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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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Heart-Demon.
In martial arts novels, it was a word that mainly referred to the darkness within, and it was often described that one was captured by a heart-demon when they were drawn to instinctive destructiveness or greed due to the great power gained from martial arts, or when they fell into despair from feeling doubt about themselves over some event.
However, having actually experienced a heart-demon, I thought the word ‘faced’ was more appropriate than ‘captured.’
‘It took the form of my mother, who had taken her own life, and spat out words as if it resented me.’
My reason knew that it was a hallucination created by my own head, but the shock was still greater than I had expected.
For a while after that, I suffered from hallucinations and agony, and it took quite a long time until I regained my sanity.
‘It’s okay… That won’t happen this time.’
The reason why my mother was periodically kidnapped by an unidentified organization and later took her own life was clear.
It was all because I had become famous as the ‘sole martial arts ability Awakener.’
To put it another way, if I just hid the fact that I had awakened a martial arts ability, the possibility of my mother being kidnapped would be drastically reduced.
‘If my skills become known, becoming famous itself will be unavoidable, but even so, my mother being kidnapped because of it will be almost nonexistent.’
No matter how audacious a group was, they almost never kidnapped the family of a famous person.
They didn’t just not kidnap them, they didn’t kill them either.
That was because such groups usually didn’t want to blow things out of proportion, so they didn’t try to antagonize the strong.
The reason my mother was often kidnapped… was likely because I, the sole martial arts user, was so coveted that they were willing to risk the matter getting bigger.
Anyway…
What was important was that I just had to hide the fact that I was a martial arts ability Awakener.
‘I can just pretend to be an aura ability Awakener.’
It was when I was thinking that while watching my mother make baby food.
Ding-dong~.
“Oh?”
The doorbell suddenly rang.
At that, my mother put down the vegetables she was cutting into small pieces, washed her hands, and checked the intercom.
[Jae-hee, you’re inside, right?]
[We came to hang out.]
“Ah, come on in.”
My mother heard the voices from the intercom, said that, and pressed the button to open the front door.
My mother’s friends, I presumed.
There was a voice I remembered mixed in there as well.
“Oh? This child is….”
“Ah, so this is Geon-woo? Did you bring him home today?”
“Yeah. I went and got him this morning.”
They recognized me, who was sitting in the chair.
Well, if they were my mother’s friends, then they would have known that my mother had a child.
“Your baby is so calm, isn’t he? He’s not crying even though there are strangers here.”
“I’m jealous… My Ha-eun cries every time she sees someone for the first time…. Ah, it’s okay to put Ha-eun down here, right?”
“Of course.”
I, who had been sitting quietly in the chair, stiffened upon hearing the name that came up in the conversation between my mother and her friends.
‘…Ha-eun?’
For a moment, the name Lee Ha-eun, which was Serenity’s real name, came to my mind.
…It must just be someone with the same name.
I thought so, but….
“……”
“Hm? Geon-woo is looking at me? The little guy already knows a pretty auntie when he sees one….”
“Is this kind of auntie your type, our Geon-woo?”
“What? Auntie?”
“Hey, you called yourself an auntie too!”
She resembled her.
The woman who sat the baby named Ha-eun in the chair next to me looked so much like the the person I remembered… Serenity.
…If that was the case, then this baby next to me was….
“…Byaa…!”
I looked at the baby who seemed excited to meet someone of the same age for the first time and thought.
‘…Could it be that she… is really Serenity?’
She was still a baby, so her appearance didn’t bring to mind her future self, but… if she grew up to look exactly like her mother….
‘Serenity and I met when we were babies…?’
No… I knew that Serenity and I were the same age, but to think that we were childhood friends….
More importantly, why didn’t I know that fact…?
Why didn’t my mother say anyth—.
[Son, did you know? You and Ha-eun, who’s on TV right now, even bathed together when you were little.]
[Ah, really?]
[You don’t believe me?]
[I don’t have any memory of bathing with a kid like that.]
[I guess you wouldn’t. Ha-eun’s family moved away when you and Ha-eun were just a little over one year old.]
