Chapter 1
Chapter 1
“Huh?!”
Kim Insu, who had just turned five years old, let out a startled cry while happily clacking away at the keyboard of a 16-bit computer. His small heart pounded wildly, as if it had suddenly sped up.
Insu realized he had reincarnated.
“Is this for real?”
Goosebumps rose at the sound of his own young, immature voice, which he had accepted as natural until now.
He couldn’t believe it.
Back when he had first started learning letters at an even younger age, he had occasionally felt something stirring vaguely inside his head. But at the time, he hadn’t known what it was. It only felt frustrating somehow.
Maybe he could have gone on without ever realizing it, forgotten the memories of his previous life, and grown up as an ordinary child. But he had not missed the “trigger.”
Click.
With his chubby fingers, Insu pressed a key on the keyboard once more. That familiar clicking sensation reminded him that he had originally been a thirty-three-year-old man named Lee Hyunwoo.
This isn’t some delusion, right?
For a moment, doubt crept in. But there was simply too much information, and it was far too detailed to dismiss as a child’s imagination. To begin with, without those memories, he never would have understood difficult concepts like reincarnation or possessed this level of reasoning ability.
His young body stiffened from the overwhelming flood of memories and emotions surfacing in his mind.
Then, from behind him, he heard a woman’s gentle yet worried voice.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Instinctively, Insu turned his head. There stood a young woman wearing glasses, with sharp yet intelligent-looking features, smiling warmly at him.
“Mhm. I’m okay.”
It was his mother. More precisely, she was Jung Hyein, Kim Insu’s mother.
“Come here.”
Though she was not very large, she easily lifted Insu into her arms with practiced familiarity. He hesitated briefly in her embrace, but soon relaxed at her warmth and leaned comfortably against her.
Even though the memories of his previous life had returned, he was still five-year-old Kim Insu as well.
“Is the computer fun?”
“Yes. It’s fun.”
He had no idea why something like this had happened, but in his previous life, he had not been anyone special.
He had been an ordinary office worker who regretted not studying hard enough in the brutal job market. He scraped by with part-time jobs before barely managing to get hired by a small company. Even there, he struggled endlessly, but like everyone else, he desperately endured until he finally began adapting, only to die meaninglessly in a traffic accident.
I think I got hit by a truck.
Everything happened so suddenly that he hadn’t fully grasped the situation. The clearest memory left behind was the sight of a massive dump truck crashing toward him from the next lane.
After that, he was swallowed by shock and pain, and he remembered nothing more.
Did I die just like that?
He didn’t know whether he died instantly or lingered in a hospital bed before passing away.
Well, it doesn’t matter anymore.
He had already been reborn and was now sitting safely in his mother’s arms. Digging into the details of his death would probably give him nothing but PTSD.
“So our son likes computers? Maybe you’ll become an engineer like your dad?”
Hyein hugged him tightly, as if he were unbearably adorable.
So Dad’s an engineer, huh? I guess that makes sense.
Though he had lived with them this whole time, until just a few minutes ago, Insu had only been an ordinary five-year-old child. He only knew the version of his father he saw at home.
Of course, there had probably been plenty of clues. But a person needed at least some knowledge before making guesses.
“Mom’s going to make dinner now. Go play.”
“Okay.”
After holding and doting on him for quite a while, Hyein suddenly seemed to remember something. She set him down and headed into the kitchen. Left alone again, Insu quietly looked around.
It was a scene he had seen for years and knew completely, but now things he had never noticed before stood out to him.
First of all, the interior design, furniture, and appliances all looked excessively classic. Up to that point, he could still dismiss it as retro aesthetics.
But the tacky black CRT television with a dial and the black wired rotary phone sitting beside it were not just retro-inspired. They were genuinely retro.
And they’re way too new.
There were certainly people willing to tolerate inconvenience for aesthetics. But these lacked the wear and tear expected of decades-old antiques.
No way…?
While glancing around, Insu’s eyes landed on the calendar. The moment he saw the date, his entire body froze.
<1988>
If he had not experienced reincarnation, he might have assumed someone was an extreme enthusiast who even hunted down old calendars for decoration. But as soon as he remembered that he had reincarnated, his mind gradually calmed and began functioning properly again.
After all, once he had already experienced something as unbelievable as reincarnation, going back in time no longer seemed impossible.
...Well, just because I was reborn doesn’t mean it had to be in the future.
Still, it was a little disappointing. He had been curious about what the future would look like, especially when it came to games.
Though ordinary in most ways, the one thing that made his previous self somewhat unique was his deep interest in games.
Of course, few young men his age weren’t interested in games. But Lee Hyunwoo had gone a step further than most.
He hadn’t just wanted to play games. He had wanted to create new ones, and he had even studied game development himself.
He had not reached some incredible level. But after adapting to company life and finally gaining some free time, he poured his passion and effort into it. If he hadn’t died, he probably would have spent a few more months or years studying before eventually making something.
That punk Sangnam said we should do it together too.
