Former Warrior Turns Into A Million-Dollar Actor [EN]: Chapter 5

Oozing and Scouting (3)

* * *

Sakunis Highlands, dusk.

A massive curtain of night draped across the sky.

A faint golden shadow ascended the hill, its elevation increased by the corpses of demons.

It was the Saintess, clad in a white veil and light armor.

“Hero.”

The Hero, in full plate armor, turned his head, having planted his massive sword in the ground.

The once silver breastplate and shoulder armor were now stained a dark, grimy color, unrecognizable from their former glory.

“What are you doing, wasting time? You could be getting some sleep.”

“But we won today, didn’t we? With our own strength.”

“If only that tiny Jurahan Frontier Count had sent a thousand ironclad soldiers. I’d tear his balls off with heated tongs, that bastard.”

Uncharacteristically crude language for a Saintess. But after countless repetitions in this life and previous ones, it was familiar.

The Hero, Park Gun, rubbed his forehead with the hand not holding his sword.

He had been splattered with so much demon blood that the dried scabs crumbled inside his gauntlet.

“There are so many guys to tear the balls off.”

The battle for the Sakunis Highlands was fierce.

After fighting for three days and three nights straight, the allied forces pushed back the demons trying to invade the western ridge.

But the rate of recovery was different.

Demons continued to be conceived in the depths of hell, but humans lacked the time for boys to grow into young men, and soldiers into knights.

The lords who should have been supporting the allied forces were holed up in their castles, refusing to send troops.

What about the angels?

High in the heavens, those damn pigeons only flew down to deliver messages to the Vatican, flapping their wings and disappearing.

ㅡThe attacks of the Archdemons are growing fiercer! The burning army is pushing in like that, why isn’t Heaven helping us!

ㅡGo back, Hero. We are bound by the rules of the world. It requires a price to manifest and fight.

Park Gun’s teeth ground together.

“Damn pigeons.”

“Pigeons?”

The Saintess blinked her golden eyes. For a brief moment, a pang of pity spread through Park Gun’s heart.

This selfless woman would sacrifice her life for humanity, no matter how many times the cycle repeated.

Did she not know that she was a faithful tool of the Holy See and the Order… of the Iron Kingdom’s people?

“Let’s go in, the wind is cold.”

“Do your balls freeze too, Hero?”

“If you keep that up, I won’t talk to you tomorrow.”

The path down the hill was cold and damp.

Looking down at the flickering lights of the barracks, like dying embers, Park Gun thought.

How should I kill them?

Or, how should I die?

*

Gun’s eyes snapped open.

His hand went up to his head, but there was no sword hilt to grasp.

Only after a few seconds did his tense muscles relax. This was not the black land of the Demon Realm, but South Korea, his room.

‘I came back.’

He must have been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember it, and the sheets were soaked.

He went to the living room, but his family was nowhere to be seen. There was only a sticky note on the refrigerator in Han Young-joo’s handwriting.

[1. Get some rest, 2. Check your phone]

“Ah, the phone.”

He remembered that he hadn’t charged it, so he belatedly plugged in the jack and turned on his smartphone.

The phone, which had been off for a while, was flooded with texts, Kakao [Korean messaging app] messages, and calls.

He casually dismissed the alarms and checked the incoming messages.

-Gun, where are you?

-Hey bro, where’d you run off to!

-Please save us, come to the auditorium!

From his comrades desperately looking for him after he disappeared during the discharge ceremony,

-When is Park Gun coming out?

-Supposedly 9 am ㅇㅇ He would have finished long ago and gotten a ride

-Hey, his phone is off

-? I called his aunt and she said he hasn’t arrived home either?

-Did something happen??

A group message from worried friends,

-Bro, where are you? They said you left the base… Mom is worried because your phone is off. If you send me your location, I’ll pick you up as soon as I finish work!

Even a desperate text from his younger sibling.

Reading the messages one by one, it dawned on him that he had returned.

This was a place where he wouldn’t return to the beginning even if he died, and he didn’t need to be on guard every time he woke up.

The Hero’s burden was finally over.

He suddenly felt hungry.

‘So this is what it feels like to be hungry.’

There were leftover japchae [Korean glass noodles with vegetables and meat] and side dishes in the refrigerator. Gun opened the pressure cooker and took out the half-full rice container.

The memories that had been suppressed by the shock of the transfer gradually returned.

Nth iteration where he died dozens of times. The Hero Park Gun and his companions arrived at the deepest part of the burning hell.

And they were about to defeat the second of the five Archdemons, Berial of Sin.

The battle was more desperate than ever. All the other heroes were dead, and only the Executioner Hunt, the Second Prince of the Empire, and the Saintess of the Iron Kingdom stood by his side.

The moment the Holy Sword struck Berial, the sky of hell opened wide.

…And what happened then?

ㅡHero, look at me!

He remembered the Saintess shouting something. And the angels appearing from the open sky with light.

That was all.

When he regained consciousness, he was lying on the mountain behind the base in his combat uniform.

“I couldn’t have met all the return conditions.”

He didn’t know what had happened, but there was no one to ask now.

A dream? Or a severe mental illness?

It was too vivid to consider it that way, after the past thirty years.

Gun calmly clenched and unclenched his fist. Last night, before going to bed, he had to make some adjustments.

