* * *
TL: Because this chapter is about 10,000 characters in Korean, I divided them into 2 chapters.
The split chapters has around 1,500-1,700 english words, which are the average word count of translated Korean novels.
Korean novels usually have 4k-5k characters.
***
Kangmin collapsed in the bedroom without realizing it and closed his eyes. Soon, Kangmin’s snoring resonated in the whole master bedroom.
It was then that a strange phenomenon took place. The green jewel, where his blood fell, shone brightly. The light that emanated from the jewel came from the entire ring.
The shining ring faded and turned into a green liquid. The green liquid flowed on the back of Kangmin’s left hand and created a unique pattern. It was the same pattern from the green jewel.
The green liquid penetrated into Kangmin’s flesh. After a while, a dark green tattoo was engraved at the back of Kangmin’s hand.
The tattoo gradually changed. It turned from geometric tattoo gradually becoming flame shape. The color turned red too.
Despite the change in his body, Kangmin was still snoring.
The red flame tattoo started shining brightly. The light surrounded Kangmin’s body for a moment and soon disappeared immediately.
<According to the promise, we will guide you to another world.>
A message appeared in front of Kangmin. However, Kangmin didn’t see it because he was still asleep.
As the message disappeared, Kangmin also disappeared on the spot.
<Let’s start moving you to the parallel world… You have completed your journey to the parallel world.>
Kangmin felt like he got a good sleep after a long time.
He felt so comfortable that he didn’t want to get up. His body was light, the sun was warm, but the air was… A bit dry.
“Ah…ah…ah…ah-choo!”
His nose was itchy, so he sneeze. As he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar ceiling.
“Why am I sleeping here?”
When he looked around, it was the master bedroom. He quickly remembered why he was here.
“Ring!”
Kangmin quickly looked at his left hand, but contrary to his expectations, the ring was nowhere to be found.
There was tattoo on the back of his hand, but he didn’t took notice of it.
“No!”
What kind of ring was that? It was his last hope to save this house.
Kangmin ramage through the bedroom helplessly and desperate.
Even though the room was being cleaned every day, for some reason, dust still piled up.
He kept coughing, but it didn’t matter. If he couldn’t find the ring, he would eat dust for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the future.
Kangmin took out all the furniture outside, but still failed to find the ring.
“It’s over.”
It was clear that he was robbed while sleeping.
“Argh!”
Kangmin hit the floor with his fist and shouted. His frustrations built up was going to burst. Even after his fist started to bleed, he didn’t stopped hitting the floor.
Then, as if he found hope again, an idea cane to his mind.
“Police! Maybe the thief was filmed on a nearby CCTV!”
He shouldn’t give up like this. The ring was his last hope.
Kangmin opened the gate right outside wearing shoes and went out.
The appearance of the neighborhood appeared in front of his eyes.
“Huh?”
Kangmin, who was about to run to the police station right away, stopped at the sight in front of him.
“What’s going on?”
Obviously, this was the same neighborhood the Kangmin knew and lived.
But it was different. Very different. Strange. Most of the windows were broken and some houses were dilapidated.
It looked like a neighborhood where people were not allowed to enter for months after redevelopment.
There was another strange thing. Even though the sun was up, no one was on sight.
“What’s going on?”
Kangmin left the gate.
There were black things on the alley floor and walls. Iron pipes and broken trees were also rolling around in the alley, all covered with dark red things.
“Did a war occured while I was asleep?”
It doesn’t make sense. No matter how deep he fell asleep, he shouldn’t have slept through this happening.
Something strange happened, but he couldn’t stay like this. He had to find the ring.
Kangmin carefully went down. Then, he stopped when his soles step on something.
Kangmin’s eyes shook as he sweated. He could feel a wallet under his sneakers.
He looked around for a while. There was no one.
“Ah… My shoelaces are loose.”
Kangmin, who was talking alone in a place where no one was present, crouched down. He grabbed the shoelace of his sneakers, and moved his foot to the side. There, he saw a fat wallet.
“Crazy.”
When he opened the wallet, it was full of bills.
These days people don’t carry much cash due to the widespread of credit cards, but it seemed that the owner was in dire need of cash.
“What should I do?”
This was a lot of money. At first glance, it looked like about 500,000 won.
He initially have some thoughts about this wallet, however, he was a good citizen. He do not want to robbed of others possessions.
“What the heck, even if I don’t have money, shouldn’t I atleast have pride?”
Kangmin put the wallet in his pocket. Anyway, was on his way to the police station. He decided to go and hand over the wallet to them.
“There are some cases where the lost wallet’s owners gave money to the person who found it.”
Kangmin walked down the street, hoping in his heart that the owner will give him some of his money. But soon Kangmin stopped again.
“What the heck, am I lucky or their owners are lucky?”
Kangmin crouched down again. This time it was a shiny ring under the sneakers.
It was covered with dirt, but it was really a gold ding that shined brightly under the sunlight.
Kangmin wiped the dirt off from the ring with his jeans. He stretched his hand to put the ring on his mouth and bit it.
“This is 24k. In terms of weight, this is money. Yesterday’s market price of gold is 260,000 won (~$260).”
Kangmin quickly put the ring in his pocket. This was different from the wallet.
It will be hard to find the owner of the ring even if he brought it to the police station, and there was no big problem even if he had it.
“Is God giving me a gift for doing a good job. Will next be a golden bracelet?”
Kangmin smiled, but at the same time, a strange idea appeared in his mind.
“The ring was small so it may not be noticed by people, but did they just pass by this wallet with a lot of bills?”
It doesn’t make sense. Even if a person was rich, they had no choice but to give in at the sight of money.
“What is this? Did something really happen here?”
Kangmin put the ring in his pocket and looked around. Then, he saw clothes scattered from place to place.
Kangmin walked down further. He went near the intersection.
As he walked down, he saw more torn clothes. Many wallets are also scattered along the road
Of course, Kangmin picked up all the wallets. However, he only picked wallet with a lot of cash.
Then he stopped walking. He saw something shiny under the sunlight.
“That’s diamond!”
It was different from gold. It may be some other metals in other eyes, but for some reason he felt that the light was unusual.
Looking around, there were still no people.
It would be strange that there were no people on the intersection, but Kangmin didn’t notice of this fact as his mind could only think about the diamond.
The diamond was on the stairs down leading to the train station by the road.
Kangmin approached carefully and reached out to grab the diamond. But as he got closer, he could see what was below the diamond.
White and thin. It was bone.
“Argh!”
Kangmin screamed and fell down on the spot.
“What? What?”
Only then did everything come into Kangmin’s eyes.
The diamond was a ring of this boned hand.
Surprised Kangmin crawled and stepped back.
“Crazy! What happened while I was sleeping? I don’t think I slept that long.”
Things that shouldn’t have happen, has now happened.
“Hidden camera? or movie shoot?”
That couldn’t have happened. Who would want to invest money for a hidden camera prank on him? In addition, the set was too wide to be considered a set for a movie shoot.
He stopped in front of a cellphone shop.
When he looked inside the store, phones were ruined, the glasses were all scattered in the floor and the cellphone parts were unrecognizable, in short, it was all messed up.
“If this wasn’t an hidden camera prank or a set for a movie shoot, was is War? Or did the world get ruined?’
Even after ramaging through his brain, he couldn’t think of anything as the possible answer.
It was then.
-Clink.
He heard a can rolling from behind.
Kangmin turned around right away.
“People?”
About 30 meters away, he could hear some noises.
* * *
*Summary page is only available for login users. Non-users can view the chapters on the chapter list.*
