782 Episode 36 Real Kim Dokja (3)

When the invitation from the 'Recycling Center' came, Gilyoung thoughtthe moment he had been waiting for had finally come.

Even if it was a trap, it would be fine. If only he could meet his hyung one more time.

"Don't move. If you use that, I'll really kill you."

When Lee Jihye warned him, pointing to the invitation fluttering in the air, Lee Gilyoung made a stern expression.

"Why? It was for me."

"You don't know what will happen if you go there right now? Do you know what's there?"

"Hyung will be there."

Lee Jihye lightly muttered, and Lee Gilyoung's head was pounded.

"Wake up. What are you going to do when you go there?"

"I'm pretty strong, too."

"Even if we're strong, it's not a place where we can exert 100% of our strength."

"Still—"

"What if you go there and have an accident?"

"I won’t. "

"Are you confident that you can handle it if the probability is all tangled up? Do you know why your master and your older sisters and brothers hesitate to intervene in the world line? Why don’t you go there and cause some aftershocks? What if the scenario gets messed up and everyone dies? And if Dokja-ssi never comes back—"

"Okay."

"What?"

"I get it, so stop."

Lee Gilyoung lowered his head and pursed his lips. Lee Jihye looked at Lee Gilyoung for a moment and then lightly touched his shoulder.

"I know how you feel."

"…"

"Wouldn’t I want to go there too? You have to talk to your older sisters and brothers first. So don’t have any random thoughts and just stay still. Okay? "

"…"

"Answer."

"I got it."

Lee Jihye looked at Lee Gilyoung with anxious eyes for a moment, then sighed and disappeared toward the control room.

Lee Gilyoung looked up at the message fluttering in the air.

He read the message over and over again. He reached out and turned his hand back several times.

"F---..."

Lee Gilyeong, who had been hesitating, eventually gave up and swore.

He knew it too. In fact, Lee Jihye's words were right. He shouldn't act rashly here.

Let's wait for Jihye noona to come back. Don't cause trouble alone again.

I shouldn't ruin everything because of my mistake.

Lee Gilyeong walked somewhere while thinking about such things. The place he headed to was the training room located in the basement. Among them, the 'Room of Time' that was recently created.

Lee Gilyeong, who liked comics, named the room.

He named it himself, but it was Lee Gilyoung's first time entering this room.

A room that was remodeled to resemble the 'Time Fault' of the Dark Dimension, and a place called the 'Tower of Nightmare' in another dimension.

The moment he stepped into the portal of the room, Lee Gilyoung's breath was caught in his throat.

The feeling of inhaling compressed air. The overwhelming density of time that weighed down his existence.

That guy must be the only one training in a place like this.

Lee Gilyoung approached the equipment rack in the corner of the training room. There were the relics and SSS-grade equipment that <Kim Dokja Company> had collected so far on display.

True horse.

Dain Sleif.

Bingryun Hwan.

…

From the report of <First Martial Arts> to the relics of Norse mythology, the projectiles used by the previous king…

A weapon he knew well was hanging in the center of countless weapons.

Cheonchongun Sword. The blade was sharpened to be used at any time, as befitting its owner’s temperament.

To the right of that sword was another sword.

Unbreakable Faith.

The last weapon Kim Dokja used. However, the sword was in a state that belied its name, broken.

Looking at the blade with less than two bones left, Lee Gilyoung reached out to the hilt.

A blade that had not been sharpened for a long time.

Lee Gilyoung gripped the hilt tightly and drew a trajectory in the air.

Kim Dokja saved his companions several times with this sword, but he was never able to save himself.

To be exact, he failed to cut it, and the sword broke in half in return.

Lee Gilyoung did not know what Kim Dokja was thinking while holding this sword.

However, Lee Gilyoung seemed to understand Kim Dokja at the moment when he was about to cut his own childhood.

"Wrong."

Hearing a voice from the darkness, he turned his head in surprise and saw a man in dark clothes standing there.

Lee Gilyoung answered bluntly, adjusting his handle of the sword.

"Then what are you going to do?"

Yoo Jonghyuk motioned to the empty space without saying a word. Then, the 'Cheonchongun Sword' hanging on the wall floated up and was sucked into Yoo Jonghyuk's hand.

In the martial arts world, it is called Heo-gong-seop-mul.

Lee Gilyoung let out a loud noise.

"If you came here to show off your crude skills—"

A brilliant sword light cutting through the darkness.

Lee Gilyoung swallowed his words without realizing it at the sight of that precise trajectory.

A sword strike like a scattering meteor.

Yoo Jonghyuk's history was contained in that fleeting line. Cutting down countless constellations, dropping them, and eventually collapsing the sky that the constellations were hanging on—

Does Yoo Jonghyuk remember everything he cut down to reach that trajectory? The thought of injustice came to him again, and a faint sense of despair followed.

He looked pathetic in front of the overwhelming history that Yoo Jonghyuk had lived through.

"You sooty bastard."

Lee Gilyoung asked Yoo Jonghyuk, who was swinging the Cheonchongun Sword without answering.

Why are you so strong?

Yoo Jonghyuk drew the same trajectory several times and answered calmly.

