The Hero Has Returned

Chapter 2 - What is This Money For?

[ Awakener's Balance ]

– ₩1,078,565,998

My whole life, I was obsessively fixated on money.

Even when no one told me to, I instinctively counted the numbers with my eyes.

Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands...

Roughly one billion.

It was the same amount I had saved by working myself to death, dedicating my entire life to it.

What in the world...

“What the? Is this son of a bitch's earholes clogged?!”

My grandmother thrust her face right in front of mine.

She, who shouts in a sharp, ringing voice from the corners of her wrinkled mouth, but whose gaze is endlessly warm.

The person I missed more than anyone.

Belatedly, a lump formed in my throat.

To think I'm face to face with my grandmother while she's alive.

How long has it been?

Whether this is a dream or hell.

It didn't matter anymore.

To be able to see my grandmother, even for a brief moment, how thankful I should be.

My heart, which had been as quiet as a barren land, pulsed like a raindrop falling upon it.

I was definitely dead.

As soon as I left the hospital, I was bitten by a monster and torn to shreds.

Is someone playing a prank with my destiny?

“Grandma. When you call me a son of a bitch, that means I'm Dad's son. So you're cursing your own child, you know?”

Saying something needlessly pointless, I hugged my grandmother tightly.

“Th-This punk!”

My grandmother spoke irritably, but she didn't push me away.

Instead, she gave a dry cough and slowly wrapped her arms around my back with an awkward touch.

“...What the hell did you eat today?”

Right. Grandma was always like this.

Unlike her thorny words, her actions were endlessly affectionate.

My younger brother twitched his lips and shuddered.

“Ugh. Creepy. Why are they acting like that with family?”

How long has it been since I've seen that kid, too?

Since some point, our relationship had soured, and we lived as worse than strangers.

And then I'd suddenly heard the news that he was murdered by a Villain.

I thought I'd never see him again…

My brother, perhaps thinking I was glaring at him, flinched in surprise and hurriedly looked away.

Perhaps because I'd beaten him up so much when we were young, the kid was scared of me.

My grandmother pulled me off and held out a spoon.

“Stop with the nonsense and hurry up and shove it in before the food gets cold.”

And so, a meal began for the first time in decades.

I had just been reborn, but I had a particular craving for food.

I mixed my rice into the pale-white fatty radish soup and ate it with sour kimchi as a side dish, scraping the bowl clean.

“Choi Sung-min. How old are you this year?”

When I asked my brother, the kid made a face as if he was taken aback.

“Why are you suddenly calling me by my name? And why do you sound like a neighborhood ahjussi?”

Come to think of it, I'd never called him by his proper name.

I'd mainly used ‘Hey,’ ‘punk,’ and ‘bastard.’

There's a five-year age gap between me and my brother.

Through our age difference, I should be able to figure out what year it is now.

As I stared intently at my brother, the kid backed down.

“Pay some attention. I'm a second-year in high school.”

Then am I 23 years old?

Timing-wise, I'm supposed to receive my draft notice this winter and be forcibly enlisted.

I have to go to that shitty place again?

What rotten timing.

The being called God must certainly be the world's biggest bastard.

My brother said,

“Grandma. Um, you know. There's a school trip next month...”

His voice trailed off as if it had been muted.

“What was that? Speak up!”

“No. It's nothing.”

“This kid starts talking and then just stops.”

“I said it's nothing!”

It was quite a boisterous breakfast.

It wasn't a particularly gloomy atmosphere.

It's quite different from my memory.

I thought we had lived gloomily every day.

Could it be that the past has changed?

No way.

The one who lived so desperately, was pessimistic about his fate, and drove himself into a corner...

...must have been none other than myself.

I have no money. I am poor.

Therefore, I'm miserable.

Because I was buried in a pit, I had no luxury of looking around at my surroundings.

I dedicated my entire life to saving over one billion won.

And you ask if I was happy?

Haha. Don't you know just by looking at the end I met?

I neglected my health and got cancer.

I met a lonely death with no wife and no children.

Now I finally realize.

Money is important.

However, only when you're alive.

When you die, you can't take even a single won with you.

The only thing I could take with me in my body after the coffin lid closed was a cancerous tumor.

The news was playing on the TV, which had been turned on haphazardly.

