Chapter 44

Waking to the morning light, Myeong-joo realized he was left entirely alone in the suite prepared as their bridal chamber. As if yesterday’s ordeal had been a dream, his body—once drenched in unmentionable fluids—was impeccably clean, yet felt strangely battered and worn. When he straightened his waist, a throbbing ache radiated from an area that had never known pain in all his living days.

In the end, he let out a laugh that sounded like a sigh. “Bloody hell…”

The moment he uttered the curse and rose from the bed, the suite telephone rang. Without minding that the blanket slipped to the floor, Myeong-joo made his way toward the console in the living room. He had to waddle awkwardly, feeling as though a thick log had been wedged between his thighs, making it impossible to bring his knees together. He could hardly remember how he normally walked. Forcing his swollen eyelids open, he reached out and lifted the receiver.

“Yes, Cha Myeong-joo speaking.”

He found it strange that a call should come to the newlywed suite so early in the morning. While Yi-tan had indeed already departed for the front, there was no reason for outsiders to be aware of it. Yet the voice coming through the receiver was entirely unexpected.

“Is this Sergeant Cha Myeong-joo? Allow me to introduce myself, sir. I am Sergeant Yun Ji-gwan, one of the men in Second Lieutenant Lee’s highland defense platoon.”

“Ah, yes,” Myeong-joo replied.

The man introduced himself briskly. Myeong-joo had heard the name Yun Ji-gwan before, though that had not been after the time reversal. In the life before the reversal, Yi-tan’s platoon members had occasionally come to the newlyweds’ home for dinners. Despite Yi-tan’s invitations to join them, Myeong-joo had felt like an unwelcome parasite living on sufferance and never dared intrude. Whenever they visited, he would leave the house early, whiling away the night playing billiards downtown or lingering in tearooms over games of baduk[1].

At any rate, Yun Ji-gwan had been one of them, effectively serving as Yi-tan’s right-hand man. In this current life after the reversal, Ahn Hee-wan seemed to have taken that role. Still, seeing them at the reception yesterday, the relationship between Yun Ji-gwan and Ahn Hee-wan had appeared quite amicable. Evidently, there were facets of Ahn Hee-wan from the previous timeline that Myeong-joo had simply never known.

“It seems Major Lee Yi-ho has been dropping word that you should be requisitioned directly to the front line, Sergeant. Word came down from the front that you ought to prepare yourself mentally.”

Startled, Myeong-joo asked, “…Second Lieutenant Lee sent word?”

“Yes, sir, that is correct.”

Yun Ji-gwan answered cleanly. While it was difficult to fathom Major Lee Yi-ho’s motives for insisting on sending him to the front line, it was surprising that Lee Yi-tan had instructed his subordinate to give Myeong-joo advance warning about the upcoming deployment. Scratching the back of his head, Myeong-joo simply stated that he understood.

“There was also word that you might depart as early as tomorrow, so for today, you should go wait at the new marital residence.”

“…The marital residence?” Myeong-joo stammered.

Assuming his superior had already explained everything to his newly wedded Harmonizer, Yi-tan’s aide continued matter-of-factly. “Yes, the estate in Changpyeong-dong. Quarters for the young ladies have also been arranged nearby, so he said not to worry. Should you be concerned, Director Lee Seol-heon has offered to look after them at her own residence.”

“…I am not so sure. Myeong-hui might be one thing, but Myeong-in is a bit too grown to impose on another’s household…” Myeong-joo murmured hesitantly.

“Director Lee mentioned that the young ladies are remarkably gentle and well-mannered, so having them stay at her residence would be no trouble at all.”

“…”

It was only a little past nine in the morning, leaving Myeong-joo bewildered as to when Yi-tan had found the time to arrange accommodations for his younger sisters before departing. Unable to think of any further objection, Myeong-joo gave his assent, whereupon the sergeant suggested that since a car was being dispatched, Myeong-joo might depart directly for the marital estate. Once again, Myeong-joo agreed without complaint.

Hanging up the receiver, Myeong-joo stood bare in the living room, exhaling a deep breath before heading in to wash. Stepping beneath the shower, he struggled through a wave of stinging aches across his body, which looked as though a wild beast had savaged it.

