USM Chapter 2

Let’s think about this rationally.

If a younger brother suddenly showed up after twenty years, but his face was that of a twenty-year-old instead of someone in his forties?

And if his speech was awkward, and he even spoke in some strange language?

If a sword hung from his waist and his clothes looked unusual?

Wouldn’t anyone find that suspicious and terrifying?

By common sense, wasn’t it far too strange?

His sister might have even thought he was an alien.

That was how the situation felt.

‘To make Sis open the door, I’ll have to give her proof.’

To convince his sister, who had shut the door, he had no choice but to bring up a memory that matched.

He didn’t remember much, since he had lost many memories before becoming a Sword Master.

Still, if it was something only the two of them knew, there was a good chance she would believe him.

‘Yeah. This story should work.’

Sangwoo smirked and brought up a memory only they shared.

“Don’t you remember? After your boyfriend dumped you, you cried all night, then came looking for me and knocked on the front door, but you got hit by the door and collapsed? I carried you back in on my back.”

“Kyaaaa!”

His sister, now in her forties, screamed.

A forgotten memory from her twenties had been dragged out against her will.

Knowing her dark past was decisive proof that he was truly her younger brother.

That was something she could not deny.

His sister’s face instantly twisted like that of a demon, and she unleashed a torrent of curses.

It had been so long that he couldn’t understand every single word, but there was one thing he did realize:

It was strangely pleasant to hear her cursing again.

“Now do you believe me?”

“Huff, huff… Are you really Sangwoo?”

“Yeah.”

“This… this doesn’t make sense.”

His sister opened the door.

Her eyes were full of confusion, and her expression made it clear she still wasn’t completely convinced.

It seemed like it still wasn’t enough, so he threw in another story.

“Sis, when you were in high school and your stomach hurt so bad you couldn’t hold it, you had an accident in this elevator…”

“You crazy bastard! Stop talking!”

Because it was an apartment, her voice echoed loudly.

“Sis, your voice is too loud.”

“Yeah… it really is you, Sangwoo. Come inside first.”

As if she had finally accepted it, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the apartment.

Thud. 

Beep.

The front door closed, and she let out a sigh.

“It really is you, Sangwoo? Honestly, I still can’t quite believe it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And your pronunciation is weird, but… it’s not to the point I can’t understand you.”

“I lived abroad for a long time.”

“You were abroad?!”

“Mm, something like that?”

His sister looked at him.

“Seeing you wearing such strange clothes, I guess it does seem true. But why are you carrying a sword?”

“Ah, this?”

Sangwoo scratched his head.

If he said it was a real sword, she might freak out and throw him out again, so he shut his mouth quietly.

“Anyway, come in and let’s talk. I’m curious how you’ve lived since you disappeared.”

“Okay.”

At last, he stepped into their home.

It had changed so much compared to twenty years ago.

The wallpaper looked completely redone, and the TV and refrigerator were all appliances he had never seen before.

Even a sofa had appeared.

Back then, they had just lived with a carpet on the floor.

“Sit here and let’s talk.”

“Yeah.”

“But did you eat?”

“No.”

“Good grief, let’s eat first. I’ll throw something together for you.”

At some point, his sister had turned into their mother.

The flow of time could be felt.

Sangwoo just stared blankly at her back.

                                                                                      ***

Bubble, bubble.

She had said she’d just throw something together, but he couldn’t understand why there were so many side dishes.

There was even kimchi stew.

For a moment, the sight of the black rice stirred up memories of eating home-cooked meals long ago.

Before he realized it, he swallowed hard at the sight of such a feast.

Then, as if possessed, he picked up the spoon and began to shovel food into his mouth.

Crunch.

Even though there was kimchi stew, the first thing to enter Sangwoo’s mouth was ponytail radish kimchi.

Its crunchiness and spiciness were exquisite.

Slurp.

But then, the spicy richness of the kimchi stew he tasted next was even better.