For a moment, what my mother had said to me when I was watching TV with her before my regression came to my mind.
…So my mother did tell me?
It was just that I hadn’t believed her back then.
‘…Anyway, moving on….’
If Lee Ha-eun and her family didn’t move, could I have Serenity, a strong person, as a childhood friend?
‘Of course, that won’t be easy.’
For a family to suddenly have to move, there must be adult circumstances involved, and that wasn’t the kind of thing that I, a baby, could interfere with.
So, her family moving away would be the same as before my regression.
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…There was a time when I thought that.
“Geon-woo! Let’s play together!”
“Oh, okay.”
I said that and accepted the invitation of Lee Ha-eun, who was hugging me.
Lee Ha-eun and I were now already 5 years old.
In other words, unlike before my regression, Lee Ha-eun’s family had not moved away.
‘Based on the bits and pieces of conversations I’ve overheard between the adults, I can roughly guess the reason why….’
I hadn’t done anything major.
I had just treated Lee Ha-eun well whenever she came to play at my house.
Then, at some point, Lee Ha-eun started to look forward to the time she came to my house to play with me, and seeing her like that, Lee Ha-eun’s parents didn’t move.
‘No, I think they said that only Lee Ha-eun’s father moved.’
Perhaps before my regression, Lee Ha-eun’s father was transferred to a regional post, and the whole family moved to the countryside because of it.
But since Lee Ha-eun was depending on me more than was normal, Lee Ha-eun’s parents must have decided that they couldn’t separate her from me and decided to live apart for their daughter’s sake.
‘And Lee Ha-eun’s father, who had been transferred to the countryside, came back in just half a year.’
I never knew that just letting a child play as she wanted would snowball into something like this.
Though, in the end, it was a good thing.
“Geon-woo. Hurry, hurry!”
“I know.”
I thought that as I was dragged along by Lee Ha-eun.
While thinking that she was quite energetic…
‘Ah, that wasn’t the only thing that had changed by the time I turned 5.’
First of all, a fair amount of pure internal energy had accumulated in my body.
Even though internal energy had accumulated, it was only three years’ worth at most, so the amount wasn’t large.
‘It’s not like the current me can use the Divine Art of Harmony, and this much from a normal breathing method isn’t bad either.’
After all, with just three years’ worth of internal energy, I could defeat most adults.
Ah, except for Awakeners.
My internal energy was insufficient to deal with Awakeners, but the fact that my body wasn’t fully developed yet was also a problem.
“Geon-woo, Ha-eun. It’s nap time.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Yes.”
Of course, since I was just attending kindergarten, it didn’t matter really matter much.
How many occasions would a kindergartener have to use the kind of martial power that could even defeat an adult?
Thinking that, I was led by the kindergarten teacher’s hand to a room where blankets were spread out…
…To take a nap, since it was nap time.
‘…It’s still awkward….’
Nap time, wasn’t it quite a luxury?
Of course, I understood that children needed to eat and sleep well, but I felt awkward every time it was nap time at kindergarten.
In the first place, I couldn’t fall asleep easily either.
“Everyone, sleep well~.”
The teacher, who saw that all the children — including me and Lee Ha-eun — were in their blankets, said that and turned off the lights.
Even in that darkness, sleep did not come to me, so I just stared blankly at the ceiling in the dark.
“Sss….”
“……”
Meanwhile, having confirmed that Lee Ha-eun, who was lying next to me, had fallen asleep instantly, I began the task I did every nap time.
‘Great Heavenly Circulation.’
I had already accumulated enough internal energy in my Lower Dantian by doing the Small Heavenly Circulation, so the basic foundation for doing the Great Heavenly Circulation had been established.
For reference, the Great Heavenly Circulation, unlike the Small Heavenly Circulation, gathers its energy in the Middle Dantian.
This meant that…
‘I mustn’t gather internal energy.’
What I needed to gather in my Middle Dantian was mana.
I needed mana to use magic.
