Chapter 2: Bom / Spring (1)
Yu Jitae took a uniform out of the wardrobe, covered his body with a shirt and wore a formal pair of pants. Its lengths and size was too small for his body but the moment it touched his hand, it turned bigger to match his body.
It was thanks to a skill he had.
[Inherent Customisation (S)]
Normally, it was used to allow humans to wrap their body with unwearable things but that advanced skill was currently being used to match a smaller uniform to his body.
After finally putting a tie around his neck, he stared at the mirror as it reflected the police uniform he was wearing. It all felt anew. It seemed that he had been proud to be wearing this around a hundred years ago but that was a distant memory he couldn’t even remember properly.
Looking at the clock, he discovered that it was 7am, time to go to work.
Despite being early in the morning, Gangnam was filled with people. There were businessmen in suits having phone calls, as well as superhumans smoking while wearing armours.
It was them living their everyday life, due to which he found it slightly awkward.
By getting on a bus, he travelled towards the Portal Bureau. Inside the building there were large, floating magic stones that enabled the usage of teleportation.
“Are you heading to the Lair?”
“Yes.”
As Yu Jitae walked onto the portal, light started to wrap around his body and when he reopened his eyes, he was at ‘Lair’.
*
In the 21st Century, with the Republic of Korea in the centre, gates opened worldwide as monsters started pouring out from within. At the same time, superhumans armed with ‘Blessings’ and ‘Skills’ started appearing.
In this new period of time referred to as the New Era, Korea was on the luckier side. There were more dungeons with intelligent species and devils than other nations.
The income from the devils and intelligent species were magnificent and Korea was treated the way oil-producing countries were treated before, and thanks to that, Korea was currently in top three nations worldwide in terms of military force.
And ten years ago, Korea started gathering young hunters with excellent potential to one place to give education. That was the start of the Academy City, ‘Lair’.
Not to mention the Korean government, the academy received astronomical amounts of money as investments from worldwide and hiring top-level mages, magic engineers and constructors, they succeeded in making a large floating island that was roughly as big as 1/10 of Seoul in size, ‘Haytling’.
Haytling slowly revolved around the world like a satellite and currently, it was flying over the Atlantic Ocean.
Lair was the name of the Academy City built on top of Haytling and when Yu Jitae was 27 years old, he was a part of the local police force at Lair.
He looked outside. Thanks to floating in mid-air, he could see clouds some distance away. Leaving the Portal Bureau, he walked around the Academy City as students in uniforms could be seen here and there.
And there was a police station not too far from it.
“Jitae-sunbae, hello!”
“Jitae’s here as well? We had way too much drink last night yeah.”
When he went in, his colleagues gave greetings but they all looked unfamiliar. That was natural because after regressing, he had never gone to work.
But now it was different as Yu Jitae tried to melt into an everyday lifestyle.
Up until now, he had believed in power and fear. He thought most problems could be solved through strength and when leading others, he believed fear was the most efficient method. That was why Yu Jitae gained omnipotent strength through the regressions and monopolised top secrets and information worldwide.
However, when he reached the strongest level an existence could reach in his sixth round and still failed it, his thoughts were shattered.
That method was wrong, and thus it had to change now.
But perhaps due to coming too far, the situation did not look positive. Throughout his regressions, there were many things he had lost.
Although Yu Jitae could jump to a close dimension if he wanted, commuting to work on a bus was foreign to him. Twisting a demon lord’s neck and threatening it was easy but drinking a glass of alcohol with a friend was difficult.
And yet what was required to stop the Apocalypse from coming was that trifling ‘daily life’.
Fortunately, this job wasn’t bad. He could legally get rid of those hastening the approach of the Apocalypse and also had a close relation to the Lair. Thus, he was planning to associate himself with them as long as it wasn’t cumbersome.
“Hello.”
Yu Jitae threw a greeting and found his seat. There were documents placed everywhere untidily on the unorganised desk. He was made to reflect back on himself from a hundred years ago.
Without a word, he cleaned his desk and whenever he picked something up, memories occasionally flashed up like an old film.
“Huh?”
The colleagues stared at Yu Jitae in curiosity.
“Why?”
“Don’t you think Jitae-sunbae looks a bit different now?”
“Hmm? Uhhh…!”
“Right?”
“Wait what? Was he always that tall?”
His original height which was already on the tall side had visibly increased and reached around 187 centimetres. Besides, the shoulder and arm muscles showing from within the uniform revealed a build that made others question whether he was the same being as before.
Unable to hold back, one of his juniors walked up.
“Jitae-sunbae. Did something happen?”
Yu Jitae turned his head around and stared at him. What was his name again, he thought, but fortunately there was a name badge reading Kim Minsoo.
“Why”
“No it’s nothing but, it feels like you got taller all of a sudden and your body… seems a lot better than before as well.”
“Nothing happened.”
Hearing the voice abruptly come to a stop, the junior became flustered. It wasn’t just the height and the voice, but the rather hazy gaze as well as the mysterious expression that couldn’t be seen through that appeared foreign.
Although he always had a quiet personality and was a man of few words, that was different from the current aura he was giving off. It felt as if he was an entirely different person.
“You are okay right?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Or did you like, get enlightened or something?”
When a human received mana into their body and became a superhuman, that process was called an ‘awakening’. And when a superhuman received a blessing from the world, that was called an ‘enlightenment’.
