USM Chapter 4

Sangwoo needed a way to break through this crisis.

Honestly, he did not want to hear that he was worse than a first grader.

This was a matter of pride as a human being.

‘If she already knows the answer and is smirking, then that means it’s a problem that’s already been given, right?’

The answer was bound to be in this dictation notebook.

Since he had already seen the correction, he had to get it right somehow.

“Oh? Didn’t someone forget to turn off the light?”

“Huh?”

As Yewon turned her head, he moved his hand swiftly.

The hand of a Sword Master was already beyond human speed.

Chwararararak.

He flipped through the notebook from the beginning, scanning everything.

His eyes captured it all.

“The light’s not on, though?”

When Yewon turned her head back, the dictation notebook was sitting innocently open at the very back page, as if nothing had happened.

The answer had already been found.

Sangwoo tilted his head with a slight motion and flexed his hands with a tap-tap.

“Guess I saw it wrong.”

“Uncle, are your eyes bad too?”

“Seems like it.”

Too good, in fact — so good that he had already found the answer.

“Maybe my eyes are bad, that’s why I got this wrong. I thought I wrote it right…”

Sangwoo drew two quick lines through the wrong word and neatly wrote the correct version underneath.

At least he could breathe a sigh of relief now.

At the same time, a strange confidence welled up inside him.

Was this what it felt like to cram at the last minute and still get it right?

By now, he already knew all the answers.

“Come on, give me the next one.”

“Hee-ing.”

Yewon made a face that showed she was disappointed.

“Fine, I’ll give you one.”

After that, she read out several more problems, but since he already knew the answers, he wrote them down without hesitation.

There was no need anymore to cross things out with two lines and correct them.

“Well? I got them all right, didn’t I?”

Yewon furrowed her brows in disbelief.

“At first you kept getting confused though…”

“That’s just because I hadn’t heard it in a long time.”

“This is really strange. You definitely looked like you didn’t know at all…”

At those words, Sangwoo flinched.

Kids really were sharp.

Feeling awkward for no reason, he pressed down on the space between Yewon’s brows with his index finger.

“An ugly face looks even uglier when it’s frowning, you know?”

“I’m not ugly! I’m pretty!”

“Nope. Anyone can see you’re part of our family line.”

“No I’m not!”

“What do you mean, no?”

Sangwoo looked at her in astonishment.

To think she would deny her own bloodline.

Not that it mattered.

That face resembling their grandmother was so alike it was almost frightening, as if some recessive gene had resurfaced.

Genes really were terrifying.

“Anyway, I said I’m not!”

Yewon snapped her head to the side.

Hugging her dictation notebook to her chest, she stood up.

“I’m going to do my homework in my room!”

She shut the door with a bang.

Clack.

Then the door opened again. She came out to grab her pencil case and a pencil.

After that, she glanced at Sangwoo, then turned her head away sharply.

“Hmph!”

Sangwoo snorted softly at Yewon as she went inside.

“Girls are so complicated.”

Anyway, he was relieved he wasn’t an uncle who couldn’t even do dictation.

In many ways, even as a person.

                                                                                     ***

The next morning.

The same scene unfolded as yesterday, but it was slightly different.

A cold vibe was blowing off Yewon.

When their eyes met, she immediately turned her head away.

“Hmph!”

Sang-woo forced a small smile at the corner of his mouth.

For something so small she was so sulky.

His sister looked puzzled.

“Why has she been pouty since yesterday? What did you do?”

“What would I have done?”

Yewon shot him a sharp glare and then spoke.

“Uncle said I was ugly again!”

“You told the child she was ugly again?”

Sangwoo answered confidently.

He lifted his chin and looked at his sister.

“It’s the truth. It runs in our family.”

“A family trait? It all changes later.”

“You changed a lot when you went to college and worked part-time too.”

“You little…?”

His sister wrinkled her brow and glared at him with a fierce look.

“If you say something like that to my daughter one more time, you’ll die, you hear me?”

She made a fist and raised it.

Yewon copied her mom and raised her fist too.

“Die?”

He had heard the word “die” countless times in the other world, but never had it sounded so unthreatening.

