The Price of Starting Over

Chapter 4

Whoooosh—!

The razor-cold winter wind, sharp as a whip, snapped his mind awake.

"Seonwoo!"

And even clearer than that was his grandmother's voice.

Once again, Kim Seonwoo experienced the very first moment of Goddess Saga and began his second life.

A message that seemed to project itself directly onto his soul.

The moment he chose [Y] without hesitation, Seonwoo's second life began.

So it really is a restart.

He had thought he had become the protagonist of Goddess Saga, granted a single new life.

Only, apparently, it wasn't that simple.

A game...

He had never imagined Restart would actually be possible.

To begin again like this, truly like a game.

Then... could it be?

On the off chance, Seonwoo tried a few tests.

Status window.

"..."

What people commonly called a status window did not appear.

That was a privilege reserved for the awakened—Players.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

As expected, a faint hope was still only a hope.

Save? Load?

And since Restart existed, he tried save and load too, wondering if maybe those functions existed as well.

They didn't.

Then was Restart the only thing he had?

Or perhaps even this Restart could only be used once.

He considered that possibility too.

There was no way to confirm it immediately.

To confirm it, he would probably have to die—and Seonwoo couldn't bring himself to commit suicide just to test a theory.

So all he could do was make sure a single failure wouldn't be meaningless.

He had to treat this as if it were his one and only life and do everything he could.

To do that, he thought first about one thing.

This body.

The first thing he needed to consider was the body he was in now.

He could stand on his own, and he didn't need to consciously notice every breath to keep living, so he'd thought it was a healthy body.

It wasn't.

It wasn't.

This body was frail too.

Not quite as bad as the body from his previous life, where living had felt less like living and more like dying.

But this body, too, had been born extremely weak.

In the terminology of Murim, the other dimension that maintained limited contact with Earth, it was a matter of weak Seoncheonjingi—Innate True Qi.

His fundamental life force itself had simply been poor from birth.

If an ordinary person was a campfire burning on a healthy stack of firewood, then the Seonwoo of his previous life had been a tiny flame clinging to a single thin twig.

And the Seonwoo of this Goddess Saga world, though better than before, was still pitifully meager compared to a normal person—a miserable scrap of wood and a flicker of fire.

In plain terms, he was just plain weak.

The human itself was weak.

And with a body like this, one that couldn't even sense mana, getting into Seoul Hunter Academy looked impossible in this life too.

So then—

Martial arts.

Seonwoo turned his thoughts to martial arts.

I'll find a martial arts school.

There was no point dreaming about high-level arts famous across the world.

Their prestige was matched only by how closed-off they were.

Even in the game, people said building the protagonist through martial arts was brutally difficult—if you didn't have talent, it was impossible without a guide.

And now that this had become reality, with his actual talent scraping bottom, it would be harder still.

But the most basic martial arts and conditioning methods could still be learned at a public martial arts school, as long as you paid.

With that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he could strengthen his Innate True Qi and train his body.

The results would probably be tiny, but for now, this seemed like the best option.

If there was something he could do, then he had to do it.

That was Seonwoo's greatest strength: he kept moving forward. He did not stop.

Even if it was slow, he had to get stronger.

And if there was a next time—

Then this could become the method that let him go even farther.

If he could learn even slightly better internal cultivation methods and training techniques, then on the next opportunity he could start from there instead.

Yeah.

For now, Seonwoo was certain this was the best he could do.

Limp.

Seonwoo hobbled over and sat down in a chair.

Haha...

A bitter smile tugged at his lips.

Four years had passed since he restarted.

Nothing major had happened yet.

The leg he was favoring wasn't the result of some terrible accident either. He had simply overtrained a little and ended up with a sprain.

The bitter smile came only because he couldn't help thinking it again.

I failed this time too.

His current body, better than the one from his previous life, had nevertheless turned out to be worse than he'd expected.

So weak that even a little overexertion was enough to make something go wrong.

He had trained as hard as he could without crossing that line, but the efficiency had been abysmal. Even building muscle had been difficult.

Hmm...

The head instructor at the martial arts school had never said it outright, but Seonwoo understood.

He had no talent for using his body either.

No matter how many times something was demonstrated, there was never a case where he could perform even simple movements correctly in one go. Only after being corrected again and again could he barely imitate them.

And so, after four years of training, what he had gained was a body that was only just better than an untrained ordinary person—and an amount of internal energy smaller than a grain of millet.

...At this level, it could never become meaningful strength.

Strengthen his Innate True Qi and temper his body?

It wasn't impossible.

But three years—four, even—hadn't been anywhere near enough.

If he forced himself to estimate at this rate, then he would need a hundred years.

Only after training that long would he be able to reach, at the bare minimum—truly the bare minimum—the starting line of a protagonist.

And even after reaching that conclusion, Seonwoo still didn't stop.

Because this was the best he could do right now.

Because there was nothing else he could do.

It was just that the result had ended here.

Once again, he had failed to even meet the qualifications to enter Seoul Hunter Academy.

At this rate, he would fail the coming story again.

Endure that misfortune, gritting his teeth until they bled?

Just because it was part of the story?

Seonwoo didn't want that.

He could endure anything himself.

But he didn't want to watch his family endure it.

All those miserable events people had cursed and hated so much—

He wanted to change every one of them.

So he thought about it every day, and thought about it again, until finally—

"Ah...!"

He realized something.

