my family all day. I even took a long nap, and then it was evening.

Time to go back.

“Stay a few more days. I was going to make boiled pork tomorrow.”

“Our Mrs. Kim is starting again. I know how to eat boiled pork too, you know?”

Hayeon grumbled at the reluctance dripping from Mom’s words.

“She packed you a ton of side dishes already, so why are you so worried? At this rate she could open a side-dish shop.”

“…That’s true.”

The shopping bags Mom had ready by the front door were packed with side dishes. This, too, was the compromise I’d only gotten after talking her down.

There’s nowhere to put them.

If I put a fridge in my three-pyeong goshiwon room, there really wouldn’t be anywhere to stand. No—there wasn’t even room to put a fridge.

I already had a capsule the size of one.

Should I start looking at moving?

I was thinking that as I slung the backpack I’d packed last night over my shoulder.

“…?”

Why was it so heavy? All I’d put in were a few outfits I’d bought yesterday.

When I set the backpack down, my family was the ones who suddenly got frantic.

“Son, you’ll be busy starting tomorrow, right? Hurry back, wash up, and get a good night’s sleep.”

“…A minute ago you told me to stay a few more days.”

“Oppa, you’re going to miss your bus.”

“I’m taking a taxi, though?”

“Night surcharge. There’s a night surcharge.”

At that point, I had a pretty good idea.

“When did you put it in?”

“P-put what in?”

“The money.”

Their faces answered for them. I sighed.

“I told you to keep it and use it when you needed it.”

“….”

“I make plenty of money. And I will from now on, too.”

I mixed fact and fiction fifty-fifty.

The average annual salary of a C-rank Hunter was five hundred million won. I’d met a generous employer in Team Leader Choi and gotten a bonus I never imagined, but if the System disappeared, all of it would go up in smoke.

That was why I’d wanted to give even more to my family, but…

“That’s money you risked your life to earn. Spend it on yourself. All right?”

“Mom.”

“Son.”

The next moment, the quiet words that came from Mom left me speechless.

“Don’t push yourself. Don’t get hurt, either. That’s enough for Mom.”

What else was I supposed to say?

A little later, I stepped out into the humid air of a summer night.

With shopping bags full of side dishes and a backpack stuffed with bundles of cash.

Vroom.

The whole taxi ride back to the goshiwon, I thought of Mom’s last words, and the warmth in them.

And of a voice in a memory that was growing fainter and fainter.

“Survive. I’m telling you to run without looking back. That’s your mission.”

Shaaah—

Blood spurted. Not the green blood of a monster, but red human blood. Feeling the burning pain in my thigh, I rammed my spear into the Lizardman Chieftain’s chest.

“Keee…”

Ding.

System

• You defeated Lv. 50 Lizardman Chieftain!

• You gained EXP!

Gate cleared. A mana field leading outside formed over the Lizardman Chieftain’s lifeless body.

That was when Team Leader Choi pushed away from the tree.

“Three.”

“Pardon?”

“The number of times you’ve been injured today, Mr. Jin Taekyung.”

His long, sturdy fingers pointed to spot after spot on my body.

The nape of my neck and my arm, already treated with potions, and my thigh, still bleeding.

“I’m fine. It only grazed me. A low-grade potion is more than enough…”

“You’re not fine.”

He cut me off, his tone firm. Team Leader Choi’s expression was always unreadable, but this time was different.

One thing was certain. The emotion in that look wasn’t simple concern.

“You weren’t injured even once last week. Same Gate, same monsters. If this is happening, there’s only one reason.”

His clear eyes turned on me.

“Mr. Jin Taekyung. Is something wrong?”

One day. Two days. Three days.

Time passed, but things didn’t improve. In the end, on the fourth day, I took injuries in five places.

“Not in your current condition. Go home.”

Leaving Team Leader Choi’s words behind, I headed for the goshiwon, my head a mess.

What’s the problem?

Everything had been going well. The System hadn’t disappeared, and my account had some three hundred million won sitting in the bank. All that was left was to keep riding high as a C-rank Hunter, but…

Damn dreams.

That was when it started. After the first night at my family’s house, I began having nightmares.

The scenes in them grew clearer and clearer, and when a dream ended I woke up soaked in sweat. Even if I circulated my qi and pulled my condition up, my mind was unstable, so the mistakes only multiplied.

