Episode 20.
Thud!
The guy who’d lost consciousness fell facedown into filth.
Tuk!
A piece of corn, sent flying by the impact, also landed nearby.
“Hmm.”
I stared intently at my handiwork.
To be exact, I was reviewing the process of how it had come to be.
‘Not exactly a level I’m satisfied with.’
That afternoon, even Yeongung’s blow, delivered with everything he had, was weaker than this guy’s.
Of course, if he’d worn the reinforced gloves, he could have unleashed a bit more power, but…
‘Comparing the current him to me is a bit much.’
After all, I was someone who had experienced the end of the apocalypse.
As one of the last survivors—or one of those called Heroes—I had experienced countless battles.
Of course, I couldn’t regress with the physical power I had possessed back then, but that experience remained intact.
No matter how trash-like my current body was, it was only normal for an ordinary person to be knocked completely unconscious.
Even if that person was a promising boxer with talent.
‘It’s not satisfying, but I should at least be thankful that I’ve escaped from that trash body.’
While training Yeongung, I had also remodeled my own body.
He didn’t know it, but even after Yeongung’s training ended and he went home, I had kept training.
Truly, a time of grueling hardship that set my teeth on edge.
But I endured, and I succeeded in tempering my pathetically weak trash body.
To the point where I could subdue that thug—who was called someone with a blessed talent—with a single blow.
Of course, the conditions were identical.
Just as he was bare-handed, I too was in a pure bare-handed state, without any transcendence gear equipped.
“I’d thought about just going back if nothing happened. But as expected, trash nature can’t be helped.”
I sometimes agonized over it.
Whether it was right to judge people who hadn’t committed any crimes yet, based on my own judgment.
That was why I tried to avoid acting rashly.
At the very least, I had waited until tonight to confirm that he was still trash and deal with him accordingly.
But as expected.
The thug had failed to overcome his nature and tried to cause an incident, only confirming once again that trash is trash.
“Well then.”
I approached the fallen man.
And.
Whoom!
I strengthened his heart and made it rupture.
With his heart function degraded, he would waste away and die just like the others before him.
However, if one thing concerned me, it was the surrounding CCTV.
This was the Republic of Korea, where cameras were installed practically every five steps.
Since there was no telling how this shameless bastard might spin the story.
Beep, beep, beep, beep—
I immediately made a call.
Before the first ring even finished.
「Nalse.」
A tired tone, sounding like he had just woken up no matter how you listened.
“Chairman, I’m sorry. There’s something I need to handle urgently.”
「No need to apologize. Speak.」
“I want to clean up some trash.”
If Chairman Kang put his hand to it, erasing a minor scuffle with one piece of trash from the CCTV footage would be nothing.
*
Chirp, chirp chirp!
An early morning with sparrows singing.
Sitting on a bench bathed in warm sunlight, I zoned out for a moment.
“Yo!”
While I was distracted, one person approached.
Yeongung, whose face had brightened considerably unlike before, ran up in one stride.
Plop.
He sat down next to me without warning.
“It’s something I should have said by now.”
He suddenly opened his mouth.
“It’s amazing that I can treat someone this comfortably.”
It hadn’t been like that at first.
But as time passed and the arduous training continued, he opened up to me.
There hadn’t been any special trigger.
One day I just treated him comfortably, and Yeongung—who was three years older—and I became quite close.
“What should I say. Like we knew each other? Best friends? I don’t believe in reincarnation, but maybe we knew each other in a past life?”
Correction.
Not the past. The future.
In the apocalypse to come, you and I are fated to become friends.
“But what exactly are you?”
The guy asked.
“Where on earth do you get such mysterious medicinal herbs, food, and tools?”
He seemed to have realized the power of the headgear and gloves I’d given him during sparring, even if the medicinal herbs and food were one thing.
“A savior who will stop humanity’s apocalypse?”
“…Huh?”
His eyes went wide at the unexpected answer.
“…Just kidding. A busybody young man? Well, think of it simply. Thinking too deeply will only complicate your head, and you won’t gain anything.”
In truth, I was one of the last survivors who had returned from the apocalypse, and he would later become my comrade and survive through it.
Who in this world would believe such a story?
For now, it was enough to think of me as a merchant with mysterious wares.
“So. Have you decided your future path?”
I had left this question like homework.
Asking what he would do with his life going forward.
And now was the time to hear the answer.
“…I’m going to try going pro.”
“You mean pro.”
“Yeah, pro. I couldn’t even dream of it before, but thanks to you, I can dream of a future.”
Interesting.
In the past, he had given up on his boxing dream because of that ‘incident.’
‘Jeong Minseok. That crazy bastard raped Yeonji noona. Well, I heard later that she seduced him first, or that it was a false accusation, but he just briefly lost his mind.
But you know what’s funny? I was there at the time, too. I’d stopped by the gym late at night to work up a light sweat, and I witnessed that scene. Didn’t I try to stop him? Of course I did. But I was such a fucking loser back then. I couldn’t even protect the girl I liked and got knocked out cold.’
He spoke so calmly, as if recounting an old dark past without a care, but I still couldn’t erase the image of his sorrow-filled eyes from that time.
