Chapter 1 : Return
Chapter 1: Return
A room strewn with torn corpses atop thickly pooled blood.
The sole survivor and perpetrator of this carnage, Baek Woohyun, put a jet-black cigarette in his mouth. A flame flickering from the lighter’s tip dyed the paper’s end red.
He slowly drew in the smoke, and toxic fumes mixed with all kinds of psychotropic substances—what people called ‘drugs’—burrowed into his lungs instead of tar and nicotine.
For an ordinary person, just one puff of this smoke would be dangerous enough to threaten their life through acute poisoning.
But for him, who could swallow even more terrible poisons without any problem, it was merely cigarette smoke with a slightly stronger flavor.
“Huuu…”
Ashen smoke mixed with his breath shimmered into existence before fading away.
Baek Woohyun stared at what he had exhaled with murky, clouded eyes.
Though he knew full well it was cigarette smoke, it looked like souls screaming as they scattered.
The ghosts of those who died by his hand, those he had no choice but to kill, were there…
“……”
Having finished his cigarette, Baek Woohyun trudged across the room. With each step he took, the pools of blood on the floor made splashing sounds.
The smell of blood, previously masked by the strong cigarette scent, belatedly pierced his nose, but his expression showed no change. This too was a familiar thing.
He opened the tightly closed door and left the room, facing a ponytailed man who had arrived first.
“Took longer than I expected?”
The ponytailed man grinned wickedly as he waved his dagger. As if to prove it had just been used, blood dripped steadily from the blade.
It wasn’t an action meant to threaten Baek Woohyun. There was no reason for that. It was merely to boast that he’d been faster.
Baek Woohyun watched this impassively, then casually threw the cigarette butt on the floor and answered with an indifferent attitude.
“Had to finish and smoke a cigarette.”
“That damn cigarette. I still don’t understand why you smoke those things. They don’t have any effect on you anyway.”
“They work on enemies though.”
“…True enough.”
The ponytailed man shrugged at Baek Woohyun’s words.
He recalled enemies who had attacked Baek Woohyun in the past, only to collapse vomiting after inhaling the smoke from his cigarettes.
Thinking back on that incident, maybe Baek Woohyun’s smoking was actually a strategic method.
A method that automatically filtered out idiots not worth dealing with.
“Well, anyway, this is the last one.”
“The Director is inside?”
“Right. Kill him and it’s all over. The perfect end of Project: Transcendence.”
Project: Transcendence.
A mad research project that ground up hundreds, thousands—perhaps even more—people to create a single Transcendent.
Baek Woohyun, the ponytailed man, and the comrades currently fighting elsewhere were all former Test Subjects of Project: Transcendence.
Naturally, they hadn’t participated of their own volition.
Who would voluntarily participate in experiments that repeated acts of zapping them with electricity and injecting all sorts of drugs, all to artificially create powerful ability users?
The others had been kidnapped; Baek Woohyun’s circumstances were slightly different, but he’d similarly become a Test Subject.
Having suddenly become Test Subjects, Baek Woohyun and his comrades survived through the hellish experiments and gained power.
Some of them gained power strong enough to be evaluated as approaching the project’s goal—a Transcendent.
Baek Woohyun was a prime example.
Test Subject No. 62, Baek Woohyun.
What the researchers called him: Superhuman.
He was Project: Transcendence’s masterpiece and was said to have come closest to the goal.
This meant that among over a thousand Test Subjects, only he was evaluated as having come closest to a transcendent existence while remaining in a human body.
What was even more remarkable was the fact that he couldn’t manifest any supernatural ability.
In an experiment trying to create a Transcendent through forced awakening and ability enhancement via various experiments, someone who couldn’t manifest any supernatural ability had instead approached being a Transcendent.
It was truly an ironic, almost miraculous result.
But rest assured, the researchers who conducted Project: Transcendence were now surely cursing that miracle.
Because when the long-awaited revenge began, no researcher survived Baek Woohyun, who led the charge.
“Let’s go.”
“Right!”
Kwaaang!
Baek Woohyun and the ponytailed man kicked down the tightly closed door and rushed inside.
In a room decorated with obviously expensive furniture sat a middle-aged man dressed in a luxury suit.
He had been frantically gathering stacks of documents from a safe when he showed a startled expression at the sight of the two who suddenly burst in.
He probably didn’t even know that the forces guarding outside had been completely annihilated.
Unlike Baek Woohyun, the man’s specialty was killing enemies stealthily and swiftly, so it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.
But his confusion was brief.
Soon the middle-aged man clenched his teeth and spoke.
“…Why are you doing this?”
