WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Our Precious Demon King ◈
Chapter 8: Success After Divorce
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He had finally reunited with his family.
“Wow. Are these your daughter and son?”
“Yeah. My oldest is a high school senior, and my youngest is in eighth grade.”
“Oh, hello. I’m Yu Jia.”
“Hello. I’m Yu Jihun.”
The siblings felt terribly awkward around this uncle who had appeared out of nowhere.
Especially since he looked like he was in his early twenties...
“And who’s...?”
“Oh, this is my summon.”
“What?”
Kim Junyong grinned at Kim Jangmi’s startled face.
“I thought you’d be seeing a lot of each other, so I brought Remi along. Say hello.”
“I’m Remi.”
“Oh, yes...”
“Remi, go back inside.”
Whoosh.
Remi vanished without a word, surprising Kim Jangmi and her children all over again.
“C-come inside first.”
Kim Junyong entered his older sister’s home.
They sat facing each other on the living room floor, with Kim Jangmi holding tightly to his hands.
“How? How did this happen?”
“Oh, that.”
Kim Junyong confidently told them everything.
How he had fallen from the sky when he returned.
How he had wandered the streets, killed a rapist, and saved a high school girl.
How he had escaped from the Hunter Management Bureau, and so on.
By the time he finished, Kim Jangmi and her children were sitting with their mouths wide open.
“Th-this is insane...”
Yu Jia hurriedly picked up her smartphone and searched the news.
(Breaking News) Signs of a Terrorist Attack at Special Investigation Unit Headquarters
“This is insane! It’s real.”
“Wow, Uncle, you’re awesome.”
“What do you mean, awesome, you idiot?”
Yu Jia looked utterly confused.
“What are we going to do? Won’t we all get arrested?”
“Come on, kiddo. I made sure they understood me, so that won’t happen.”
“No!”
Yu Jia was speechless as she stared at the man she didn’t know whether to call her uncle or a walking disaster that had landed on their doorstep.
But what bothered her even more than his shameless grin was the worry returning to her mother’s face.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“We need to talk.”
“No. Later. You two go to your rooms.”
“Why? We’re family, too!”
“Enough. Get in there!”
The siblings were chased into a bedroom, but all their attention remained on the living room. Jia asked her younger brother, who had his ear pressed against the door.
“Can you hear anything?”
“Not really.”
“Haah. We’ve got a criminal in our house.”
“What do you mean, criminal? He’s a hunter. If you think about it, he did a good thing. The guy was a rapist, wasn’t he?”
“What difference does that make?”
“Oh, come on. Jia, when soldiers kill people in a war, is that murder? No. That’s an achievement in battle.”
“...”
Her brother wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Besides, he’s our uncle.”
“You only met him today, and you’re already calling him Uncle?”
Just then, a loud voice came from the living room.
[Will you two be quiet!]
Yu Jihun flinched, then silently stuck out his lower lip.
“You got us in trouble.”
“Hey! Is that any way to talk to your big sister?”
“Whatever. Just be quiet for a second.”
While the siblings bickered, a fairly important conversation was taking place in the living room.
“So what are you planning to do now?”
“What else? I’ve finally come home. I’m going to get some proper rest.”
The immediate problem seemed serious, but Kim Jangmi nodded for now.
Twenty years had passed since the Day of Beginning.
Returnees, devils, villains... These were all part of everyday life now. She might not know as much as someone like her son, who admired that world and eagerly studied it, but she knew enough.
From what she had heard, her brother was a returnee.
And he had only just come back after struggling on his own for two hundred years. It was like returning home after serving in a war, so he deserved a good rest.
Once they dealt with the trouble he was in right now, of course...
“What about you?”
“Hm?”
“How have you been living all this time?”
Kim Junyong changed the subject.
Rather than tell her about his dark, dreary, horrifying two hundred years, he wanted to hear about his sister’s twenty years.
“I got married, had the kids, and lived my life. Mom and Dad passed away. About five years after you went missing...”
“I see.”
“...You’re taking it calmly.”
“It’s been two hundred years. I wasn’t expecting anything. Just getting to see you again is a huge gift.”
“Junyong...”
Tears welled up in Kim Jangmi’s eyes again.
“What about your husband?”
“We divorced.”
“Hmm.”
The conversation came to a halt.
So there was no man of the house.
“Don’t worry. You’ve got me.”
“What?”
“I’ll provide for your family from now on.”
“Junyong.”
