The Hero Returns

Chapter 397: Chapter 397

Act 10

Samsara is a Buddhist concept where a human repeats the cycle of death and rebirth through six different "worlds."

Rather than calling it one's ability, it was far closer to being a religious concept. Su-hyeun didn't know much about it, but he still got deeply puzzled by the fact that his supposed unique ability was related somehow to a Buddhist concept.

And at least in this very moment, he was deeply taken aback after realizing what his unique ability was capable of doing.

"It distorts the chain of Samsara."

The name of one's unique ability was not set. The system was actually responsible for coming up with a suitable name, and the assigned name would be based on the language, knowledge, and terms that Su-hyeun was familiar with.

Samsara was basically the link that connected death and rebirth, and Su-hyeun's ability—his unique ability of "Samsara"—distorted that very link and returned him to the past.

[Samsara - Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation]

<ul>

The authority of Samsara, which allows one to go against one's fate, can defy death and is also capable of distorting the chain of time itself. It can be used only once.

You can return to the period you wish.

Number of uses left: 0

Has already been used.

</ul>

The first authority of the Six Paths, the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation, was the ability that could not only return him to the period he wished for but also even defy death itself.

Su-hyeun became stupefied by that explanation. Never before in his whole life did he imagine that there would be such an OTT cheat ability like this one, and he would be the one to possess it.

On top of that, to think that he had already used that ability up…

"Is this the reason why I was able to return to the past?"

Regressing to the past—such a thing should normally be impossible to pull off.

No matter how transcendental the abilities of the awakeners were, interfering with the flow of time to return to the past and messing with the future could not be that easy to pull off.

But now, he was told that such an ability was actually his, to begin with.

"The Six Paths, is it…?"

Even though this was supposed to be his own ability, it kind of felt like a tale from a distant galaxy or some such.

"The authority for one-time use only…and there are six of them as its name suggests.'

And this "Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation" had been unlocked just before Su-hyeun's death.

He didn't want to die. No, he wanted to go back instead.

He wanted to go back to the time when the world hadn't been destroyed yet. He wanted to go back and start everything anew.

That desire of his activated the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation.

"But…something is still off."

He was suddenly overcome with an unexplainable discomfort.

Fine, let's say that things now made some sense at least up to this point.

But why…?

"Why not my previous body and this current one instead?"

Since he was going back in time, it would have been fine to simply regress to his old self, but he regressed to the past of this person named Su-hyeun. At the same time, the existence of Kim Sung-in was wiped out from this world.

This was what he found so strange.

"Just what on earth is—?"

Just as his thoughts reached this point, his point of view suddenly shifted.

This new POV couldn't have been Su-hyeun's. He seemed to be somewhere far, far away—an unknown space.

He had no way of knowing where he was exactly, but it was definitely not Earth.

It even seemed different from outer space. Never mind the stars, there was no trace of the sun, either.

Pitch-black with nothing in it—it was that kind of place.

Although there was no light, Su-hyeun's eyes spotted a single silhouette nevertheless.

"Fafnir?"

Why was he seeing that creature?

Su-hyeun had no memories of seeing a scene like this before. If everything he saw up until this point was based on his own past memories that happened before the activation of the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation, then yes, he'd be convinced by that explanation. But this scene of Fafnir all alone, floating around somewhere? Su-hyeun couldn't recognize it at all.

"Why am I seeing the past of this bastard—?" Su-hyeun began wondering, only for his brain to come to a standstill.

"No, it can't be."

<hr />

Around one month had passed by since Su-hyeun's disappearance. He went away while saying he would only take a short while, but now…

Lee Ju-ho was currently sitting side by side with Hak-joon, worriedly fidgeting with his smartphone.

"That punk, he still hasn't come back yet, I suppose," Lee Ju-ho muttered.

He came to work early in the morning and waited in the Jongno Tower, but unsurprisingly, there hadn't been any reply from Su-hyeun yet.

Could something have happened to him?

Hak-joon had come from an early dawn raid of a dungeon found in the countryside. While sitting next to Lee Ju-ho, he asked with worry showing on his face, "What did he say before leaving?"

"He was like, I'll be going somewhere for a bit, along with this 'younger brother' of mine."

"Wait, 'younger brother'?"

