Three Years
The doctor trailed off, his voice fading. “···It’s true that her condition has improved slightly, but I still expect it to be nothing more than buying time. All we can do is use massage to temporarily improve blood circulation···.” Honestly, he had no confidence in treating this strange, almost familiar yet utterly mysterious illness. If he had spoken with certainty, my trust in him would have hit rock bottom.
“Yes, that’s enough for now. It won’t take long anyway. And··· how much longer do you think she’ll be able to walk?”
Right now, nothing mattered more than how much time she had left.
“To be honest, it’s impossible to say. According to the records, this condition has been with her since birth. Even though her body is inherently weak, it also means she’s somewhat accustomed to the illness.”
“So you’re saying that because the disease struck a healthy body so suddenly, her future is uncertain?”
“···Yes. We can’t guarantee that her immune system won’t suddenly explode or shut down at any moment. Still, the levothyroxine and the hot springs in Jeju really helped. It’s just that we don’t know what long-term changes the latter might bring···.”
Her body might adapt and begin radiating even more cold. At least modern medicine wasn’t completely useless, which was a relief.
“At most, three years. After three years, it becomes unclear whether Ha Dohwa will still be able to walk.”
Three years. I had to obtain the inner core of the Fire Spirit before Dohwa turned ten. If not that, then at least the Solar Fire or even the Lesser Yang Fire.
“So the discharge today is still happening as planned.”
It felt like the kind of discharge an cancer patient would receive.
“···I’m sorry.” The doctor bowed his head slightly in apology. It was the apology of someone representing the limits of modern medicine.
“Please don’t. You did everything you could when there was no medicine available.”
But a limit was still a limit. There was only so much a doctor without the right medicine could do.
After leaving the examination room, I headed straight for Dohwa’s hospital room. When the door opened, I saw her swinging her legs while reading a picture book.
“Brother!”
The moment she spotted me, she came running over with quick little steps. For that brief instant, all my worries vanished and a warm smile spread across my face.
“You should say ‘Sister.’”
I still hadn’t fully accepted living as a woman, but I had to correct her for the sake of her proper values.
“···There’s no one else here, though?”
“Still. From now on, you’re my sister for life.”
“Okay! I got it!”
She was adorable. I wanted to hug her, but the cold I carried was poison to Dohwa. The only helpful thing I had was the pair of gloves that barely held the warmth I had made yesterday.
“Then, Dohwa. Shall we go home?”
“Yeah!”
March was fast approaching. And Dohwa would have to start kindergarten. Even in a world like this, children were the future.
“What? You’re saying kindergarten is starting again?”
Kim Su-gyeong was shocked by the sudden news from the director who had come to see her.
“Yes, we’re reopening. Thanks to the parents’ efforts, we’ve barely managed to start classes again. If you have personal circumstances and can’t come···”
“No! Of course I can. Now that I think about it, I haven’t even offered you anything. At least some green tea···”
Kim Su-gyeong hurried toward the kitchen to properly host her guest, but the director shook her head and refused.
“Haha, I’ll just accept the sentiment. In these dangerous times, it’s hard to find time to see the teachers in person. Still, since time is short, please come in to work two days from now and handle your duties.”
The director left with a kind smile. It made sense—few people could properly maintain their jobs amid all this chaos. For Kim Su-gyeong, whose priority in the rationing system had been pushed back, it was even better news.
“Now, I won’t have to··· anymore.”
Kim Su-gyeong clenched her fists tightly. A path to stability had appeared much sooner than expected. But there was one thing that bothered her.
“If this gets out···”
What kind of things would the parents—especially those who still had the means to send their children to kindergarten in the middle of this mess—say to her?
“Slowly, I’ll just drift away.”
She had only just begun to get to know them. If she acted now, she could still pull out cleanly.
“Whoa, a newspaper?”
“Yeah. Even in Seoul, there are so many places where the internet infrastructure is broken or destroyed that newspapers have started being published again in earnest. It also has the effect of the government suppressing excessive rumors.”
