The Emperor's Origins
"Tell me honestly."
"That's right. Don't you dare brush this off again."
Having warped into a safe star system, Jincheon's party first scanned their surroundings. Once Heliane and Calsira confirmed no other ships appeared on the radar, they turned on Jincheon with accusing eyes.
"Until now you've used some strange powers, but I figured there might be one or two people with unusual abilities in this vast universe, so I let it slide."
"But this goes beyond ordinary strength. Just what the hell are you?"
The two women had witnessed the massive clump of mechas and ships gathered near the fortress and were certain Jincheon had pulled some kind of stunt. He hadn't exactly been subtle about it either.
"I'm warning you in advance—if you try some weird excuse…"
"Fine. I'll tell you."
"Huh?"
Calsira had been about to deliver her scariest possible warning, but Jincheon answered as casually as ordering coffee at a café.
"I've always been ready to share my secrets whenever."
"Then why stay quiet until now?"
"Because if I just blurt it out myself, you might not really listen. But if you're curious enough to ask, you'll actually pay attention."
"…"
Heliane opened her mouth to retort at his nonchalant answer, then closed it again.
"There's a long version and a short version. Which do you want?"
"The long one."
"Short, please."
"…"
Heliane chose long; Calsira chose short. The two women stared at each other. Their values had just collided right here.
"Then I'll go with medium length."
Jincheon organized his thoughts for a moment and began to explain.
"I originally come from a hundred years ago."
"A hundred years?"
"Roughly speaking."
He started from how he, a man of the 21st century, had been hit by an unexpected meteor and dropped into a Murim world filled with martial arts power. He told them about training to grow stronger, fighting an organization called the Pacheonhoe, exploring the world… and how, after all his wives had passed away, his parallel-world self had felt sorry seeing him lonely and transferred him to this dimension.
"…"
"…"
Having heard the entire story, Heliane and Calsira seriously wondered if he might be insane. They had prepared themselves for any shocking revelation, but this far exceeded anything they could accept. Especially the "parallel-world version of myself" part—their minds completely short-circuited.
"…Wait. My head's spinning. I don't even know where to start asking…"
"Same here…"
For the first time in their lives, they realized how inconvenient it was to have only one mouth. They barely managed to sort their thoughts.
"How does getting hit by a meteor cause dimensional travel?"
"Hell if I know either. A meteor that big should've been picked up by radar and blown up with missiles long before impact, right? But nothing like that happened."
At the time he'd been logged into a VR game, and the system was set to send disaster alerts to players. Yet not a single warning text had ever appeared before the meteor struck him.
After that unsatisfying answer, Heliane asked another question.
"If Earth people—Terrans, I mean—were that strong a thousand years ago, half the universe should be under Terra's control by now, right?"
If Terrans had learned martial arts powerful enough to split rivers and mountains, ace pilots on Jincheon's level would have been mass-produced and dominated every battlefield. The maneuvers he'd shown would knock any normal living being unconscious in under thirty seconds.
"I told you. Different dimension. The laws here and there aren't the same. Like my parallel self said, this place only accepted the concept of martial arts after I arrived."
"So this world never had martial arts power at all until you showed up?"
"Now you're starting to get it."
Heliane and Calsira were left speechless by Jincheon's casual delivery.
"I'll say this upfront: whether you believe me or not is your problem, not mine. I can't go back to my original world under my own power anymore, so even if you demand proof, all I can show is my martial arts."
Then he lit a flame with his bare hands, swirled his fingers to control the fire, and clenched his fist to snuff it out.
True to his word, martial arts was the only proof he could offer. The problem was that to outsiders, that power just looked like extreme bio-enhancement making him faster and stronger. Without bio-enhancement, people might have cried "No human can be this strong!" and believed him. But the galactic network regularly showed conglomerate heirs and tycoons performing superhuman feats after maxing out their enhancements, so the shock value was dulled. Of course, even those people were weak enough for Jincheon to kill with a pinky finger—but that transcendent strength still wasn't proof he came from another dimension.
In the end, as Jincheon said, belief was up to Heliane and Calsira.
Then Calsira, after thinking for a moment, raised a question off-topic.
"Um…"
"Hm?"
