Chapter 189: Memory Pt. 3

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Rumble!!

Lee Jun-Kyeong suddenly felt the space around him shake. The dreamscape was trembling.

“Where am I going?”

However, the world that he was observing, created from his memories, was fine.

‘Maybe…’

He wondered if there was a problem outside. He looked up at the sky, wanting to escape the world of memories created by Muninn’s Authority.

‘No, I can’t yet.’

However, he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t because he lacked strength. At some point, his power had returned, and it seemed that if he wanted to, he would be able to break free from this world of memories and escape to the real world.

‘I can’t do that.’

Lee Jun-Kyeong shook his head. All of the scenes from this point on were memories he didn’t remember, whether it was meeting Yeo Seong-Gu, or seeing the Hunter avenge him.

Moreover, it wasn’t just that he didn’t remember any of it. In fact, his memory was completely different from what he was seeing.

‘From what I recall, I had met with Seong-Gu Hyung much later–when I had grown a little more and started living alone.’

But now, in the world of memories, his younger self was moving alongside Yeo Seong-Gu. He had no idea what had happened, which was why Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t leave this space. This was his chance to find out what he had missed and what he had lost.

‘Hyeon-Mu. Hel. I’ll leave it to you.’

He would trust his Familiars to protect him outside while he held fast here to understand his truth.

“I’ve finished what I had to do,” Yeo Seong-Gu said to his younger self.

“What did you have to do?”

“There was an organization called Asgard. Although it’s now absorbed into Eden, I had to punish the previous members who had fallen into depravity and betrayed me and the world.”

Perhaps because Lee Jun-Kyeong had been a child in the past, but Yeo Seong-Gu was telling the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong secrets that had no need for him to ever mention.

“Are you a Hunter?” the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong asked.

“That’s right.”

They continued to move while talking in detail, leaving the area dominated by Hunters to a place a little further away.

'To the area where ordinary people live.'

Lee Jun-Kyeong now realized that the lost memories of his childhood were greater than he had thought. He wondered if Yeo Seong-Gu could have erased his memories once again after the first time.

But if that was the case, why? There didn’t seem to be any more reasons for Yeo Seong-Gu to erase his memories again. Considering Yeo Seong-Gu had left behind all of his painful memories, he wondered if the Hunter erased his memories again after that.

“We’ve arrived.”

They had arrived at a common house that the ordinary people of his past lived in. Yeo Seong-Gu put down the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong, and Lee Jun-Kyeong felt as if his breath had caught in his throat.

"A Hunter's blood flows in you."

It was an impossible sentence. However, there was a plausible reason that followed.

“That book is proof. Just from being able to see that book itself… It means that you are already an incredibly strong Hunter that can’t be compared to others.”

Yeo Seong-Gu put his hand on the book held by the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong.

Zzt.

At that moment, like a static shock, the book pushed away Yeo Seong-Gu.

“See? Can’t you see that you’re the only one who’s fine with it? No ordinary person will be able to see that book’s true value.”

The younger Lee Jun-Kyeong stared blankly at the book as the current Lee Jun-Kyeong also did the same.

“...”

A Hunter’s blood flowed through him. However, he had never once awakened the power of a Hunter himself. That was why he had arrived at this place after having lived such a never-ending hellscape of a life.

“From now on, you’ll be learning many things from me.”

Yeo Seong-Gu didn’t end there.

“Because, as the owner of this book, there are things you have to do. Understood?” he asked.

“Yes,” the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong responded since Yeo Seong-Gu had been the Hero that had saved him from Hell.

***

Lee Jun-Kyeong couldn’t believe the memories that were unfolding before him.

“

Ha-a-eup!

”

While shouting, his younger self wielded a sword.

Whirl! Woosh!

This was a memory that definitely didn’t exist in his mind and was something that he could never have even imagined. The younger Lee Jun-Kyeong dropped his sword.

