Immortal Paladin 400 Fellow Otherworlder

400 Fellow Otherworlder

South Korea. Sumr.

I was born.

I had a father and a mother, and I was their only son. My na was Ru Qiu… No, that didn’t sound right. Ru Gyu? I lingered on it, the way you linger on a word that almost fits your mouth.

朴魯規?

No.

Park Ru-gyu.

Yes. That was my na.

I grew up in a typical apartnt complex on the outskirts of Incheon, the kind where the stairwells always slled faintly of dust and instant noodles. The walls were thin, the elevators slow, and every family knew just enough about each other to pretend they didn’t. My father worked long hours as a subcontractor, coming ho with shoulders that looked permanently hunched. My mother ran a small side business selling homade side dishes to neighbors from anchovies glazed in soy, spicy radish, and to marinated tofu.

Money was never desperate.

But it was always tight enough to be felt.

“Ru-gyu! You’ll be late for school!”

My mother’s voice snapped out of my thoughts. I fumbled with the buttons of my uniform, fingers clumsy, heart thudding faster than it should have. I grabbed my bag, slung it over one shoulder, and bolted out the door.

As I ran, sothing felt… off.

A mory floated up uninvited. . Older. Rougher. A delinquent high schooler with a record of picking fights. It didn’t fit the rhythm of my steps. My own body felt alien to as strange as it sounded. I slowed despite myself, my chest tightening.

My heart was beating too fast.

“Is this a stroke?” I wondered absurdly.

“Hey, idiot!”

Sothing smacked the back of my head. I stumbled forward, nearly tripping down the steps.

“Don’t walk so slow and block the pathway!”

I spun around, scowling. “Watch your mouth, Kim Seo-yeon. Being pretty isn’t an excuse to do whatever you want.”

She leaned in instead, and pecked on the lips.

Then she elbowed hard and ran ahead, laughing.

The hit landed square in my solar plexus. I folded on the spot like a shrimp, wheezing for air, vision swimming. For a minute or two, the world narrowed to pain and the echo of her footsteps.

“That gotta be assault, damn it…”

Life, it turned out, was pretty simple…

As Park Ru-gyu, I got to live a rather mundane but exciting life.

High school was fun in most ways. Classes were tolerable, teachers predictable, friendships loud and ssy. But nothing beat hanging out at the PC Bang after school. For that, I blad my cousin entirely. He’d dragged there once, and that was all it took.

The lights were dim, the air thick with instant ran and overheated electronics.

“Don’t die! Don’t die! Don’t die!” Kim Seo-yeon scread to my right.

I was playing DOTA 1 with Blade Master. Kim Seo-yeon was playing Vengeful Spirit, sprinting for her life as an enemy Sven chased her straight under the tower.

“I told you not to overextend!” I shouted.

“I panicked!” she yelled back as she Nether Swapped .

“That’s your ult!” I screeched as my screen flashed red. “And you just put under the tower!”

The tower locked onto . Sven followed. My health plumted.

“Oh shit,” I muttered. “This gotta be the worse…”

My ultimate was still on cooldown. No escape for . Ugh… I used Force Staff on Sven. Unfortunately, he was facing . He flew straight into Vengeful Spirit who was skittering around the lane, probably hoping for a miracle.

“That’s on purpose by the way,” I explained with a smile as I stared at Blade Master being destroyed by the tower and Sven killing the low health Vengeful Spirit.

The screen exploded in effects.

“Double Kill.”

There was a half-second of silence.

“What the hell was that for?!” Seo-yeon shouted.

“If I’m going down,” I shot back, “you’re going down with .”

She burst out laughing. So did I. She punched my shoulder, not hard enough to hurt.

The guy at the next computer stood up, cheering at the screen. “Nice double kill!”

Then he glanced between us and grinned. “You two seriously do everything together, huh?”

The PC Bang was one of my favorite places to exist. The dim lights softened everything, turning ti vague and forgiving, while the constant clicking of keyboards and the low hum of cooling fans settled into my bones like white noise. Other kids talked about soccer scores or idol rankings, but I learned build orders in StarCraft and cursed creep routes in Lineage. More than once, I stayed until midnight, only leaving when my mother called the shop directly, apologizing as she dragged ho through the phone.

It felt like a second ho, one where effort translated cleanly into results, where failure reset with a click.

