Catherine granted my request.
I don’t know if it was because of my new position, but being able to speak with her so comfortably made receiving the position feel worthwhile in itself.
Once the decision was made, I told Margretta right away.
Margretta was pleased to hear it, but true to herself, she asked why.
“What if I said it was just because I wanted to go with you?”
At my words, Margretta smiled.
Her eyes curved gently.
“Now, I can believe that might be possible... but I don’t think that’s the case this time.”
As expected, it didn’t work on Margretta.
It was a shame, but I decided to end the joke there.
“This time, too, I need your help, Margretta.”
“I thought as much. What would you like me to help with?”
She asked with a serious expression, and I told her what I wanted.
“There’s something I need to trade with America.”
Margretta tilted her head.
“Other than black stone?”
“Yes. I found it while scouting alone this time.”
Hearing my words, Margretta shuddered.
“I’m getting scared before I even hear it. What on earth did you find this time...?”
I explained the situation to the visibly appalled Margretta.
About finding the wizard’s flower, and planting it in the underground city of Ice Star.
I did change the part about the flower to say I’d heard about it from a spirit, but everything else I told her was the truth.
After hearing the story, Margretta’s eyebrows twitched.
She seemed displeased with something.
Thinking she needed more explanation, I was about to speak again, but she raised a hand and stopped me.
“Wait. You don’t need to explain any further. You’re saying you found an herb that can increase the number of dark energy users, and that you’re already cultivating it, right?”
It was a clean summary. There seemed to be no need for further explanation.
I nodded.
“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
Margretta stared at me for a long while before finally letting out a sigh.
“You really are...”
As if her head hurt, she pressed firmly above her eyes.
“Fine. If what you’re saying is true, then yes, this is bigger than the black stone. I understand why you need me, too.”
After a moment, she fixed her expression and asked me,
“If you’ve only just started cultivating it, that means there aren’t any samples yet, right?”
“I think I’ll be able to bring samples next time. I thought it would be too late if I only brought this up after preparing them, so I’m telling you in advance.”
Once we went to Earth, time would be needed until the next visit.
If I didn’t tell them ahead of time, it would be difficult to find someone to talk to even after the samples were ready.
Then it would be pushed back to the following visit again, and we couldn’t afford to waste time like that.
“That’s certainly not wrong.”
Margretta agreed with me.
Of course, that didn’t make her any less dissatisfied.
“Still, it won’t be easy to persuade people without any proof. We don’t know yet how quickly or how much of this awakening medicine can be made, either.”
I had no choice but to nod at her words, which came mixed with a sigh.
“It’s practically starting from nothing. It won’t be easy to convince them. But what can we do? We have to try. It’s necessary, too.”
Though Margretta grumbled, she continued thinking over possible methods.
Feeling sorry, I tried to quietly slip away, but at her next words, I had no choice but to nod.
“I hope a lot of that medicine can be made. It will save many people. Show it to me later, too.”
As Margretta said, the “wizard’s medicine” was not merely medicine for trade.
Like black stone—and perhaps even more than black stone—it was something that could save people.
The next day.
Margretta, Catherine, one member of the follow-up team, and I headed for the underground ruins.
The follow-up team member coming with us was someone I only knew by face.
A woman who had been working at the base all this time.
Apparently, she had been a freshman at a fairly famous university back on Earth.
When she first came to this planet, she had resisted so fiercely that she had been dragged over while unconscious.
And now she was the first to return.
“I never thought I’d be picked first in the lottery. Some people said they’d never send me back, so this is really satisfying. I teased them so much before I came.”
Even after arriving in front of the altar, she chattered away with an excited expression.
Until now, she had always pretended not to see me, but this time was different.
Since I was the only Korean going with her, she had no choice either.
“When I get home, I’m going to have as much fun as I want. The war is over, and school must have processed my leave of absence, so I’m planning to play around for a year. I’ll eat delicious food, go shopping, watch tons of performances and movies. And I’m going to get a boyfriend, too.”
She had always been quiet, but now she poured out words at me as if releasing everything she had held back.
When she finally paused for a moment, I said,
“You’ve worked hard.”
They were ordinary words, but her expression changed at once.
Her bright face crumpled, and tears spilled from her eyes.
She sobbed as she spoke.
“Sniff. Sniff. I’m so relieved. I can go home without dying.”
Even if we returned to Earth, she wouldn’t be able to go straight home, but I couldn’t say that to someone who was crying.
I silently shook my head and stepped onto the altar.
All preparations for going to Earth had been completed at the terraforming ruins.
We had packed all the black stone, as well as the monster specimens and the fragments of relics the hunting team had acquired.
The luggage prepared like that filled both hands.
There was also something else I was secretly taking in boxes.
The corpses of the monsters I had hunted.
A considerable amount would likely disappear midway, but even if only part of them made it through, they would be useful somewhere.
Seeing that everyone had stepped onto the altar, I spoke to them.
“We’re departing.”
A hologram appeared before my eyes.
Characters I had never seen before rushed past.
Before, this had been the technicians’ job, but today, Soph was moving.
If the technicians had operated the ruins, they wouldn’t have been able to send all four of us together.
