The Weight of Secrets
The air felt oppressively heavy, pressing down on me until I swallowed hard without thinking. Jeon Nando was suspicious of my identity. Since the truth was already halfway out, telling a clumsy lie now would be the same as digging my own grave. So… should I reveal myself, or stay silent?
In my heart, I wanted to tell him everything and ask for his help. Even though he hadn’t particularly liked “me” while I was alive, we had still built a certain bond over the years. He wouldn’t abandon me coldly. But there were far too many risks. Explaining how I had come back to life would be difficult enough, and more than anything, the new line in the Message made me hesitate.
If your identity is discovered, you will die.
There was no greater absurdity. “…Yeonhee and Soyeon are no different from my own family. If you have no intention of revealing your identity, I cannot simply stand by.”
Watching Jeon Nando scatter his mana and pressure me, I began to feel a flicker of anxiety. Even if people called him a “tiger with its fangs pulled,” he was once hailed as the strongest among the first-generation hunters. He was the one who had raised the Sword Empress herself. Against him, even my current self would struggle to hold out.
…
I was desperately racking my brain for a way out when a phrase from the Message suddenly flashed through my mind.
[Make Min Soyeon the Strongest in the World]
※ Failure Condition: World Destruction
[Do not let Min Soyeon discover your identity]
※ Failure Condition: Death
Both conditions pointed solely at Min Soyeon. That meant… they didn’t apply to Jeon Nando. In other words, revealing my identity to him wouldn’t cause any problems.
Of course, this could just be my own assumption.
“Elder.”
But there was only one way to find out.
“…You called me a coward, didn’t you?” I slowly gathered my mana and spoke with confidence. “A real coward doesn’t pick fights.”
It was only a fraction of the mana Jeon Nando possessed, but it was enough to shift the atmosphere.
“And what I’m doing isn’t support. It’s external support.”
Jeon Nando’s eyes widened in shock. “…Y-you…!”
He must have caught on by now. I gave him a small smile and drove the final nail in.
“How could someone who’s never even been married understand how I feel?”
*
“…Are you seriously asking me to believe that?” Jeon Nando let out a hollow laugh, clearly dumbfounded. “If you don’t believe me, should I show you proof?”
“No. Even if you did, I wouldn’t want to believe it. That a thief like you came back to life…”
“…Yeonhee confessed first—”
“And does that make you any better than her?”
My mouth snapped shut. What a dirty move, hitting me with cold hard facts. Jeon Nando took a sip of the freshly brewed tea and continued in a tone that almost sounded relieved.
“Anyway… I’m glad you’re back. Now I can finally breathe a little easier.”
He let out a heavy sigh and gently set his teacup down. Glad I was back? Had something happened while I was gone?
“…What do you mean?”
Jeon Nando stared at his teacup with a look of deep regret before slowly beginning to speak.
“…I see. You really don’t know anything. Alright, where should I even start…”
Three years ago.
While I was on a mission with my team, we were suddenly attacked by a beast and I died. It was supposed to be nothing more than clearing a B-rank Gate, so I had let my wife stay home. But that day, an S-rank beast appeared instead. There was no way an A-rank like me and a teammate still climbing the ranks could stop it.
After I died, my wife rushed to the scene, subjugated the beast… and found me.
“…Yeonhee did?”
Jeon Nando simply nodded quietly.
At first, she refused to believe it. She kept insisting it couldn’t be true, clutching my mangled corpse and crying endlessly. High-ranking officials who arrived later tried to console her, but…
“…She killed him.”
In her blind rage, the Hunter Association President died.
“…Excuse me?”
Yeonhee had killed someone! What the hell was—
I was stunned by the revelation that my wife had committed murder. She had always been the picture of a virtuous wife—kind and gentle. She had been a little hot-tempered as a child, but never to the point of taking a life.
“…Yeonhee killed someone…? No, the official report said the president died of a chronic illness…”
I had looked up the information after coming back to life, so I knew the president had died. But—
“That’s just what they told the public. How could they announce that the Sword Empress had killed the Association President?”
In the end, they covered up the incident to protect public opinion. After killing the president, my wife disappeared with my body. It was only much later that news of her retirement reached us.
Wait…
Now that I thought about it, even when I had been frantically gathering information, I had never been able to find any records about my own grave.
“Then… where is my grave?”
“I have no idea. Thanks to that, I couldn’t even pay my respects…”
Maybe it was buried on some private property.
“In any case, after Yeonhee retired, I barely saw her.”
Listening to Jeon Nando, the picture finally started to come together. How painful it must have been for my wife, left all alone, and for Min Soyeon, who lost her father in a single day. Sadly, I couldn’t blame anyone else. It was my fault for failing to survive, for not returning to my family’s arms…
As I drowned in gut-wrenching sorrow, endlessly cursing my own pathetic self, a small question suddenly rose in my mind.