His body had returned to normal, but the excessively sharp senses of his body were a problem.

He couldn’t sleep for a while because he could hear not only his family outside the door, but also the footsteps of pedestrians passing by 20 floors below.

‘It’s too much in the middle of Seoul, not like a conflict zone on a mission.’

Still, he didn’t have to worry about making a living.

He could be a police officer or a bodyguard, or a physical labor job wouldn’t be bad either. With his current body, he could go to a construction site every day and make good money.

I have to go back. There are still two Archdemons left.

The Hero Park Gun muttered in his head.

Where are you going back to, you bastard? You’ve been rolling around for thirty years without even dying.

The Park Gun of this world retorted, grinding his teeth.

“Stop it.”

He muttered, pressing his temples, and the buzzing voices disappeared.

There were still too many unexplained things.

Come to think of it, returning to Earth was suspicious in many ways.

Clearly, the Saintess said there were five Archdemons.

He killed three of them, and was about to finish off the fourth when he was forcibly transferred.

Did they hide the real return conditions? Or did some variable occur in the world in the meantime?

After a moment of contemplation, Gun shook his head.

It was the return he had so desperately wanted. Even if there were things left undone, it was just the circumstances of that world, and it wouldn’t be worth it to be affected even after returning.

‘Besides, I don’t remember well.’

Just before the fight with Berial… what did the Saintess say at the Demon Realm’s camp?

In the midst of the fierce battle, the memories of each iteration were distorted and twisted, with several paragraphs missing.

Even what the original goal of human Park Gun, not Hero Park Gun, was.

“Ah.”

Gun stared blankly below.

Not only the side dishes he had brought, but even the full rice container was completely empty, as if a cow had licked it clean.

“I need to do something quickly.”

*

“Hey, Park Gun. So what happened?”

“What?”

The straw-grilled pork belly restaurant was noisy with customers. Bae Young-ho, who was flipping the pork belly, asked again.

“What happened yesterday? I was worried until I got a call from you and your aunt.”

“Yeah, tell us honestly. If it’s a military secret, we’ll bury it, but if not, we’ll keep digging.”

Seo Seung-ah, sitting on the left, joined the interrogation.

Knowing that they wouldn’t stop if he didn’t tell them, Gun embellished the excuse he had prepared.

“I fell asleep at the base and missed the ride. My phone was out of battery, and when I got home, Seon-i had been beaten up. I couldn’t contact you because I was dealing with that.”

He was meeting his friends now.

A group of elementary school classmates who had been close friends since before enlisting, called ‘Hopeless Trio’.

Seo Seung-ah, with her short hair, suit, and neat blouse, frowned.

“Beaten up? By who?”

“A senior at work.”

“But why are you dealing with it? You should have contacted me and reported it first.”

“Why you?”

Seo Seung-ah pointed to Gun and herself alternately with an absurd look on her face.

“You’re a civilian who just got discharged, I’m a third-year lawyer.”

“Ah.”

“What do you mean ‘ah’? Bae Young-ho, isn’t he acting weird? I thought he was still drunk, but his eyes are suspicious.”

“Hey, it’s only been a day. Even I couldn’t come to my senses for a few days after being discharged as a military legal officer.”

Unlike Bae Young-ho, Seo Seung-ah didn’t let go of her suspicious gaze.

“Shouldn’t he go to the hospital? The worst thing about being discharged is getting screwed over right before the end, and if he’s got PTSD from being in a special forces unit and only doing tough operations at the end, I’m really going to file a lawsuit.”

Bae Young-ho, who was listening, was disgusted.

“Why does a girl like you use those words?”

“I learned it all from following you guys around. If you’re upset, don’t talk about the military.”

“Gun, is this right? A newbie who hasn’t even been to training camp is acting like he knows everything…”

Instead of answering, Gun drank his soju [Korean distilled rice liquor].

He was lucky that he remembered his family, but his other relationships were full of holes.

Seo Seung-ah… Bae Myung-ho… Not only his close friends, but also his comrades who had been discharged earlier or were still in the unit were blurry or faint.

‘There’s still time.’

“Attention!”

At that moment, a loud salute was heard.

The eyes of the two arch-enemies, who were fiercely biting each other, turned to the large TV in the meat restaurant.

On the screen, a male actor wearing a beret was saluting a female military officer.

Seo Seung-ah narrowed her eyes.

“It’s popular, isn’t it.”

“Ah, Lord of Despair? All our employees are talking about it, saying Lee Si-do found the character of his life.”

“I don’t find it interesting. What kind of newly commissioned lieutenant goes to South America and stops a war? They’re pushing it too far with the actor’s face and directing.”

Bae Young-ho, who was listening, smiled and asked.

“As a former special forces member, what do you think about seeing those cheap fantasy military dramas being so popular?”

Seo Seung-ah quickly responded.

“What’s there to say? If he was there, they would have made a perfectly realistic special ops film.”

“So what? People like us have no connection to broadcasting. You should go on a lawyer show and he should go on a military show to get your faces out there, that’s the best promotion.”

“He’s exempting himself because he’s a civil servant.”

The screen changed. Gun, watching the protagonist moving forward without a speck of dirt on him in a conflict zone pouring with fire, said nonchalantly.

“I got a call? They told me to come for an audition.”

The eyes of the two adversaries widened.

“What?”