Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Awakened OOPART (Out of Place Artifacts)

Yi-hyeon set out early in the morning. Accounting for rest stops along the way, it would take about five hours to reach Seong-an Hermitage near Gyeongju.

“You’re here?”

Monk Muae showed no particular expression today either. Since the weather was still hot, when Yi-hyeon came down here he went to the pool in the valley beside the hermitage where he used to bathe after training and washed himself coolly.

Jjirrrrr

Listening to the sound of summer insects, Yi-hyeon and the monk sat facing each other.

“So, you have something to say?”

At the monk’s urging, Yi-hyeon slowly opened his mouth. And he told everything that had happened in the meantime. There was nothing to hide from the monk.

“···It was fastened here, but it disappeared.”

As he said this, Yi-hyeon lifted his left wrist and showed it.

The monk took Yi-hyeon’s left hand and began to examine it carefully. Though it sounded absurd even to hear, he was willing to believe Yi-hyeon’s words for now. Then, tilting his head, he closed his eyes while still holding the wrist.

After a long while.

“Heo, such a thing···.”

“Oh? This is···.”

The monk and Yi-hyeon let out exclamations at the same time. The monk asked Yi-hyeon.

“You felt it too?”

“You mean the thing that bounced your energy away?”

The monk nodded.

“There is something on your wrist. That thing is pushing my energy away. Well now!”

Yi-hyeon had felt it too. When the monk held his wrist and quietly sent energy in, some unknown force from the place where the bracelet had been bounced the monk’s energy away.

Yi-hyeon felt that phenomenon vividly with his own body.

“What could this be?”

At Yi-hyeon’s question, the monk quietly exhaled and opened his mouth.

“It cannot be seen, but it is clearly on your wrist. This does not seem to be an object of this world.”

“Yes? If it’s not an object of this world, then what is it?”

At the monk’s words, Yi-hyeon asked with wide eyes.

“It cannot be seen, but it reacts to my energy. Truly peculiar.”

Monk Muae was genuinely surprised. That a mere object would react to human energy.

“Have you ever projected your energy into this place?”

“No, I haven’t.”

He had put this on yesterday and fainted. When would he have thought of projecting energy?

“Like me, raise your energy and push it in here. Little by little, slowly.”

“······.”

When Yi-hyeon stayed silent, the monk asked.

“Why?”

“···That is, would it be all right even if I do that?”

Yi-hyeon felt somehow uneasy. Just yesterday he had put this on and fainted, even if only briefly.

“It will be fine. I’ll be watching from beside you.”

“Even so, a little.”

At Yi-hyeon rolling his eyes, the monk finally grew irritated.

“Tsk! This fellow. Even that Bodeok down there listens right away when I speak, but this one only dawdles.”

Still, Yi-hyeon did not back down and retorted.

“Senior Brother Bodeok is like that because he’s afraid of the monk. I’m not.”

Bodeok is the abbot of Guleopsa Temple on the Gyeongju coast and is said to have attended Monk Muae a long time ago.

Finally, when the monk glared at Yi-hyeon, the hesitating Yi-hyeon also made a decision.

“I understand, I’ll do it. Instead, if something happens, the monk will take responsibility, right?”

“I understand, hehe.”

Yi-hyeon straightened his posture, sat, half-opened his eyes, and raised his energy.

Last year, after finishing the college entrance exam and coming down to Seong-an Hermitage to train, Yi-hyeon had suddenly sensed the energy inside his body moving during meditation and felt a brief high. It was a kind of small realization; after that, as he continued training under the monk’s guidance, he became able to feel the internal energy a little more easily.

At the time the excited monk had babbled something to Yi-hyeon about being a ‘miraculous human who would not come again,’ but Yi-hyeon only listened. His thought was that just feeling energy flowing in the body would not change anything greatly.

Concentrating on the ‘bracelet’ on his left wrist, he raised energy and pushed it in.

‘Huh? What is this?’

The bracelet was accepting the energy as Yi-hyeon pushed it in. When the monk had sent energy in, a force that pushed energy away from inside had clearly operated, hadn’t it? But what was the identity of this thing that, on the contrary, accepted his own energy?

Opening his eyes, Yi-hyeon said to the monk.

“Monk, this keeps accepting my energy? It’s not pushing it away.”

“What, what did you say? That can’t be···.”

The monk, who had become dumbfounded just like Yi-hyeon, sat closer as if resolved.

“Truly not ordinary. Absorbing your energy.”

“No, it’s not that it’s absorbing. It just accepts as much as I push in.”

Yi-hyeon retorted, but the monk glared at him and said.

“This fellow, that’s the same thing.”

