An Incident in Yongsan (2)
Seong Hyeon was a reincarnator.
He carried memories of a world that was not this one — that kind of reincarnator.
In his previous life, Seong Hyeon had never been anyone particularly special. Overtime was the baseline, and all-nighters were common. Overtime pay? The employees had volunteered to work extra, so why hand out more money? He was simply living because he could not die, and all he ever did was go to work, go to work, and go to work again. The endless daily loop raced past him, and Seong Hyeon was buried inside that current, tossed this way and that. There was no joy in life — only the existence of sitting in front of a company computer, hammering at a keyboard. Day after day he endured with that thought alone.
One night, while he was working through the small hours, his vision suddenly blurred. A strange sensation of being peeled away from the world washed over him, and his sight went dark. He could offer no resistance. That was how he died of overwork.
When he opened his eyes again, it was a different world.
At first I was really thrown.
Still, the new world was similar enough to the old one that adapting had not been especially hard. Moreover, the family into which Seong Hyeon had been born was a fairly famous martial house in Korea, so he naturally learned martial arts. Having learned from his previous life that health mattered more than anything, he threw himself into training and physical conditioning with a passion none of his siblings could match. Even his older sister Seong Yeon — the one who went around inventing fights that did not exist — could not keep up with him.
In just a few more years I’ll be an adult again. Time really does fly.
He would never die of overwork a second time. With this healthy body he had built, he wanted to live a peaceful life — a thoroughly peaceful life.
For some reason I keep getting dragged into accidents, so it hasn’t exactly been peaceful so far…
But once he became an adult, surely he could manage it. He would become a mercenary, take the occasional commission, and drift through life at an easy pace — a kind of compensation for the self who had worked himself to death.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing much.”
“Is that so~?”
The short-haired girl walking beside him spoke in a playful tone. Her name was Lee Jiwoo. She was someone he had known since the days when he first learned how to think — in other words, a childhood friend.
“Don’t tell me… you were thinking about me?”
“Why would I think about you when you’re right next to me?”
“Huh? I-is that how it works?”
Lee Jiwoo had been clumsy for as long as anyone could remember. Because Seong Hyeon had spent so many years looking after her, her mother practically treated him like an adopted son. He rather liked the arrangement. After all, having at least one close friend from childhood was a good thing. Jiwoo also possessed considerable talent for spirit arts, so the connection was nothing but beneficial to him.
“Wow! Look at that! It’s a huge cat with wings!”
The moment they arrived in Yongsan, Jiwoo spotted a summoner performing in the central plaza and dashed off in excitement.
“Hyeon-ah, look over there.”
“Hm? What’s up?”
Jiwoo, who had been browsing the shops, tugged on his arm. In the direction she pointed, a small crowd was murmuring.
What’s going on?
The incident must have been recent; not many people had gathered yet.
“Ah—no, I’m not!”
A loud voice burst from the center of the cluster.
“Hyeon-ah! Let’s go check it out!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Those people look like they ran into a dangerous villain…”
“Shouldn’t somebody report this? Feels like a few people are gonna die today. I really don’t want to see corpses.”
The anxious chatter made it clear the situation was far from safe.
“Excuse me, coming through.”
At the center stood a couple and a single man. The man speaking with them wore a black coat; the couple wore matching padded jackets. The woman was around 160 cm, the man well over 180. The coat-wearing stranger was taller still. Because the voices were hard to catch, Seong Hyeon focused mana into his ears and sharpened his hearing.
“It really does seem you have some health concerns, so I—”
“N-no, I’m fine, really…!”
From the words alone it sounded as though the man was simply worried about the couple’s health, yet the atmosphere was the complete opposite.
“Hmm… I understand. It’s gotten chilly lately, so please take good care of yourselves. Health is the most important thing, after all. Nothing in this world matters more than health.”
“Yes! I’ll keep that in mind! I’m truly sorry!”
“Haha, no need to apologize. If anything, I should apologize for detaining two busy people.”
It looked, on the surface, like a warm exchange of well-wishes. The couple was rigid with tension, but that was probably no different from running into a superior at work.
“Doesn’t seem like much. Let’s just go.”
