A Promise to Return
Like a dying candle flaring back to life, my fading consciousness sharpened once more. ‘What… was that just now?’ I felt as if someone had spoken to me. An illusion? No. It wasn’t anything like that. Faint though it was, I could sense a woman’s voice, a gentle warmth that caressed me. A conversation. It felt as if we had spoken. ‘A conversation? No. That wasn’t it.’ No true exchange had taken place. Only one-sided words passed between us. She had conveyed something to me. In turn, I had conveyed something to her. That was all we had done. I had sent her a letter, yet what arrived in return was never a reply. We had simply transmitted our intentions to one another. There had been no dialogue, no back-and-forth. It was an incomprehensible experience, its contents already slipping from memory.
“Jungwoo!”
A small groan escaped me, and at the same time an urgent voice, almost frantic, reached my ears. As the violent pain surged and my blurred vision cleared, the owner of that voice filled my sight.
“J-Jungwoo! Are you all right!? Wh-what do I do? Your wounds…!”
Seo Hayun poured healing magic over me while tears streamed down her face. I tried to force my body upright, but it refused to obey. More accurately, my body had not yet recovered enough to move at all. I lowered my gaze to assess my condition. Arms and legs twisted at grotesque angles. My abdomen riddled with deep gouges. I could not even turn my head. I felt almost nothing. Yet even so, my body was gradually mending. Just as I, who had been as good as dead, had regained consciousness.
“Kgh…!”
The fact that the pain grew sharper with time meant my senses were returning. It meant I was healing. ‘It isn’t Hayun’s magic.’ This was different from the recovery magic she wielded. Unlike spells that staunched bleeding and sealed wounds in the realm of “treatment,” this was restoring broken, twisted bone and flesh to their original state. I had experienced it several times before. ‘…Right. This is exactly what happens when I come back to life.’ I had recovered from injuries in countless battles, but never from wounds this grotesque. Simply put, a head that had been blown apart beyond recognition was returning to the moment just before the explosion. It felt as though someone had turned back time itself. At the same time, something was rapidly draining from my heart. It was the Heavenly Fate I had absorbed by hunting monsters throughout the battle. I understood the situation at once. The Heavenly Fate I had accumulated had brought me back to life. Even now, it was being consumed at an alarming rate to restore my body. The amount required to mend my twisted limbs and torso far exceeded what I had spent in combat by dozens of times.
“Kgh, ugh…!”
I grasped the situation immediately. I had to stop any further expenditure of Heavenly Fate. Judging by the restored sensation, the battle with the orcs was still raging. I needed to preserve as much as possible for the fight ahead. Forcing my arm to move, I felt sharp pain lance through my skull with every tremor of the dislocated joint, yet I could not stop.
“Ha… yun…!”
“Jungwoo! You’re awake!?”
Seo Hayun’s face lit up at the sound of her name. I continued speaking to her.
“Stop the healing magic right now…!”
“What are you saying!? If I stop now, you’ll—!”
She could not understand my words. I wanted to explain in detail, but there was no time, and the frustration burned. So I gave only the most urgent instructions first.
“First, set the joints and bones back in place. Ugh! The healing magic comes after.”
Once my destroyed organs and airways began to recover, my voice steadied. To speed the healing even a little, the skeleton that supported the body had to be restored first. Seo Hayun seemed to calm at my tone; she halted the magic and nodded.
“A-all right…”
Yet her hands trembled violently as she reached for my grotesquely twisted arm. Setting the joints back into place was one thing, but she had not yet shaken off her fear. Even in this desperate moment, she could only clutch my broken arm with a terrified expression.
“Wh-what do I do… Jungwoo… I-I’m too scared to do it… If I make a mistake and you… end up dying…”
“I’ll do it.”
It was Garan who snatched my arm away from her.
“Focus on the healing magic.”
“Th-thank you! I’m counting on you!”
Seo Hayun breathed a sigh of relief at Garan’s help and resumed her magic.
“You… really do have something going on.”
While aligning the broken joints and bones as best he could, Garan spoke to me. His suspicion was only natural. Anyone would have thought I was dead, yet here I was, alive and visibly healing at an unnatural speed. After watching me fight with overwhelming power, Garan had every reason to connect the two and question what he saw.
“I’ll trust that you’ll tell me someday.”
The words “when you’re still alive” were implied, and I understood them.
“Yes.”