Even now, the technicians were shaking their heads as they watched the characters flow across the hologram.
They were people who had only barely managed to get the existing ruins moving again.
For those who did not understand magic, properly operating ruin magic was difficult to comprehend.
Swaaak!
A portal opened in front of the altar.
An image shimmered within the portal.
We walked into that image.
The female university student, who had crossed over unconscious before, walked in on her own two feet this time.
Flaaash!
As we entered the portal, white light filled my vision.
I immediately opened my senses and checked the dark energy.
I could feel the path of energy I was riding along.
It was the path leading to Earth.
‘Where are the other paths?’
I quickly examined my surroundings.
I could feel paths on this planet, like the path leading to the terraforming ruins.
Those were not needed right now.
I pushed all such paths aside and searched for a new one.
Not a path connected to this planet, or to this star system, but a path connected to a distant planet like Earth.
It had to be somewhere.
The path walked tens of thousands of years ago by the wizards who had escaped this dying planet.
I had to find that path to know which planet the escapees had gone to.
Was it because too much time had passed?
Unfortunately, I could not see the path.
I wanted to look a little longer, but the path was gradually coming to an end.
We had nearly reached Earth.
‘Huh?’
Just before we arrived, I saw a new path.
It was not connected to Trappist, but to Earth’s ruins.
The destination of that path was not on Earth.
Its destination was not in distant space, but connected to a planet within the solar system.
‘Where is it?’
Unfortunately, from inside here, there was no way to tell apart from distance.
Flaaash!
The next moment, the light vanished.
Once the light disappeared, I saw the underground stone chamber I had seen several times before.
We had arrived on Earth.
We had arrived on Earth, but I had yet to free myself from the scene I had just seen.
To think these ruins were connected to another planet in the solar system.
I had considered that they might be connected to ruins on Earth, but I had never even imagined another planet.
‘Could it be Mars?’
As I was thinking that, Margretta asked me,
“Is there a problem?”
At her words, I shook my head.
“No. It’s nothing.”
I was curious, but it was not yet the time to ask.
I didn’t know whether it was a secret they couldn’t tell me, or whether no one else knew either.
I would have to check again when we returned.
We handed our luggage to the waiting people, then waited for Catherine and Margretta to finish speaking with the Americans.
The female university student seemed endlessly delighted to be back on Earth, but I frowned at the sight of the soldiers.
Even ignoring their exhausted, gloomy expressions, their uniforms were far too dirty.
They looked no different from when I had been rolling around in the sandy desert.
“Let’s go up. It seems quite a lot has happened on Earth.”
A moment later, after finishing her conversation, Margretta said this to me.
Seeing that Catherine’s expression was not good either, it certainly seemed to be the case.
We headed to the surface.
The higher we went, the worse the air became.
It felt as though it was full of sand.
When we reached the surface, I understood why.
The whole world looked hazy.
Gray dust tinged with red covered the world completely.
The dust was so thick that I couldn’t see the barracks right in front of me.
There wasn’t even a sandstorm blowing, and yet there was this much dust.
It made no sense.
As I stared outside the tent in disbelief, Margretta told me the reason.
“They say it’s yellow dust.”
“Yellow dust?”
This was yellow dust?
The air had worsened compared to before, but I had never seen yellow dust like this in Korea.
At this level, it was no different from the Gobi Desert during a yellow dust storm I had seen on the news.
“This is yellow dust? But it’s autumn right now.”
The female student, overhearing us, muttered with an incredulous expression.
Seeing the yellow dust reminded me of Chinese Secretary Li, who had been disappointed that he couldn’t come with us.
He had said he was from Beijing.
“If Korea is this bad, China must be no joke.”
At my words, Margretta nodded.
“It seems Beijing and the cities of central-northern China have all been shut down. They say thousands of people have died from respiratory causes, too.”
Thousands of deaths from yellow dust.
Even with extreme weather growing worse, it had never been to this extent. This year seemed especially severe.
“The Chinese government must be in chaos.”
This time, Margretta shook her head.
“Actually, I heard the typhoons are an even bigger problem than the yellow dust. Several typhoons struck southern China and various countries in Southeast Asia, causing millions of people to be displaced.”
Typhoons had struck on top of this?
But it was autumn now. Autumn already beginning to enter winter, at that.
Come to think of it, it was far too warm for late autumn.
The temperature was no different from when I had first left Earth.
‘No way.’
Now that I thought about it, I had heard that Earth would be destroyed, but I had never heard how it would be destroyed.
“Don’t tell me this is part of the reason, too?”
I asked Margretta.
Since the female student was beside us, I omitted the subject, but Margretta understood what I meant.
She whispered in my ear.
“The climate crisis is one of the reasons for the destruction, too. Or rather, should I call it the process of destruction?”
The female student did not hear it, but Catherine did.
Catherine added,
“This is only the beginning. That time is right around the corner now.”
Behind those shocking words, the female student’s complaint could be heard.
“I finally made it back, and what is this? At this rate, I can’t even go outside!”
Her disappointed voice scattered emptily into the yellow dust.
The Fourth Return (2)