The Calm Before the Storm
The office was thick with cigarette smoke, a den of raccoons. Outside, the temperature was soaring to 30 degrees Celsius, but inside the curtained office, despite the air conditioning running at a reasonable setting, the atmosphere was chillingly cold.
“So. Still no word on Gang-du, Seok, or the boys we sent down? It’s already been two weeks?”
“Well... uh, Boss. It’s as if they were erased from the world. There’s absolutely no trace. We scoured all the surveillance footage in the area, too. I’m sorry.”
The underling, his voice sounding like he wanted to crawl into a mouse hole, kept his eyes down, waiting for the reaction to the answer Seon-shik already knew.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Sitting on the main sofa, Seon-shik drummed his index finger against the armrest.
“And the Gangneung office? You’re telling me it wasn’t just a clean cut, but that it looked like a simple brawl?”
“Yes. And all the money in the safe and the ‘ledger’ are gone, too.”
Grind-!
Seon-shik ground his teeth and pressed hard against his temples. The underlings were having a hell of a time, as their boss’s foul mood was physically palpable. While they were sweating bullets in the icy atmosphere, Seon-shik spoke in a low voice.
“Hoo. Cover the tribute from our own safe. And as for the Gangneung business... I’ll report it myself.”
“....Yes! Understood, Boss!”
“Get out.”
As the underlings scrambled to leave at his dismissal, Seon-shik shook his head, thinking there wasn’t a single capable man among them. He turned to his second-in-command, who had been standing behind him.
“Who do you think it is? Chilseong? Bukseong?”
“In my estimation, Boss, it might be someone higher up than the likes of us.”
“....How much higher?”
“I apologize.”
Seon-shik felt a surge of anger at the second-in-command’s vague answer, but he maintained a calm expression.
“It’s fine. Just give me your best guess.”
“Yes. Well. Seeing as they took five heads in such a short time and cleaned up the scene so perfectly... it could be a major conglomerate. One of the top ten. The most likely scenario is that we touched the private slush fund of a third-generation chaebol, or... though it’s less likely, it could be the Blue House’s secret pocket...”
Seon-shik kept his mouth shut, as he had been thinking the same thing. He hadn’t asked because he didn’t know, but to confirm his own suspicions. Seon-shik stood up.
“Tell them to tighten security at the Gangneung business site. And... we’re backing off from that nerd. Get out.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Once the second-in-command left, Seon-shik glared out the window, grinding his teeth. Having experienced something similar before, he watched the people moving about in the bright light outside, and in his heart, he had already identified the culprit.
Even gangsters have a code. It’s not the eighties anymore. Regardless.
“Those greedy old pigs... Tsk.”
Swallowing his bitter frustration, he stared outside. Since they said a gift was coming.
With cold, sunken eyes, Seon-shik picked up the phone.
'At least I should prepare something so I can honor the souls of my brothers.'
Two weeks had already passed since I dealt with the gangsters and returned to my hometown. I patted the head of my youngest nephew, who had eyes sparkling as I told him I’d given the thugs a good talking-to. Contrary to my plans to just relax after that, I had been incredibly busy.
Living like this, I honestly wondered if there was any need to keep living in Seoul. The raw fish restaurant was busy, and after my father changed his fishing boat from a squid boat to target other species depending on the season, we had a bumper catch. My brothers-in-law’s direct sales stores were also thriving.
“No, seriously, why are we catching bluefin tuna and things you’d only see abroad in Jumunjin?”
“It’s been like this for a while. We’ve been catching Spanish mackerel, amberjack, and yellowtail for quite some time now. Lately, I’ve even seen tropical fish.”
“Is the world going crazy?”
“What does it matter? It’s good if we can catch them, you brat. Hey! Hassan! I told you not to throw that!”
“Ah. Boss, sorry.”
“If you keep doing that, I’m docking your pay!”
“Eh~ Boss, bullying me with lies is bad.”
With the bumper catch, I spent my time driving the water truck to deliver fish to the restaurant, helping with my father’s boat, stocking the brothers-in-law’s stores, and looking after my nieces and nephews. How should I put it?
“How is it more exhausting here than in Seoul?”
“Haha, kid, what’s the difference where people live?”