"Yeah. That guy was a bit peculiar…But also really strong—strong enough to raid an indigo-colored dungeon all by himself, no less," Lee Ju-ho said as he turned to look at Hak-joon. "At the very least, he should be around your level."

Hak-joon, who hadn't returned from the tower in a long while, had improved by a remarkable level in terms of strength, so much so that he was now strong enough to solo raid an indigo-colored dungeon, as soon as returning from the tower, too. Lee Ju-ho knew that the younger man had the talent for it, but he still didn't expect the latter to develop this quickly.

"Maybe Su-hyeun has something important to do with that person?"

"I can't tell. In any case, that weird fella didn't come across as a normal awakener, that's for sure. Even I'm wondering who he could be."

"I'm sure nothing has happened to Su-hyeun. We shouldn't worry about him."

"Even though you said that, why do you look more worried than me?"

"Because I haven't seen him in a long while, you know?"

Unlike Lee Ju-ho who stopped climbing the tower, Thomas and Hak-joon, as well as Su-hyeun, didn't have a lot of opportunities to meet up with each other.

Except for a few days, all of them devoted most of the months trying to climb the tower, so they simply didn't have many chances to run into one another on the outside.

"Well, it's not like this matter can be solved by us worrying away, anyway. Since Su-hyeun said something before leaving, it shouldn't be something major. Okay, let's not mind that. Can you tell me more about the next request instead?"

"Why don't you take a short break before going, though?"

"But didn't you say it's urgent?"

Lee Ju-ho merely groaned when Hak-joon asked that. Then, he took out a tablet, switched the screen on, and then handed it over to Hak-joon.

"The request this time came from Australia. The explanations are on the tablet, so study them in detail," he said.

"When will I be heading out?" the younger man asked.

"In one hour. Take a break in the meantime. It's not that urgent, you see."

Hak-joon had been constantly on the move for the last few days without taking a single break due to several dungeons simultaneously appearing. Quite a few blue- and indigo-colored dungeons showed up at the same time, and as a result, many requests for the Paragon Guild's assistance had piled up, waiting to be cleared as soon as possible.

Currently, all the members of the Paragon Guild bar Hak-joon were unavailable, which meant that there was no choice for him but to remain busy for the time being.

"What a sudden mess this is," muttered Hak-joon.

"Yeah, and it all began about a fortnight ago. Dungeons suddenly showed up in large numbers, and more are still showing up even now."

For a while, the dungeons remained "quiet," so much so that people even wondered if they would vanish from the world for good. Their numbers continued to decline until it became almost impossible to locate even one. That was last month.

But then, about 15 or so days ago, the number of dungeons suddenly exploded. At least 50 percent more than the peak period showed up at once, making it too difficult to deal with them all.

To make matters worse, most of the awakeners were currently in the tower after having failed to acquire dungeon raid permits earlier.

So to experience such a situation…

"You know, I've been getting this feeling recently," said Hak-joon.

"What feeling?"

"The future Su-hyeun was worried about, it might not be all that far ahead in the future, after all…That kind of feeling."

Lee Ju-ho went silent at that. That sentiment was something that always threatened to come out of Lee Ju-ho's mouth only for him to suppress it.

But now, Hak-joon went and said it first. All along, Lee Ju-ho had been wondering if he was the only one thinking about that, but it seemed that he wasn't alone, after all.

"This won't do. I better get a move on. I'll just get some rest on the plane."

"Okay, do that. I'll call them and let them know that you're leaving sooner than scheduled."

"Thanks, bro. Let's talk more after I—"

Just as Hak-joon got ready to leave…

Clack—

The sudden sound of the window being pulled open caused the two men to turn their heads in that direction, and in that location was…

"Ah, Hak-joon's here, too?"

"Su-hyeun?!"

"Huh, is that you, Su-hyeun?"

Su-hyeun was climbing through the open window.

Tap—

Su-hyeun, finally reappearing after a month-long absence, lightly waved his hand as his greeting—a sudden greeting and entrance through the window and not the usual door…?

Lee Ju-ho hurriedly asked Su-hyeun, "Just where have you been? And why the rush? Did something happen?" While asking that, he took a good look at the latter's state from top to bottom. "You don't look injured anywhere, at least…Where's that little brother you were with?"

"Where have you been for the past month?"

