Episode 2: Grandfather, Who Are You?
* * *
Mugangye (無間界).
It was an independent dimension, belonging to none of the countless dimensions existing in the world.
There, an old man stood quietly, gazing at a young man who had appeared out of nowhere.
“Hmm. How did this happen? There is no way you could have come here.”
The old man wore an expression that said this was the first time he had seen something so curious.
Considering the old man’s long, long life, it was truly a bizarre occurrence.
The old man’s appearance was such that anyone who saw him would think him an immortal.
However, the fact that he wore jeans and a skin-tight shirt—ill-fitting for such an appearance—was it a flaw? Perhaps it was precisely because he dressed that way that he exuded an even stranger atmosphere.
“Oho! Look at this! Kekeke.”
The old man, who had been glaring at the young man for quite some time, smiled enigmatically as if realizing something.
At that moment, the young man seemed to come to his senses.
“Ugh...”
It was Dongbangsu, who had absurdly been stabbed in the back by a thug and a female classmate.
“Oho! It seems you are waking up.”
He called out to Dongbangsu in a lively voice unbefitting an old man.
“Ugh.”
What is going on?
Slowly opening his eyes, Dongbangsu could not grasp the situation.
“So, are you coming to your senses now?”
“Huh? I am, but... who are you, Grandfather?”
With bleary eyes, he surveyed his surroundings.
No matter how much he thought about it, the situation was incomprehensible.
His surroundings were dyed entirely in a dead gray hue, and only the strangely dressed, muscular grandfather standing before him and Dongbangsu himself had normal coloring.
He raised himself from where he had been lying, shook his head, and rubbed his eyes.
When he tried to quietly recall his memories, his head ached as if it would split.
“Uurk!”
“Hehe. Stay still. It seems you are not yet normal. No, you may never be normal again.”
The old man spoke words that Dongbangsu could not understand.
“What do you mean by that...?”
“It seems I shall need to have many conversations with you.”
Though anxious, hearing the old man’s voice strangely put him at ease.
“So, how did you come to be here?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t really know either.”
To the question thrown with a benevolent expression, Dongbangsu answered with all sincerity.
“You still do not know?”
Along with the old man’s words, Dongbangsu felt his head—previously foggy as if filled with mist—clearing.
“Ah! I died. But did I really die? I must have died.”
“You died?”
“Well... I was stabbed in the stomach and had my head bashed with a brick. I probably died, didn’t I?”
Hearing Dongbangsu’s answer, the old man’s expression crinkled slightly, as if displeased.
“Tsk. So you were in a situation where you would die?”
“Probably?”
“And yet you came here?”
“Maybe? I’m a bit confused, so I don’t really know what happened.”
“Even though you died?”
“I really don’t know for sure. I probably died. Ah! Mom!”
Dying was one thing, but he thought of his mother left alone and worrying.
His mother, who had worked all her life without ever properly resting to raise him.
He found it hard to calm down thinking that he had died without ever being able to properly fulfill his filial duty.
“Ah! Mom must be so worried. What should I do? Grandfather, where is this place? Do you happen to have a phone I can use here? She lives for the sight of me...”
Though he rambled incoherently, the old man did not stop him at all.
How long had he babbled so incoherently?
Only after quite some time did Dongbangsu realize such actions were meaningless and called out to the old man.
“Grandfather.”
When out of it, only the fact that he was an old man had registered, but upon closer inspection, he was no ordinary elder.
His body was large and muscular, reminiscent of a bodybuilder.
An outfit completely unsuited to his white hair and long beard.
If one looked at any part except his face, one would believe he was an elite athlete.
“Yes, it seems you have come to your senses. Let us talk slowly.”
“Huh?”
“First, I must know your name, must I not? This old man shall answer once your tale is finished.”
Dongbangsu silently gazed into the air for a moment.
Then he slowly unraveled the story of his life.
The story of losing his father before even entering elementary school.
The story of a cursed family whose members died young for generations.
His life of struggling under his single mother.
Whether the old man intended to listen to the end, he listened intently to Dongbangsu’s story, merely offering the occasional interjection.
“It must have been hard.”
After Dongbangsu’s story ended, the old man uttered only a single sentence.
As if those words were a trigger, tears welled up in Dongbangsu’s eyes the moment the old man finished speaking.
Dongbangsu’s mother was a truly good person.