‘It was probably a lifelong wound.’
He had witnessed the person he loved being raped before his eyes.
And he hadn’t been able to stop it—he had even been subdued and knocked out. How great must his self-loathing have been?
That was why he had lived his whole life carrying guilt.
That had revealed itself intact even in the apocalypse.
He cherished others more than anyone, yet treated his own life recklessly, as if it had no reason to exist in this world—that had proven what kind of burden he was living with.
“You’ve made a big decision.”
“….”
He stared at me intently at those words.
“I thought you’d curse me or something.”
“Me? Why?”
“You know. If it weren’t for you, if it weren’t for the gift you gave me, what would have become of me.”
“Do you really think so?”
I asked back instead.
“…Yeah.”
“I’ll bet you this. If you grabbed a thousand, no, ten thousand passersby and made them go through the same training as you? The vast majority would run away without lasting even a day.”
Honestly, it was obvious that even if I grabbed a million instead of ten thousand, they would all run.
The training he had digested was not something an ordinary human could endure.
“So you can have more confidence. It’s not just the visible talent right now—being able to endure it to the very end is also a great talent. You know that saying. In the end, the one who survives is the victor.”
Before the regression, even though he had left midway, in the end Yeongung had survived longer than that thug.
He had left behind incomparable achievements, and his footsteps became a model for many survivors.
He was on a level incomparable to the thug who betrayed others as easily as eating meals and tried to line his own pockets, only to die miserably.
“You can have more confidence. You have more than enough qualifications for it.”
Maybe he thought it was an embarrassing thing to say.
He averted his gaze elsewhere for a moment, then looked up at the sky.
“…Yeah. Thanks.”
Honestly, I hadn’t known I could say such cringeworthy words either.
‘I suppose I’m feeling some strange sentimentality.’
Now that we had grown a bit closer, perhaps I was recalling the pre-regression Yeongung, his appearance from that time.
“Ah!”
And something suddenly came to mind.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to start your pro career at that gym?”
Everything else was fine.
But Director Choi—that man was someone you needed to avoid.
A typical opportunist.
I doubted whether such a man had the capacity as a trainer.
“I’m going to switch gyms.”
“Hoo?”
I had thought this foolish Yeongung of the past would be swayed by sentiment and end up with Director Choi.
But what do you know?
“There’s a small gym near where I live. There aren’t many students, but they all aspire to go pro, and the director is quite strict. But he teaches well too….”
It seemed he had found a gym he liked in the meantime.
“What about Yeonji noona?”
Actually, the reason I had thought he wouldn’t be able to leave the gym was because of someone named Choi Yeonji.
A benefactor who helped him in difficult times.
And the one he harbored affection for.
I had naturally thought he would be tied to that place.
“…I figured dating would be a luxury once I started training seriously.”
‘Would you look at that?’
He seemed to have made up his mind properly.
“If we’re going to aim for it anyway, shouldn’t we challenge the world beyond Korea?”
“Wow!”
I hadn’t needed to say such embarrassing words after all.
‘He had already grown.’
He had thrown everything away to dream of going pro, of conquering the world.
In a way, it was a wise decision.
His talent was like chipping away, shaving, and scraping off unnecessary parts.
To reveal the jade within, painstaking effort was needed.
If he wasted time on emotions like love there, he might never see the light in his lifetime.
“Impressive.”
“Impressive my ass. I’m your hyung, you know. By three whole years.”
“So? You want to be treated as an elder?”
“…No. That’s not it.”
Cancel what I said about him growing up.
He was still a coward.
“Ach!”
I stretched my stiff body to inject some vitality.
Refreshing.
A feeling of having become much lighter, as if putting down a heavy burden I had been carrying for a long time.
“Anyway, I’m glad things are working out for you. You seem to have made up your mind.”
With this level of resolve, he would definitely succeed.
Of course, there were only about ten months left in that timeframe.
‘Ten months is enough time for his talent to blossom.’
He might struggle a bit at first, but as his late-bloomer nature showed, he would definitely achieve the results of his efforts.
And.
‘He won’t live in regret and remorse like in the past anymore.’
Yeah.
That was enough.
If I no longer had to see that awkward smile and expression he made whenever he talked about the past, that was enough.
“And this.”
I placed a memo I had prepared beforehand into his hand.
“This is…?”
“My contact info.”
“I’m not interested in guys’ numbers though.”
“Remember it well.”
I didn’t react to his stupid joke.
“About ten months from now. When a big change happens, when you’re extremely confused, contact me here.”
“Huh? A big change? What do you mean…?”
“You don’t need me to explain. You’ll know when the time comes. Why I told you to contact me.”
It was too early to reveal the apocalypse to him.
During these ten months, he had to achieve his dream as a boxer.
“Anyway, see you then.”
No lingering attachments.
I turned my back after delivering those final words.
‘May you achieve your dream this time.’
My friend.
Even if it is a sweet dream of only ten months, may you achieve what you desire there.
‘Because I’ll somehow stop the apocalypse.’
And now, I was gradually proceeding with the plan for that purpose.