Chapter 339
I Became the Successor of the Martial God
Chapter 339.
The wounds left by the Evil Dragon and the Lord of Rifts on this world were deep and vast.
The land rotted by the power of corruption, cities destroyed by monsters.
It would take an enormous amount of time and resources to recover from all this damage.
—Many regions, including Busan, suffered significant damage due to this incident. Numerous people volunteered for recovery efforts, and various guilds and corporations sent relief supplies and donations, showing rapid progress.
Still, people will not give up, and the damage will be repaired.
As it has always been.
“Target located. They hid quite thoroughly. Defensive installations are visible.”
“Then we’ll blow them all up at once.”
During this time, Yoo Baek-jun traveled the world using an airship.
Of course, he wasn’t touring for leisure in these times.
It was to locate and completely destroy the remaining hideouts of the Black Shadow.
Kwaaaang!
The airship’s cannon charged with magical energy and rained bombardment upon the ground.
A well-hidden building collapsed, and the desperate screams of people could be heard.
“Moving in.”
“Yes, Family head”
Yoo Baek-jun and the swordsmen immediately descended underground and eliminated the Black Shadow members hiding inside.
The resistance was fierce, but that was all.
“M-monster…!”
“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”
In the deepest part, a Black Shadow executive was trying to escape.
The swordsmen subdued him instantly, and Yoo Baek-jun stomped on his solar plexus.
“Kuh, keugh…!”
“Is this the last one?”
“It seems so, Family head.”
This was the last remaining hideout of the Black Shadow. With this taken care of, it was safe to assume there were no more remnants left.
“Just in case, send the swordsmen to check for survivors. Not a single one should be left alive.”
“Understood. What should we do with this one?”
“Take him to the family. He might know about hideouts we’re unaware of. Extract any useful information.”
“Yes, sir.”
The dragged-away executive spat curses, but no one paid him any mind.
Yoo Baek-jun ordered the complete destruction of the place and headed back above ground.
“Damn, it’s hot.”
—Meow.
“Huh?”
It was summer, the peak of the heat.
As Yoo Baek-jun frowned at the sunlight, a coquettish cry came from near his feet.
It was Seol-yeong.
“Why are you here? You were supposed to stay on the airship with the fairy…”
“I brought it here.”
“……”
Someone lifted Seol-yeong.
A familiar voice.
“Jin Seo-yeon.”
“We have things to talk about, don’t we?”
Jin Seo-yeon held Seol-yeong in her arms.
“…Yeah, we do.”
The conversation they had been putting off.
Yoo Baek-jun nodded.
* * *
Yoo Baek-jun and Jin Seo-yeon climbed to a high hill on the island.
Only the two of them were on the hill.
Not far away, Seol-yeong and the fairy were playing and running around.
“……”
“……”
A heavy silence hung between Yoo Baek-jun and Jin Seo-yeon.
Who would speak first?
Both had been pondering how to broach the subject for a long time.
“You…”
Jin Seo-yeon was the first to speak.
But only briefly. She fell silent again, closing her mouth.
“……”
After a long hesitation, Jin Seo-yeon steeled herself and spoke again.
“I’ll ask you directly. Are you the Yoo Baek-jun I know?”
“No.”
Yoo Baek-jun shook his head. Jin Seo-yeon took a deep breath.
“The Yoo Baek-jun you knew is gone.”
“…Since when?”
“From the day we first met at the Sword Saint family until now. The whole time.”
“That’s…”
Jin Seo-yeon was at a loss for words.
She had thought the man before her was the Yoo Baek-jun from their childhood.
But he wasn’t. The Yoo Baek-jun she knew, the child she had grown up with, was already gone.
“How? What on earth happened…?”
“It’s a long story.”
Yoo Baek-jun explained everything that had happened to Jin Seo-yeon.
Why he had come here.
His purpose.
‘…She doesn’t need to know this.’
He deliberately omitted the parts about the Heroes Road.
