Chapter 28

Though the wedding appeared to proceed at breakneck speed once the ceremony hall was agreed upon, there was virtually nothing Myeong-joo himself needed to manage. That was largely because Yi-tan insisted that Myeong-joo devote all his time to Harmonizer duties. It was a relief that Myeong-in and the aunts took charge of preparations and actually found Myeong-joo’s interference more bothersome than helpful.

Thus, half by personal determination and half by circumstance, Myeong-joo dedicated all his energies toward preparing to become Lee Yi-tan’s Harmonizer—even though fulfilling that role was a daunting task for someone still struggling to adapt to his sudden elevation in rank.

“Are you heading out again today?” Myeong-in asked softly as she prepared breakfast.

“Yes,” Myeong-joo replied with a gentle smile. “If I am late, go ahead and eat first. Do not skip meals.”

“I am hardly a child, stop fussing… Shall I pack you a lunchbox at least?” she offered with reluctant fondness.

“No need. It would only trouble you.”

Myeong-in clearly pitied her brother, who departed for training at the crack of dawn and returned late at night when little Myeong-hui sat nodding off by the front door waiting for him. Except when an excess of harmonization caused bitter bile to rise in his throat, devoting himself to training was manageable, so Myeong-joo squeezed her worried shoulders affectionately, planted a soft kiss on Myeong-hui’s sleeping brow, and departed.

Yet arriving at the academy meant enduring daily slights from all corners.

“Can you not even manage this much?” a young corporal scoffed in sneering disdain.

“I am indeed lacking. Please guide and instruct me,” Myeong-joo replied with a humble bow.

When an enlisted soldier barely older than Myeong-in picked a quarrel, Myeong-joo usually smiled and let it slide. Because the military’s supreme Aberrant had remained unpaired until now, countless Harmonizers had coveted that position, and an older man appearing out of nowhere seemed to have claimed it without breaking a sweat. Yet he could hardly pull rank on young recruits by citing his past service number. The trials Myeong-joo had survived were far beyond the petty hazing of greenhorns.

Furthermore, when they babbled snide remarks, he frequently brushed them aside without recognizing malice. Having crossed through death, his already placid nature had grown even thicker-skinned; when others spoke harshly, he merely thought their temper was prickly and let it pass. Moreover, Harmonizers of both sexes were generally petite in stature, so Myeong-joo, standing a full hand-span taller than the average man, rarely felt genuine fury toward them. It was like a carnivore ignoring the buzzing of a fly. His sole concern was refining his harmonization so as never to burden the man who served as the nation’s cornerstone.

“Difficult, so difficult…”

Perhaps because he had awakened late in life, it was immensely difficult for him to instantly draw forth the turbulent harmonization coiled within his body. Recently, Myeong-joo had been practicing not just transferring harmonization through skin-to-skin touch, but also ranged harmonization—a technique that allowed him to soothe an Aberrant from a distance.

No matter how vast the distance, you always channeled your harmonization to me. Even across several leagues, it was the same. As long as you perceive me, I could always receive your harmonization.

Lee Yi-tan had spoken those words with an intoxicated sense of wonder, as if reminiscing about a beloved past lover he had never forgotten. Myeong-joo had hoped to glean a practical hint regarding ranged harmonization, but instead, he was showered with boastful praises of the past instructor, leaving him thoroughly drained.

It would be untruthful to claim he had not wished to snap, asking why Yi-tan had turned back time instead of staying with the one he adored so much. Yet heroes bore burdens of their own. As a mere ordinary man, Myeong-joo did not pry into what Yi-tan had left unsaid. He too had secrets he wished to hide for eternity, so he deemed it fair reciprocity.

Whatever the truth, that legendary instructor must have been a peerless prodigy, capable of fashioning grenades from pinecones and crossing the raging Muman River on a single reed to achieve ranged harmonization. Meanwhile, the current Myeong-joo had been delivering gas cylinders merely two weeks prior; expecting himself to master such miracles felt absurd.

“I will deploy alone.”

When Yi-tan announced that without batting an eyelid, Myeong-joo’s heart plummeted like lead.

Under the guise of an urgent operational conference, Myeong-joo had been summoned unexpectedly to the Operations Directorate building during training hours. Standing bewildered before the office door, he had knocked and entered, finding Yi-tan seated alongside the Operations Directorate colonel he had once glimpsed from afar before regression. To Myeong-joo’s astonishment, the colonel had declared that both of them were to be deployed together in the upcoming battle.

A real battle!

Even prior to regression, Myeong-joo’s rank had been so low that he had never set foot on a battlefield. While he stood tongue-tied in shock, Yi-tan had bluntly voiced his outright rejection of the colonel’s orders.

