The Returnee Wants to Live Comfortably

Nice to Meet You! Friend.

It was a luxurious hospital room designed for the patient's comfort.

With a pleasant environment and excellent medical staff worthy of being called one of Korea's leading medical facilities, it was truly an enviable place for any patient to recuperate.

Humans have an instinctive desire to survive, and the peace that comes with such comfort must make them feel as though they can recover.

― Kill me... Please kill me... Please...!

However, among the patients here, there was one who alone rejected life.

She was engulfed in despair due to being trapped in a body that could not move, though her mind remained unscathed, and that despair soon turned into overwhelming terror.

Despite her intact reason, not only could she not move a finger, but she couldn't even utter a word.

Though her comatose body may appear to be at peace, her mind refused to rest and ceaselessly churned.

It was only a matter of time before her exhausted mind would eventually collapse from a lack of rest.

No matter how much she screamed, no one listened; she could not die even if she wanted to.

At this point, Kang Minji recalled what Sang-ah had once said.

[Just as you did to my mother, you deserve to experience the same thing.]

― Ah...

Letting out a painful moan inwardly, Kang Minji stared at Sang-ah's retreating figure as she left.

She couldn't use magic power, nor could she move her body.

She had become exactly like Sang-ah's mother.

At least the other was lost in unconscious sleep; for Kang Minji, it had become an endless Infinite Hell where she would never be able to sleep.

More than anything, she herself was the one who had reduced Sang-ah's mother to this condition.

― Kwon Sang-ah...

She called that name, but she knew she didn't deserve to hope for salvation.

In the end, her desperate wishes were cast into darkness, and Sang-ah and Seongjin stepped out of that dreadful hospital room.

.

.

"So you're the daughter of Guildmaster Kwon Yongha I've heard so much about? Nice to meet you. I'm Kang Ray, guildmaster of the Poison guild."

"And I'm Kang Jun, the vice-guildmaster. Nice to meet you."

"Yes... I'm Kwon Sang-ah."

Sang-ah and I stepped out of the room together and greeted them.

Thanks to Kwon Yongha's help, we were able to reach this VIP ward, but our goal was only to deliver final words to Kang Minji.

However, I had not expected to encounter the upper leadership of the Poison guild here.

Then again, considering that this facility was their private property, perhaps it wasn't so strange.

"That's right, Sang-ah. You really do resemble your father quite a bit, just like your oppa. Hahaha!"

"Ahahaha... Is that so...?"

Although Kang Ray spoke with a complimenting tone, Sang-ah's eyebrow twitched—she couldn't accept it as such.

Being compared to one of the Four Great Guildmasters was clearly meant as praise, but to Sang-ah, it didn't sound pleasant at all.

"And you really take after your oppa, too."

"..."

At those words, Sang-ah bit her lip.

It was one thing to be compared to her father, but hearing she resembled her oppa as well made her well up with irritation.

She felt as though her suppressed impulse to go berserk was about to burst forth.

Had the opponent been some local thug, things would have surely ended in a bloodbath by now.

"That aside—you're a dragon race as well, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Kang Jun, his eyes full of curiosity, threw out the question, startling Sang-ah.

His sudden zeal made her momentarily forget her anger.

"As I thought, my eyes weren't mistaken. Hahaha!"

"Um...?"

Kang Jun stared directly at the horn on Sang-ah's head with a strange gleam in his eyes.

Most ignorant people would have mistaken her for a common demonkin, but according to his knowledge, that horn could only belong to a dragon.

Though it was the horn of a dragon not yet fully grown, its existence was incredibly rare.

"You said your name was Sang-ah, yes?"

"So what if I did?"

"I was just wondering... if you might like to spend some...good time with this uncle of yours...."

A hybrid born between a human and a dragon race.

To Kang Jun, who was obsessed with dragon research, Sang-ah was an extraordinary treasure.

He had long wanted to experiment on her mother as well, but regretfully, he had to give up because her horn had been cut off.

'I actually knew about this girl's mother for some time now.'

Was it several years back?

His beloved niece, who now lay comatose, Kang Minji, had regularly extracted Sang-ah's mother's magic power and brought it to him.

He had praised his niece's adorable enthusiasm back then, and spurred on by that, Minji extracted even more magic power to present to him.

The one and only dragon race in this world called Earth.

Her blood and magic power were precious treasures, so he encouraged his niece to bring back more and more.

Energized by the praise, Kang Minji kept extracting from Sang-ah's mother without leaving a single drop.

The result...

'She became useless.'

Once all her magic power was drained and she fell into a coma, Kang Jun lost interest.

Harvesting another's flesh and blood was nothing to him—as long as the subject was just an experiment, the victim's life didn't matter.

But now, a promising replacement had appeared right before his eyes.

"With this uncle... um..."

The happiness of having found a new test subject left him speechless.

Eyes crazed with obsession, Kang Jun stared at Sang-ah with a greedy thrill that made her tremble.

"Spend some good time with uncle...."

Kang Jun reached out to grab Sang-ah's shoulder, closing the distance.

"I'm sorry, but we should get going now."

I stepped in before Kang Jun and took Sang-ah by the shoulder, pulling her to my side.

I bowed politely and attempted to take our leave.

"What? You're leaving already?"

"Yes, we only came to check up on Aunt Minji, that's all. Right, Sang-ah?"

"Uh-huh... That's right. We still have summer homework left to do."

Perhaps sensing something was off, Sang-ah played along with my excuse.

Kang Jun, looking disappointed, spoke again.

"Is that really true?"

"Yes! Our homework is piled up like a mountain! We haven't even started memorizing English vocabulary or doing our research on monster ecology."

"If it's monster ecology research, we could help with that...."