The sight of mother and daughter striking the same pose only made him laugh.

“Didn’t you say you have to go to school? Hurry up and eat.”

“Oh, right.”

Yewon started eating again.

Maybe because she had taken the day off, his sister looked a little more relaxed today.

“Sis. When are we going to see Mom?”

“First we’ll stop by the district office, then head to the nursing hospital.”

“Yeah, we should go.”

The thought that their mother was in a nursing hospital made Sangwoo want to see her as soon as possible.

How unwell must she be, for her to be in such a place?

Thinking about how much she must have suffered because of him made him feel guilty.

And more than anything, he missed her dearly.

It had been twenty long years since he had last seen her face.

It pained him that the longer time passed, the blurrier her face became in his mind.

Her voice was already so faint it was hard to recall.

All he could do was keep trying to cling to the small fragments of memory that remained through all those years.

“Niece. Hurry up and eat. Uncle has to get going soon too.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you mean, yeah? Uncle’s in a hurry.”

Yewon turned her head sharply and looked at her mom.

“Mom, can’t I skip school and go see Grandma too?”

“No. You have to go to school.”

“Hing.”

“Still no. Instead, when you come back, let’s have fun together, okay?”

“Okay!”

Sangwoo stared hard at Yewon.

This brat was ignoring him?

Talking only about what she wanted — just like a kid.

‘Ah, right, she is a kid.’

Still, what on earth would this girl grow up to be?

“Sangwoo.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop staring uselessly at her and just eat. And even if we take Yewon to school, the district office isn’t open yet anyway.”

“Oh, really?”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t realize I didn’t know when the district office opened.”

“Well, you’ve been abroad so long, of course you’d forget. But really, where were you all this time? Do you speak English?”

“It wasn’t an English-speaking country, and not a famous one either. Just… a weird place.”

In truth, it was another world, but saying that would only be a waste of breath.

No one would believe it anyway.

It was easier to just go with the story of being kidnapped to some other country.

“Still, I’m just glad you came back alive. You know how people say, when someone’s kidnapped, they get spread all over the world.”

Sangwoo understood what she meant.

There was that saying about how, once you’re kidnapped, your organs get sold across the globe.

Back in the day, stories like that used to circulate a lot.

“Sis, the kid is right here.”

“Oh my.”

Yewon blinked her eyes.

“Wow. If you get kidnapped you go on a world trip? Then isn’t that a good thing?”

Sangwoo thought to himself that a kid was still just a kid.

She had no idea what she was saying.

How humiliating it would have been if he had gotten those dictation questions wrong in front of a child like this.

The thought alone made him shiver.

“Yewon, that’s enough. If you’re done eating, go brush your teeth.”

“Yes!”

Once breakfast was over, they put Yewon on the school bus.

“Alright, shall we go?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They headed first to the district office.

                                                                                    ***

When they arrived at the district office, there was a small commotion.

A man who had been missing for twenty years suddenly showing up to reclaim his identity?

Of course that was shocking.

But what seemed to shock them even more was that the man hadn’t aged a bit in those twenty years.

Their expressions clearly said: How on earth is that a forty-year-old’s face?

So he laughed it off, pretending it was all because he had a youthful face.

They left the district office and got into the car.

“Not once did they say I was handsome, all the way to the end.”

His sister gave him a look of disbelief.

“Well, you’re not exactly handsome. You’re part of this family. You teased Yewon about that too.”

“That’s true, but still—out of courtesy, shouldn’t they have said it?”

“Times have really changed, huh?”

“They sure have.”

They had changed so much it was hard to adapt.

Honestly, he had already been shocked just getting into the car.

A car with no gear stick?

What the hell, it had some kind of dial or button instead?

“Are cars all like this these days?”

“Of course.”

“And the seat even warms up your butt?”

“You mean they didn’t have cars abroad?”

Sangwoo turned his head to look outside.

He had ridden in carriages… only, they were horse-drawn.

Over there, the “cars” were horses, and the “carriages” were just chairs.

The ride was so rough it made him feel how far behind that world was compared to modern civilization.

But now that he was actually back in the modern world, even the civilization he once knew felt strangely unfamiliar.