—This is breaking news. A Gate has appeared in Eunpyeong-gu. We advise residents in the vicinity to be extremely cautious.

So this world hasn't changed at all.

Everything is still vivid.

When I left the hospital after being diagnosed with cancer, monsters poured down from the sky.

When the horned being floating in mid-air gestured, everything collapsed.

Among the corpses sprawled on the ground, there was a familiar face.

He was an S-Class Hunter, one of the top-ranked in the country.

If he couldn't stop it, no one could.

Did the apocalypse come then?

Then is this place also going to be destroyed in the future?

I don't know.

Even if I knew, I probably couldn't change it.

“Thank you for the meal.”

As my brother picked up his bowl and stood up, my grandmother smacked him on the back.

“This granny will do the dishes, so hurry up and get to school!”

“Tch. Alright.”

My brother put on his shoes at the entryway.

I stood still and looked down at the kid.

My eyes fell on his worn-out, grimy canvas shoes.

“Hey.”

I took my wallet out of my pocket.

I took out every single bill inside and held it out.

“Take it.”

My brother blinked.

“For real?”

I scraped money together like a paranoid patient.

I never gave my brother spending money for no reason.

If he wasted even a little, I would raise bloody hell and scold him.

Just like my father, who trembled over a 100-won coin.

So I ended up living like that, too.

Just like a dead body, if you save money too much, it just turns to shit.

What did I live so doggedly for?

“If you don't want it, forget it.”

“No. Give it.”

The worn-out school uniform my brother was wearing, the school bag with its frayed straps.

The one-room semi-basement was so dreary that even a ghost would flee.

To think we managed to endure in a place like this, struggling with all our might like cockroaches.

The three of us huddled together, chipping away at each other's dignity.

Maybe it was a manifestation of my subconscious, but even right before I died, I would sometimes shudder with rage at the mere sight of a bug.

My brother took only a single five-thousand-won bill from the wad of cash I held out.

“Thanks. I'll buy some snacks at the school store.”

There's no way he could buy anything decent with five thousand won.

It's probably because he didn't want to be a burden to me.

I forcibly stuffed the bills into the pocket of his school uniform.

“Buy new clothes and shoes before the school trip. If you buy anything else, you're dead.”

“...Yeah. Hyung, aren't you going to work?”

I checked the time.

Around this time, I would have been heading to work.

“Work a little less. You're going to collapse at this rate.”

My brother added, glancing at me cautiously.

“Meet some friends, too. Have you ever had a girlfr—... Ugh, never mind.”

This little punk.

He's being too harsh to a 50-year-old who's been single since birth.

Should I take the money back and beat him up?

Before I could say anything, my brother left the house as if he were fleeing.

“I'm leaving!”

My phone had been vibrating in my pocket for a while.

I took out my phone and checked the messages.

—Bosss. u not comin?

—A guy whoz never been late once in hiz life....... r u sick?

—The prez is throwin a fit.

The sender was ‘Karki.’

He was a foreign worker at the Hunter equipment production factory where I worked.

Reality slowly started to set in.

I've gained a new life, but my life is still dirt poor.

To escape this repeating abyss, I have to work and earn money again.

I bit my lip gently.

They say human greed is endless and we repeat the same mistakes.

But in this life, couldn't I be greedy without repeating my past errors?

After eating a hearty meal, I was brimming with energy.

I was struck anew by the realization that my body had returned to its 20s.

They say it's better to roll in a field of dog shit in this life than to be in the next.

‘Reincarnation is pretty good.’

Having finished the dishes, my grandmother got ready to go out.

A newsboy cap, a fishing vest with all its threads unraveled, and arm protectors on her arms.

It's the outfit she wears whenever she collects wastepaper to take to the junkyard.

I bent my knees to meet her gaze.

“Grandma. Let's go to the hospital right now and get a check-up.”

“What kind of nonsense are you spouting now? There's nowhere that hurts.”

It was after my military discharge that my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

If it's now, couldn't we still do something about it?

“I'm begging you.”

I held my grandmother's hand and asked earnestly.

“Why's this kid actin' like this today?”

“......”

I can give in on everything else.

But I couldn't back down on this.

Only then did my grandmother let out a deep sigh.

