The Returnee
Even now, I still don't know what that crimson rift that swallowed me truly was.
But one thing is certain — it sent me here.
Some twenty years of life in the Republic of Korea.
Ten years of life in the Central Plains.
And now… a ruined Earth?
At first, the despair hit hard. When I came to my senses, I was standing in a devastated city center, with monster-like things and creatures that were no longer human closing in from every side. The hometown I had longed for was already walking the road to annihilation.
People wandering about as zombies for reasons no one could explain. Enormous mutated animals. And on top of all that, a breed calling themselves Awakeners, flaunting strange new powers. Survivors exploited by the lot of them — a true apocalypse of the strong devouring the weak. For reasons unknown, none of the conveniences of twenty-first-century scientific civilization worked anymore.
A world without cell phones. Without computers.
Could someone who couldn't even manifest Sword Qi survive in a place like this? It would be a lie to say I wasn't afraid of the giant beasts that ate people, or the zombies straight out of a horror film.
But I soon learned those fears were unfounded.
There's a movie based on a comic everyone knows. Superman. According to the lore, he was an ordinary alien — at least until he came to Earth.
As it turned out, I was Superman.
In the Murim, I had been a thoroughly ordinary third-rate swordsman. No — maybe a little worse than ordinary. At the very least, Murim folk reached the second-rate realm and set out into the wider martial world. I was the kind of man who couldn't even manage what those second-rate martial artists all took for granted.
Wasn't that exactly what I had been? A third-rate swordsman?
And yet, with sword strikes that couldn't even carry Sword Qi, I sent zombie heads flying. I severed the claws of giant beasts.
And so my life after returning began.
More than three years since the fall of Earth had started — I had no choice but to search for any trace of my family, and keep moving forward on the road to survival.
"Hahaha! Brother Seo, you're here? I prepared Murim dumplings today."
The proprietor of Eclipse, the only tavern in this shelter, tossed me his usual greeting and joke.
The problem was the man's drinking stories — or rather, mine. One night, deep in my cups, I had spilled the ridiculous tale that I'd spent ten years living as a Murim master in another world, then returned to this ruined Earth. Living as a third-rate swordsman must have left a deeper grudge than I'd realized; drunk, I'd upgraded myself to master.
The real issue was that I did it every time I drank. So people had taken to treating me half in jest and half in earnest as if I actually were a man of the Murim. At first it was only a joke — but after I cut down an entire swarm of zombies with a single machete, they started handling me like a genuine Murim master.
"…Boss. That joke isn't funny."
He only laughed harder and set out a few actual dumplings. Dumplings, in a world like this? I took a bite. They really were proper Chinese-style steamed buns.
Every ingredient was precious now. Three years since the collapse meant every last stockpile of food had hit bottom. How many people in this place still ate a real meal?
Once the defenses against zombies and mutated beasts were more or less in place, the thing that tormented humanity most was food. And of course there were bastards monopolizing it — Awakeners, or whatever they called themselves. A vicious-tempered red-haired woman ruled this whole stretch of territory.
"Who cooked these? It can't have been you, boss."
"Hahaha. I was a little short-handed, so I took in one more family member."
Family member? The old man's meddling had kicked in again. He'd probably dragged in some pitiful orphan. Even after everything he'd been through, he still hadn't learned.
He had a habit of taking in children who'd lost their parents, and afterward the goods in his shop would go missing — over and over. Even so, his position never changed: help when you can. After it kept happening, he started packaging things so the kids could carry them off easily and leaving them out in plain sight.
When I asked why he went that far, he had told me this:
"You might not understand, Seo, but there's a reason they say that when a parent loses a child, they bury them in their heart… I still think my daughter might have made it through back then. So that's why. If I help little ones like this, maybe somewhere out there my girl is getting a meal from someone like me. Something like that."
The logic didn't hold together at all. But it wasn't something I couldn't understand.
"Who is it? Could be a dangerous kid."
He only gave me a bitter smile.
"At worst, a few bottles of liquor go missing. It's fine."
I hesitated a moment before answering.
"…I hope it turns out that way again."
There was a reason orphans never stayed long in places like this. At the beginning, plenty of adults had taken them in out of genuine kindness. But among them were people who took children for their own greed — and even when that wasn't the case, a young child was worth money. A girl, even more so. No matter how thoroughly the world had ended, men with full bellies still existed, and those greasy types always found a way to feed their appetites. So even if you accepted a little help for a moment, running first was the right choice.
Creeeak—
The wooden door dragged open with a dying scream.
A small girl who barely reached my chest stepped inside. Not yet grown, but too mature in bearing to simply call a child. She had her hood pulled low, yet something cynical still came off her.
"Oh? There you are. Good — you made it back before dark."
That explained why the boss had been watching the clock. Sunset wasn't far off. Once night fell, the zombies and mutated beasts only grew worse.
"I'm back. There isn't much worth scavenging around this area."
Only then did the girl — the child, I supposed I should call her — pull back her hood.
Terrible scars covered her face. Some looked like burns; others like old knife wounds. Without them, she probably would have been called quite pretty. Those same scars might have been the only reason she was still alive. In this age, pretty was just another word for walking prey.
"Someone I haven't seen before."
The girl rested her gaze on me for a moment.
"Ah, right. This is Great Hero Seo Hyeon-woo. The man who looks after all of us around here. Ahahaha."
Even at the boss's lame joke, she only offered the slightest nod of greeting.
Night came on under a bright moon. The wind was still.
