The flight path from Washington Dulles to Incheon International Airport.
The first two passengers to board the plane in Delta One Class opted for a beef tenderloin steak with red wine sauce for dinner.
The man speared the last remaining piece of meat with his fork, wiping the remaining sauce onto it before bringing it to his mouth nom nom.
“Did you finish that already?”
“This Hanwoo is delicious. Was it caught in Jeju Island? I’m really looking forward to the trip to Korea.”
“Dr. Fuller, we’re not here just to travel.”
The beautiful platinum-haired woman wiped her mouth with a napkin and shot a disapproving glance at the bald man accompanying her.
“I know, I know. But since we’re representing the Sephiron Foundation, it’s essential to familiarize ourselves with Korean culture.”
Dr. Fuller fiddled with the gold-plated badge on his suit jacket.
The logo shaped like an hourglass had thick lines on the upper and lower sections and one diagonal side that made it look like the letter ‘S’.
Robert Fuller and Emily Mayakovsky.
They were personnel dispatched from the Sephiron Foundation.
“Anyway, let’s not forget our purpose here is verification.”
The conclusion drawn from Na-me’s proofs on the last seven mathematical conjectures ended up being ‘verification impossible.’
To quote mathematicians, it was like traveling down a well-paved road only to suddenly be blocked by a gigantic rock.
Before we could even tell if this path was the right one, it had been blocked halfway.
Ultimately, the only option was to confront the designer of the road directly, so Dr. Fuller and Emily headed to Seoul where Na-me was.
Dr. Fuller, who had a keen interest in K-Pop and Korean culture overall, was currently flying 10 km high above the clouds.
“Isn’t that NoName?”
It was definitely not a coincidence that he decided to look up Na-me on the Internet after finishing dinner.
This was already a hot video ranked number 10 on V-tube’s real-time ranking.
[Island Gayageum Rock Paganini (Duri Do Gayageum Rock Paganini)]
“What? Gayageum…?”
From just the title, there was no way to guess what the video was about. Enchanted like a gumiho, he hit play, and for five minutes, it showed Na-me strumming the Gayageum at lightning speed.
“What on earth did I just watch!”
His commentary was short.
Even after watching the whole thing, his brain refused to comprehend what he had witnessed.
“Oh my oh my gosh… But do Koreans really keep pet snakes?”
“What did you say?”
“Emily, look at this. There’s a snake writhing next to her, watching!”
“…!”
As Dr. Fuller had said, a huge serpent, about the size of Na-me, was slowly slithering up the pillar and suddenly started dancing and shaking its body shake shake.
Emily Mayakovsky was seriously considering giving up on the trip to Korea.
*
“Someone might come here to the island after watching that video.”
“Really?”
“If you meet them, please don’t be too cold; welcome them. They’re all probably fans of the Grandmaster.”
Leaving everyone else at home, I hiked up the back mountains with the Grandmaster.
Seo Maru had just informed me that he uploaded a new video on V-tube.
Baek Bong-gon sat on a stump leaning on his kelp stick, gazing out at the sea that spread around him, he sighed deeply.
“The world is changing too fast, don’t you think, Na-me?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t I sound like some old-timer saying that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my, you’re quite honest.”
There’s a theory called the Red Queen hypothesis.
In the land of the looking-glass from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Red Queen is bound by a curious law that says she has to keep running just to stay in place.
This represented a biological theory where one must keep struggling in an endless competition to not fall behind.
According to that hypothesis, Baek Bong-gon could be considered a person left behind by the times.
“But the world isn’t a 100m dash. I thought I was falling behind like a circular track only to suddenly find myself ahead. And they say trends go around in circles too.”
One can easily see from the periodic retro wave that it’s irrelevant to differentiate between old and new.
You might think a denim jacket and jeans are fashion disasters, yet it could suddenly become a leading trend again.
“I believe distinguishing between old and new no longer holds meaning. If you truly want to promote magical artifacts, you should be actively advertising it online or wherever, instead of hiding in this island.”
But the Grandmaster surely knew that.
Although bought through ransomware, he was well-acquainted with digital culture, had a door lock installed in his master bedroom, and was using a medical capsule just fine.
“I heard you were once a well-regarded master, but is there a reason you’ve been living in hiding?”
“Hiding. This is my hometown.”
“Until I entered this Magic Power Plant, it was a region without any communications, which is just like hiding.”
Professor Cheon told me that.
Baek Bong-gon had established quite a well-known workshop in Seoul and had decent regular customers too.
“Here.”
“?”
Suddenly, the Grandmaster handed me his phone.
“Didn’t you want to take this, whether it’s Bitcoin or ghost coin? Check if the virtual currency exchange app is installed.”
“Uh…? Right now?”
“Then were you planning to take it once I die? Ho-chan said the market was dropping and threw a fit.”
Hearing the Grandmaster mention virtual currency felt more out of place than anything else.
