Out of Pyo Haram’s mouth came a line that sounded like a delinquent shaking someone down for money. Faced with the string of absurd things that had been happening since earlier, Seomun Hyeok — a man who had spent his whole life being a decent, upstanding person — felt like he was losing his mind.
“As you can see, I’m hungry right now. And I don’t have any money.”
Is that something to be proud of?
He barely managed to swallow the mutter that had risen to his throat. Meanwhile, Pyo Haram’s rambling continued.
“Anyway. If you buy me something to eat, I’ll answer your questions one by one.”
Grumble—
His stomach clock rang out again. Seomun Hyeok hesitated for a moment. Was the man in front of him actually in his right mind? Everything he had been doing since earlier seemed just slightly off from how a normal person would behave. Or was that just his imagination?
But the deliberation didn’t last long. It wasn’t as though he was short on money — and more than anything, Pyo Haram in front of him looked genuinely… just a tiny bit pitiful.
Let’s get some food into him first, then try to have a proper conversation.
Whatever the case, he was the one with something to gain here. He nodded and asked,
“Alright. Is there something you’d like to eat?”
“There is.”
“What would that be? I left my car behind today, so… I’ll flag down a taxi for now.”
“No need.”
“Pardon? Don’t we need to go out to the main road to find somewhere to eat?”
“The alley next to here is plenty.”
Pyo Haram groaned as he pushed himself up off the ground. Seomun Hyeok considered for a moment whether to help him up, then dropped the thought. He was still troubled by the way his mana had drained out when he made contact with him earlier.
“Tch. Uselessly quick on the uptake.”
“Pardon?”
“Talking to myself.”
That’s quite loud for talking to yourself.
Seomun Hyeok took one more step back from Pyo Haram, putting a little more distance between them just in case. But independent of the suspicion he felt toward him, he docilely followed behind Pyo Haram as he walked ahead with a limp.
He was confident he could subdue the other person without laying a hand on him if it came to that. And what awaited them in the alley Pyo Haram led him to was…
“Bungeoppang…?”
Bungeoppang.
“The woman who runs this stall makes excellent bungeoppang. I’ll take one question per bungeoppang. How does that sound?”
Is he genuinely, truly, simply just crazy?
His vision went briefly blank. His life-saving benefactor was fixed on the bungeoppang stall with his tongue practically hanging out.
“Hurry up. I’m hungry.”
“Ha…”
A hollow sigh escaped him. He let go of any expectation of getting a proper answer from Pyo Haram. Still, now that he had come all this way, he supposed he should at least put some food in the hungry young man’s hands.
“Fine…”
Is this really how this is going.
“…Well then, shall we start with twenty bungeoppang.”
Pyo Haram’s face had brightened immediately, so he supposed that was the right call.
The question-and-answer session that started under the pretext of bungeoppang took place inside Pyo Haram’s home.
Even if the door had been blown clean off and the walls were on the verge of crumbling, that was the verdict — since the conversation to follow was of a sensitive nature, it seemed better than talking outside.
Fortunately, Pyo Haram turned out to be not nearly as unhinged as expected, and he didn’t treat Seomun Hyeok with hostility or say anything off-kilter the way he had before. His attention was entirely fixed on the bag of bungeoppang in Seomun Hyeok’s hands.
Thanks to that, Seomun Hyeok was able to ask the questions he had come to ask without much difficulty, and received answers that were, surprisingly, delivered with genuine sincerity.
“…So. You’re saying you’re a soul that came from another dimension?”
“That’s right. Exactly. What kind of person goes through life getting tricked by everything?”
“……”
Haram raised his chin and responded with arrogance. Seomun Hyeok’s gaze drifted to the bungeoppang crumbs scattered around Haram’s mouth.
That (?) was an archmage?
Ten bungeoppang had disappeared into Haram’s stomach in the blink of an eye. Seomun Hyeok now knew Haram’s true identity, as well as how he had saved him and why he had been making such a scene until just moments ago.
The knowledge he demonstrated earlier was certainly nothing I’d ever heard before. The Dragon Heart included. If that knowledge could be put to use…
Seomun Hyeok pulled up his status window and stared at his aliases.
Aliases: The Ruthless Hero, Runaway from the Cycle (5th Pilgrimage in Progress)
The unhelpful system had never explained the meaning behind those two aliases. This run’s system was no different. Interpretation was left entirely to himself.
Hero…
The way he saw it, what the system seemed to want from him was the role of a hero. Dealing with monsters, saving people. Going further — a hero who prevents the destruction of the world.
I have no idea why it had to be me.
The system had been repeating the time reset over and over until Seomun Hyeok could properly fulfill his role.