The monk spoke seriously to Yi-hyeon.

“It seems you have some affinity with this object. You learned the breathing method from me so the nature of your energy should be the same as mine, but looking at how it pushes my energy away and absorbs yours.”

Yi-hyeon tilted his head and asked.

“If I have affinity with it, what am I supposed to do with this?”

Even at Yi-hyeon’s indifferent tone, the monk’s eyes sparkled as he opened his mouth.

“Let’s try this. First, keep pushing your energy in until it shows some reaction.”

“Is there really a need to try that?”

When Yi-hyeon continued to be unwilling, the monk suddenly grew angry.

“Ah, this kid. When I tell you to do something, just do it instead of complaining. This is an object that has affinity with you!”

“······.”

After thinking for a moment, Yi-hyeon nodded. He thought that, as the monk said, it was an object that had ‘affinity’ with him.

“I’ll try.”

Yi-hyeon closed his eyes and began to calmly regulate his breathing. The monk watching from beside him began to mutter softly.

“Draw the great energy in all the way to the navel. When exhaling the breath that entered, take ten times the time of the inhalation and do it slowly···.”

The next words were mumbled inside his mouth so they could hardly be heard. But Yi-hyeon had memorized the content thoroughly. It was because he had heard those words hundreds of times.

As Yi-hyeon entered meditation, the monk quietly closed his mouth and observed him.

Yi-hyeon, who had been sending energy into the bracelet. At some moment he felt resonance. He felt a sensation as if the bracelet was responding to his energy.

And a sound that shook his mind!

- Have you awakened me.

In the state of meditation, Yi-hyeon clearly heard it. No, he felt it with his head.

Who was this existence?

- There is no need to harbor doubts about my existence, intelligent being.

Intelligent being?

This unknown existence called Yi-hyeon an intelligent being. But Yi-hyeon had no way not to harbor doubts. What was this sudden phenomenon. As if answering such doubts of Yi-hyeon, the unknown existence expressed its will again.

He had no choice but to say ‘expressed its will’ because even Yi-hyeon in meditation thought that the sound this existence sent was not heard through the ears. It simply resonated inside his head. A feeling of being directly inscribed on his consciousness, perhaps.

- I was once the chieftain of the noble Aethios tribe. Though now I have become one who dwells in this small ring.

‘A ring, you say?’

An answer came immediately to Yi-hyeon’s question.

- What is fastened on your wrist was precisely my ring. ··· Come to think of it, you are an intelligent being but quite small. Has the humanity of this world changed like this?

‘······This is a ring.’

Yi-hyeon was dumbfounded. An object the size of this bracelet was a ring? Then just how big was the person who used to wear this as a ring?

Yi-hyeon was still full of questions, but there was no separate time to ask. Because the unknown existence spoke in a somewhat urgent tone.

- You have awakened me, but most of my consciousness has not yet become clear. It seems it is because your ability is insufficient, so I cannot remain awake for long. And the energy of this world is also too different from the time I was in. This rough turbid energy. For now you have ‘unified’ with my ring, but it is still greatly insufficient.

‘Unified with the ring···? With my body?’

In any case, Yi-hyeon could not communicate smoothly with this existence. What on earth was this talk?

- In your concept, this can be accepted as resonance. It is necessary for growth.

Again, words he could not understand.

‘What does growing mean? And why is ‘growth’ necessary?’

- ······ It seems a long explanation will be needed. In order to persuade you. But I do not have the strength to remain awake for long, so I will speak briefly. The reason I awakened is probably because a powerful law of causality moved. This law is too firm for even me to refuse. This means there is an important reason why I must awaken. It means that in the world you are living in now, some great change has begun.

‘I still do not understand. Before a great change begins, and that someone must step forward to deal with this change··· why this ring came to me. What I must do from now on···.’

After a little time passed, that existence spoke. Perhaps because of thinking that way, the resonance seemed to have weakened considerably.

- It will be difficult for me, who have only spirituality remaining, to obtain a body again. From now on we will always be together. You will not be able to avoid this, and neither will I. When I recover a little strength I will come to know about this world, and afterward we will try to establish a concrete direction. For now, growing your ability is urgent. This meditation method of yours seems to have at least a little effect, so you must train diligently··· I will leave a little authority for you, but after a while I will try to tell you a more effective method···.

With those words as the end, that existence no longer conveyed words, and Yi-hyeon, who had been waiting, silently continued breathing and meditation.

Today the meditation felt as if it was digging deeper. Deeper and deeper···

How much time had passed.

The awakened Yi-hyeon looked around. From a little distance the monk nodded without a word.

“Have you awakened?”

