—————————————
[The story changes from now on]
I am placed on the desk I picked up my old cell phone and checked the date.
[July 1, 2018.]
“Don’t be a rip-off!”
Pow!
I got angry and threw my phone away and kicked the wall. There was a dull sound coming from the wall and an extremely painful sound coming from my feet.
“Ugh…”
I grabbed my feet and rolled around on the bed. It was so painful that tears welled up. I was lucky I didn’t break my toe.
I had no choice but to admit that it hurt this much.
That I have returned to the past.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” You
left everything you achieved after working like a dog for 20 years in the future and returned to the time when you were broke and didn’t have a single penny?
“Why on earth?! “What did I do wrong?”
I remembered my last memory before I woke up here.
Last night was my retirement party.
It wasn’t really that great.
I was just a clumsy superhuman who went back and forth between B and C grades my whole life.
I didn’t belong to a big guild, and I never had a chance to achieve great things.
For the past few years, I’ve only played free, without a guild.
So, the retirement party was all about inviting old friends to a new house that had recently been completed and having a binge.
We chatted all night long about old times and what we would do when we retired. He gave us a tour of the mansion and showed off his collection that he had accumulated over 10 years.
“And…”
I remember my friends giving me various things as retirement gifts.
Sangtae He drank all the liquor he had saved from the demon world on the spot, Jubal, a
beggar from the martial arts world, caught a dog from somewhere, and
Gwendolyn the dwarf almost burned down the entire yard by offering to show off her newly made firecrackers.
…That bitch, Eonju, made an album with our old photos, and although other people were happy to see it, she disturbed people.
“Why are the people who stayed by my side for 20 years all idiots?…”
I remember grumbling like that while drunk.
And finally, a gift from Joong-cheol.
He showed me a wristwatch made of a metal I had never seen before, saying he had obtained it from the continent of Byron, which was recently being explored.
“Daein, this watch. There is a theory that it is one of the relics of a wizard called Tichtal, which is said to be a legend on the Byron continent. “How precious is it…”
“Damn. “I most likely picked it up at an antique store somewhere.”
I also remember Joong-cheol giving that guy such a hard time.
I said so…
“…Why is that watch here?”
I muttered, looking blankly at the watch on my left wrist.
It looks unique, like an object from another dimension.
Geometric silver patterns are delicately engraved on a dark blue metal that cannot be found on Earth.
Inside the transparent clock were hundreds of small gears intricately interlocked.
Joongcheol spoke bluntly to the guy, but it was definitely a high-quality watch made by a craftsman.
All five hands on the Byron Continent’s clock had stopped.
“…It was definitely going back last night.”
When I thought about it, it seemed like all my friends had gone away and I was alone in my room fiddling with my watch.
And I got drunk and fell asleep.
“I woke up and found myself here.”
If I could see my face in the mirror, it would have been really nice.
It would have been very distorted.
“Could this be… a regression item?”
Recurrence item.
Even among superhumans, opinions are divided as to whether such a thing actually exists.
What if the watch that Joong-cheol gave me happened to be that item?
I was drunk and without even thinking about it, I just touched it and used the item.
It’s a rough explanation, but there’s no other way to explain it.
So, that is. 중철아….
“이 개새끼야! Damn you giving me shit like this!! “Ugh!”
I screamed. My hands were shaking.
For 20 years, I lived tenaciously, enduring all kinds of dirty, dangerous, and shameful things.
I barely retired like that.
It was the end of hardship and the beginning of happiness!
The thought of having to go through all that trouble all over again made me feel distant.
It was then. In the next room, he was banging angrily on the wall.
Boom boom boom!
The bloody voice that follows.
“You bastard! “Do you live here alone?”
Hearing your voice brings back memories.
A man who lived in the room next to the goshiwon where I lived 20 years ago.
There was a big, gangster-like man in his 40s who ruled like a king at a cheap gosiwon.
He was loud and drunk every night, and when he slept, he snored so much that I couldn’t sleep without earplugs.
But no one could argue with the man.
Because he was the only son of the grandmother who owned this gosiwon.