Above all, her son came first, but having weathered the world’s tempests alone, she could not ignore reality.
Because of that, it was true that she had made him live a suppressed life.
She had endlessly told her son to endure.
“Endure it even if someone bullies you.”
“Endure even when it’s hard.”
“Hold back even when you want to buy something, endure even when you want to eat.”
It was perhaps the best a parent unable to actively protect their son from hardship could do.
She must have wished that her son would not be hurt by needless strife.
Had he not known his mother’s love intimately, he might have gone astray dozens of times over.
During all those years of enduring and yielding, not a single person had understood his heart.
Because of his shattered self-esteem, he had formed no relationships with anyone and had only done what was necessary to make a living.
But now, for the first time, an unnamed old man truly understood Dongbangsu’s heart.
Who would have thought that a single word heard from an unknown old man in an unknown place would bring such great comfort?
Naturally, the old man approached him favorably, and before he knew it, his heart slowly opened.
Once the tears began to flow, they became an even thicker stream as his heart opened.
How long had he cried?
He felt the resentment accumulated in his chest wash away cleanly.
“Ahem. I have shown an unsightly display upon first meeting.”
With swollen eyes, he feigned composure and spoke.
“Such things are no matter.”
The old man showed a benevolent smile and helped Dongbangsu calm his heart.
“I wish for you to be happy.”
That was what Dongbangsu had wanted as well.
Of course, that was before he had been stabbed.
He had thought his gloomy life story would end with this comfort.
Though Dongbangsu had been unable to achieve happiness while living, he thought his life held meaning simply for having received such encouragement.
‘Was I at least somewhat of a filial son?’
He had never been a particular burden, so perhaps he had been.
Then the old man’s voice was heard.
“Yes. Now, how do you wish to live?”
“Huh?”
It was a completely unexpected question.
He had no idea what the old man’s question meant.
“I am asking about your plans. Do you wish to continue living as you have, simply going with the flow?”
“No, that’s not it...”
Plans for a life that had ended—what nonsense.
While Dongbangsu was flustered and unable to answer, a thought flashed through his mind.
‘Could it be that I’m not dead yet?’
As his thoughts flowed in that direction, he quickly came to his senses.
And he decided to try answering the old man’s question.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“W... well, shouldn’t I go home first?”
“Home, you say. Yes. I ask on the premise that you can return home. What would you do after that?”
“W... well... as you said earlier, I suppose I should live happily?”
He meant it.
Though it had been hard because of his mother, it was all in the past.
He wanted to forget the pain and truly live happily with his mother, who had raised him alone through such hardship.
“The method?”
He was at a loss for words once more.
“I haven’t thought that far. Working part-time, paying off debts...”
He had dared to hope that his life might continue, but the word “method” made him falter again.
Could he be happy even if he lived again?
Yet paying no heed to Dongbangsu’s discouraged appearance, the old man continued.
“Well, fine. Happiness. Yes. If that is your wish, it would be good to grant it.”
“Huh?”
He had not heard the muttering properly and asked again, but the old man seemed to have no intention of explaining and asked anew.
“Good. If you truly wish to live a happy life, this old man shall help you.”
Dongbangsu’s eyes widened.
“However, an immensely painful time may await you. Will you still try?”
A meaningful smile hung on the old man’s lips.
Along with the question, the benevolent atmosphere that had surrounded the old man disappeared, replaced by an unknowable dignity.
It was an atmosphere completely unsuited to the clothes the old man wore.
It was a truly hard-to-trust visual, yet somehow he felt certain that this was an opportunity he could not miss.
“O... of course. I do not wish to live as I did before. I’d rather die as I am than live like that. Perhaps that would be better for my mother, too...”
As he was babbling words he himself did not understand, the old man’s eyes flashed as he glared.
“You rascal!”
“Y... yes?”
“Never speak such words again!”
“W... what words?”
“Words of dying! Only by living can you overcome anything!”
“Y... yes! I will definitely live.”
Coming to his senses at the old man’s thunderous voice, Dongbangsu answered with strict military discipline.
“Good. Good. That is the spirit.”
Whether it was the reflexive answer that pleased him so, the old man nodded joyfully.
“Now that I have heard your story, I shall tell you mine.”
Dongbangsu listened closely to the old man’s tale.
“There is no need to know this old man’s name. It should suffice to simply call me Grandfather.”
