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Chapter 187: Memory

Scritch. Scritch.

A small child was drawing on the ground. Although he was a child, he was quite skilled. It wasn\'t a flashy and beautiful picture, but it was easy to see what he was depicting: monsters and…a Hero.

It was a picture of a single Hero fighting an uncountable horde of monsters.

“...”

Although the child continued to draw, not a single person approached the child. The sandy playground was quiet, and the rusted swing set made a squeaking sound. All of the playground equipment around it was rusted and left unattended for years. The child was alone in the old playground.

Scritch, scritch.

Time passed, and the sun was setting, but even so, the child continued to draw without stopping. It wasn’t until the sun had completely set that the child got up from his seat.

“...”

So much time had passed that there was no longer any light in his surroundings, let alone the bright sunlight from earlier. The child had been left completely unattended for quite some time and had finally left the playground on his own.

Swish.

At the playground where the child had just left, the abandoned painting blew away in the wind. He had been completely unaware that there had been someone watching this entire time.

“...”

A being had been floating around through the air like a ghost, watching over the child the entire time he had been at the playground.

‘My childhood…’

That figure, Lee Jun-Kyeong, had found himself looking down at his own past.

***

It could be said that Lee Jun-Kyeong’s childhood had been unfortunate. There was only one place that an orphan with no parents would have gone.

He had been sent to an orphanage they called The Facility, but there was no one who paid proper attention to the child. Instead, the people there, including even the director of the orphanage, devoted all of their hearts and souls to finding a Hunter’s child.

‘A Hunter. You can never be sure, there might be a Hunter’s child among them.’

Finding a Hunter’s illegitimate child was like winning the lottery for an orphanage. Occasionally, a Hunter’s illegitimate child would be abandoned or disappear, and if they were to be found in an orphanage, if they were a large enough orphanage, they would brainwash and raise them.

Or they were sold to Hunters without children or to ordinary people who were lucky enough to have great wealth. After all, a Hunter’s illegitimate child would, in turn, become a Hunter, and such young Hunters were valuable resources.

‘So it’s not surprising that they didn’t care whatsoever about a child like me.’

The other children starved and died, yet still, no one cared. The orphanage only had one role: to provide a place for them to sleep.

The food provided to the children was no different from the end scraps, and the only day the children ate anything decent was the day Hunters would visit to find a child to adopt. In that manner, Lee Jun-Kyeong lived a hellish life during his time there. Stuck in a place without dreams or hopes, Lee Jun-Kyeong grew up watching countless children die.

"I…”

The young Lee Jun-Kyeong was talking to someone.

Lee Jun-Kyeong looked at the figure his younger self was interacting with, but couldn’t figure out the identity of the person he was talking to. It was a child the same age as his younger self, also an orphan without parents.

“...”

His younger self looked sullen as he spoke to the child.

‘I…’

He hadn’t had a single friend in those days. In that horrifying and grueling orphanage, the children had found a way to survive together. However, he hadn’t been included in that group.

“You’re so gloomy.”

“It pisses me off.”

It wasn’t just a single hell that he lived in. Within a hell always laid the chance for the appearance of another Hell.[1]

The children had all regarded him as unlucky, and not a single one of them would speak to him. The young boy sat, crouched on the ground.

‘I just spent all my time curled up in my room every day.’

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There was nothing else he could do. Finding something to do was difficult for a child of that age to even comprehend. His daily routine was just limited to eating the trash they gave for food and washing up before someone visited. There was only one thing he had as his friend.

Flutter. Flutter.

‘The Book of the Demon King.’

It was a memento left to him by his dead parents, and it was a book that he tried his hardest not to get taken from him. Unlike how the adults at the orphanage just thought that it was just a storybook or some notebook, to him, it had been his greatest inheritance. At that age, he would spend his entire day tucked in a corner of his room reading that book.

‘That’s right, there was the playground, too.’

There were also the times he would go spend time in the old playground where no one would look for him.

‘It’s driving me crazy.’

Looking down at his childhood self, Lee Jun-Kyeong furrowed his brow. He could see his younger self, but he himself was completely unable to do anything, Watching it all, he could feel his heart tear apart once more from the terrible despair and loneliness that he had felt before.

***

Time was passing faster than expected, almost as if it was being cut and pasted.

‘So it’s showing me the times I suffered the most…’

It was the times he was at his most desperate, picking out his most painful times and showing them. Although it was fortunate that he wasn’t being forced to watch his entire twenty-plus years of life, it still wasn’t a fun experience.

Lee Jun-Kyeong was becoming accustomed to being forced to see his memories. He had tried to break through the experience using force, but it was impossible.

‘Muninn’s ability deals with memories…’

It was said that if one got trapped in the Familiar’s ability, trapped in one’s memories, there was a way to escape. However, that method was definitely not through strength. Lee Jun-Kyeong looked for hints as he examined his past memories.

Before he knew it, his younger self had grown up quite a bit. Still, nonetheless, life hadn’t changed much. He would eat garbage and be bullied by his peers.

Smack! Smack!

There were even days when if the director weren’t in a good mood, he would be called out and beaten. Still, he would at least be given something slightly more edible than normal after being beaten to the point of fainting.

‘Not a single person cared about me.’

The young Lee Jun-Kyeong thought that this was all the world amounted to: a painful, exhausting life. That was all the world was. Thus, with that thought, he endured.

