Preparation (1)
The house he visited after a long time was empty. His parents, who both worked, had not yet returned home.
"Perfect!"
A smile spread across Gaon's face as he entered his room and lay down on the bed. Perhaps because the prophetic dream had been so vivid, the place felt as comfortable as a home he was returning to after ten years.
With his mind at ease, sleep poured over him.
'Could I perhaps dream another prophetic dream about what comes after?'
As he was thinking this, he drifted off to sleep.
"...Seems like On is here! Son!"
Feeling like he had faintly heard his name, Gaon gathered his wits and stepped out of his room, where he saw the parents he had missed so terribly in his prophetic dream.
His mother welcomed him as always, and his father, though wearing his usual stoic expression, sent him a warm gaze filled with joy. It was a sight he had wanted to see so badly in his prophetic dream.
"When did you come down?"
"Earlier today."
Tears welled up and his nose stung, but he held them back forcefully. The moment he saw them, guilt washed over him as he thought of the misfortunes that had befallen them because of him, but those events had not happened yet and never would.
"Have you eaten?"
Hearing this, hunger surged through him.
Looking toward the window, he saw that outside had already grown dark.
'Seems I slept quite a while.'
He hadn't had the prophetic dream he wished for, but he had slept deeply—so deeply that he couldn't remember the last time he had slept so soundly.
"I haven't eaten yet."
"Why didn't you order something? We didn't know you were coming, so we ate out."
If both of them had gotten off work and eaten, it must be quite late. Looking at the clock, it was already past nine. He had slept on the subway on the way down, and it seemed he had slept nonstop since arriving home.
"I'm not hungry."
His stomach was empty, but he didn't want to trouble his mother, who had just returned from a dinner outing with his father after a long time, so he said that for now.
"You're not hungry, my foot. I'll order your favorite spicy chicken feet, and in the meantime I'll boil some ramyeon, so wait a bit."
Just hearing the word ramyeon made him salivate despite himself.
As his mother took off her coat, draped it over the sofa, and headed straight for the kitchen, his father gave him a meaningful look. It was a signal to follow him to the room.
"What's going on? Didn't you say you probably couldn't come down during break because you were studying?"
His father entered the master bedroom, took off his coat, and changed into comfortable clothes as he asked.
That had been the plan. He needed to work part-time to repay the principal and interest on his loans.
"Studying just doesn't seem to suit me, after all."
"Pft! Your grades came out, didn't they?"
His father, who had been working at a single small-to-medium-sized enterprise for a whopping twenty-five years, was quick-witted despite his taciturn impression.
"Yes."
He answered truthfully, unable to help it.
"Everyone's like that in their first and second year."
"Not these days."
His father had said that to comfort him, but Gaon answered differently due to the prick of his conscience.
In fact, the fixed notion of studying hard until high school and then playing around while studying in college had already been shattered by his father's generation.
Kids grinding for employment from their first year were everywhere. The population had decreased, but jobs had decreased even more as robots equipped with AI rapidly proliferated.
But even in such a reality, there were those who succeeded in finding jobs. Though a minority, they were those who had steadily prepared for employment from long ago.
"Son, still, you gotta play when it's time to play. Anyway, unless you graduate from a top-tier university, you can't properly make use of your major even if you come from a science or engineering background."
He had a point. While there was still demand in economics and business administration, humanities departments had shrunk as much as they could, so you could count on one hand the number of seniors who had found proper jobs utilizing their majors.
"I don't have high expectations for you anyway, so don't try too hard. You learn things as you live. If the starting line is different, no matter how hard you try, you can't overtake the guy ahead of you."
He knew his father was trying to encourage him, but for some reason, he choked up. Because he had experienced it in his prophetic dream, it hit him as an all-too-vivid fact, painful to the bone.
The gap between the rich and poor had deepened as much as it possibly could in the present day, and even after the new era that Another Mundus would usher in opened, ordinary people could never catch up to the elites through effort alone.
Even when it came to housing, unless parents passed it down, it was difficult for an individual or a couple to earn enough to buy one.
'That's why this time, I'm going to stand at the same starting line.'
Another Mundus, which would become another arena of opportunity beyond a simple game, was an opportunity he could not afford to miss as someone who had lived an ordinary life. And his prophetic dream had confirmed that to some extent.
"You know that just by looking at this dad of yours."
That's right. Gaon's father, Gajingu, had been working long-term at a mid-sized enterprise run by a family, and even after becoming a department head—the pinnacle of a salaryman's career—he was still doing all sorts of menial tasks.
Though suffering from chronic manpower shortages, the president had no intention of hiring new employees. Whenever an opening arose, he would fill it by dragging in even distant in-laws, so no usable talent could enter.
