[Ho Cheon-an: What.]
[Ho Cheon-an: Seems like you don’t know much.]
[Ho Cheon-an: Veterans are always like that.]
This guy’s a transcendent being, so he doesn’t really get the game, huh?
Veterans are just people like him.
You can’t explain the existence of veterans with logic.
Are there not a few crazy veterans in this world?
There are plenty of people with madness that would leave an ordinary person in shock.
It definitely wasn’t normal to memorize realizations, but it was certainly a necessary element for playing the game.
I could say I’m just a very normal veteran.
However, the Rebirth Truck seemed to have a different idea.
[Rebirth Truck: Should I delve into this a bit more?]
[Rebirth Truck: Let’s start with that realization quiz.]
[Rebirth Truck: The realization keywords are definitely important while playing Martial World.]
[Rebirth Truck: You can memorize them easily while playing the game.]
[Rebirth Truck: But the realization quiz only had one person answering, and that was you, right?]
The Rebirth Truck’s words were indeed correct.
If it hadn’t been for the realization quiz, I wouldn’t have memorized so many realizations.
But I still had plenty to argue back.
[Ho Cheon-an: No.]
[Ho Cheon-an: We all enjoyed it together at first.]
[Rebirth Truck: That would be the case.]
[Rebirth Truck: The realization quiz was a decent way for veterans to prove their skills in a group chat.]
[Rebirth Truck: However, once it lost popularity, didn’t you end up as the only one solving it?]
[Rebirth Truck: You probably know the reason better than I do.]
Indeed, the realization quiz had its shine at one point, but its popularity quickly faded.
Because the effort to memorize those realizations didn’t easily equate to recognition.
There was a fundamental problem with the realization quiz—the location where it took place was a group chat.
Who can really distinguish if a person who answered the quiz truly memorized the realizations or simply copied and pasted from an Excel file or searched through a cafe?
Who on earth can figure that out?
As a result, awkward situations kept arising. It was a situation where you had a gut feeling but no evidence. As those situations repeated, participants in the realization quiz vanished quickly, leaving me all alone.
In such a situation, it was suspicious if I continued to solve quizzes on my own and fervently memorized realizations.
But everything has its own story.
During the time when the realization quiz was trending in the group chat, I was going through a slump in Martial World. I couldn’t find anything that piqued my interest within the game and was lost.
For me, the realization quiz was the perfect stimulant.
I felt a sense of accomplishment every time I used the realizations I had memorized due to the group chat while playing the game, and I didn’t even have to search through the realization database, so it reduced my troubles and gave me plenty of satisfaction.
To label my memorization of realizations as ‘abnormal’ seems a bit of a stretch.
[Ho Cheon-an: I can’t help but think this is just unreasonable.]
[Ho Cheon-an: Memorizing realizations is just a part of normal gameplay.]
[Ho Cheon-an: Don’t underestimate a gamer’s passion. Transcendent one.]
[Ho Cheon-an: True gamers, veterans, will do anything if needed.]
[Rebirth Truck: No, seriously -_-]
[Rebirth Truck: You asked for hints.]
[Rebirth Truck: So I gave them, and now you’re arguing back?]
…Thinking about it, that’s true. I got worked up and lost the context after he nudged my veteran pride with unreasonable claims.
[Rebirth Truck: (Sigh emoji)]
[Rebirth Truck: If things could be solved this easily, I would’ve figured it out long ago.]
With the Rebirth Truck’s chat, I regained my focus.
[Rebirth Truck: Then I’ll ask another question.]
[Rebirth Truck: Why did you come here now?]
Why now, you ask?
Well, there’s no longer a place to level up my limits, and I need to find clues about my past.
As I was about to input that reason, the Rebirth Truck’s chat kept coming in.
[Rebirth Truck: There must be a reason.]
[Rebirth Truck: But.]
[Rebirth Truck: Didn’t you have a time that felt much more urgent?]
…An urgent time.
In an instant, I recalled when I became the Sacheon Outcast.
After wandering the world for a year and experiencing firsthand how those with weak martial arts were treated, I barely reached Sacheon City.