Once every bone in my body was back in place, the shattered fragments fused and new flesh began to grow over them. With Seo Hayun’s healing magic added, the process visibly accelerated. Confirming that the consumption of Heavenly Fate had dropped sharply, I pushed myself upright.
“Ugh…”
I grimaced. The wounds had closed, but the pain that had racked my entire body moments ago lingered like an aftereffect.
“Squad Leader.”
“Speak.”
“Take Hayun and retreat.”
“Jungwoo!”
Seo Hayun flared up in protest, but I ignored her and asked Garan. He stared at me with a hardened expression.
“…And you?”
“I…”
I fixed my gaze on the distant Orc Warrior.
“I’m going to kill that thing.”
I already knew. The greatest obstacle to Arisha’s retreat order was that monster that defied all common sense. Even if we could shake off the other orcs, if that one kept chasing us, retreat would be impossible. So I had to keep it occupied. ‘No. That isn’t enough.’ Not just occupy it. I had to kill it.
“No! Jungwoo! Then I’ll—”
“Hayun.”
I cut off her desperate words. She flinched, shoulders trembling.
“Eep…”
“I couldn’t say it back then. This time…”
I met her wavering eyes with a steady gaze, pouring my resolve into her and hoping she would understand.
“I’ll come back alive. I promise.”
Two years ago, I had not been able to say those words. Back then, even I had not believed I would survive. But now it was different. I wanted to return alive. I would not waste this second chance I had been given.
“R-really…?”
“Yeah.”
Seo Hayun asked again, voice trembling.
“If you break that promise… you’d better be ready for what happens.”
She warned me, anger and rising frustration barely held in check.
“R-right.”
“Don’t laugh. I’m being serious.”
I could not help but smile. It was the first time she had ever shown me anger like this. Surprised by this new side of her, I answered with confidence.
“See you later.”
I ran.
Seo Hayun did not try to stop me the way she had two years ago. Perhaps she had sensed a different kind of certainty in me now, one that had not existed when I had given up on survival. I hoped that was true.
‘Let’s go.’
I locked onto the Orc Warrior. It, too, was running. ‘Arisha is its target.’ It was charging straight at her as she directed the soldiers’ retreat. It seemed to have recognized her as the leader. As expected, its intelligence was on an entirely different level from any monster I had faced before. The Orc Warrior had already reached Arisha. Wearing an expression of absolute confidence, it grinned as it prepared to strike the mage who was desperately resisting with spells. It had not yet noticed me, still some distance away. ‘Faster.’ I had to reach it before the halberd fell on Arisha. I poured more power into my legs, accelerating further. I concentrated Heavenly Fate into the muscles of my legs, pushing their elasticity to the absolute limit to draw out strength beyond human bounds. Even if the muscles tore from the strain of this single leap, it did not matter. I infused the durability and elasticity of my legs, already reinforced by Hoshin-ganggi, with even more Heavenly Fate, driving them past their limits twice over. The resulting sprint tore through the wind. In a single instant, the world blurred around me, and at the end of that impossible dash I stood directly in front of the Orc Warrior. I planted my feet as though kicking the ground and drove all the momentum I had built into my fist. ‘Side.’ My target was the Orc Warrior’s flank—the same side Arisha had already torn open with her magic, the wound still fresh. Thud! The monster’s torso was driven sideways by the impact, its body staggering. Shhhk! The blow, carrying the ferocious speed of my charge, produced a terrifying force even from a human fist. The Orc Warrior dropped to one knee, snorting in shock at the unexpected attack and pain. Of course, my own fist had not escaped unscathed. Every finger bone was shattered, and the wrist joint was completely dislocated. ‘Damn, that hurts.’ The pain forced a grimace, yet compared to the agony of every bone in my body breaking and my organs being pierced only moments ago, this was bearable. I focused Heavenly Fate into my broken hand. The crushed fingers and wrist returned to their original shape. Hisss The Orc Warrior rose again, swaying. It looked at me and tilted its head, clearly puzzled. That reaction was only natural. The man who had been reduced to a bloody rag by relentless violence had returned completely unharmed. One thing struck me as strange. ‘Why can I understand its reaction?’ I could read the orc’s expression and intent as clearly as if I were looking at an animal’s face and knowing exactly what it meant. It was different from communicating through language. The phenomenon made no sense, but I had no time to dwell on it now.
“You…?”
Arisha’s startled voice came from behind me. She was just as bewildered as the Orc Warrior. The reason was the same. But there was no time to explain.
“Retreat. I’ll buy you time.”