Park Sangnam had been his college friend and another hardcore gamer. People with similar interests naturally gathered together, but he and Sangnam had especially clicked. He never imagined their connection would end like this.
Without realizing it, five-year-old Insu let out a deep sigh.
But after thinking it over, returning to the past was not necessarily bad. Of course, if he had gone back too far, like the Joseon era, it would have been unbearable.
But 1988 was only three years before his previous self had originally been born. It was not that huge of a difference.
More importantly, PCs had already begun spreading by this point. Insu glanced back at the computer he had been using earlier.
If he worked hard enough, maybe he could compete alongside the legendary games he remembered and leave his own name in gaming history.
Besides, knowing a future no one else knew was practically the same as using cheat codes.
Worst case, there’s always crypto.
Knowing that a coin once worth less than a single won would someday surpass a hundred million won, Insu unconsciously grinned.
He had never been deeply interested in stocks or investments, so he didn’t know the details, but even he had picked up bits of major information here and there.
Imagining his future self becoming absurdly wealthy, Insu felt intoxicated with excitement.
“What’s making our son so happy?”
Hyein had returned before he noticed. Sitting beside the grinning Insu, she asked gently.
“Ah. It’s nothing.”
“What? Does our son already have secrets?”
Raising one eyebrow dramatically, Hyein made an exaggerated expression. Then she chuckled and stroked Insu’s head.
“Your dad’s pretty late, huh?”
After glancing at the clock, she hesitated briefly before walking over to the TV. Turning it on, she rotated the dial, searching for something worth watching.
At least it’s color.
Since he had originally been born in 1991, he did not know much about this era. In truth, it was only a few years earlier, but because it was before his birth, it somehow felt much farther in the past.
After flipping through channels for a while, Hyein stopped on the news.
Truthfully, she somewhat wanted to watch a drama.
But her husband was due home soon anyway, so she would have to stop midway regardless. Also, she remembered hearing recent reports about children injuring themselves after imitating scenes from movies or cartoons, which made her reluctant to show fictional programs to Insu.
So the Arts Center was built around this time, huh?
The news was surprisingly interesting.
Though the image quality was poor, it was still watchable. And while the world shown on screen was not drastically different from the one he remembered from his previous life, there were unmistakable signs that this was indeed the past.
But something felt strange.
Taedong River? I’ve heard that name a lot before.
At first, when unfamiliar names or companies appeared, he assumed it was simply because the era was different. But the more he listened, the stronger the sense of dissonance became.
As he tilted his head in confusion, the next news segment began.
Uh... Baekdu Mountain?
On screen appeared the familiar scenery of Baekdu Mountain that he had occasionally seen online in his previous life, along with rescue workers emerging from the mountains while carrying someone.
At first, he thought they might be showing footage filmed in North Korea, but that was not it.
The tourists passing by, the rescue workers, ambulances, reporters, and broadcasting equipment all clearly felt Korean.
The real Baekdu Mountain?
Beyond the bustling crowds, he could see the enormous mountain itself. Honestly, he would not have recognized it as Baekdu Mountain from appearance alone, but the reporter and captions continuously identified it as such.
The suspicion that had been building inside him became clearer. In his previous life, he might have suspected an April Fool’s joke, but now he could not help considering every possibility.
Don’t tell me…?
The moment Insu realized he had reincarnated, he had already become conscious of the possibility of parallel universes. After all, the mere existence of someone who knew the future would inevitably cause the world to diverge little by little from the one he remembered.
But he had never expected the world to already be different before he did anything.
Did Korea reunify? No, maybe it was never divided in the first place.
Insu became intensely curious about what kind of world this was. At the same time, he realized that much of the future knowledge he relied on had just been shattered.
There goes the easy life using crypto, stocks, or real estate.
“Why did our son suddenly get so gloomy?”
The reason was the collapse of his dream of becoming rich effortlessly, but naturally, he could not say that. It was not that he wanted to act like some hidden powerhouse. He simply did not want to be labeled a possessed child or mentally ill.
So Insu merely shook his head silently.
Hyein found her son’s reaction strange, but she had already learned through experience that fully understanding the thoughts of young children was impossible.
So she simply continued stroking his head quietly.
Footnote 1 — New Glossary Entries
Characters
Kim Gwangseok (Kim Gwangseok) — Male. Forty-four-year-old man reported missing in Baekdu Mountain National Park and later rescued.
Locations
Sanggye-dong (Sanggye-dong) — Neighborhood in Nowon-gu, Seoul, mentioned in the news broadcast as the location where the Seoul Arts Center is being established.
Nowon-gu (Nowon-gu) — District in Seoul mentioned in the news broadcast.
Seoul (Seoul) — Capital city of Korea, mentioned in the news broadcast.
Structures
Bonghwa Floodgate (Bonghwa Floodgate) — Floodgate completed in 1985 across the Taedong River between Samseok District and Kangdong County; mentioned in connection with corruption allegations.