Watching the smile slowly vanish from his face brought a certain satisfaction.
Sure, it had been a low blow to bring up his personal history, but it was such an old wound that Cha Eui-sung felt no emotional tremor.
After his first life, he no longer grieved over the absence of family, nor was he crushed under a mountain of debt. Back in that period, he only owed about three thousand at most. It was dumb—trying to repay it through manual labor alone, juggling one payment with another until he hit rock bottom.
Well, his mother had never been particularly talented at building wealth either. Maybe it was inevitable. She’d been an orphan herself, with no one to teach her how to earn money, invest, or sidestep the world’s many cruelties with savvy.
He’d spent so much time ruminating on that while being hounded by creditors that by now, even those thoughts barely stirred anything inside him. He was simply thankful for the Regression—and the Reawakening. Thanks to that, he’d learned how to survive. Escaped the bottom rung.
“You don’t have to make that face. I don’t mind. You probably didn’t know what you were asking.”
“……”
“It’s hard to understand when you grow up in a different world. But there are all kinds of stories in this world, you know?”
Not exactly the kind of thing a twenty-two-year-old should be saying, at least on the surface. Still, Moon Tae-young would inevitably start reflecting on his own childhood now.
And he’d realize it. That his misfortune-laced life bore a striking resemblance to this man sitting in front of him.
“That wasn’t my intention. I was just curious. About your motives.”
“Motives?”
“Why an unregistered Awakened keeps showing up in front of me. Why you hover around like you know something.”
The slight softening in his tone confirmed that the plan was working. Cha Eui-sung rubbed down his slightly puffy brown hair, which had risen a bit thanks to his halfhearted grooming, and muttered,
“Motives… motives, huh. I guess I do have them. Hmm, haha… It’s just, I got interested. As you probably know, I’m a pretty unusual case.”
It was vague—unclear whether he was referring to his constantly hemorrhaging body or the fact that he’d come to the countryside unregistered. Moon Tae-young said nothing, lips sealed tight.
“To be honest, at first I thought you were… some crazy bastard. I was planning to grab Seo-ryong and my hyung and get the hell out. I mean, I have my reasons, but you—an obviously high-grade Awakened—were teaching at some branch school with no government registration? That’s nuts.”
“…Yeah.”
“But after stopping by a few times, I realized… you might be strange, but you’re not dangerous. So I thought, well… you’re the first person I’ve met who’s kinda like me…”
Cha Eui-sung trailed off. The pause, clearly intentional, heightened the tension. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he offered his final reply.
“It might sound stupid, but… I thought maybe we could get to know each other.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Cha Eui-sung clamped his mouth shut. Maybe he was embarrassed about opening up to someone he’d always regarded with suspicion. Or maybe the worry just hit him all over again. Either way, his expression suddenly turned conflicted.
He grabbed what was practically an empty bottle of alcohol and poured the last drops into his own cup. His hands trembled—whether from drunkenness or nerves—causing a few droplets to splash onto the table.
He took a stained handkerchief from his pocket and carefully dabbed the mess. And for a fleeting moment, a look of discomfort crossed Moon Tae-young’s face. It was a very human reaction. Fleeting, but real.
Then, unexpectedly, Moon Tae-young furrowed his brow and reached out. Before Cha Eui-sung could stop him, he snatched the half-full glass and brought it to his lips.
“…Hey.”
The last of the strong liquor slid down Moon Tae-young’s throat. With a sharp clink, the cup returned neatly to its place.
Cha Eui-sung stared at the empty glass, then flicked it with his fingertip, mumbling,
“That was mine, you know.”
“You didn’t even get three thousand won’s worth.”
“Then you should’ve taken it sooner.”
“Yeah, I should’ve.”
Was it guilt over prying into someone’s personal life? Or the emotional whiplash of finding unexpected kinship in someone he once considered a threat? Moon Tae-young let his guard down far more easily than expected.
Honestly, Cha Eui-sung hadn’t imagined it would happen this quickly.
“Perfect timing. Actually, this stuff’s rare, so I hid another bottle. Ugh—”
He staggered to his feet, pulled a black bottle from the cupboard, and clicked his tongue softly.
“Feels like I haven’t treated you right. Guess I’ll drink it all myself.”
It’s been a while since I let myself get drunk, he added unnecessarily, pulling the bottle straight toward himself and away from Cha Eui-sung.
And just like that, the real drinking session began.
Starting with harmless talk about rural life, they exchanged casual chatter. Some questions got answers, others were met with silence. Still, it was a stark shift from their earlier game of psychological warfare. This was the closest they’d come to a real conversation.
Why would you ask what my job is, you lunatic?
Some of it still made no sense, sure.
