Call Of The Spear [EN]: Chapter 548

Nangseon Gi Hwan Dam – Part 2, Chapter 257

I opened my eyes to find myself in a hospital.

My head was foggy, as if I had just woken up from a deep sleep.

Despite the disorientation, I tried to move, reacting to the unfamiliar surroundings.

Immediately, a tearing pain engulfed my entire body.

As I writhed in pain, someone rushed over, startled by my movement, and shouted,

“Beom-ah, are you okay! Are you okay!! Nurse! Over here! The patient is awake!”

Straining my blurry vision, I tried to make out who it was and saw a familiar face.

It was my girlfriend.

“What… happened?”

“You were in an accident. A car accident. A truck suddenly…”

It was drunk driving.

A truck driver, heavily intoxicated from daytime drinking, ignored the traffic signal and crashed into our car.

As a result, my arms and legs were shattered.

“Yong-i…”

She choked up, unable to speak his name.

Still, I held onto hope.

Was he in more critical condition than me?

It was possible.

The truck hit us from the left.

Yong-i would have taken the brunt of the impact more directly than I did.

A sense of unease washed over me.

But I couldn’t let go of the sliver of hope.

Kim Yong-i, a friend I had grown up with like a brother.

Always smiling brightly, always cracking silly jokes.

There was no way he could have died so easily.

“Why…”

But why couldn’t she speak?

If he was in the intensive care unit, she could just say that. If he was in surgery, she could say he was in surgery. Why couldn’t she speak?

Why.

Why could she only cry without saying a word?

Why!

“Why are you just crying!!”

With great effort, I shouted, and she collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

It poured out.

Her grief poured out.

* * *

In a wheelchair, I arrived at the funeral home attached to the hospital.

The TV monitor in the room labeled ‘Hall 1’ displayed Yong-i’s photo and name.

A small, sparsely decorated mortuary.

The smoke from the incense sticks rose haphazardly, and beyond it, Kim Yong-i’s portrait smiled, oblivious to my feelings.

“Why are you there?”

The face in the photo was smiling particularly brightly.

What was so good?

What was so enjoyable?

Just like always, with that silly face he made when he looked at me.

Frozen in that state, captured in the photo, he was just grinning.

For a long time, I couldn’t open my mouth.

I blankly stared at Yong-i’s photo in the mortuary, where not a single person came to pay respects.

Strangely, tears didn’t come.

Was it because it didn’t really hit my heart yet?

I didn’t know if it was a dream or reality.

That’s why tears didn’t come.

“It’s so quiet.”

Unlike other places where wailing echoed, Yong-i’s mortuary was silent.

The reason was simple.

No one came to visit.

He was born an orphan.

He had no relatives.

“Four people.”

I heard that a few people from the factory had come by.

But only four people.

A person died, but there were only four mourners.

Even that was the number of people who came representing the company.

Just four people.

After that, no matter how many hours I waited, no matter how many days I waited, no one else came.

Proceeding with the funeral arrangements, I saw Yong-i in the morgue for the last time and had him cremated.

Seeing the coffin enter the fiery furnace, tears finally welled up.

The sight of him burned to ashes and returning as a handful of bone fragments brought an indescribable feeling.

“Let’s go, oppa [older brother/term of endearment for a male],” my girlfriend said.

“…Okay.”

Hugging the urn containing Yong-i’s bones, I left the crematorium and returned home.

After that, I didn’t leave the house for a long time.

With my arms and legs broken, I couldn’t go to the factory.

I couldn’t work.

My girlfriend suggested that we move, but I couldn’t do that. Yong-i’s room remained untouched from that day on.

It was exactly as it had been before.

I even cleaned it occasionally so that he could use it whenever he came back.

It was a foolish thing to do.

How could a dead person come back?

It’s just that I couldn’t bring myself to do it; I couldn’t clean it up, so I just left it like that.

“I still have enough money.”

Yong-i’s death benefits had been transferred to my name.

The money was a little less than sixty million won [approximately $45,000 USD].

“In dramas, they give hundreds of millions of won; do they give less money because he was an orphan?”

I knew it was because he only had one comprehensive insurance policy.

Even though I knew, I felt sad for no reason.

A person died, but no one contacted us, and only a few people came to pay respects.

Moreover, the death benefit was a meager amount of less than sixty million won.

My friend’s death felt like the sky was falling, but the world seemed no different than the death of a stray cat, and I felt empty for no reason.

Sixty million.

It was a lot of money, but the fact that my friend was exchanged for this made me feel an indescribable sense of futility.

“Will I be like this too?”

The day I die won’t be much different. It would be worse than him, not less.

After graduating from school, I had to work to make a living, and it became difficult to contact my friends.

The areas where we lived became different, and as we lived like that, contact was lost.

As it became difficult to contact them first, I naturally drifted away from them.

That’s why Kim Yong-i and I relied on each other even more.

Well.

What’s the point of having many friends and acquaintances?

It’s not like the dead come back to life.

“If I sell the deposit for my apartment and add the insurance money of sixty million and the forty million I’ve saved, I’ll have about a hundred million [approximately $75,000 USD].”

It’s enough money to buy a small apartment.

“This is fucked up.”

What’s the point of buying a house with the money I worked my ass off to save?

We’re all going to die anyway.

It’s not like I have anything I want to do or any goals.

Thud.

“Haa…”

I slumped down in my seat and sighed deeply. Blankly staring at the room Yong-i used to use is my daily routine these days.

I know it’s a foolish thing to do.

Dead people are dead, and the living must live, which is the right thing to do.

“I miss you. Yong-ah.”

But that’s what people can’t do.

It’s human nature.

I was so good at giving up that I could call it a specialty.

As if denying my past life, it seems that there is something I can’t give up.