"You just have to wake up at a set time every day and go to bed at a set time."

"What nonsense are you talking about?"

"Use your day regularly. Make your body develop habits before your will."

"Aside from those self-help books, aren't there any other ways?"

In fact, he didn't ask the question because he thought he would get proper advice. He just wanted to hear something right away and calm his complicated thoughts.

However, Yoo Jonghyuk thought about something for a moment and said this.

"Regret often."

"Regret?"

"I think about the things I could have changed if I had been a little stronger."

He didn't expect to hear such an answer, so Gilyoung answered in confusion.

"I do that all the time."

"Regret it better."

To be honest, I thought Yoo Jonghyuk, of all people, would have a special mentality.

Everyone regrets. Things they couldn't keep. Things they couldn't change.

Gilyoung had such memories too. However, Gilyoung was now afraid to recall those memories.

"What if my emotions wear out?"

"You have to make sure they don't wear out."

"So what."

The Cheonchongun Sword stopped in midair.

Yoo Jonghyuk stared at the point where the blade was pointed and answered.

"Every morning when I wake up, I think I've been reborn."

"What are you talking about? Do you want to receive birthday wishes every day?"

Yoo Jonghyuk didn't answer after hearing that.

A line steadily drawing across the air.

Looking at that line, Gilyoung felt strange.

Maybe Yoo Jonghyuk was still regressing. Even after the trait of the regressor disappeared, isn't he still repeating the regression that no one knows about?

"You should do the same."

"What?"

"Take the sword."

"Are you going to try it now?"

Gilyoung, holding 'Unbreakable Faith', growled. In the darkness, the two new forms intersected, and a cracking sound rang out.

Naturally, the one who fell was Gilyoung.

"Cowardly bastard! I don't know how to use a sword!"

"Get up."

Gilyoung shouted and charged. 'Unbreakable Faith' forcefully slashed the air, and Yoo Jonghyuk lightly swung his sword.

Gilyoung, who rolled on the ground again, shouted.

"What is this! You're using a strange trick right now!"

"I just swung the sword."

"Don't make me laugh! You hit me so hard!"

"Again."

Gilyoung got up and attacked several times. He swung his already broken Unbreakable Faith. His breathing became increasingly difficult and his heart pounded wildly. An unknown elation began to flow through his body.

As they clashed their swords again and again, Gilyoung asked.

"If I keep doing this, can I become as strong as you?"

"No."

"If I really, really work hard."

"…"

"If I practice harder than you are practicing now! Then!"

The Unbreakable Faith and the Cheonchongun Sword clashed, creating black and white magic waves.

The two entangled blades answered for Gilyoung and Yoo Jonghyuk.

"Will I ever be able to save Kim Dokja?"

Gilyoung did not say anything more, and Yoo Jonghyuk did not listen. Nevertheless, the same sentence was engraved on the history of the two.

"If you work that hard."

Yoo Jonghyuk pointed the blade at his ankle.

"You might be able to catch up to this much."

"You rascal."

Lee Gilyoung laughed in vain.

"How much longer would it take to go up a little further?"

"With your talent, it would take a hundred years."

A hundred years.

Considering the time Yoo Jonghyuk had trained with the sword, it was a very generous assessment. To YooJonghyuk, a regressor, a hundred years was 'just a hundred years'.

However, it was different for Lee Gilyoung.

"That's too late."

"..."

"That's too late. It has to be now."

The two blades clashed once again, and 'Unbreakable Faith' that Lee Gilyoung was holding flew into the air.

Yoo Jonghyuk reached out with his other hand and snatched the sword.

"That won't work."

Lee Gilyoung, whose sword had been taken away, asked in a bewildered voice.

"Then what should I do?"

"Regret. And become stronger. You're still young, so you can do more things you'll regret."

Yoo Jonghyuk, standing firm in the darkness, threw the Cheonun Sword. The sword that had spun around like a snail landed right in front of Gilyoung.

Gilyoung blankly looked down at the sword.

"There are still people here who will accept your foolish actions."

When he suddenly raised his head, Yoo Jonghyuk had turned his back.

Gilyoung looked at his back, then looked down at the Thousand Cloud Sword that Yoo Jonghyuk had thrown. Then he bit his lips hard and lightly wiped his eyes, saying,

"You sooty bastard."

"..."

"I'll be back. Just tell my noonas."

With those words, Gilyoung, holding the Thousand Cloud Sword, ran out.

Yoo Jonghyuk looked at the entrance where the boy had disappeared, then looked up at the pitch-black ceiling of the training room for a moment.

He calmly walked out of the training room.

Someone was waiting for him at the entrance to the training room.

"You should have blocked it."

It was Yoo Sangah.

"It was a dam that would burst someday."

"What if you threw a bomb at a dam that would burst someday?"

A portal swirling like a storm could be seen far outside the window.

A portal to another world line—the 41st round.

Lee Gilyoung jumped in without even a moment of hesitation, kicking the ground.

"I gave him special permission. That guy was born anew today."

"What are you talking about?"

Yoo Jonghyuk looked down at the Unbreakable Faith left in his hands and said.

"There's another person who'll regret tomorrow."

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