The Return
The low voice that slipped out scattered instantly, carried away by the cold winter wind.
Kang Ihyun remained kneeling for a long time. The rough texture of concrete beneath his palms felt strangely unfamiliar. The smell of dust, the scent of old paint, and the faint aroma of cafeteria food drifting from somewhere—all of it was exactly as he remembered.
He slowly rose to his feet. Lifting his head, he looked around the rooftop. The space that had once seemed quite large now felt impossibly narrow. It wasn’t simply because he had grown up. No, it was because the body that had once sprinted across castle walls and fought absurd monsters capable of leveling entire mountains now stood here.
Kang Ihyun reached down to his waist. The subspace pocket was still there. The black leather pouch the emperor had given him. On the outside it looked like an ordinary belt pouch, but inside it held a mountain of gold, silver, gems, and magical tools. And, of course, the sword that was practically part of his body.
“Ha…!”
Kang Ihyun let out a short, wry laugh. He was laughing at himself. It was ridiculous to think about it now, but the truth was he had no idea what to do next. If he claimed only a short time had passed since he was summoned to that other world, his transformed body would be impossible to explain. At least he had proof of those lost twelve years for the people who had known him before he disappeared.
Let’s head down for now.
Kang Ihyun let out a sigh and pushed open the rusted iron door. With a long creak, it swung open to reveal a narrow staircase. Unlike what he remembered, it was neatly maintained, and the walls were covered in cute little drawings—someone must have received a donation.
He took a careful step forward. The farther he descended, the faster his heart began to beat. It was almost funny. He was the hero who had slain the Demon King. A man who had stood with sword in hand before an army of hundreds of thousands of demons. Yet here he was, completely helpless with nerves at the thought of meeting someone waiting below.
One floor. Then another. His footsteps echoed. The sound of his steps rang quietly through the empty hallway.
Kang Ihyun stopped walking. A familiar sight brushed past his eyes. The drawings stuck to the hallway walls. Family portraits the children had drawn with crayons. A half-torn sheet of paper with a clumsy list of dreams written on it.
Firefighter
Teacher
Soccer Player
Youtuber
Kang Ihyun smiled without realizing it. Youtuber. YouTube had existed before he disappeared, but he didn’t remember any kids dreaming of that back then. Time really had passed.
He looked toward the end of the hallway. The director’s office. The old wooden door was exactly the same. Kang Ihyun stopped in front of it, raised his hand to knock—then froze.
What was he supposed to say? Would the director even recognize him now? Twelve whole years had passed. His eyes had grown sharper, he had shot up to 190 centimeters, his body was packed with muscle, and beneath his clothes were countless scars left by war. No matter how much the director had raised him and the other children like a true father, there was no way he would recognize him at first glance.
After hesitating for a long time, Kang Ihyun grabbed the doorknob and quietly pushed it open.
With a soft creak, the door opened. The director’s office was smaller than he remembered. Bookshelves, an old filing cabinet, a worn electric kettle. On the desk sat a half-cooled mug of coffee and a pile of documents. And behind it all—
A middle-aged man with graying hair looked up. Director Jeong Seok-woo. The wrinkles around his mouth and eyes had deepened, and his hair was much whiter now. But his eyes were exactly as Kang Ihyun remembered them. Eyes that always looked tired yet always smiled in front of the children.
At first, when Jeong Seok-woo saw Kang Ihyun enter without knocking, he spoke with a slightly bewildered tone.
“Yes? Who… Ah, visitors need to fill out the visitor log first…”
Then his gaze landed on Kang Ihyun’s face and stopped dead.
No parent fails to recognize their child’s face. Even if that child isn’t related by blood.
The young man who had just opened the door had changed a lot, but those features were far too similar to the boy he had searched for so desperately over a decade ago. Especially that expression. That was… exactly the face the boy used to make when he had done something wrong.
The pen slipped from Jeong Seok-woo’s hand.
Thud.
The sound rang unusually loud.
Kang Ihyun smiled awkwardly.
“Director.”
His throat tightened. Still, he forced himself to smile and continued.
“…Do you still make the kids clean the bathrooms when you catch them sneaking late-night snacks?”
Jeong Seok-woo couldn’t say a word. He simply stared at Kang Ihyun with wide eyes. His lips trembled several times.
“…Ihyun?”
At that single word, Kang Ihyun could no longer smile. The man who had not shed a single tear in twelve years could not hold back the surge of emotion in that moment.
“…Yes.”
It was a short answer forced through a tight throat. But it was enough.
