Ch.10Ten Years Had Passed

# The Sea… Parted

“Is this for real…!”

It wasn’t game graphics—the sea literally parted like Moses’s miracle from a single punch of mine.

The Angel’s headless corpse fell helplessly from the edge of the warship, plummeting into the sea below.

It truly was the moment when everything ended.

‘Thank goodness.’

Busan Port, which would have become a sea of flames in the original story, and all the people who would have lost their lives—everyone was fine.

Though I couldn’t see them, the original heroines somewhere out there could now grow up somewhat normally because of this.

While thinking that, I suddenly looked down at my right fist that had shattered the Angel’s head.

“……”

‘Captain! Please send me to the hospital! Something’s wrong with my leg! I’m not faking it!’

‘I have so many competitions to enter after discharge!’

‘You bastards! You called me up! And now you’re throwing me away because I’m crippled!!’

Memories… no, nightmares.

The tragedy that occurred in that “prison” I entered confidently after becoming an adult, because as a teenager I could only win silver or bronze medals.

What seemed like a minor ligament injury in my leg wasn’t treated properly and ruptured, leaving me unable to practice Kyokushin, let alone run again.

*Clench!*

I reached Kyokushin again, something I had given up on.

It was an unconscious “Kyokushin Karate Basic Movement – Sanchin-dachi” that came out because the creature’s movements were too fast.

‘I can train in Kyokushin again!’

Nothing could be better news for me than regaining my dream.

However, I should have felt that joy later.

“Wait right there! Monster of Jamsil.”

*Click.*

Seeing that the situation had calmed down, Ms. Rolling, who had emerged from inside the ship, was now pointing a monster-targeting gun at me.

When I turned my head to look behind me, I could see the rest of the USFK soldiers tensely watching me.

But among them, one figure stood out.

An old man with a bushy beard and a pipe in his mouth.

He looked like the person in charge of this warship at first glance.

He walked past the soldiers and even past Ms. Rolling, who was standing guard at the front.

“A-Admiral?!”

“Hmm…”

Then he stood proudly before me.

“Hyah!”

Though to my professional eyes it seemed like an awkward movement.

*Pow!*

Feet positioned in a straight line.

Legs spread shoulder-width apart, lowering the body—the horse-riding stance (kiba-dachi), one of the basic stances in karate.

The Admiral’s straight punch from that position.

From that fist extended toward me, I understood.

This was the Admiral’s gesture of gratitude to me, using the same martial art style to communicate when words couldn’t.

“Kruk!”

“…!”

“The m-monster…”

“It’s taking the same stance as the Admiral…?”

As a practitioner of the same style, I also took the horse-riding stance and extended my fist to accept his greeting.

And as everyone stared at me with shocked expressions.

*Tap.*

“…Ah!”

“The Monster of Jamsil has left the warship!”

“It’s running across the sea at an incredible speed!”

The Navy Base, watching this scene through monitors, belatedly tried to track the Monster of Jamsil.

However, even the Angel became unobservable when it moved, so tracking an even greater monster with the same equipment was impossible.

“W-what should we do? Should we form a separate tracking team?”

One staff member gulped and turned toward the Navy Chief of Staff, the base’s commander.

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

The one who answered instead was Lee Seokgyu, the Army Chief of Staff.

“Right now, prioritize rescuing the American soldiers on the aircraft carrier and my wife.”

“…! Yes, sir!”

The Navy Base changed its mission from tracking the humanoid monster to rescuing people.

“Sir, are you sure we don’t need to track that humanoid monster we just saw?”

Feeling uneasy about the conclusion, Yoo Joonyoung, the Navy Chief of Staff who had been Lee’s junior in the Army, asked with concern.

To this, Lee Seokgyu answered with confidence:

“It’s fine. The creature didn’t seem interested in ‘humans’ to begin with.”

“Not interested… in humans?”

“Yes. Just now on the aircraft carrier deck, it could have killed all the humans inside if it wanted to. But for whatever reason, it just backed off.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“There’s no need to poke a quiet beehive. Besides, even if we found it now, we don’t have the firepower to capture it.”

“…Hmm! C-certainly…”

Lee Seokgyu patted his junior’s shoulder as if warning him not to rush ahead only to die needlessly, then walked past.

