Chapter 4 – Kim Jihyeok – [Three]

A flame bloomed in the center of the room.

Warmth began to encroach upon the space. As Kim Jihyeok’s body warmed up, Seo Yun sat down in front of him and grinned.

“Feeling a bit more alive now?”

“Huh? Yeah…”

The window was slightly ajar to let the smoke out, allowing a draft to seep in. The wind made the campfire flicker.

Like the campfires on school trips, flames are a light source with a peculiar magic.

In a dazed mood, Kim Jihyeok gazed at Seo Yun sitting opposite him across the fire.

Each time the flame wavered, strange shadows danced across Seo Yun’s face.

Even upon seeing her again, her face seemed like something that shouldn’t exist in reality. This moment was utterly dreamlike, and Kim Jihyeok revisited the thought he’d had earlier. The thought that all of this was nothing but a dream.

To drive away that damn thought, he deliberately spoke up.

“Will this keep the fire going all night?”

“No? It’ll burn for maybe two or three hours and then go out… We’ll need to gather more firewood later.”

Kim Jihyeok hesitated before asking.

“By yourself?”

Seo Yun frowned.

“What, are you going to offer to help again?”

“I can help gather grass too.”

“We don’t need kindling anymore, just firewood. We’re done with grass, so we need to pull up several stumps. Do you even know how to use a pickaxe? It’s not just about swinging it down with brute Strength; there’s a technique to it. You have to wedge the pickaxe into the stump and use leverage to pry it out, and that’s not easy either.”

“Still… that’s too much…”

Seo Yun sighed.

“A kid who was trapped underground and just got out deserves a bit of excessive consideration.”

Saying she needed to gather more firewood before it got any darker, Seo Yun got up from her spot. Hoisting the pickaxe onto her shoulder, she said to Kim Jihyeok,

“If you really want to help me, then rest, okay? We have to walk another five or six hours tomorrow, and if you’re exhausted and collapse, it’ll be hard to even support you.”

Kim Jihyeok hesitated, then scrambled to his feet as well.

It seemed he was determined to follow after all. Seo Yun narrowed her eyes.

Kim Jihyeok flinched, then fumbled to take off his coat and hand it over.

“Here, put this back on.”

Only then did Seo Yun smile.

“Good boy.”

This time, Seo Yun didn’t say anything about it smelling or whatever. She obediently took the coat and put it on, then suddenly reached out and ruffled Kim Jihyeok’s hair.

While Kim Jihyeok stood there dumbfounded, wondering what had just happened to him, Seo Yun swung the pickaxe on her shoulder and headed out of the building.

Left alone, Kim Jihyeok stood there blankly for a long time afterward. Feeling entranced, he leaned his back against the wall behind the fire, sat down, and thought.

This really is a dream after all. Even my own mother wasn’t that nice to me. Inferring with my shallow knowledge of psychology, it seems my emotional deprivation has created a girl overflowing with maternal affection.

That wonderful dream was coming to an end. Kim Jihyeok intuited that fact.

While his body was warm, he felt a suitable chill.

Then drowsiness washed over him. Kim Jihyeok tried his best to think of this and that, any random thought, to postpone sleep.

He didn’t want to sleep. If he slept and woke up, he would wake from the dream.

The self that woke from the dream would be alone in the dark underground. Not with a girl who seemed like the manifestation of a teenage boy’s fantasy.

But Kim Jihyeok had been too accustomed for too long to the routine of sleeping when drowsy. As he inevitably succumbed to sleep, Kim Jihyeok felt like he was drowning. No…

…That Spirit sank into the darkness below.

In the dream, Kim Jihyeok was underground.

For about a year, it was somewhat livable. He wasn’t the sole survivor; four people had survived. They could talk to each other, and part of the underground level was preserved enough that they could at least walk around with their bodies fully stretched in the narrow space. Thanks to batteries and a flashlight they somehow scrounged up, there was also light. Most importantly, there was the hope that if they endured by scavenging for Provisions to eat, rescue would surely come.

But rescue never came, the people went mad, two died vomiting violently, and the remaining one hanged himself. The stench of rotting corpses filled the narrow space, but they couldn’t muster the courage to dispose of them. Staying with the decomposing bodies felt like it would drive them insane.