Jeong Seok-woo shot up from his seat—crash!—not caring that his chair had toppled over, and walked toward him. One step. Two steps. Then, with trembling hands, he touched Kang Ihyun’s cheek. The calluses on his fingertips were rough, but the director’s hand felt warm in a way he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Jeong Seok-woo opened and closed his mouth like someone who had forgotten how to breathe. Then, at last—
“Ihyun… Is it really… you?”
Kang Ihyun gave a small smile.
“After twelve years, if I were a fake, that would be pretty cruel, wouldn’t it?”
In that instant, Jeong Seok-woo’s eyes turned red. The next moment, he grabbed Kang Ihyun by the collar. Hard. Much harder than expected.
“You rascal!”
It was a roar that seemed to tear his throat apart.
“Where the hell have you been?! What were you doing that you only come back now?! You… you…!”
He couldn’t finish. The hand gripping the collar trembled. His face was a mess of rage, relief, and sorrow all tangled together.
Kang Ihyun stayed still, head slightly bowed. Eventually Jeong Seok-woo released his collar and pulled him into a fierce embrace, using every ounce of strength he had.
“You were alive…”
For the first time in twelve years, Kang Ihyun shed tears.
It took nearly an hour before the two of them finally sat facing each other on the sofa in the director’s office. Jeong Seok-woo was already brewing his third cup of coffee. His hands shook so badly that he had spilled the first two on the floor, but he didn’t seem to care at all.
Kang Ihyun sat quietly, holding the hot mug. There was so much he needed to say, but the words wouldn’t come easily.
Jeong Seok-woo spoke first.
“Do you remember that day?”
Kang Ihyun looked up.
“That day?”
“The day you disappeared.”
Jeong Seok-woo hesitated for a long moment before continuing.
“You came back from school and I asked you to run an errand for me.”
Kang Ihyun blinked. He searched his memory, but he couldn’t clearly recall what he had been doing right before he was taken to the other world. It wasn’t so much that too much time had passed… it felt more like that entire section of memory was simply missing.
He vaguely remembered returning from school. The sun had been setting, and he was annoyed that his shoelace had come undone. After that…
“What was the errand?”
Jeong Seok-woo stared at him for a moment, then let out a hollow laugh. The rims of his eyes were still red.
“Soy sauce.”
“…Pardon?”
“We were out of soy sauce that day. I told you to go to the mart and buy a small bottle.”
Kang Ihyun stared blankly, then burst out laughing. Who could have known that going out to buy soy sauce would send him to another world?
“You damn rascal. I sent you out for soy sauce and you didn’t come home for twelve years.”
Jeong Seok-woo said it with a face that seemed to have aged five years in an instant, laughing helplessly. Then, slowly, he opened his mouth again.
“The kids have grown up a lot too.”
Kang Ihyun quietly lifted his gaze.
“Do you remember Min-su? The one who always played soccer with you.”
“That hyung?”
“He ended up becoming a firefighter.”
His childhood dream had been to become a firefighter, and it looked like he had really done it.
“Really?”
“So-hee became a nurse. Jun-ho got married and even has a daughter.”
Kang Ihyun listened in silence. Even while he was gone, the others had lived their lives just fine. It was such an obvious thing, yet for some reason it made his chest ache.
Jeong Seok-woo took a sip of coffee, then asked carefully.
“So… where exactly have you been and what have you been doing?”
The director’s office fell silent. Kang Ihyun stared down at his mug. He could tell the truth. That he had been in another world, that he had spent a long time on the battlefield, that he had killed the Demon King and become a hero. At least to Jeong Seok-woo, he could say it.
But the things he had experienced were so absurd that the words wouldn’t come easily.
Kang Ihyun smiled slowly.
“You probably won’t believe me.”
There was a strange bitterness in his voice, and Jeong Seok-woo noticed it. It wasn’t just the tone—his posture, his movements, and the look in his eyes all suggested that Kang Ihyun had not lived an ordinary life.
“When have I ever not believed you?”
“…You never have.”
Hearing that, Jeong Seok-woo nodded as if to say then tell me. But he didn’t press. He simply waited quietly.
After a long time, Kang Ihyun’s lips parted slightly.
How much time had passed? Beyond the window of the director’s office, the winter afternoon sunlight had already begun to slant inside. Since all the children were at school, the orphanage was quiet and empty. The only sound came faintly from the kitchen staff preparing meals somewhere beyond the door.
In that silence, Kang Ihyun’s story continued.
“…I killed people too.”
Jeong Seok-woo said nothing. Kang Ihyun kept his gaze fixed on the mug and went on.
“Not on the battlefield. I sought them out and killed them on purpose.”
