"Mom...?"

No, wait a minute. Mom? Kim Giryeo has a mother? Well, of course, he must have biological parents. But that's not what I mean right now. I don't know the details, but... with the whole orphanage system or whatever. Anyway, didn't Giryeo say he has no family?

I was momentarily startled by the other person's words. Family. This was the most troublesome concept for a wizard who had stolen another's body.

"Um, could you perhaps provide some proof that you're my family...?"

I cautiously asked to confirm the truth, but the woman on the other end of the line awkwardly laughed and said. She was a 49-year-old named Lee Hwayoung, and if we met in person, I'd recognize her by her face right away.

"Lee Hwayoung?"

Flinch.

When I heard that name, my brain was suddenly stimulated. It was a feeling of certainty. It was a feeling of certainty. My body sent a signal that the name and age matched the information I had about Kim Giryeo's mother.

"So it's true, huh."

As I felt my memories replaying, I adjusted the receiver. At that moment, Lee Hwayoung made a suggestion. She asked if I could meet her briefly, maybe tomorrow, if it was alright.

Of course, I readily accepted. It may seem dangerous to meet family, but honestly, I was more curious about the owner's information.

"Yes. Then I'll see you tomorrow."

"– Our son, I guess now that you're all grown up, you even speak to your mom politely?"

"Th, that's I, I was outside, so that's why."

There would be many risks, but if it comes down to it, I'll just play it off as memory loss.

Having made up my mind, I hung up the phone and looked up. But at that moment, a strange sensation suddenly surged from the tear gland in my right eye.

"Huh."

...Ahn Yoonseung turned toward me and was shocked.

"H, Hyung-nim?"

Gulp.

Suddenly, transparent water began pouring from one of my eyes. The liquid streaming from my tear gland quickly dampened my face.

I belatedly realized something was wrong and tried to stop it, but I failed to control it. The tears wouldn't stop. It was as if my body was pouring out fluid, as if I had been deeply stabbed by a kitchen knife. The sight of me, expressionless, with tears streaming down uncontrollably, gave off a strangely eerie atmosphere, at least on the surface.

"Are you okay?"

This is strange. I'm not in a sad state right now. I just had a perfectly fine conversation, and now I'm suddenly breaking down in tears. Something's definitely wrong. Then the cause of this strange reaction can only be...

"the body's...?"

The thought didn't continue. Soon, fragmented memories poured out through my half-open eyes.

"..."

To put it metaphorically, it was like forcibly tearing at the doorknob of a room packed with things.

.

.

.

Memory is truly fascinating. How is it that we store experiences and emotions with just a few fragments of chemical molecules?

Vivid memories are like completed paintings. Even with my eyes closed, they linger just beneath the dark skin, the colored scenery faintly shining through.

***

Kim Giryeo's first memory is of a playground.

"Kyaaak!"

"Hahahaha!"

"Ah, what is it! Stop being so sneaky!"

The memory of watching a group of children playing on a colorful horizontal bar from a distance.

[White Light Orphanage]

Kim Giryeo was an orphan. He didn't know how he ended up there at such a young age, but at least he understood why he had come.

– Hey! Are you done talking?

– Yeah, I'm done. F*ck! Hit me, hit me!

His parents, who had been fighting all day, got divorced recently, and in the end, both of them gave up raising him.

However, life here was surprisingly satisfying. He was lucky enough to be placed in a conscientious and decent orphanage.

They gave him good meals and ensured he got plenty of rest. On top of that, there were occasional cultural activities like movies and even camping trips. At this point, it felt like he was living better than he had under his parents' care. They would often say they ran out of money and feed their last 1,000 won bread from a nearby mart.

Anyway, he was able to safely enter high school thanks to the support of the state and the orphanage. It would be a lie to say that his growth process was without hardship, but still, considering he made it this far in good health, it wasn't too bad.

Kim Giryeo stood in the school auditorium, dressed neatly in his school uniform.

– A-ah, can you hear me? We will now begin the 20XX academic year's new student entrance ceremony.

