Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 4

“Haa… Haa… Haa!”

Awakening from a long nightmare, he opened his eyes to a familiar ceiling.

Turning his head, he looked around and realized he was in the same room where he had first woken up.

“Haa… Haa… Haa!”

His whole body was drenched in cold sweat, making him acutely aware that he was alive.

‘What a filthy nightmare, damn it.’

After taking a few deep breaths and calming himself, his eyes regained their прежние [previous] coldness.

‘They didn’t kill me. But they wouldn’t be able to get anything out of me anyway.’

He had always felt that he was closest to death and thought he was ready to die at any moment.

But now that he was alive and awake, his heart felt a deep sense of relief, contrary to his will.

When Kang Chan tried to move his body, he only felt extreme pain; his body didn’t even have the strength to lift a finger.

‘How long has it been since I used combat mode to that extent?’

As he closed his eyes again and reminisced about the past, the elf girl who had been quietly watching him opened her mouth.

“Are you sleeping again?”

Startled by the sudden female voice, Kang Chan turned his head to the side and saw a cute girl with a somewhat familiar face sitting and looking at him with sparkling eyes.

“Who are you?”

At his question, the elf girl’s face contorted.

“What? Who? Ha, really! You made my face like this and don’t even remember? I can’t believe it…”

The elf girl threw a fruit basket at him, agitated.

“Here, eat this!”

“What is this?”

“Can’t you tell? It’s fruit!”

The girl, who had thrown the fruit irritably, had a very slight bruise on her eyelid.

He then remembered who the girl was.

It was the elf girl he had kicked after she had been cleaning him up.

Kang Chan felt a little sorry for kicking the young girl who had been taking care of him so mercilessly.

But he didn’t have the 余裕 [leeway/composure] to worry about the girl right now.

He was already overwhelmed by the current situation he was in.

‘If they were going to kill me, they would have done it a long time ago. The fact that they left me lying on the bed with just a child means they still don’t know my identity?’

He thought it was necessary to act calmly for now.

“How long have I been like this?”

“Are humans originally so sleepy? Or are you just sleepy? How can someone sleep for a year and then sleep for another three days and nights?”

“I slept for a year?”

“Yes, you woke up exactly one year after coming here.”

“…….”

Kang Chan’s eyes shook with strong disbelief.

The special forces unit he belonged to, Red Mars, was not 闲 [idle/free] enough to let him lie in this remote mountain village for a year.

Then what happened to his comrades and the battleship during the year he was asleep?

“How did I get here?”

“You were carried here, of course.”

Kang Chan’s eyes flashed with murderous intent at the girl’s sarcastic tone.

‘Be patient, I have to be patient. This is enemy territory.’

Calming himself, he asked again in a low voice.

“I’m not asking how, but *why* did I end up here?”

“Ah! That? You came back from the brink of death.”

-Blood pressure levels are rising rapidly.

Kang Chan’s head flashed red at the girl’s endlessly twisted attitude, but he desperately overcame it all and managed to maintain his composure with difficulty.

“What’s your name?”

When Kang Chan asked the girl’s name in a low, trembling voice, the girl replied cheerfully.

“Jaina.”

“Okay, Jaina.”

“But you know, why have you been speaking informally to me from the beginning?”

“Isn’t it obvious that it’s because I’m older than you?”

“How old are you?”

He hesitated for a moment.

His actual birth date was over 80 years ago.

The time he spent in the sleep capsule for long-distance space travel was much longer than the time he had lived with his eyes open.

The time he spent coming here alone was 40 years.

Kang Chan even doubted whether this planet used the same one-year time unit as Earth, but he just roughly estimated his age and said.

“Um… about 20 years old.”

“Eek? 20 years old? I’m 95 this year, what? So a snot-nosed brat has been speaking informally to me until now? I can’t believe it?”

The girl’s appearance, who was at a loss for words, did not look like she was over a middle school student at first glance.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“Where do you think you’re going to die, huh! Hey! You old fogey, don’t you lower your eyes? I 힘들게 [with difficulty] wiped your butt for a year, you dare to act like an adult!”

At that moment, something in Kang Chan’s head seemed to ‘snap’.

“I clearly told you that you would be punished, right?”

Kang Chan forced his heavy body like wet cotton to get up and staggered slowly towards Jaina.

Jaina, instinctively frightened by his intense murderous aura, slowly backed away.

“Oh? Why are you doing this? You don’t feel well, why don’t you lie down.”

“I’ll fix your manners…”

“Kyaa!”

Just as Kang Chan, exploding with anger, was about to rush towards Jaina, the door opened and someone entered the room.

It was Arteon, the Lord of the Elves.

She had been contacted by the healing mage who was on standby in case of an emergency and had quickly teleported over.

“Oh my? You two were having fun?”

Jaina, who had run into Arteon’s arms, trembled slightly with fear, her eyes filled with tears.

Kang Chan, who had no intention of making excuses, raised both hands in a gesture of ‘I don’t know’ and sat back on the bed. Arteon, looking at him, stroked Jaina’s hair with a warm gaze and comforted her.