There was no gosiwon nearby that was as cheap as this one, and since I was living without one, I had no choice but to live as if I were dead rather than get kicked out for complaining.
“ha. “The more I think about it, the angrier I get.”
I suffered more damage because I lived in the room next to a man.
I had to put up with it even though I was asked to borrow money and the amount of money that was taken little by little was over 100,000 won.
At that time, it was before I was awakened as a superhuman.
“To be exact, I didn’t know that I had awakened like an asshole.”
As I continued to mutter to myself, the room next door started banging on the wall again.
Bang bang bang!
“You son of a bitch, do you want to get kicked? “Shut up!”
“…….”
I got up from the bed and came out of the room.
The goshiwon hallway was narrow enough for one person to barely pass through.
The destination was right next door, so there was no need to walk down the hallway.
smart-.
“mister. “Let me see.”
I knocked politely, and after a while the door was half open. A fierce-looking man glared at me through the crack in the door.
“What?”
“I’m sorry for making you noisy.”
As I lowered my head, the man chuckled. And the door opened wide.
He reached out and roughly stroked my hair.
“young. “Still, you are polite.”
A tattoo of a snake or an earthworm was engraved on his plump forearm, like a pink sausage. When I saw that tattoo, I burst into laughter.
‘I don’t know what scared me when I was young.’
The man’s hand naturally moved from my head to my shoulder. He tapped my shoulder and said.
“Do you have any money? My brother needs money urgently. I’ll pay you back in a few days. huh?”
“…….”
I smiled and looked at his face.
that’s right. This was such a bastard.
Thanks to this, the slight feeling of guilt about what would happen in the future was completely eliminated.
“I still have something to tell you about money.”
“How much do you have? are you okay. Just give me what you have for now. Or…”
His eyes turned to my watch. There was greed in the man’s eyes.
“Could you please lend me that watch?”
I grinned.
And he coolly poured out what he wanted to say 20 years ago.
“You damn bastard. Are you extorting money from a young man who earns a living at a gosiwon every day because he has nothing to do? Hey you bastard. Put away the sour pig’s feet and spit out the money you borrowed last time while speaking. What the fuck are you looking at? Don’t close your eyes! “What a fucking bastard.”
The startled man’s eyes widened and his face turned red.
“This bastard…!”
I moved first before my opponent took action.
He grabbed the chubby arm that was on his shoulder, bent it to the side, and at the same time pushed the man’s face to the side and slammed it into the wall.
Kwasik!
“Ugh!”
A man staggering around with a bloody nose. Without giving him a chance to come to his senses, I grabbed his face with both hands and pulled him down.
And then he stabbed my face with my knee.
Bah!
The plump body collapsed helplessly.
“Whew… I’m finally relieved of some stress.”
I searched the fallen man’s pockets. He said he had no money, but there were several green bills in his wallet.
“One, two, three… eight. “Is this all you have?”
“You bastard…”
The fallen man glared at me with venomous eyes. So I kicked him in the solar plexus.
“Wow!!”
“Pathetic bastard.”
This man will die within a month anyway.
So, even after awakening as a superhuman 20 years ago, I was unable to collect my debt. When I remembered him and went to look for him, he was already dead.
For a brief moment, that thought occurred to me.
I must have gone back too. Should I go looking for the guys who abused me in the past?
I thought about that for a moment and then shook my head.
Not just one or two, but when will that happen?
It’s also annoying.
“If something happens to relieve stress, go visit one person at a time. “Like today.”
“Ugh…”
I stepped on the man’s chest and looked around his room.
This kid was living in a room that was three times bigger than the other rooms. There is a proper closet, and the TV and refrigerator are new.
“Hey. “There are a lot of good clothes.”
I took out the leather jacket hanging at the front of the closet.
Material that looks quite luxurious. I recognized its value at first glance.
“It’s made from monster skin?”
Although it could not be compared to the equipment worn by superhumans, it could be expected to provide some degree of defensive power.
When I put on a leather jacket over the slouchy t-shirt I was wearing, it looked quite decent.
“mister. “I’ll make up for the shortfall with this.”
