← The Resurrected Guide Wants to Live Quietly
Chapter 1 Death, and Resurrection
Seon Yi-yeon’s life ended when he was fifteen.
The day a monster appeared without warning and burned the entire apartment complex where he lived to the ground — when his parents, his sibling, his close friends, everyone who made up his life, became charred-black ashes that couldn’t even be identified.
Feeling the burning pain of his awakening and swearing revenge, Seon Yi-yeon’s life effectively ended.
That was why he wasn’t afraid, even as a massive claw pierced his belly and hot blood gushed from his mouth.
What was more, this death had meaning. It was a death traded for the life of the monster that was his sworn enemy.
It was a being everyone had despaired of — no matter that Seon Yi-yeon was S-class with exceptional abilities, they all said it could never be caught. When he left to kill it, not a single person had offered to go with him.
He had cut off its breath. With that, the people it had killed could finally find true rest —and thinking so, he could bear the pain of the belly he’d given up and the death that would come for him in the end. There was no regret left in him. He could close his eyes smiling.
"Mister!"
No. It wasn’t.
Just one. A single person.
There was still one attachment to life left in Seon Yi-yeon.
"You… how did you…"
"Mister, don’t talk. If you talk, the wound will open wider."
"Gun-ah…"
Han Yu-geon.
Like Seon Yi-yeon, a victim who had lost his entire family to a monster and become all alone. Perhaps because they were in the same situation, he kept catching Yi-yeon’s eye until Yi-yeon finally took him in.
The boy had awakened at eleven, the year after he met Yi-yeon, and was now nineteen, a much-anticipated esper — and also the person who always tried hardest to stop Yi-yeon from chasing monsters ahead of everyone else, and hated it.
He must have expected it would come to this someday. No matter how little he liked it, Seon Yi-yeon was Han Yu-geon’s only guardian — he wouldn’t have wanted to lose him, still a minor.
That was why Seon Yi-yeon had to say it.
"I’m… sorry…"
"I told you not to talk! Saying that now won’t change anything. When you’re all better, I’m going to hit you — hard. Don’t even think about dodging." Han Yu-geon pulled a pile of potions from his coat and poured them over Yi-yeon’s belly.
They were familiar things to Yi-yeon. They were the very gifts he had given Yu-geon. He’d heard training at the academy was grueling, so worried he might get hurt, he’d sent one every so often — and the boy had saved them all up without using them.
But what good would it do? The bleeding might stop, but the outcome wouldn’t change. He’d only have to feel the pain of his pierced belly for a few minutes longer.
At least the anesthetic effect in the potions helped. Thanks to it, he could just barely keep his consciousness.
"Gun-ah…"
"Please! I told you not to talk!"
"Haa… it’ll be… all right. Even without me…"
"Don’t talk…"
"…"
"Please. Mister. If you talk like that now, it sounds like a will. I don’t want to hear your will. We’re going to get home safe, right? Tell me then, okay?"
"…Okay."
He’d already finished preparing for death before coming here. If the one being left behind didn’t want it, there was no need to say it now.
When Yi-yeon closed his mouth, Yu-geon quieted too. He poured out the last of the potions, lifted Yi-yeon onto his back, and stood.
Yi-yeon leaned quietly against that broad back, breathing slowly, a smile on his lips. The Han Yu-geon of the day they’d first met had been a small child, smaller than his peers. Even when he left for the esper academy, he was still small and young-faced. But now he was much bigger than Yi-yeon.
Well, he’d been right in the middle of growing. He’d been visibly taller every school break; after years of that, of course he was.
"When you’re better, Mister, let’s go on a trip. Let’s go see the ocean. Christmas is coming soon, then the new year, and not long after that it’s my birthday. I’ll be an adult then. I want you to congratulate me. We’ll watch the sunrise together, buy a cake, and have a party."
Maybe he was afraid of the settling silence. It wasn’t like Yu-geon to be so talkative. Since puberty he’d barely exchanged a friendly word with Yi-yeon — he’d holed up in the academy dorms, saying he didn’t even want to see his face.
Yi-yeon had let it be, telling himself his face wasn’t worth looking at anyway, and that theirs was only a short bond until the boy came of age — but it had been a little lonely. That was why the words Yu-geon was saying now made him secretly glad. Glad enough to wonder if he was already in heaven.
"Mister."
"Mister, you’re awake, right?"
"…Mm."
Yu-geon, who had told him not to talk, began at some point to call his name, wanting answers. At first once every ten steps, then every five — and when Yi-yeon’s dazed head couldn’t answer in time, every single step.