There was far too much bad news. For example, an Awakened debtor murdering a civilian loan shark and then killing thirty nearby gang members and innocent citizens to cover it up before being shot dead, or an entire rural village being crushed by vines—these kinds of stories didn’t need to be widely publicized. Spit out the bitter, take the sweet. Not out of pickiness, but for survival. For the safety of public opinion.
“That last part sounds like something out of a military regime.”
“I’d rather it were. At least then we wouldn’t have man-eating monsters or curse-like diseases.”
At least, that’s what I genuinely thought. If nothing else, without the latter, my mind would have been much more at ease.
“Until March 2nd, I’ll be cramming in the basics at an accelerated pace—how to hold a sword, how to swing it, footwork, running posture, and mental techniques. Make sure you keep up.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
There was no way anyone could learn all of that in just three weeks. I had arranged the schedule this way so I could teach everything first and then see who stood out.
“Alright, let’s warm up with a cup of green tea before we start. I won’t be taking any jobs until Dohwa starts kindergarten anyway. Surprisingly, we have plenty of time.”
I handed Yu-seong the green tea and told him to prepare.
I intended to spend all that time on training.
—Ding♪
At that moment, a bell rang. It wasn’t the one hanging on the café door, but a clear, distant chime. It wasn’t just a simple bell—it carried qi. A basic sound technique.
“A letter for you.”
Soon after, a man wearing a black bamboo hat and a black poncho entered the café.
“···”
“Hey now, I said it’s a letter. Put the sword down.”
I stopped the wary Yu-seong and stepped out from behind the counter to receive the letter.
“So you’re the black messenger pigeon that’s been running the trial operation?”
“Yes. How was it? Did the bell not ring clearly enough? Or was my gait unsteady?”
Despite the atmosphere, the black messenger pigeon began asking various questions in a bright voice. Yet something about that voice felt strangely familiar.
“It was excellent. Have we met before?”
“You remember. I owe you a debt from Hwaseong.”
“···Ah! Right before I got buried!”
The messenger removed his bamboo hat and properly greeted me. Only when I saw his face did I remember—he was the first person to reach out right after I killed that ugly bastard.
“You finished it faster than I expected.”
“Haha, I was surprised myself.”
I muttered while looking at the black bamboo hat and poncho. I had thought it wouldn’t be ready until at least March, but I never expected to see a finished product being tested so soon.
“Come in and have some tea.”
“I’ll just accept the offer. I still haven’t finished the trial run. And I’ll definitely repay this debt later. Well then.”
The black messenger put his bamboo hat back on, left through the café door, and vanished using a movement technique as if he were a shadow.
“What was that··· No, more importantly, who was that just now?”
Among the Awakened, the rumors had spread quite a bit, but Yu-seong seemed completely ignorant of them since he was from Jeju Island.
“Areas with high concentrations of powerful monsters or yokai naturally interfere with radio waves. So the black messenger pigeons are the ones who break through that interference to deliver information. Basically, they’re the Awakened version of intelligence agents who sneak in and sneak back out.”
And their original form was assassins among the Awakened. Moreover, what he was wearing was an artificial arm. Depending on how it was used, they could become government assassins··· No, that was probably their original purpose. Right now, it was just a side job they did during peacetime. But they were clearly my allies. I could feel uncomfortable, but there was no reason to reject them.
“Ah, right. Since these people only exist as rumors for now, I shouldn’t go around talking about them officially?”
“Exactly.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be good if word got out that the government was raising an assassin group. And the fact that he revealed himself in front of Yu-seong meant it was some kind of test—whether I would leak information about the black messenger pigeons or not. But that was that, and this was this.
I opened the sealed letter and checked its contents. But a wave of regret immediately washed over me, making me wish I hadn’t looked.
And while Dowol was nursing a headache, in a gloomy alley in Seoul despite the broad daylight, someone knocked on a thick iron door, their face hidden as much as possible.
—Tap♪
Thud thud thud!
Boom♪
Creaaak!
It wasn’t so much a knock as someone pounding with their fist and scraping the iron door with a piece of metal beside them, producing an eerie sound.