"You said you reached the absolute peak in your original Earth's world, right?"
"That's right."
"Then what happens if you use your full power?"
Jincheon didn't need long to answer.
"Full power? I could probably destroy a planet."
"…You're not joking?"
"This is Q&A time for your doubts. No jokes or lies."
But the lingering doubt in her eyes made him speak again.
"Want me to land on some random planet and show you?"
"N-No! It's fine! Really!"
Destroying a planet would shock every sentient being in the galaxy. If it were true, they'd spend the rest of their lives on the run.
"Ah, come to think of it, there is one thing that could count as proof."
"Really?"
"What is it?"
Jincheon told them about the "otherworld cheat" his parallel self had informed him of when he arrived here.
"A star system with only a red giant and a single ice planet…?"
"Wait, is that…?"
The two women seemed to recall something and began searching on their Bio Devices.
"Found it."
"The Binzonu System. With features that distinctive, you couldn't miss it."
The Binzonu System was exactly the place holding the "otherworld cheat" Jincheon had mentioned—a system so worthless that the surrounding area left it abandoned.
"So there's something on that ice planet?"
"My parallel self said he found something interesting there. He didn't tell me what, but if he called it a 'cheat,' it can't be ordinary."
"But if something like that existed, wouldn't other nations or corporations have found it first?"
"That guy doesn't just have advanced machinery. He keeps a grand mage who transcends common sense as a subordinate. With science and magic combined, things impossible in this world become possible."
"…"
The second reason they struggled to believe him was that "parallel-world self" part. Dimensional travel was already hard enough to swallow, yet his parallel counterpart supposedly split seas with spells, summoned meteors with a grand mage under his command, converted entire ships into giant dimensional transfer devices, and tried to return to his home dimension.
"In other words, if we investigate there and find something, everything I've said becomes true."
But there was another problem.
"The issue is, according to 'that guy,' once I get it, the whole neighborhood will go berserk, so I need to either grow strong enough to tank nation-level attacks or build friendly forces first. Going there just the three of us right now is pointless."
"Just to check…"
"How far do you think it is? You want to fly all the way there just to look and come back?"
From their current position, reaching the Binzonu System without a Warp Drive would take over half a year—assuming nothing happened along the way.
"Me being from another dimension isn't some urgent secret that has to be proven right this second."
"Well, that's true, but…"
Unable to argue, the two women decided to set the Binzonu System matter aside for later.
"More importantly, calculate the course."
"Mmm… it feels kind of incomplete ending like this."
"Yeah, a little disappointing."
In the end, their attempt to dig into Jincheon's secrets only left them with bigger questions. For now, they had to focus on heading to Keren.
The distance to Keren was about a week's cruise. It might seem short, but that was only possible because the Warp Drive had already skipped over dozens of star systems.
Because Keren was only a week away, pirates were scarce. With so many mercenaries hunting for work, pirates simply didn't hang around the area. Their journey proceeded smoothly without incident.
During that voyage, Heliane finally understood with her tongue why Jincheon had demanded a galley.
"What… is this…?"
"It's insanely good, right? I got to eat it once while hiring a guide for the White Shriek Forest—his skills are amazing!"
"This is… too… too…"
The pirates had kindly provided high-quality ingredients, but the real shock was how he produced this flavor not by dumping everything into an oven or microwave, but by cooking the ingredients over open flame in a huge pan—primitive methods that somehow created miracles.
As previously mentioned, in this era the standard "cooking" method was gathering ingredients and running them through an oven or microwave.
Munch munch munch munch!
Soup flavored with vegetables and the juices of searing meat, steamed fish with finely minced spices and butter, sandwiches made with a strange bread that was neither wheat nor rice flour, stuffed with vegetables, meat, and spices.
All the ingredients looked different from Earth's, yet Jincheon had tasted each one himself and cooked them in various ways.
Heliane wolfed everything down and finally washed the food stuck in her throat with water.
"Pwah! So good!"
Before joining the resistance, Heliane had occasionally visited high-end restaurants. Yet Jincheon's cooking was several times better, and she couldn't stop praising it.
This world's chefs researched ingredient pairings and used superior equipment, so their knowledge surpassed 21st-century cooks in some ways. But Jincheon had far surpassed even those chefs.