If he lacked the strength to confront it, then he simply didn't have to confront it at all.

Simple, but clear.

Right.

He already knew the future.

And he already knew he couldn't face it head-on.

Then the answer was obvious.

Don't confront it.

Avoid it beforehand.

Seonwoo immediately ran to his grandmother.

"Grandma."

"Yes, my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dear?"

At the seriousness on his face, she instantly understood that he had something to say and sat across from him.

And there, Seonwoo said,

"What if we moved somewhere quiet instead of staying here?"

"Move?"

The suggestion was sudden, but though puzzled, Grandmother still listened seriously.

"Yeah. Move. What if we sold this place and went somewhere quiet to live?"

"I don't think becoming a hunter is realistic for me anyway. Couldn't we buy a small building or something and let me run a business?"

"And with the money we make... couldn't we let Eunseo do whatever she wants?"

It wasn't something he said lightly.

It was the answer he had arrived at only after agonizing over it desperately, again and again.

After hearing that, Grandmother said—

"All right. Let's do that, my dear."

Six years later.

Seonwoo was cleaning up the back of the shop after closing, a soft smile on his face.

"Oppa! Where should I put this?"

"Leave that. Just put the chairs back where you've already finished cleaning."

"Okay!"

She was already busy enough just doing her own things and enjoying what interested her.

But his younger sister Eunseo had still come by right when the shop was closing to help out, and that alone was enough to make him smile.

Such a kind, beautiful little sister.

Grandmother had managed to sell the small parcel of land she owned in another dimension for a good price.

After that, she gave up her hunter license, and together they bought a small building in a provincial town rather than Seoul and settled there.

They lived on the second floor and opened a hamburger shop on the first, and life wasn't bad.

That way, they had avoided the misfortune in the future he knew.

And at the same time, Seonwoo had realized something else.

He didn't have to be the protagonist.

Right. Just because I'm weak doesn't mean I have to be the protagonist.

He had taken it for granted that he had to reach the ending as the protagonist.

But that wasn't true.

The current Seonwoo couldn't be the protagonist, so there was no need for him to step forward and try to shoulder things he couldn't possibly handle.

What Seonwoo wanted was simple.

A happy life with his family.

And now he had it.

Yeah.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He thought this was enough.

That he could live like this.

Then—

WAAAAAAAANG—!

An alarm siren split apart that thought like tearing cloth, roaring across the quiet city like thunder.

KYAAAAAAAHK!

BOOOOM!

And then, as if the sound itself had gained physical force, it swept over Seonwoo.

He was flung away like a scrap of paper caught in a storm and slammed into the ground.

His entire body broke under the impact, but Seonwoo felt no pain.

All sensation had been stolen by the blood spilling out from beneath the wreckage of their shattered home.

Under it—

Was Eunseo, the sister who had made him smile.

Grrr...

And the monster that had created that disaster.

A Wyvern, a high-level monster, its enormous body stretching several meters long, its great wings unmistakable.

The creature's eyes reflected Seonwoo.

KYAAAAAAAH—!

Beyond it, he saw a sky covered in wyverns.

Wyverns—creatures that would put an entire region on emergency alert if even a single one emerged beyond a Gate.

KYAAAAAAAHK!!

They blotted out the heavens.

Ah...

Seonwoo knew this scene.

It was a future he knew—a piece of the story.

This was the bad ending of someone precious, someone who should have become an ally.

A future that should never have come to pass if events had flowed normally.

Crunch—!

A tragic future.

...

...

Through repetition, Seonwoo came to understand the intent of this System—an intent very different from what people commonly believed.

This system wanted an ending.

An ending reached by Seonwoo himself, as the protagonist.

If he ran from that, then even the life Seonwoo wanted would remain impossible.

But he also understood something else.

With this body as it was now—this wouldn't work.

If he repeated things countless times...

If by some miracle of heaven he stumbled across a way to grow stronger...

Then maybe.

But that meant betting on a probability so tiny it was nearly nonexistent, and he couldn't even begin to estimate how many Restarts it would take.

There was no guarantee to begin with that he could restart forever.

If only he had possessed enough talent to get into Seoul Hunter Academy, the story would have been different.

But since that was impossible, he needed another method.

He had to try approaching this in a completely different way.

Seonwoo wasn't talented at finding or creating entirely new strategies like this.

But he had no choice.

He had to make it work somehow.

Because this place—this world—was Seonwoo's reality now.

The greatest weapon I have is knowing the future.

And after agonizing over it desperately, at the very end—

"...Ah!"

One idea came to him.

...

Seoul Hunter Academy.

The premier educational institution for training hunters in South Korea.

All of the nation's most promising awakened gathered here, so naturally, even the entrance ceremony drew the attention of the entire country.

Murmur, murmur—

Just looking at the reporters crowded in front of the main gate and the people passing among them was enough to make anyone nod in understanding.

The scene was dazzling.

And on a road some distance away from the gate—

Screeech—

A luxury sedan, carrying who was undoubtedly the single most talked-about figure of the day, came to a quiet stop.

Because a boy had suddenly stepped in front of it.

Click.

The door opened soundlessly, and a bodyguard in a suit stepped out.

With practiced decisiveness—but still cautious—he moved to subdue the boy blocking the road.

Seonwoo.

And then—

"I'm here to sell my skill."

"...Oh?"

At Seonwoo's words, a lovely voice tinged with interest drifted out from inside the car.