Returned to That Instant
Yu Gangmin.
He had competed as a kendo athlete through high school. After he hung up his competitive career, he helped his father run the dojo.
For a time, they had done rather well. Every evening the building seemed ready to lift off its foundations from the children's shouting kiai, and on weekends they even ran a class for office workers.
That was before the Gates opened.
When the Awakened appeared and Hunters began hunting monsters with swords and magic, everything changed. People stopped coming to the kendo dojo. It wasn't only kendo. Taekwondo, boxing, judo—all of them went the same way. This was an age when a freshly Awakened Hunter was far stronger than someone who had trained in martial arts for ten years.
Naturally, the neighborhood gyms began shutting their doors one by one. In the vacancies they left, Awakened Academies sprang up, promising to develop an Awakened's abilities. Just recently, a massive Awakened Academy had opened across the street from the kendo dojo. Double your strength in three months of enrollment. Discover hidden skills. Advertisements like that plastered the outer walls.
While students flocked there, his father's kendo dojo emptied out, and in the end it could not hold on. His father tried everything to revive the ruined school, failed, and eventually succumbed when his chronic illness took a turn for the worse.
That day was the day the dojo closed.
After finishing the cleanup, Yu Gangmin stopped by the convenience store near the dojo and bought a bottle of water and a can of the coffee his father had always liked.
"Need a bag?"
"No. I'll carry them."
"Alright."
The moment he finished paying and turned around—
Wuuuung—
A strange sound rolled through the air. Gangmin lifted his head.
In the middle of the convenience store, a black line was being drawn through empty space. At first it was thin as a strand of hair. In an instant it lengthened and split, becoming a Spatial Rift wide enough for a person to pass through.
"A G-Gate?"
The clerk at the register screamed.
It was not a Gate. At least, it was nothing like any Gate Gangmin knew. Ordinary Gates were blue-tinged ovals. They were detected by the Association the moment they appeared, and a hazard rating was assigned according to the volume of mana inside.
From the rift before his eyes, he felt no mana at all. Instead, beyond it, unfamiliar mountains and a dense forest were visible.
Gangmin stepped backward. A force erupting from the rift seized his body anyway.
"Huh?"
The bag in his hands hit the floor. Gangmin grabbed the edge of the counter.
"Wait—wait a second!"
His palm slipped. The clerk lunged desperately, but it was already too late. Gangmin's body was sucked into the Spatial Rift.
The last thing he saw was the canned coffee lying on the floor.
That was the last image Yu Gangmin remembered.
And then sixty years passed in Murim.
And when he came back, it was the moment before he had fallen through the rift.
"Need a bag?"
"……"
Gangmin could not answer. It was the exact sentence he had heard sixty years ago, just before the rift took him.
"What in the…"
Everything was the same. The bored expression of the clerk standing at the register. Even the earphone cord peeking out from under the nametag. All of it matched his memory.
Yu Gangmin slowly examined his own body. The hands that had been soaked in blood were clean. The clothes he wore were not Murim's long robes. They were the black tracksuit he had put on when he left the dojo.
"Sir?"
The clerk called to him, puzzled. Instead of answering, Gangmin checked the digital clock beside the register. It was the instant just before he had been caught in the Spatial Rift.
Before he could be sure he had returned, suspicion came first.
An illusion art?
He could not rule it out, so Yu Gangmin swept his surroundings with exhaustive care. Even the being they had called the Phantom Demon had failed to beguile his mind.
This is no illusion.
Nothing about it felt like an illusion technique.
Then did I dream it all?
Another possibility. Perhaps the sixty years he had spent in Murim had been a dream.
Fortunately, however, the energy of the Wuji Heavenly Origin Art—the cultivation technique he had completed by fusing the inner arts of the Righteous, Evil, and Demonic factions into one—was still there. His flesh had returned to the moment before he fell through the rift, but his martial arts had not vanished. The sixty years of memory, the countless life-and-death struggles, even the sensation of killing one hundred twenty-seven people in Bulgwigok—all of it remained.
"So it's true…"
Which meant he really had come back. To the very day he had disappeared.
Then his mother and his little sister would be at home. He had seen their faces that very morning and had not even bothered with a proper greeting. He had simply walked out, saying he would be back after he finished clearing the dojo.
How bitterly I regretted ignoring her when she told me to eat before I left.
He wanted to go home at once. To open the door and see his mother's face. To hear his thoughtless little sister's nagging one more time.
Gangmin laid a bill on the counter.
"The bag won't be necessary."
"Ah—yes."
He picked up the water and the canned coffee. This time he gripped the can firmly, as if he would not let it fall. It was the coffee his father had liked. His father was already gone. Coming back would not restore everything—but this was enough.
Gangmin turned toward the convenience store door.
Wuuuung—
A familiar sound. His steps stopped.
In the middle of the convenience store, a black line was drawn through empty space.
"The rift?"
It was not the Spatial Rift. In the place where the rift that should have taken him to another world ought to have opened, a Gate was opening instead.
"A Gate, then."
Gangmin's expression hardened, fierce. As the Gate split open, something could be seen bursting out of it.
Crrrack!