"How the hell do you cook this well?"
"For my wives."
"Why?"
"They were powerhouses the whole world looked up to. But they threw away their lives to become my bitches, so I had to do at least this much, right? Plus I hated the idea of my wives eating weird crap."
"You're surprisingly the devoted husband type."
"Heh."
Jincheon answered Calsira's words with a gentle smile.
He's still in love with them.
Heliane was now certain that the figures he projected onto them were his former wives. Learning he still loved them sparked a strange jealousy. She didn't understand why she felt jealous, but a desire slowly crawled up inside her—to make him see only her instead of the old wives remaining in his memories.
Jincheon's party cruised for a full week without a single problem.
They realized they were nearing Keren when ships heading the same direction began to appear. And they truly felt Keren's presence when small asteroids fitted with devices projected every kind of holographic advertisement at travelers.
Passing the holographic ads attached to asteroids, they beheld a massive city that never slept, thronged with countless ships coming and going.
Originally a moderately large asteroid that had been remodeled, successive expansions of metal walls around the asteroid core had turned it into a gigantic metropolis—the intermediary trade city of Keren.
"So this is Keren. Impressive."
"Are all these merchant ships and mercenary vessels? There's no war, yet so many ships gathered…"
Jincheon, seeing a major city for the first time since arriving in this world, and Calsira, who had little worldly experience, both let out exclamations of awe.
They headed for the docks, where holograms directed large, medium, and small ships to their respective lanes. With so many vessels arriving, the traffic had been completely zoned.
Jincheon's transport ship counted as small, so they proceeded to the small-ship area.
Normally there would be back-and-forth with the tower, but with the sheer volume of traffic, Control simply told them the dock and cut the line.
Countless holes pierced the massive metal wall, each labeled with a dock name above it.
"Let's see… Pier Q… Section 1… D… There it is."
Following the guide lights, Jincheon guided the ship into the hole and landed.
"Hah… hah…"
As they entered Keren's dock, Calsira took tense, deep breaths.
"Why so nervous?"
"I've never been somewhere with this many people."
Heliane, understanding the reason for Calsira's tension, asked no further questions.
Meanwhile, Jincheon finished landing, shut off the engines, and stood from the pilot's seat.
"Heh heh heh. Finally—my first real big city in this world."
Excited at the prospect of finally enjoying the sci-fi life he wanted, a smile spread across his lips.
…Is this going to be okay?
One was tense from lack of experience; the other was hyped about seeing his first major city in another world. The problem was clearly the latter. That one possessed absurd mysterious power and treated killing people lightly, so trouble was most likely to start with him.
I have to keep my head on straight!
Realizing she was the only one who could hold this party together, Heliane steeled herself and headed outside the ship with the other two.
Outside, the spacious small-ship dock stretched before them. One side had a door for people; the other for cargo.
Approaching the personnel door, a holographic red X appeared.
> Please pay the dock usage fee.
Apparently they had to pay the dock fee from now on to enter the city.
"Oh come on. Already starting the money bullshit?"
Jincheon grumbled as he entered his account into the panel beside the door.
> Starting from this time, dock usage fees will be automatically transferred daily.
He clicked his tongue seeing 2,000 credits deducted for the dock fee.
"Price is pretty steep."
An ordinary person watching 2,000 credits vanish every day would feel the pain and avoid wasting time. But Jincheon didn't care about money, and he planned to take decent commissions anyway, so his reaction was indifferent.
"Compared to normal dock fees, it is expensive. But that also makes it a land of opportunity."
Heliane explained why this place was a land of opportunity.
"We didn't go through any inspections on the way in. Normally a checkpoint ship would stop you briefly and check the cargo."
"Meaning no banned items, huh?"
"It means every kind of person comes here. Smugglers hauling strategic materials, and the national assassins hunting those smugglers."
Calling it a den of chaos wouldn't be an exaggeration.
"Heh. Sounds fun. Let's see what kind of place this really is."
Jincheon passed through the personnel corridor and arrived at the port district. There he could see countless mercenaries and merchants leading their escorts emerging from other corridors.
It was the historic moment when Jincheon officially revealed himself to the world.
