LRMP 08

Life Reset, Oh Military Police! – Chapter 008

I opened my eyes in a faint mist.

Everything around me was silent, and every time I inhaled, clear, icy air dug deep into my lungs.

“Where… is this?”

I looked around.

It was a mountain.

But it looked nothing like the mountains I was familiar with back home.

The ridgelines rose sharply, and perhaps because of the high altitude, the sky was not just blue but tinted with a deep purplish hue. It looked like a harsh, unforgiving land you’d only find on the Tibetan Plateau or among the Himalayan snowfields.

Before me stood a massive cliff blanketed in eternal snow, while fierce winds howled savagely as they cut through the rocks.

And yet, I was climbing this mountain with no climbing gear whatsoever.

I didn’t know why I was climbing, nor for what reason.

As if drawn by something, as if chased by instinct itself, I kept placing one foot in front of the other without stopping.

When I finally came to my senses, I was already close to the summit.

“How on earth did I make it all the way up here?”

The moment those words slipped from my mouth, I felt a strange presence behind me.

The raging wind suddenly died down, and a figure appeared before my eyes.

Standing atop the snow-covered cliff was a person clad in a white robe fluttering in the wind.

He was an old man with a pure white beard that reached below his knees.

The old man looked at me and slowly smiled.

“延者啊，你終於來了嗎?
(Yeonja… you have finally come.)”

The voice was unfamiliar, and the meaning of the words was even harder to grasp.

The language he was using was Chinese.

Confused, I tilted my head.

“I’m sorry… I don’t really understand what you’re saying…”

But the old man paid no attention to my reaction and continued speaking, as if reciting lines that had already been decided.

“吾畢生心血所成之丸丹，其主終於現身，吾死而無憾矣.
(The owner of the elixir I perfected with my life’s blood and effort has finally appeared. Now I can die without regret.)”

With those words, the old man smiled gently.

And in that very instant, his form faded like mist scattered by the wind—until it vanished completely.

A nurse’s shout echoed down the corridor.

“Private Oh Sangjin has regained consciousness!”

At that moment, someone hurried down the hallway. It was Major Lee Mincheol, the head of the Armed Forces Capital Hospital and Oh Sangjin’s attending physician.

He was a military doctor known for his outstanding skills and cold composure.

But now, impatience rather than calm ruled his movements.

“Really? Are you sure he’s conscious?”

“Yes! He just opened his eyes, and his awareness is clear!”

Before the nurse could even finish speaking, Major Lee Mincheol threw open the hospital room door.

“Private Oh Sangjin!”

Lying on the bed with a pale face, Oh Sangjin slowly turned his head.

His gaze was slightly unfocused, but there was no doubt that his eyes were awake.

“So… you really made it.”

Major Lee stepped closer and stood beside the bed.

His arms were still tightly crossed, but his eyes wavered ever so slightly—unlike before.

The fact that the soldier in front of him had opened his eyes and was breathing felt nothing short of a miracle.

“He’s over the worst of it.”

When First Lieutenant Nurse Park Sunyoung murmured softly beside him, Major Lee nodded slowly.

“Yeah. Tough kid. He didn’t give up… and in the end, he came back.”

But the person most involved—Oh Sangjin himself—had no idea what was going on.

“Excuse me… where is this?”

His hoarse voice trembled as he asked carefully, his eyes filled with confusion.

His hand clenched the bedsheet tightly, and cold sweat beaded across his forehead.

“This is the Armed Forces Capital Hospital.”

Major Lee answered in a deep, steady voice.

“The Armed Forces Capital Hospital? Then why am I here…?”

Oh Sangjin stared up at the ceiling, still looking dazed.

His thoughts were foggy, and his last memory had been completely cut off.

The only thing he could vaguely recall was—

“I was in the bathroom. After roll call, I went to the bathroom… and after that, I don’t remember anything at all.”

His voice grew quieter.

He remembered straining himself somehow—but beyond that, his mind was completely blank.

“Right. You collapsed in the bathroom.”

Major Lee twisted one corner of his mouth as he spoke.

“When we found you, you were already unconscious. Your body was cold, your pulse unstable, and transporting you wasn’t easy.”

“Is… something wrong with me?”

Oh Sangjin lowered his head and asked cautiously.

Nurse Officer Park Sunyoung stepped forward and spoke gently.

“It’s not strange that you don’t remember. You were in a coma for several days. Exactly seven days.”

“Seven days?”

Oh Sangjin half-raised himself on the bed and asked back blankly.

Major Lee nodded slowly.

“Yeah. Seven days. When you were brought here, your pulse was abnormal, your body temperature had dropped, and you were completely unresponsive. To be honest, I didn’t think you’d wake up again.”

Oh Sangjin’s eyes wavered slightly at those words.

“…I see.”

At that moment, something brushed past his mind.

A mountain.

He had dreamed of climbing a steep mountain that stretched endlessly upward.