Soon, the broadcast announcing the national anthem echoed through the hall. The musty smell of the old wooden floorboards from that time is still fresh in his memory. However, the vivid recollection of what happened afterward is a bit painful. When he became a freshman in high school, an unprecedented incident occurred in the world he lived in.

***

Dungeon Shock. Yeah, anyone living in today's era would remember it. Monsters roamed freely, and a sea of flames, like something out of a movie, spread right before their eyes. Who could have ever predicted that Seoul would end up like this, not because of a war, but for some other reason?

[Breaking News. Thanks to the efforts of the new Awakened individual, Choi Jin (22), the operation to retake the northern border of Seoul on the 7th was successful...]

Fortunately, Earth recovered its social system faster than expected due to the birth of the Awakened. In the early days of the Dungeon Shock, the number of gates was so few that they could be counted on one hand.

Around the following year, South Korea's educational institutions gradually began to function again, and eventually, normal school attendance was reinstated. For Giryeo, it was only by the second year that he could finally attend high school properly.

"Kids, this is your first time having face-to-face classes, right? Alright, let's take it slow and go through the material."

Eating school lunch, playing soccer with friends, and doing homework at the orphanage after school. If you just took a lot, it was truly an ordinary school life. But why does this period of memories seem so faded, like the scenery is losing its color?

<New Email>

[From: Seohyeong Gu]

[Subject: How have you been?]

One day, Giryeo, now a high school student, checked his email and found a message from Gu Seohyeong. However, he never replied to that email. In fact, he couldn't even bring himself to open it.

"Seohyeong..."

Sorry, but Gu Seohyeong wasn't exactly a welcome person to him.

"Seohyeong is still alive and well."

Giryeo had kept a strange distance from others for a long time. His personality was introverted, and perhaps because he teased throughout elementary school for not having parents, he always carried an inferiority complex inside him, but even laughable.

Gu Seohyeong's family seemed very stable on the outside. On top of that, Seohyeong herself was quite successful as a child actor. So, how would someone like him appear to someone like Seohyeong? Perhaps he seemed not just pitiful, but even laughable.

"..."

Giryeo suddenly felt a sense of shame. Logically, he knew that Seohyeong wouldn't think like that, but he was filled with embarrassment, which made him avoid her.

It was similar with the friends he made in high school. After he started seeing his family background as a weakness, he became afraid of being looked down upon by others and, as a result, he rarely opened up to anyone.

"Kim Giryeo! How about going to the internet cafe after school?"

"No, I can't- My parents are coming home early today."

However, he couldn't relieve his troubled heart at the orphanage. There was no point in people with the same wounds licking each other's wounds, as it would only make things worse. Perhaps because it was a place filled with many young children, violence between peers frequently broke out at the orphanage. Being a pacifist, Giryeo had no choice but to feel out of place in a space where the stronger ones held power.

"It's frustrating."

It was truly a dilemma. Kim Giryeo felt an inexplicable discomfort throughout his school days.

It wasn't until later that he realized it was loneliness. He thought that not having a family was nothing anymore. But in reality, it was just self-brainwashing. His heart wasn't growing stronger; it was gradually becoming more sick.

"Oh, I'm going crazy."

"Why?"

"I had a fight with my mom this morning. No, she says she won't give me any allowance because I'm not going to school during the vacation. Is this normal?"

"Wow, even I won*"

"Ah- I really want to run away from home. Seriously."

On a cloudy day, Kim Giryeo, while listening to the conversations of his classmates, suddenly became curious about his biological parents. But soon he thought to himself, "What's the point of searching for them now?" and pushed the thought aside.

***

And so the graduation ceremony came.

"Three years have passed since I entered school with the excitement of a new beginning. Now, we are about to step into society..."

The student council president was on stage giving his graduation speech, and a student suddenly had a thought in his head that he was in big trouble.

"Society."

In fact, his grades... weren't very good. Perhaps it was because there was no one around to correct him, or maybe it was simply because he was stupid. Despite his exemplary behavior, Kim Giryeo's academic performance was lacking. As a result, he gave up on going to college. Because of this, he had to leave the orphanage right away, which caused him a lot of trouble.