It was hot enough to burn the roof of his mouth, but to a Sword Master, that was nothing.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

He even grabbed the handle of the aluminum pot with his bare hand and scooped up the kimchi stew with his spoon.

This was the taste.

The taste of kimchi stew he could never experience in the other world.

It was so delicious it nearly brought him to tears.

“Are you crazy?!”

His sister’s high-pitched voice rang in his ear, but ignoring it, he mixed the stew into his rice and ate.

“Hey, it’s hot!”

“It’s fine.”

“You’re holding that with your bare hand — how is that fine?”

His sister stared at him with a look of shock.

Sure enough, to any ordinary person it was hot enough to burn.

But to him, it was nothing.

It was so delicious he didn’t care.

He set down the pot and showed her his hand.

“See? It’s fine.”

“It really is…”

After the commotion died down, a flood of stories poured out of him.

How he had suddenly disappeared from Korea and ended up in another world.

How desperately and miserably he had crawled just to survive.

How difficult it had been when he couldn’t speak the language.

How he once thought he was someone special, but in the end, he was nothing more than an ordinary person.

That even if an ordinary person went somewhere else, they were still just ordinary.

And finally, how he had lived struggling like that, until suddenly he returned here.

“…That’s what happened.”

His sister’s reaction was lukewarm at best.

After telling his story with such sincerity, her reaction felt too much.

Was she still doubting him?

By now, shouldn’t she at least believe him?

Honestly, just saying he had gone to another world was something hard to believe.

That much he understood.

While he was lost in those thoughts,

“To be honest…”

“Hm?”

His heart pounded, wondering what words would come out of his sister’s mouth.

Surely, she was about to say it was too unbelievable.

He would have thought the same.

After all, it was a story told by someone with the face of her twenty-year-old brother suddenly showing up.

But the words that came out of her mouth were completely different from what he expected.

“To be honest, I don’t know what you were saying.”

“Huh?”

“In the middle of speaking, it was like you couldn’t think of certain words. You slipped into some strange language, and your pronunciation was so slurred I couldn’t understand most of it.”

“Ahem.”

Truthfully, he had already noticed his pronunciation wasn’t great.

Speaking Korean again after twenty years was no easy thing.

But how much had she actually understood?

“Still, I got the gist of it. You were kidnapped and lived abroad, and barely made it back, right?”

“Uh? Ah… yeah.”

Saying he was kidnapped wasn’t wrong, and it was true he had lived abroad.

“You must have had a really hard time.”

“Well… yeah.”

“But your face doesn’t show any trace of hardship. It’s just pale and clear…”

“Ahem.”

No trace of hardship, she said.

That felt unfair.

It seemed that being reborn through complete physical transformation wasn’t entirely a good thing.

All the marks of the suffering he had endured had been wiped away in an instant.

Either way, since he had nothing more to say on that subject, he changed the topic.

No—there was something he wanted to know.

“But… what about Mom and Dad?”

“…”

At his question, his sister fell silent.

Her pupils trembled, and her eyes looked lost, as if she didn’t know what to say.

How long did they stay that way?

At last, his sister opened her mouth.

“Dad passed away. Two years ago.”

“What?”

“Well, he was getting on in years.”

“That’s…”

Twenty years.

Twenty years was indeed a long time.

Long enough that his father could not withstand the passage of time.

His own age now would have been forty. His sister’s forty-three.

Their father would have been seventy-five, so perhaps it was only natural.

“Ah…”

His chest felt tight.

In his head, he could understand it, but in his heart, he could not accept it.

He had finally returned, and yet he hadn’t been able to see his father’s face even once.

He hadn’t even been there to glimpse his father one last time before he departed.

It wasn’t his fault, and yet he felt guilty.

Why did he have to come back now, of all times?

If only he had returned two years earlier…

“And Mom?”

“She’s in a nursing hospital now. Her health isn’t good.”

“…”

His mind grew tangled.

How unwell was she? How serious was it?

If only a priest were around, he would have begged them to heal her immediately.

