TSBIRBV Ch 2

Chapter 2. The Departed Must Return (1)

“Close the window.”

At his mother’s words, spoken from the driver’s seat, Yegyeol pressed the button on the handle to roll the window up. Though nausea swelled in his chest, he showed no sign of discomfort.

He wasn’t feeling well—not after dreaming that dream again, the one he hadn’t had in so long.

‘No—!’

A man’s voice echoed through his mind, and Yegyeol pressed hard against his temples. Every time that dream came, something terrible followed. By all accounts, it was an unlucky dream.

And yet, Yegyeol couldn’t bring himself to hate it.

“It’s been a while since we last came to the East Sea,” his father said with a smile from the passenger seat. “Half a year ago, wasn’t it?”

Unable to join in the cheerful conversation, Yegyeol stayed silent. His parents reminisced about the sweet-and-spicy fried chicken and squid sausage they had eaten at a market, and how beautiful the night sea had been.

Though he doubted he’d be able to sleep, Yegyeol thought he might at least close his eyes and pretend. After all, this trip was meant to celebrate his college admission—he didn’t want to spoil the mood.

“Hm? There’s roadwork up ahead.”

No sooner had his father spoken than the car lurched violently with a loud thud!. A series of harsh noises battered Yegyeol’s ears—the heavy crunch of metal colliding, the screech of something bending, the roar of an overheating engine.

“Ah!”

A strangled cry tore through the chaos, and a wave of agony crashed through Yegyeol’s body. His hypersensitive senses flooded him with brutal clarity—

The acrid stench of burning flesh and leather, the iron tang of blood that he had smelled once, long ago.

Something was crushing his chest; he could hardly breathe. When he finally managed to lift his head, he saw his mother’s arm twisted at an unnatural angle in the front seat.

His tilted vision blurred red.

And through the haze of confusion and noise, voices began to pierce through.

“Hey, I told you not to hit it that hard! What if the target’s dead?”

“You think that’s funny? Do you take an esper’s endurance to be as pathetic as a human’s?”

Through the gap of the crumpled car door, a set of fingers wedged in. The metal folded like soft clay under their touch.

With a sharp crack, the door was ripped away, and one of the espers revealed himself.

“See? Still breathing.”

He smirked, his mouth curling in satisfaction, as if proud of his restraint.

“G… get… lost…”

The man’s expression didn’t change. His hand shot forward, fisting in Yegyeol’s hair, and yanked him upward with monstrous strength—enough to tear off a car door with ease.

Yegyeol tried to scream, but no sound came out. His scalp burned, but the deeper pain was in his wrist—a tingling ache where his power seal lay dormant, thrumming as though it would burst.

Every underage esper was bound by such a seal to suppress their abilities until adulthood. It was both a safeguard and a legal requirement under the Esper Rights Act passed after the Awakener phenomenon began.

Though Yegyeol was now an adult, he had yet to break his seal. No matching guide had ever been found for him, not in Korea nor in the global database.

“You sure this weakling’s really the S-rank we heard about?”

“If not, we’ll just cut the snitch’s throat—what’s the problem? With how bad the manpower shortage is, we should be grateful even if he’s only A-rank.”

Their casual chatter, like two shoppers discussing groceries, sounded grotesquely unreal.

“You… you bastards think you can…”

Yegyeol’s lips moved faintly.

These were the people who had killed his parents. What reason did he have to comply?

His pale brown eyes began to shift, glowing slowly into a molten gold. At his wrist, where the seal lay embedded, sparks of yellow lightning began to crackle.

It was the telltale sign of a rampage.

He could feel the power he had long suppressed rising—wild, uncontrollable. Once unleashed without a guide, an esper’s fate was already written.

Nine out of ten died. One survived—barely. And even then, if deemed unstable, they were disposed of for safety.

But Yegyeol’s rage swallowed reason whole.

“If you don’t want to die, I’d control that power of yours,” one of the attackers said coldly.

He wore black gloves of some special material—clearly prepared for someone with electric abilities. They knew not only his rank but the nature of his power.

They had come knowing his strength was sealed, yet even so, their precautions were meticulous.

“Think carefully. Keep resisting, and we’ll erase you right here. Guys like you live to become government dogs, and when that happens, dozens of us end up dead.”

The woman who spoke had blood spattered across her cheek—his parents’ blood, or perhaps his own. Her grin was razor-thin.

In that smile, Yegyeol realized the truth: whether they meant to kidnap him or kill him, it didn’t matter.

“I told you—there’s a manpower shortage.”

His luck had run dry.

It had been his first family trip—his first time feeling something like family, after years of awkward distance between him and his parents, who never quite knew how to face a son who had awakened as a monster.

And now, they were gone—snatched from him by rebel espers in a matter of seconds.

