WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Ceaseless
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◈ Martial Arts Survival Guide ◈
Chapter 12: Nobody Told Me About This
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Beep.
Beeep.
Beeeeep. Beep.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a pure white ceiling. Perhaps because his eyes had been closed for so long, they felt a little dry and stiff. Baek Hyun stared at the ceiling for a while, drawing slow breaths. The sights he had seen just moments ago. The place he had been. The people he had said goodbye to.
“Safe travels.”
With those words, Yeo-hwi had sent Baek Hyun back to his own world. Sara had cried in the end, and Yu Un-ryeo had smiled as she wished him good fortune in battle. That had been the end of it.
‘A dream... No way.’
Baek Hyun let out a faint laugh and sat up. Something inside his body went crack. His master, Ju Han-o, had told him that when a soul returned to its original body, the body would take on the soul’s form. Remembering those words, Baek Hyun looked down at himself. It had been five years since he had last been in “this body,” but it felt little different from when he was in the Peach Blossom Realm.
‘Wait, what’s this?’
Baek Hyun’s eyes widened as he lifted his clothes. He was wearing a hospital gown. Blinking, he looked around. Even without anyone telling him, he could clearly recognize a hospital room. An expensive-looking private room, at that. Beep, beep, beep. The noise beside him was getting on his nerves, so he turned to find a heart monitor beeping steadily.
“Nobody told me about this.”
All Yeo-hwi had told him was that five years had passed in the modern world. During that time, something called the Abyss had appeared, and monsters came pouring out of its openings on the last day of every month.
‘...Right. She left out the most important part.’
After sending his master off to the Immortal Realm, he had been so shocked by the news about the Abyss that he had forgotten to ask.
‘What happened to my body during those five years?’
It wasn’t as if he had never worried about that while living in the Peach Blossom Realm. He had simply never imagined waking up in an expensive-looking private hospital room, wearing a hospital gown. First, Baek Hyun carefully removed the equipment attached to his chest. Then he got out of bed to figure out what was going on.
“...Don’t tell me I ended up in someone else’s body.”
At this point, he was starting to worry that something that absurd really had happened. But the face reflected in the mirror on the wall was his own. Baek Hyun touched his face and frowned.
“It’s me.”
That only made it more confusing. He was glad to be back from the Peach Blossom Realm, but why had he woken up in a hospital?
It wasn’t long before Baek Hyun got an answer. He sensed someone hurrying toward him. It seemed a doctor or nurse had noticed something unusual in his room and was coming to check. Yet there was something very strange about the presence he sensed. Tilting his head, Baek Hyun turned toward the door. A moment later, it burst open, and a startled-looking doctor rushed inside. She stopped in shock when she saw Baek Hyun standing there, facing her as though he had been waiting.
“H-how? The patient... Mr. Baek? How did you wake... N-no, your body. Are you feeling all... My goodness...!”
The doctor stammered, unable to finish a sentence.
“...Uh, well. I’m fine.”
“...You really are all right?”
The doctor looked worried as she asked. Baek Hyun nodded and studied her, trying to identify the unfamiliar energy he had sensed in her presence. There was some kind of “power” inside her body, different from internal energy. Apparently, that was the “power” people received from the monarchs of the Abyss.
“...Excuse me, I’m having trouble understanding what’s going on. Why am I here?”
“Oh... That’s understandable. You’ve been in a vegetative state for the past five years.”
“...A vegetative state?”
“Yes.”
As she spoke, the doctor assumed an intellectual air and pushed up the glasses resting on her nose. She was quite pretty to begin with, so even that simple gesture looked good on her. But Baek Hyun had just learned the shocking truth of his situation and was in no mood to appreciate it.
“I understand that this must be very confusing...”
“W-wait. Just a moment.”
“Are you feeling any discomfort?”
“No... Nothing like that. I’m perfectly fine... Healthy. Yes.”
Muttering, Baek Hyun went back to the bed and sat down heavily.
“Could you explain this in a way I can understand?”
Damn that Yeo-hwi.
Baek Hyun clenched his fist as he thought of the imugi, who had only told him about the Abyss.
The doctor’s name was Lee Hui-ju. Before explaining why Baek Hyun had fallen into a vegetative state, she tried to tell him what had happened to the world while he was unconscious.
“The Abyss is...”
“No, that can wait. You said I was in a vegetative state?”
He already knew what the Abyss was, so he didn’t need to hear more about it. The fact that races living in the Abyss had moved to the outside world sounded rather surprising. But on second thought, humans could enter and leave the Abyss. Why wouldn’t the races living there be able to come outside?
“...Yes. Five years ago... On July 3, 2017, at around nine in the evening, you lost consciousness and collapsed on a bus. Another passenger called for help, and you were taken to a hospital, but we couldn’t determine what had caused you to collapse.”
Baek Hyun remembered that day. He had finished his part-time shift and was heading back to his gosiwon. It was the day Yeo-hwi had summoned only his soul to the Peach Blossom Realm.
“You remained unconscious after that, living in a vegetative state.”
“...Ha. Ha.”
After hearing Lee Hui-ju’s explanation, Baek Hyun could only laugh in disbelief. In truth, it couldn’t have been helped. Only souls could enter the Peach Blossom Realm, not physical bodies. Once the soul left, the body became an empty shell and remained in this world.
If Baek Hyun’s body had disappeared from this world, a new one would have formed when he returned from the Peach Blossom Realm. Fortunately, however, his body had stayed alive for five years, even if it had been in a vegetative state.
“Why am I here?”
“Pardon?”
Lee Hui-ju’s eyes widened at his question.
“Isn’t it a little strange? I suddenly collapsed and ended up in a vegetative state... Fine, I get that. But why am I in this hospital? And lying in a private room that looks this expensive?”
