USM Chapter 1

Han Sangwoo.

He had never forgotten these three syllables of a name, not even for a single moment.

Because it was his own name.

But aside from the name itself, he was gradually forgetting everything about the modern world.

What his childhood was like.

What his parents’ warmth felt like, what their faces looked like.

How his father’s cigarette smell was different from the tobacco smell here.

What his older sister’s constant cursing sounded like when they always bickered.

The memories of their appearances kept fading, but the emotions and longing remained, poking at him relentlessly.

It has been twenty years since he came to this other world.

Before he knew it, he had spent as much time here as he once lived in the modern world.

Since he came here suddenly, of course, he had no way to find a method to return.

“Is there really no way?”

The longing for Korea was thicker than the musty smell of mold in wood.

Even if he tried to extract it, it wouldn’t come out.

He could cut out the rotting part, but the yearning could never be carved away.

So he never even tried to remove that musty smell.

After all, even if he did, it would just return again in another form of longing.

“Hoo.”

The negative energy inside his body was naturally purified through cultivation.

The body of a Sword Master was so overflowing with vitality, yet he still couldn’t understand why his memories kept fading.

“I miss them.”

Even if he missed them, he could no longer see them.

Not his mother, not his father, not his sister.

One would think that the inability to ever meet his family again would have dulled by now, but as he grew older, the longing only grew deeper and sharper.

Perhaps that was why.

That was why, seeing a girl far away running a street stall with her younger brother looked so bittersweet.

Why, seeing a woman carrying a heavy load stacked high and struggling to move, looked so pitiful.

Why, approaching her to help without being asked, he himself became steeped in the same scenery.

Maybe it was all because he was getting older.

Back then it wasn’t like this, but these days, he felt as if tears could fall for no reason at all. Perhaps it was because he’d grown old.

“Oh my, thank you so much for helping. You must be new to this village?”

After helping carry the heavy load, the woman asked,

“Thank you so much for your help. You must be from another country. I’ve never seen someone who looks like you before.”

After buying a book from the stall, the girl asked,

“Did you come from far away?”

His answer to such questions was always the same.

“Yes, from a bit far away.”

He was always nothing more than a wanderer, an outsider in this other world.

Even if he helped someone for his own sense of satisfaction, those people unconsciously drew a line against someone so alien.

“I’m searching for something.”

A way back — something he could not even be sure existed or not.

And still, he was searching.

No, only now had he finally begun to search in earnest.

Around the time his sword at his hip became strong enough to protect his own life.

Only once he had barely reached that level of skill did he start searching.

“I wish you good luck.”

“By the time you finish that book, I hope you’ll have found it.”

Sangwoo simply smiled at the farewell of the siblings.

Would he really be able to find it by the time he finished this book that was so plainly boring at first glance?

Perhaps it was fortunate that it was boring.

If it had been as fun as the comics he often read in childhood, he might have wasted more time reading instead.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He truly hoped he could find it.

To live a life where he was no longer chased and rejected, but instead could finally settle down.

To live just an ordinary life.

Like the people of this village.

To blend naturally into the scenery.

That was what he wished for.

“Truly.”

Sangwoo set off on the road once again, a single book tucked into his arms.

And before long, the world turned upside down.

No — the scenery shifted.

As if by magic.

Truly, before he even finished reading the book.

Just like that.

So suddenly, he had returned.

                                                                                     ***

In the past, Han Sangwoo had suddenly fallen into another world.

And now, all of a sudden, the dazzling nightscape of a city spread out before his eyes.

It was not that he had returned after fighting against a tremendous foe like the Demon King.

Nor was it that he had come back after living a life steeped in regrets.

He had simply been sailing without a compass and then, as if it were some prank by someone, thunk—he suddenly dropped back into the modern world.

“Ha ha. This is ridiculous.”

Did the vivid lights in front of his eyes prove that this was not a dream?

His sense of smell, far beyond that of an ordinary person, caught the acrid stench of exhaust.

A smell he had thought he would never encounter again.

Vroom.

The exhaust sound of a passing car struck his ears as well.

