My mother’s grave, which I had not seen in so very long.
Unlike the face of my mother, which I could no longer even remember, the grave had been well tended.
The grave I had forced out of my memory for fear I might one day want to come here—yet in the end, the moment I returned to my hometown, it was the first thing I saw.
I watched it from the sky for a long while before I could finally land beside it.
After looking once more at the neatly kept grave, I turned my head and looked at the sleeping old man.
An old man lying covered in dirt before the grave.
I examined the sleeping old man with my senses.
Beneath his clothes and the dust, I felt the state of his body.
First, the many bruises engraved into his skin.
Just as Director Han had said, the old man was covered in wounds.
No matter how I looked at it, these were injuries that should have had him recuperating at home.
To drag that body all the way up here and fall asleep.
I could not understand the old man’s thoughts.
Even after confirming his injuries, I did not stop examining his body.
It had been more than ten years since I last saw him, but the old man had grown far older than the man I remembered.
As I looked past his bruised skin and examined his muscles and organs, I frowned.
‘There isn’t a single part of him that’s fine.’
It wasn’t only his appearance that made him look twenty years older than his age.
My father’s body was a wreck.
I hoisted him onto my back, descended the mountain, and entered the house.
The house I had returned to after more than ten years.
Even though it had been so long, this old house did not feel pleasant to me.
I went into the main room and laid my father down inside.
Then I sat in one corner of the room and waited for him to wake.
The room had not changed from more than ten years ago.
Old furniture, a cracked television, a calendar pointing to several months before.
As when I was young, the smell of old dust and earth lingered in the room.
Sitting still, I felt as though old memories were about to rise.
I shook my head. There were no good memories here.
The room was quiet.
Sop might have said something, but ever since we arrived here, he had been silent.
I did not speak to Sop either.
I had come to my hometown after listening to my brother and Sop, but as expected, it would have been better not to come.
There was still so much left for me to do, yet coming here had only unsettled my heart.
How much time had passed?
My sleeping father came to his senses.
“Urgh.”
He let out a groan and opened his eyes, then frowned when he saw me.
“Who… Myeongsu?”
Was it because it had been so long?
My father mistook me for my brother.
“It’s Myeonghan.”
When I gave my name, the wrinkles deepened again.
Whatever the case, I was his son, whom he had not seen in more than ten years.
He could have worn some other expression, but as in the past, my father merely twisted his face.
Frowning, he pushed himself up.
“You said you’d never see me again in your life, so what brings you—”
As always, my father began with words that scraped at my chest, then tilted his head.
With a puzzled expression, he felt over his body.
I said to my father,
“I treated your wounds. The pain should be lessened for now. But this isn’t a proper treatment. If you want to fix a body that’s rotted from within, you’ll need a proper examination at a hospital.”
The reason his body had changed was that while my father was asleep, I had healed all his wounds with healing magic.
The bruises from being beaten by thugs had all disappeared, and his damaged joints and muscles had been healed to some extent.
But that was all.
A body worn down over a lifetime could not be fixed by healing magic, nor by going to a hospital.
That was not illness or injury. It was what he had spent over the course of his life.
After examining his body, my father looked at me properly.
“You learned some strange technique, just as your brother said.”
My father knew about me as well.
It seemed my brother had told him about me when he came.
Once he realized his body no longer hurt, he immediately changed his clothes.
The clothes themselves were different, but they were the farmer’s clothes I had seen since childhood.
After changing, he tried to leave the room.
Watching silently, I asked my father as he headed outside,
“Where are you going?”
“What are you talking about? My body’s better now, so I have to check the paddies and fields…”
His hand, which had been about to turn the doorknob, stopped dead.
It seemed he had only now realized reality.
There were no longer any paddies or fields to check.
And there would not be any in the future.
The old man stood like that for a moment, then let go of the doorknob.
I could see the strength drain from his fingertips. The old man drew in a brief breath.
Was it because he had realized reality?
The old man’s body seemed to shrink.
He turned around and returned to his original spot.
Sitting down, he asked me,
“So, what brings you here?”
The same question as before.
Unlike before, this time it was a real question.
At the old man’s question, I raised my head.
Abandoned cobwebs swayed between the old ceiling beams.
Looking at those cobwebs, I asked myself.
“I wonder. Why did I come?”
This was a place I had not wanted to come.
A place I had been pushed toward by my brother’s and Sop’s words.
Why had I really come here?
If I truly had not wanted to come, then no one’s urging would have brought me here.
My hometown, where I had no good memories.
My father, whom I had tried to erase from memory because I did not want to be angry.
I looked at the father sitting before me.
A small, old man.
Was it because time had passed?
Even when I looked at my father, I was not angry.
When I was young, he and this hometown had been a vast prison that confined my brother and me.
A prison called the paddies and fields, and the jailer who guarded that prison.
Even after breaking out of that prison, my rage toward the prison and the jailer had never disappeared.
It had not changed when my brother and I struggled in the city, when I went to the army and crossed in and out of hell, or when I went to another planet.
I had only tried to force myself to forget because of the name “parent.”
But seeing my hometown and my father again, all that escaped me was a hollow laugh.
