Baaa-baa—Chirp-chirp—ssssrr—
As if summer needed any more confirmation, the cicadas were screaming loud enough to shatter eardrums. Thankfully, every time he stepped into a patch of shade beneath the trees, they quieted down almost immediately.
“Haah… I could go for a sherbet.”
He wasn’t the kind of person whose stamina was affected by the heat, but still, summer always put him in a foul mood. Especially when he had to walk through these godforsaken roads lined with rice paddies and farmland.
Cha Eui-sung trudged forward, half simmering with irritation, kicking at loose gravel as he walked. His hair, baked under the blazing sun, felt like it was turning crispy.
“Tch.”
Finding the Demon King in the first place had been a nightmare. There were moments when he genuinely questioned whether refusing to join the Hunter Association had been a mistake. He’d managed to recreate the Demon King’s face from memory into a composite sketch, but the real problem was that no matter how far and wide he searched across the country, that face simply didn’t exist anywhere.
“How the hell is this face not showing up anywhere, huh?”
“Look, boss. I’m telling you, this face isn’t out there. If it was, some talent agency would’ve dragged him off and debuted him before you ever got close.”
“What if he wears glasses? Look, I even photoshopped some frames onto the sketch. Just give it one more shot—”
“C’mon, be serious. You think glasses are some kind of invisibility cloak?”
“…Mr. Kim Jeong-baek. Would you like to meet with the Bureau of Regulation?”
“H-Hey now. No need for that again.”
There was no helping it. The information they had was just too scarce. The Demon King, who had floated high in the sky, appeared to be around Cha Eui-sung’s age. Even if he were a little younger or older, he should’ve been registered in the resident database.
He had white hair and red eyes, but Cha Eui-sung figured that probably wasn’t his usual appearance. If it were, he’d stick out like a sore thumb. His guess was early twenties. His hair and eyes could be black, or brown, or even white or red… At this point, it was practically like playing a probability game.
Fortunately, Kim Jeong-baek, the private investigator, was an unregistered Awakened specializing in finding people. With only the sparse intel and a single composite sketch, he’d still managed to get the investigation rolling.
“Sigh… I’ll try to filter the closest matches based on facial bone structure and muscle alignment.”
Even after combing the entire country under the assumption that the guy had typical Korean features—black hair and black eyes—there weren’t as many close matches as he’d feared. A passing thought occurred to Cha Eui-sung: What if the guy was overseas right now?
But he quickly dismissed it. No way the system would pick a global location for someone as important as the Demon King with zero leads. That would be completely insane.
In the end, they’d managed to narrow it down to eight candidates across the country. One of them, whose facial structure so closely matched the sketch that they could be siblings, was living in some backwater village. Starting from the closest location, Cha Eui-sung had gone down the list—and that’s how he ended up in this rural countryside.
And yet, a new problem presented itself. The address of this remote area felt far too familiar to him.
‘Jungsang-myeon, Cheongseri…’
It was the hometown of his mother’s side of the family—the place where she’d spent her childhood before ending up in an orphanage after losing both parents. Back when Cha Eui-sung was still an F-rank, he’d even come here once, running from debt collectors and hiding out.
With a sour expression, he scanned the lush green landscape beyond the path.
‘Moon Tae-young. Teacher at Cheongse Elementary Branch School, Jeongsaeng Elementary. Age 29, no family.’
There were virtually no young adults in this place, and even the children totaled less than ten when counting kids from all the surrounding villages. The small building that had once been a full elementary school had since been downgraded to a branch school. A place that seemed so utterly unrelated to the end of the world, demons, or anything supernatural—yet that was where the Demon King, the one who would destroy the world ten years later, was supposedly working.
‘God, what if this ends up being a bust too?’
Cha Eui-sung steadied his breath and recalled the bankbook he’d checked earlier.
[₩201,038,370]
Two hundred million won. Damn right—two hundred mil! At the time of his regression, he’d only had four million won to his name. He’d lost both his parents early, and though he was still young, he also lacked any real abilities and was buried in debt. In his first life, he died like a miserable pauper. In his second life, he did manage to save money steadily—but never had the time to enjoy any of it.
But in this third life? Even though he now carried the knowledge of impending destruction, he was going to have both the time and money in abundance.
‘Perfect…’
Hoo… As he calmed his mind and kept walking, he eventually arrived at his destination. A small, weathered school building came into view.
When thinking of the term “Demon King,” it was hard to imagine someone like that actually working in a place like this. Just what was his reason for choosing to work here, of all places?
It happened to be P.E. time. A handful of kids—no more than five or six—were gathered on the not-so-wide school field, doing long jumps. Cha Eui-sung carefully scanned the scene. And then, he saw him. A tall man standing beside the children.
…
Ah, fuck.
No wonder he hadn’t been able to find him for months. That man didn’t feel like the Demon King he had seen right before dying.
It wasn’t just because he was wearing a pair of ugly glasses straight out of the ’80s, the kind some college student back then might’ve worn. Gone was the threatening, inhumanly beautiful aura he’d once exuded. What stood there now looked like nothing more than a completely ordinary man.
