Reminiscence
Kindergarten finally let out, and it was time to head home.
Sihyeok boarded the bus and took an empty seat near the front, away from the other children, staring blankly out the window. His mind kept drifting back to the brawl he had gotten into with a toddler on his very first day. A heavy sigh slipped through his lips unbidden.
What on earth am I even doing…?
Acting like a child when he possessed the soul of a thirty-seven-year-old man was proving impossible. He had never intended to put on some elaborate charade to fool everyone, but he had at least felt confident he could keep his head down and blend in quietly.
…I never imagined I'd cause a scene on day one.
The realization that he was about to get scolded the moment he stepped through the front door brought a wave of guilt toward his parents, accompanied by a crushing fatigue.
Watching the sunset-drenched scenery sweep past the glass, forgotten fragments of his childhood slowly began to resurface.
Over there stood the discount supermarket he used to visit with his mother. The signboard was weathered and faded, yet people still bustled in and out just as they always had. Past that, at the corner, was the small neighborhood park where he used to play hide-and-seek with neighborhood kids. The alleyway beside it was where his father had first taught him how to ride a bicycle; he could still remember scraping his knee on the uneven pavement after taking a hard spill. Right next to that, near his apartment complex, the familiar storefront of a tteokbokki shop caught his eye, reminding him of how he used to beg his mother every single afternoon to buy him a bowl.
They were small, unassuming pieces of everyday life. Ordinary days of no particular significance, yet the warmth and serenity cradled within them were precious memories that nothing could ever replace.
Seeing with his own eyes the time he had believed was lost forever made an ache swell in his chest. Yet right behind that ache surged an insidious dread.
Sihyeok knew.
He knew all too well that behind the peaceful tableau sprawling before him lurked a fragile reality ready to shatter without warning. Even knowing that truth, he found it impossible to tear his gaze away. Trapped between remorse and longing, he could do nothing but quietly savor this fleeting moment.
Before long, the bus pulled up near the apartment complex, where a crowd of parents was already waiting to meet their children. The doors hissed open, and the kindergarten teacher began guiding the kids down the steps one by one.
"Mommy!"
"Aww, there's my sweet girl! Did you have fun at kindergarten today?"
The children spilled off the bus and threw themselves into their parents' open arms. Sihyeok, however, could not bring himself to do the same. His mother looked momentarily disappointed when she was denied a hug, but she quickly took him by the hand and prepared to head home—or she would have, had the teacher not called out after her.
"Excuse me, Sihyeok's mother! Do you have a quick moment?"
She was clearly about to report the fight from earlier that morning. Standing beside the teacher was the little girl from earlier, alongside a woman who was unmistakably her mother.
Yet before the teacher could utter another word, the little girl's mother glanced at Sihyeok's mother, and her eyes went wide with shock.
"Oh my goodness… Aren't you Sihyeok's mother from unit 503?"
Sihyeok's mother lifted her head in surprise. "Good heavens! Chaeyi's mom?! Oh, how long has it been?"
In the blink of an eye, the two women were greeting each other with delighted smiles. As it turned out, they lived in the very same building, and the two children had spent their early toddler years running between apartments and playing together all the time.
"Chaeyi has such a fiery temper that when I heard she got into a scuffle, I wondered who on earth she picked a fight with this time," Chaeyi's mother said with a laugh. "I was so shocked to hear it was Sihyeok. Those two used to be practically joined at the hip!"
Sihyeok's mother offered an embarrassed smile. "I know, right? Sihyeok's personality changed quite a bit after he got sick. He isn't nearly as lively as he used to be, and he's gotten so quiet. I thought he was finally feeling better so I sent him to kindergarten, but getting into a fight with Chaeyi of all people… I'm just so worried."
"Oh, come now. Kids grow up and change in the blink of an eye! There's no need to worry yourself sick."
The two women shared a lighthearted laugh like the old neighbors they were, instantly dispelling any lingering tension. The kindergarten teacher visibly relaxed, her shoulders dropping in palpable relief that the situation had resolved itself so smoothly.
Pleasantries flowed effortlessly between the two mothers as their conversation shifted into casual chatter about daily life and shared parental anxieties.
Meanwhile, Chaeyi stood watching the adults from a short distance, looking slightly out of place. Spotting a small pebble on the ground, she began nudging it idly with the tip of her shoe. The pebble skittered across the concrete, and she fixated on it as if trying to distract herself from the awkwardness. But then her gaze drifted upward and locked directly onto Sihyeok's.
"Grrrr…"
Chaeyi raised a tiny fist, letting out a miniature, threatening growl.
"…"
Sihyeok simply ignored her.
While the children engaged in their silent battle of wills, the mothers' conversation drew to a natural close. The teacher took a gentle step forward, offering both children a warm, encouraging smile.
"All right, you two. You might have had a little disagreement today, but you're still good friends, right? Time to make up!" She chuckled softly before clapping her hands together. "Now, give each other a make-up hug!"
Sihyeok and Chaeyi traded sideways glances. An awkward silence hung in the air.
Their mothers quickly chimed in.
"Come on, Chaeyi. Are you really going to give Sihyeok the silent treatment forever?"
"You too, Sihyeok, hurry up! She's your best friend, isn't she?"