There was no need for her to know, and it could be too shocking.
“So you were summoned here to stop the Lord of Rifts… I see.”
“Right. Now that the goal is achieved, I have to return to where I came from.”
“You’re going back?”
Jin Seo-yeon’s body flinched.
She looked at Yoo Baek-jun in shock and urgently asked,
“Then, are you disappearing?”
“Originally, that’s how it should have been.”
“Huh?”
Originally, that’s how it should have been.
That’s how it was supposed to be, but…
“I feel guilty now. If everything ends, I’ll return to my original world, and Yoo Baek-jun would have come back to this body—that’s what I thought.”
Yoo Baek-jun shook his head.
“But that wasn’t the case.”
The original owner of this body was dead.
He had practically stolen the body, and now the original was preparing for reincarnation.
He had wondered what would happen to him and this body once everything was over.
‘I didn’t know it would turn out like this.’
No, perhaps he had known but chose to ignore it.
Yoo Baek-jun sighed.
“The Yoo Baek-jun you knew is gone. And if I return to my original world and don’t come back, this body will die soon after.”
“Die…?”
Jin Seo-yeon unconsciously grabbed Yoo Baek-jun’s wrist, as if she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
“…Are you going back?”
“I have to. And I’ll come back.”
Yoo Baek-jun looked at Seol-yeong.
He hadn’t yet met the original Yoo Baek-jun in the spirit realm, but he had received a message through Seol-yeong.
“‘Yoo Baek-jun’ said something. He asked me to do what I could with this body. Well, there were some embarrassing words too.”
Something about making the world a better, more livable place.
That was the message Seol-yeong had delivered.
He planned to meet ‘Yoo Baek-jun’ later and hear it directly, but…
“…For now, I’ll honor that request.”
“……”
He felt it was his duty as the one who had taken over Yoo Baek-jun’s body.
A sense of responsibility.
“So.”
Jin Seo-yeon exhaled.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I thought you should know.”
“Why?”
Yoo Baek-jun slowly stood up.
Seol-yeong, with the fairy on its head, ran to him and jumped into his arms.
He could feel Jin Seo-yeon’s gaze following his movements.
“Because I like you.”
“……!”
Seol-yeong and the fairy in his arms gaped up at him in shock.
He didn’t turn away.
“I…”
A long silence passed.
Jin Seo-yeon, staring at Yoo Baek-jun’s back, was deeply conflicted.
“Give me… some time.”
Yoo Baek-jun’s words were what Jin Seo-yeon had secretly hoped to hear.
Under normal circumstances, she would have been overjoyed.
But now, her heart was too tangled to respond.
“I’ll be back in a week.”
Yoo Baek-jun understood her feelings well.
“If you can accept me, wait for me in my room at the family estate. If you can’t, you don’t have to come. I’ll understand.”
There was no answer.
Yoo Baek-jun stepped forward and boarded the airship with those who were waiting for him.
Meanwhile, Jin Seo-yeon silently watched him go without a word.
* * *
“Alright, time to go back.”
After finishing urgent matters, Yoo Baek-jun headed to his room in the family estate.
He instructed Han Seong-ah to ensure no one entered and said he would be away for a week.
“Surely nothing major will happen in a week. Ah, surely not.”
It felt like stacking death flags.
Yoo Baek-jun focused his mind and concentrated on the power within him.
Then, he unleashed it.
“Ugh!”
A brilliant light erupted from him.
The light flowing from Yoo Baek-jun gathered before him and slowly condensed.
Taking shape.
“Hoo…”
The shape of a gate.
What Overlord had gifted Yoo Baek-jun was the power to create a gate.
A gate connecting the dimension where ‘I’ lived and the dimension where ‘Yoo Baek-jun’ lived.
“Hey, Seol-yeong. Don’t cry just because I’m gone. Be good for the week. Understood?”
—Meeooow…
Seol-yeong, lying on the bed, looked at him with pitiful eyes, but there was nothing it could do.