“As expected,” Yeo Seong-Gu said, approaching Lee Jun-Kyeong as he watched the boy flail about.

“The sword doesn’t fit you.”

“…”

“For you…”

Yeo Seong-Gu took another item from his inventory and handed it to his younger self.

“The spear fits better.”

The Hunter had pulled out a spear that looked slightly larger than his younger self. Having handed it over, he taught the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong how to use it.

‘Just…’

Watching it all, Lee Jun-Kyeong had no choice but to accept it all. Yeo Seong-Gu had trained him.

Flicker.

Although it was ever so slight, he saw the figure of himself as a child using the power of a Hunter. It was all confusing. Had his entire life been a lie?

He couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Yeo Seong-Gu had trained his younger self like this. But, what could have been his reason?

“Why do I have to do this?” he asked.

"Well…” Yeo Seong-Gu responded to his younger self with a smile. “Because there are many things that you have to change.”

“Yes?”

“Think of it as your destiny,” Yeo Seong-Gu finished, stroking the boy’s hair.

Swish!

With a bright light, the scene changed.

Whoosh!

Somewhere along the line, his younger self had grown a little more and had become an adolescent.[1] This was also another memory that he didn’t have.

The adolescent Lee Jun-Kyeong was rapidly thrusting forward with his spear and pushing Yeo Seong-Gu back.

Swish! Woosh! Swish!

However, Yeo Seong-Gu looked the same as before. He hadn’t aged at all. The Hunter was talking as he quickly dodged Lee Jun-Kyeong’s spear.

“Aim for the opponent’s vitals.”

He spoke like a teacher, like a parent with warm eyes.

“If you don’t kill the other person, you’ll die.”

However, his teaching was harsh. Yeo Seong-Gu struck the adolescent Lee Jun-Kyeong with a wooden sword. Lee Jun-Kyeong trembled.

Pow!

One after another, Yeo Seong-Gu’s kicks landed directly on his body, and the young teen was knocked down by the relentless barrage.

“Let’s get back up.”

Yeo Seong-Gu reached out his hand toward Lee Jun-Kyeong quickly and helped him stand up.

“You’ve grown a lot. How good."

At the Hunter’s compliment, the adolescent Lee Jun-Kyeong smiled.

‘Why don’t I have any of these memories?’

On the other hand, the Lee Jun-Kyeong of the current time continued to feel confused. He remembered clearly when he had met Yeo Seong-Gu, the time he had spent with Yeo Seong-Gu, and the conversations he had with him. However, he didn’t remember any of this.

“Good, good. Now, my turn is over, so it must be yours, right?” Yeo Seong-Gu said after having sat in the yard. The adolescent Lee Jun-Kyeong nodded.

“The Demon King met Odin…”

He began to recite the contents of a book.

"Good."

Yeo Seong-Gu was listening to the contents of a book from Lee Jun-Kyeong. It was a book he couldn’t read and only Lee Jun-Kyeong could view it.

“There was a cataclysm…”

So, he heard it through Lee Jun-Kyeong’s mouth.

“The Round Table… Odin… Baldur… and Seoul…”

Yeo Seong-Gu seemed to be thinking deeply about something while listening to the adolescent Lee Jun-Kyeong speak.

“...”

But all of this was like a shock in and of itself to Lee Jun-Kyeong watching it all. In his memories, Yeo Seong-Gu had never once asked about the contents of the book. Even though he tried to tell him, but the other man had refused. But now, he saw that the Hunter had rather asked for the contents of the book to his younger self.

“I see.”

In the midst of his confusion and shock, it seemed that Yeo Seong-Gu and the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong’s role for the day had ended. His younger self and Yeo Seong-Gu seemed like a family.

A father and son.

A hyung and his dongsaeng.[2]

‘A master and disciple.’

***

The scene changed again, and he saw himself again.

‘It’s what I used to look like, in my memories…’

It was the visage of how he remembered himself.