Why had Jeon Nando said he was glad I was back? Why had he said he could finally breathe easier? And why had Min Soyeon been living like that?
I quickly lifted my head to look at him. He was already watching me with pitying eyes, as if he knew exactly what I was about to ask.
“…Elder.”
Jeon Nando turned his head slightly, avoiding my gaze.
“…Have you heard about Soyeon?”
There was no way I hadn’t. The man had been investigating me because my behavior was suspicious. There was no chance he didn’t know what kind of environment Min Soyeon was living in. So why had he abandoned a child who was practically family? And what on earth was my wife doing to let their daughter fall so far?
Jeon Nando quietly lifted his teacup, dodging my question. At that moment, a seed of unease began to bloom in my chest.
“…W-what about my wife…? What is Ju Yeonhee doing right now…?”
Jeon Nando downed the now-cold tea in one gulp, then slowly opened his mouth with a grave expression.
“…She’s gone into hiding.”
Gone into hiding? Then Soyeon—!
“Y-you’re telling me she went into hiding and left Soyeon completely alone!?”
No matter how heartbroken she was over my death, how could she abandon a child who still needed to grow up? I shot to my feet, seething with rage. Jeon Nando hurriedly tried to calm me down.
“Even so, how could she do that to such a young child—!”
“C-calm down for a moment!”
“Do I look like I can calm down right now!? That damn woman…!”
At that, Jeon Nando grabbed me firmly and shouted.
“Min Sungjae!!”
Min Sungjae. How long had it been since I’d heard my own name?
“I’m not finished yet! Calm down and listen to me.”
The unfamiliar name instantly cooled my burning head.
“…I’m sorry.”
Jeon Nando lit a cigar, saying we should both cool our heads first. But the moment the pungent smoke hit my nose, Min Soyeon’s smoking habit flashed through my mind again.
Damn it… Just hold it in. Hold it in…
I desperately swallowed my anger and waited for him to continue.
And then…
“…She did go into hiding, but I managed to find out where she is…”
Finally, I would learn the shocking truth about my wife’s whereabouts.
“…Is she sick? Ju Yeonhee?”
That Ju Yeonhee? The woman once called the strongest in the world, sick? Who in the world could possibly make her ill?
“More precisely… it’s her heart that’s hurting.”
Ah…
I let out a heavy sigh at Jeon Nando’s words. Even the woman who could cut down any beast in a single stroke had always been soft-hearted. I felt ashamed for getting angry without knowing what she was going through.
According to him, Ju Yeonhee had built a small house deep in the mountains of Gangwon-do and was living there all alone. He had located her about a year ago and sent people several times, but…
“…Her condition is very bad.”
She refused to cooperate, so they couldn’t even assess her physical health. She barely ate one meal every few days and showed no interest in living. All she did was sit by the window and stare outside. It was as if she had lost all will to live, like a terminally ill patient simply waiting for death.
How many more shocks was I supposed to endure?
Ju Yeonhee, having lost all emotion, had no energy left to take care of herself. As a result, Min Soyeon had been completely abandoned. All of this was the consequence of my death.
But… I had come back to life.
I, Ju Yeonhee’s husband and Min Soyeon’s father, was alive. Even if I couldn’t reveal my identity to Soyeon, I could tell Yeonhee, couldn’t I? If I did, her condition would improve, and Soyeon could finally receive her mother’s love again!
I quickly explained the plan I had come up with to Jeon Nando. However…
“…It’s not a bad idea, but I’m a little skeptical. You can’t reveal your identity to Soyeon right now. So what exactly are you going to tell her?”
I ran straight into an obstacle I hadn’t considered. Just as he said, I couldn’t tell Min Soyeon who I was. We had only just grown a little closer. If she saw me sticking close to her mother, what would she think? That would turn into a full-blown soap opera.
As I let out one frustrated sigh after another, Jeon Nando spoke up again.
“Don’t be too discouraged. You’re alive. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
“…That’s true, but…”
This half-baked resurrection left me unable to do anything properly. As I hung my head in defeat at the reality that I was powerless, Jeon Nando spoke once more.
“…Do you know how to do housework?”
*
Rumble—
The sound of thunder outside made my eyes flutter open slightly. I turned my head and saw heavy rain pouring down in sheets beyond the window.
I like the rain. On days like this, my husband doesn’t go outside.
I slowly sat up and walked over to the display cabinet against the wall. From a dusty corner, I pulled out the only thing that still sparkled—a single ring.
A thin band holding a deep blue diamond. I carefully slipped it onto the ring finger of my left hand. When I spread my fingers, a tender emotion rose within me, as if I had become one with my husband again.
Hugging my left hand tightly as if it were something precious, I took a small glass bottle from the cabinet and headed toward the window.
“…Look at this. It’s raining today too.”
Once again, I began my day by showing my husband the view from the window.