I laughed at my younger brother-in-law’s correct observation and shared a snack with him and my older brother-in-law. After devouring the mountain of rice, freshly sliced sashimi, and aged kimchi, I headed to the restaurant. Seeing the line of customers, I sighed, my face falling, before heading inside.
My older sister, who was busy responding to customers calling for more sashimi and spicy fish stew, shouted as soon as she saw me.
“Mak-dung! Clear out the empty bottles and bring some new ones from the back.”
“How many?”
“Hmm... three crates, like last time. Three crates of Fresh and two crates of beer!”
“Got it~”
I cleared out the crates I’d filled that morning, now overflowing with empties, and restocked the alcohol. Just as I was thinking that it might be a blessing to be this busy in a lively shop where everyone served food and drinks with a smile, despite the exhaustion,
“Un-cle!”
My nieces and nephews, who seemed to have eaten a dragon heart, were clinging to my legs with overflowing energy. I smiled at their innocent, expectant faces as they looked up at me with a hee-hee laugh.
“Now, now. Su-hyeon, Tae-hyeon, it’s dangerous~”
Even at my words, the children looked at me with even brighter eyes. Was it because I’d taken them to amusement parks and everywhere else they wanted to go during the last two weeks? I grabbed the soft cheeks of the kids who were stuck to my legs like chewing gum, gave them a gentle squeeze, and let go. My sisters spoke in voices laced with laughter.
“Mak-dung. We’re good here, so take the kids and go play.”
I turned my head toward my sisters, and seeing the kids looking up at me with expressions that said, We’re going, right? We’re going to play, right?, I laughed loudly and scooped them up.
“Alright then~ Where do you want to go?”
“Windy Sky!”
“Again?”
“Yeah!”
When I told my brothers-in-law I was taking the kids out in the car, they told me to take the one-ton truck instead of the water truck. I agreed and headed to the parking lot. As I drove the truck toward Gangmun Beach with the kids, I smiled at them, already bouncing with excitement.
They chattered on about what they would do when they got there, and I laughed along. Is it because it’s my hometown? I found myself laughing more easily.
While driving along the coastal road, feeling the cool sea breeze, I caught a glimpse of something and turned my gaze toward the beach. I narrowed my eyes slightly at the pristine ‘mana’ shimmering like heat haze over the sea.
Was there always this much mana in reality? The thought crossed my mind, but since I’d never felt mana before being summoned to the other world, I just brushed it off, thinking it was probably because the water and air were so clean.
“Should I come back near here around dawn to practice?”
“Uncle, Uncle! And then~ and then~”
“Yeah, let’s go and have a blast, okay?”
“Yeah!”
I patted the heads of the children, who nodded vigorously in their cute way, and kept driving.
After playing until evening, the kids had exhausted their infinite energy and were fast asleep. I took them home, tucked them in, and headed back to the shop. Feeling the cool evening sea breeze, I smiled at the peaceful, heartwarming sight of the harbor village.
“It’s nice and quiet.”
Should I be thankful it wasn’t vacation season yet? I thought, then dismissed the thought as pointless.
'Did that guy feel this way too?'
I was reminded of the time a guy who had retired from the battlefield opened a boarding house, though it was different from here. Shaking my head, I entered the restaurant. The shop was quiet now. I took in the chalkboard sign outside that proudly proclaimed, ‘Ingredients Sold Out for the Day!’ in large letters, and stepped inside.
Jingle-!
“I’m sorry, but we’re sold out for the day— oh, Mak-dung!”
“Must have been busy.”
“Ayy~ We survived because our Mak-dung took care of Su-hyeon and Tae-hyeon~”
“Well, the kids are sleeping soundly now after playing their hearts out at Windy Sky.”
“Again? Until what time?”
I shrugged at her question, and when I smiled at my sister, who was narrowing her eyes at me,
“You’re kidding! Eighteen thousand won for two hours... and you went after lunch... that’s 100,000 won! You’ve been going for days!”
“Ayy~ It’s fine. Your brother has plenty of money.”
I really did. I didn’t avoid the gaze of my sister, who was looking at me with a worried expression as if trying to read my face, and instead looked back confidently. She sighed softly, as if she couldn’t help it.
“Sigh, you’re such a nephew-fool, aren’t you?”