“Good grief, does a man need to bite that fiercely…? What on earth could possibly come out of a man’s chest anyway?” Myeong-joo muttered in exasperation.

When applying soap over his chafed, stinging nipples, a sharp curse slipped out. His neck prickled with bites, and an odd, phantom fullness lingered in his lower core despite having emptied himself, leaving him utterly exasperated.

“Bloody… dammit…”

Drying himself with a towel proved even more agonizing. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, he was thoroughly drained. Standing blankly in the living room as he looked out across the distant panorama of Seowon and the winding Ari River, Myeong-joo suddenly remembered the dream he thought he had forgotten.

“You cannot do this to me.”

“…”

“You cannot do this to me…”

In the dream, Yi-tan’s cheeks were drenched with tears. Myeong-joo had felt only an overwhelming, helpless pity. Yet he could not stir his limbs at all, held fast within the youth’s embrace. He lacked the strength even to reach up and stroke those weeping cheeks.

“Please, Instructor, please…”

He had whispered as if pleading for his very life. But Myeong-joo had felt his soul slipping loose from his flesh—a distinct, unshakeable intuition that this was the end of his days. He wanted desperately to say something to him, but before his lips could part, his breath ceased.

The dream had ended there. Myeong-joo had woken before he could catch whatever final words Yi-tan had whispered to him. It did not seem to be the memory of his heart being pierced by fiendish fangs. Back then, death had been instantaneous, so such a lingering memory could hardly have survived—though he could not say for certain.

“I see…” Myeong-joo muttered softly.

A bleak, chilling revelation washed over him in the quiet room, unbidden and stark.

“I died back then as well.”

His voice was entirely hollow, echoing with the dull weight of bitter acceptance.

“Haha…” A dry, humorless chuckle escaped his lips.

What a pathetic wretch he had to be for all three lives to conclude with an untimely death.

Smiling thinly, he staggered across the carpet and pulled on his clothes. Soon after, he departed the hotel suite without looking back even once—a stark contrast to Yi-tan, who had turned his head several times before stepping out the door.

That had taken place a day before he left for the front line.

***

Just as he had done before the reversal of time, Lee Yi-tan succeeded in driving the demonic fiends—who habitually converged upon populous regions—back to the desolate borders. While it was not total eradication, it remained a heartening triumph for the people of Great Han, who had suffered terribly beneath their scourge for decades.

Demonic fiends lurked in the coastal waters surrounding the peninsula, in rugged mountain fissures, and throughout subterranean caverns before sweeping through nearby settlements to lay them waste. Typically measuring two to five meters in length, the most common variety stood roughly three meters tall, boasting dense, formidable skeletons of extraordinary weight.

“We extract roughly thirty to sixty liters of bone oil per beast, and considerably more when factoring in the blubber,” Sergeant Yun Ji-gwan said with an easy chuckle through his aviator sunglasses, a stalk of dried grass caught between his teeth. It was remarkably impressive how clearly he enunciated without ever spitting the straw out. “Refined into demonic fiend fuel, its efficiency exceeds ordinary petroleum nearly twentyfold, as you likely know.”

Myeong-joo offered a dry smile in response. “So the rumor that felling a single demonic fiend makes a man’s fortune is true?”

“Indeed it is. If the oil went toward consumer goods rather than military logistics, shipbuilding, and steel production, it would more than suffice.”

It had been only a few years since Great Han’s ravaged economy had begun to revive from the devastation wrought by the horde. Had the National Defense Science Research Institute—which had persistently investigated the creatures—not discovered three winters ago that rendering their carcasses yielded an energy source vastly superior to petroleum, the trampled soil of the peninsula might never have recovered so swiftly. Until then, most inhabitants had endured grinding poverty and bitter cold, stripping the hills bare for firewood to the point that a national arbor day had to be proclaimed by the state.

Yun Ji-gwan beamed broadly, the stalk bobbing between his lips. “Whenever I slaughter those bastards and use their rendered fat to drive our jeeps and tanks, I truly feel as though I’m taking proper revenge.”

Myeong-joo met the boast with mild amusement. “My word, you are rather bellicose for someone with your countenance, aren’t you?”

“What does my countenance look like?”

“You have a remarkably calm and gentle face.”

Yun Ji-gwan chuckled, seemingly flattered by the assessment.