However, this Lee Jun-Kyeong had continued to be with Yeo Seong-Gu.

Woosh!

His skills, which he was practicing without fail even in this memory, were astonishing, even to the current Lee Jun-Kyeong. It was a seamless combination of strikes and sharpness.

‘It’s similar to my spearmanship today…’

The spear was something he had never learned before, but it was something that had seemed familiar from the very beginning. The spearmanship before him right now seemed almost identical to that spearmanship he had fostered until now.

“Excellent. It's still lacking, but it's not a matter of your skills.”

It was Yeo Seong-Gu. Still untouched by time, he approached Lee Jun-Kyeong and spoke.

“Can you admit it now?”

Unlike before, the relationship between the two seemed more intimate.

"Hmm…”

"What's wrong?" asked the teenage Lee Jun-Kyeong.

There was something different about Yeo Seong-Gu this time. He had an expression as if he was thinking about something.

“I have nothing more to teach you,” he eventually said.

“What third-rate movie master are you trying to be? Now that I’ve learned everything, I’m going to have to descend from the mountain?”[3]

The young Lee Jun-Kyeong, whose hair had grown out more, spoke to Yeo Seong-Gu in a playful way. However, it seemed that from his tone, he was also reading Yeo Seong-Gu’s expression.

“Today is the last of it, right?” Yeo Seong-Gu suddenly asked.

The younger Lee Jun-Kyeong slowly and naturally opened the book.

‘…!’

The current Lee Jun-Kyeong was shocked as he saw the scene unfold.

‘The denouement.’

[4]

The page of the book that the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong had just opened to was the last part of the Book of the Demon King. Lee Jun-Kyeong wracked his brain to figure out what was there. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t remember.

‘That’s the only part I can’t remember about the book.’

It was the part that he wasn’t able to remember even in reality. Now, the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong was about to read it to Yeo Seong-Gu. The pages slowly turned as Lee Jun-Kyeong's mouth opened, “Everything is over.”

Then, he started to speak.

[ issues you a warning.]

Then, the current Lee Jun-Kyeong then heard a voice.

‘What?’

His Sponsor hadn’t taken any action so far, but The Sky of the Apocalypse was about to intervene at this very moment. The world of his memories cracked and shook.

“I met with them,” the younger Lee Jun-Kyeong read.

In the gaps between the tremors, from the book written from the Demon King’s point of view, the Demon King met with

them

in the denouement.

[ issues you a warning.]

The world around him began to fall apart more and more.

“I couldn’t hide my surprised expression when I saw them. I had come all this way with the determination to die, but everything I had done seemed to go to waste.”

The younger Lee Jun-Kyeong, who was reading a book, could feel Yeo Seong-Gu looking at him.

[ issues you a warning.]

Then, his gaze began to grow murky, and the world of his memories no longer showed him any scenes. Instead, something else happened.

“The person I thought was my friend. The person I had thought of as a companion who would have stayed by my side until the very end. That person was there, too.”

As his voice finally rang for the last time, Lee Jun-Kyeong screamed.

AGHHHHHH!

***

He was in a broken world, in the dark, where nothing could be seen.

[Can you hear me?]

In that dark space, he heard a voice, and his consciousness seemed to wake up little by little. Lee Jun-Kyeong slowly opened his mouth. It was a familiar voice, a voice that he had definitely heard before.

“...”

It was the voice of the that he had heard when the Sponsor had asked if he would fulfill a contract with it.

1. The term ?? generally refers to a boy, generally from the ages of 8 to 18. 👈

2. Older and younger brothers. 👈

3. In murim, when disciples have learned all they could/reached a certain point in their training, they are ordered to descend from the mountain and experience the world in order to grow and find enlightenment. One has to leave the mountain and experience the mortal coil in order to find immortality. 👈

4. Lit. The final section of a three-part poem or the conclusion of an epic. 👈