I Don't Want to Work
"Alright. Time to rest."
Just then, someone walked out from inside the building. Sihyuk stepped aside without much thought — then caught sight of the other person's face and stopped cold.
Long, cascading blonde hair. Unusually pale skin. And pointed ears poking out through the strands.
An elf?
Even in the Demon Realm, they hadn't been a common race. He wondered whether anyone on Earth had ever walked around with ears like that, then remembered returnees existed. Apparently, bodies altered in other worlds sometimes stayed that way after coming back.
That was as far as Sihyuk's thoughts went. He was about to walk past.
But the elf's reaction was wrong. The moment she saw him, she froze solid. Her eyes went wide. Her lips trembled. The paper bag in her hands slipped free.
Thud.
A few apples rolled out across the floor. Sihyuk looked down at the one that had come to rest by his feet, then back up at the elf.
"Are you all right?"
No answer. The color drained from her face at alarming speed. She couldn't even breathe properly. Sihyuk narrowed his eyes slightly. She'd been staring at his face like she was trying to burn a hole through it.
"Do I know you?"
Her shoulders jerked. Her mouth opened and closed several times. Only after a long stretch did a tiny sound escape.
"D-Demon King…"
Sihyuk's expression shifted. This time he studied her face properly. Digging through old memories took a moment — then, from some corner of recollection, a face much like the one in front of him surfaced.
Ah.
He remembered. The exact name didn't come immediately, but she was an elf he'd once met as an enemy. Back when he'd been far more hot-blooded than he was now, they'd clashed once.
"So it was you."
The elf's face went even whiter. Sihyuk regarded her for a moment. He couldn't even recall how much time had passed since he'd last seen her in the Demon Realm. He certainly hadn't expected to run into her here.
"Looks like you made it back too."
Instead of answering, she gave the tiniest nod. That was when Sihyuk caught a strange smell. He glanced down. The lower half of her pants was wet. Droplets were falling to the floor one by one.
"…"
He looked back up. She looked like she was about to cry.
Did I really do that much to her?
He couldn't remember clearly. Back then, far too many people had come at him trying to kill him. There was no way he could have kept track of every single one.
Sihyuk let out a small sigh.
"Calm down."
She flinched.
"I'm not looking to fight you anymore."
"…"
"I retired."
Her eyes wavered. She clearly didn't believe him. Sihyuk understood. Coming from someone she knew as the Demon King, it wasn't exactly an easy claim to swallow — the Demon King showing up out of nowhere one day and announcing he'd retired.
But it was the truth. He no longer wanted to fight anyone. He had no interest in expanding territory. And above all, he had zero intention of playing Demon King again.
"So let's just live like we don't know each other."
She finally managed to speak.
"Y-you mean it? Really?"
"Yeah."
"You won't… do anything?"
"I will, actually."
Her body locked up again. Sihyuk held up the chicken box in his hand.
"Eat. Play. Sleep."
"…"
"That's what I came back for."
She still looked unconvinced. Sihyuk didn't bother trying to persuade her. Whether she believed him or not was irrelevant. There was one thing, though, that needed saying.
"But."
She swallowed hard.
"Don't tell anyone who I am."
"…"
"I don't want the hassle."
She nodded frantically.
"I won't say a word… never…"
Sihyuk thought for a second. That seemed sufficient — then he added one more thing.
"If you do, I'll kill you."
She jumped out of her skin.
"I swear! I swear on everything!"
"Good."
He wasn't joking. Sihyuk had no desire for a situation where his identity got out and people started flocking to him. Especially if returnees who knew him from the Demon Realm found out he was on Earth — that would get annoying fast.
The elf nodded over and over. Sihyuk picked up one of the fallen apples and held it out. She took it with both hands.
"Well then. Take care."
He walked straight into the lodging. The elf stood frozen for a long time afterward.
The returnee support lodging was better than expected. Not hotel quality, but more than enough for one person. A small bed, a desk, a refrigerator, and a private bathroom attached at the back.
Sihyuk took a slow walk around the room.
Not bad.
Compared to his quarters in the Demon King's Castle, it was cramped. Just the bed alone filled a good portion of the space. But somehow, it felt comfortable. No one barging in asking him to stamp documents. No one reporting food shortages. Lock the door, and that was it.
He set the remaining chicken on the desk and lay down on the bed. Soft. Staring at the ceiling, the day's events drifted back one by one.
Earth. Returnees. Fried chicken. Gates. And the 1st King's Mark.
That last one bothered him a little.
So she really kept looking for me.
He closed his eyes. The fact that the 1st King had been searching for him wasn't strange in itself. Some of them had never personally witnessed his death, and of those, the 1st King was exactly the type to keep digging until she confirmed it. The real question was whether she could reach Earth.
As far as Sihyuk knew, crossing dimensions wasn't simple. If it had been that easy, the space between worlds would have been crawling with traffic long ago.
She'll give up on her own.
That was his conclusion. Thinking about it wouldn't change anything. Right now, something else mattered more.
He sat up and grabbed the leftover chicken. Even cold, it still tasted fine.
That night, for the first time in a long while, Sihyuk slept without doing a single thing.
The next morning, his phone rang. Sihyuk opened his eyes much later. A single message waited on the screen.
