Episode 1. 10 Years Later (1)
“……What the hell.”
Akan stared up at the sky in a daze.
Just moments ago, he had been experimenting with a teleportation magic circle in his laboratory at the Rainbow Magic Tower.
But due to an error during the experiment, the magic circle went out of control.
The explosion of mana had briefly knocked him unconscious, and when he came to, he found himself dumped in an unfamiliar space rather than his laboratory.
Overgrown grass and a refreshing breeze.
He appeared completely fine on the outside, but the reality was that he faced an enormous problem.
Akan’s voice trembled.
“Where is this?”
This was not the Macedonia Continent where he had lived.
Unlike the atmosphere of the Macedonia Continent, which had been filled with mana, this place was desolately drained of mana.
It was completely devoid of mana to the point that the air felt suffocatingly stale.
But the biggest problem was something else.
“All the mana in my mana core has evaporated!”
Akan’s face grew deathly pale!
The Devil’s Talent.
Or the Eccentric Magician—the greatest mage of the Macedonia Continent, Akan!
The Akan who had achieved the incredible feat of reaching the 8th Circle had fallen into a strange land having lost every drop of his mana.
And so…….
Ten years passed.
* * *
A chicken restaurant in Seoul.
A man and a woman who looked like a couple entered the restaurant.
Jingle, jingle.
The small bell attached to the door rang loudly.
As their eyes scanned the interior, they saw a man wiping down a table.
A face that looked to be in his early thirties.
The man’s face brightened upon noticing the couple.
“Welcome! I’ll show you to your seats.”
The man’s name was Akan.
Akan, who had been a lone wolf who knew only himself on the Macedonia Continent, had become a part-timer working just to survive in the Republic of Korea.
* * * * *
“Ugh, I’m dead.”
Thud.
Akan, who had been wiping tables, collapsed into a chair.
After sending out all the customers who had rushed in like a storm, all his energy had drained away.
Akan looked at the tables that still needed cleaning and let out a deep sigh.
“Ha. Just ten years ago, I had dozens of servants attending to my every need…… Damn it.”
At the past that suddenly came to mind, Akan tightened his grip on the rag he was holding for no reason.
Truly, whenever he thought of the past, his blood still boiled.
Akan, the greatest mage on the continent!
People called Akan, who had reached the tremendous realm of the 8th Circle at the mere age of 30, the Devil’s Talent.
Akan’s future had been a path of solid success.
The title of greatest on the continent had been enough to give him the delusion that the world existed for him.
But.
“If only the experiment hadn’t failed, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
The magic circle’s rampage.
Akan, called the Laboratory Mage, the Eccentric Magician, to the extent of his obsession with magical research, one day discovered a book related to teleportation in the Magic Tower’s vault and became immersed in the teleportation magic circle.
He thought he had perfectly reproduced it after repeated research, but due to some error, Akan ended up being subjected to dimensional travel.
The problem was that he had consumed all his mana in the dimensional shift, and in this new world he arrived in, mana did not exist.
On the Macedonia Continent, Akan possessed the Devil’s Talent, but in this world, he did not.
Akan was an existence specialized solely in magic.
Because he had been locked away in his laboratory, his physical abilities, weakened to their limit, made him a truly unremarkable person once his magical abilities were stripped away.
Akan struggled desperately to somehow reclaim his past glory, but with his profile, success in the nation called the ‘Republic of Korea’ was impossible.
Age 30.
Worst physical ability.
No Republic of Korea citizenship.
No matter how brilliant his ideas were, no one would listen to Akan, who was obviously an illegal alien.
Realizing he needed money to survive, Akan tried to get a job, but no one would give him work.
Even if they did, they were only people trying to exploit an illegal alien.
He was smart, so language acquisition was quick, but for the first year, he had to wander here and there and live like a beggar.
He later met a good person named Kim Chunsik and fortunately got a part-time job at a chicken restaurant, but that was where it ended.
He looked into acquiring citizenship for a normal life, but unfortunately, in Akan’s situation, there were only impossible methods.
Experts on illegal stay said he could only begin citizenship procedures by voluntarily leaving and receiving a proper visa, but for Akan, there was no home country to return to in the first place.
If caught by the government, he would be deported to some unknown country.
In a situation where he could do neither this nor that, Akan didn’t have many choices.
Akan.
A name that would have been praised on the Macedonia Continent was rotting away for a whopping nine years as a part-timer in a Seoul chicken restaurant.
“When will I be able to escape this life?”
A chicken restaurant part-time job was not suited to Akan’s aptitude.
The reason he had worked as a part-timer for nine years despite that was because there was nothing else an illegal alien could do.
Honestly speaking, life in the Republic of Korea wasn’t bad.
The incredibly advanced civilization, unlike the Macedonia Continent, was a new world to Akan.
It was true he was living a decent life in its own way, but in this world rampant with materialism, Akan was far too insignificant.
Monthly rent and utility bills.
Once living expenses were added, his part-time wages vanished in an instant.
For Akan, who ten years ago had done everything he wanted, accepting a life of frugality was not easy.