In his desperate longing for escape, he discovered an earthen tunnel that definitely hadn’t been there just a while ago. When he shoved his body into the tunnel, darkness swallowed him.

Yesterday and now, Kim Jihyeok floundered in the darkness. Struggling to move a large rock to expand the tunnel, he hit a solid wall. Ugh…

With the pain in his head, Kim Jihyeok woke from sleep. A quiet voice seeped into his ear.

“Did you sleep well?”

Opening his eyes, Kim Jihyeok stared blankly at the girl sitting before him.

The dream was continuing.

The relief he felt from that fact was so overwhelming he momentarily lost his reason. Crawling forward, he grabbed her arm.

“What?”

Clutching the flustered Seo Yun’s arm tightly, Kim Jihyeok began to cry.

“Mom…”

Seo Yun started to push Kim Jihyeok away but stopped. Instead, she let him have one arm and patted his back with her other hand.

Kim Jihyeok stopped crying five minutes later.

Kim Jihyeok went outside the building to relieve himself. Returning a short while later, he chattered his teeth.

“It’s this windy and you went out and came back in at night? I really…”

He stopped mid-sentence. Belatedly realizing his disgraceful behavior. What did I just do clinging to a girl?

When Seo Yun stared right at his face, Kim Jihyeok immediately turned his head away. There was no mirror to check, but it was clear his face was red right now.

In a voice that was clearly suppressing forced laughter, Seo Yun asked.

“You really, what?”

“Uh, um… well…”

Seo Yun said in an overly kind voice.

“Want to call me Mom?”

Kim Jihyeok shrieked in shame.

Seo Yun giggled for a while, then seemed to decide to show mercy to the pitiful boy. Still in a voice full of laughter, she changed the subject.

“Since it’s windy outside, it’s not a good idea to leave right away. If you’re not going to sleep more, let’s eat… The embers are still alive. It’d be good to roast something.”

Kim Jihyeok nodded his head vigorously.

“Y, y, yeah. I have some food in my backpack…”

“Not that. Isn’t there anything you want to eat?”

“Not really…””No, you must have had something you really wanted to eat while you were trapped, right? Tell me. Usually, before entering training camp, they treat you to something like galbi… Just name one food.”

After a brief hesitation, Kim Jihyeok answered.

“Samgyeopsal…”

“Samgyeopsal? With lettuce and ssamjang?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm… I’m not sure if you should eat it. If you eat something greasy after starving for a long time, it could be a problem. Did you say you hadn’t been completely starving all this time?”

“I had snacks, canned food, instant noodles, and this and that…”

“You’ve eaten quite a bit of oily stuff? Then it should be fine. Wait a moment.”

Seo Yun spoke as if she were about to prepare a full meal. Unable to fathom how she intended to do that, Kim Jihyeok simply stared blankly.

A moment later, Seo Yun pulled something small out of her backpack.

It was a piece of stone with a deep black color. Seo Yun held it, closed her eyes, and recited as if praying.

“Give me 300g of samgyeopsal, 20g of ssamjang, and 50g of lettuce.”

At that moment, Kim Jihyeok closed his eyes against the light that pierced through. When he slightly opened them, he saw the light flowing from the stone fragment in Seo Yun’s hand.

The stone fragment seemed like a spectroscope. Light rippled in a bizarre spectrum.

And where the light touched, there was the stone table Seo Yun had just made. Kim Jihyeok watched the harmony unfolding on the stone.

Things that hadn’t been there just moments ago were now appearing on the stone.

Samgyeopsal, ssamjang, lettuce… Exactly what Seo Yun had recited. They were now placed on the table as if the intermediate steps had been skipped.

Faced with this incomprehensible scene, Kim Jihyeok couldn’t utter any reaction for a while. Only after a long pause did he manage to say a single word.

“What… Magic?”

Seo Yun answered while greasing the stone with the fat from the samgyeopsal.

“Magic is common in this world, but that’s not it.”

“Then what?”

Seo Yun placed the meat on the stone.

“Meteor Fragment.”

“Meteorite?”