He had assumed they had plenty of time, only now realizing that throughout this period, Yi-tan had been fighting all alone upon the front lines of death. Myeong-joo thought he was working diligently every day while leaving wedding preparations to his family, but evidently, effort alone was pitifully inadequate.

“Still, you are scheduled to pair with a Harmonizer of exceptional resonance, are you not?” Colonel Kim Jae-seon urged in a persuasive tone. “Though before the wedding, testing your coordination in this mission seems like a splendid opportunity.”

The director rose early to head the Operations Directorate. He had always aligned himself with the winning factions at every political turn, earning far more praise and gossip for his cunning than for his actual combat prowess as an Aberrant. Rumor had it he would soon be promoted to Brigadier General, so he moved with the utmost caution. That was why Yi-tan, the chosen centerpiece of the entire operation, flatly rejecting the Directorate’s plan left him seething with frustration.

The colonel turned crimson, unable even to vent his fury. “Lieutenant Lee, you’ve never been deployed alongside a Harmonizer either, have you?” the colonel pressed, his patience wearing thin. “It provides immense benefits to an Aberrant. So why, exactly, are you refusing?”

Even though his face shifted between red and pale with rage at a junior officer’s arrogance, the director’s tone softened in an almost pleading way. Watching a middle-aged commander try to coax obedience was a strange sight.

Yet Myeong-joo, standing as an observer, was too weighed down by guilt and inferiority to notice the ridiculousness of it all. I should have focused on his harmonization much earlier. Convincing himself that moving at his own pace was fine, even while recruits mocked him, had turned out to be a fatal mistake. He had become a half-prepared burden, forcing his future Aberrant partner toward the battlefield alone.

Yi-tan’s voice was firm and final. “My apologies, Colonel, but I will not repeat myself. I will fight this battle alone.”

Once again, the young officer refused to follow the colonel’s directive. Insiders knew Yi-tan’s Harmonizer was the dishonorably discharged Cha Myeong-joo, but it had never been formally announced. Myeong-joo had been working desperately to refine his harmonization while Yi-tan bought him time.

Yet Yi-tan made it clear that Myeong-joo was still unfit to step onto the battlefield. At least for now.

“Good heavens, what has gotten into you?” the colonel sputtered, disbelief dripping from each word.

The director clutched his chest in exasperation and cast sidelong glances at Myeong-joo. His eyes made it painfully obvious that he knew just how humiliating it was for a Harmonizer to be rejected by his own Aberrant.

Harmonizers were rare, and their physical abilities were no greater than those of normal civilians, which made their mortality rate exceptionally high. Higher-ranked Harmonizers thus received extreme reverence. A newly enlisted private with a higher Harmonizer rank than a seasoned sergeant who had served three years would instantly be granted better accommodations. Aberrants’ ranks determined treatment as well, but high-ranking Aberrants were often subjected to strict physical discipline to prevent mutiny or chaos in combat. Harmonizers, by contrast, were rarely treated that harshly. The military valued them in its own way, even while ignoring the harassment or relentless transfer demands imposed by Aberrants.

Naturally, the colonel watched Myeong-joo’s reaction closely. If Myeong-joo had still been a low-tier Grade 5 Harmonizer, the colonel would have accepted Yi-tan’s attitude without complaint. But his rank had recently undergone a dramatic rise. In the colonel’s eyes, Myeong-joo no longer deserved to be treated with such blatant disregard.

Myeong-joo felt the weight of those glances burn into his skin and cursed himself for failing to mask his expression. After years of crawling through the dirt delivering gas and oil, how could he betray even the slightest hint of mortification? It had to be because the person humiliating him was Yi-tan. He felt utterly pathetic.

And wasn’t Yi-tan’s judgment correct anyway? For someone still clumsy in harmonization to march onto the battlefield was reckless. He was, by all measures, unprepared.

Myeong-joo could not bring himself to raise his head.

“Instructor, would you mind waiting outside?” Yi-tan asked with a calm, almost casual smile.

He spoke lightly, unbothered by the director’s reaction or by Myeong-joo standing frozen like a statue.

“Ah…”

When Myeong-joo blinked dumbly, Yi-tan hummed softly, looking slightly troubled. “Operational details are generally classified.”

“Ah,” Myeong-joo echoed, backing toward the door. “Forgive me.”

Like a child breaking free in a game of freeze tag, he spun and headed for the exit. The colonel, who had summoned them to brief the joint mission, wore an apologetic expression. Myeong-joo saluted with a polite smile and left, unsure if he had managed a convincing grin or just a grimace to save face.