What Cha Eui-sung ended up revealing was that he wasn’t a student. That he’d taken the college entrance exam but never stepped foot in a university. That he made a living helping out at Kim Jeong-baek’s private investigation agency, a man he saw as an older brother.
There were things he hadn’t meant to say but slipped in anyway, swept along by the flow of conversation—like how he had no idea who his father was, that this really was his mother’s hometown, but even the oldest locals probably wouldn’t remember her clearly.
Moon Tae-young was meticulous.
Even when his guard was mostly down, he was a master at redirecting any talk that came too close to his personal life.
But what stood out was that the things he claimed not to know always seemed to concern the future.
“I don’t know. After the school shuts down and I move, I might stay there. Or maybe not.”
“Hard to say. I’m not sure I’ll keep teaching.”
“I’ve never thought about stuff like starting a family.”
He had no plans for the future.
No—more accurately, he had zero plans for life after Cheongseri.
It wasn’t that he was drifting aimlessly. Given what Cha Eui-sung had gathered about his personality, it was more like he had deliberately chosen not to think that far ahead.
The realization sent a chill down the back of his neck.
So his revenge for his father happens here in Cheongseri. And after that… oblivion, huh.
Based on the timeline, he was supposed to leave this place within two years. So why the hell had he waited eight more years to bring about the end of the world?
Maybe the revenge left him hollow, but not suicidal. Maybe the target of his vengeance wasn’t just one person.
What mattered was this— Something big was going to happen here. Something that would change the course of the world ten years down the line.
And I have to be here for that.
Right? Right.
With that clarity reinforcing a hypothesis he’d long suspected, Cha Eui-sung smirked and stared at Moon Tae-young.
Moon Tae-young, having just finished the second bottle, was starting to gather his things.
“Not bad, right?”
“Yeah, not bad.”
But instead of glancing at the empty bottle, his eyes flicked to Cha Eui-sung. Whatever had pleased him, it wasn’t the drink.
Still, it was a positive response.
Pop!
[SAVIOR GAUGE]
■■■■□□□□□□
□□□□□□□□□□
20%
A 4% increase.
Stupid bastard.
No doubt about it now. His instincts had been right.
***
The sun had set, and Cheongseri was wrapped in a near-absolute silence. Especially in this remote village where one had to drive into town just to buy groceries, once the light disappeared, all sounds and smells retreated indoors.
As he walked down the still roadside, the lingering taste of alcohol in his mouth wasn’t unpleasant.
It was the first time he’d felt intoxicated since his sudden Awakening. His vision dulled, his thoughts turned more sentimental. In a word, he found life—just for a moment—easier to endure. Like someone once said.
Moon Tae-young deliberately took the long way home, eyes fixed on the darkening sky. It felt oddly calm—hard to believe he’d just been drinking with someone who, not long ago, had gotten under his skin so badly.
It was strange. He recalled their conversation, exchanged over emptied glasses.
“I don’t plan to stay here long, to be honest.”
“So you’re heading back to Seoul.”
“Seoul… yeah, probably.”
Cha Eui-sung.
Ever since he’d abruptly moved to Cheongseri, the quiet village had stirred beneath the surface. His unusually handsome looks caught people’s attention, but more than that, it was how he avoided meeting anyone in town.
Some insisted he was a celebrity they’d never heard of. Others claimed he was a runaway from the nightlife industry after causing a scandal.
But Moon Tae-young suspected more than most.
What were the odds that a presumed S-rank unregistered Awakened would randomly move to Cheongseri due to “personal circumstances”?
Could it be that someone had caught wind of his plan? That someone had sniffed out the scent of it and come for him?
Those suspicions began to dissolve the moment he saw Cha Eui-sung cough up blood.
If someone that powerful was suffering regular bouts of hemoptysis, then clearly, something inside him was fundamentally broken. It was more than enough reason to abandon everything and retreat to a place he had ties to.
And tonight, a once-fragmented guess had become a far more vivid certainty. That man, drunk to the point he didn’t even realize his head was lolling, didn’t have a single plan for the next year—Moon Tae-young had caught that.
The way he fumbled through his words, unaware even of his own detachment, like life beyond that point didn’t even need imagining.
“……”
It left a bad taste in his mouth.
He’d gone out of his way to puff up like a threat, and now the same man was clumsily trying to get closer under the influence of alcohol.
That smudged handkerchief with its faint trace of blood. And the fact that he found himself caring about it.
[Moon Tae-young (S)]
Proxy of &!!##&
!
!!
! !
[Demon King]
Black Veil (S)
< Designated Target>
—Moon Tae-young (S)
—448A2111 (A)
—(Unregistered)
In the darkness, the system window glowed faintly like mist. He followed that light, like a ship chasing a distant lighthouse, but he had yet to decide where the journey would end.