Both Lee Ju-ho and Hak-joon began peppering Su-hyeun with questions, so the latter urgently waved his hands to indicate that they should slow down.

But then, he realized what Hak-joon said just now and turned his head in surprise. "Past month?"

"Yes, it's been a month since—"

"Wait, what? It's been a month?! Not a week?"

Su-hyeun definitely thought that it had only been a few days since he left. Sure, he did spend several days trying to rescue the false World Tree, but a whole month? That's far longer than what he could remember.

Not one week but a whole month…

"More specifically, it's been one month and two days. It's June already."

Su-hyeun muttered, "Time sure flies, doesn't it?"

"Okay, so please tell us already. It looks like you don't remember properly what happened to you."

It was true that Su-hyeun rushed here to talk to Lee Ju-ho, but it was also true that, in his haste, he had not properly organized his thoughts just yet.

"The thing is…" Su-hyeun scratched his head for a little while before finally speaking again, "First of all, I'm actually from the future."

<hr />

Su-hyeun spoke about the things that happened while he was with Luslec, the matters involving the predator inside the false World Tree, and the "real" World Tree he got to meet afterward inside the tree trunk.

Then, he told them about the World Tree's seed he received as a reward and the unique ability he acquired after consuming the seed.

Finally…

"Not sure whether to believe everything you said or not…"

There was no discernible difference between Lee Ju-ho's reaction and Hak-joon's. They both had this dazed expression as if they couldn't quite come to grips with the current reality.

"Still, yeah, I can sort of understand now. Your rate of growth was just too fast to be simply your natural talent at work, after all."

The first person to break the silence and nod away was Lee Ju-ho.

What made Su-hyeun's explanation that much more convincing was his strength and the rate of his growth. That rate was hard to explain based on his talent alone, but the story would radically change if that talent, enough to turn him into the world's greatest awakener in the first place, was reinforced by his experience of several decades.

When thought about that way, Lee Ju-ho began getting a feeling that all those unanswered questions were getting finally resolved after listening to Su-hyeun today.

It was the same for Hak-joon.

"I'll believe you since it's you, Su-hyeun. Like what Ju-ho said, it's not that hard to believe, and you are definitely not the type to say these things for a laugh, anyway. I mean, you don't have a reason to lie about stuff like this, right?"

Fortunately, the two men accepted it rather quickly. They had been more accepting because of their trust in Su-hyeun and the probability arising from the chain of events that happened so far.

With that, the need for more complicated explanations was eliminated.

"Still, Su-hyeun, you had to live a really harsh life, didn't you? Before you regressed, you had to fight all alone before the world was destroyed, lost your life against that monster called Fafnir, and now, you…" Hak-joon was unable to finish the rest of his sentence, choosing to swallow his words back down.

Indeed.

Su-hyeun died. He then returned to the past and was still fighting away. He silently shouldered the burden of the future only he knew and continued to run forward at full tilt hoping to prevent that very future from happening again.

That was what he had been doing all along.

"Although that end of the world being true still doesn't feel real to me…"

The world would be destroyed not too long from now, as this future had already happened before. However, that fact still didn't feel real to Hak-joon since he was not like Su-hyeun, who had personally "experienced" that reality once before.

It almost felt like listening to people saying that Earth would be destroyed one of these days through global warming.

"I always thought that the apocalypse could be stopped," Su-hyeun said in a graver, heavier voice.

Both Lee Ju-ho and Hak-joon held their breath at how serious Su-hyeun sounded. What he said just then indicated his belief in being strong enough to kill Fafnir.

"I'm a lot stronger than back then, and the world is in a much better shape overall, after all. Most of the calamities have been overcome, and the denizens of the world are much stronger than ever before, too." Su-hyeun stopped there for a second and rubbed his face with his hand. "But then…things have gotten a bit more complicated."

"How come?" Hak-joon asked, voice also getting serious.

Su-hyeun recalled the past he saw through the awakening of his unique ability, as well as the Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation—more specifically, that space where not a single thing, not even a speck of light, existed. Then, he remembered the giant creature with the head of a dragon floating within that space.

Fafnir.

The Heavenly Ways of Reincarnation didn't just make one error while sending Su-hyeun back in time, which was sending him into someone else's body. Indeed, that ability made two distinctive errors.

The second one being…

"Because that bastard also came back to the past along with me."

None other than Fafnir's regression.