A Father's Contingency
"Kaisent vanished through dimensional travel? And Skynet caught the flow of the dimensional wave?"
Jincheon frowned. He was a young-looking East Asian man whose sharp features made him seem aggressive at first glance, yet his eyes held the depth of centuries.
From the modern world to Murim, and from Murim into an SF world locked in mecha warfare—he had risen to the absolute peak of both. In Murim he had been the greatest under heaven; in the SF galaxy he had claimed half of it. In either world, he stood at the summit.
"I haven't informed the madams yet."
"Good work, Kunlo."
Jincheon praised his disciple—the blue-skinned man with the solemn face. The boy who would have died as bait for beasts if Jincheon had never come to this world had grown into a tall, imposing adult.
"Tsk. I still haven't found my wife in this galaxy, and now this."
"Even if you found her, Master, you'd still be planning to play around in this galaxy, wouldn't you?"
"Heh heh heh. Obviously. I feel bad for my wives, but I keep thinking I should've come to this galaxy from the start."
A vast empire that already controlled two-thirds of the galaxy and despised alien races. Monsters that kept pouring in from beyond the galactic rim. The awakening of an ancient empire that had ruled this galaxy tens of thousands of years ago and still called every other species primitive. A combat race of mold that grew and spread across entire star systems. Evil gods that fed on the emotions of sentient beings inside warp-space and grew stronger for it. The resurrection of yet another ancient empire that had dominated the galaxy hundreds of thousands of years before the first. Endless war between forces that could neither ally nor cooperate—this galaxy was pure, unfiltered chaos.
Jincheon, who had long since surpassed the limits of humanity, had sensed that his wife from his Murim days had been reborn somewhere in this galaxy. He had assembled a great expedition fleet and set out.
"And the evil gods are so powerful that even you, Master, can feel the possibility of defeat."
"Khhaaa~! My blood's boiling! Thanks to them I've started training again after I quit!"
Ever since becoming the strongest, Jincheon had only ever received challengers. Now he was the challenger again, and the training he had abandoned had resumed. He had trained before, of course—but that had only been to recover the martial power he had lost upon entering this world. This time he was pushing toward the next realm entirely. The meaning was different.
At first he had only meant to find his former wife's reincarnation and go home. But he had fallen so completely into this world's chaos that even his child's disappearance no longer made him consider turning back.
"Still. I can't just sit still when a kid who hasn't even finished growing yet has gone missing."
The moment the conversation returned to his son's disappearance, the blood-stirred excitement vanished from Jincheon's face as if it had never been there. The cold, clear expression that replaced it made the earlier fervor look like a lie.
An adult child should solve their own problems. A minor, though—an adult was supposed to protect them. If you couldn't do that, you had no right to call yourself a parent. That was how he had always thought.
But that created a contradiction.
"With the equipment on this expedition fleet, we can't help the young master once he's vanished into another dimension. Perhaps we should return to the home country first?"
"No. There's one method."
With that, Jincheon headed for the heart of the flagship.
Past the dark-matter power core, deeper still, he opened a vault sealed behind multiple layers of security—a warehouse more fortress than storeroom.
"This is…!"
Inside lay a massive tentacle.
It had been severed with surgical precision and perfectly preserved. To Kunlo, it was the stuff of nightmares. He had once been deceived by the extra-dimensional beings who possessed these tentacles and had nearly served as the vanguard of galactic annihilation.
"Good thing I kept one just in case."
Jincheon looked at the tentacle of the invaders who held the power to open dimensions, and smiled.
One month later.
Scratch, scratch, scratch—
"Captain Wolf. I've finished the accounts."
Kaisent set down his pencil and handed over the completed papers.
"Hmm. Mmm. Wait—what? This is all we made?"
"You threw a party to celebrate successfully finishing that big contract, remember?"
"Guess we overdid the scale after all."
For some reason the mercenary captain always wore his helmet, even in ordinary moments. Wolf grumbled that the satisfaction of finally landing a major job had evaporated.
"I'll go help Bex, then. He said yesterday that if I didn't help with the party prep he was going to die."
"Hah. That fat guy's always whining he's gonna die, gonna die."
"He really did work hard yesterday, though."
"True enough."
"Call me when it's time to sell the gear we recovered."
With that, Kaisent hurried out of the tent on light feet.
Good thing I went soft that day.
The day he had met Kaisent, Wolf would normally have driven any orphan away before they could even approach. That day had been different. Looking at the boy had felt like watching a kicked puppy shivering in the rain—pity had risen before he could stop it.
Originally he had planned to put the kid on odd jobs for a while, pay him a little, and send him off. But when Kaisent claimed he had studied business management and Wolf tested him on the books, the boy tore through complicated calculations in an instant.
A month later, Kaisent had essentially taken over the entire ledger. People who could handle numbers and still had the guts and adventurous spirit to throw themselves into a mercenary company were rare. Until now Wolf and Frederick had groaned over the accounts together. On top of that, Kaisent's cooking was excellent—the difference between a meal he helped with and one he didn't was obvious to anyone with a tongue.
They were working this kind of talent for free, room and board aside. It was starting to prick the conscience.
"Captain."
Just then Frederick stepped into the tent, golden hair swaying. He was far too handsome to look like a rough mercenary.
"Do you… have a moment?"
"Hold on."
Wolf checked the surroundings, then tossed something the size of a fist that looked like quartz. A translucent membrane bloomed around the crystal, wrapping both of them so that sound was absorbed and could not escape.
Once he confirmed it was working, Wolf removed the helmet.