Despite being a department head, his annual salary couldn't match that of a manager at a large corporation, and there were no more opportunities for promotion. In the prophetic dream, Gajingu was eventually fired to make room for the president's son-in-law.
'Come to think of it, he must have already quit or be about to.'
He only knew it was in December, nothing more detailed.
"Well, with my specs, I've succeeded this much, at least."
Gajingu said, feigning confidence.
In fact, though he had taken out a bank loan of over half the value, if he had secured an apartment in a prime location in Cheonan without his parents' help at his age, it was no different from success. The land was small, so despite the declining population, real estate prices were still sky-high.
Of course, this phenomenon would improve rapidly as Another Mundus gained explosive popularity. For future generations, expensive capsules would replace real houses.
"So, why did you really come down? Want me to give you some pocket money without Mom knowing?"
Even as he said that, he seemed to have prepared in advance, secretly handing over a thick envelope from under the bedside.
Judging by the color of the bill corners slightly visible outside the envelope, they were 100,000-won notes issued a few years ago. Given the thickness, it would be at least 1 million won.
Gaon didn't even have time to think of refusing; reflexively checking his mother's movements outside the door, he quickly pocketed the envelope.
His father had always had the intention, but he wasn't someone with the means to give this much pocket money. It seemed he really had retired.
'Ah! This isn't what I wanted.'
Until he was walking home from the subway station, he had resolved to shed his image as an immature son, but he was seduced by the thick envelope.
"Son, you're buying me a drink tonight."
"Yes, sir!"
Gaon said, forcibly suppressing the corners of his mouth from rising.
"You're going to your aunt's house during break?"
Though she had come back after dinner, his mother asked after neatly polishing off a glass of soju and a piece of the spicy chicken feet that had just arrived.
"For about ten days or so. The air is good there, and even though it's winter, it's not cold, so I plan to exercise. Once I've built up my body, I intend to properly study when I go back up this time. I'm becoming a third-year now, so I should start preparing for employment."
Since both he and his parents knew well that talk of studying was a lie, he laid his true intentions bare.
"Exercise, that's good. You should build your body while you're young."
"Good thinking. What kind of belly is that, unbecoming of your looks and age? It's not just the weight; your looks are ruined because of that belly."
In fact, his belly fat had noticeably decreased in just one day since the prophetic dream, but his parents hadn't perceived the difference.
"Tsk! Your mother's right. Looking at you now, I'd believe you if someone said you were an assistant manager at our company. Yes, you should get your old body back through exercise. With how you look now, I wouldn't want to introduce you as my son outside."
Following his mother, his father hit him with a painful fact.
It certainly wasn't the fresh physique of a twenty-one-year-old, even by his own eyes. For the past two years, having eaten nothing but instant food every day and indulging in entertainment, he had gained a whole fifteen kilograms and developed a beer belly.
"Will Aunt be okay with it?"
"It's not like you're staying long. If you feel sorry, help the kids with their studies."
"I will."
His aunt wouldn't be reluctant about Gaon's visit. Though they weren't close since they rarely met, his good-natured uncle would be even less so.
His aunt's house was in Yeongam town but slightly on the outskirts. His uncle, who had inherited a fig farm, had chosen a place easily accessible to the farm near Wolchulsan Gichan Land.
Perhaps because it was the rare off-season, his uncle welcomed Gaon warmly. Despite having had a drink with dinner, he was in such a good mood that he dragged Gaon and his aunt out for a second round.
His two cousins in sixth grade and second year of middle school had already headed to dreamland, of course.
"Nephew, why insist on staying alone at the uncomfortable farm?"
As the alcohol got to him, his uncle asked casually. If it was about rooms, the two daughters could share one room for the time being, so he wondered if Gaon was being overly conscious of that.
"The state of the farm hut was better than I expected."
He had gone to check the farm hut with his uncle earlier.
"That may be, but still."
There wasn't much to do in winter, so his uncle only stopped by the farm every few days, but since they were busy from spring until harvest, he had built a farm hut to take care of lodging and meals.
The farm hut had sufficient space and facilities for living alone. The room was equipped with electric heated floor panels, so heating was no problem even on cold days.
"I'm planning to properly absorb the spiritual energy of Wolchulsan this time."
"Hahaha. I can't believe there are still people who think that way. How amusing."
His uncle cackled, thinking it was a joke, and his aunt also snickered.
But Gaon was serious.
'When I go back, I'll completely change my physical condition.'
He hadn't drawn up any special training plan. He planned to strengthen his lower body through running, hone his body's senses through hiking, and convert fat to muscle using the exercise equipment on the walking trails.
