Zero Point

#141

Eunseok got off at Inwol Jirisan Public Terminal and replenished his backpack with a 500ml water bottle, compact chocolates, and protein bars bought from a convenience store. Then he immediately boarded a bus heading to Baemsagol.

His movements of eating the water and protein bar while sitting in his seat to store up energy were rather mechanical. Looking at the sparse scenery passing by outside the window, the time spent in Seoul after his awakening felt incredibly distant. He hoped that after spending some time rolling around in the mountains like survival training, most of his time in Seoul would be forgotten.

It wasn’t that Eunseok thought he had to permanently separate from Baekho Guild or Choi Hanseo. He still had a contract with the guild and didn’t intend to break it. There were only a few months left until the contract ended. He planned to faithfully fulfill that time. However, Eunseok was trying to clear his head because of what would come after.

If Choi Hanseo’s memories didn’t return like this… of course, he planned to leave Baekho Guild. He didn’t intend to leave Korea as a valuable national asset. It wasn’t because of great patriotism, but he had a basic sense of patriotism ingrained during his military service. The government and the Ability Management Bureau would probably understand if he moved to another guild. Other guilds would likely welcome him with open arms.

The problem was if Choi Hanseo’s memories returned. If his memories came back…

Thinking that far, Eunseok sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair.

If his memories returned, everything would fall back into place. But even that didn’t feel very welcome right now.

Eunseok had decided to properly meet him because he liked him. But besides that emotional reason, there was also a secondary reason.

Choi Hanseo was strong. He was strong enough not to die from monstrous creatures, strong enough not to lose to other S-rank hunters. He was a human strong enough that Eunseok didn’t have to worry about losing him. That was who Choi Hanseo was.

If you’re afraid of a future where you might lose someone, it’s better not to start at all.

Eunseok had always lived thinking this way. That’s why he never formed deep relationships with anyone who approached him with goodwill. He didn’t want to endure the emptiness and void, that pain of loss.

He accepted Choi Hanseo because he judged that he didn’t need to worry about losing him. No matter how much he liked him, if he had to live worrying about losing him, he would never have decided to date him. But in the end, he lost him. Although it wasn’t Choi Hanseo’s fault at all, Eunseok still felt betrayed. If it was going to end up like this, he shouldn’t have approached Eunseok. He shouldn’t have made him develop affection.

Choi Hanseo might regain his memories. But Eunseok had already experienced losing him once, and he no longer had confidence in maintaining a stable relationship with him. What happens once can happen twice or thrice. Eunseok didn’t want to endure that.

It didn’t matter if he was called a coward stuck in past experiences. Everyone has weaknesses. Eunseok knew very well that this was his weakness, and he acknowledged it. So he tried not to create situations where this weakness could be exploited.

After 40 minutes, the bus finally stopped. Eunseok put aside his thoughts and got off the bus.

After briefly glancing at the small bus terminal surrounded by mountains, Eunseok immediately started walking. He was looking for a starting point to go deep into the mountains.

Finding a point was easy. Eunseok unhesitatingly stepped into the mountains where no human footsteps had ever touched. And he started moving quickly towards the deep mountains.

It had been a really long time since he had moved alone through such deep mountains with no trace of human presence. As he wandered alone through the mountains, the sense of occasional survival training in the military slowly returned. The complete sense of isolation and familiar loneliness felt rather welcome. Yes. This familiarity with being completely alone was the strength that had sustained Eunseok throughout his life.

After wandering through the mountains for a while, the sun started to set. Eunseok made a place to spend the night on a hillside not far from a valley. Since he would move right after waking up anyway, no elaborate measures were needed. Just securing a place to lie down was enough.

After roughly making a place to lie down, the sun set and darkness fell. With his phone turned off and smartwatch disconnected, he couldn’t know the exact time, but he could guess roughly from the speed of the sunset. The sun sets quickly in the mountains, so it was probably just about 8:30 PM at most.

Lying in place, he could hear insect sounds and small rustling noises typical of the mountains. Eunseok maintained an appropriate level of tension with his eyes closed. The things to be careful of in Jirisan were wild boars and released Asiatic black bears. Unless some unexpected mutant appeared, he was safe.

With his eyes closed, the thoughts he had forcibly pushed away came back.

The vacation report he had unilaterally notified Secretary Kim about would have been passed up to Choi Hanseo. How would he react?

Whether he remembered or not, since Director Lee was there, he would know about Eunseok’s location tracking chip. As long as the chip was there, he would be able to track Eunseok’s location. The fact that Eunseok didn’t bother to remove and destroy the chip, but kept it in his forearm, meant “I’ll come back on my own, so don’t look for me.” The Choi Hanseo that Eunseok knew would understand at least that much.