‘All I did was climb a mountain… and a whole week passed? That makes no sense.’

In the dream, Oh Sangjin had simply kept walking.

Not knowing when it started, nor how far he had climbed—he just kept moving forward, as if guided by something unseen.

Then, at some point, he reached the summit, where a white-haired old man appeared and said something.

And then he woke up.

“I thought it was just a dream…”

Oh Sangjin muttered softly, almost to himself.

“What did you just say?”

Major Lee asked, turning his head.

Oh Sangjin hurriedly shook his head.

“No, sir. I just had a dream, but I didn’t realize it lasted that long.”

“Well, you were out that deeply. It wouldn’t be strange if you were dreaming.”

Major Lee sighed and carefully closed the chart he was holding.

“More importantly, how do you feel right now? Any dizziness, nausea, or discomfort?”

“Other than a little dizziness, I’m fine.”

Oh Sangjin answered as honestly as he could.

“That’s good. But we still can’t relax. We’ll need to keep observing you for a while. Your condition was really serious.”

“Yes, sir.”

After Oh Sangjin replied, Major Lee looked at him briefly and then left the room.

Beyond the window, a gentle breeze passed through the hospital room.

It was a strange, unfamiliar air—something only those who had crossed the boundary between life and death could feel.

Oh Sangjin leaned back against the bed once more.

And slowly, he closed his eyes.

After Major Lee left, the door opened quietly.

Nurse Officer Park Sunyoung entered wearing a white gown, here to replace the IV.

Oh Sangjin lifted his head slightly.

Along with the familiar scent of disinfectant, her calm voice reached his ears.

“The IV’s almost empty. I’ll change it.”

As she smoothly replaced the IV bag with practiced hands, she added,

“If you feel uncomfortable at all, call right away. Okay?”

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

Oh Sangjin nodded carefully.

After checking the drip regulator one last time, Park Sunyoung quietly left the room.

Once the door closed, silence filled the room again.

Oh Sangjin turned his head and looked around.

The ward was a four-person room.

But something felt strange.

There was no one else around besides him.

“Why am I alone?”

Normally, every bed should have been occupied.

Especially at the Armed Forces Capital Hospital—a place notorious for never leaving beds empty.

Yet this room was quiet and completely vacant, as if it had been deliberately cleared.

But without noticing the oddity, Oh Sangjin instead took a cautious breath, enjoying the rare peace.

‘Wow… after being crammed together in the barracks every day, being alone like this isn’t so bad.’

An autumn breeze brushed against Oh Sangjin’s cheek through the window.

At that moment, an old memory surfaced.

He remembered a small, remote temple deep in the mountains where he had stayed before enlisting.

Once bustling with visitors, it had fallen silent after the IMF crisis.

The quiet rooms, the lingering scent of old incense, the low chime of wind bells.

That scenery overlapped with the stillness of the hospital room.

‘It was pretty quiet back then too.’

The empty rooms of the temple, falling asleep to birdsong and waking to the sound of the wind—only now did those moments feel truly special.

It wasn’t that he missed the facilities, but this unfamiliar silence strangely put his mind at ease.

What Oh Sangjin didn’t know was that this peaceful quiet was the result of deliberate measures taken to contain an incident that nearly shook the entire military.

He had been classified as a “special management subject,” and the entire four-person room had been cleared, with all visits and access strictly restricted.

Unaware of any of that, Oh Sangjin simply gazed at the dim sky outside the window.

“But what was that dream, really?”

He muttered to himself as the memory resurfaced.

It had been a truly strange dream.

A massive mountain reaching toward the edge of the sky—one he climbed endlessly, without knowing where it was.

And at the summit, he met an old man with white hair and a long beard.

That old man had definitely said something.

“In Chinese, right? Damn it… I couldn’t understand a single word.”

Then, suddenly, Oh Sangjin realized something.

He hadn’t been using his breathing techniques.

Sitting up straight, he carefully regulated his breathing for the first time in a while.

The Hobupmu sect had three breathing methods.

The first was the Clear Mind Method (淸明心法), a basic breathing technique used in daily life to expel impurities and clear the mind.

This was the reason Oh Sangjin had been considered an ace during boot camp.

The second was Calm Heart Regulation (平心調息), a breathing method that helped recovery and endurance when suffering internal or external shock or facing a crisis.

Monk Cheonam had taught that using Calm Heart Regulation in dangerous situations allowed one to endure several times longer than an ordinary person.

‘I think I used Calm Heart Regulation right before I collapsed in the bathroom…’

With a cautious thought, Oh Sangjin lightly touched his lower abdomen.

For some reason, he felt a warm sensation.

‘What did I eat? Why does my stomach feel this hot?’

On a hunch, Oh Sangjin attempted Dantian Circulation.

Dantian Circulation 
An internal energy breathing method, one of the three great techniques passed down through generations of the Hobupmu sect.