I didn’t know about later, when I would seriously learn the Divine Art of Harmony, but for now, it was better to gather mana in order to use magic smoothly.
So, instead of gathering internal energy like I did in the Lower Dantian, I had to gather mana.
And that mana was overflowing in the air.
‘The mana scattered all over the world due to the influence of the Black Fog….’
It was less concentrated than the mana in the incubator when I was just born, and it was slightly dirty because it wasn’t refined, but that was within my acceptable range.
Because I could just burn what was dirty.
‘I just have to burn the dirty mana that has entered my body with the Samadhi True Fire.’
The Samadhi True Fire was a fire that could precisely burn only what I wanted without a trace.
And it wasn’t just a fire that burned matter, but it could also burn non-material existences.
So it was possible to burn away only the ‘dirtiness’ from the mana that entered my body.
Since that was the case, I drew in the impure mana from the air as it was.
“……”
The mana that entered my body like that flowed along the meridians of my body.
It was passing not only through the Governor and Conception Vessels connected for the Small Heavenly Circulation, but through all of my body’s Eight Extraordinary Meridians and Twelve Main Meridians.
The mana that had penetrated all the meridians of my body headed straight for the Middle Dantian, and I used the Samadhi True Fire on the mana gathered in the Middle Dantian to cleanse it.
“……”
Even a slight mistake could burn something other than the dirtiness of the mana, so I concentrated as much as possible.
Though I said I concentrated, I didn’t forget to be vigilant of my surroundings.
So that my concentration wouldn’t be broken by things like kids waking up and crying in the middle of the process.
‘Hoo… I was able to accumulate a fair amount of mana today as well.’
Confirming the amount of mana I had accumulated, I smiled inwardly.
At the same time…
Click.
The lights in the dark room turned on.
Nap time was now over.
‘This is the problem with the Great Heavenly Circulation.’
When I was doing the Great Heavenly Circulation, time passed too quickly.
Well, it had to go through all the numerous meridians in one’s body.
Thinking that, I tossed and turned my body as I pretended to have just woken up like the other children.
‘Now all that’s left is to play with the toys in the kindergarten, and then at 3 o’clock, take the bus and go back to our respective homes.’
The kindergarten’s schedule was the same every day unless it was a special day, so it wasn’t just me, but the other children could probably predict that much.
But today was a little different.
Fwoosh….
“Ah…?”
“Oh?”
While some children were playing with blocks together, a flame shot up.
It wasn’t that a fire had started. Rather, a child had unknowingly used magic.
“Wow! It’s fire!”
“Ha-eun, how did you do that?”
“Huh? I don’t know.”
And the one who had created that flame was none other than Lee Ha-eun.
She, who would later be called Serenity and be praised for her talent, had finally awakened.
‘Awakening at the age of 5… Isn’t Lee Ha-eun the youngest awakener?’
Of course, that was excluding me in this round, who was as good as awakened from birth.
“Ha-eun! Gently… Could you try to gently reduce that fire?”
“Huh?”
“No, I’d like you to put out the fire, not point it towards us….”
Anyway, the teachers who realized that Lee Ha-eun had awakened became busy.
Awakening at the age of 5 was unprecedented, but there were quite a few children who awakened at the age of 6 or 7.
And if children awakened at kindergarten, the kindergarten teachers were required to report the child’s awakening to the child’s parents and the government agency.
Not only that, but they would also have the duty to prevent the child, who couldn’t control their ability yet, from harming the other children until the government agency arrived.
“Like this?”
“Y-yes. That’s a relief….”
Fortunately, Lee Ha-eun seemed to be able to control her ability properly.
As time passed, Lee Ha-eun, along with her mother, was guided by people who appeared to be from the government and left to have her ability tested.
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T/N – Of course, Serenity is his childhood friend. Gotta have some cliches in my korean novels.
Also, I like the MC’s plan. Since he can use multiple powers, then just disguise his ability to be something else. After all, Ha-eun didn’t seem to have as hard a time as the MC despite being so talented. Being the ‘sole’ person in anything attracts way more attention than being a genius in something others also excel in.
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