“What?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“...?”
Being a doctor didn’t necessarily mean she made a lot of money, did it?
And more importantly, wasn’t it a demanding job?
“But don’t your bosses give you a hard time? You don’t have to put up with that.”
“I’m the boss.”
“Huh?”
“It’s my clinic.”
“...”
His sister ran her own clinic?
“Junyong. Money isn’t what we need to worry about right now.”
Talking quietly with her brother about the past had helped Kim Jangmi calm down. It had also given her the courage to face their practical problems again.
“Will the Bureau really leave you alone?”
“They will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because if they don’t leave me alone, I won’t put up with it?”
“...”
Her brother had become rather reckless.
His answer offered no real solution, but Kim Jangmi swallowed her sigh.
“Go wash up first. I’ll make you something to eat.”
“Hehe, okay.”
Kim Junyong headed straight for the bathroom.
“Now this is civilization.”
Belheim’s magical civilization wasn’t bad, but he had always missed Earth’s scientific civilization.
“Ah, shampoo!”
That refreshing feeling of destroying nature.
While Junyong worked hard to scrub away the old grime, Yu Jia and Yu Jihun crept out of the bedroom.
“Mom, why are you cooking at this hour?”
“You two go to bed.”
“How are we supposed to sleep? I’m on edge, wondering when the police will show up.”
“...”
That was exactly why.
Kim Jangmi was just as anxious.
She didn’t know when her brother might be dragged away again, so she wanted to give him at least one warm meal.
Of course, the best outcome would be for nothing to happen, just as he had said...
But when did the world ever work that way?
“I’ll handle it, so go to bed!”
“Tch.”
“Jihun, you sleep in my room.”
“Okay.”
Once the siblings had been chased away, a generous meal began to fill the dining table.
“Ooh, soybean paste stew.”
“Oh, wait a moment. I’ll get you some rice.”
Kim Jangmi hurriedly scooped out a bowl of rice while tending the bulgogi.
“Go on, eat.”
“What about you?”
“I ate earlier.”
“Really? Then thanks for the food.”
Slurrrp.
“Ahh, that’s incredible!”
Yes, this was the taste he remembered.
In Belheim, he had enjoyed greater power than an emperor.
He had eaten every delicacy imaginable, but the taste of home was always special.
“...”
Watching her brother wolf down his food, Kim Jangmi worried in silence.
‘What am I going to do?’
How hard must it have been?
Even going to another country was difficult, yet her brother had been sent to a distant world and drafted into a war against the Demon King’s army.
She had heard that the last returnees came back ten years ago.
‘He was left behind. Everyone else pulled out, but my brother spent another ten years... No, another hundred years wandering that horrible battlefield.’
How could anyone stay normal in an environment like that?
Her eyes filled with pity as she watched him.
“Eat slowly.”
“Wow, I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in two hundred years.”
“...I’ll get you more rice. Give me your bowl.”
Feeling as though she might burst into tears, she took his empty bowl and quickly filled it again.
“Hehe. It’s good to be home.”
“If only Mom and Dad could see you...”
“Yeah.”
Despite his agreement, he didn’t look very sad.
She looked sadly at her brother, whose emotions had been worn away by years on the battlefield.
‘It has to be PTSD.’
Hadn’t he only just returned from an extremely stressful situation?
Perhaps that explained his clash with the Bureau, too.
The two spent so long catching up that they only went to their rooms at three in the morning.
Junyong lay down in the teenage boy Yu Jihun’s room.
“A niece and a nephew, huh...”
It was a strange feeling.
Was this the pull of family ties?
They weren’t even his own children, so what was this warm, ticklish feeling already growing inside him?
Was this affection?
“Hehe.”
Cute kids.
In any case, he felt good.
It was a warmth he had never experienced in Belheim.
He had enjoyed absolute power there, but he could say with certainty that he liked it better here.
“They still haven’t come. I guess they understood me.”
There had been no word from either the Bureau or the police.
The South Korean government had just escaped the danger of collapse.
For Kim Junyong, it was a relief that South Korea, which he had yet to enjoy, remained intact.
He had nearly destroyed it.
“Shall I get some sleep?”
He settled into the soft bed and closed his eyes.
But his peaceful sleep didn’t last long.
“Hmm?”
<The Scales begin an interim reckoning.>
Huh? What was that supposed to mean?
Was he still dreaming? Had the sun already set? No, that couldn’t be right.