One evening, Kim Seo-yeon and I walked ho together, the late sumr air still warm against our skin. She swung our linked hands lightly and asked, almost casually, “Did you check out LLO?”

I scoffed. “That garbage ga should stay far away from .”

She laughed and nudged with her shoulder. “It has its own unique qualities, you know.”

Seo-yeon didn’t need to hang around PC Bangs with . She ca from money. The kind people whispered about. A silver spoon, through and through. As for , I hovered sowhere between bronze and silver, solidly middle-class. Comfortable, but never indulgent.

Sotis I wondered what soone like her was doing with .

Apparently, she liked bad boys. Or at least, that’s what she claid, smirking whenever I asked.

“Why the sudden question?” I asked.

She slowed her steps. “I want you to et soone. A nice noona I t in the ga. She’s worked in the industry.”

I blinked. “Industry…?”

“Gas,” she said plainly.

My ears burned. “I should probably stop daydreaming.”

She stopped walking and stared at . “Why are you always like this? If you want sothing, go for it. Don’t decide it’s impossible before you even try.”

I scratched my cheek, looking away. “I’ll think about my future when I’m actually there.”

She sighed, but she didn’t let go of my hand.

When people asked about the future, they talked about dicine, science, law, etc. They were clean paths with clear prestige. I had only ntioned becoming a ga developer once, half-joking, half-serious, and I couldn’t believe she rembered it.

Dreams were strange things like that.

Seo-yeon wanted dia. Journalism. She talked about reporting the news on TV one day, standing under bright studio lights with a calm, authoritative voice. I listened and nodded, trying to picture myself anywhere at all.

I wasn’t exceptional. My grades were average, good enough for a local two-year college, not good enough to inspire ambition. Despite the fights and the low-key delinquent reputation, I was painfully ordinary to my parents and adults around . Just another boy who needed to grow up.

In the end, my delinquent reputation had been more of a product of exaggeration.

High school ended quietly.

My parents were there at the ceremony, clapping loudly when my na was called, faces bright with pride when I took my diploma. Sowhere along the way, I’d abandoned my delinquent habits and managed not to fail. That alone felt like a small miracle.

Seo-yeon stood alone.

Her mother was a moderately successful celebrity actress. Her father was an influential prosecutor. Busy people, important people. I guessed they had reasons.

So I grabbed her wrist and dragged her over to my parents. “This is Seo-yeon,” I said quickly. “A close friend.”

My parents’ eyes sparkled instantly. They teased us without rcy, took too many photos, and insisted she co over to eat. We ended up at my place, sharing simple food and loud laughter. My parents weren’t impressive people, but they knew how to make soone feel welco.

When I walked Seo-yeon ho later, the night was quiet, the streets nearly empty.

At her door, she hesitated, fingers resting on the handle. “I’ll be waiting for you,” she said softly.

I nodded, face burning, and watched the door close before I realized I’d been smiling the whole way ho.

I took an IT course and finished it without much fanfare. After that ca the mandatory military service, which passed quietly and without incidents. I spent most of it as a clerk. I was reliable, efficient, and largely invisible. I filed papers, tracked supplies, and learned how to make myself useful without ever standing out.

When I returned to civilian life, the first thing I did was propose to Kim Seo-yeon.

The resistance was imdiate and fierce. Her parents objected to everything from my background, my prospects, and my lack of pedigree. In the end, Seo-yeon and I threatened to elope. That shut them up fast. She was their only child, and they were smart enough to know when not to push too far. The months that followed were filled with argunts, negotiations, and quiet compromises. Eventually, we got engaged, agreeing to marry three years later. Of course, all of that had been at the insistent of her parents.

The job market was tightening then. Every posting had hundreds of applicants. I drifted through my twenties, hopping between short-term office contracts and service jobs. I tried sales, warehouse work, even spent a year at an internet startup that collapsed before its second anniversary. Nothing stuck. Nothing felt like it led anywhere.

What did stick was the PC bang.

It was still where my friends gathered, where ti moved differently, where effort translated into imdiate feedback. Frankly, I was desperate for sothing that felt like success and sothing I could build instead of beg for.

Pooling my savings with a small loan from my parents and a governnt small-business program, I opened a modest PC bang in a residential neighborhood. No neon signs. No luxury chairs. Just clean floors, quiet air, and machines that worked. I upgraded the hardware slowly, fixed things myself, and learned which regulars preferred which seats.