“Cheol-woo, if you fall backward, you’ll come in last.”
He had come to this school half in anger, half out of curiosity—haunted by the memory of his skull being split like a watermelon. The sun still beat down with the same intensity, making everything in front of his eyes blindingly bright. The kids were laughing in a clamor, warm wind brushed past, and amidst it all stood a man with no trace of the malice that could one day shatter the world.
…
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
***
Logically speaking, that young teacher, Moon Tae-young, was probably just a regular person. But for some reason, instinct kept whispering to him: That’s the Demon King.
Well then, he’d just have to test it. See if he really was the Demon King, or just some normal guy who happened to bear a resemblance.
Cha Eui-sung casually strolled toward the front gate of the school in the late afternoon. He had heard the faint clink of a padlock earlier—probably the sound of that half-maybe, half-maybe-not Demon King clocking out for the day.
Wham!
“Ugh!”
Pretending to check his phone while walking, Cha Eui-sung intentionally bumped hard into Moon Tae-young just as he was exiting the school gate and theatrically fell flat on his back.
“Ow, aah… I’m so sorry.”
A full-fledged Awakened who would barely get scratched even if slammed by a boulder— Yet here he was, pretending to wince in pain, holding his lower back like it actually hurt.
Right before the collision, Moon Tae-young had instinctively dodged slightly, which forced Cha Eui-sung to lunge in even more dramatically to ensure a grand fall. He’d gone all-in on the pratfall, so now he had to sell it with just as much flair.
“It’s okay. Are you alright?”
Unaware of his true intentions, Moon Tae-young rubbed his own arm where they’d collided and extended a hand to help him up. The gesture was so… normal that Cha Eui-sung felt momentarily thrown off.
The Demon King… wasn’t a total bastard?
A strange and deeply unsettling thought popped into his head.
‘Shit. What if this guy really isn’t the Demon King?’
If that were true, then the [SAVE THE WORLD] mission would turn into a nightmare of scanning over four million adult men across South Korea all over again. The very idea was so absurd, it made Cha Eui-sung’s vision go blurry with despair.
Goddamn it. Maybe the world was just meant to go to hell after all.
But just as he was about to spiral into that extreme despair, Moon Tae-young firmly grasped his arm to steady him as his legs gave out.
A large, warm hand pulling him upright. The heat of that grip flowed into his skin. And then—
Ding—
[SYSTEM: You have made contact with Demon King Moon Tae-young.]
[SAVIOR GAUGE]
■□□□□□□□□□
□□□□□□□□□□
5%
As if mocking him for all the pointless doubt, pop!—the gauge ticked up with a sound. And the Demon King of Schrödinger’s box, once opened, turned out to really be the Demon King after all.
―Bbam-bbam diroro diroro~♪
The music played again, like a background track.
King: At last, you’ve found the Demon King. I had faith in you, Hero!
What the hell, fuck off. No, don’t believe in me.
Cha Eui-sung’s face turned deathly pale.
King: To aid you on your long journey, I shall bestow upon you a useful function. However, great power always comes with great restrictions! May the Law of Ko░░░ show you mercy…
No, I don’t need it! Why the hell are you giving me something cursed with restrictions?!
“…Excuse me?”
“A-Ah, yes! I’m fine!”
Cha Eui-sung, who had been staring blankly at the system window, snapped back to his senses and quickly pulled his arm away.
Using that momentum, he sprang to his feet and looked up—only to be met with Moon Tae-young’s bewildered and slightly alarmed face. It made sense. Some stranger had just jumped into him, collapsed like a sack of bricks, and now was standing there dazed out of his mind. He was probably worried, and also just… completely baffled.
Cha Eui-sung gave him a quick glance, avoiding the awkward silence, and briskly dusted off his pants.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Y-Yes, I’m sor—”
“Don’t walk while looking at your phone. It’s dangerous.”
Was that a teacher reflex? The way he scolded someone he’d just met was instinctive, but there didn’t seem to be any hostility behind it. His face looked utterly calm—smooth, even.
Behind those oversized dragonfly-lens glasses, the contours of his face weren’t distorted at all.
Huh.
Those glasses… they didn’t look like they had any prescription.
And now that he was getting a proper look, that face—damn, the guy had flawless skin. A smooth forehead, perfectly arched eyebrows, and a nose that ran straight with no deviations. Eyes framed by unexpectedly long lashes, carrying a distant, detached depth. Below that, lips tinged red and a firm, sharply defined jawline completed the picture.
What the hell? He was the textbook definition of a handsome man. Even Cha Eui-sung, who had seen all kinds of faces in the Hunter Association, was caught off guard by how striking he was.
…How could a face like that look “normal” to anyone?
Just then, a new message popped up in front of his eyes, blocking his view.
[Reward incoming from Dimension░░.]
[Passive] Faded Photograph Fragment
―Memories of ░░░░%%&—
―The weight of accumulated memories adds to the strain of the Law.
What the hell… ‘Fragment’?