She laughed, not looking too displeased, and I looked around the shop.
“Everything’s cleaned up, why aren’t you leaving?”
“We’re waiting for our husbands to come.”
“Hahaha.”
Before long, my mother and my younger sister came out of the kitchen. I approached my sisters and mother, who were sitting on the chairs, tapping or massaging their legs.
“Oh, no, it’s fine.”
“What do you mean it’s fine? Come on.”
“Ayy, this kid?”
Though they said that, I smiled at the sight of my mother resting her shoulders in my hands, not looking at all bothered. 'Something’s strange...' I swallowed the question and began to work on the ‘mana congestion’ in various parts of my mother’s body. I slowly wrapped mana around the tips of my thumbs, letting it seep into her body. Now, the mana had grown from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a thumb, and I massaged her, stimulating the congestion.
“Oh, that feels good~ My son’s hands are magic hands, aren’t they?”
I laughed at my mother’s chatter, but when I turned my head, I saw my sisters looking at me with envy and expectation, pretending to be indifferent while saying, “Oh, oh, I’m dying~” I laughed loudly.
“Wait, Mom. After you, I’ll do it for my older sister and younger sister.”
“Okay~”
I massaged my mother’s shoulders and calves for about 10 minutes, then moved on to my older sister, and finally my younger sister. My sisters laughed, asking where I’d learned it and saying how refreshing it felt.
'Why only my sisters and mother? No, wait, Father had some, or rather, quite a bit of congestion too, but the kids and brothers-in-law and the youngest nephew were fine.'
Of course, ‘mana congestion’ was treated as chronic muscle pain in the other world, so I wondered if my sisters or mother were overdoing it lately. Still, since I was giving them these massages, the congestion had mostly disappeared.
'So the habit of sleeping for an hour right after finishing prep during the two-hour break time has disappeared, hasn’t it?'
As I was finishing my younger sister’s massage, recalling the memory,
“Who is it! Who’s massaging someone else’s wife’s legs like they’re kneading rice cakes? Huh!?”
I laughed at the boisterous voice and turned my head. The shop filled with laughter at my younger brother-in-law’s exaggerated, playful accusation. As I stepped back from my sister, he hugged her. My younger sister playfully slapped his shoulder.
“Ugh~ Try to be more like Mak-dung, will you? Huh?”
“Hmm... if I do that, Tae-hyeon’s going to get a younger sibling, you know?”
“Oh, seriously! You can’t say things like that in front of Mak-dung and Mom!”
She looked embarrassed, glancing at me and the rest of the family, but my mother just laughed benevolently and nodded.
“It’s good to have many grandchildren, isn’t it? Mr. Kang, Mr. Choi. How about some stamina food?”
“Mom!”
Laughter filled the hall along with my sisters’ scream-like protests. I shook my head at my sisters, who were blushing but didn’t look entirely displeased, and my brothers-in-law, who were looking confident.
'Ugh, it’s miserable being a guy without a partner.'
I chuckled and enjoyed the ticklish peace.
The night the family was asleep. I had just finished massaging my father and was lying on the wooden floor in the backyard, looking at the night sky. I closed my eyes, feeling the clear mana flowing and the cool, salty breeze.
I debated going to the beach where the mana had been pooling earlier, but it was a hassle, so I stood up and walked toward a closer spot. I climbed a hill where no lights reached and sat cross-legged on a flat rock I’d been using as my spot lately.
Perhaps it was the dragon vein of the mountain, but the clear mana pooled beneath the rock flowed into my body. In my current state of the Dantian, I should have been devouring it like a starving ghost. But I frowned as most of it slipped away like sand through my fingers, with only a grain-sized amount accumulating in my Dantian.
My Heart, Qi, and Body were in a state of collapse, and to align them, I clearly needed to fill my energy. I had to fill the Dantian to move on to filling the middle Dantian...
I felt a surge of impatience and anger, but I regained my composure and returned my mind to nothingness.
'It’s fine. Even if it’s slow, I just have to keep moving.'
'I’m not a genius.'
'Even if a turtle climbs a mountain, if it doesn’t give up, it will eventually reach the summit.'
Slowly. I let the frustration and impatience melt away and disappear. I continued my practice, breathing slowly as if I had stopped on the rock, accepting the mana.