The prison had become abandoned land where only dust blew, and the terrifying jailer had become an old man waiting for the day he died.
Reflected in the cracked television, I too had become an adult.
Once I realized that, it no longer mattered why I had come here.
My head cleared.
It felt as though a blocked breath had finally been released.
I said to my father,
“You know that farming can no longer be done here, don’t you?”
“You hated farming that much, and now you came here to tell this father of yours that?”
My father, who had been looking down at the floor, clenched his fist.
Even so, there was no way strength could enter the hand of an old man who was all bones.
Calmly, I spoke the truth.
“I didn’t have much complaint about farming. I only thought it wasn’t my path.”
Thinking about it now, my father, a farmer, had simply wanted one of his children to farm here.
He had wanted the land passed down from our ancestors to be protected through the generations.
My brother was smart, so that target had simply become me.
And my brother, for my sake, had taken me and fled from our hometown land.
It was emptying.
When I recalled the things I had deliberately turned away from, they were all trivial stories.
At my words, the old man raised his head.
The old man looked at me with a startled face.
His expression clouded.
“You’ve grown old.”
“More than ten years have passed.”
When I spoke of the time that had gone by, my father’s expression darkened further.
I said to him again,
“Until now, it seems you’ve been holding out with what you harvested before… And you were injured this time because you were trying to protect that grain, weren’t you?”
“……”
My father said nothing, but that alone was answer enough.
“As I said just now, it will be difficult to farm on this planet anymore.”
If only temperature were considered, places close to the polar regions might still be farmable, but without sunlight, farming was impossible.
“My brother must have told you, but come to the place where he and I are. In just a few months, you won’t be able to live here because of the heat, let alone farm.”
“A farmer cannot abandon his land.”
The words I had expected came from my father’s mouth.
The words of a rigid old farmer.
I asked him again,
“Even if it’s land that can’t be farmed?”
“……”
He gave no answer to my question.
“Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are taking refuge. To feed the refugees, we need people who work in agriculture.”
I was not saying it just to take my father with me. Farmers were truly needed.
For now, golems and spirits were growing grain, but once the number of people increased, they alone would not be enough.
Even after my following words, my father’s expression did not change.
An expression as if he would die here, even if it killed him.
An expression that once would have frightened me now only felt frustrating.
And then I remembered the dirt-covered figure I had seen a little while ago.
My father, with his battered body, asleep drunk before the grave.
It seemed my father had loved my dead mother even more than I had known.
I said to my father,
“Lastly, the next time I come, I intend to move Mother’s grave there as well.”
My father’s expression changed.
The furious look I had seen long ago returned.
A roar burst from my father’s mouth.
“What are you talking about! That mountain is our clan’s ancestral burial ground! Do you know how your mother and I lived to protect that mountain and this land? And you dare say you’ll dig up your mother’s grave!”
His furious voice struck my ears, but unlike before, my body did not tremble, nor did I feel like grinding my teeth.
I had known, but my father truly was a man of the past.
And it seemed he truly had loved my mother.
“The ancestral mountain and the clan no longer have any meaning. This planet will soon be abandoned. Her children cannot leave Mother’s grave on a planet that will be cast away.”
When my calm words ended, the angry light vanished from my father’s eyes.
His eyes grew darker and more complicated by the moment.
‘Don’t tell me he said he would stay here because Mother’s grave was here?’
I had said it just in case, but to think it would work.
Honestly, it was unexpected.
That might not have been all of it, but in any case, those words were shaking my father’s heart.
This was enough.
I rose from my seat.
Even as I stood, my father continued to look down at the floor.
I said to my father,
“I’ll be going.”
My father raised his head.
“You’re leaving right away?”
“Yes. I have much to do.”
At my words, my father nodded.
“If you have work to do, then there’s no helping it.”
Even amid his conflict, my father’s manner did not change.
Before stepping through the door, I said to my father,
“People have been going through trouble guarding you from a distance. From now on, I’ll have them stay nearby.”
“Then why not just tell them to go back?”
“The Korean government is protecting you because they’re afraid I’ll get angry. If you’re dissatisfied, it would be better for you to come over quickly. Once you’re ready, you can tell them.”
Once I returned to the Mount Baekdu base, I could tell Director Han.
“I told you I’m not going.”
My father’s answer followed my words.
It was the same answer as before, but to my senses, it felt completely different.
“Yes. I understand.”
I nodded at my father’s words and stepped out the door.
After leaving the house, I lifted myself into the sky.
Looking down from above, I saw my father come outside.
My father looked around.
When he could not see me, he looked at the dried-up paddies and fields and let out a sigh.
He looked toward the back mountain where the graveyard was, then headed for the storage shed.
Leaving that sight behind as the last, I headed north.
After I left my hometown, Sop opened his mouth.
[It’s a little regrettable.]
At Sop’s words, I asked back,
“Don’t tell me you wanted some family-movie ending where father and son forgive each other?”
[To be honest, I did want that… Well, I suppose this is not a bad ending either.]
An ending, huh.
At Sop’s words, I turned my head and checked the spear strapped to my back.
An old, worn spear.
Now, I too could tell.
Sop was preparing for the end.
Ticket