He got up and drew back the curtain. Dawn was only just breaking.
<Bel’s Scales are heavily tilted.>
<Bel’s Scales intervene to restore balance.>
<‘Reflection’ is placed on the pan of order.>
<‘Pain Sharing’ is placed on the pan of order.>
<‘Emotion Sharing’ is placed on the pan of order.>
“Nngh.”
Kim Junyong’s body trembled at the sudden pain.
Emotions such as fear and hesitation came rushing in after it.
Kim Junyong immediately began examining his own state.
‘What the...?’
Kim Junyong, the dark mage.
He had started out as Experiment Subject 1.
Pain and despair like this were all too familiar.
He looked at the golden scales with an indifferent expression.
When the orbs with yin-yang patterns that had just appeared on the pan of order shattered, the minor orbs on the opposite side, such as those for inciting violence and making threats, shattered along with them.
‘It wouldn’t matter if I just left Remi alone without giving any direct orders...’
But he couldn’t remove the restraints on Remi just to avoid this ticklish little pain.
He didn’t want Earth to be destroyed at Remi’s hands.
Szzzt.
Soon, all the pain disappeared.
When he got out of bed, his whole body was soaked in sweat.
“This isn’t even child’s play.”
<...>
It hurt, but it had no real impact.
The golden scales were still tilted toward chaos.
Three black orbs remained on them.
“Hey, you said you’d do this once a day. What’s with the interim reckoning?”
<When the imbalance is severe, I intervene early to resolve it.>
“Unbelievable.”
Kim Junyong shook his soaking-wet hair.
The scales had said they would weigh each day’s deeds.
‘Rewards for good deeds, punishment for bad ones?’
The daily reckoning was at sunset.
Was the interim reckoning at sunrise?
Either way, he wasn’t getting any more sleep.
“So much for sleeping.”
He had only slept a few hours.
It was early, but he had no choice. He got up and left the room.
“You’re up, Junyong?”
“Hmm?”
Kim Jangmi and Yu Jihun were eating at the dining table.
“Where’s your oldest?”
“She’s already gone to school.”
“Huh?”
The sun had only just come up.
Why did school start so early?
“Come sit down. Have some breakfast.”
Before he knew it, he was sitting at the table. Jihun was already eating in his school uniform, too. Kim Junyong looked at his sister, who was smiling as she served the rice.
“Did something good happen?”
“Of course. Jihun knows quite a lot about hunters, you see.”
Jihun explained why.
“Since they still haven’t come to arrest you, Uncle, I think the Bureau’s listed you as a person of concern. There used to be a Returnee Management Program, you know?”
“What’s that?”
“A lot of returnees become villains, so it helps them adjust to society.”
“Oh.”
“I think they’ve decided to watch you for now. If you don’t cause any unnecessary trouble and show them you’re settling in well, I think the Bureau will reach a favorable decision.”
For now, Kim Jangmi seemed satisfied simply that her brother wasn’t being taken away.
“I’m so sorry. This was all so sudden that I couldn’t change my schedule. You’ll have to stay on your own until I finish work.”
“Hmm? That’s fine. I’ll go out and have a look around.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Let’s go somewhere together around six.”
“Sure, sounds good.”
Kim Jangmi handed him a credit card.
“Use this to buy whatever you need. Get yourself a phone, too.”
“Okay.”
Still deeply reluctant to leave and full of worry, Kim Jangmi headed out to work.
Yu Jihun had been picking at his food, but once they were alone, his eyes sparkled.
“Uncle. Did you really live there for two hundred years?”
“I did.”
“Wow, that’s freaking awesome. Then did you see the Last Heroes, too?”
“The Last Heroes?”
“At around the hundred-year mark in Belheim time, the seven Last Heroes killed the Demon King and came back.”
“Oh, those guys who got wiped out?”
“What? Wiped out?”
Kim Junyong chuckled.
A hundred years ago was when he had been very active.
“A Demon King was only ever killed once in Belheim.”
“Did you see it yourself?”
“Of course. I killed the Demon King myself.”
“...? Come on.”
Yu Jihun narrowed his eyes.
Even if he wanted to take his family’s side, he couldn’t believe this. His uncle was bragging way too much.
“Then are you saying the Last Heroes were lying?”
“Looks that way.”
“What?”
“...?”
“I-is that really true?”
“I don’t lie.”
Doing that weakened his word magic.
Lies were poison to a mage.
But his nephew’s expression was half doubt and half confusion.
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