The Return of the Father
“My work here is done.”
King Yeomra.
Monarch of the demons of the East, ruler of the ten thousand hells that drifted beyond the mortal coil.
Before that transcendent presence stood a man, upright and unyielding.
“Keep your promise now, Yeomra.”
The man dared to speak down to the King of Hell itself.
He had even hurled someone's severed head at his feet.
Had he been any other demon, instant annihilation would have been more than he deserved.
And yet, for reasons beyond comprehension, Yeomra treated him as an equal.
[So... that is Baal's head, is it?]
On this day, Yeomra had conquered the Underworld.
The Underworld — known by another name: Hell.
The Western factions, once the dominant power, had been utterly crushed into submission.
Not only Solomon's seventy-two Demon Kings, but their overlord Baal himself.
[Astonishing.]
And at the heart of that conquest of Hell stood this very man —
a demon who had once been called Ki Tae-jun.
His achievements were great enough that speaking down to Yeomra was hardly payment enough.
[I knew you would make a fine soldier. The hatred engraved upon your soul was unlike any other.]
[But never once did I imagine that soldier would lay Baal's severed head before me — that he would rise beyond a fine soldier to become the vanguard of Hell's entire conquest.]
Yeomra spoke slowly, with measured reverence.
It began as pure admiration.
Tae-jun remained expressionless through the king's praise.
He had not walked this path in search of recognition.
He had one goal, and one goal only — and Yeomra knew it.
[Thus I shall ask — no, I shall make you an offer. Cast aside whatever attachments you left behind in the world above. Abandon the last fragment of your humanity and become a true demon. Do so, and I shall name you the second-in-command of all Hell...]
“I don't need it.”
[...You would truly throw away tens of thousands of years of achievement, all for those worthless memories?]
“I would.”
As expected.
He is impossible to hold onto.
Yeomra had confirmed it over and over for tens of thousands of years.
[Your resolve is absolute, then.]
Yeomra shook his head, as if conceding defeat.
A shame, but there was no other way.
A promise had been made.
And the oath of a Demon God binds to the very soul.
It must be honored, without fail.
[Very well. Let the persuasion end here.]
Ki Tae-jun's goal was singular.
To return to the world of the living where he had once existed.
To return to South Korea.
[Legion Commander Ki Tae-jun.]
Yeomra, who as of this day had become the absolute sovereign of Hell, called his name — and Tae-jun sank to one knee.
[Are you prepared to offer up your soul as the price of your descent?]
“Gladly.”
[Will you accept the losses and regression demanded by the law of causality?]
“I will.”
[Your time will not be long. I trust you have not forgotten that either.]
“It's enough.”
Yeomra nodded.
Every preparation was now complete.
[Go. Return to your world.]
My daughter had been the blessing of my life.
So-hee had always been a quiet, introverted child, even from her earliest years.
After long deliberation and endless worried conversations, my wife and I decided we would never try to force that innate temperament to change.
Instead, we vowed to give her the very best environment we could.
We believed that was what good parents did — what parents owed their children.
Determined to lower the odds of trouble with schoolmates, we insisted on only the finest school districts, and no matter how busy we were, we found ways to spend time together.
Perhaps those efforts paid off, because our daughter slowly, gradually began to open up.
“...Tae-jun, please, say something. You've always been smarter than me.”
Which was why —
At first, I refused to believe it.
The news that my daughter was dead.
The claim that she had taken her own life.
I refused to believe any of it — not until I saw the CCTV footage myself.
Because there was no way my daughter would do such a thing.
“How... how could she climb up there twice? What could have been so hard, what could have made her want to die so badly, that she — a child that young — went up to that rooftop twice to jump?”
But the girl on that footage was someone I didn't recognize.
On the screen, So-hee rode the elevator to the rooftop twice.
Even when the first attempt failed — blocked, interrupted — she did not give up.
The sight of my daughter's back, weeping as she dragged her battered body up once more,
that image was carved into my soul so deeply that not even tens of thousands of years in Hell could erase it.
“Please answer me. Honey, I just can't understand it. Please.”
“...”
“Why is our daughter lying down there? Why do we have to... why are we holding So-hee's funeral?”
“Honey...”
“Tell me why! Why — why on earth...!”
I couldn't answer her then.
And even now, after all the long years that have passed, I still cannot.
“Sir, do we bow here?”
That was not the only thing I cannot forget.
The children who came to the funeral hall.
Students wearing the same uniform as So-hee.
I assumed they were her middle school friends, come to pay their respects.
“You were our So-hee's friends?”
“Huh? Friends? Oh... uh, yeah. Friends. Haha.”
I didn't understand why they reacted that way to the word friends.
If only I had known then. If only I had known.
“Thank you all so much for coming.”
“Man, I'm starving. Let's grab some yukgaejang and get out of here.”
“This is my first funeral. What am I supposed to do now?”
“Let's take a pic first, for the feed. Look over here!”
Why were they so giddy?
Why the photos? Why the laughter?
If only I had known then.
“Um... excuse me...”
Only after those children had left the funeral hall —
only after they'd laughed and carried on like it was their own living room —
did the truth come out.