'I'll exercise at least twelve hours a day to prepare for Another Mundus!'
He planned to stay about two weeks at most, but if he exercised intensely, it would help to some degree.
To steel his resolve, Gaon turned off his watchcom entirely.
The effects of the exercise he began with a fierce mindset were astonishing not only to Gaon himself but also to his aunt's family.
Though he wasn't working out with professional trainers and equipment like some people, Gaon's body was developing at a tremendous rate, visibly different from day to day.
In just a few days, his shoulders broadened like a swimmer's, his spine straightened, and he even appeared taller.
Though he only used public exercise equipment, his body changed by the day.
From thigh muscles to forearms and even abs, he developed evenly. As for pull-ups, which he couldn't even do five of before, his strength rose to the point where he could do a hundred in a minute.
'I didn't have this much athletic ability. Strange.'
Though he could hardly believe it himself, his rapidly improving physical condition gave him great satisfaction and motivation to exercise even harder.
The strange thing was that after exercising, he would sweat a foul stench—not as bad as the day he woke from the prophetic dream, but still foul.
In fact, it was because of that stench that Gaon decided to stay alone in the container warehouse on the farm. Even on the day he arrived, though he hadn't moved much, he had smelled the foul odor coming from his own body.
Gaon exercised more than half the day, indifferent to the cold.
Confirming that his body changed by the day and that noticeable power was building, Gaon added another exercise.
It was stone throwing. Not a slingshot, but simply throwing stones accurately and quickly toward a target, like baseball.
When he was growing rapidly day by day—in his second year of middle school—he had played baseball for about six months.
At the time, Gaon had insisted on being a pitcher out of mere vanity. His pitching form was good, but his velocity wasn't enough to play professionally, so he gave up.
In any case, since he had properly learned and practiced it, he was somewhat confident in throwing.
At first, he had to be close to hit the target, but as he got the hang of it, he gradually increased the distance. Whether he had an unknown talent or not, by the end he could hit targets roughly fifty meters away with unerring accuracy.
He could replicate his pitching form exactly as he remembered, and his velocity was better than expected.
'If I had had this much talent back then, I could have become a baseball player.'
He hadn't measured it since there was no speed gun, but he figured it was roughly in the mid-to-late 130 kilometers per hour range.
And he studied as well. Not academic subjects, but setting books and strategy guides for various virtual reality games.
In the prophetic dream, early after Another Mundus's release, he couldn't even try playing due to part-time work, and just when its explosive popularity made him want to start, a fraud incident broke out.
Caught up in the fraud incident, he lived chaotically; even when he went into hiding because he couldn't endure it, he couldn't play Another Mundus in case his whereabouts were discovered.
He started Another Mundus about eight months after its release. It was when his parents' divorce was settled and he was given some funds to live independently that he began with a mind to escape reality.
Gaon exercised truly tremendously. Aside from time spent eating, sleeping, and occasionally tutoring his cousins, he pushed his body incredibly hard.
Perhaps because he was so focused on exercising that when bedtime came he collapsed as if fainting rather than falling asleep, distracting thoughts vanished and his stamina rose day by day.
Strangely, along with his physical development, his concentration and comprehension greatly increased.
His memory and concentration improved so much that he wondered if he had always been this smart; content filled with difficult game terminology entered his head with ease, and he could memorize thick game setting books cover to cover.
His heightened concentration and comprehension also greatly helped when teaching his two cousins. He could see at a glance what they struggled with, how to explain it, and how to make it fun.
Thanks to that, the attitudes of the two cousins, who had initially received Gaon's guidance without much expectation, changed greatly.
Through motivation by setting realistic goals at the children's eye level, and by gaining confidence through problems they could solve with a little effort using their own abilities, they felt the joy of studying.
There weren't many who were truly unintelligent, so the cousins' skills rose quickly. Of course, it was because they properly did the homework Gaon assigned every day; the fact that it was fun and that they received their cousin brother's recognition and praise also helped.
Though the aunt and uncle didn't know in real-time that the children's skills were improving, they were overjoyed to see the children studying on their own.
Gaon was greatly satisfied with the results of his training. Unbelievably, in just about two weeks, his physical condition transformed to the level of someone who had exercised professionally for a long time, and it extended even to his intellectual faculties.
Having spent the two weeks so valuably, Gaon now possessed a body filled with solid, lean muscles like marble beef, instead of his previously bloated body.
Eyes that had been clouded by drinking and entertainment for the past two years were now filled with a steely glint, and his gaze changed intensely, as if reflecting a strong willpower.