And so, before their formal pairing, Yi-tan departed for deployment with his Harmonizer seat left empty.

His mission was to assault a horde of over a hundred demonic fiends encamped near the Apho River. The operational force consisted of a single soldier: Second Lieutenant Lee Yi-tan. The Directorate assessed the demonic fiends as low-tier. In truth, a standard platoon of mid-tier Aberrants could have wiped them out. Yi-tan’s solo mission carried many suspicious undertones, suggesting the Directorate had assigned him a secret objective alongside the extermination.

Roughly two days after that office meeting, Yi-tan returned, mission complete.

The catastrophe erupted after he finished his debriefing at headquarters. At approximately 01:13 hours, right after the entire building flickered as though struck by a sudden blackout, the military’s supreme Aberrant, Lee Yi-tan, went on a violent rampage.

***

At the time, Myeong-joo had been heading home without the faintest inkling of trouble.

Worried about Yi-tan out on the battlefield, he had racked his memory for major incidents around this season in the life before his regression, but in vain; he could recall nothing out of the ordinary. He had comforted himself with the thought that had a true catastrophe occurred back then, it surely would have left an indelible mark.

“You’re worried about the Lieutenant?” an acquaintance at the training center had scoffed, noticing how pale Myeong-joo looked and how poorly he was focusing on his drills. “You might as well fret over the horoscopes in tomorrow morning’s paper. What’s your sign, Sergeant? I’ll read your fortune for you.”

The man had spoken partly out of ignorance, not knowing Myeong-joo and Yi-tan were betrothed, but also with that casual disdain reserved for an aging nobody presuming to worry about the nation’s hero. Myeong-joo had wondered if the man was right, yet an uneasy premonition had continued to gnaw at him. Though he told himself it was groundless anxiety, his chest had remained in turmoil.

Shaking off the idle thoughts, he decided to buy a plate of dumplings for the girls on his way home. With their livelihood somewhat stabilized, he had developed a quiet fondness for returning home with his hands full. Whenever his mind drifted into gloomy shadows, watching his sisters eat brought a simple, grounding solace.

He was picking through fruit at the market entrance when a sedan screeched to an abrupt halt along the avenue. Wondering what madman drove like that, Myeong-joo turned to walk away, only to freeze when a voice shouted his name from the curb.

“Sergeant Cha!”

The person leaning through the rolled-down window was Ahn Hee-wan.

Approaching the car in dazed confusion, Myeong-joo reached for the handle, only for Hee-wan to shove the passenger door open from within.

“What brings you—” Myeong-joo blanched, recoiling in shock. “Good heavens, what happened to your face?!”

As he climbed inside, the full horror of Hee-wan’s condition was laid bare: half of her face was crushed and mangled, blood and fluid weeping from the torn flesh. Yet as though she felt no pain at all, she merely barked at him to fasten his seatbelt. Dumbly complying, cold terror seized Myeong-joo as he remembered that she belonged to Yi-tan’s direct detachment.

“Did something…” His voice caught, dread tightening his throat. “Did something happen to the Lieutenant?”

He had no presence of mind to ask how she had tracked him down. Hee-wan stomped on the accelerator without answering, driving with such terrifying speed that it became impossible to even ask where they were heading. The paper bag of apples he had bought for the children had tumbled onto the pavement, leaving his hands empty.

Rubbing his dry face, Myeong-joo fumbled inside his coat and held out a handkerchief. “At least use this…”

Glancing sideways, Hee-wan snatched the cloth and pressed it against her ruined cheek—not to wipe away the gore, but to staunch the heavy hemorrhaging.

The car tore through the streets in grim silence. Though he burned to ask a hundred questions, Myeong-joo knew that remaining quiet while an injured soldier drove frantically was the only help he could offer, and so he locked his panic inside his chest.

Eventually, the sedan screeched to a halt before the subterranean complex housing the bunker. Having deduced Yi-tan’s condition from the state of Hee-wan’s face, Myeong-joo turned to her with a desolate look, bewildered as to why they had come to Special Forces Headquarters instead of a military hospital.

“His supernatural rampage entered the critical threshold,” Hee-wan stated grimly, her voice clipped. “He is currently confined inside the bunker.”

Her explanation was terse and final. Though he yearned for more details, she placed a firm hand against his back, her expression flat and unyielding. Resigned, Myeong-joo hurried inside. Even then, he could not truly fathom Yi-tan’s predicament. Even with Hee-wan’s face torn to ribbons, the concept of Yi-tan himself facing mortal destruction felt abstract.

Because he was Lee Yi-tan.

***