How To Live As A Third Son Of A Failure [EN]: Chapter 180

Living as the Third Son of a Wasted Novel – Episode 181

* * *

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in that damp cave anymore.

Two guard posts, painted haphazardly in military camouflage, a steel gate connecting them, and soldiers standing guard on either side of the gate with K2 rifles [South Korean assault rifle]. It was the familiar sight of the guard post leading into the unit where I served.

‘Why am I suddenly here?’

A question popped into my head, but what caught my eye even before that question was a figure standing in front of the guard post.

And that figure had a face I could never forget, even in my dreams.

‘Father?’

It was my father.

But he was different from how I remembered him. I remembered him as a veteran salaryman [white-collar worker], always full of energy, but now he was just a frail old man who had lost his vitality.

‘It looks like my father, but why is he at the unit where I served, looking like that?’

The question that arose was soon answered by the picket sign placed at my father’s feet.

[The military authorities must not conceal or downplay my son’s disappearance, but reveal the truth!]

[I am the father of the platoon leader of the 21st Division GOP outpost [General Outpost, a heavily fortified guard post along the DMZ] in Yanggu, Gangwon Province, who was reported on terrestrial broadcasting as having defected to North Korea.]

[My son disappeared while on night duty at the outpost where he was serving, but the military authorities only suggest the possibility of defection to North Korea for my son’s disappearance, without even properly investigating the truth and treating him like a criminal.]

[My son graduated from the Korea Military Academy with excellent grades and was commissioned with the single-minded determination to defend his country. I cannot trust the military authorities, who do not know if my son has suffered any unfortunate accident and only insist on the answer that he defected to North Korea.]

Is this what it feels like to have your blood run cold?

It was painful enough to see my father’s face, which seemed to have aged more than a decade in the time I hadn’t seen him, but realizing that it was because of my disappearance made me feel like the sky was falling.

“Oh, you’re here again?”

A soldier who had just appeared, probably for a shift change, asked the guard on duty.

“Yes. I’ve already reported it to the command and control center, so there’s nothing else to do.”

“They’re just telling us to watch again?”

“To be exact, they told us to ignore him.”

“Ignore him? Look at them talking recklessly just because it’s not their problem. Anyway, the real enemy is somewhere else, tsk.”

The soldiers continued their conversation as they went through the shift handover procedure.

“But I heard that Sergeant Kim was at the unit when that incident happened.”

“It hasn’t been quite two years, so it was when I was a fresh recruit. It was chaos. How can a person just disappear like that? I still don’t understand it.”

“Was it that bad?”

“Aren’t there a lot of surveillance cameras at the GOP? But how he disappeared without being caught on any of those cameras baffled even the military police investigators.”

“If he didn’t defect to North Korea, where did he go?”

“How would I know? It’s like he soared into the sky or disappeared into the ground. But he didn’t leave a suicide note, and if he had defected to North Korea, wouldn’t he have shown his face in propaganda against the South? But it’s been quiet so far, so it doesn’t seem like that either. They searched the country like crazy, but there wasn’t even a trace, so they ended up concluding that he defected to North Korea.”

Sergeant Kim, who was talking, glanced at my father and sighed deeply.

“Well, the person who’s suffering is someone else. Every time I see him, I feel so bad because it reminds me of my own father. How can he protest every day for almost two years?”

“I feel the same way.”

“I heard that the platoon leader’s mother has been sick for a while. And his sister lost her job taking care of her mother. Anyway, it’s so easy for a perfectly good family to fall apart.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Watch the news, you idiot. Do you think it’s the first time reporters have written articles like that?”

The moment I heard their words, I felt like something heavy had dropped into my heart.

* * *

I began to wander around my father like a soul that had left its body.

And that time of wandering was a terrible torment.

The protest that started in the morning continued until the sun rose, the sun set, and darkness fell.

During that long time, my father silently and diligently held up his picket sign and protested. He skipped meals, except for drinking some bottled water a few times.

Only after the darkness had completely descended did my father finally gather up his picket sign and start to return.

‘…….’

The place my father got into was a tiny compact car that seemed cramped with just his body in it.

Why was my father, who used to drive a mid-sized sedan, driving such a compact car?

The answer was already in the conversation I had heard from the soldiers earlier, even if I didn’t need to hear it.

If he had been protesting without fail for almost two years, he probably quit his job a long time ago.

On top of that, his mother was bedridden in the hospital, and his sister had quit her job to take care of her mother.

I know my family’s situation well. In our family, which is far from a silver spoon [born into wealth] and is a commoner family to the bone, there is no source of money anywhere.

The pain didn’t stop there.

My father, who was tired, took out a cheap piece of bread from his bag and chewed on it, then suddenly leaned his head against the steering wheel.

“Where are you…….”

After that, my father’s shoulders slowly began to heave.

My father’s crying.

It hurt my heart to face something I had never seen in my life like this.

No, it’s not enough to say it hurts. It was like hundreds and thousands of needles were pricking my heart.

Woo-oong-

Just as only silent sobs were spreading through the silence, my father’s cell phone began to ring.

When my father picked up the phone, a shrill shout suddenly rang out from the phone’s speaker.