He couldn’t take it with him.
“I’ll be back soon.”
Yoo Baek-jun looked at the gate.
Hoo, his breath quickened on its own.
Anticipation came first, followed by tension.
“…Let’s go.”
Carrying all those emotions.
Yoo Baek-jun stepped through the gate.
* * *
A tunnel appeared.
A long passageway made of dazzling multicolored light awaited him.
He walked slowly.
Swoosh…
With each step, Yoo Baek-jun’s body grew fainter.
Starting from his toes, gradually.
And in his place, a body familiar to ‘me’ began to appear.
“Is this the exit?”
How long had he walked?
Now, no longer Yoo Baek-jun but ‘me’ in another form stood before a door.
I opened the door.
And—
Whoosh!
Yoo Baek-jun—
No, I opened my eyes.
“……”
My mind was foggy. It felt like waking from a long sleep.
Dazedly, I looked around.
“My room…”
A modest studio apartment.
A bed, a virtual reality device in the middle, and a monitor on the desk with its power on.
A chat room was open on the monitor.
The number of users online: 2/201.
XxSupremeOverlordxX: Your wish has been granted. See for yourself.
The only other person in the chat room besides me left a message.
XxSupremeOverlordxX: And one more thing. All traces related to Heroes Road will disappear. Memories included.
XxSupremeOverlordxX: You might resent it, but I hope you understand.
The moment that message appeared, the chat room began to fade.
Then, one last message came.
XxSupremeOverlordxX I sincerely thank you for everything you’ve done.
1/201.
Overlord, the only other user besides me, left the chat room.
And then, a change occurred.
“This is…”
200, 190, 100, 50.
The number of people in the chat room rapidly decreased.
In the end, only I remained.
—The program will now close.
Soon, the chat room shut down.
After staring blankly at the empty monitor, I suddenly remembered something and turned around.
The virtual reality device in the room was disappearing like a mirage.
“Heroes Road.”
I searched for it online, but nothing came up.
Normally, there would have been countless posts praising its gameplay or cursing its difficulty.
But there was nothing.
As if it had never existed.
“…Well, this isn’t so bad.”
The others who had been dragged into the chat room before me must have gone through horrific experiences.
Losing those memories might not be so bad. Though I felt a bit regretful.
“Hoo…”
I blinked and checked the clock on the wall.
10:40 PM.
Outside, it was already evening.
I checked the date too.
“What was the date back then?”
I couldn’t remember the exact date I had been taken by Overlord.
But judging by my phone, not much time had passed.
If I had been missing for long, there would have been chaos over my disappearance.
“Ah, right.”
Suddenly, I remembered the wish I had made to Overlord and opened my banking app.
Before my part-time salary came in, my account had only a few hundred thousand won.
But now—
“Pfft, I can’t help but laugh.”
My account held an unimaginable amount of money.
Enough to last several lifetimes without working.
“Hmm, my face doesn’t seem to have changed.”
I looked in the mirror, but my face seemed unchanged from before.
Maybe it was because Yoo Baek-jun’s face was so handsome that I couldn’t tell the difference.
“Alright, then.”
I got up.
Now that I had money, there were things to do.
* * *
“Aren’t you spending too much money?”
“I told you I don’t have to buy it if you don’t want me to.”
The first thing I did upon returning to my original world was show filial piety.
I took my parents and bought them everything they had ever wanted.
“Where did you get the money to buy all this…?”
“Wow, Oppa. You’re really giving this to me? I can take it? For real?”
“What, you only call me Oppa when I buy you things? You usually call me ‘hey.’ Wanna die?”
And though I didn’t really want to—
I really didn’t want to, but I called my younger sister and gave her gifts too.
The laptop she had been singing about, plus other things she had wanted.
“……”
At first, my sister was overjoyed, but then she suddenly looked at me strangely.
“Hey, no way. Did you sell your organs?”
“Are you insane? Hey, give that back. I’ll return it right now.”