And soon after, I faced the barrier known as Iryu.
Two years passed since then.
I genuinely used every means possible to break through the limits. I tried visiting doctors, looked for fortuitous encounters, took spiritual medicine, and even made inquiries about my past….
But I never returned here, to Cheonghae Yeonghwisan.
Why was that?
Back then, I was truly desperate.
The first year of Martial World was nothing short of a brutal struggle for survival. I suffered from hunger, didn’t bathe, and had to live rough. Being threatened was an everyday occurrence, and I had to stay smart and defensive to wield my sword to stay alive.
To cope with the pressure of needing to survive in such a reality, I had to hypnotize myself.
I am a veteran who knows everything about Martial World.
Even while playing Martial World, I became an expert despite facing numerous penalties.
Falling into Martial World was not a disaster but an opportunity.
An opportunity to cultivate martial arts and become the strongest martial artist in the world.
While repeating that self-hypnosis, I was grit my teeth while recklessly pioneering a path to the first-class realm.
…but back then, why didn’t I think of returning to this Cheonghae, Yeonghwisan?
I struggled for two years to break through the wall of the system.
But did I really let the biggest straw in my world, my past, slip by?
Before meeting the Black Cat, I did inquire into information agencies about finding my past, but that didn’t go anywhere beyond that.
Why did I settle for such a little investigation during a time when I had put in such effort to not lose hope?
Why didn’t I investigate Yeonghwisan, the most decisive clue to uncovering my past?
No matter how I think of it, it feels unnatural.
…Suddenly, my thoughts reached fragments of memories.
The childhood memories that allowed me to find this space.
[Ho Cheon-an: Do you know about the fragments of memories that came to mind?]
[Rebirth Truck: I don’t know the details.]
[Rebirth Truck: But I think I might know what those fragments of memories are.]
You mean you don’t know exactly what the memories in my head are?
[Ho Cheon-an: If so…]
[Ho Cheon-an: Does it mean these memories came back not because you staged it?]
[Rebirth Truck: Right.]
At that creature’s answer, a word brushed through my mind.
Inevitability.
Something that must happen.
My coming to Yeonghwisan belongs to the category of inevitability. So, that guy must not have obstructed it in any way.
And the revival of Ho Cheon-an’s memories here in Yeonghwisan was also inevitable.
…Then, there should be a reasonable reason for that creature not to allow me to return here during the time I was struggling to break through to the first-class realm.
It was inevitable that I encountered Martial World.
It was also inevitable that I became a veteran after ten years of playing Martial World.
The zeal I showed toward memorizing realizations wasn’t just because I liked the game called Martial World.
Was there some sort of inevitable reason behind it?
A notion came to my mind—an utterly absurd notion…
But it was the only way to explain all the current circumstances.
[Ho Cheon-an: I am…]
[Ho Cheon-an: So you’re saying the modern human being ◻◻◻ from Earth is…]
[Ho Cheon-an: the Ho Cheon-an of Martial World?]
Rather than falling into the world of Martial World…
What if the Ho Cheon-an that was in the world of Martial World was once on Earth and has now returned?
The Rebirth Truck sent a reply to my question.
[Rebirth Truck: Right.]
The moment I heard that answer.
A flood of memories engulfed me.
* *
“Mom! Mom!”
“Hehe, what’s got our Cheon-an in such a hurry?”
“Look! It’s wriggling!”
“Oh my…”
A woman appeared in my vision. Her hands were covered in dirt from tending to the garden, and her hair was tied up in a single strand for work, but her face was adorned with a serene smile without a single wrinkle.
Mother.
Without realizing it, that word popped up in my mind.
…This nameless person is my mother.
Not knowing my mother’s name seemed strange with my current understanding, but it was just natural for the child me within the memory.
Only three people existed in that little space.
Mother was simply, well, Mother.
And that Mother looked at a handful of dirt and the worm wriggling atop it in my little hands.
“Hehe, Cheon-an, this is a worm. It’s a creature that makes the soil soft.”
“How fascinating! It’s wriggling!”
“Seeing it move makes the worm look very alarmed. Shall we let it go now?”