『I think giving up is also courage.』

Before the accident.

Yong-i’s words suddenly came to mind.

Giving up is also courage.

“I know what you mean now.”

But he’s wrong.

Giving up is also courage.

Yong-i told me not to be cowardly, saying that I was a courageous guy, but he was wrong.

I’m not a courageous guy.

It was just easier for me.

What I’ve been doing so far isn’t because I have courage.

So, this time, I’m going to show you what real courage is.

Creak.

Stepping onto the chair, my view became higher. I tied the rustling plastic bag in my hand to the ceiling.

As I put my head in it, the size was perfect, as if it had been made to measure.

Soon, I put my weight on it and kicked the chair away.

A croaking sound like a toad came from my neck.

As the weight was placed on my neck, I quickly became disoriented, and it felt like my neck bones would break, which was very painful.

Without realizing it, my instincts wanted to live, so I grabbed the plastic that was strangling my neck.

The thought that this wasn’t right filled my head, and I struggled to live.

But it was already too late.

Tears streamed down, my vision faded, and I was on the verge of running out of breath.

Thwack!

The plastic tore.

Thud!

I fell, frantically untied the plastic, and gasped for air.

“Cough! Huff! Huff!”

My whole body trembled, and I felt chills.

And soon my face flushed.

My neck tingled.

HOT tears flowed down my cheeks.

I was pathetic.

Even I thought I was too pathetic.

“Keuh, hehehe, kehahahahaha!”

I sobbed and laughed.

I coughed and laughed and cried.

I collapsed on the floor and cried and laughed in despair, and then cried again.

I cried and cried again.

As if my tears would never dry, they flowed and flowed endlessly.

I’m a moron who can’t even die.

A guy who doesn’t even have the courage to commit suicide.

When I thought I was really going to die, I was so scared.

So I struggled to live.

Thanks to that, the plastic tore, and I fell pathetically to the floor, saving my life.

“I’m sorry… for not even being able to die.”

I cried like that, cried for a long time, and then fell asleep.

When I woke up after falling asleep like an idiot, my body was so heavy.

My whole body felt like it was on fire.

I seemed to have a fever.

“This is a really fucked up world.”

I spat out curses for no reason, found some medicine in the house, took it, and went back to sleep.

I had nightmares and woke up soaked in sweat dozens of times.

Then I cried like a madman again, threw the blanket off, covered myself again, and fell asleep.

And when the medicine kicked in and the fever subsided.

Suddenly, while lying in bed covered with a blanket, I noticed something black under Kim Yong-i’s bed.

“It looks like a bag…”

Covered in a blanket, I reached under the bed and pulled it out.

“It’s heavy.”

It was quite heavy.

And it was hard.

Inside the bag was a thick book that looked quite old.

Ting.

A cell phone alarm rang.

When I checked, it was my girlfriend.

[Happy birthday. Are you doing well?]

Come to think of it, today was my birthday.

This book.

It seemed that Yong-i had bought this book thinking about my upcoming birthday.

Then, the hand holding the book involuntarily tightened.

“You…”

Why did he buy something like this?

It’s all written in Chinese characters, so it’s hard to read.

“Sanhae… Balsango [likely a fictional or obscure title, perhaps related to mountains and seas]?”

But before I knew it, I was somehow looking up the Chinese characters one by one and reading the book.

I liked reading books.

Moreover, it was a book that Yong-i had bought for me when he was alive.

There was no reason not to read it.

And so a day passed.

Still, I didn’t stop reading the book.

And so three days passed.

Still, I didn’t stop reading the book.

One day became three days, three days became a month, and a month became several months,

When there were only a few pages left.

I had become Beom in the novel I was reading.

* * *

Swish.

[Have you opened your eyes?]

A rather dark, bottomless space.

The abyss of Geonwonhaemok [likely a fictional place or concept].

There, I opened my eyes again.

[What have you seen?]

To that question, I answered.

“I have seen my roots.”

[Whatever it may be, there must be a foundation. And the roots are more important than we think.]

“I see.”

[As you live, you often forget your roots, whatever they may be. So Geonwonhae seems to be trying to engrave that. It’s like giving a warning, or telling you in advance.]

To let you know your roots for the greater trials ahead.

“Who are you?”

[Well. Rather than who I am, it’s more important to look at what’s in front of you, so don’t worry about it.]

Whoosh.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, and Cheonbeom’s eyes closed and then opened.

As the swaying bangs tickled his forehead, a bizarre door appeared in the empty space.

The gate that appeared with a dreary mist had clouds carved below, and above it were dragons, phoenixes, stars, moons, and suns.

It looked shabby as if it would break if you touched it, but in some ways, it was also antique.

It seemed to be sparkling, and it also seemed to be translucent.

“It’s too old…”

In fact, I wondered if I had been dreaming.

I wondered if that life was not real.

But it didn’t seem to be the case.

Seeing that I had dug up a past that I had forgotten, my previous life was real.

“It’s also resentful. I don’t know why they’re so eager to catch me, whether then or now.”

It’s a bleak past.

But it’s a past that must be remembered.

It’s a memory and recollection that has faded over the long years, but it’s something that must not be forgotten.

“Giving up is also courage…”

With a faint look, Beom blankly stared at the air and then rounded his lips.

“Fuck off.”

Bang! The gate burst open.

And a brilliant light swallowed him.

And what was visible was…

The Wonseon Taesas [likely a title or group of powerful individuals] were sitting in a circle, as if they had been waiting for him.

“Have you finally come?”

At the center.

His Cheongeom [likely a significant sword or weapon] stood beside Geomno Iltaek [likely a character’s name].

“Yes.”

Looking at Hwaran [likely a character’s name], Cheonbeom smiled.

“I’ve come to take what’s mine.”