The sender's name was listed below: Park Seoyeon. The Association employee who'd handled him yesterday. Sihyuk checked the time.
9:12.
"Guess I should go."
It was a hassle, but he figured he ought to sit through the training. Now that he was back on Earth, he at least needed to know how things worked.
He washed up roughly and left the lodging. The door to the unit next door — which, as it turned out, belonged to the elf — was shut tight. Sihyuk glanced at it briefly, then walked on.
A fair number of people had already gathered in the Association training room. Ages varied wildly. Some looked younger than Sihyuk; others looked middle-aged. A few stood out — a man with blue scales covering his entire arm, a woman with small horns on her head, someone with cat-like ears poking through their hair. Mixed among them were people who, like Sihyuk, looked completely ordinary on the surface. All of them were apparently returnees.
As Sihyuk took a seat, Park Seoyeon up front spotted him.
"Mr. Kang Sihyuk."
"Yes."
"Any trouble finding the place?"
"My phone guided me."
"That's good to hear."
She finished taking attendance and returned to the front. A moment later the door closed, and the training began.
"We'll start by covering the areas where returnees tend to struggle the most."
The screen changed. Recent Korean history. From the first Gate appearance through the establishment of the Awakened and Hunter systems, the Association, and the guilds — the explanation rolled on. Magic stones and magical beast byproducts from Gates were already woven into industry across the board. Repeated disasters had led to Awakened management systems, and along the way guilds and Hunter academies had taken root.
Barely twelve years. But the world Sihyuk remembered had already changed considerably.
They got things organized faster than I expected.
He propped his chin on his hand and watched the screen. In the Demon Realm, a shift like this would have kicked off a war over the spoils first. Earth hadn't had a smooth ride either, but at least the speed of building institutions had been impressive.
The lecture didn't stop at history. Currency values and prices. Banks and taxes. Public transportation. The internet. The various identity-restoration procedures available to returnees. Some of the other returnees had only been gone a few years and looked bored. Sihyuk was different. He knew less than he didn't know. With his Earth-era memories faded, most of this was material he needed to relearn from scratch.
When break time came, he flipped back through the training materials on his desk.
Good thing I came to this.
Far more interesting than reading reports in the Demon King's Castle. At least nothing written here was something he personally had to handle.
The second session covered returnee abilities and employment.
"Many of you returnees possess abilities completely different from before your disappearance, so the standard job-hunting process doesn't always apply."
Several occupations appeared on the screen. Hunter. Alchemist. Magitech engineer. Blacksmith. Magical researcher — careers that could put skills learned in other worlds to use. The expressions around the room shifted a little.
"I'm going the Hunter route," a man in the front row told the person next to him. "I spent over ten years with a sword over there. What else am I supposed to do?"
Someone else showed interest in the alchemy certification track. A person who'd worked a forge grabbed the informational pamphlet for related companies.
Sihyuk listened quietly. There was nothing in particular he wanted to do.
The training moved on to Hunter ranks. Hunters were classified from F-class to S-class. A-class and above made up roughly one percent of all registered Hunters. S-class was a tiny fraction even of that.
A moment later the screen changed again. Exemplary returnee resettlement cases. Photos of various people scrolled past one after another — until Sihyuk's gaze stopped.
Blonde hair. Pointed ears. The elf who'd wet herself at the sight of him outside the lodging last night.
Riel / Returnee — Year 3
S-class Hunter
Sihyuk's eyes widened slightly.
S-class?
He still didn't know exactly what that meant, but based on the lecture, it was the highest rank. He thought back to last night — the apples on the floor, the bloodless face, the wet pants.
She's been doing well for herself.
That was as far as the thought went. He looked away from the screen.
After the training ended, brief individual consultations followed. When Sihyuk's turn came, Park Seoyeon opened a file.
"Looking at the records you filled out yesterday, Mr. Kang, it says you handled administrative work on-site."
"Yes."
"So you have administrative experience?"
Sihyuk thought for a second. Taxes. Food supplies. Troop deployments. Reports. Endless stacks of documents awaiting approval flashed through his mind.
"Quite a lot of it."
"Then job placement might actually be easier for you." Park Seoyeon turned the screen toward him. "A lot of returnees only have combat experience, so people with general administrative or management backgrounds are scarcer than you'd think."
Sihyuk's expression stiffened subtly. Company and institutional names filled the screen. Returnee management positions. Guild administrative roles. Magic stone distribution firm office work. Association assistant admin posts. Familiar words, all of them.
Park Seoyeon asked, "Shall I recommend a few places along these lines?"
Sihyuk looked at the screen for a moment. He'd already done more than enough of that. No — far too much. After becoming Demon King, the thing he'd done most wasn't killing people or waging war. It was reading documents. He'd finally escaped that, and the last thing he wanted was to sit back down at a desk the moment he returned to Earth.
He shook his head.
"I'm fine."
Park Seoyeon stopped mid-motion.
"Is there another field you're interested in?"
"Not really."
"Then what about the Hunter track? The exam classified you as a Non-Awakened, but if you happen to have any combat experience from over there, we could look into the special returnee selection process."
"I don't want that either."
She looked at him.
"Then… is there something else you've been considering…?"
"No."
"…"
Sihyuk said it plainly.
"I don't want to work."