Chapter Title: Back to 2009
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'What?'
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [...No mechanical elements detected. Biological response confirmed. Information collection beginning.]
'What the hell?'
Suddenly, an unknown voice rang in his ears, making Jeon Yeol flinch in fear.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Information collection complete. Beginning synchronization based on collected data. ...0%... 3%... 7%... 14%....]
'Wait, I've heard this voice somewhere before?'
Jeon Yeol rummaged through his memories to identify the voice.
Surprisingly, it belonged to Mother, the supercomputer from Retro.
But there was no reason for Mother's voice to be heard right now.
Mother had been destroyed alongside Jeon Yeol in the alien races' attack.
So was he dreaming?
Did the dead dream too?
Jeon Yeol grew confused.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [...97%... 100% Synchronization complete. Scanning Jeon Yeol-nim's status.]
In that instant, Jeon Yeol's entire body began to tingle.
'My body is tingling?'
Something that was surely dead was feeling such clear physical sensations?
Jeon Yeol was so startled that he gasped without thinking and opened his eyes.
"Hah!"
His blurred vision took in a ceiling that was familiar yet somehow strange.
Then a voice came.
"Whoa!"
It was the voice of a young woman.
Utterly different from the Mother's voice he'd just heard.
"..."
But Jeon Yeol had no spare attention for that voice.
He recognized the ceiling as the one from the rundown house where he'd lived with his family long ago.
'What the hell is going on? Am I dreaming?'
Jeon Yeol's heart began to pound wildly.
His house had been utterly demolished in the alien races' first invasion.
So it shouldn't be visible to his eyes.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Scan complete. From now on, I will reside within Jeon Yeol-nim's body and mind.]
Mother's voice rang out once more.
But Jeon Yeol couldn't comprehend what Mother was saying at all.
'Mother residing in my body and mind? What does that even mean?'
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Faint traces of mana detected in Jeon Yeol-nim's body.]
Mana existed only in espers who had been implanted with mana hearts from the alien races.
So Mother was saying that Jeon Yeol had now become an esper.
The kind where nine out of ten died in the process, with only one surviving to awaken.
But Jeon Yeol couldn't muster surprise at becoming an esper.
He wasn't even sure if this situation was a dream or reality.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Jeon Yeol-nim has been resurrected from death through an astronomical convergence of probabilities—a miracle-like phenomenon.]
Resurrected from death?
He had no clue how that could even be possible.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Radioactive materials from major research facilities detonated during the alien races' attack. Jeon Yeol-nim was contaminated by radiation, triggering genetic mutation. At that moment, the alien races' beam decomposed Jeon Yeol-nim, the three Miracle Emperors, Phoenix, the time machine, and me down to the molecular level. All of it converged in one place, and that was where my memory ends. When consciousness returned, I was fused with Jeon Yeol-nim. Scanning Jeon Yeol-nim's body and mind also confirmed the inheritance of the Miracle Emperors' abilities from those swept by the beam.]
Jeon Yeol found it hard to believe.
Resurrection from death was miracle enough, but inheriting Mother's AI and the Miracle Emperors' powers too?
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [A peculiar passage exists within Jeon Yeol-nim's body, connecting the dantian and heart. Its nature cannot be identified.]
After that, Mother fell silent.
Jeon Yeol also stayed mute like a fool, frozen like a stone statue for a while.
He suspected it might all be a dream.
At that moment, the young woman's voice from earlier rang out again.
"Yeol-ah, did you get sleep paralysis? You've had your eyes wide open like that for a while—what's wrong? You're freaking me out."
Only then did Jeon Yeol realize who the voice belonged to.
It was his older sister, Ha Yeol.
You idiot—why hadn't he recognized it right away?
It was the voice of the family member he'd yearned for so desperately.
The blood relative's voice he could only hear in his dreams.
Jeon Yeol shot up in bed.
Before his eyes stood Ha Yeol, gazing at him with anxious eyes.
'How...?'
Ha Yeol was definitely dead.
She'd lost her mind without ever truly living her prime.
Ha Yeol had been committed to a mental hospital and perished with it when it went up in flames during the first alien invasion.
She'd left an immense regret etched in Jeon Yeol's heart.
Yet there she was, seated at the desk, staring at Jeon Yeol in her still-perfect, beautiful form from back then.
'This isn't a dream, is it?'
Jeon Yeol pinched his own cheek hard.
"Ow!"
"Eek! What the hell!"
Ha Yeol shrieked in shock.
Tears welled up in Jeon Yeol's eyes as he watched her.
"Noona..."
It wasn't a dream.
This was reality.
A swell of profound emotion surged in his chest.
But unlike Jeon Yeol, Ha Yeol was simply terrified.
Her little brother suddenly sitting up from sleep, pinching his own face, and bursting into tears didn't seem normal at all.
Jeon Yeol had always been more madman than sane anyway.
He bulldozed ahead based on his own whims, heedless of others' feelings.
Ha Yeol slowly rose from her chair.
"Why are you crying out of nowhere?"
She looked ready to bolt from the room at any moment.
And it was justified.
Back then, Jeon Yeol had terrorized his family.
Jeon Yeol lunged forward to embrace Ha Yeol.
"Noona!"
Ha Yeol, in response.
"Kyaaak!"
Fled the room in panic.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
For the time being, Jeon Yeol stepped outside.
Ha Yeol was badly startled, and he needed to collect his thoughts on whatever the hell was happening.
"Our house definitely got wiped out in the first invasion..."
His mind a tangled mess, Jeon Yeol craved a smoke.
Out of habit, he reached into his pants pocket for cigarettes.
But what emerged in his hand wasn't cigarettes—it was a smartphone.
"This thing... It's been obsolete for ages."
In the future, smartphones vanished, replaced by soul phones.
Soul phones resembled transparent, paper-thin cellophane that could attach anywhere on the body for use.
Once attached, all the phone's functions projected onto the retina.
Much like how Jeon Yeol was now seeing a status window with his eyes.
Soul phones read the user's brainwaves to carry out whatever they desired.
Calls, games, internet, videos, video calls—all hands-free.
That was the soul phone.
"No way...?"
Doubting his suspicions, Jeon Yeol powered on the smartphone and checked the date.
"March 17, 2009?"
The instant he saw 2009, goosebumps erupted across Jeon Yeol's entire body.
He had met his end in 2020.
Which meant this was exactly 11 years prior.
"I... went back to the past?"
Jeon Yeol of 2020 had died at 33.
So 2009 put him at 22.
Jeon Yeol hurriedly examined his hands.
"It's gone..."
The massive scar on his right hand from the first invasion was nowhere to be seen.
Then he recalled Mother's words.
Genetic mutation in his body, fused together with the three Miracle Emperors caught in the beam, the time machine, Phoenix, and Mother's AI!
The time machine Retro had researched enabled travel back to the past.
And one of Phoenix's abilities was a single resurrection from death.
So Jeon Yeol had regressed to the past and revived thanks to those two powers.
"Ha... Haha! Hahaha! Hahahahaha!"
Standing before the front gate, Jeon Yeol erupted into mad laughter like a lunatic.
This was a chance bestowed by the heavens.
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