“Father, where are you and what are you doing? Don’t tell me you went to the unit to protest again?”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Please stop it! Why do we have to suffer because of that son who we don’t even know if he’s dead or alive! It’s been two years, two years. Even if he’s alive, he’s no different from a dead man!”

“He’s still your brother. Don’t say that.”

“Do you know what people are saying about us? They say we raised a spy in our family. I know it too. I know my brother wouldn’t do that. But what’s the point of us saying we’re not when the whole world says we are? So please stop it and let’s just forget about that son and live, whether we immigrate to another country or do something else!”

“…….”

She was my sister, who used to bicker at each other whenever they met, but had deep affection for each other in their hearts.

But that relationship seemed to have already broken down a long time ago, and only angry shouts at me echoed through the phone.

After that, my father hung up the phone without a word and his head fell back onto the steering wheel, and I, who was watching his back, also shed silent tears.

I don’t know how much time has passed since then.

Like turning a switch off and on, time passed quickly whenever my consciousness turned off and then came back on.

I spent a long time with my father as a wandering spirit.

Then, at some point, when I regained consciousness, I realized that the surrounding scenery was not the military unit’s guard post, but somewhere else.

The place that had changed was a funeral hall, brightly lit with orange lights.

In the center of the square mortuary, my father, dressed as the chief mourner, was kneeling and crying, and next to him, my sister with a lifeless face was sitting down in black mourning clothes.

Feeling a sense of unease at the unexpected sight, I turned my gaze forward.

‘…….’

The unease soon became a reality.

My mother’s bright smile, which I had never forgotten for a single moment, was greeting me as a portrait.

Looking at my mother’s appearance, I let out a hollow laugh inside.

Ah.

So this is what it feels like to have your heart torn apart.

* * *

“Have you awakened?”

What came into my open eyes was still the damp and dreary interior of the cave.

I’m back.

Realizing that, I turned my head and found Rahelna with a tired look on her face.

Finding her, I immediately awakened Mana Heart and supplied mana to my whole body.

After that, I sprang up like a spring with the power I spewed out and approached Rahelna in an instant.

Perhaps she didn’t expect me to show such a reaction, Rahelna was caught off guard and grabbed by the collar.

“What are you doing?”

Rahelna’s eyes changed and glared at me.

But I didn’t feel any guilt. She was the one who showed me hell.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“That what you showed me wasn’t reality.”

“I don’t know what you saw, but to answer your question first, I don’t know.”

I don’t know.

So that could really be true?

For a moment, I felt like I was falling into despair, and the strength in my hand was released, and Rahelna frowned and pushed my hand away.

“How rude.”

Rahelna touched her neck as if her tightened neck was uncomfortable.

But I didn’t care and glared at her again, gathering strength.

“Are you saying it could be reality, or it could just be a nightmare?”

“Yes.”

“Please explain in more detail.”

Perhaps she felt that my emotional state was unusual, Rahelna sighed deeply with a much calmer attitude.

“As I told you in advance, I only provided the space, and it is your inner self that fills it, didn’t I?”

“Inner self?”

“Perhaps what you saw was the world created by the inner self that you have been hiding deep in your heart.”

“A world created by the inner self…….”

“To be exact, it can be said to be the form created by the cause of that anger that you have been unconsciously ignoring even though you have known it, that you mentioned.”

“Then…….”

“It may be a reality that actually happened, or it may be a speculation created by anxiety. The truth is that you have to be in that situation to know. Or it may have already happened but you don’t know.”

“…….”

It may be true, or it may not be.

So the long time I saw and experienced was a world created by the anxiety in my deep inner self?

“Didn’t I tell you? All the costs must be paid by you. What’s important now is not whether it’s true or not. It’s whether you can overcome the limit because of it.”

I nodded.

Such a thing may not have actually happened on Earth.

But what if such a thing actually happened?

It was an experience that still makes my heart sink.

And through that experience, I realized. I had been locking that fact deep in my heart and pretending not to know.

Anger flared up.

But the anger now was a different form from what I had told Rahelna before the experience.

How arrogant and immature was the thought of becoming a hero in a novel and unfolding an adventure.

Games? Comics? Chicken? Romance? Air conditioner?

My appearance of complaining while longing for such entertainment felt endlessly foolish.

‘I don’t need that stuff anymore.’

Now there is only one option left.

To finish this crazy novel as soon as possible and return to Earth as soon as possible.

And to achieve that, there is no need to hide anything anymore.

“Oh? Young master!”

Perhaps feeling the commotion I had caused in the cave, Luth and Illia hurriedly entered the entrance and looked for me.

“No, how long has it been since you woke up? ……But why is the atmosphere here like this now?”

At Luth’s awkward words, I slowly opened my mouth.

“How long has it been since I woke up?”

“It’s been a whole month! Do you know how worried we were? Of course, Rahelna said you were okay, but…….”

“A month?”

Come to think of it, when I escaped from the Great Forest and met Ebony with Rahelna’s help, it was only for a moment, but a week had passed.

Compared to that time, I spent more time this time, so a month is understandable.

As I nodded, Illia, who was standing still, carefully opened her mouth.

“But young master.”

“Why.”

“……The atmosphere seems to have changed a bit, did something happen?”

Changed?

Well, it could be. I nodded and smiled bitterly, revealing my white teeth.

“It can’t help but change. I don’t have time to joke around anymore.”