So. In order to end this godforsaken regression, I have to become the hero who saves the world, just as the system wants.
He had arrived at this theory on the brink of death in his second run.
After that, in order to become a hero who saves the world, he had recruited companions he could trust and built a guild, and based on his memories from past lives, he had gathered items and raised his own stats.
But despite all this effort, the results had been poor. In his last life, he had even died while tracking down the trail of the demon king — the first evil the system had ever acknowledged — after finally discovering it.
To die right when things were showing signs of progress and be reset again. The emptiness he had felt at the time was beyond words.
The Seomun Hyeok of this fifth run suffered from a crippling numbness unlike before. The passion and will to live he had always carried had been worn away across his past lives, and all that remained now was a longing for eternal rest.
And yet at a time like this, a variable like this appears.
He looked at Haram with fresh eyes. If this man in front of him truly was an archmage from another world. If he was the one variable that could finally put an end to his life’s cycle.
“Aren’t you going to eat that?”
Haram, who had been eyeing the bungeoppang bag hungrily, asked. Seomun Hyeok deflated into a small laugh, then touched the corner of his own mouth awkwardly. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed this easily, without thinking.
“Any more questions?”
“Would you like more of these?”
“Yeah. I’m still not full.”
Seomun Hyeok looked at the bungeoppang bag and thought. Of course not. Bungeoppang was a snack. It was never going to be enough to fill a stomach as a proper meal.
“If you’d like, I’ll give you everything that’s left. And I’ll treat you to a proper meal as well.”
Haram, sitting across from him, was still grimy and terribly thin. From what he had heard, Haram hadn’t managed to adapt to this place yet and had never had a proper meal.
Sure enough, Haram’s eyes lit up with undisguised anticipation. Seomun Hyeok held out the bag of bungeoppang — then, just before Haram’s hand closed around it, snatched it back.
“……?”
Haram’s expression went sour again. Seomun Hyeok felt an inexplicable sense of relief wash through him as he said something he wouldn’t have said under normal circumstances.
“In exchange. I’d like you to hear me out for a bit.”
“What?”
It was during his second run, he thought. He had been so troubled by the fact that a companion who had followed him closely in a past life didn’t recognize him in this one.
He had found it hard to believe, and deeply sad, that the memories they had laughed and talked through together had been undone in an instant as though they had never existed.
At the time, he had been disoriented from experiencing regression for the first time, and lonely. And so he had confided in his companion — who knew nothing — about the fact that he had regressed.
But that didn’t go well…
The companion had been flustered. They had tried to brush it off as if it were talk from a novel or a comic, and later spread a baseless rumor that the S-rank hunter was actually suffering from a mental illness.
From that point on, Seomun Hyeok had resolved to stop placing expectations in people, and to keep his secret a secret.
And yet now, that resolution was wavering. Because of a man who was going absolutely wild over a single piece of bungeoppang.
Because this person has gone through something similar to what I’ve experienced.
Dimensional transfer and possession — wasn’t that an even more novel-like situation than his own regression? He had the feeling that this person, of all people, might actually believe him.
No — in truth, it didn’t even matter if he believed him or not.
Seomun Hyeok had simply wanted to tell someone. It just so happened that the slightly unhinged-seeming man in front of him seemed like the perfect person to unburden his secret to.
“The bungeoppang is going cold. If you have something to say, say it quickly. I’ll give you exactly five seconds.”
“I’ll buy you as many fresh ones as you want when they get cold.”
“Then I’ll give you five minutes. Take your time.”
Seomun Hyeok took one bungeoppang out and handed it over, and Haram grabbed it and bit into it readily. Seomun Hyeok let out another quiet, helpless laugh and then, with a slightly tense expression, laid out his story.
The deaths of family. The catastrophic calamity. The betrayal of those he had trusted. The disorienting regression. And the repetition of it all.
Dying, going back. Dying again, coming back.
His life was far too long and complicated to sum up in a word or two. And yet Haram listened to all of it without complaint.
Not because he was particularly warm-hearted, nor because he pitied Seomun Hyeok’s circumstances. Simply because, as Haram would finish one bungeoppang, Seomun Hyeok would perceptively hand him a new one.
And then, when the bungeoppang bag was finally empty.
“…That’s how it is.”
Seomun Hyeok’s story came to an end. Haram only stared at the empty bag with a look of longing, and offered no particular reaction. Not a single expression could be read from the perpetually blank face he had worn throughout.
…So he doesn’t believe me after all.
Slightly deflated, but with a lighter heart nonetheless. After a brief silence, Seomun Hyeok was just about to brush off what he had said with a laugh, call it a joke—
“Right. Are you done talking?”
“…Yes.”
“Then hand it over now. My Dragon Heart.”