“That’s what you call a cell phone?”

“A smartphone.”

“It works as a navigation system, and if you connect it to the car, it can play music too?”

“I’m telling you, yes.”

“What the hell is this place…”

“Seriously, what country were you living in that you don’t even know what a smartphone is?”

“I don’t.”

Everything he saw was so unfamiliar it was dizzying.

The TV had already shocked him, and the fact that there was still more to be shocked by was shocking in itself.

‘What do you mean, MP3 players are gone? Where did our iRiver go, huh?’

“Sangwoo.”

“What?”

“Mom may be in poor health, but her memory is still sharp.”

It wasn’t only modern civilization that had changed compared to the past.

Their mother had changed in many ways too.

Just like how their father had passed away.

“You’re only telling me now? Is it really that bad?”

“…She’s gotten much better. It’s just the ailments everyone goes through with old age.”

“Her joints don’t work well, and she can’t digest properly either?”

“Yeah. Walking is hard for her, so she uses a wheelchair… Just, don’t be too shocked when you see her like that.”

“Alright.”

“But she doesn’t have dementia. She’ll recognize you.”

“…Okay.”

Sangwoo turned his head back toward the window.

What time had changed was not always for the better.

The last twenty years were lost forever.

Not even a Sword Master or an Archmage could turn back time.

If he had been omnipotent, he would have returned easily to the modern world from twenty years ago.

He resented the being that had thrown him into another world.

But at the same time, he felt a little grateful.

Because just as everyone else had changed, he himself had changed a lot too.

If he had simply lived in the modern world, he would have been like his sister—able to do nothing but watch as their mother lay in a nursing hospital.

At least as a Sword Master, he had something he might be able to do.

‘Nothing makes you more powerless than illness.’

He knew the helplessness of being unable to do anything when a family member was sick.

Even if a Sword Master couldn’t stop aging, maybe he could at least do something about minor ailments.

If he used the aura flowing within his body, it might help.

“I really want to see her soon.”

“We’re almost there.”

Before long, the car arrived at the hospital parking lot.

Cheongcheong Nursing Hospital.

This was where their mother was staying.

“So this is…”

“Yeah. I already informed them we were coming, so let’s go in.”

“Okay.”

They went inside the nursing hospital.

Passing through the clean facilities, they arrived at an open space on the first floor.

There, a nurse appeared, pushing a wheelchair.

“Ah…”

He saw his mother sitting in the wheelchair.

His mother, who had aged more than twenty years.

Deep, carved wrinkles.

Her hollowed cheeks and frail body made his chest ache.

In his faint memories, though his mother had been on the thin side, she had far more flesh on her bones than now.

She hadn’t had the liver spots under her eyes, her hair hadn’t been this streaked with white, and her eyes hadn’t been this clouded.

“Mom.”

He took off his mask and called to her.

“Mom…”

His mother lifted her head.

When she saw him, tears welled up in her eyes.

Then she covered her mouth with her hand.

“Sangwoo.”

“Yes.”

“Is it really you, Sangwoo?”

His own chest swelled with emotion, and he couldn’t even answer, just kept nodding again and again.

“Is it really you, Sangwoo?”

Nod, nod.

“Hhhhk.”

His mother began to cry and opened her arms wide.

At that moment, Sangwoo leapt over the twenty years of time and returned to the past.

Like a child, he threw himself into his mother’s embrace and wept with her.

“Yes. It’s me, Sangwoo. Sangwoo.”

“Oh, my boy, Sangwoo.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“My son.”

His mother raised her head to look at Sangwoo’s face and stroked it over and over again.

“How is it that you look exactly the same as back then?”

“I know.”

“Thank goodness. Thank goodness.”

Once more she pulled him into her arms.

She kept stroking his head, crying out again and again how thankful she was.

But what was there to be thankful for?

To him, there was nothing fortunate about any of this.

The strength he felt in her arms as she embraced him pierced his heart.

And so he cried.

Like a sinner who had done nothing for twenty years.

Like a little child again.

He cried so foolishly.

Just like his niece, before his mother he was nothing more than a child.