Chapter 2

#2. Regression or Something Else

The world had changed.

Jae-in realized this the moment he opened his eyes. He couldn't help but realize it.

He had fallen asleep at a campsite, but when he woke up, he was in the room of his family home, which had been demolished for redevelopment a few years ago. It was even more difficult to not sense something strange, given that the building, which should have long been reduced to construction waste, was still standing.

'Have I gone back in time? No, why? Why did I regress? Did I unknowingly suffer a great betrayal? In novels, the protagonists usually regress after being betrayed and dying. So, did I die?'

Jae-in was puzzled about why he had returned to the past.

In the genre novels he had read, people who lived a life filled with regret and longing were given another chance. They often returned to the past due to the activation of a mysterious artifact they had forgotten about or had obtained by chance. The protagonists who returned this way corrected their past mistakes, seized missed opportunities, and lived a successful life different from their previous one.

'I can't figure out the reason. Why me?'

Jae-in hadn't done anything special, nor had he obtained any unusual items. He had never seen any fictional beings like ghosts or angels. Moreover, he didn't have any particularly regretful or lingering matters.

He had lived a very ordinary life and was quite satisfied with it. His parents, though they sometimes argued, were usually affectionate, and he didn't have a bad relationship with his only younger brother.

He was quite good-looking and had the talent to earn a living without worrying about food and shelter. He lived a simple, ordinary life, earning and enjoying moderately, and he had no complaints about it.

'Except for the nagging about being the eldest son and not getting married, always running around, there wasn't really any problem.'

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand why he had regressed. He was mature enough to know that the ordinary life he enjoyed was not easily obtained. So, he was content, but he was puzzled as to why he had regressed.

"Alright. It's not a bad thing."

Jae-in wiped his face a few times and stopped thinking about it. Since he couldn't undo the regression, what was the point of thinking more? The more he thought, the more agitated he would become.

"Right. I came back at a good time, so let it be."

If he had returned to his third year of high school or before his discharge from the military, he would have been angry, but since that wasn't the case, he could let it go.

The remaining issue was whether to continue his university studies.

Honestly, not having a university degree in South Korea was definitely not advantageous. However, even before, he had worked in a field unrelated to his major after graduation. Moreover, he had never really benefited from alumni connections.

'I don't feel the need to continue if I'm not going to get a scholarship.'

He had already lived independently and earned his own living, so he didn't want to ask his parents for help. Besides, he didn't want to work part-time to pay for tuition or suffer physically and mentally repaying student loans.

More precisely, he wanted to use the time he would spend earning to pay off the loan and interest for himself.

"But did I decorate my room like this before? There are posters I've never seen before. Did Jae-hyun put them up?"

* * *

He didn't think he had put up a poster of a woman in armor with a heavy sword. It looked like an online game poster, and the only one in the family with such a hobby was his younger brother, Jae-hyun. Even so, he couldn't understand why Jae-hyun would put posters in his room instead of his own.

Jae-in carefully peeled off the poster to avoid tearing the wallpaper.

* * *

"Whoa! What's wrong with the house?"

Jae-in felt a strange sense of dissonance as he walked to his brother's room. He couldn't remember if it was because it had been so long or because he had been indifferent, but the interior design was very strange.

'Is Jae-hyun a medieval enthusiast?'

Even if his brother was a medieval enthusiast and had custom-made armor, decorating the living room with it was excessive. No matter how serious he was about his hobby, putting such items in a common space was a nuisance.

"Whoa! His room is even worse. How does he sleep here?"

It wasn't just the armor in the living room. When he opened his brother's room to retrieve the poster, it was filled with strange things. There were grotesquely twisted hands, terrifying monster heads, several daggers, and old helmets. They looked like movie props.

"Is his interest in SFX rather than the medieval era?"

His brother liked online games, but he hadn't shown any signs of such a hobby. His major wasn't in that field, and his job was a regular one unrelated to movies or games. If anything, Jae-in, who had worked as a translator, was more related.

Before the regression, he had translated texts related to novels, webtoons, and games for several years. Especially in the gaming industry, he had translated weekly updates, including quest guides, character dialogues, and item descriptions, until the company he worked for was taken over by another company.

"What's going on? Did I misunderstand that we got along well? Did we actually know nothing about each other?"

Jae-hyun's room was like a warehouse. Besides the bizarre items, there were boxes of clothes and gift baskets, leaving no space to walk. The bed was also covered with things, making it look like a place where no one lived. His brother's room was very different from his memory.

'Strange. Too strange.'

Jae-in swallowed hard and rubbed his goosebumps while quickly descending the stairs. He needed to check the first floor.

Anxiety and suspicion filled his mind equally. Half of him wanted to escape the unfamiliar space, and the other half suspected that this wasn't just a simple regression.

"What is this? Why is the house like this?"

The first floor, which he had rushed down, was also very different from his memory. The shape and arrangement of the furniture were similar, but everything else was different.