The sleeping place was naturally uncomfortable. But more than the uncomfortable bed, the absence of one person tormented Eunseok. The empty space of Choi Hanseo, who always occupied the side when sleeping, made his heart churn. Loneliness painfully stabbed his lungs. The countless moments of solitude he had to swallow alone on the shabby bedding of the orphanage came crashing down on Eunseok. All he could do was endure.

He repeated dozing off and waking up. The night spent alone in the mountains awakened one by one the senses that the past Eunseok possessed. Living alone, swallowing rising loneliness, being on high alert and wary of surroundings, becoming indifferent to everything. These were things Eunseok was very good at.

Repeating dozing and waking, as dawn began to break faintly, Eunseok could gradually feel himself regaining his past senses. Returning to who he was before awakening as a guide was this easy, and that made him feel bitter.

When it became bright enough to identify his surroundings, Eunseok cleaned up his sleeping place, returning it to its original state, and went down to the valley. Sitting on a rock by the valley, he lightly filled his stomach with water and food, and by then the sun had fully risen. Eunseok started moving towards the deep mountains with no particular purpose.

Eunseok thoroughly avoided the mountain paths that people used. He chose only places where animals might secretly pass and moved his feet. He climbed steep mountain ridges that required crawling up and pushed through dense undergrowth. When he needed rest, he briefly sat leaning against tree trunks for short breaks. As he repeatedly moved endlessly, his muscles complained of fatigue and his mouth tasted sweet.

As he faithfully replicated the survival training that could only be described as grueling, he felt increasingly that he was gradually recovering his past self. The struggle for survival. There was no room left for idle thoughts to intrude.

Eunseok spent about a week like this. He replenished water from the valleys and procured food from the mountains. With his extensive survival training, Eunseok could easily find nutritious food even in the barren deep mountains.

As he had felt a few times before, secluded life in the mountains suited Eunseok quite well. The feelings of loneliness and isolation gradually disappeared, and a sense of liberation and relief slowly filled their place. The more his body struggled, the lighter his mind became. The thoughts of Choi Hanseo that had popped up and jumbled his mind were gradually pushed aside by the immediate need for survival.

As the days passed, with each day of survival, Eunseok regained confidence that he could stand completely alone again. Come to think of it, his relationship with Choi Hanseo wasn’t really that long. In contrast, the time he had survived alone approached 20 years. Choi Hanseo wasn’t an indispensable existence for survival. So it was okay to exclude him from his life. Eunseok confirmed this fact while rolling around alone in the mountains. His chest still felt heavy and stinging… but time would resolve this. Probably.

Once his mind was settled, there was no reason to keep rolling around in the mountains. Eunseok decisively decided to descend. It was exactly 9 days since he had taken a taxi from the guild.

He had entered Jirisan from the north, but he descended on the southwest side. After completely leaving the foothills of Jirisan, Eunseok entered nearby Gurye-eup and got a shabby motel room. Despite looking completely like a vagrant, the motel staff didn’t pay him much attention. Eunseok entered the motel room, immediately threw off his clothes, and took a shower.

It took quite some time to wash his body that had eaten and slept in the mountains. Only after shampooing several times and scrubbing his whole body vigorously did he finally look human again.

Eunseok bundled up his discarded clothes and underwear and stuffed them in the bathroom trash can. Then he put on the spare clothes he had packed deep in his backpack and threw himself on the bed. His body, which had been dozing on the bumpy forest floor, didn’t know what to do with even the creaky cheap mattress that felt so welcome. Eunseok thought he should take vacations like this occasionally in the future. Indeed, sometimes putting the body through such hardship is the way to toughen the mind.

If he sleeps well and returns tomorrow, it will be exactly ten days.

Actually, when he left the guild, he thought it would take longer. He didn’t think pushing Choi Hanseo out of his mind and heart would be so easy. But the time Eunseok had stood alone until now was more firmly rooted inside him than he thought. Driving Choi Hanseo out didn’t take as long as expected. He couldn’t express how fortunate that was.

How long had he slept?

Ding dong-.

The doorbell of the cheap motel rang. Eunseok opened his eyes the moment he woke up and grabbed the dagger he had placed at his bedside.

The bell rang just once and didn’t ring again.

Did they mistake the room? Or are they still waiting?

Eunseok approached the door, muffling his footsteps. Carefully looking through the peephole, he saw a person standing firmly in the middle of the shabby corridor. The man in a neat suit was Choi Hanseo.

“Open the door.”