“Oh...”
Only then did Lee Hui-ju realize what he meant, and she gave a wry smile.
“...You’re asking who’s paying your hospital bills?”
“Yes. I did have some money saved up, but not much. No matter how good health insurance is, I doubt it would cover caring for someone in a private room this expensive when nobody knows if they’ll ever wake up.”
“...That’s true. Someone else has been covering all the costs of your hospital stay and treatment.”
“Who?”
Baek Hyun couldn’t help feeling puzzled. It might have made sense if he had parents or other family, but he was an orphan.
“Mr. Seo Min-sik.”
He thought he had misheard.
Seo Min-sik.
There was no way he wouldn’t recognize that name. Of the very few people Baek Hyun knew, that bastard had been around the longest. His childhood best friend, who had been glued to his side since his first orphanage. The first person Baek Hyun had fought, back when he was eleven. They had gone to the same elementary and middle schools. Though they had attended different high schools, they had stayed in touch and met whenever they had time.
“Did Min-sik win the lottery?”
Baek Hyun asked in a daze.
“Where did that bastard get the money... Wait, don’t tell me... Did Min-sik die? Is this life insurance or something? Did he leave a will asking someone to look after me with his insurance money...”
“You must’ve watched a lot of TV dramas before your accident.”
“No, it doesn’t make sense. Where would Min-sik get that kind of money? He was just working part-time jobs, same as me.”
“You may not know this, Mr. Baek, but Mr. Seo is very famous.”
Lee Hui-ju spoke calmly, trying to settle him down.
“Four years ago, when the Abyss appeared, many people entered it and seized an opportunity. Mr. Seo was one of them. He was chosen by Tempest, one of the thirteen monarchs of the Abyss, and he’s steadily developed his abilities and power there ever since. He now works as a freelance hunter.”
Baek Hyun’s jaw dropped. Seo Min-sik, who used to make cup noodles while working the night shift at an internet cafe. The same Seo Min-sik who had kept him awake every night by sending him messages on KakaoTalk because he was bored. He had become a freelance hunter famous enough that nearly everyone knew him.
‘Min-sik...’
More than that, though, Baek Hyun was touched that Seo Min-sik had been paying his expensive hospital bills for five years. They were childhood best friends, but it couldn’t have been a small amount of money. Yet he had willingly paid it all. And this was Seo Min-sik, a stingy bastard who had never once properly treated Baek Hyun to a drink.
“...Where’s Min-sik now?”
“...I tried contacting him after I saw you were awake, but I haven’t been able to reach him. I suspect he’s in the Abyss.”
“Really? Well, I’ll be going, then.”
“Wait. Where do you think you’re going?”
As Baek Hyun tried to get up, casually bringing the conversation to an end, Lee Hui-ju hurried to stop him.
“You were in a vegetative state for five years. To be honest, I don’t understand how you’re having a perfectly normal conversation with me right now.”
“...Well, these things happen.”
“No, they don’t. Just a few hours ago, you were lying in that bed, and I examined you myself. But...”
Lee Hui-ju trailed off and looked him up and down.
“...I was so flustered that it took me a while to notice, but you look very different from earlier.”
“How?”
“Your body. We used medicine and magic to maintain it as best we could, but the way you are now... Nobody would ever believe you’d just woken up after five years in a vegetative state. What on earth happened...?”
“Must’ve been a miracle.”
“...Let’s run some thorough tests first.”
“All right.”
Baek Hyun nodded obediently and began to rise.
“But could I get something to eat before that? I’m hungry.”
“You’ll have to wait until the tests are finished.”
Lee Hui-ju answered coldly. Smacking his lips, Baek Hyun got out of bed. He looked around the room, then walked over to the window and looked outside. Perhaps because it was a private room, the view was excellent. What floor was this? It seemed to be above the tenth floor, at least. As Baek Hyun looked down through the window, he asked as though something had just occurred to him.
“Oh, by the way. What happened to the things I had with me when I collapsed? My phone, my wallet...”
“Your belongings?”
“Yes.”
“They’re in that wardrobe over there. Mr. Seo specifically asked us not to throw any of them away.”
Baek Hyun chuckled. It was probably because neither of them had owned much back then. He approached the wardrobe Lee Hui-ju had pointed out. When he opened it, he found the clothes he had been wearing on his way home from work five years ago, hanging inside. Baek Hyun reached out and touched them. A black short-sleeved T-shirt and shorts he had bought at a market. Five years had passed, but the clothes were still the same. Noticing a bulge in the shorts’ pockets, he felt them and found his wallet and phone still there.
‘I owe Min-sik a lot, in more ways than one.’
With that thought, Baek Hyun glanced back at Lee Hui-ju.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry...?”
Before Lee Hui-ju could finish, Baek Hyun grabbed the clothes from the wardrobe and started running toward the window. Never having imagined that he might do something so insane, Lee Hui-ju’s eyes went wide.
“M-Mr. Baek?!”
Baek Hyun didn’t answer. As he started running toward it, the closed window swung wide open as if welcoming him. Lee Hui-ju hurriedly reached out. Green wind rose behind her and tried to catch him. But a mere gust of wind wasn’t enough to hold Baek Hyun. Without fear, he threw himself out of the window.
“Aaaah!”
He heard Lee Hui-ju scream. Baek Hyun fell, swinging his legs. He didn’t look down. Instead, he looked into the distance. Unlike the gray sky of the Peach Blossom Realm, the sky over Seoul was blue, and a lively city stretched beneath it.
“Wow.”
With that brief cry of wonder, Baek Hyun’s feet kicked off the empty air, with nothing beneath them.
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