The forgotten scenery of the modern world engraved itself once again before his eyes.

“Did I really come back?”

Every sensation on his skin told him this was not false, but reality.

Unless the great archmage he once fiercely fought against was deceiving him with illusions, this place had to be real.

Stretch.

He pinched his cheek with his hand—sure enough, it was real.

This really seemed to be reality.

“When I was desperately searching, there was no method at all.”

Even as a Sword Master, he had found no sign of a way.

That meant no one had sent him here, nor summoned him back.

It was simply that—naturally, as if it had to be so—he had been transported back here.

But what did that matter?

He was back now, and that was enough.

He just prayed he would not be sent away again.

But there was a bigger problem.

“Where is this?”

The dazzling night view proved that this was indeed a city, and the Korean letters on the license plates of passing cars told him this was Korea.

At least that much was a relief.

But he could not tell exactly where in Korea this city was.

“Well, I’ll find out once I head into the city.”

Han Sangwoo took a step forward.

At the same time, the buildings of the city that had looked small suddenly loomed large.

Before he knew it, he had leapt into the nightscape.

The body of a Sword Master blended swiftly into the crowd.

Then came the sound of Korean around him.

Hangul written on signboards.

This was definitely Korea.

Han Sangwoo approached someone walking busily among the city crowd and spoke.

“Dis place…”

“Sorry?”

“Where dis place?”

“Excuse me?”

“Where… where is dis place?”

“Oh! Are you asking where this is?”

“Ye.”

“Are you a foreigner? Your pronunciation is really clumsy. Your clothes look unusual too.”

At the woman’s tilted-head remark, Han Sangwoo’s eyebrow twitched without him realizing it.

To think he would be criticized for his pronunciation.

Well, it had been twenty years since he last used Korean.

Of course it would sound awkward.

They say if you don’t use a language, you forget it.

Still, to actually be told his speech was clumsy…

He could definitely feel the difference between the way he spoke and the way it sounded from others.

It felt like returning to Korea after living abroad for a long time and trying to speak Korean again.

Except in his case, it wasn’t just a feeling — it was real.

“So… where it is?”

“Pfft—ah, sorry. This is a place called Jeonpo-dong. Oh, but since you’re a foreigner, maybe I shouldn’t put it that way? You do know this is Busan, right?”

“Ah…”

Busan.

Now he understood where he was.

Jeonpo-dong, she had said.

“Where this place?”

“Huh? This is Jeonpo…”

“No. No, I mean—station. Where station?”

“Oh! Jeonpo Station? That’s over th—kyaa!”

A sudden gale blew, whipping the woman’s hair.

At the same time, the man she had been speaking with vanished from sight.

Where Han Sangwoo appeared again was Jeonpo Station.

‘From here, I know the way.’

The streets felt completely unfamiliar.

So many things had changed — perhaps because his memories were twenty years old.

But at the same time, something about it felt familiar.

Tracing back his memories, he moved his steps toward home.

He was certain his house had been somewhere near here.

His own home.

He didn’t know if the place had changed as much.

No—since he had lived in another world for twenty years, perhaps the same twenty years had passed here in the modern world as well.

So he had no doubts about that.

He simply wanted to see his family.

‘Would they still be there, just as before?’

He didn’t know.

He couldn’t be sure.

But he had to check.

To see whether they had truly stayed and not moved away from the place they had always lived.

If they were still there, he longed to see his mom and dad again.

Even his sister, with whom he had bickered over the smallest things, he missed after twenty years had gone by.

‘Please, let them still be here.’

After struggling desperately for twenty years just to survive in another world, he was exhausted.

He wanted to find peace again among his family.

Even if just once, he wanted to see their faces.

The faces that he could no longer properly recall, as the memories had already flown so far away.

‘Here it is.’

Thump, thump.

His heart pounded.

He saw the familiar apartment, heavy with the traces of time.

He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button he remembered.

The 10th floor.

He was fairly sure it had been the 10th floor.

The elevator doors creaked shut.

With a shudder, it began to slowly ascend.

Ding.

Clatter.

“Ah…”

He stepped out of the elevator and stood before Unit 1004.