Roughly two years later, I married Kim Seo-yeon.

I was twenty-five.

Her parents had llowed by then, worn down by changes in the country and the economy. The prejudice never fully disappeared, but it softened into sothing tolerable. The shop never made rich. Between bills, Seo-yeon’s pregnancy, and living expenses, so months I barely broke even. But it paid the bills. It gave structure to my days. It rooted in a place where people knew my face.

High school students ca after class. Office workers dropped by late at night. Retirees played card gas on weekdays. It was noisy, alive, and oddly comforting.

By my thirties, the business had grown far beyond what I’d imagined. We had several branches across Incheon, enough that young people ntioned the na casually. I could finally hold my head high in front of my in-laws, though sohow, I was still considered a failure in their eyes. Societal pressure, competition, family expectations all pressed down on people like a constant weight, even after they’ve grown into adulthood.

Looking back, it was crazy that I survived it all. Even crazier that I thrived.

That night, I cooked dinner for my family. The PC bang was right next to our house, so I was always ho in ti. I served rice and soup, watching my son swing his legs under the table.

I had a son.

Cool, right?

“Min-jae,” I said, smiling. “How was school?”

Park Min-jae looked up, eyes bright, and launched into an eloquent explanation of how he had asserted his dominance over his classmates, word for word, he regaled us with tales of how he basically bribed a classmate into being nice, coerced a classmate into giving up a toy, and made soone cry by farting on them as if it was an achievent.

We might be raising a little psychopath here.

Seo-yeon grimaced. “Where did you learn all of that?”

I rubbed my nose. “Maybe we should revoke his internet privileges.”

She shot a glare. “Care to explain?”

I coughed. “I might’ve let him watch so… weird ani.”

She sighed, shaking her head, but she was smiling. “Dear, please, next ti, don’t teach our Min-jae such strange things, okay?”

I avoided eye-contact, aware there was more where that ca from. Though for a mont, everything felt ordinarily perfect. “It’s a phase, surely… It won’t happen again, probably…”

A couple of days later, I was watching the news when they reported that my wife had been murdered.

The television was still on when my world ended.

The reporter’s voice was steady, professional, the kind trained not to tremble. “Journalist Kim Seo-yeon, thirty-one years old, was found stabbed twenty-one tis…” The screen showed a photograph I knew too well, her press badge smile, cropped neatly, frozen in a mont that would never move again.

Everything after that dissolved into noise. A buzzing filled my ears, loud enough to drown out the words ‘bright star’ and ‘fought against corruption’. I stared at the image, waiting for it to blink, to scold for zoning out, and to tell dinner was getting cold.

My phone rang.

I didn’t want to answer it. I answered it anyway.

“This is Balg-Eun Pre-School,” a woman said, her voice already breaking. “I’m Min-jae’s teacher. S-sothing happened…”

My heart slamd so hard I felt it in my throat. “I’m coming,” I said, already grabbing my jacket. “I’ll be there right now.”

She sobbed. “There was an accident. A truck ran into the school. Several children were hurt.”

“I’ll be there,” I repeated, louder this ti.

“Soone died,” she said. “It’s terrible…”

My steps faltered.

Please. No. Don’t fucking do this to .

“It was… it was your son,” she whispered. “Park Min-jae.”

I don’t rember screaming, but I rember the taste of blood in my mouth.

Despair wasn’t loud. It didn’t roar or shatter the world the way people described. It hollowed things out. Food turned to ash. Words reached and stopped sowhere outside my skull. Apathy beca my natural state, a dull gray fog that smothered everything.

And when apathy loosened its grip, pain rushed in to take its place.

So I beca cold.

And when cold wasn’t enough, I drank. Because there was only so much self-hypnosis a man could perform before he needed sothing stronger to keep breathing.

At the funeral, I stood in front of two frad photographs of my wife and my son, placed side by side as if that sohow made sense. My in-laws cried openly, voices raw and unrestrained. My parents stood off to the side, clutching each other, mourning their grandson in silence.

My mother-in-law’s grief curdled into rage. “Why wasn’t it you?” she scread, pointing at . “Why are you still alive?”

My father stepped forward, shaking. “Enough. He’s hurting too—”

My father-in-law punched him.