As the password entry screen popped up to access the digital wallet, he began lamenting.
“Na-me, you’re right. Leaving the secular world was entirely my choice. I was in so much pain I thought my insides would explode if I didn’t heal under this natural beauty.”
“Have you been unwell?”
“It’s not just my body; my heart. This heart is in too much pain.”
He thumped his chest as if grieving deeply.
The worry in his eyes deepened.
“When a husband loses his wife, he’s a widower; when a wife loses her husband, she’s a widow; when a child loses their parents, they’re an orphan, but do you know what they call a parent who lost their child?”
“No…”
“Nothing. It’s beyond words. Instead, there’s the term ‘Chamcheok’ which combines the characters for catastrophic loss and sorrow.”
“Ah…”
It refers to the tragedy of a child passing away before their parents.
He wept silently, not shedding any tears.
Baek Bong-gon’s eyes had already dried up a long time ago.
“As for the password? ‘baek221214lee221210’.”
The password consisting of his last name and consecutive years.
I typed it in as he instructed, and the electronic wallet that Baek Ho-chan had longed for opened up.
December of ’22. What does that mean?
Baek Ho-chan had once put in his birthday and even his parents’ birthdays to solve this.
There was no 2022 in the years he told me.
“Our precious only son’s name is Baek Ho-jun. And our daughter-in-law’s name is Lee Na-yoon.”
“Is that Ho-chan’s parents?”
“That’s right. And December of ’22 is the anniversary of the children’s passing. Sigh…”
Turning off the phone, I sat beside him and stared for a while at the crashing waves on the shore.
This was definitely a scenery that would not change for 365 days a year, nor would it change in the future.
Baek Bong-gon’s time had stopped in 2022.
“Ho-chan probably doesn’t know the faces of the parents who gave birth to him. Right after he was born, they handed him to me and went off to kill people in the Middle East.”
In 2022, Baek Ho-chan was merely three years old.
Losing parents must feel like the sky is falling, but what would it feel like for a parent to lose their child?
I could not fathom the deep sorrow that Baek Bong-gon held within.
“So, I gave up on the business completely, pushed away all my friends who came to find me, and came to this island, this hometown, as if I was pushed here. But I still must raise Ho-chan well, right? What does Ho-chan call me? Not very fond of me?”
“Yes, Uncle Ho-chan said he didn’t like Grandpa.”
“I can see why. How can a child face ridicule for not having parents? So I raised him all the more strictly. I wasn’t able to break that kid’s stubbornness about wanting to go to the Academy though.”
“Did both of your parents attend the Academy?”
“Never mind one, my skills surpass even that of ten people, Na-me.”
With a face still full of sorrow, the Grandmaster gently patted my head.
The reason he despised the Academy.
“America is about individualism, and Korea is about collectivism? That’s absolutely wrong. The Academy and Foundation folks are all about being superficially freewheeling individuals, but when you look at their actions, they’re no different from communists!”
Baek Bong-gon’s teeth were gritted.
“Dressed in money and honor, they lure innocent kids who don’t know anything into dangerous battlefields! If they don’t look like demons commanding the blood of youth to kill each other, then what the hell are they?!”
Baek Bong-gon harbored a hatred for the Foundation that took the lives of his children.
This value would forever remain unchanged until his death.
When parents die, they are buried on the mountain, but when a child dies, they are buried deep in the heart.
The sacred sacrifice of the combat sorcerers was recorded in history, but those who were someone’s child, brother, and parent were buried in the hearts of the bereaved.
“So, Na-me, be careful not to get involved in dangerous matters, and don’t even think about it. Byeong-ho is also a truly pitiful child. Perhaps more unfortunate than I.”
As I merely blinked, Baek Bong-gon grabbed my shoulder and asked.
“Didn’t your father say anything?”
nod
“Oh my, what to say… it’s not like my heart has dulled! I haven’t forgotten a single thing. Alright then. If you’re really curious, go ask Byeong-ho, or was it Kyu-jin? Yes, go ask Kyu-jin. Now let’s go down and have dinner with those troublemakers.”
The red sunset hid beneath the neighboring island of Bian Do.
In the broad, bright summer sky that had blue and orange paint mixed together, dragonflies were freely flying about buzz buzz.
“Are you coming or not!”
The kelp stick swayed side to side as it urged me to hurry.
Baek Bong-gon, having poured out long-harbored sorrow, seemed to have a relieved expression.
As the brilliant sun tucked itself behind our heads, a deep shadow fell over the small forest.
Suddenly recalling Professor Cheon, I felt an inexplicable unease in my heart, clutching at my chest.
“I’ll take my leave now.”
*
[My Assets]
[10,825 BTG (Bitcoin Gold): ₩193,767,500]
I summoned Sebastian (the half-eaten serpent), who was following closely behind me.
“Grandmaster, could you come here for a moment?”