This is going to be a problem.

My body was in reality, but my mind was still trapped in Murim. I was wondering whether I should see a psychiatrist when I reached my goshiwon room.

Click.

“Oh, you’re back?”

The greeting was so natural I almost wondered if I’d walked into the wrong room.

I asked, incredulous,

“What are you doing?”

Jinho hyung answered,

“Disassembly and assembly.”

He was sitting in front of the capsule with a screwdriver. For a second my vision went yellow.

This bastard isn’t actually—

“Are you crazy? Move!”

“Hey, hey. You have to hear Korean all the way through.”

Jinho hyung hurriedly waved his hands.

“I haven’t even started yet.”

“What?”

“I just got here too. Seriously.”

He didn’t look like he was lying. Only after I checked that the capsule was still intact did a sigh of relief slip out.

“Phew.”

Jinho hyung looked thrown by my reaction.

“Why are you making such a fuss over one junk capsule that doesn’t even work? What happened to tossing it out like a piece of luggage?”

“That was then.”

There was no way Jinho hyung could know about Synchronization. Or what that unidentified thing—just a junk capsule to him—meant to me.

“Anyway, don’t touch it. Got it?”

“You look ready to beat me to death.”

“I’ll tear you apart.”

“….”

I ignored Jinho hyung’s baffled face and flopped onto the bed.

After that little episode, it felt like all the energy had drained out of me.

“Something going on?”

“Going on, my ass.”

“Complaints about you have been no joke lately. Today I barely calmed the guy next door down and sent him off.”

I could guess why.

Jinho hyung scooped up the tools he’d spread on the floor and went on.

“He says he’s going crazy because you keep groaning all night. Oh, and he asked who Jin Wikyung is.”

That name again.

I buried my face in the pillow.

“Just tell him she’s my girlfriend.”

I saw his hand quiver around the monkey wrench.

“You got a girlfriend? You traitorous bastard.”

“….”

“She pretty? How old? Show me a picture.”

This guy was thirty. I couldn’t help but despair.

“The name’s a bit exotic, though. Is she an ethnic Korean from China? Or Chinese?”

“…Chinese.”

Not exactly wrong.

“This bastard hits C-rank and he’s already gone global. Anyway, introduce me to a girl. I like China. Nǐ hǎo ma? Wǒ ài nǐ. What else was there?”

“You fucking bastard.”

“Idiot. You got the tones and the pronunciation all wrong. With that, you think you’ll last a hundred days? Repeat after me. Nǐ chī fàn le ma?”²

“You fucking bastard.”

“Again. Nǐ chī fàn le ma?”

“You fucking bastard.”

“…What the hell is this bastard doing?”

I ignored Jinho hyung, who was getting angry at this sudden realization, and pointed at the door.

“Get out.”

Please. Just let me have some time to myself.

Once the room was quiet, I sat up on the bed and went over to the capsule. I tapped its old, grime-caked surface and muttered,

“What the hell are you?”

As expected, no answer came back.

I’d been hoping, privately. Shame.

The System’s already synchronized with reality. Why couldn’t a machine talk too?

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure it was a real machine. Reality had been fantasy for a long time now, but wasn’t this a whole new genre?

If I wrote my current situation as a novel, what genre would I even pick? Fantasy? A game novel? Or—

Dimensional travel?

Pffhh. A deflating sound slipped out. Dimensional travel? I really was losing it. There was no way something like that was possible.

There was no way it could be…

It was like ice water over my head. My mind snapped clear.

…It is possible.

Dimensional travel had happened in the past, and it still existed now.

The invasion of the Demon King Asmodeus, and the Gates, were the proof.

We only used Gates to come and go from reality, but decades ago a monster army had crossed through one from another dimension to Earth.

The Demon World.

A land of evil. The home of monsters. The Demon King’s domain.

An unknown dimension no human had ever set foot in, or even glimpsed. That was how humanity defined it.

But what if this capsule in front of me was a kind of Gate to another dimension? What if Murim was another unknown dimension?

Murim is another reality.

Everything I had seen and been through there.

Water. Earth. Wind. And people, too.

They weren’t NPCs.

I stared at my vacant face reflected on the capsule’s faded surface.

For a long while after that.