"No! No! Homework only has meaning if we do it ourselves! Right, Seongjin?"

"Yeah... that's right."

Sang-ah's flustered behavior was almost comical.

It was like watching someone make up excuses to escape a club creep.

"Well, if you say so. Haa..."

Disappointed by Sang-ah's reaction, Kang Jun let out a heavy sigh.

He knew he could not lay hands on Hwasan guildmaster's daughter and had no choice but to give up this time.

"I'll take my leave as well."

"You too, father?"

"There's still a mountain of work I haven't processed."

Hearing that, Kwon Yongjun also showed his disappointment.

He especially disliked the fact that his father had started spending more time with Sang-ah.

"Yongjun."

"Yes."

Kwon Yongha spoke to Kwon Yongjun.

"Have you finally found the will to truly become stronger?"

"Yes."

Until now, Kwon Yongjun had trained in the easiest way possible—it was more like playing at training.

But after what happened to his mother, he finally found a real reason to become strong.

"I will definitely... utterly destroy that Sura guild's Jin Rain or whatever his name is!"

The wretch who turned his mother into a cripple, a vegetable devoid of magic power.

You could hear his determination to turn that bastard into the same thing.

I secretly sneered at his resolve.

"Goodbye then!"

"Take care!"

The three of us disappeared down a turn in the corridor.

Now only Kang Ray, Kang Jun, and Kwon Yongjun were left.

Kang Jun clicked his tongue in regret.

"Tsk. What a shame. I really wanted to try touching her a little here and there."

"And if you make her a vegetable like her mother, what then?"

"Oh, that's fine. That girl hasn't lost her horn. Without a horn, her mother became a weak, useless failure—unlike her daughter."

Kang Jun had always viewed people as test subjects, and his attitude was chillingly matter-of-fact.

It was only natural for someone whose craving for experimentation outweighed concern for another's life.

"Why not restore that Sang-ah's mother instead? Then you could continue your research."

"I'd like to, but... you need the horn to fix her in the first place."

Though he found Sang-ah—a half dragon race, half human—fascinating, his old research using Sang-ah's mother's magic power remained incomplete.

When she fell into a vegetative state, Minji was no longer able to procure magic power for him.

"Yongjun. Do you know where that horn is?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? Only father knows where it's hidden."

"I see."

"It'd be great if he told us, honestly."

If he knew where it was, Yongjun added, he could have made Sang-ah's life worse by threatening to destroy the horn.

Meanwhile, Sang-ah, waiting for the elevator, focused all her senses on listening.

Squeeze—!

Everything they said was audible to Sang-ah's ears now, and she clenched her fists so hard they started to bleed.

.

.

Sang-ah and I parted ways with Kwon Yongha as soon as we left the hospital.

He really did have business, so he jumped in his car and sped off.

With the cash I got from Kwon Yongha, I hailed a cab and headed home.

After weeks in Hwasan Town, the road home felt surreal.

"I heard everything that damned oppa said just now."

"..."

"And everything those Poison guild bastards said, too."

Sang-ah's hearing really couldn't be underestimated.

She'd recently overcome her molting, so all her abilities, including hearing, must have improved dramatically.

"I won't let those bastards off either. Not one."

There was no trace left of the courteous Sang-ah from before.

Those scum, just like Kang Minji, were the ones responsible for what happened to her mother.

And they went so far as to do experiments with her magic power.

Sang-ah must want to rip them to shreds.

"Seongjin, do you know those guys?"

"Kang Ray the guildmaster and Kang Jun the vice-guildmaster?"

Since it's already been revealed that the Poison guild is involved with the Holy Church, there was no need to explain that.

They were connected to Mewzealand too. Sang-ah must know that.

But what she wanted to know was whether I'd seen those two during my 50 years there.

"Of course I do. They were really famous over there."

Kang Ray and Kang Jun.

The names they used here were aliases adapted for Earth.

Their real names, from Mewzealand, were Ray Plonder and Jun Plonder.

"To put it simply, both are mad scientists. Like the ones in comics or movies, doing human experiments and laughing about it. You get the idea, right?"

"Yeah."

They're literally the sort to toss 'people' into test tubes, modify them, and smile with satisfaction.

Kwon Yongha, Sang-ah's father, was nothing compared to those monsters.

Jun, the younger brother, was the worse of the two—while Ray, the elder, was more combat-oriented.

Ever since the dragon race—Sang-ah's mother's people—were defeated, their bodies all fell into these brothers' hands.

No wonder they were obsessed with dragons.

To them, they made for unique, fascinating specimens—different from 'humans'.

"And to be blunt, I have a personal grudge against those two."

"Did something bad happen?"

"Yeah. Nothing you—as a girl—could even imagine."

After I took down the guardian deity, those two vanished without a trace.

Even when the Reveli empire fell, they were nowhere to be found.

Now, finally, it was clear where they'd ended up.

"Kehihihihihi! Ray... Jun... Just you wait."

I cackled, recalling my history with them.

Sang-ah took a nervous step away from me as I grinned eerily.

Soon after, our taxi arrived at my apartment. We dashed for home.

Looking forward to the smell of mom's soup from the kitchen, we took the elevator and I punched in our front door's code.

"We're home... Huh?"

The moment I set foot in the house, I felt something was off.

There was a pair of shoes I didn't recognize.

Neither my parents' feet would fit them.

From those shoes, I could sense a faint, cold trace of magic power.

"Seongjin! We have a guest."

Only then did my mother come to greet me, and I headed to the living room.

There, a woman—looking as lifeless as a corpse—sat talking with my father at the dining table.

But even without asking who she was... I was shocked.

The hair, the skin color—they were all too familiar.