“No, no! I was joking!”
When I tried to take the laptop back, my sister panicked and backed away.
Seeing her like that made me sigh.
“Also, um, I’m in the process of buying an apartment. You can move in next month.”
“An apartment?”
“Yes, want to go see it?”
I took my parents and one other to a high-end apartment in Seoul.
My parents were stunned speechless as they looked up at the building.
“Brother, we’re really living here starting next month? For real? You’re not lying?”
“Us? Living here?”
“Yes, it’s not rented or leased—it’s ours. You can just live here. I’ll cover the maintenance fees and stuff.”
My parents were too shocked to speak as they looked around the apartment. Then they turned to me.
Their eyes were full of suspicion.
“Tell me straight. Where did you get the money to buy this? Are you doing something illegal?”
“I struck it big with crypto.”
“Hmm…”
Of course, that didn’t completely convince them.
I spent a long time explaining the excuses I had prepared in advance and managed to placate them.
Showing them the bank account overflowing with money was the clincher.
“So what now? What about a job?”
“I’m moving to the countryside.”
“The countryside?”
“Yeah, a friend of mine is starting a startup there. He asked for help, so I figured I’d pitch in.”
My father looked pleased.
“Honestly, I could live without working, but that’d be too boring, right? Plus, it’d be a waste of my education.”
“Hmm, not a bad idea.”
My parents had always been proud of my academic achievements.
I had attended a prestigious university.
They must have thought it a shame to waste that education, so they were happy I was going to work.
“I’ll visit whenever I can. Don’t worry.”
“Worry? Please.”
“If anything, we have one less thing to worry about.”
My parents were smiling brightly. And, annoyingly, so was my sister.
Damn brat.
“Hmm… good.”
A few days passed.
I appointed my father as my representative to handle the apartment purchase and headed to a distant rural area.
Busan.
“Busan here is fine.”
In the other world, Busan had been struck by disaster and was in the midst of recovery.
It felt complicated.
“Alright, I’ve done everything I needed to do. I can come back in two weeks.”
An apartment near the beach.
I headed to my new home and entered the empty room.
Then, I focused my mind.
“…This is amazing.”
A familiar gate appeared.
A gate to leave this place and return to the world of Heroes Road.
Now, I would live two lives.
One in this world, and another as ‘Yoo Baek-jun’ in the other world.
“Time to go back.”
To where everyone was waiting.
I stepped through the gate and walked down the long tunnel for a while.
As I passed through the exit, a blindingly bright light filled my vision.
“Ugh…”
—Meow!
—Oh, he’s back.
Amid the light obscuring everything, I heard voices.
Seol-yeong’s happy cry.
And…
“…Welcome back.”
Jin Seo-yeon’s voice.
‘I’—Yoo Baek-jun—opened his eyes.
“Yeah.”
Jin Seo-yeon’s face came into view.
She was smiling brightly. Without realizing it, Yoo Baek-jun spread his arms.
She stepped into his embrace.
What had she thought about during the week? What had she agonized over? Yoo Baek-jun couldn’t know.
But one thing was certain.
“……”
“……”
Jin Seo-yeon was here.
And she had accepted ‘me.’
They gazed at each other. Slowly, their faces drew closer.
—Meow…!
—Eek!
Their lips met.
Seol-yeong and the fairy, watching, covered their mouths and squealed.
Yoo Baek-jun and Jin Seo-yeon ignored them and focused on each other’s warmth.
‘To fulfill Yoo Baek-jun’s request, there’s still much to do.’
Make the world a better place.
Was that even possible? It sounded like a dream, but I intended to try.
It wouldn’t be easy.
‘From now on, it’s uncharted territory.’
Until now, I had relied on my knowledge to navigate events.
That wouldn’t be possible anymore.
I would make mistakes, sometimes fail.
But that was natural.
‘Not being able to predict the future.’
That was life.
Yoo Baek-jun smiled brightly.