“You're... aren't you Min-ji?”
Oh Min-ji — my daughter's one true friend.
For some reason, that girl had been terrified out of her wits the whole time, and it was her frank confession that finally revealed to me — and to my wife — who those children really were.
“It was them.”
“What? What are you—”
“The ones who bullied So-hee.”
“...What?”
“Since elementary school.”
In the small hours of that morning,
my wife took her own life.
Before our daughter's funeral had even ended.
Ma Tae-sung. Joo Min-ho. Lee Gun-ha. Jang Gyeong-sik. Park Hae-na. Moon Tae-hee.
The six devils who had visited the funeral hall — the six who, so it was said, had bullied So-hee since elementary school.
I resolved to live only until their crimes were exposed to the world — only until they paid for what they'd done.
What attachment could I possibly have to a world from which my wife and daughter had already gone?
I simply could not die like this.
It would have been too unjust.
But the world did not move the way I wanted it to.
The courts, the media, the political establishment — even the internet, of all places — dismissed me without a second glance.
The helplessness of being able to do nothing, the festering injustice that felt like my insides rotting away.
Only later did I learn the cause of it all: the parents of those six devils.
Ma Tae-sung, third-generation chaebol scion, whose father helmed Daeha Group — a top-five conglomerate in the Korean business world.
Joo Min-ho, son of a National Assembly member who had ruled his inherited district like a king across three consecutive terms.
Park Hae-na, daughter of the power couple behind Hanjo Law Firm, the so-called legal juggernaut of the judiciary.
Lee Gun-ha, blessed with talent through generations of military blood, on the verge of joining a professional football club in Spain.
And Moon Tae-hee, only child of a Hallyu star couple, who had become a child actress before she could barely read.
Pressed on all sides by parents armed with money, power, and prestige, I — Ki Tae-jun, a mere salaried office worker and nothing more — could offer no resistance whatsoever. Truly, none at all.
The enticements and threats their influence could summon — the violence, the surveillance, the suffocating control — were not burdens an ordinary man could bear.
They were cruel enough to deserve the phrase: bled dry until death.
Which was why —
In the end, I broke too.
Just as my daughter had.
Just as my wife had.
Snap. Helpless and quiet.
It's been a long time since then.
How many years have passed in the world above?
“Hey, isn't that us?”
“It is. We're gonna be so famous.”
“Already are. My DMs are blowing up like crazy.”
Just as the anchor said — an unlicensed joyriding crew that had killed two people in hit-and-runs.
And yet, shielded by the label of juvenile offender, these kids faced no punishment whatsoever.
Barely a week after walking out of the police station, they had already stolen another car.
“At this rate we're gonna hit someone again.”
“Then we'd officially be legends.”
“Dude, close Instagram. The morons are already running their mouths.”
“Like I care? Those guys couldn't even do what we do in real life.”
“Might as well film a vlog of this and post it, huh?”
“Look at the personality on this one.”
“Says the guy who's no better?”
“Yeeep~ still better than you though~”
Remorse? Not a shred of it.
If anything, they relished this moment — the whole world pointing fingers at them.
This was the natural result of learning, in their own flesh, that you can commit crimes and never be punished.
“Quit yapping and actually floor it. You're slow as hell, you little punk.”
“If you beat this speed, we might actually die.”
“Like I care?”
“You don't, you idiot!”
“What's he even saying — you two are hilarious.”
VRRRRRROOOOOM—!
Amid the snickering of these little devils,
the sedan they were driving tore down the dark night road.
At any moment, another victim could appear.
And then —
CRUNCH!
The expectation was not proven wrong.
Something — no, someone — had been struck by the car and flung aside.
Hit by a vehicle at full acceleration, survival would have been next to impossible.
“...Whoa.”
“We seriously just made legend status.”
“Wait, wasn't it that bastard's fault this time though? Why was he standing in the road?”
“Right. Totally his fault. Natural causes, I'd say.”
“Hey. Hey, hold up. Shut up a sec.”
“What?”
“I don't think that guy's dead?”
“...Huh? No way. He is?”
But the unbelievable part was yet to come.
They'd assumed the man was killed on impact.
Even if he'd somehow survived, his body should have been shattered beyond recognition — and yet he stood up, perfectly whole.
Not only that. He began walking, unhurried, step by steady step — straight toward the very car that had hit him.
“Holy shit, is he a zombie or what?”
“It wasn't us, right...?”
“What kind of bullshit is that? You didn't see the guy bounce off the hood?”
“There's blood on him too. That's definitely that guy's blood, right?”
“That's so creepy.”
“Yo, let's just go. Something's wrong with him.”
One of the group, quicker on the uptake than the rest, spoke up.
The man was more than just oddly fine — his whole appearance was strange.
No, strange wasn't the word for it...
Frightening. That was the word.
“Who walks around looking like that these days?”
“R-right. There shouldn't even be anything out here...”
“Is he actually a zombie?”
“Wait, hold on. That guy...”
A dark night.
A road cutting through the hills.
Long, unkept hair hanging down.
Rags draped over his entire body.
And above all —
“...Why is he smiling?”