“There was an earthquake two years ago, right? That happened because a meteorite fell. And this… is a fragment of that meteorite.”

Kim Jihyeok looked at the small stone fragment Seo Yun was still holding. Somehow, the color that had been pitch black earlier had turned gray.

Seo Yun continued.

“If you make a wish on this, it comes true.”

“A wish?”

“It doesn’t grant every wish you make; there are limits depending on the size of the fragment. The larger the fragment, the more grand or complex wishes it can grant. This one is tiny, so preparing a meal is about its limit.”

“Then, if it’s not a Meteor Fragment but the Meteorite itself…?”

“It could probably grant any wish, right?”

Kim Jihyeok suddenly recalled a legend. A shooting star that grants wishes.

Seo Yun flipped the meat and continued.

“Probably, the world ended up like this because of that bastard’s wish.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. RPG characters are cool and powerful, right? There must be quite a few people who want to become the RPG characters they raise. Some might even want to live in an RPG world. Right?”

“Maybe?”

“One of those bastards saw a shooting star passing through the sky and made a wish. ‘Please make the world like the game I play…’ This is the result. Because the game that bastard played had a dark fantasy setting.”

Seo Yun added that all this speculation wasn’t certain. However, people were half-convinced based on the circumstances and were desperately searching for the son of a bitch who made such a wish. She then went on to explain about a game called Immortal Kingdom and so on.

Kim Jihyeok didn’t bother trying to understand all that. The smell of grilling right in front of him was too tempting to worry about such things.

The smell of grilling meat—something he hadn’t smelled in two years.

Seo Yun handed him chopsticks.

“Here, eat. I couldn’t make much lettuce, so use it sparingly.”

At this moment, the fact that Kim Jihyeok didn’t immediately shove the meat into his mouth was a result of remarkable self-restraint.

“Eat with me.”

At Kim Jihyeok’s words, Seo Yun smiled as if pleased.

“This mom is full just watching you eat…”

Kim Jihyeok blushed again like before, then picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks. He held it out in front of Seo Yun’s face.

Seo Yun’s eyes widened, and she hurriedly covered her mouth with her palm. Meanwhile, Kim Jihyeok held the meat as if he would keep it there until she accepted it.

Seo Yun shook her head.

“I said it’s fine? I don’t usually eat meals.”

“Come on…”

“Really. I don’t eat anything. Not meat, not rice, not potatoes.”

Kim Jihyeok thought. What kind of nonsense is that now?

“Why?”

“I don’t want to take a shit. In this world, dealing with it afterward is too much trouble.”

As Kim Jihyeok’s eyes widened, Seo Yun hurriedly spoke.

“Ah, sorry. Fuck… during a meal. Forget what I just said and eat. Should I leave if you’re going to mind me?”

Kim Jihyeok hesitated for a moment, then cautiously asked.

“Can you survive without eating?”

Seo Yun nodded.

“Because my Health is 11. I don’t even need to sleep. Cool, right?”

For a moment, Kim Jihyeok suspected it might be a lie like his mother saying she didn’t like jajangmyeon, but he eventually started eating alone. If he kept refusing, Seo Yun asked if he wanted her to feed him like a mom. As he brought the samgyeopsal to his mouth, he lamented inwardly.

Damn it, that mom thing. It’s so embarrassing. How can I be like that with a girl a head shorter than me…

And the samgyeopsal that entered his mouth was incredibly delicious. So much so that tears welled up in his eyes. It wasn’t just an expression—tears really gathered.

“Thank you so much…”

Seemingly hearing Kim Jihyeok’s gratitude but not really acknowledging it, Seo Yun stood up.

“If you’re done eating, let’s go now.”

Kim Jihyeok awkwardly got up and asked.

“Um, the Meteor Fragment? If it can be used again…”

Seo Yun shook her head.

“It can’t be used anymore. We have to discard it.”

Seo Yun threw the gray Meteor Fragment on the ground and lightly stepped on it. The Meteor Fragment, which had seemed solid when it was black earlier, crumbled into fine pieces as if it had been made of sand from the start.

Seo Yun exited the building. Kim Jihyeok cautiously followed behind her.