Chapter 2. Spring (1)
Yu Ji-tae took his uniform out of the wardrobe.
He put on the stiff dress shirt and the suit trousers. They were clothes that were far too small for him in both length and size, but the moment his hands touched them, they stretched on their own and fitted themselves to his body.
That was the power of one of his skills.
「Unique Tailoring (S)」
A high-grade skill that allowed him to wear items that humans ordinarily could not. Yet now, it was being used for something as trivial as resizing a uniform that was too small.
After putting on his tie, he looked at himself in the mirror, and the sight felt oddly unfamiliar.
A police uniform. About a hundred years ago, there had been a time when wearing this had filled him with pride.
It was a distant past now, one he could barely remember.
He checked the time. 7:00 a.m.
Time to go to work.
Even at such an early hour, Gangnam was crowded with people. Office workers in suits making phone calls as they walked, and superhumans in combat gear smoking cigarettes.
Everyone was living their own everyday lives. That, in itself, made the place feel a little awkward to him.
He took a bus toward the Portal Administration Bureau.
Inside the building, massive magic stones floated in the air. This was where teleportation could be used.
"Are you heading to Lair?"
"Yes."
As Yu Ji-tae stepped onto the portal, his body was enveloped in light.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in Lair.
***
In the 21st century, gates opened all over the world—centered on South Korea—and monsters began pouring out. At the same time, superhumans armed with blessings and skills were born.
A connection between Earth and another world known as Ascalifa.
In this era, called the New Epoch, South Korea was relatively fortunate. Dungeon lines with an unusually high concentration of demon-types and intelligent species had formed there.
Areas rich in demons and intelligent monsters generated lucrative income through raids. South Korea came to be treated like an oil-producing nation of the past, and thanks to that, it eventually built one of the top three military powers in the world.
About ten years ago in that South Korea, children with the greatest potential as hunters from across the globe began to be gathered and trained.
Thus, the academy city "Lair" was established.
The Korean government attracted astronomical investments from around the world and recruited top-tier magicians, magical engineers, and architects, succeeding in creating a massive floating island called Haitling, roughly one-tenth the size of Seoul. Like an artificial satellite, Haitling slowly orbited the globe and was currently flying over the Atlantic.
Lair was the name of the academy city built atop Haitling.
And at the age of twenty-seven, Yu Ji-tae was a police officer assigned to the Lair regional police department.
He looked outside. Because the city floated in the sky, clouds could be seen in the distance.
Leaving the Portal Administration Bureau, he walked through the academy city. Cadets in uniform were walking everywhere.
There was a bookshelf not far away.
"Hello, Senior Ji-tae!"
"Ji-tae, you're here too? We really went hard yesterday."
As he stepped inside, his teammates greeted him. Every one of them was a face he barely recognized.
Which made sense. Since regressing, he hadn't gone to work even once.
But this time was different. Yu Ji-tae wanted to try blending back into everyday life.
Until now, he had believed in power and fear.
He thought most problems could be solved with strength, and that fear was the most efficient way to make others bend to his will. So, through repeating his life, he gained omnipotent power and monopolized information by uncovering the secrets hidden by the world.
However, when his sixth life—one in which he had become so strong he could not grow any stronger—ended in failure, his way of thinking was broken.
That approach was wrong.
So now, he had to change.
But perhaps he had come too far already. Through repeating his life, he had lost many things.
Even though Yu Ji-tae could cross dimensions nearby if he wished, the simple act of taking a bus to work felt unfamiliar.
Twisting a Demon King's neck to threaten him was easy, but sharing a drink with friends was difficult.
Yet ironically, what he needed to stop the apocalypse was precisely that kind of small, ordinary everyday life.
By coincidence, this job wasn't bad.
It allowed him to legally take care of those who hastened the end of the world, and it was closely connected to Lair, an educational institution.
So, as long as it wasn't too troublesome, he intended to go along with it.
From now on, he planned to slowly reclaim the "everyday life" he had lost while talking endlessly about the world and its end.
"Good morning."
After greeting them, Yu Ji-tae found his seat.
Files scattered at random. A messy, unorganized desk. It felt like facing his old self from a hundred years ago.
He silently began to tidy up.
As he slowly did things one by one, old memories surfaced here and there, like fragments of an aged film reel.
"Huh?"
His teammates looked at him with curiosity.
"What?"
"Senior Ji-tae, don't you think you've changed somehow?"
"Huh? Uh…!"
"Right?"
"What is it? Was he always that tall?"
His height, which had already been above average, had grown noticeably—nearly 187 centimeters. On top of that, the muscles in his shoulders and arms visible beneath the uniform showed unfamiliar contours, enough to make one doubt it was the same person.
Unable to hold back, a junior approached him.
"Senior Ji-tae. Did something happen?"
Yu Ji-tae turned his head to look at him. What was his name again? The name tag helped. Kim Min-soo.
"Why?"
"Well, you suddenly seem taller. And your body, too… it looks like it's gotten a lot better."
"Nothing happened."
The junior flinched at the low, abruptly cut-off voice.
It wasn't just his height or voice. His gaze felt oddly blurred, his expression unreadable, as if no one could tell what he was thinking. Everything about him felt unfamiliar.
