The Murim Man Adapting to the Other World (Part 2)
I kept the monthly-rent room exactly as it was and just searched for a temporary residence for my family.
‘This is my first time here.’
It was just a hotel room I’d passed by on the way.
A luxurious suite that cost over five million won a night.
I couldn’t exchange my gold yet, so I grabbed my credit card instead.
‘The moment five hundred thousand is gone…’
My heart pounded like a drum, but Hwar-yeon and Soye’s reactions were completely different.
“This is more than enough.”
“It’s not bad at all.”
Watching the mother and daughter nod like everything was finally okay, I quietly slipped my wallet back into my pocket.
“Then, since we’ve found a place to live, let’s go shopping for clothes.”
“Clothes?”
“We can’t keep wearing the same rags forever.”
They hadn’t noticed the strangeness.
“Hmm… modern clothes feel so simple and almost indecent.”
“You’ll change your mind once you try them on, right?”
I was leading the two of them toward the department store when my phone rang.
“Yoon Joon-ho?”
The sudden call suggested something urgent. But I immediately hung up and blocked the number.
‘Do whatever you want. I’ve been forced off today anyway.’
The day after my mandatory duty shift, they made me take a full day off. Hanging up or not answering wouldn’t cause any legal issues.
Though the emotional distance between Yoon Joon-ho and me would probably widen a little.
‘It’s not my problem anymore.’
As soon as we stepped onto the street, Hwar-yeon stared at the cars and asked,
“Those steel carriages are cars?”
“Yep.”
“No matter how I look at them, they’d still go faster if they just ran.”
“Most people here don’t know any martial arts. Everything is decided by technical superiority.”
“Technology…! That’s fascinating. So the strongest country would be the one with the best technology?”
“It also needs the largest land and the most money. Those are the two things you need to advance technology.”
Hwar-yeon listened with clear interest.
We boarded a bus toward the department store. Halfway there Hwar-yeon ripped the handrail clean off, and a commotion broke out, but we settled it with cash compensation.
“Husband… I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine. The strength control might have slipped. It’s part of the adaptation process.”
A Murim person suddenly dropped into the modern world would definitely face plenty of bumps.
The fact that we hadn’t attacked a car like it was a monster already put our family at S-rank.
“Alright, let’s start picking out clothes.”
I walked the mother and daughter through the department store.
They looked a little out of place at first, but once they saw all the clothing racks they slowly widened their eyes.
“There are way more clothes than anything in the Murim.”
“This… can I try it on?”
“Of course! But be careful not to tear it.”
Soye nodded and immediately headed for the fitting room.
‘Good.’
While waiting for them to change, my phone rang again.
Unknown number, but I answered anyway. A man’s voice came through.
“This is Ju Tae-jin from the Special Hunter Crime Department. Is this Mr. Kim Min-su?”
“Yes, this is Hunter Management, Kim Min-su.”
“Are you available to talk right now?”
The Special Hunter Crime Department.
A unit that specialized in criminal cases involving hunters.
A call from that department was never good news.
“Yes, I’m available.”
“You’re out right now. I’ll keep it short. I heard you measured the Jujang Mountain Gate.”
“That’s correct. I performed the measurement.”
“Immediately after the gate instability, did you notice anything else? Like another hunter.”
That sentence hit me.
‘They’re looking for the person who caught the horn knight.’
The man who had caught the horn knight was currently in the fitting room, changing clothes with all his might.
“My only memory is blacking out right after the horn knight attacked me.”
“I see. Noted. Sorry for taking your time while you were resting. I’ll contact you if we need to investigate further.”
“Understood.”
I hung up coldly. The moment I did, a hand clapped my shoulder.
“Ta-da!”
I turned around and saw Hwar-yeon in a gray T-shirt that clung to her curves, black skirt and all.
“Madam, your figure is perfect for everything.”
The saleswoman who had just walked up was right; the wide hips made the skirt fit like it was tailor-made.
“It’s too perfect.”
“Really?”
Hwar-yeon grinned as I watched.
‘That’s right. This is happiness.’
I had already suspected the Special Hunter Crime Department. I also still had to explain Hwar-yeon and Soye to my mother.
And I still had unfinished business with the management department.
There was a lot left to do, but just seeing them made every burden feel lighter.
“Mom…”
The second Soye’s voice reached my ears, she was standing there in a white one-piece dress.
“Oh, honey, you really are beautiful.”
Hwar-yeon praised Soye and jabbed my side with her elbow.
“Whoa! You’re beautiful!”
Soye lowered her head and hid behind Hwar-yeon.
‘She still feels like a stranger.’
Suddenly being called “Daddy” by a brand-new person was far more shocking.
“Then can we buy more?”
“Of course.”
I was basically dragged around the department store by the two women.
‘A hundred bags… I’m dead.’
We returned to the hotel weighed down on both sides by paper bags full of clothes.
I had spent a fortune.
My bank account was nowhere near empty, but it was only a matter of time before it was.
‘To turn my identity and gold into cash, I’m going to have to contact that guy eventually.’
The broker who pulled the strings in the underworld and my old comrade.
***
“Director, this is the testimony.”
Special Hunter Crime Department office.
Ju Tae-jin squinted at the documents Yoo Na-ra had handed him.
‘Suspicious.’
He was reviewing the backgrounds of three men.
All three testimonies matched perfectly.
“Right after the measurement screen flashed ‘unmeasurable,’ the gate erupted and the horn knight burst out. While fleeing, we were attacked and scattered.”