“Hoo. Alright, so move, you punk. We'll go tomorrow. I've got things to do with old man Kim at the junkyard today.”

“You have to. It's a promise.”

“Ha, for goodness' sake! I said I get it.”

I hooked my pinky finger with my grandmother's wrinkly one.

And watching the back of my grandmother as she left for work, I muttered quietly.

“Grandma. In this life, let's at least live like human beings.”

I said it to her, but for some reason, it sounded like I was saying it to myself.

“I'm going to go earn some money, too.”

With those words, I left the house.

…

Because I was busy processing my second round of life, I was later for work than usual.

The whole way on the bus, I stared into empty space.

[ Awakener's Balance ]

– ₩1,078,565,998

What does this mean?

Is this money I can actually use?

Just in case, I bought a bottle of water at a convenience store on the way.

I handed my card to the part-time worker and finished paying.

However, the Awakener's Balance remained the same.

Therefore, this means it has nothing to do with the real money I use.

In that case.

[[ Hero Skill Shop ]]

1. Super Kid Series.

1)

: 1,000,000 won per use.

2)

: 5,000,000 won.

…….

Which means this is what I can buy with this virtual money.

Super Kid is a world-famous hero who represents America.

His signature costume is a blue jumpsuit with a fluttering red cape.

He is characterized by a body like steel and the use of various superpowers.

Looking closely, number 1) is black.

From number 2) onwards, they are gray.

Are they locked?

There was no reason to hesitate.

I've already died and woken up once, what is there that I can't do?

When I clicked on number 2, a warning sound rang out.

[ Conditions have not been met ]

Conditions.

What could that mean?

There was only one option left.

I clicked on number 1).

Ding.

[ Pre-purchased ]

– (Tutorial)

[ Awakener's Balance ]

– ₩1,077,565,998

Exactly 1,000,000 won had been deducted.

It must mean I bought .

At the same time, the window changed.

[[ Choi Yong-gi ]]

– Talent: Purchase

– Skill:

It's a publicly known fact that Awakeners can see hologram windows.

However, since it was a field I'd never experienced, everything felt unfamiliar.

‘Superman's Judgment,’ unlike its plausible-sounding name, was, according to the lore, the very power that Super Kid wielded.

He lifted airplanes, destroyed buildings, and knocked down villains in a single blow.

I recalled the auditory hallucination I heard before I died.

– You can buy the abilities of a being you admire.

If it's a being I admire, does it mean the heroes I dreamed of since childhood?

And I can buy their abilities with the one billion won I saved in my past life?

I lowered my head and looked down at my wide-open palm.

If the power of Super Kid had really settled into my body...

I didn't feel it at all.

If I could use in reality, how powerful would it be?

It would be nice to test it out once.

Rumble.

At that moment, the ground vibrated as if there was an earthquake.

Outside the front window, a giant object came rolling from the other side of the road.

As the bus lurched, the driver shouted.

“Hold on tight! It's a monster!”

The approaching figure slammed into the side of the bus.

The bus immediately tilted and then fell over onto the road.

As the windows shattered, the inside of the bus where the passengers were became a scene of utter chaos.

As smoke rose, passengers picked themselves up inside the bus that had toppled onto its side.

“Kkuaaak!!!”

“Damn it. What kind of sudden disaster is this?!”

“Argh! My arm! The bone, the bone is broken!!”

I was just as frantic.

From the shock of the traffic accident, the area around my forehead felt hot.

When I touched it, my hand was soaked with blood.

“Let's escape quickly!”

“Let's report it to the Hunter Bureau first! There are injured people here!”

“I'll do it. Hello? A monster has appeared! The location is near Bulgwangcheon Stream, and the type is...”

The name of the strange creature standing outside the window is Biglarva.

Its movements are slow when it crawls, but its carapace is hard, so if it curls up its body and charges headfirst like it just did, it's dangerous even to be grazed by it.

The Biglarva, which had rammed the bus by going against the flow of traffic, writhed and stretched out its body as if performing a ceremony.

“Kigigik!”

It also made a bizarre sound, as if it were sneering at us.

Looking at that sight, I started to get pissed off for some reason.

I glared at the Biglarva and muttered.

“This is why I can't stand bugs.”

Without realizing it, I tightly clenched my bloodied fist.