Hair the deep, luminous blue of melted sapphire spilled free—elegant enough to be called a work of art. Eyes just as beautiful as that jewel-bright hair, seeming to shine even with the sunlight blocked, appeared beneath long lashes. Whether it was from always wearing the helmet or simply how she was made, her fair skin and clear features held a beauty no amount of effort could manufacture.
"Frederick."
"Lillian."
For a moment they were no longer mercenary captain and attendant, but lovers again. They pulled each other close and kissed.
"I'm glad we picked Kaisent up. We used to only get moments like this maybe once a month."
"I know. In more ways than one, he's a walking blessing."
Both of them were grateful that Kaisent had taken the time-devouring administrative work off their hands.
"If we'd gotten married and started a family, he would have made a wonderful friend for our child."
Frederick let the suggestion hang in the air—that they should marry and have a child even now.
"I want to marry you and have a child too, Frederick. But that comes after we drive out the vampires who seized the kingdom."
"Lillian. Even if we defeat them now, reclaiming the kingdom will be nearly impossible."
"I know. What I want is revenge, not restoration. Until I kill the vampires who murdered my father and mother, I can't move forward."
Frederick wanted to set revenge aside and live in the present. Lillian wanted blood. Her will was absolute, and Frederick understood there was only one answer left: walk the path of vengeance with her, and face the future together afterward.
"All right. For now, let's just enjoy this."
"Mm."
They held each other, sharing warmth, and sank into a private world of kisses and quiet time that belonged to them alone.
Slurp—
Hurrrlp—
Khhaaah~
The mercenaries who had celebrated completing a major contract with almost no losses were drowning in soup that gently soothed stomachs abused by alcohol. Fiber-rich vegetables, beaten eggs, and a subtle spicy kick—Kaisent's special soup never got old no matter how much you ate. He had made it himself to ease livers pickled in liquor.
They finished in no time and dumped the bowls into a single crate.
"I'll go do the dishes."
"What? You need to rest too. I'll make the others do it—just take a break."
"It's fine. I can handle it alone. It's just a trip to the stream nearby."
"You sure?"
"Yes. I'm all right."
Kaisent left Bex's worry behind, lifted the crate, and started toward the stream.
"Kid's so good-natured it's almost sad."
"Right? Dragged into another world against his will and still grinding away—breaks your heart."
A boy that young living among rough mercenaries, never once crying, throwing himself into every task. At first he had been clueless and clumsy; now the company would be in real trouble without him. Even hardened sellswords looked kindly on a child who worked this hard.
Carrying that goodwill with him, Kaisent brought the crate to a stream a short distance from the camp. He found a decent spot and began scrubbing bowls with a stiff scrubber made of matted animal hair.
Anyone watching?
He checked behind him, confirmed he was alone, and paused the washing long enough to draw a wooden throwing dagger he had carved himself from inside his clothes.
"Hup!"
He flung it at a tree across the stream. The dagger curved through the air with the elegant arc of a butterfly and punched straight through some nameless insect crawling on the bark, burying itself in the wood.
He retrieved it with magic, kept washing, and practiced the Soul-Chasing Flying Dagger several more times. Each throw landed exactly where he wanted.
Good. Much better than when I first learned it.
From the outside, Kaisent looked content with his present life. That was only the surface. Underneath, he was endlessly honing the blade of revenge.
I know nothing about this world. If I'm going to take revenge on that man, I have to understand this place first.
Working with Wolf's mercenary band had made one thing certain: this was not the world he had come from. This world was called Zelsdad. A hundred and fifty years ago the dimensional walls had weakened, and beings from countless other worlds had begun pouring in. Living creatures were the least of it—buildings, entire landscapes, whole environments sometimes arrived intact.
That explained how Dang Seol-yeong could use martial arts so casually—power that only his father and those connected to him had possessed in the other world.
If I'd known it would come to this, I should have learned how to fight from Father…
The attacker that day had already been half-wrecked from some earlier battle. If Kaisent had trained under his father and grown steadily stronger, he and Seol-yeong might have taken the man down together.
You said you hated fighting. Someday you will regret that decision.
Power itself isn't what you should fear. What you should truly fear is having no power at all.
Power is the finest means of forcing your will onto others. Abandoning that means means you will have no choice but to endure others forcing their will onto you.
The day after he had first voiced his own opinion to his father—that he did not want to fight—his father had given him that warning. Afterward, aside from the occasional sudden survival drill, he had spent peaceful, happy days being loved by his older sisters, and the advice had faded naturally from his mind.
Father was right. I was weak, so that man's twisted will was forced on me, and I lost Seol-yeong noona and Mingming.
Only after tasting unbearable pain and loss had he understood how precise the warning had been.
But… even after being put through that, even after losing what mattered most… I'm still afraid of fighting…
The duty to grow stronger collided with the fear of combat that still lived in him. Losing precious things twice in a row to the man who had attacked them had left a trauma that only deepened the dread. Desire to become strong and a coward's desire to avoid fighting now coexisted inside him—a walking contradiction that wanted power but refused the fight.
Ranged combat might be possible…
That was the answer he had found. The corpse-explosion magic that had struck the man, the Soul-Chasing Flying Dagger that had landed real damage—he remembered both, and decided to pour everything into fighting at range. Honestly, even that still frightened him. But if he couldn't manage even this, revenge for Seol-yeong and Mingming was as good as abandoned.
Seol-yeong noona has powerful poison arts. She can survive anywhere. For now I just need to keep my own body in one piece.
Right now he had to gather every scrap of information about this world and grow even a little stronger.
It should be all right soon.
The desperate effort to blend into Wolf's mercenary band was bearing fruit. He had already decided to make his request to the captain tomorrow. For now, he turned back to the dishes in front of him and began to work through them.