“Do you know how much it costs…”
Even while falling, the man desperately tried to protect his leather jacket. I squatted down in front of him and said.
“Then do you want to calculate the interest and pay it back with your own money?”
“…….”
The man closed his mouth with a pale face. I said as I zipped up my leather jacket.
“Tell the landlady that I’m leaving the room.”
Then I returned to the room and packed my backpack.
Jump and jump.
As I walked along the narrow hallway of the gosiwon, I felt eyes staring at the slightly open door.
Clap clap clap.
Some people clapped silently as if they were excited, while others
closed the door as soon as their eyes met because they didn’t want to get involved.
Some eyes were saying this.
‘How are you going to take care of it later?’
‘Is there a place to go if I get out of here?’
‘I should have endured it even though it was dirty….’
Gosiwon. A place where Euls gather and live among the Euls in the world.
A place where people with no place to lean on can barely lie down in a room as narrow as a coffin.
I, a 20-year-old landlord, lived here.
“But not from now on.”
When I came down from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor, the owner’s grandmother was dozing off at the counter. How will he react when he finds out later what happened to his son?
After going out into the street, I checked the date again on my old cell phone.
[July 1, 2018]
“I wondered why I had to return to today… “Is it that day?”
The day I woke up as a superhuman at the age of 20.
To be precise, the awakening had already occurred before that.
It was only today that I realized that fact.
20 years ago today.
I went to work part-time at a construction site in the afternoon and suffered an accident in which I fell from a height of tens of meters.
At that moment, I realized that I had awakened as a superhuman while unknowingly protecting my body with magical power.
I still shudder when I think of that accident.
At that time, I suffered for 20 years because of my damaged knee.
I often thought that my life would have been a little different if I had discovered my abilities naturally rather than by accident.
Like right now.
Ssssssut.
I pulled up the mana that was like dust in my body.
There was no need for an opportunity to awaken like before.
No matter how talented he is, he has been handling mana for 20 years.
I checked my physical condition by spreading mana throughout my body as naturally as breathing.
“…ha. “That sucks.”
He lacks muscle and his nutrition is poor.
I thought once again that I had survived those times well with such a weak body.
After all, it’s good to be young.
“Let’s fill our bellies first.”
I headed to the center of the city. I was so hungry that the skin of my stomach was sticking to my back.
As I walked along the streets where more than half of the city had been destroyed and reconstruction work was in full swing, I was lost in old memories.
“At that time, the gate warning system was almost at the level of the Korea Meteorological Administration. Small gates aren’t even detected by radar, so monsters can suddenly pop out…” I heard that
this was a joke, but it was at that time.
“It’s a monster-!!”
People were rushing towards us, screaming.
Wow! Kkkkkkkkkk!
The monster chasing after them is a flock of red spotted wild dogs.
They were slow on their feet, but their heads were twice as big as those of an average dog, and they had teeth that could chew through steel.
“What are you doing! “Run away quickly!”
One of the men running this way shouted at me. But I stood still and sighed, and the man soon passed me.
Then many people passed by me, screaming.
“Aaaah!”
“police! “Where are the police!”
It seemed like no one had died yet.
But it wasn’t long before there were deaths.
The elderly and the weak will gradually fall behind, and
there will also be people who trip and fall while trying to run.
“Please help me too!”
“Please save me!”
There were already signs of that happening. The distance between the people who fell behind and the pack of wild dogs was now very short.
Wow! Kkkkkkkkkk!
Looking at that, I sighed and put my backpack down on the floor.
“It’s back to the really shitty times.”
As I looked around, I saw tools thrown away by construction workers.
I picked up a sturdy-looking palu among them.
“Ugh! “Mom!”
In the back, a little boy was sitting down and crying. A wild dog was running towards the little boy, drooling.
But I was one step faster.
I caught the kid’s back in the nick of time and swung the palu with all my might.
Wow!
A wild dog that had been hit on the nose was rolling around on the floor.
I looked at the plump guy and whetted my appetite.
“That guy looks really delicious.”
[The story changes from now on] The end
ⓒ Ganjjajang