His suspicion was aimed at only one person.
The other two had clearly been special forces, but Kim Min-su’s record was completely unexpected.
‘He fought in the Russia-Ukraine war for three years in Afghanistan and for a full year as a mercenary…?’
Who in their right mind would chase wars like that?
Even a crazy person wouldn’t need to hunt battles.
“Ugh…”
Ju Tae-jin pressed his forehead as if a needle were being driven through his skull.
‘Here we go again.’
He was a combat veteran of the Hunter War between China and America.
“Above all else…”
The most suspicious part was something else entirely.
The other two were still in the hospital because they couldn’t leave. But Kim Min-su had gone out alone and was perfectly fine.
‘Even if the horn knight didn’t hit him directly, that shockwave from using the horn knight’s wing ability would have broken bones. Yet he’s walking around like nothing happened.’
Impossible.
‘There’s something out there. A secret I don’t know. Even the management department doesn’t know.’
***
I stood in front of a shabby bookstore.
“Getting a bit awkward.”
I walked in and approached the owner.
No small talk. I rolled up my sleeve and showed the tattoo on my shoulder.
The mark only the survivors of that day and that place had gotten.
“…”
The owner’s eyes widened, then he nodded silently and led me down to the basement passage.
I climbed the ladder and found a wide space below.
Giant machines that looked like server racks filled the room, and in the middle sat a plump man in a chair.
Completely different from the macho Jacob of old—bald head, rock-hard muscles, and a completely different aura.
“No way… really, Min-su…? You?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Jacob, I guess I’ve finally become an old man.”
“You’re still exactly the same?! Where’d you learn that trick?”
I fist-bumped the newly bald old Jacob.
My shoulder tattoo was the badge earned by those who survived the Russo-Ukrainian war where bullets, bombs, and drones rained down.
Jacob had been my comrade in arms from that time.
I didn’t know he’d lost an arm to a drone attack, retired, and gone into hiding shortly after I became a vegetable.
‘What a fool.’
When I recovered my phone, hundreds of messages from him had piled up.
I had avoided him across countless worlds to reset my broken sense of time and adapt to modern life.
‘No… that’s just an excuse. I just didn’t have the courage to meet him again.’
I learned from the hospital staff that when Jacob and the others had tried to rescue me, they had abandoned their vehicles and carried me on their backs just to escape on foot.
“Thank you, Jacob.”
“If someone else had been lying there, we would’ve carried them too. How are the legs?”
“Still the same. I just got fully used to the prosthetics.”
I flicked my fingers and metal clinked.
“Is there only one healer in the entire world who can reattach severed limbs?”
“That’s right. The woman they call the Saint of England.”
Already a patient waiting list of over a thousand hunters wanted to be treated by the woman nicknamed Victoria.
“I heard lately that older wealthy people are the ones getting the trend.”
“Sharing good things is impossible, huh.”
We sat across from each other at the table and talked about everything.
Time flew by without me noticing until Jacob asked,
“So, what’s the favor?”
“You…”
“Something important happened that made you want to see me? Right? You’ve always been like that. The guy who hates borrowing favors from others more than anything.”
“Heh, what’s up with the bald talk.”
Jacob grinned and touched his shiny head.
“Tell me anything. We’re comrades.”
I set the bag on the desk.
“Please tell me it’s not human heads.”
“What do you think I am? Relax, it’s not heads.”
Jacob eyed the bag suspiciously, then slowly opened it.
“Fucking… Min-su. What the hell did you do?”
His face flooded with confusion.
The bag was overflowing with sparkling gold coins.
“It’s clean. I’ll even give you twenty percent off the fee.”
“Twenty…”
Jacob’s eyes sparkled as he stared at the coins.
“Huh… rough calculation even…”
The hand holding the bag started shaking.
“And…”
I pulled two thick gold coins the size of my fist from my pocket.
“This is the cost for two identities.”
“Huuuugh…!!”
Jacob’s eyes rolled back like he was about to faint.
“C-customer… what can I do for you?”
Suddenly Jacob rubbed his hands together and smiled.
The perfect business smile.
***
“It’s South Korean personal information. Almost all of it’s already leaked, so swapping one missing person’s info is enough.”
“Hwar-yeon is the same age as me. And Soye is fourteen.”
I handed Jacob photos of them.
“Red hair? She’s foreign, huh?”
“She’s my wife.”
“Um~ wife… wife?! Wait, then this child…”
“Daughter.”
Jacob clutched his head and shouted.
“You filthy superficial-looking guy! Min-su, you married first and already have a wife and daughter?! Wait, a guy who walked around the battlefield with a wife and daughter at fourteen?!”
“There were circumstances. Now I just want to live comfortably with my family.”
“Smart move.”
Jacob clapped my shoulder and turned to the monitor.
“Two days. Two days and I can make the identities.”
Watching him type furiously, the reality finally sank in.
Jacob was a drone soldier and a hacker so good the CIA called him.
A strange guy.
A crazy man who had gone to the front line just to experience real battlefields.
“And even if it’s not this, call me anytime. I miss you, Min-su.”
“Got it. Whenever I need a favor.”
“Promise—”
Suddenly a red screen flashed on Jacob’s computer.
“What? Did it fail?”
“No, this has nothing to do with my work. It’s an alarm that a gate has appeared in this area.”
“A gate? Where?”
Jacob immediately turned on the map and showed the location.
“What the hell…”
It was less than a hundred meters from the hotel.