“It’s interesting…”
Mother looked at me with affectionate eyes, and the little me, with a pout, let the worm back to the ground.
“Well done~”
“Hehe.”
Mother dusted off her hands and gently stroked my forehead. That affectionate touch made my heart feel heavy for a moment.
The memory continued.
“Cheon-an! Dad’s here!”
“Dad! Dad!”
Father lifted me high. I giggled, and seeing that made Father keep throwing me in the air, catching me.
Was Father a martial artist?
Even though I was a child, the sight of him throwing me in the air multiple times didn’t look like something someone trained in martial arts would do.
I took a high view and inspected the inside of the formation.
Unlike when I entered with my companions, the inside was completely cultivated. Various vegetables were growing in the garden. There was a small spring whose origin I couldn’t identify. The altar-like structure I saw during entry was nowhere to be found.
“Alright, it’s time for a nap now that we’ve had fun.”
“Ugh… I want to play more with Dad!”
Father responded to my whining with a big smile.
“Haha, when you wake up, I’ll play with you again.”
“Okay!”
I dashed over and opened a door. Inside was a similar looking altar, though a bit different from my memories.
I laid down on that altar. Since it was an everyday occurrence, I closed my eyes without any resistance.
And then my consciousness cut off.
…The memory continued.
By the time I was roughly in elementary school age, I was quite the troublemaker. Climbing the rocky walls inside the formation when Mother and Father let their guard down, I slipped and fell.
“Ahh!”
“Cheon-an!”
“Are you okay?”
My parents ran over in shock. I burst into tears as my shins were torn and blood gushed out from the fall.
It was such a large wound that even modern medicine would require ten or more stitches.
“It’s okay, Cheon-an. Mom will make it better soon.”
Father rested his hand on Mother’s shoulder. The rigid look on his face was filled with a different kind of concern than when he gazed upon my wound.
But Mother firmly declared.
“It’s fine.”
At her words, Father looked at Mother for a moment, then sighed deeply.
“Do as you wish.”
Mother stroked my head gently.
“Now, Cheon-an… when I say ‘ho’, you’ll heal quickly. Ho~”
Surprisingly, the bleeding soon stopped. It looked like a kind of bleeding that couldn’t be stopped naturally, yet Father came with a clean cloth, wiped around the wound, and bandaged it.
With time, the wound healed completely.
Though the injury healed, I was at an age where troublemaking was a daily affair, and I continued to run wild inside the formation.
And then eventually, I broke a finger.
That was also a scene I saw in the fragments of memories.
After receiving treatment with a splint, I got a good scolding from Mother and Father. Later, like always, I lay down on the altar to nap, but that day, I couldn’t sleep due to the throbbing pain in my finger.
Creeeak.
As the door opened, I pretended to sleep immediately. It wasn’t that I had done anything wrong, but because Mother and Father managed the napping on that altar stringently, I was scared that I’d just earn another scolding.
My parents briefly peeked in to check on me, then shut the door. Through the slightly ajar space, sounds filtered in.
Rarely did Mother and Father raise their voices in argument.
“There must be some possibilities left!”
“You know how dreadful and terrifying your father is. Leaving room for possibilities is dangerous.”
“Cheon-an is your and my child. He will definitely grow interested in martial arts in the future; how do you plan to explain today’s incident then?”
“No matter what…!”
That was where the limit of my memories lay.
Whether I was holding still and pretending to sleep, or it was the altar’s aura, I really ended up falling asleep.
Could those two have created the special attribute in my blood through each other?
Certainly, Mother’s way of taking care of my shin wound was no mere medical skill. With such a mother managing the formation and a father like that. And that suspicious altar.
It was certain they were taking some sort of measures with me.
Time went on and on.
If we could exclude the bizarre situation of napping on the altar, it was truly a happy home. Even if we weren’t materially abundant, the three of us, including me, genuinely cared for and exchanged affection with one another.
But one day, when that peaceful routine continued, someone came to visit.
“Father!”
“…It’s been a while.”
The man my father referred to as ‘father’ appeared.
It was my grandfather.