He had always been quiet and taciturn, but the atmosphere now was something different altogether.
It was as if he had become an entirely different person.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"I said I am."
"Or, um… did you perhaps undergo chance?"
When a person embraces mana and becomes a superhuman, it's called Awakening.
And when a superhuman receives a Blessing from the world, it's called—the opening of one's eyes.
Strictly speaking, he had indeed undergone it. He had been receiving blessings for over a hundred years.
Yu Ji-tae nodded vaguely.
"No wonder! Wow. Congratulations, Senior!"
The response came from behind him.
"What congratulations? What nonsense are you spouting? Is this really the time for you idiots to be congratulating each other?"
A loud voice echoed through the office. It belonged to a middle-aged man hardened by life—Inspector Park, the chief of the Superhuman Investigation Division.
The moment he entered, the office fell silent, as if doused with cold water. The team leader hurriedly stood at attention, and the team members rushed to line up beside him.
Right. This place had that kind of culture.
Yu Ji-tae quietly moved to stand somewhere in the middle.
"How many weeks has it been now? You already pulled manpower from an understaffed team to catch Jo Ho-sik and made a huge mess, so why the hell is there still no news?!"
The chief unleashed his anger.
Jo Ho-sik?
No matter how he searched his memory, the name rang no bells. Probably some petty criminal who had committed a crime in Lair and gone into hiding.
The stiffened team leader spoke nervously.
"We've almost tracked him down! If you could just give us a little more time—"
"A little? A little?"
The chief stepped forward and poked the team leader's forehead with his finger.
"Do you know what Team One is saying about you right now?"
"Pardon?"
"Of course you don't. Yeah. And you probably never will."
"What, what are they saying?"
"They're saying we should just let them handle it. That it'd be faster if they went to catch Jo Ho-sik themselves. You know what makes me even angrier? I can't even tell those guys to hold back. Know why?"
"Th-that is…"
"Because every word they're saying is true! Damn it! You bunch of sore fingers!"
Then he began poking the team members' foreheads one by one.
"You're the thumb."
"Ugh."
"You're the index finger."
"Ow!"
"You're the middle finger!"
"Hey! Why are you poking me harder than the others?!"
"Don't you know what 'middle finger' means? It's 'fuck you,' you idiot. And you—! You're…!"
But when he reached the fourth person in line, his hand stopped in front of Yoo Jitae. The chief's eyes widened in surprise.
"Huh?"
From a higher vantage point, Yu Ji-tae was looking straight down into his eyes.
"Huh? Who's this, and why is he here?"
"What do you mean, sir? That's Ji-tae. Yu Ji-tae."
"Huh? You're Yu Ji-tae?"
Without replying, Yu Ji-tae simply gave a small nod. Inspector Park scanned his face and body, then tilted his head in confusion.
"Huh… You look different somehow. Well, whatever! I've got somewhere I need to be right now, so I'll give you a deadline."
"A deadline, sir?"
"I'll give you exactly one week. Within that time, either catch Jo Ho-sik yourselves or shut this whole thing down. Got it?"
"Captain! One week, you say?"
"Figure it out yourselves!"
Section Chief Park said only that and disappeared.
It was as if a spark had landed right in the middle of the team.
"Good grief. We couldn't catch him in three months—how are we supposed to nab that guy in a week…?"
"The section chief's being way too harsh."
"Are we dealing with some ordinary crook? We're talking about catching the elusive Jo Ho-sik."
"Exactly."
The team members let out deep sighs one after another. Everyone looked burdened with worry. The regressor made a guess. Judging from the circumstances, they seemed afraid that three months of effort might all go to waste.
Why were they suffering so much over just a few months of work, as if it were something so precious? No matter how many times he thought about it, he couldn't empathize with that feeling at all.
Perhaps the gap he felt now was proportional to how far away he had drifted from what he had once lost.
Still, he understood the situation clearly.
When necessary. To the extent necessary. As long as it didn't disrupt his daily life.
For the sake of his own routine, he was willing to help them.
Of course, it wasn't as though he would do anything personally.
***
Daily life is daily life, and work still has to be done.
That evening, Yu Ji-tae broke through the airspace near the Mediterranean in southern Europe.
Florence, Italy. On a street lined with Renaissance-style buildings. In a place where street musicians played beautiful music, Yu Ji-tae came face to face with a young girl.
She looked about seventeen, maybe eighteen.
"..."
The girl stopped walking and stood there.
Yu Ji-tae also halted and stared at her for a long while.
Hair the color of peridot. And eyes that shone like jewels.
After living for so many years, he had long since lost all interest in feminine beauty. Even so, his gaze lingered on her face, because no matter how many times he looked, it was not the face of a human.
Her transcendent, race-defying features held a beauty so intense it was almost unsettling.
She was a green dragon.
"..."
As if she had sensed something, she looked at him with a slightly stiff expression.
Yu Ji-tae pondered. Meeting her was fine, but now what was he supposed to do?
In previous iterations, there had been no reason to bother talking at length with hatchling dragons, so he had simply kidnapped them on the spot and locked them away in an underground labyrinth.
In the end, that approach had always turned out to be a bad move.
So this time, he would do things a little differently.
More… normally.
"Hello."
He greeted her.