Unconsciously, he swallowed hard.

Would his mom and dad come out?

Or would strangers appear?

With a trembling heart, he pressed the doorbell.

Ding-dong. 

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

For the first time in so long, his heart was racing.

When he had fought the great archmage, it had not been this intense.

Ah… what should he even say?

How on earth was he supposed to put this into words…

“Who is it?”

A voice came from the intercom.

A familiar voice.

It was the voice of his sister, the one who used to hurl curses at him like a habit.

His throat tightened.

Twenty years.

It had been twenty years since he last saw his family.

He couldn’t even measure how long he had waited for this moment.

How desperately he had wished for it.

He slowly calmed his pounding heart and opened his mouth.

“Sis. It’s me.”

Clatter!

At that one line, there was a huge commotion inside.

And a moment later—

Beep-beep-beep.

With the sound of the door lock disengaging, the front door opened.

Bang!

“You?!”

There she was, right in front of him.

The image of his sister in her twenties was gone, and before his eyes stood a woman who looked every bit the middle-aged aunt.

How had she aged so much?

Deep wrinkles cut into the corners of her mouth and eyes.

And why had so many moles appeared on her face?

The traces of hardship showed clearly.

“Sis.”

“You…”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

They might have been siblings who treated each other worse than enemies, but after twenty years apart, he could not be the only one who had missed her so painfully.

Soon enough, tears of joy would be streaming from both of their eyes.

Soaked in that joy, he spread his arms wide to embrace her.

“Sis…”

But then—

“Wait.”

“Mm?”

His sister raised a hand as if to tell him not to come closer.

Her reaction was strange.

Blinking in disbelief again and again, she rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand.

“My little brother’s face… it really looks like him…”

“Of course it’s my face. Don’t you recognize me?”

“Why haven’t you aged? Why do you look the same? Are you really my brother?”

She took a small step back.

Her face was filled with suspicion.

‘Ah…’

After all, the highlight of a Sword Master was physical transformation.

Bones and muscles realigned, the body became younger.

The lifespan increased drastically, and now his face looked no different than when he was twenty.

With his improved skin, he even looked better than at twenty.

So it wasn’t strange for his sister to be suspicious.

“Now that I think of it, your pronunciation is weird too. Who are you? Who the hell are you?!”

She tried to slam the door shut, but Han Sangwoo quickly blocked it.

Thud.

“No, Sis. It’s me, Sangwoo. Sangwoo.”

“Let go of this right now! I’ll call the police! If you’re messing around with my brother’s face, it’s not funny! What are you even doing this for?”

“What do you mean, what for? Don’t you recognize my voice either?”

“Somebody help! Please! There’s a strange man here!”

She struggled, straining to close the door.

Her face was now steeped in fear.

“No, who’s tricking you like this?”

“See? See? Even your pronunciation is weird!”

“!@#$@% I said I’m not!”

“And now you’re even speaking in some weird language!”

It was driving him crazy.

How had things come to this?

What was supposed to be a touching reunion had suddenly turned into a thriller.

This wasn’t some movie where a doppelgänger tricks the family.

Had she just watched too many films?

Come to think of it, how was he supposed to explain a face that had stayed young his whole life, as if he had been drinking preservatives?

And on top of that, his clothes weren’t ordinary either.

“Hey, you f***ing bastard! Can’t you let go?!”

Only his sister’s rough curses welcomed him after twenty years apart.

And yet, strangely, a grin crept onto his face.

Because even this swearing felt so familiar.

Because forgotten memories came vividly back to life.

Because it felt like he had gone back twenty years.

Here was the ordinariness he had longed for.

“You piece of trash, I’ll fry you in sewage and kill you!!! Let go!!!”

Of course, in the meantime, her curses only grew harsher.

‘Her swearing is still the same.’

Bang!

In the end, the front door slammed shut.

Sangwoo knocked.

Knock, knock.

“Sis. Please listen to me.”

“Hey! Get lost!”

Standing alone in the old corridor-style apartment, Han Sangwoo felt at a loss.

If it had come to this, there was no helping it.

He would have to pull out his trump card.