My Brother-in-Law Returned Too

“...Jaeseong? Brother-in-law, how did you get in here?”

My brother-in-law's face was full of disbelief, as though he were staring at a ghost.

It made sense. Going by the timeline, he shouldn't have entered this gate until years after I had gone missing.

“It's been a long time, brother-in-law.”

“What... am I dead? No wait, what about Seoyeon and Seojun...? Come to think of it, the last thing I remember, that vampire bastard and I...”

My brother-in-law was still rambling, clearly unable to make sense of the situation.

At the very least, I could understand roughly where he stood. I didn't know exactly what had happened to him, but the flow of time inside the boss room had been slowed to an extreme crawl. From his perspective, I must have simply popped into existence right before his eyes.

“I-is that... Jaeseong, get back!”

That was the moment his hand shot out and yanked me behind him.

My brother-in-law was trying to shield me, glaring at the thing behind my back — more precisely, at the creature I had brushed past on my way in.

Pop.

But at that instant, the head of the thing he was glaring at burst apart with a small explosive crack.

Crimson blood erupted from the creature's severed neck, spraying in every direction — yet not a single drop came anywhere near my brother-in-law or me.

Thud.

I watched the headless body collapse limply to the floor.

“Ho... how...?”

My brother-in-law murmured, staring at the scene with an expression of pure disbelief.

Naturally, I was the one who had made it happen. When I had touched the creature's body earlier, I had already planted the energy of the Ten Thousand Blood Coagulation Art deep within its bloodstream.

Its head should have burst long ago — but only now, with the flow of time finally restored to normal, had the technique taken effect. Like a time bomb finally reaching zero.

I regarded the messages floating before my eyes with an expression of mild interest.

So this was the kind of thing Seoyeon must have received when she killed the Golden Goblin, I thought.

Of course, that interest faded almost immediately. The effect hardly seemed all that impressive to me — and besides, I had something far more important in front of me.

“...Wait. Did you do that, Jaeseong?”

I slowly nodded at my half-dazed brother-in-law's question.

“It seems we have quite a lot to talk about, don't we? Brother-in-law.”

I said it to him gently, his face still carrying the look of a man lost in a dream. Honestly, the only thing on my mind was relief — sheer, simple gratitude that he was alive.

Staff Sergeant Jeong Haejin was certain of one thing: guard duty at the Yeouido Gate was the most boring posting on the face of the earth.

He had held that post for three years, and in all that time nothing had ever emerged from the gate, nor had anyone ever entered it.

Well, to be precise, the biggest incident had come two years back, when a pack of freshly Awakened hunters had swaggered up trying to act tough. Even they had just fidgeted around in front of the gate before slinking home.

That was how utterly devoid of human presence the area before the Yeouido Gate was. After Korea's greatest fighting force had been annihilated in the first assault, only two more clearing attempts had ever been made; since then, a mere security detail had been stationed around the gate as a precaution against a possible Gate Break.

And it was on that particular night that Jeong Haejin's routine finally changed.

The first oddity was the sudden authorization for gate entry that came down from headquarters. And shortly afterward, who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠should appear but a single young man.

Frankly, right up until that moment, Haejin had never once imagined this man was there to enter the gate. This was the Yeouido Gate, after all — the very place where the nation's elite assault team, legendary even in those early days, had walked in and been slaughtered to the last man.

But the man walked through the gate's threshold before Haejin ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could so much as raise a hand to stop him.

“Staff Sergeant. Aren't you rotating out?”

“I'll head back a little slowly. You go on ahead.”

That was why he was still there, even after his replacement had arrived to relieve him.

Of course, he had no idea how long a gate clearing might take, and he certainly didn't believe one man could conquer the Yeouido Gate alone. And yet, somehow, Haejin couldn't bring himself to leave. Walking away felt impossible when he knew there was a human being inside that thing.

“Huh?”

The relieved soldier let out a dimwitted squawk.

The portal of the Yeouido Gate — which had not shown so much as a flicker of change in all this time — had begun to ripple.

In three years of guarding this place, Haejin had never once seen such a sight.

“Wh-what is that? A Gate Break?”

“Report to headquarters! Anomalous activity!”

Even as he barked the order, Haejin racked the charging handle on his rifle.

The gate might be going berserk. He knew perfectly well that a rifle wouldn't leave so much as a scratch on the monsters of an A-rank-or-higher gate — but right now, even that futile resistance felt necessary. Whatever might come crawling out, the moment a Gate Break occurred in Yeouido, the very heart of Seoul, the city would become a living hell.

“Huh? It's people! Hold your fire!”

But what emerged from the portal was not a monster. It was people — two of them.

One was the man who had entered the gate earlier. The other was...

“...No way. Hunter Choi Taemin?”

Haejin murmured the name, half his soul already departed from his body.

Choi Taemin. One of the handful of S-rank Awakened left in Korea — a man who had once been hailed as the nation's Last Hope.

Haejin knew as well as anyone that the Yeouido Gate had been the last place he'd ever entered. And that had been four years ago.

By any stretch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of common sense, the very notion that Choi Taemin was still alive was absurd.

“Huh? You know me?”

Yet the Choi Taemin standing before him, smiling brightly, looked exactly as he did in Haejin's memory.

'No. That's impossible.'

The man had vanished four years ago. Even if he had somehow survived inside the gate, there should have been some trace of the years on him.

But Choi Taemin looked precisely the same. As if he'd stepped into the gate only yesterday.

“I— no, I saw you on the news. I was a fan, sir.”