He took it for granted because he thought everyone was going through the same life, the same Hell. So, he continued to endure, thinking that his Hell, a little better than others, was manageable.

‘Damn it.’

However, as his memories split apart and reconnected, before Lee Jun-Kyeong realized it again, the child before him, looking to be about eight years old, was wearing clothes. His body was clean, and his features were distinct.

There were no marks from being beaten, and he had grown a little as if he had eaten well lately. Although this was from when he was young, Lee Jun-Kyeong still remembered it all clearly.

“Live as mannerly as possible,” the director of the orphanage said to his younger self with a benevolent smile.

“Because, if you ever come back…you’ll never be able to go outside again.”

Although it was a sentence that should never have been spoken to a child, the director stood, saying it to his younger self.

Slide.

As the director left, his younger self hid the Book of the Demon King under his shirt. It was his treasure, a treasure no one cared about or coveted.

‘No.’

The younger Lee Jun-Kyeong stepped forward.

‘NO!’ the ghostly Lee Jun-Kyeong screamed out as he tried to reach his younger self somehow.

‘It’s just a memory…’

However, what was in front of him was just a memory of his past self, something in his head that could never be changed. His younger self eventually left the room as the scene around him changed.

“Good. So they chose you.”

A couple smiled down at his younger self.

“From now on, you will never go hungry.”

It was the Hunter couple who adopted him, and what they said was true. He was no longer hungry from that point on.

‘No…’

What awaited him, however, was a more hellish experience, so hellish in fact that his time at the orphanage had been better. This was it. His loathing of Hunters, his hatred of Hunters, this Hell of Hunters, had been the beginning of it all.

***

Smack!

“Who told you to use chopsticks?”

The child who had been slapped on the cheek put down the chopsticks with trembling hands.

“That’s right,” the adult who slapped him said. “If you’re a dog, you should eat like a dog on the floor.”

The man tossed the bowl full of food on the floor. Although the food was definitely of good quality and delicious, now that it had fallen to the floor, it was no different from when he had been given scraps at the orphanage.

“But it’s the same…” he whispered.

“What did you say just now?”

However, the adult who had heard the child mutter to himself stood up.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Then, again, he slapped the child\'s cheek, his twisted lips clearly smiling. After having beaten him for a long time, he let the boy go.

“Eat.”

And, even despite the continuous violence, the child ate to survive. Lee Jun-Kyeong’s younger self had been adopted by a wealthy Hunter couple. However, his adoption had been special. The couple had already had children who would grow into great Hunters and thus didn’t need another child.

No, they had needed something different with him.

“Dad! He eats so well!”

It was fashionable among wealthy Hunters to have special pets that no one else had.

“Yes, yes. Go wash it and take good care of it.”

His younger self was a pet that ate well, barked well, and obeyed well.

Shuffle.

His younger self picked up the flood from the floor and stood up to eat. However, he wasn’t crying, as he wasn’t starving anymore, and the food was delicious. Moreover, this level of punishment wasn’t much different from before.

‘Here…’

His younger self thought for a moment.

‘It’s a slightly better hell than before.’

His cohabitation with the Hunters had begun.

‘Damn it.’

Lee Jun-Kyeong chewed his lips as he watched it all. This was his past that had completely disappeared from his memory. It was his forgotten pain.

‘I can’t remember it.’

He couldn’t remember how he had been able to leave this Hell.

***

“…”

White hair fluttered in the wind. A woman with white, flowing hair looked down with sunken eyes. What lay before her eyes was a broken London.

“Is it our fault?”

It was so broken that no one could even imagine it ever being able to return to its original glory.

“Well, it’s not like we can take it all back,” a man with a low voice said from next to her.

The man had great stature, and radiant blond hair, and there was even a beautiful sword at his waist. Overlooking London, the two oddly fit together well with the image of the destroyed city.

“You’re right, there really is no taking it back…” the white-haired woman said in a choked voice.

“If there’s anything to be relieved about, it’s that we were able to save many people.”

The woman, Merlin, had acted before the battle had begun. London may not have been able to be saved, but its people could. The people they were able to protect, hidden away in Merlin’s space with bated breaths, were waiting for the day they would be able to return.

“Yes. And that’s enough,” the blonde man, Arthur, said, no longer a child.

“But…”

“There are no buts,” Arthur said sternly to Merlin, who seemed sad and longing.

“We will never be able to go back to the past.”

“...”

“All we can do is look to the future and move on.”

“To the past…”

They would never be able to take it back. She wanted to go back to before all of this tragedy had started, even if it was only right up to before the battle started. However, even Merlin wasn’t able to do something like that.

No.

‘It’s impossible for anyone in this world to go back in time.’

Merlin\'s eyes turned to the sky. She wondered if it was possible for the Sponsors, the ones who possessed all of this power and destruction.

“No," she said to herself firmly. “It’s impossible.”

Merlin sighed and rose. The surviving Knights of the Round Table were waiting at the top of Big Ben.

\'London is sinking.\'

All of England was sinking in the wake of the battle that had begun in London. Those who had survived were rescued as best the Knights were able to, and they were all forced to leave their country, their homeland, England.

"Let\'s go."

They would leave to save people and to get revenge.

"To Korea."

Moving after Olympus, who should have already left first, the remaining British Hunters began heading to Korea.

1. Old Korean proverb. Things can always be worse.