“Yes. But how much time has passed? Wait a moment···.”

To Yi-hyeon looking around, the monk said as if tossing the words.

“You were in meditation for three days. Truly remarkable···.”

“Eek! Three days?”

Whether Yi-hyeon was surprised or not, the monk continued speaking.

“It is a mysterious matter, but there must be a reason for everything, Yi-hyeon-ah. You seem to have stepped one foot into the other side of the world.”

The monk left words that seemed both understandable and not, and stood up.

“Go out quickly and wash. You smell of shit.”

“Yes? Sniff sniff. No, what is this smell. Ugh.”

Seeing his own body, Yi-hyeon was horrified. As the monk said, a foul smell was rising from his whole body. Would this be the smell if pork rotted? The thin T-shirt he was wearing was soaked with a strange sticky liquid, and the shorts were the same.

Rushing out, Yi-hyeon arrived at the pool in the valley, flung off his clothes, entered the pool, and washed his body.

“Ah, this doesn’t wash off well.”

The sticky liquid clung to his body and did not wash off easily. After bathing for a long time with care, Yi-hyeon came out. He was ravenously hungry.

‘Right, he said I was in meditation for three days.’

So of course his stomach would be empty.

Yi-hyeon went to the monk’s quarters stark naked.

Since they had bathed together since he was young, there was nothing particularly new about it. No one would come to this remote hermitage anyway.

The monk, who had been quietly watching such a Yi-hyeon, tossed out one sentence.

“Your training has risen one level. From now on you must be careful so that it does not show outwardly.”

“Yes?”

When the still dazed Yi-hyeon asked, the monk silently pointed at Yi-hyeon’s body with his chin and said.

“Your body has changed. A great deal.”

“······.”

Examining his own body, Yi-hyeon opened his mouth. As the monk said, his body had changed. The originally slender figure remained the same, but fat had left the shoulders, chest, and lower body, and muscle had settled in. Larger and firmer than before. And his height had also grown more.

To Yi-hyeon who had forgotten what to say, the monk said.

“Your thing has grown much bigger too? Your looks have also become brighter. Hehe. Now let’s go eat. You’re hungry too, right?”

The monk asked nothing at all about what had happened to Yi-hyeon during meditation. In fact, even now Yi-hyeon did not know much, and everything was uncertain, so he had nothing to ask the monk either.

Picking up the clothes he had brought and putting them on, while going to the kitchen with the monk, Yi-hyeon thought.

‘Is this also his authority?’

Surely it could not be shedding the old body and exchanging the bones, but for the body to change like this.

In any case, one fact had become clear. Yi-hyeon’s parents had surely been killed by someone targeting this relic. Along with that, his goal had also become clear. Lifting his head and looking at the darkening sky, Yi-hyeon felt that his mind was clear and clean like an autumn sky after rain. His head also seemed to have become much better.

‘I must take revenge on the enemies.’

From old times, was it not said that one cannot live under the same sky as the enemy who killed one’s parents. Unless he had no ability, according to the words of that existence called the chieftain of the ‘noble Aethios tribe,’ he would soon improve by leaps and bounds. He must find those guys and crush them.

Though the meal was only side dishes of greens and a soup made by slicing spinach and radish, adding them, and dissolving soybean paste and boiling it, Yi-hyeon quickly emptied one bowl. It was delicious. The monk still personally picked vegetables planted in the front yard of the hermitage and made side dishes himself. It was following the teaching that those who do not work should not eat.

After finishing the meal, Yi-hyeon opened his mouth.

“Monk, I am thinking of going to the army.”

“Hm? The army? Hmm··· That’s right. You have also reached that age now. So when do you plan to enlist?”

“That is, I decided to enlist not long ago so I still don’t know. I hope I can go a bit quickly.”

The monk lifted his head and said.

“Shall I look into that a little for you? If you want, I can make it so you can go quickly.”

“Yes? The monk has connections in the military? Wow. That’s surprising.”

“Ahem. Actually, that Bodeok fellow knows more than I do. I’m too old.”

“Senior Brother Bodeok? Why does Senior Brother have connections in the military?”

At Yi-hyeon’s question, the monk waved his hand as if it was bothersome to answer.

“Go ask that fellow.”

* * *

Early the next morning, Yi-hyeon went down to Guleopsa Temple. From the empty ground behind the temple facing the sea, shouts of exertion rang out loudly from morning.

When Yi-hyeon looked, about thirty monks were training with their upper bodies bare.

This Guleopsa Temple was a peculiar temple. The only place in Korea that produced martial monks. This temple near the seaside was well known even to ordinary people as a place where monks trained.

But there was a secret that ordinary people did not know···

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