Thinking about it, it was true that he had been enlightened, since he had been receiving blessings for at least a hundred years.
Yu Jitae gave a casual nod.
“I knew it! Wahh, congratulations sunbae.”
The reply however, came from behind.
“Congratulations my ass. Stop bullshitting. Are you guys in a situation where you can congratulate yourselves?”
A loud voice echoed inside the office as a middle-aged man with signs of vicissitudes of life on his face appeared. It was the section chief of the Superhuman Investigation Force, Inspector Park.
When he came in, the office was submerged in silence as if a bucket of cold water was dumped from above. The team leader hurriedly stood up straight and his colleagues ran up one by one to his sides.
Ahh, right, there was a culture like this here. Yu Jitae stealthily walked and stood around the middle.
“How many weeks has it been huh? You made a fuss saying you would capture Jo Hosik and took all the recruits in. Why is there still no news huh?”
The section chief released his anger.
Jo Hosik?
No matter how much he searched through his memories, such a name could not be found inside. It most likely was a petty criminal that committed a crime inside the Lair and hid himself.
Standing stiffly, the team leader gave a curt reply.
“We almost finished finding his tracks! If you give us a little bit of leeway…”
“A little bit? A liiittle bit??”
The Inspector walked up and pushed the team leader’s forehead with his fingers.
“You don’t know what Team 1 is calling you behind your back right?”
“Sorry?”
“Of course you don’t, yeah. And you’ll never know in the future as well.”
“W, what are they saying?”
“They’re saying it would be better for them to do it. They say it would be quicker for them to catch Jo Hosik even if they started it now. But do you know what made me more angry? It’s that I couldn’t tell them to shut up. Do you know why?”
“T, that’s…”
“Even in my eyes, it looks like they will catch him first! Aigu! You sore fingers*!”
Then, he started pushing the foreheads of every member.
“You are a thumb.”
“Utt.”
“You’re an index finger.”
“Ayat.”
“You, a middle finger.”
“Akk! Why are you pushing me harder than others!”
“Fu*k you mate. And you! You…!?”
Then, in front of Yu Jitae who had been standing in the fourth position, the Inspector stopped his hand. In surprise, he opened his eyes wide open.
“Nnn?”
From higher above, Yu Jitae was looking directly at him with a hazy gaze.
“Huh? Who is this? Why is he standing here?”
“What are you talking about sir. It’s Jitae, Yu Jitae.”
“Nn? This is Yu Jitae?”
Without giving a response, Yu Jitae gave a slight nod. Inspector Park glanced across Yu Jitae’s face and body and let out a mutter, “huh?” in doubt.
“Huhh… he looks somewhat different though. Well anyways! I have somewhere to go right now. I’ll give you guys a deadline.”
“Sorry? By a deadline, you mean…”
“I’ll give you exactly one week. Within that one week, catch Jo Hosik or just quit your posts. You understand?”
“S, Sir! One week?”
“Do something about it yourselves!”
Leaving only those words behind, Inspector Park disappeared just like that as a hot potato was dropped onto the team members.
“Haigo. We couldn’t catch him for three whole months, so how can we catch him within a week…”
“Sir Inspector is being too much.”
“Are we catching some random bloke? It’s none other than that Jo Hosik that appears and vanishes like a ghost.”
“I know right.”
The team members heaved out sighs.
It was unclear what they were exactly worried about but their expressions were filled with anxiety. Seeing that, the Regressor made a speculation. Judging from what he saw, it appeared that they were worried that their three months of hard work could be in vain.
It was merely three months of effort, so why were they so anxious? No matter how much he thought, the man could not understand their feelings. Perhaps the estrangement he was feeling was the proof that the things he had lost were a huge distance away from himself.
However, he perfectly understood the circumstances and the situation. When needed, as much as they needed – as long as it was to the degree of not affecting his daily life, he was inclined to help them for his own daily life.
As long as it wasn’t bothersome.
*
Daily life was daily life but there were still things that had to be done.
That night, Yu Jitae flew across South Europe, over the Mediterranean Sea. In Firenze, Italy, on a road filled with buildings that seemed to be from the renaissance period – in that place where musicians performed beautiful music on the streets, Yu Jitae faced a girl.
She appeared to be seventeen, or eighteen in age.
“…”
The girl stopped her feet and stood still. Yu Jitae likewise stood still and gazed at the child for a long time. She had the hair colour resembling a peridot, and eyes sparkling like gems.
Throughout the long years, he had already lost all interest in women. The reason his gaze remained on her face despite that was because no matter how much he saw it, it wasn’t a face belonging to a human.
Her face that transcended humans had with it a beauty that was even slightly repulsive.
That was the Green Dragon.
“…”
Perhaps sensing something, it faced a slightly stiffened look at himself.
Yu Jitae contemplated for a short period of time. Although he did find it, what should he do now? In the previous rounds, he did not have a reason to talk with the baby dragons for a long time so he kidnapped them and locked them inside an underground labyrinth.
Ultimately it had led to failure.
So, it had to be more, ‘ordinary’ than before.
“Hi.”
He gave a greeting.
* From a Korean proverb, ‘Bite ten fingers and there isn’t a single finger not sore’. People use the term ‘sore finger’ just by itself when referring to a dear person (like an apple of their eye)