"How am I going to live on my own from now on?"

Since I've been saving up the deposit money through part-time jobs, I think I'll find a house near the factory first?

After the graduation ceremony, Kim Giryeo left the auditorium with a casual stride. The sports field was filled with students holding bouquets and taking pictures with their families, but by this point, any feelings of jealousy had been completely exhausted, and he didn't really have any thoughts about it.

"Phew..."

But who would have thought that his graduation ceremony would end with such a scene?

"G, Giryeo-ya!"

Rustle.

As Kim Giryeo stepped out of the school gate, he suddenly stopped in his tracks upon seeing a soap flower bouquet thrust in front of him.

"Did, did you do well at the graduation ceremony? Congratulations."

"Who are you?"

"That... What do you mean, 'who'?"

And the middle-aged woman who handed him the bouquet said this.

"I'm your mother. Do you remember me?"

No, what did you say?

***

She introduced herself as Lee Hwayoung. Then, she took out a few old photos and showed them to Kim Giryeo, sitting across the table, saying they were from his childhood.

In the photo, there was a newborn baby being held in the woman's arms, staring blankly. The woman in the photo looked strikingly similar to the person sitting in front of him.

"I'm sorry that Mom came late."

The woman, who had applied burgundy lipstick to her lips, then spoke. She said that it wasn't her choice to send him to the orphanage, and that the past was simply due to her own circumstances being so difficult that she couldn't bring herself to meet him.

"How chaotic the world has been lately! So many people have died. But in the midst of all that, I was worried that something might have happened to you..."

It seemed that the Dungeon Shock played a big role in Lee Hwayoung's decision to find her son. She explained that, after experiencing the global catastrophe, she had come to the realization that if she delayed their reunion any longer, she might never see her son again, which gave her the courage to finally reach out.

"Although things aren't fully settled yet, I still really wanted to see you, Giryeo."

It was only at the very end of his school years that Lee Hwayoung finally appeared. Upon hearing this, his fellow orphans all spoke in unison.

"Isn't she just here for the settlement money?"

The 10 million won independence settlement fund given to children who have aged out of the foster care system. Sadly, there were sometimes cases where parents, seeking to claim that money, would try to find their abandoned children later on.

"Someone who never showed their face until now suddenly returns on the day of discharge. Even if the Dungeon Shock made things chaotic, this feels a bit..."

"That's right."

"They say the older sister who left two years ago went through something similar."

They advised not to trust the mother who had come looking for him. The person directly involved agreed with this opinion as well. The mother, who had never visited her son until he became an adult, showed up at the time of the subsidy, so he was naturally suspicious.

"Giryeo, would you like to live with your mom?"

But why? Despite all the doubts, Kim Giryeo couldn't bring himself to turn away from his family.

"Yes?"

"– If you don't have anywhere to go... come to Mom. Actually, I've already found a place to live with you."

On the day of the graduation, at the galbitang restaurant they entered together, the words she carefully brought up. After explaining her situation, Lee Hwayoung asked if he would live with her once he left the facility. Kim Giryeo had decided to accept this offer.

Despite the numerous warnings from those around him, in the end, the loneliness he had accumulated in his heart led him to make that choice. Kim Giryeo, craving affection, decided to follow his mother.

"It'll be okay."

If, as his peers said, his biological mother was only after the support money, then all he had to do was firmly refuse to give her any. Moreover, living with his mother would save him a lot on living expenses. So this was a truly rational choice, even for the sake of money...

After leaving the shelter, Kim Giryeo moved into the rented room where his mother, Lee Hwayoung, lived. The reunion mother and son seemed a bit awkward at first, but about a month, that feeling gradually faded away. During this time, Lee Hwayoung never brought up the topic of money.

"Son, get up and eat!"

The seaweed soup was served in a white household bowl, not a stainless steel plate. Why was this simple meal so joyful?

"Eat a lot."

Kim Giryeo awkwardly smiled and picked up the metal spoon. There was a time when he thought his dream had come true. In a small room, living peacefully with his family. Life was even just this.