“Why are we doing this? Don’t tell me you really don’t know? Really?”
The ponytailed man asked back with a giggle.
He and the other Test Subjects had cried out for revenge without a moment’s rest from the day they escaped the research facility.
To make their purpose and motivation known to the entire world without hiding it.
So there was no way the middle-aged man, the Project Director, didn’t know why they were doing this. It would be impossible for someone incompetent enough to truly not know to become Director.
The ponytailed man knew this well, which is why he was mocking the middle-aged man by asking if he really didn’t know.
“I’m not talking to you, Test Subject No. 81.”
“Ha! Well now. Should I be grateful that the Director has memorized even a nobody like me’s number?”
“—Baek Woohyun.”
The middle-aged man cleanly ignored the man called Test Subject No. 81.
His gaze had been fixed solely on Baek Woohyun from the start. As if only he and Baek Woohyun existed in this room.
Biting his lips, he cried out in a desperate voice.
“You are Project: Transcendence’s most perfect success! As your nickname states, you are a true Superhuman who entered the realm of transcendence in a human body!”
“……”
“Now only claiming all the glory remains, so why are you doing this! Why!”
The middle-aged man’s expression showed genuine incomprehension. From his perspective, this was undoubtedly a foolish action no matter how he thought about it.
If it had been during the height of the experiments, he might have accepted it as understandable. Project: Transcendence’s experiments had many vicious elements.
In fact, hadn’t many Test Subjects been unable to endure and attempted to escape?
As Project Director, he’d received reports of similar incidents several times, so if Baek Woohyun had escaped back then, the middle-aged man would have let it pass as expected.
But now?
“You didn’t need to do anything—just by staying still, you would have obtained everything you desired!”
Project: Transcendence had ultimately ended successfully, and several people including Baek Woohyun had grasped the transcendent power the research facility had hoped for.
Therefore, the research facility—or more precisely, the Corporate Alliance that operated the research facilities—had intended to gladly welcome them and give them everything they wanted.
It was finally the moment to receive compensation for their hardships, and Baek Woohyun himself knew this.
The research facility had told him several times.
And yet he rebelled in such circumstances.
Why would he do such a foolish thing?
“We were going to give Baek Woohyun everything he desired. Truly, everything! Whatever it might be!”
Surprisingly, the middle-aged man’s words were truth without any exaggeration.
Those who sponsored the research facility would have given Baek Woohyun anything—money or otherwise—without hesitation if he had wanted it.
They wouldn’t have spared any support to help him obtain everything he desired, even mobilizing military force if necessary.
Yet Baek Woohyun had abandoned all that compensation without any particular reason.
Other Transcendent candidates had been moved by the overwhelming compensation and abandoned their grudge against the research facility to become allies.
“What’s your reason for overturning everything when only the compensation remained! Please answer me!”
“A reason…”
Had the earnest appeal gotten through?
Baek Woohyun, who had maintained silence, muttered quietly for the first time. It was a very calm tone, in contrast to the middle-aged man’s passionate outcry.
He spoke to the middle-aged man.
“You won’t understand even if I tell you.”
“Still, please tell me! Why on earth did you abandon the promised compensation and team up with those idiots! What compensation did you agree to receive!”
Baek Woohyun looked at the middle-aged man with dead, black eyes.
It seemed he hoped there was some grand reason behind his actions. Like being enticed by forces trying to overthrow the Corporate Alliance.
But unfortunately, there was no such thing.
The reason he had started revenge with the Test Subjects was simply to return home.
While living here, he had gained the conviction that he could return to his original world by completely ending Project: Transcendence, so he did just that.
Baek Woohyun sighed and enlightened the middle-aged man to reality.
“To go back home.”
“……What? What do you—”
“I learned that I could return home by terminating the project. That’s why.”
“What… What kind of nonsense—”
“That’s why I told you. You won’t understand even if you hear the reason.”
“Ugh!”
Even though he’d heard the reason he had asked for, the middle-aged man’s expression wasn’t pleased at all.
His face, which had gone beyond burning red to dying black, vividly revealed how extreme his fury was.
He ground his teeth.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“……”
The middle-aged man thought Baek Woohyun was mocking him.
If he had only wished it, the Corporate Alliance that tried to give him massive compensation wouldn’t have refused a trivial request like wanting to go home.
Yet he destroyed the project and caused massive damage to the Corporate Alliance just to return home?
“……”
“……”
“…Hehe.”
“……”
“If you don’t want to tell me the reason, do as you please.”
The middle-aged man, who had been glaring at Baek Woohyun with bloodshot eyes, suddenly curled up the corners of his mouth.