“Hm? Not a fan anymore, I see. Heh heh.”

Hearing that, Haejin could only swallow hard. He couldn't bring himself to say the truth — that he'd spoken that way because he'd believed the man was dead.

But Haejin's shocks were not over yet.

“Oh, right. Please report that the gate has been cleared.”

“...Sir?”

“The Yeouido Gate. Its first successful clear is complete.”

From Choi Taemin's mouth came the news that the infamous Yeouido Gate had finally been conquered.

And that was news that would not only stagger Jeong Haejin — it was about to turn the entire Republic of Korea upside down.

“So. You're telling me I was trapped in there for four years?”

“That's about the size of it.”

I was sitting with my brother-in-law on the riverbank near Yeouido, talking things through. I wanted nothing more than to run and tell Seoyeon and Seojun that their father — my brother-in-law — was alive, but he needed time to get his own head straight first.

“Ha. So that's how it was. I had no idea.”

My brother-in-law spoke with a hollow, helpless smile.

Listening to his story, several puzzles that had never quite made sense began to fall into place.

First: the slowing of time within a certain space had indeed been his doing. More precisely, it was the work of a unique skill called [Eternal Moment], which he had acquired upon Awakening.

The skill's power was to slow time within a fixed radius around himself. Merely being able to manipulate time was a cheat-tier ability by any standard — the problem was that my brother-in-law himself remained subject to that slowed time.

Under normal circumstances he would have dialed it down only enough to favor himself in a fight, but apparently, the moment he came face to face with that Vampire Lord, he'd realized the situation was hopeless and cranked the time dilation up to its absolute maximum.

While he waited for someone to come rescue him.

Of course, that gamble carried its own risks. Enduring time stretched to a near-eternal crawl is not something an ordinary human being can simply shrug off.

He told me that if he hadn't had the goal of seeing Seoyeon and Seojun again, he would have lost his mind long ago.

“Hm? What? The Domain of Inviolability?”

When I asked about the ability Oh Pilsang had attributed to him, my brother-in-law only stared at me with the blank face of a man hearing it for the first time. But a moment later, a wry chuckle escaped his lips.

“Ah, Oh Pilsang, huh? The stuff he was pulling always left a bad taste in my mouth, so I just made something up. What kind of idiot goes around broadcasting his own skill to the world? ...By the way, is he doing well? Thinking about that bastard gets my blood boiling again. Why the hell didn't he ever send a rescue team?”

Watching him fume, I walked him through the whole chain of events — the state the kids had been in since my return to Korea, and everything Oh Pilsang had done.

“That son of a bitch. Where is he now?”

With every detail laid bare, my brother-in-law turned to me with eyes brimming over with killing intent.

I told him, of course, that I had no idea where Oh Pilsang was at present. That was the simple truth. But if my brother-in-law chose to hunt him down, I had no intention of standing in his way.

Kindness and grudges are for the individual to weigh and settle — not something anyone else can decide on their behalf.

'As far as I'm concerned, I repaid my debt to him by letting him off once.'

Whatever remained was my brother-in-law's share, and his alone to collect.

“Oh, right. What about you, Jaeseong? How ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠did you come back like this — not a single day older than you were ten years ago?”

I couldn't help but snort at the question. Here was a man asking me how I'd managed it. Still, I told him the short version: I had spent those years in Murim, and I had Returned.

Fortunately, returnees weren't unheard of even back before he'd entered the gate, and my brother-in-law absorbed it all in one breath.

“...It must have been hard. Welcome home, brother-in-law.”

I let out a small laugh at that. It was the first time in my life I'd been the one welcomed back by an elder of the family — by kin I should have been the one looking after.

“...And my sister? Do you know anything?”

“Not exactly. She went missing near a gate. But I still believe she's alive. You came back to me alive, after all.”

I could only nod silently at his words. It was true — our sister was never the sort of person who would die so easily, wherever she'd ended up.

“Noona. Wake up.”

Choi Seoyeon crawled out of bed to a late morning.

And the one who had roused her was none other than her little brother Seojun, eight years her junior.

On any ordinary day, Seoyeon would never have slept in past her brother. But she had only just returned the day before from a D-rank gate — where, on top of everything, her uncle had put her through training.

She'd lost count somewhere north of a hundred goblins by the time it was over.

So it was little wonder her stamina had hit rock bottom.

“Seojun, let noona sleep just a bit more...”

“Uncle's gone.”

Her body was still screaming in protest, but at those words, Seoyeon shot upright in bed.

He'd been there until last evening — and now he'd suddenly vanished?

Still in her pajamas, Seoyeon bolted into the living room and tore through the entire house. But there was no trace of her uncle anywhere. All that remained was the strange bundle he'd carried in, and the red jewel embedded in the ceiling.

'No way. No, no, no!'

It felt as if her heart were being crushed in a fist. He had appeared out of nowhere one day — so it stood to reason he could disappear the same way. She'd known that.

The problem was that in that impossibly short stretch of time, Seoyeon had already started leaning on her uncle far too much.

'This isn't right. He can't just leave like this.'

Choking back the tears that threatened to spill over, she hastily threw on her coat — over her pajamas, though at a moment like that, who cared?

“Seojun, stay right here in the house. Noona's just stepping out for a minute.”

With those words, Seoyeon headed straight for the front door. If she left right now, maybe — just maybe — she could still find him.

But at that very moment, the door swung open.

And there stood her uncle, the very picture of nonchalance.

“...Did you just wake up? Where exactly are you going, looking like that?”

Choi Seoyeon absolutely, positively could not stand her uncle.