“It’s okay, Jaina, don’t worry. He won’t hurt you. Jaina, go outside for a while. I have something to talk to him about.”

“No! I don’t know what that beast-like human will do to Arteon-nim!”

Kang Chan’s eyes flared up again at Jaina’s words, and Arteon put strength into her hand stroking Jaina’s hair and said again in a gentle but firm tone.

“Don’t worry and go out.”

“Ha, but.”

“Go out.”

“Y-yes…”

As the dejected Jaina left the room, Arteon slowly approached Kang Chan.

Then, a tree trunk rose from the floor to form a chair, and Arteon sat gently on it, smiling brightly at Kang Chan.

“Now, shall we have a serious conversation?”

“About what?”

“About you. Oh, just a moment. The effects of the Speak magic are about to wear off. I’ll cast it again for you.”

Once again, a multicolored light gathered in her hand to form a shape, and the shape permeated Kang Chan’s body.

When he first encountered it, he was too flustered to notice, but watching it slowly with 余裕 [composure] now, it was a truly beautiful and mysterious sight.

“What about me are you so curious about?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

An awkward silence flowed between them, and Arteon broke the silence and continued.

“Let me introduce myself first. My name is Judrian Ode Arteon. What is your name?”

“My name is Kang Chan.”

“Gwang Chan? Is that your full name? Don’t you have a surname?”

“Kang is the surname, and Chan is the given name.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. Your surname and given name are very short.”

“It’s okay.”

She said, her eyes shining.

“Where are you from?”

“That’s.”

He hesitated for a moment.

It was obviously the question they would ask him.

But even so, when he actually received the question, he wondered once again whether he should tell them the truth about where he came from or not.

However, since it was not something that could be hidden anyway, Kang Chan judged that it would be much better to reveal his identity to them fairly and squarely and ask for help.

He decided to honestly reveal where he came from.

However, since he could never reveal the purpose, he decided to lie about that part.

“I’m not from this planet.”

“Yes? This planet? What does that mean? Isn’t the word ‘planet’ used to mean the stars in the night sky?”

Arteon’s face was filled with questions at the words of the stranger who used such unfamiliar expressions.

Kang Chan was able to immediately notice her bewilderment.

She clearly didn’t even know that the land she was standing on was a round planet.

It was like his ancestors in the past believed in the geocentric theory [the belief that the Earth is the center of the universe].

No, perhaps she believed that she was standing on a continent supported by four elephants on the back of a giant turtle.

That was, of course, just Kang Chan’s opinion.

Kang Chan decided to explain it simply and directly rather than giving her a difficult explanation.

“I came from that far away space.”

“Yes? That far away space? What is space? Isn’t there heaven above the sky?”

Looking at her, who couldn’t understand his words with such an innocent face, a slight expression appeared on Kang Chan’s expressionless face.

“…….”

The conversation with her was like talking to a pure child.

Kang Chan kindly decided that he would have to explain to her the concept of the vast universe that makes up this world and the planet they were standing on.

Kang Chan struggled to get up and opened the window, pointing to the night sky and saying to Arteon.

“Do you see those bright stars?”

“Yes, I see them. But why suddenly the stars?”

“Those stars are stars that may be much larger than this continent you are standing on.”

“Yes? That doesn’t make sense. How can that star be bigger than this vast continent?”

“Don’t things that are far away look small? I came from so far away that this continent looks as small as that to me.”

Arteon still had a puzzled expression, as if she couldn’t imagine the distance he was talking about.

“Then what is that star that Gwang Chan-ssi is talking about?”

“A star is what you call this place where you live. Arteon-nim, do you think this world we are standing on is flat?”

“Of course, isn’t it flat?”

“You’re wrong. This world is round.”

“That’s nonsense… I don’t like such jokes very much.”

She already knew that the continent was not perfectly flat when she flew up with levitation and looked at the horizon.

However, the reality was that she could not think that the world was perfectly round like Kang Chan said.

Arteon’s face stiffened.

She seemed to think that Kang Chan was teasing her in front of her eyes.

“It’s definitely not a joke.”

Arteon picked up an apple that Jaina had thrown for Kang Chan to eat and held it out to Kang Chan, saying.

“Look at this, Gwang Chan-ssi! How can people live on such a round object? Even if it’s the top of the apple, how can people live on the side and bottom when they will all fall to the ground?”

She didn’t even seem to know about the gravity that stars have.

The conversation seemed to be falling deeper and deeper into a maze, and Kang Chan had no idea where to start explaining to her.

It must have felt like he had returned to the Middle Ages on old Earth.

He desperately tried to make her understand by referring to the contents of the encyclopedia stored on his computer.

“I’ll explain it slowly. When we put things down from a high place, don’t they fall to the ground like this? This is the force that this planet pulls objects towards it. We call this gravity. To be exact, in the expression of our planet, it is Newton’s law of universal gravitation.”