The calls, steady at first, grew wetter and heavier as Yi-yeon’s answers slowed. Steadying his thickened breathing as if resolving on something, Yu-geon drew a deep breath and spoke.
"Mister. I think I’d regret it if I didn’t say this now, so listen. Don’t be too shocked."
"…"
"The truth is, Mister, I—"
Sadly, Yi-yeon never properly heard him. For a long while now his "mm" had been nothing but a reflex, not a real answer.
Meeting the death that had come striding up to him, Yi-yeon smiled — hoping the feeling would reach him: that he was truly glad Yu-geon had come, in a situation where dying alone wouldn’t have been strange, glad he was there beside him.
***
"Did it work? It worked, right?"
"It worked, didn’t it?"
"His heart’s beating, isn’t it? All vitals normal?"
"When’s he waking up? He’ll wake up, right?"
"Hey! Seon Yi-yeon! You have to wake up for me to go down in history!"
"Open your eyes! You punk!"
…What kind of heaven is this noisy and annoying?
The moved voice burst out right beside him, again and again. Not just that — someone kept touching him all over, prying his eyes open, kneading his hands and feet. The touch was rough, with no consideration at all.
He understood they wanted to wake him, but couldn’t they do it gently, with words?
"Seon Yi-yeon!"
"…Nngh."
Reluctantly, Yi-yeon lifted his eyelids — and the whole world was white. As if he were seeing light for the first time in ages, it dazzled him until he couldn’t see a foot ahead.
Only after squinting for a long time could he make out who was standing right beside him. Still hazy, but…
"Yi-yeon, are you with me?"
"…Jo Min-young?"
"Oh! You know who I am? Amazing! So your memories are all intact?"
It was far too unexpected a face.
Jo Min-young. Yi-yeon’s one and only friend. But even accounting for their friendship, she was someone he could be certain he’d never meet if he’d gone to heaven.
Barring being the cause of the world’s destruction, Min-young was absolutely not someone who’d die young. Her existence itself was top secret, so she barely interacted with anyone and was unlikely to earn anyone’s grudge; she hardly ever went outside, and the lab she was always holed up in was the safest place in the world. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say her odds of dying were lower than the president’s.
And above all — even in the one-in-a-million chance she had died, the odds that the afterlife where they’d meet would be "heaven" converged endlessly toward zero for someone like her.
When her rare friend set off on a journey of revenge, prepared to die, she’d made him press his thumbprint to a body-donation pledge instead of wishing him luck. How could someone like that go to heaven?
Then…
"…Did I come to hell?"
He hadn’t lived like a saint, but he hadn’t lived hurting others either. As indignation surged and Yi-yeon frowned, Jo Min-young let out a hearty, booming laugh that was unmistakably hers.
"There’s no hell like reality! Welcome back to hell, Yi-yeon!"
"What…?"
Babbling incomprehensible words, Jo Min-young pulled Yi-yeon into a fierce hug.
Soft, warm, with a beating heart — unmistakably the body of someone alive.
By now he couldn’t fail to notice. …Something was wrong.
***
"The Esper Resurrection Project?"
"Yeah! Incredible, right? I’ve opened a whole new world!" Giddy with excitement, Jo Min-young shouted loud enough to make the spacious underground lab ring.
They’d stayed friends for a long time almost by accident, their only real common ground being famous and avoided by others — and Yi-yeon still hadn’t gotten used to this side of her, so he flinched hard.
"The project you donated your body to! This genius scientist pulled it off, I’m telling you."
"Donate? …Ah."
To the point where he’d wondered if she saw him as a test subject rather than a friend, Jo Min-young had long asked Yi-yeon to cooperate with various projects.
And since Yi-yeon had little will to live and didn’t think much of his own body either, he’d signed wherever Min-young asked, if only to avoid the hassle — as long as it wasn’t too much trouble. As for body use, he’d probably signed off on all of it.
That signature had saved him. It was completely unexpected.
"Of course it’s not exactly the same as before. Some parts got upgraded, some downgraded. But just being resurrected is a net gain, isn’t it? From now on, treat me as your big sister, you."
"Isn’t this incredible? Bringing a dead person back to life. It was only possible because you had the perfect conditions, but either way you and I are going down in history! We have to stay quiet while it’s classified, but the moment that’s lifted we’re instant stars! Every broadcaster and newspaper will be clamoring for interviews, calls from all over the world…"
Letting the excitedly babbling Min-young’s voice go in one ear and out the other, Yi-yeon quietly looked down at his own hand.
Resurrected. Brought back to life? He hadn’t wished for it even in the moment he breathed his last, and even now he felt more dazed than glad.
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