Why hadn’t he been able to see her while she was still healthy?

Whoever it was that had sent him to the other world, he suddenly resented them.

But still, a part of him felt relief.

At least she was alive.

That alone filled him with gratitude.

Sangwoo rose from his seat.

“Let’s go.”

“What? Where?”

“To the nursing hospital.”

“You can’t visit at this hour. Where do you think you’re going?”

“We can just go in.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, we can’t go right now.”

“Why not?”

“My kid is asleep. How could I leave when the child’s here?”

“What? You have a kid?”

“Of course. At my age, wouldn’t I? The child’s sleeping in the room, so you should sleep too. I’ll lay out some bedding for you. Let’s go see Mom tomorrow or the day after, okay?”

“…Alright.”

Twenty years was enough time to change too many things.

That was why it was so hard to accept it all.

Of course, the brain of a Sword Master had no trouble absorbing information.

His memory was sharp.

But his heart was different.

His heart struggled to accept it.

He had witnessed countless deaths, had even taken countless lives with his own hands.

Yet before the death of his father, he could not remain cold.

His chest ached at his mother’s illness.

And with the weight of his sister’s situation on top of it, he had no room left emotionally to bear it all.

“You’ve had it hard.”

His sister said this while laying out bedding for him.

For some reason, those words filled him with gratitude.

“Thanks, Sis.”

“Your mind must be a mess today. Get some proper rest, okay?”

“Yeah. You too, Sis.”

“Alright. I’ve got a lot on my mind too, so I’ll just sleep for now. And I have work tomorrow.”

She left the room and closed the door.

Since it was a space converted into a walk-in closet, no light came in, and the room was pitch black.

But the eyes of a Sword Master could distinguish the surroundings as clearly as if it were midday.

“Haa. This is unsettling.”

He had thought that once he returned home, he would meet everyone and cry his heart out.

But maybe that was just an illusion.

What lay before him now was nothing more than the ordinary troubles of ordinary life.

Whether in the other world or here, it was the same.

Not the ending of some human drama, but reality like a plain documentary.

“Ordinary, huh…”

Surviving in another world had taken him far away from ordinariness.

And yet, he was still ordinary.

Reunited with his family.

A father who had passed away.

A mother in a nursing hospital from old age.

“I want to see her soon.”

He thought of his mother.

When he was a child, whenever she was sick from working too much, she would massage her own shoulders.

Back then, even if he massaged her, he could never take all the pain away.

But now, things were different.

At the very least, he could ease her pain.

“Hmm.”

He forced his eyes shut.

His body wasn’t tired, but right now he just wanted to sleep.

He pulled the blanket up over his head.

And before long, he drifted off.

                                                                                      ***

The senses of a Sword Master were sharp.

Even in sleep, he could detect the presence of others around him.

He had endured countless ambushes in the other world.

Now, someone was approaching.

Tiptoe, tiptoe.

They seemed to move carefully, but to him every step was clear.

‘Such beginner’s footsteps.’

The blanket was lifted.

He instantly grabbed the hand that was pulling it back.

Snatch.

It was a small hand, fragile enough that it seemed it might break with the slightest force.

A child’s hand.

“Kyaaaa!”

A young girl, her wrist caught, screamed in shock.

Her face crumpled, and then she began to cry.

“Uwaaah, Mom! Mom! There’s a strange man! Uwaaah!”

“No, wait—”

“Uwaaah!”

Her wailing was loud and piercing.

He couldn’t deny that he had frightened her.

“Yewon, what’s going on?!”

His sister came running in a panic.

And what she saw was a dark, rough-looking man holding her daughter’s wrist.

“You!”

“No, Sis—”

“A grown man making a child cry like this!”

Smack!

Her palm struck his back.

Holding Yewon tightly in her arms, his sister glared at him.

It felt terribly unfair.

Was this some kind of new assassination technique?

“I only grabbed her wrist, that’s all?”

“Uwaaah, even the way he talks is weird! Uwaaah!”

‘This little brat?!’