They shouted that my parents must be relieved, that at least their only son survived. I watched it all from sowhere far away, a bottle already in my hand.

“What floor is it?” I asked.

They quieted.

“The seventh,” soone answered.

I drank straight from the bottle, letting the burn carve a hollow in my chest. Then I turned to both families and bowed, my forehead nearly touching the floor. “I’m sorry,” I said, because there were no other words left to use.

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. I could feel everyone thinking the sa thing of how broken I looked and how badly I had it.

That was when the caras arrived.

Flashes burst like lightning. An older gentleman in a tailored suit entered, his expression carefully mournful, his face lined in ways that suggested effort rather than age. He looked genuinely sad. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve believed it wasn’t makeup.

He approached slowly. “Are you the husband of the late Kim Seo-yeon?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I had my differences with her,” he said, voice solemn, practiced. “But she was an admirable soul.”

I turned then, past him, toward the reporters hovering just beyond his shoulder.

“I have a confession to make.”

The reporters stiffened when I spoke. Their eyes flicked past , toward the gentleman standing at my side, as if waiting for permission. That alone told everything.

Ah.

They’d been bought off, every last one of them. Of course they had. The man beside was a political pig, the kind who smiled for caras while grinding people into paste behind closed doors. I recognized him imdiately. He sat right at the center of the corruption case Seo-yeon had been digging into before she died.

He placed a hand on my shoulder, squeezing just hard enough to remind he existed. He leaned in close, his breath warm against my ear.

“Let’s not do anything foolish,” he whispered. “I’m willing to offer a very generous settlent. Enough for you and your family to live comfortably. You don’t need to suffer anymore.”

I stared ahead at my wife’s photograph, her smile frozen in ti.

“If you cooperate,” he continued softly, “this can all end quietly.”

If my son were still alive, I probably would have agreed.

But I had nothing left to lose, except my parents and in-laws who should understand my situation more than anyone.

Before coming to the funeral, I had played a round of LLO, Seo-yeon’s favorite ga. I drank until the room stopped arguing with . And sowhere between those things, I murdered a man.

The reporters leaned closer when I cleared my throat. “Drinking alcohol is bad,” I said calmly. “You shouldn’t copy .”

The gentleman’s bodyguards shifted imdiately. There were two of them.

“What are you doing?” the gentleman hissed under his breath. “Give the USB. I’ll let you and your family walk away. Your son—” his voice faltered just enough to sound sincere, “—that wasn’t my doing. Condolence.”

“I know,” I replied quietly.

I turned back to the caras. “Drunk driving is really bad,” I continued, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “That’s how I lost my son.”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“I also killed the man responsible,” I said. “Last night. He ca to my house begging for forgiveness. Begging to drop the settlent at court.” I laughed, a sharp, broken sound. “So I buried him in my backyard.”

The gentleman besides went pale.

Fuck him.

Killing soone for the first ti felt strange. Not heavy. Not dramatic. Just… empty. Like crossing a line that had never really existed. I rember thinking that if it ca to it, a second ti wouldn’t be much harder.

I slamd the bottle against the table, shattered glass spraying outward, and drove the jagged edge into the man’s gut. I leaned close and whispered that evidence of his cris had already been spread far and wide.

Chaos erupted.

The bodyguards lunged for , but my father and father-in-law grabbed them, desperation lending them strength. My mother and mother-in-law clung to , crying, begging to stop, telling this wasn’t what Seo-yeon would have wanted.

I powered through.

Everything was a blur to my alcohol-addled-mind.

I crashed into the window, glass exploding outward, and jumped.

We fell together.

As the wind tore past , mories began to loosen and slide. Nas shifted. Faces blurred. Slowly, I rembered that I wasn’t Ru Qiu. Instead, I was Da Wei. These weren’t my mories. I was reliving his.

A soft voice reached in the dark. “Park Ru-gyu. Do you want a second chance? I promise you a wish. A life. To be able to see your family again. To feel complete. To not feel hurt anymore. I only need you to accept. Fulfil my desire, nascent supre… and your wish shall be fulfilled…”

Of course Park Ru-gyu accepted.

That was how he beca Ru Qiu.

And eventually… the Heavenly Demon.

I steadied myself with the Transcendent Heart, forcing order into the flood of mories. When I blinked my eyes open, the world snapped into focus.

I was falling from the sky.

“Motherfucking—shit!”