“Yeah. I thought something interesting was happening, but it’s boring.”
“Seriously though, I thought I was going to fail for sure. I was so nervous!”
“Why would you fail? With your skills you’d easily place mid-rank or higher. Worry more about how you’re going to get out of bed in the morning.”
Chatting about nothing important, Seong Hyeon and Lee Jiwoo stepped into the plaza. It was a quieter corner on the outskirts, almost empty of people. After wandering the shopping streets they had somehow ended up here. And the man sitting on a bench by the fountain looked familiar.
A man in a black coat, stroking a black fox.
Isn’t that the same guy from earlier?
Confirming that the coat’s design matched the one worn by the man who had spoken with the couple, Seong Hyeon’s eyes narrowed slightly. The build was similar too; it had to be the same person. Earlier he had not seen the face. Now that he could, it was nothing like what he had expected. He had imagined a wrinkled middle-aged superior, yet the man looked roughly his own age. Handsome enough, but those narrow, somehow suspicious eyes pulled Seong Hyeon’s attention like a magnet. Without the coat he would never have connected the two figures at all.
So he kept glancing over. He did not know why. He simply felt that he had to watch the man’s every move. Perhaps that was why he failed to notice what was happening around him.
A sharp beep—and a presence rocketed toward them from behind. Seong Hyeon saw Lee Jiwoo launch skyward and rolled hard to the side. Even while rolling he checked the man again. In the middle of the crisis the narrow-eyed stranger simply sat there, smiling at them with perfect leisure.
—Grrrrrk.
Unfortunately Seong Hyeon had no spare attention for him. The instant he dodged the assailant’s attack he drew his sword and flooded it with mana. The blade erupted in flames as though the steel itself had become fire. He still could not form true Aura, but pouring mana this way produced a rough imitation.
The efficiency is pathetic compared to real Aura… but it can’t be helped.
He leveled the sword at the attacker.
“I don’t know who you are… but jumping people out of nowhere is pretty rude.”
Subdue the assailant first. Keep watching the man the whole time.
Sword in his right hand, flames cupped in his left. At that moment Lee Jiwoo summoned a fire spirit behind the creature.
“Hyeon-ah! Now!”
At her shout Seong Hyeon charged. Even then he never stopped monitoring the narrow-eyed man. The stranger remained seated, calmly stroking the fox and watching the fight, and the sight twisted something in Seong Hyeon’s chest.
I can’t tell whether he simply hasn’t moved yet… or whether he can’t.
What he did know was this: if that man ever stood up, the result would not be good for him or for Jiwoo. So the fact that the man stayed put was the best possible outcome right now.
I have to finish this fast.
The assailant’s skin was hard — hard enough that the sword barely bit. The flames at least scorched it, but beyond that the damage was negligible.
If I’d known it would come to this I should have studied more magic. Did I focus too much on pure physical training?
Most everyday trouble could be handled with what he already had, so he had simply trained martial arts harder and never bothered with magic. The only spells he knew were fire-attribute ones that suited him. Fighting while also watching the man made the fatigue worse. The stranger still had not moved, yet the conviction that he was somehow the root of this whole mess refused to leave Seong Hyeon’s mind.
When are the police getting here?
The police would bring weapons that could actually hurt the thing. If he just held out until then, victory was his.
“Police! You two, get clear of the villain!”
An officer shouted and flung an object at the misshapen creature. The object flew on its own, settled on the assailant’s head, and sprayed sticky mucus that wrapped the entire body.
—Grrrararagagagak!
The creature thrashed violently. The officer then summoned a mushroom-shaped familiar that dusted the assailant with powder. Contact with the powder slowed the creature’s movements until it finally collapsed and lay still.
One of the officers approached Seong Hyeon.
“Could you two please state your names?”
“Seong Hyeon.”
“I’m Lee Jiwoo!”
The officer entered the names on a tablet.
“Confirmed. Thank you for your cooperation. This could easily have turned into a major incident. You did well holding out until we arrived.”
“Aw, it was nothing. Just doing what we should!”
Seong Hyeon watched Jiwoo’s shy yet confident smile, then looked back toward the narrow-eyed man.
He was gone.