“Humans die so easily,” he murmured. “I’d forgotten that.”

His tone was eerily calm—too calm.

The world had always felt too peaceful for him. Though awakened, Yegyeol had been a sheltered minor; gates, monsters, and rebel terrorism had felt like distant news stories. He had been protected—too protected.

Now, electricity flared along the black band at his wrist, searing his skin. The woman holding him cursed in a language he couldn’t understand—

And then, his vision went white.

A bolt of lightning crashed down where the espers stood. Once, twice, again and again—

“It’s a rampage!”

The attackers realized too late what was happening. One threw Yegyeol’s body aside; he struck the car with a deafening bang!

The car’s engine screamed instead of him. Electricity surged through the wreckage, burning everything it touched.

Flames and smoke rose, swallowing his vision. Something thick and wet ran down his face—blood, maybe tears—but he kept his eyes locked on the retreating silhouettes.

Lightning flared from his trembling fingertips.

“Agh—!”

A faint cry of pain reached him, and Yegyeol’s lips curved slowly upward.

The lightning that chased after them burned his own body as well, but he didn’t care. Staying awake—resisting the dark pull of unconsciousness—was more important than pain.

It wouldn’t last long. The fire was closing in, licking at the metal, at his skin.

Death was already at his throat.

‘I thought I’d live longer this time.’

Ironically, the last image in his mind wasn’t his parents’ faces.

It was the man who always appeared in his dreams—a man in torn Kunlun robes, a sword in his hand, shouting his name.

‘No! My disciple! My disciple!’

Would he be reborn again, if he died once more?

That was Yegyeol’s final thought before he slipped into darkness.

“Haaah—”

When Yegyeol awoke, he gasped for air, like a fish dragged from the deep. His throat felt shredded, his voice hoarse and silent.

He pressed a hand to the ground and lifted his head.

He had thought he died on the highway, yet now he was by a fog-laden riverside. Or was it his own vision clouded by pain?

Everything was hazy—but eerily familiar.

Even through the blur, the pain was clear. It was as if an invisible hand carved into his flesh with a knife, over and over again. Fire ran through his veins—the same fire that had entered him when the engine exploded.

Then came the ringing. Screeching tires, his parents’ screams, the rebels’ laughter and threats—all tangled together, clawing through his skull.

If this was what a rampage’s aftermath felt like, perhaps the government’s “disposal” of surviving espers was, in truth, an act of mercy.

‘Are those bastards still alive?’

The thought came unbidden, and Yegyeol bit his lip. He had never unleashed his power before—he had no idea how deadly it could be.

Maybe he had killed them. Maybe not. Either way, guilt didn’t come.

Even he knew his sense of morality was far too thin to belong to a modern man. The instructors at the Center had said, “Never harm people, even if you face monsters,” but those words felt hollow now.

After all, he remembered a world far more lawless than Korea had ever been.

‘The scenery… looks just like back then.’

Trying to distract himself from the pain, Yegyeol turned his attention to the misty surroundings—and froze.

A shadow had appeared where there had been none before.

‘One of the attackers?’

The thought came instinctively, but he shook his head. The silhouette was far too elegant, almost flowing.

And just like the landscape, it felt… familiar.

“Wh-who’s there?”

His voice was grotesque—harsh and rasping, like that of a witch who had swallowed a frog. Even he winced at how awful it sounded.

Breathing grew harder, his lungs heavy as if filled with water. He coughed, then suddenly spat up blood. The same pain repeated again and again—dozens, hundreds of times.

He knew instinctively it would continue until he died.

This wasn’t an ordinary rampage. The seal had been forcibly torn apart, and the backlash was ripping him from the inside out.

“Ugh…”

Clutching his chest, he gasped. Suddenly, the world dimmed.

He wasn’t going blind—someone was approaching. The figure, once distant, stepped closer through the fog.

“Kill… me…”

Clutching the hem of the stranger’s robe, Yegyeol pleaded. Whoever it was, if they could end this agony, he would worship them as his savior.

If only he could be guided—but no. He had spent more than ten years searching for a matching guide, to no avail. None would appear in this desolate place.

“Please… have mercy…”

Most people would have fled at the sight of a blood-soaked stranger begging for death. Yet this person did not retreat.

“…Yegyeol?”

A cool, familiar voice spoke his name.

A hand cupped his face, lifting it gently. Too weak to resist, Yegyeol’s cloudy eyes widened.

The ringing in his ears faded. The burning in his veins subsided. The pain that flayed his skin ebbed away.

It was like a wind soothing a raging sea, a drop of rain falling on parched earth—a miracle he had never expected.

A single tear traced down Yegyeol’s soot-streaked cheek.

‘A guide…’