A small ravine ran nearby — an important water source for the people here — so keeping zombies from thrashing around and fouling it was one of my jobs. Who wanted to drink corpse water?
No zombies tonight, at least.
Time for the training that had become habit.
Even after returning, I had never once neglected a single form. I knew the basics of fist-and-foot work and hidden weapons, but I'd made almost no progress with them, so I poured everything into the sword alone.
One motion only: a cut from above to below.
In the beginning I swung a thousand times a day. That alone split the skin of my palms. When the hands healed, I swung again. I kept at it for a solid six hours at a stretch. Once I had finished ten thousand cuts, I stopped counting. From then on I simply took each movement with care — slowly, with total focus — and cut.
My master had told me to cut the moon hanging in the sky. Even now, I still didn't really know what that meant.
A master calligrapher does not blame his tools. A true expert does not blame his sword. But I was no expert — only a third-rate swordsman. So I would have liked a proper blade. Where was I supposed to find one? There were decorative blunt swords around, but no live steel. I made do with a machete or a hand axe.
Rustle.
Someone's presence.
A zombie? Possible. If it was, I would deal with it quietly, take the head, and dump the body somewhere else. This was one of the few clean water sources we had left. In other regions, people had mismanaged zombie corpses, the water had been contaminated, and every survivor in the area had turned overnight. The current here meant that was unlikely — but it was still an ugly thought.
Rustle. Rustle.
Not a zombie, it seemed. The movements were too small. And whoever it was wasn't coming toward me — they were climbing higher up.
No one in their right mind wandered alone at this hour. Should I ignore it?
Curiosity is a dangerous thing. I started following the rustling sounds at a careful distance.
Where the noise stopped was a place I sometimes came to bathe. In winter you had no choice but to give up on washing, but the rest of the year, if you could get clean, you did. Living in the Central Plains and living here weren't all that different, truth be told — neither had proper modern civilization. The food had been far better and more plentiful in the Central Plains, though.
Ironically, life-or-death situations were far rarer now. At least I didn't have to run escort caravans, or face Murim fighters who flew through the air and flung Sword Qi around. Wasn't that right? One clash with a real Murim martial artist had shattered ten years of my sword work like glass. The Murim was a terrifying neighborhood.
Splash. Splash.
The sound of someone entering the water.
The girl's name was Mao Mei — mixed blood, Korean father, Chinese mother. She had come to the Republic of Korea searching for her father, dreaming of a warm little family, and instead met the end of the world.
That had been three years ago, the year she turned seventeen. By rights this should have been the spring of her twentieth year, a time to bloom. There was no such thing anymore. Every day was only something to endure, something to survive.
She had heard the owner of Eclipse was soft on young orphans, and she had approached him on purpose. She had knocked a few years off her age. A body that had gone too long without proper food didn't look grown anyway.
She had spent several days there, mapping the lay of the land. Daytime was relatively safe. She had found a place where she could wash without being seen. The moon was bright, and she hadn't managed a proper bath in far too long, so she had come carefully to this spot.
Zombies and mutated beasts might be roaming, but as far as she knew, zombies didn't wander mountain ravines. Mutated beasts? None of them would bother hunting a small girl like her for a meal.
That was the hope, anyway. Certainty was something else. Complete safety no longer existed in this world. And washing like this at the Eclipse tavern itself might have provoked the owner in ways she didn't want to risk.
She knew perfectly well — the more survival itself was threatened, the more sharply a man's lust could be provoked. Sexual violence had existed even at the peak of human civilization. And simply being defiled would have been the lucky outcome; death was just as likely. There was a reason orphans never trusted adults.
Mao Mei planned to stay a few more days, gather a few useful things, and leave.
The clear water made her want a full bath.
Should I wash with my clothes on…?
She let out a short, dry breath. Washing clothed wasn't any safer.
Slowly, she stripped and folded her clothes neatly on a stone.
Splash. Splash.
The cold water touched her skin and raised a faint shiver of gooseflesh. Still better than staying filthy. There was no shampoo to be had, but she had soap she had made herself — wildflowers picked by hand, petals and all. Oil was precious, but she could still scavenge the fat trimmings restaurants threw away. She had rendered that grease, mixed in lye, and made her own soap.
She washed her body with care, dressed again, and started to leave the ravine. The clothes against her chilled skin eased the trembling a little.
"…From now on, don't come here alone. It's dangerous."
A man?
Mao Mei felt her whole body lock up. Of all times — every last bit of her makeup had been washed away. Tension coiled through her, but showing fear in a moment like this could get her killed. Among the ones who hunted women's bodies, some took a special pleasure in cruelty the instant their prey looked frightened. The more dangerous the moment, the more brazen you had to be.
Like a woman who had been through it all a hundred times.
A ration ticket. Local currency handed out by the warlord outfit called Hound, good for drawing a share of their food. One ticket usually bought about a single meal, so people hoarded dozens of them before cashing in for real supplies.
A woman's body was worth one meal now.
Mao Mei undid the front of her clothes right where she stood. Her hands were shaking.
They couldn't be allowed to.
Show fear and he might kill her. But plenty of men lost their nerve in the face of sheer nerve. She had to look like a worn-out whore — the kind who would spread her legs for a single ration ticket anytime. That way, he wouldn't get greedy for more.
It was the man she had glimpsed briefly at Eclipse. Hyeon-woo, had they called him? He looked decent enough, but you never knew what kind of bastard a man really was. She forced the buttons open with everything she had.
Her hands were still trembling.
Seo Hyeon-woo walked slowly toward her.