The old man—no, Grandfather—spoke thus and approached him.
Though he was slightly startled as the muscular grandfather approached, he did not step back.
“This old man has lived a very, very long time. Longer than whatever you are thinking. One hundred years, two hundred years. Perhaps certainly not in units of a mere hundred years.”
‘Could he be... a lunatic?’
Something about the flow felt strange, but the old man did not stop.
“During that long life, I have learned all manner of skills that exist in the world.”
“Skills? Why?”
“I wished to live a very long time. I did not want to die with such skills, nor did I wish to die at all. To that end, I learned many more skills, and thanks to that, I lived an even longer life. As they say, do your best and leave the rest to Heaven? The more I strove, the more my skills grew, and with those skills, I gained more lifespan—a truly welcome thing. Of course, luck played its part as well.”
The old man smiled brightly, as if merely recalling the past put him in a good mood.
“That’s amazing. So what skills did you learn?”
Unable to suppress his sudden curiosity, Dongbangsu threw a question unwittingly.
Is not empathy and praise the best way to draw words from a person?
At the light praise and question, the old man’s mouth moved as fast as a runaway locomotive.
“Hehehe. If you are so curious, it is only natural that I should tell you. It is important to know what skills you shall learn, after all. The foundation of this old man’s skills was martial arts. I devoted myself to martial arts for a very long time. The more I learned of martial arts, the longer my lifespan grew, so I could not stop. However, a limit soon arrived. It was then that I learned what is commonly called sorcery. I learned it regardless of its origin.”
“Martial arts and sorcery? What are those?”
The old man’s gaze naturally shifted toward Dongbangsu.
“Hehe. Not knowing martial arts and sorcery. Well, I suppose that is to be expected. The place you lived must have been such a place.”
The old man nodded as if understanding something and spoke again.
“You shall learn what they are in time. For now, let me unfold the skills I have learned.”
* * *
From then on, the old man spent a very, very long time expounding upon the skills he had learned.
Those concerning sound, those concerning food, those concerning people.
The skills were so vast that it seemed he was trying to lay out an encyclopedia—no, all the knowledge in the world.
“...Thus, there are thirty-seven major branches, and if counting the minor branches, 98,231 skills. Of course, there are still many things I have yet to learn, but do they not say all streams return to the source? I have stopped learning because I believe further skills hold no meaning. What do you think? Are you now worthy of learning from me?”
He had listened to explanations of a whopping 98,231 skills.
There were so many that he had not even heard of one quarter of one half of them.
“I. Re. Al. Ly. Be. Lieve. You.”
Mechanical affirmation burst from the exhausted Dongbangsu’s mouth as he listened to the story.
Honestly, it was a tale he could hardly dare fathom, making it difficult to trust.
“Hehehe. You are lying right now.”
“Huh? What do you...”
Dongbangsu, who had been staring with dead fish eyes, startled at the old man’s remark.
Those eyes seemed to know his heart completely.
“Among the skills this old man knows, there is also one that discerns the truth and falsehood of people. Of course, this too is among the things you shall learn.”
“How is that possible?”
“Learning something is not so difficult. It merely requires a great deal of time.”
The old man’s calm remark made Dongbangsu’s brow furrow automatically.
“It would be a problem if it takes a long time. Do you mean I can only go home after my mother has passed away?”
More than half the reason Dongbangsu lived was his mother.
He was trying to return for her; if it took a long time, that was unacceptable.
If he had to learn tens of thousands of skills, even at one per day, would it not take hundreds of years?
That was enough time for bones to turn to dust.
“Hehehe. You are truly a filial son. Is that not a fortunate thing?”
“What is?”
Despite Dongbangsu’s sullen words, the old man’s bright expression did not change.
“The fact that time barely flows in this place.”
“Huh?”
He had not understood the words he had heard so far, but these words resonated even less.
Where in the world was there a place where time barely flowed?
Nevertheless, the old man continued speaking with a calm smile.
“That too is but one among countless skills.”
“T... that too is something I must learn?”
Learning a skill of which he could not even grasp the concept—it was utterly incomprehensible.
“You need not worry. Teaching is also but one of the many skills I possess. Hehe.”
“How in the world do you do it?”
“What is so special about it? There is only one best method for learning anything. Re. Pe. Ti. Tion. Only that.”
An inexplicable sense of unease crept up along with those strangely emphasized words.