Immortal Paladin

400 Fellow Otherworlder

South Korea. Summer.

I was born.

I had a father and a mother, and I was their only son. My name 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 name.

I grew up in a typical apartment complex on the outskirts of Incheon, the kind where the stairwells always smelled 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 home with shoulders that looked permanently hunched. My mother ran a small side business selling homemade side dishes to neighbors, such as anchovies glazed in soy, spicy radish, and 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 me 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, something felt… off.

A memory floated up uninvited. Me. 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 me, as strange as it sounded. I slowed despite myself, my chest tightening.

My heart was beating too fast.

“Is this heat stroke?” I wondered absurdly.

“Hey, idiot!”

Something 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 me on the lips. Then she elbowed me 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, and friendships loud and messy. But nothing beats hanging out at the PC Bang after school. For that, I blamed my cousin entirely. He’d dragged me there once, and that was all it took.

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

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

I was playing DOTA 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 me.

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

The tower locked onto me. Sven followed. My health plummeted.

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

My ultimate was still on cooldown. No escape for me. Ugh… I used Force Staff on Sven. Unfortunately, he was facing me. 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 me.”

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 time 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 the end of school hours, only leaving when my mother called the shop directly, apologizing as she dragged me home over the phone.

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

One evening, Kim Seo-yeon and I walked home together, the late summer 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 game should stay far away from me.”

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

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

Sometimes I wondered what someone like her was doing with me.

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

“Why the sudden question?” I asked.

She slowed her steps. “I want you to meet someone. A nice noona I met in the game. She’s worked in the industry.”

I blinked. “Industry…?”

“Games,” she said plainly.

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

She stopped walking and stared at me. “Why are you always like this? If you want something, 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 medicine, science, law, etc. They were clean paths with clear prestige. I had only mentioned becoming a game developer once, half-joking, half-serious, and I couldn’t believe she remembered it.

Dreams were strange things like that.

Seo-yeon wanted media. 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 me. 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.

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My parents were there at the ceremony, clapping loudly when my name was called, faces bright with pride when I took my diploma. Somewhere 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 mercy, took too many photos, and insisted she come 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 someone feel welcome.

When I walked Seo-yeon home 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 home. I took an IT course and finished it without much fanfare. After that came 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 immediate 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 arguments, negotiations, and quiet compromises. Eventually, we got engaged, agreeing to marry three years later. Of course, all of that had been at the insistence 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, and 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 time moved differently, where effort translated into immediate feedback. Frankly, I was desperate for something that felt like success and something I could build instead of beg for. Pooling my savings with a small loan from my parents and a government 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 mellowed by then, worn down by changes in the country and the economy. The prejudice never fully disappeared, but it softened into something tolerable. The shop never made me rich. Between bills, Seo-yeon’s pregnancy, and living expenses, some months I barely broke even. But it paid the bills. It gave structure to my days. It rooted me in a place where people knew my face.

High school students came after class. Office workers dropped by late at night. Retirees played card games 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 mentioned the name casually. I could finally hold my head high in front of my in-laws, though somehow, I was still considered a failure in their eyes. Societal pressure, competition, and 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 home on time. 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 someone cry by farting on them as if it were an achievement.

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 me a glare. “Care to explain?”

I coughed. “I might’ve let him watch some… weird anime.”

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

I avoided eye-contact, aware there was more where that came from. Though for a moment, 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 and professional, the kind trained not to tremble. “Journalist Kim Seo-yeon, thirty-one years old, was found stabbed twenty-one times…” The screen showed a photograph I knew too well, her press badge smile, cropped neatly, frozen in a moment 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 me for zoning out, and to tell me 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-something happened…”

My heart slammed 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 time.

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

My steps faltered.

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

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

I don’t remember screaming, but I remember 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 me and stopped somewhere outside my skull. Apathy became 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 became cold.

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

At the funeral, I stood in front of two framed photographs of my wife and my son, placed side by side as if that somehow 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 screamed, pointing at me. “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 somewhere far away, a bottle already in my hand.

“What floor is it?” I asked.

They quieted.

“The seventh,” someone 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 and suffocating. I could feel everyone thinking the same thing about how broken I looked and how badly I had it.

That was when the cameras 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 me 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 me, toward the gentleman standing at my side, as if waiting for permission. That alone told me everything.

Ah.

They’d been bought off, every last one of them. Of course, they had. The man beside me was a political pig, the kind who smiled for cameras while grinding people into paste behind closed doors. I recognized him immediately. 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 me 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 settlement. Enough for you and your family to live comfortably. You don’t need to suffer anymore in these sensitive times.”

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

“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 game. I drank until the room stopped arguing with me. And somewhere 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 me.”

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

“What are you doing?” the gentleman hissed under his breath. “Give me 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 cameras. “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 came to my house begging for forgiveness. Begging me to drop the settlement at court.” I laughed, a sharp, broken sound. “So I buried him in my backyard.”

The gentleman beside me went pale.

Killing someone for the first time felt strange, like crossing a line that had never really existed. I remember thinking that if it came to it, a second time wouldn’t be much harder. I slammed 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 crimes had already been spread far and wide.

Chaos erupted.

The bodyguards lunged for me, but my father and father-in-law grabbed them, desperation lending them strength. My mother and mother-in-law clung to me, crying, begging me to stop, telling me 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, the world dissolved into darkness until I found myself in the midst of clouds.

The screaming wind faded, the weight vanished, and something else took its place. It was vast, patient, and watching. In that endless dark, a soft voice reached me, neither male nor female, neither near nor far.

“Park Ru-gyu.”

The sound of my name anchored me.

“Do you want a second chance?” the voice asked gently. “I promise you a wish. A life. To be able to see your family again.”

Images surfaced against my will with Seo-yeon’s smile, Min-jae’s small hands clinging to my sleeve, and the warmth of a dinner table that no longer existed.

“To feel complete,” the voice continued. “To not feel hurt anymore.”

My chest ached, even without a body.

“I only need you to accept,” it whispered. “Fulfill my desire, nascent supreme… and your wish shall be fulfilled.”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” I said into the dark.

As the wind tore past me, memories began to loosen and slide. Names shifted. Faces blurred. Slowly, I remembered that I wasn’t Ru Qiu. Instead, I was Da Wei. These weren’t my memories. Instead, I was reliving Park Ru-gyu’s memories.

In other words, the memories of Ru Qiu and eventually… the Heavenly Demon.

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

I was falling from the sky.

“Motherfucking—shit!”