Presently, Myeong-joo found himself at the Highland Defense Outpost erected on the absolute front line—a forward garrison established to reclaim high vantage points from the demonic fiends and maintain a vigilant watch against the emergence of their supreme sovereigns: the Temporal Demonic Fiend, the Solar Demonic Fiend, the Frost Demonic Fiend, and the Earth Demonic Fiend.

“At any rate, the platoon leader is not yet in sight,” the sergeant added with an apologetic grin. “He will arrive shortly, so please wait just a bit longer. Newlyweds having to endure such hardship—both of you have it rough.”

“Well, he will arrive when it is time.”

Having been summoned all the way to the front by Major Lee Yi-ho’s petty machinations, Yun Ji-gwan seemed to feel sheepish on his superior’s behalf. Myeong-joo merely shrugged it off. Where Lee Yi-tan had gone was of little consequence; his lingering concern lay entirely with the sisters he had left behind in the capital.

“I mean, why does oppa have to go all the way there too?!”

“Where are you going? Please take Myeong-hui too, please?”

Watching her elder sister flare up in indignant protest, little Myeong-hui had chimed in with anxious tears, tying Myeong-joo’s stomach in knots. Seeing the child look up with brimming eyes, he had gathered her into his arms and spent a long while soothing her.

Only after promising the girls at least a hundred times that he would return unharmed was he finally permitted to step out the door. Bowing repeatedly to Lee Seol-heon to entrust their welfare to her hands, Myeong-joo had climbed into Yun Ji-gwan’s military jeep bound for the north. He could only pray the children would manage… He had heard nothing of the move to Changpyeong-dong beforehand, yet Yi-tan had arranged it entirely on his own initiative. Consequently, Myeong-joo had been forced to awkwardly request that Director Lee oversee Myeong-hui’s school transfer on his behalf.

Yun Ji-gwan clicked his tongue. “Aigoo, it seems our second lieutenant has already earned himself a harsh scolding… Then again, who could look kindly upon a husband who dashed off to the front without even seeing through his wedding night? Even if you are a fellow soldier and a man, Sergeant, that’s hardly something one takes in stride.”

The comment roused Myeong-joo from his reverie. Yun Ji-gwanhad evidently misread the shadow cast across Myeong-joo’s face by worry for his family.

Catching the misunderstanding, Myeong-joo offered a faint smile. “What is there to take in stride? It is not as if I were unaware of his duties.”

Those words were entirely sincere. Myeong-joo truly harbored no grievance. He had never entertained any expectations of newlywed domesticity, and having actually performed the ceremony, that conviction was firmer still.

“Instructor.”

A familiar voice sounded from behind, carrying the crisp scent of dry earth and raw wind.

Turning around, Myeong-joo found Lee Yi-tan standing there. While Myeong-joo stiffened slightly at the unexpected arrival, the young officer wore an expression of undisguised delight.

“When did you arrive? How are you feeling? Forcing you all the way out to such a desolate outpost—I truly have no face before you.”

Genuinely overjoyed, Yi-tan poured out question after question in rapid succession. Watching him, Myeong-joo paused for a heartbeat before breaking into a wide, easy grin.

“What does it matter? I am a soldier and a Harmonizer as well,” Myeong-joo replied.

Casting his eyes over the young man’s shoulder, Myeong-joo noticed several military transports idling where the dust clouds had yet to settle, their drivers remaining behind the wheel with engines purring.

“It seems you’ve only stopped by briefly?”

Scrutinizing Myeong-joo’s face with slow care, Yi-tan gave a nod. “…Yes.”

Exhaling an exaggerated sigh, Myeong-joo patted Yi-tan’s muscular arm in encouraging camaraderie. “Good grief, you must have it rough. Be it harmonization or anything else, just say the word, Second Lieutenant.”

The mild smile slipped from Yi-tan’s face. His gaze dropped heavily toward his own forearm where Myeong-joo’s fingers rested. Belatedly wondering whether, despite his seniority in service years, a mere master sergeant was treating an officer with far too much casual familiarity, Myeong-joo gave the thick muscle a brief squeeze before withdrawing his hand.

“Mm…” A low, contemplative hum rumbled in Yi-tan’s throat.