A green hand tore through the black membrane and thrust out. Right after, a small monster that came up only to a person's waist tumbled onto the convenience store floor. Pointed ears. Yellow, rotting teeth. In its scrawny hand it held a rusted dagger.
A goblin.
"Monster!"
The clerk screamed and ducked under the counter.
The goblin slowly pushed itself up.
Krrk.
Its cloudy eyes swept the inside of the store. The goblin's gaze landed on Yu Gangmin, the closest person.
Kieeek!
It shrieked and charged. Gangmin did not move. The rusted dagger flew toward his throat.
Slow. There was no need even to compare it to those he had faced in Bulgwigok. It looked like a child swinging a toy sword.
The instant Gangmin was about to raise his hand—
"Get out of the way!"
A sharp voice, and something flashed past his side.
Kaaang!
Sword met dagger. The one who had blocked the goblin's attack was a young woman—the woman who had been sitting by the convenience store window eating a triangle of kimbap. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail, and she held a longsword in one hand. She must have kept it in the long bag standing beside her seat.
"Please step back."
The woman spoke without taking her eyes off the goblin.
"I'll handle this."
A Hunter registration ID now hung around her neck.
F-Rank?
Gangmin's eyes narrowed. Even before he had been dragged to Murim, he had known the Hunter ranking system well enough. F-Rank was the lowest among the Awakened—a grade assessed as possessing physical capabilities only slightly above an ordinary person's, poorly suited for combat.
And yet Yoon Seoha had stepped in front of the goblin without hesitation.
"You there—the clerk."
"Y-yes?"
"Take the other customers into the storeroom. Lock the door and report it to the Association."
"What about you, Hunter?"
"I'll buy us time. An alert should have gone out by now."
Wiiiiing!
A shrill warning tone erupted. Every phone in the convenience store rang at once.
An emergency disaster alert did not go out just because a Gate that spawned goblins had opened.
Which means…
Another Gate had opened nearby.
This is bad.
The Gate that had opened over there was probably far more urgent. Which meant it would take even longer for nearby Hunters to respond to the alert and arrive.
Can she hold them off alone?
It did not look like an F-Rank Hunter could handle this by herself, so Yu Gangmin stood there, rubbing his nose with a knuckle. As he dawdled, Yoon Seoha shouted urgently.
"What are you doing? Get out of here!"
Even as she yelled, she was fully occupied trying to stop the goblins charging at Yu Gangmin.
She's using a sword.
Yoon Seoha used a sword. Instinctively, Yu Gangmin's gaze settled on her stance. His brow twitched.
What is that supposed to be?
Even her grip was wrong. Her wrists were locked stiff, and her shoulders were carrying useless tension. Her center of gravity was pitched too far forward; she looked ready to topple at any moment. It was a posture too embarrassing to even call swordsmanship. Like that, she could not evade an attack and flow into the next movement.
Where did she learn the sword? No—that's not a trained stance at all.
The goblin charged again. Yoon Seoha swung her sword.
"Power Strike!"
The blade is imbued with light, doubling attack speed and power.
With the cry, a faint light burst from the blade. The skill-boosted sword shot forward at twice the speed and slashed across the goblin's chest.
"Hah—hah!"
But the goblin Yoon Seoha had to face was not just one. As long as the Gate remained open, the goblins kept multiplying. In an instant she was surrounded, forced onto the back foot.
A goblin swung its rusted blade. Yoon Seoha blocked with her sword.
Kaaang!
Metal rang, sparks flying. She could not absorb the impact and was driven two full steps back. The goblin charged again. Yoon Seoha clenched her teeth and swung.
Whoosh!
The blade skimmed over the goblin's head. Because she had put so much force into it, her recovery was slow as well. The goblin's knife drove toward her side.
"……!"
Yoon Seoha braced for the pain.
That was when it came.
"Left foot."
Yu Gangmin's voice. Without thinking, Yoon Seoha drew her left foot back. The goblin's blade whispered past her clothes.
"You're putting far too much force into it."
"What?"
"The wrist. The shoulder. Force it like that and the sword will not move properly."
"Is this really the time for a lesson?"
"I'm telling you because you're about to die."
The goblins charged again. Yoon Seoha gritted her teeth and raised her sword.
"Left foot half a step back."
Gangmin's voice continued.
"Drop the shoulders."
"……"
"Don't try to swing the sword. Think of letting it fall from above."
Yoon Seoha did not fully understand what he meant. Even so, she adjusted her stance as he said. She drew her left foot back. She lowered the shoulders that had been hiked up tight. She let the force out of the hand gripping the sword. The blade that had felt nothing but heavy grew a little lighter.
The goblin in front of her raised its dagger.
"Now."
Gangmin said. Yoon Seoha let the sword drop. She did not swing with all her strength. She simply allowed it to fall, following its own weight.
Shhk!
The blade sank deep from the goblin's shoulder down through its chest.
Krrk…!
The goblin crumpled without strength. Yoon Seoha stared blankly down at her own sword. She had not used a skill. And yet the power was not so different from when she had used Power Strike.
"How…?"
"It isn't over yet."
The remaining goblin lunged at Yoon Seoha's back.