“But let me make one thing clear. You have no home to return to. The Corporate Alliance doesn’t leave alone enemies who bare their fangs at them. They destroy everyone, including family and relatives.”
“……”
“So what you’ve done is just foolish wasted effort kicking away your own fortune. Truly laughable!”
The middle-aged man poured malicious curses at Baek Woohyun. They were curses filled with the determination to make him taste the exact same despair he was feeling.
However, even hearing that his family and relatives had all met with misfortune, Baek Woohyun’s complexion didn’t change at all.
His expression remained consistently impassive, as if listening to someone else’s story.
“Sorry, but those people aren’t my family.”
“…What… did you say?”
“My family isn’t in this world. That’s why I’m going back to meet them.”
“What kind of nonsense is that!”
Baek Woohyun shook his head at the middle-aged man’s bewilderment at his words.
As if he knew he wouldn’t understand anyway.
It had been like this from the moment he first woke up in this world.
“That’s enough now.”
“Wait a—!”
Kwajik!
The middle-aged man tried to say something belatedly, but Baek Woohyun mercilessly swung his hand.
The middle-aged man’s head exploded into pieces from the hand swung at a speed an ordinary person couldn’t even properly see the trajectory of.
It was an anticlimactic end unbefitting someone who had risen to a high position in the Corporate Alliance at a relatively young age and overseen the massive research project called Project: Transcendence.
The ponytailed man, who had been silently watching the entire process from the side, chuckled.
“Killed him cleanly.”
“I was too lazy to do anything more.”
“Is that so? Well, it’s your choice, so I’ll respect it.”
It was an implication that if it had been left to him, he would have inflicted terrible suffering.
Baek Woohyun merely shrugged his shoulders as a substitute for an answer.
[Special Mission, ‘Bug Fix’ Complete!]
[You have completed all Special Missions. The promised reward will be issued]
[Will you return to the original world?]
[Yes/No]
“……”
Baek Woohyun stared at the system message that appeared before him with a sunken gaze.
The moment he chose [Yes], everything would end.
He would return to the original world and resume an ordinary daily life like before. A warm and peaceful daily life without killing and being killed.
It wasn’t that he disliked that.
He’d come this far for that very reason.
However, as he looked at the system message, one worry passed through his mind.
‘Will I be able to adapt?’
It was a worry about whether he could return to his former self without incident.
Project: Transcendence and the life that followed had changed Baek Woohyun as a person very greatly.
It was natural, having experienced experiments close to torture, bloody battlefields, and even the path to transcendence.
Therefore, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say his current self was a completely different person from his past self.
An ordinary college student wouldn’t be accustomed to killing people or smoking concentrated drug cigarettes.
Could he live in peaceful modern times with a warped and broken mind like now?
‘I’ll have to manage somehow. Like always.’
“…Huuu.”
“What’s wrong?”
The ponytailed man asked with a puzzled expression at Baek Woohyun, who suddenly sighed.
“I’m going back to the original world now.”
“That nonsense again?”
The ponytailed man shook his head. His expression showed he didn’t believe what Baek Woohyun said at all.
Well, who would easily believe someone saying they came from another world? They’d just think his mind broke from the experiments.
Baek Woohyun knew this well, so he didn’t bother explaining further. After this moment, they’d never see each other again anyway.
“Heu—”
Baek Woohyun smiled bitterly and took out a jet-black cigarette from his pocket. This too would now be the last cigarette he smoked here.
He took a long drag of the lit cigarette and exhaled, watching the ashen cigarette smoke bloom and disappear into the air.
He thought that perhaps he wasn’t much different from that smoke. Especially in how he would vanish futilely without leaving anything behind.
“Take care. Tell the others that too.”
“What? No, wait. You don’t mean—”
Having left a one-sided farewell, Baek Woohyun chose [Yes] without hesitation.
Immediately, a bright light that made it hard to keep one’s eyes open poured out from the system window, and everything around melted away and disappeared into it.
From the ponytailed man standing right beside him to the luxurious furniture placed in the room, and even the middle-aged man’s corpse lying on the floor having lost his head.
And finally, even Baek Woohyun himself.
“Ah.”
……When Baek Woohyun opened his eyes again, he was standing alone in a six-pyeong room.
His gaze swept past the half-open closet, the roughly made bed, and the connection device occupying one corner of the room in turn.
His room, which he was seeing for the first time in ten years, felt paradoxically both unfamiliar and familiar. As if his body, not his mind, remembered it.
He naturally sat on the bed, then flopped down completely.
He felt like he’d had various thoughts before returning, but right now, none of it mattered.
He quietly fell into a deep sleep.
Feeling a peace he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d last felt.