The drooping flowers emitting blue powder, and the thing that looked like a robot vacuum cleaner or a helmet crab cleaning the living room floor, were all strange and unfamiliar.

The most eye-catching thing was the tapestry that took up one side of the living room wall. It seemed to be coated with fluorescent material, glowing on its own, and didn't look like a simple decoration.

Jae-in's steps headed back to this floor. From a quick glance, he knew that he hadn't simply returned to the past.

* * *

"This isn't a simple regression, right? No, it's not. I'm just experiencing a lot of strange things at once, but regression itself isn't a simple matter."

Jae-in locked himself in his room again. Unlike the morning when he was surprised by the changed environment and didn't notice his family leaving for work, he was now locked in his room, trying to accept the idea that "the world had been turned upside down overnight."

"Excuse me, what are Awakeners and superpowers?"

He realized that he hadn't simply returned to the past but had also somehow dimensionally transferred, which was absurd.

"This is like a setting from a novel. Regression, dimensional transfer, and superpowers. I don't think I'll be surprised by anything from now on."

Maybe because the situation was so absurd, he wouldn't be surprised even if his mother revealed that he was actually the illegitimate child of a wealthy family. Or if this world was from a novel and he was an extra who died in the early chapters, it would be the same.

* * *

Jae-in threw the old smartphone on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. His head was spinning. With his eyes closed, he wished he could fall asleep and return to his original world.

"Wait. If this is a dimensional transfer, is it okay to just live here?"

He wanted to ignore the headache and go back to sleep. However, a sudden thought made him get up urgently. The nagging at the back of his head was unbearable because of the unanswered questions.

'If this is a different dimension, what about my parents? Are they really my parents? Is Jae-hyun really my brother?'

Then, what happened to the Jae-in who originally lived in this dimension? Did he disappear? Or did only my soul transfer and take over this body?

Is it even possible to dimensionally transfer, regress in time, and possess someone else's body all at once? Is it just me, or is this a common occurrence in this world?

What was I doing in this dimension? Was I similar to my past self? How should I handle meeting people I know?

Is there really no way to return?

There was no way to find answers to these endless questions. He also lacked the courage to tell someone about his experience and seek help, fearing he would be labeled as a lunatic.

His eyes caught the laptop neatly placed on the desk.

"Fingerprint recognition. Good."

After being briefly blocked by the password, Jae-in logged in with fingerprint recognition and happily turned on the laptop. It was time to dig into this Jae-in's past.

He had underestimated the task.

Jae-in reflected.

Before his translation job, he wasn't the type to record things. He didn't use social media like Bluebird, StarGram, or Kakao Story due to a natural aversion. It was unlikely that he had recorded anything on the laptop.

"Why did you do that, Jae-in? What's wrong with SNS? You should have at least done one thing everyone else does."

Blaming his past self, he thoroughly searched the laptop's hard drive just in case. However, it only contained a few movies, dramas, and online courses. There weren't even casual games or videos that required caution.

"In novels, they find clues in diaries, letters, or laptops..."

He had expected this, though.

He started using external hard drives and large web storage after starting his job due to insufficient laptop storage. He began taking notes while storing documentary videos, news clippings, and specialized term files. Before that, he rarely recorded anything, whether in notes or screenshots.

"One in a hundred people awakens superpowers. Ha! The world is truly strange..."

He chuckled at the content he found while browsing the internet. Even after reading it again, the terms "superpowers" and "Awakeners" were hard to believe.

"I guess I'm not an Awakener."

Among the one in a hundred who awaken, only 30% have abilities suitable for combat. The rest have abilities that are unsuitable for combat or even inconvenient for daily life.

'This is the worst. Burning fabric that touches the skin is terrifying.'

Worried about accidentally burning someone else's clothes, one person had to wear leather gloves and leather clothing even in the summer, which was pitiful. It would have been better if the superpower was strong enough for combat, but it wasn't. The ability to burn fabric was useless.

"Being accused of sexual harassment for one mistake. Such a superpower is better off not existing."

Other people's opinions were similar. Wearing leather underwear and not being able to dry off with a towel after a shower sounded exhausting just to imagine.

There were many other terrible superpowers, such as emitting a foul odor or turning clean water into dirty water, which were of no help in daily life.

'There are superpowers like curing baldness, but those are rare. I think I'm better off as I am.'

Since there were no translation-related superpowers, he could continue his translation work from before the regression or dimensional transfer.

After a rough search, Jae-in leaned back in his chair. He had been searching for hours, forgetting his hunger, and his eyes were blurry, and his neck was stiff.

'Nothing is resolved, but at least I can make a living without problems.'

Just as he was relieved, the sound of the front door opening and then the middle door opening reached his ears.

It was an early return of a family member.

To Jae-in, who hadn't decided how to deal with his family, the sound of the door opening was like a thunderclap.