Chaeyi hesitated, her stubborn pride clearly putting up a fight.
Good grief…
Wanting nothing more than to wrap this nonsense up as quickly as possible, Sihyeok took the initiative. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms lightly around Chaeyi's shoulders. Chaeyi stiffened in shock at the sudden gesture, but she quickly turned and threw her arms around him in return.
As their mutual warmth seeped through their clothes, the lingering hostility melted away. Their mothers watched the display with fond, contented smiles.
Before the moment could even settle, Chaeyi's mother spoke up brightly.
"Since we've run into each other like this, why don't we grab dinner together? There's a pork backbone stew place nearby."
Sihyeok's face twisted into an immediate scowl. Just when he thought he was finally free of this wretched brat, he was going to be stuck with her even longer. To the adults, it must have looked like a heartwarming family outing, but to Sihyeok, it was an utterly unwelcome turn of events.
And so, the four of them relocated to the nearby stew restaurant. The interior was moderately crowded with the dinner rush, and the mouthwatering scent of simmering broth immediately tickled Sihyeok's nose. While the adults resumed their endless chatter, Chaeyi grabbed Sihyeok and dragged him straight toward the indoor play area.
Even if they had technically made up, it hadn't even been a full day since they tried to tear each other's hair out. Watching her completely brush it off and act friendly again made him realize she was truly an odd child. For the first time since his regression, a spark of genuine curiosity flickered within him.
"What's your family name?"
He knew her given name, but the thought crossed his mind that he had never once heard her surname. Clinging to a faint hope that she might hold a place in the childhood memories he had lost, he decided to ask.
"Are you stupid? I'm a girl!"
Perhaps he had been too terse; she had completely conflated the word for surname with gender. Sihyeok suppressed a sigh and tried again.
"I'm asking for your full name."
"Chaeyi! Kang Chaeyi! Did you forget my name just because you always call me Noona?"
Kang Chaeyi.
As expected, the name rang no bells. Then again, the vast majority of his childhood memories had been buried beneath the traumatic shock of the calamity, obscured by an impenetrable fog.
"And since we made up, you have to call me Noona again, got it?"
He had wondered why she was acting so forgiving without holding a grudge. So this had been her real angle all along. You scheming little brat.
"Yeah, piss off."
Tossing those words over his shoulder, Sihyeok turned on his heel and walked right out of the play area. Leaving her alone pulled at his conscience for half a second, but a kid with enough social audacity to corner a regressor like him would have no trouble making friends with the other children in the room. He decided not to waste another thought on it.
As he walked back toward their table, a television mounted in the corner of the dining area caught his eye. A news broadcast was currently airing, and Sihyeok's gaze naturally drifted toward the screen.
Come to think of it, was it around this time? When the government drew up plans to build a Magic Tower in the Gyeonggi Northern Area?
A Magic Tower.
Ever since the mystery first unfurled across the world, humanity had constructed these towering defensive citadels across densely populated metropolitan hubs to counter the threats of Dimension Rifts, Dimension Waves, and Dimension Erosion.
Whenever a Dimension Rift tore open in the vast expanse of space, alien mana spewed forth and drifted across the galaxy. That cosmic current was known as a Dimension Wave. When those wandering waves breached the solar system and inundated Earth, they warped terrestrial matter and disrupted ecosystems across sky, land, and sea, triggering the horrific phenomenon called Dimension Erosion. Every creature born from this dimensional erosion possessed an innate, violent hostility toward all native terrestrial life. Thus, mankind came to brand them as monsters.
To halt the emergence of monsters, one had to block the incoming Dimension Waves before Dimension Erosion could ever take root. For that very purpose, a sacred Barrier Stone was enshrined at the heart of every Magic Tower. These stones radiated a massive Dimension Barrier that enveloped entire metropolises, neutralizing and dispersing the foreign mana that seeped into the atmosphere. It was solely because humanity had clustered into fortified cities anchored around Magic Towers that civilization had managed to endure to this day.
The government had intended to construct this vital defensive fortress in Paju City, designating it as the forward stronghold of the Gyeonggi Northern Area to spearhead the pacification of the peninsula's untamed frontier.
Yet that northern subjugation initiative had ended in utter ruin.
The culprit was a colossal, catastrophic entity destined to manifest in his hometown in the near future.
Bulgasari.
A colossal, high-rank monster that made landfall in Incheon Metropolitan City—the single highest-ranked entity ever recorded on South Korean soil since the opening of the mystery. The beast had reduced his hometown to smoldering ash before marching northward, turning the entirety of the Gyeonggi Northern Area into a desolate wasteland.
It was within that very apocalypse that Sihyeok had lost his parents and was left an orphan.
Yes. The horrific tragedy was slated to repeat itself, and the day of reckoning was not far off.
The problem was that he could not remember the exact date.
His excessive reliance on arcane pharmaceuticals in his past life had severely damaged his brain, stripping away vast swathes of his memory. That past negligence was now coming back to choke him.
What a pathetic, miserable joke. Fucking hell… forgetting the single most important detail.
If he wanted to reclaim those lost memories, he needed an arcane artifact.
The Crystal Memorial.
The relic capable of unearthing forgotten reminiscences.
To prepare for the impending apocalypse, he had to get his hands on it—no matter what.