And.
“Hyung-nim. Stop fooling around and clear the tables. We need to close up fast so we can go home.”
A man was visible entering the restaurant while grumbling.
Red hair revealed as he took off his helmet.
At the heavily contorted expression of the man, Akan’s face hardened as well.
‘Go Changhyeok.’
Unlike himself, a part-timer, this was an official employee of the restaurant.
Although he called him hyung-nim, his undisguised contempt made rage surge inside Akan.
This was what he hated the most.
At age 40, an illegal alien part-timer.
Younger people naturally looked down on Akan given his profile of rock-bottom social status.
But ten years of life had made Akan adapt to reality.
“I was just sitting for a moment. I’ll clean up right away.”
Akan got up from his seat and began organizing the tables.
* * *
Go Changhyeok was an extremely annoying person to Akan.
He was only 23, seventeen years younger than Akan, but Go Changhyeok thought himself above Akan.
Of course, if you considered the status of part-timer versus employee, he might be right, but Go Changhyeok had only been working at the restaurant for two years.
In terms of experience alone, he was no match for Akan, who was in his ninth year.
And honestly, it was absurd to fuss over rank when they hadn’t even been hired at a proper company.
Nevertheless, Go Changhyeok always looked down on Akan under the pretense of being an official employee.
The reason Akan couldn’t rebel against Go Changhyeok’s openly scolding behavior was because Go Changhyeok was a friend of Kim Ganghyeon, the owner’s son.
Kim Chunsik wasn’t someone who would coldly throw Akan away, but you never know.
If he got fired from the restaurant, he would have to live like a bum again.
Akan, having no citizenship, knew well that if trouble arose with people in this world, he would be the only one to lose.
So he threw away his pride.
Akan, who had been a lone wolf on the Macedonia Continent, had learned to bend in order to survive.
Having continued this life for over a year, Go Changhyeok had naturally come to look down on Akan.
“Ah, Akan hyung-nim. You didn’t wipe this table properly.”
People called Akan by his real name.
He had dyed his hair black, but everyone knew he was a foreigner due to his blue pupils and exotic appearance.
Go Changhyeok wiped the grease remaining on the table with his hand in one sweep.
It was oil barely visible to the eye, but Go Changhyeok made an expression as if he had seen something truly filthy.
“It’s a problem if you clean like this.”
“Sorry. I’ll wipe it properly.”
“Yeah, yeah. Please hurry up. If you clean like this, I can’t go out for deliveries with peace of mind, can I?”
At the sight of Akan lowering himself, a smile appeared on Go Changhyeok’s face.
It seemed he had probably encountered something unpleasant while out on delivery.
Whenever that happened, Go Changhyeok would return to the store and take out his anger on Akan.
It was behavior that greatly hurt Akan’s feelings, but he had grown used to it enough to endure.
‘I heard he caused so many accidents in high school that he can’t get a proper job? If he weren’t the owner’s son’s friend, he wouldn’t even have this part-time job. Damn. I’ve really tamed my temper. In the old days, no matter who it was, if someone provoked me, I would have smashed them to pieces.’
There was a reason he was called an “Eccentric” on the Macedonia Continent.
His eccentric acts were the main reason, but the incident where he destroyed several armed groups simply for disrespecting him was very famous.
Through those incidents, Akan had widely demonstrated the might of an 8th Circle mage to the world.
In those days, no one dared to touch Akan, but the current Akan couldn’t even do anything about a neighborhood thug.
But what could he do.
Given the reality he faced, he had no choice but to adapt.
“Changhyeok oppa! Why are you scolding mister over something so minor?”
“It’s dirty. Can’t you see this? This glistening grease?”
“I can’t see it. And I was the one who wiped that table. If you’re going to say something, say it to me, not to mister who did nothing wrong!”
“You did it? Ahem. Why didn’t you say so earlier.”
She looked to be in her late teens.
As the fair-skinned, cute woman with short hair snapped at him, Go Changhyeok scratched his head as if embarrassed.
The woman’s name was Lee Minyeong.
She was eighteen this year, a part-time worker at the chicken restaurant.
Unlike Go Changhyeok, she was someone Akan felt maximum goodwill toward!
Seeing Lee Minyeong always look out for him, Akan liked her second only to the owner in this restaurant.
Scrub, scrub.
‘Ah, pretty one.’
Akan silently wiped the table and gazed at Lee Minyeong with a pleased look.
‘Kindness……’
When he looked at Go Changhyeok again, flames blazed in his eyes.
‘Revenge must be repaid a hundredfold.’
It had been the same on the Macedonia Continent.
Akan had repaid those who helped him to the extent that their lives changed, and had trampled those who harmed him so thoroughly that they fell into hell.
He lacked the strength to repay kindness and revenge, but if he ever gained it, he would repay them unconditionally a hundredfold.
Akan suddenly put his hand into his pocket.
The feeling of paper in his hand.
‘Please…… let me win the lottery this week.’
For several years now, Akan had been aiming for a windfall.
- Continued in Episode 2 -