A short silence fell. The steam rising from the coffee slowly cooled.
Kang Ihyun smiled. It wasn’t really a smile—it was more like the expression of someone scratching at an old wound with a fingernail.
“I found out why the Demon King became like that.”
He chose his words very carefully.
“Everyone in that world said he had gone mad for no reason and tried to destroy the world. I believed that too.”
His fingertips rubbed the handle of the mug.
“But that wasn’t true.”
Jeong Seok-woo listened quietly.
“He had a wife and a daughter… but human nobles killed them. The reason was nothing more than racial discrimination.”
Kang Ihyun’s eyes trembled for just a moment.
“They covered it up by silencing everyone involved. No one was ever punished.”
He bit his lip. The next words came even more slowly.
“After that, Ereb tried to wipe out the entire human race.”
It was a name Jeong Seok-woo had never heard before, but he didn’t ask. He understood that this Ereb was the ‘Demon King’ Kang Ihyun had mentioned.
Kang Ihyun closed his eyes.
“When I first learned the truth… I was simply shocked. The enemy I had only thought of as a monster had actually been filled with completely justified rage.”
With a bitter sigh, he let out a long breath.
“Of course, even if the reason was justified, trying to exterminate all of humanity was still wrong.”
“Anyway… that’s why I killed them.”
Jeong Seok-woo’s eyebrows twitched slightly. Kang Ihyun continued.
“All the humans involved in that incident. The nobles, the officials, even the mercenaries who moved for money. I tracked them all down and killed them.”
It was said in a calm tone. Yet that very calmness made it feel even heavier.
“I wasn’t ordered to do it. It wasn’t because of the war. I just… I wanted to do it.”
Kang Ihyun looked down at his palm. It was clean. But that hand still remembered certain faces. People who had begged for their lives until their last breath. An old man who had tripped while trying to run and cried. Those who had screamed that it wasn’t their fault.
Kang Ihyun spoke slowly.
“And I never regretted it.”
They were people who deserved to die.
The director’s office grew quiet. From outside came only the faint sound of cars passing on a distant road.
Kang Ihyun laughed softly.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? I killed people, but I don’t really feel any guilt… Still, sometimes I think I’ve become too twisted.”
Jeong Seok-woo remained silent for a long time. He simply looked at Kang Ihyun. The child who had returned after twelve years. His body had grown into something completely different, and his eyes belonged to someone who had seen far too much. The story itself, if taken at face value, was utterly absurd. Yet Jeong Seok-woo had no choice but to believe him.
But that wasn’t the important part.
The habit of thinking it was his own fault whenever something went wrong—that habit was still there. To Jeong Seok-woo, that was the bigger problem.
Jeong Seok-woo opened his mouth slowly.
“Ihyun.”
Kang Ihyun didn’t lift his head.
In a quiet voice, Jeong Seok-woo said, “Was the reason you killed those people simply to vent your anger?”
Kang Ihyun flinched. No answer came right away. Jeong Seok-woo didn’t press him. He simply continued in a calm tone.
“Did you really kill them because you couldn’t hold back your rage? Or…”
He paused for a moment, then continued very softly.
“Was it because you felt sorry for someone who had gone mad from misfortune, and you wanted to end it for him?”
The fingers holding Kang Ihyun’s mug stiffened. Jeong Seok-woo saw his expression and knew he was right.
And Kang Ihyun could not speak. Because the moment he heard the question, the feelings he had tried so hard not to acknowledge rose up with painful clarity.
Ereb had hated humans until the very end. But Kang Ihyun knew. The reason he had truly gone mad wasn’t only rage. It was the grief of failing to protect the family he loved. The despair of having no one understand that loss. The loneliness of having to make the entire world his enemy while carrying all of that alone.
Kang Ihyun had hated that.
It was true that Ereb had crossed the line. It was also true that the war could only end with his death. But at the very least, in the end, he had wanted to let him know that his rage had not been without reason. At the very least, he had wanted to be someone who understood Ereb.
Jeong Seok-woo slowly stood up and walked over to Kang Ihyun’s side. Without a word, he placed a hand on his shoulder.
Kang Ihyun lowered his head. Jeong Seok-woo looked out the window and said,
“Sometimes there are people who cannot bear another person’s wounds more than their own.”
Winter sunlight slanted in through the old window.
“That is not, at least, a bad thing.”
A brief silence fell. Then Jeong Seok-woo spoke in a perfectly calm voice.
“It means you have more heart to give to others than most people do. And in my memory, you were always that kind of child.”
In the end, Kang Ihyun could say nothing at all.