He then walked toward his daughter, who was still staring at the turned-off monitor with an excited face.

“Sophia… weren’t you scared?”

“Nope! Thanks to that monster mister, mom is safe, and it was so cool!”

“I-is that so?”

‘Monster mister’… rather than just ‘monster’…

Even if it was a humanoid monster, it was still a monster.

The father was truly perplexed by his daughter referring to it as if it were a person.

However, he was indebted to that ‘monster mister’ one way or another.

‘If that creature hadn’t appeared then, Rolling would have… I’m truly grateful.’

Anyway, relieved that his entire family was safe, Seokgyu lifted Sophia with one hand as always.

And with his other hand, he reached for his son Shinwoo…

“…?”

Where did Shinwoo go?

“Sophia, have you seen Shinwoo?”

“…! Oh, right! Shinwoo!”

Hearing her father’s puzzled question, Sophia stopped smiling and became serious as she landed back on the ground.

“D-Dad! Now that I think about it, Shinwoo hasn’t been around for a while!”

“W-what?!”

Hearing those words, Seokgyu also broke into a cold sweat like his daughter.

Come to think of it, Shinwoo disappeared around the time the Monster of Jamsil appeared.

Could this really be a coincidence?

Too much time had passed for him to just be using the bathroom.

Could it be that the identity of the Monster of Jamsil was actually…!

“U-Uncle! Sophia!”

“Shin!”

“woo?!”

Just then.

Shinwoo returned as if nothing had happened, though his face was bruised all over.

Seeing their son or friend return looking like he’d been in a fight, the father and daughter were so shocked they couldn’t think straight.

“S-Shinwoo…?!!”

“S-son! Y-your face! What happened?!”

“Hahaha…”

Despite the urgent questions from the two who rushed over, Shinwoo just laughed.

There was someone following behind him.

“Ah, salute! Hello. I’m Captain Yoon Heeseon, the nursing officer at the Navy Base infirmary.”

The female officer with a name tag quickly began explaining to the two who looked ready to devour her alive.

“Well… your son had an accident falling down the stairs while coming back from the bathroom.”

“F-fell down the stairs?!”

“Yes. It seems the cleaning duty soldiers didn’t properly dry the floor, causing the accident…”

In reality, as soon as he arrived quickly at the Navy Base, he had released his monster form and used the seawater on his body to fake a fall, but.

“Dad…”

“Yes…”

Sorry, Navy generals!

*Squish.*

“From now on, go to the bathroom with me. Understand?”

“Ugh…”

Sophia squished both my cheeks with her hands, staring at me with lifeless eyes.

And then.

“Honey, what are you doing?”

It seemed personal communications were still connected, unlike base communications.

“Not scolding him.”

“Oh, I was just about to do that.”

Hearing Rolling’s words from across the sea, Seokgyu nodded silently and moved forward.

He arrived in front of his junior, the Navy Chief of Staff.

“…? Sir, why are you—”

“Hey, Yoo Joonyoung…”

“Y-yes, sir!”

“You punk. Just because you command the sea, you think you can take me lightly?”

“I-I must have misheard?”

“HAH!!”

A dressing-down reminiscent of military PTSD began from the Army Chief of Staff’s mouth.

“…and so this senior is disappointed in you.”

“I-I’m sorry!”

Seokgyu finished with the typical military-style “I am disappointed in you” technique.

What followed was predictable.

“Are there any general-grade officers here?”

“M-Major General Lee Changseop!”

“Brigadier General Ko Daehee!”

“Lieutenant General Lee Maljin!”

“Sigh… this Navy Chief of Staff is disappointed in our generals.”

“?!”

“I-I must have misheard?”

The Navy Chief of Staff gave the same disappointment treatment to the generals below him.

“Are there any field-grade officers here?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Shin Jaehwa!”

“C-Colonel Park Jihyun!”

“This admiral is DEEPLY! DISAPPOINTED! in all of you.”

“…!”

“W-we will correct this, sir!”

The generals passed it to the field-grade officers.

“Are there any company-grade officers here?”

“Captain Lee Bongpal!”

“Lieutenant Han Junghyeop!”

“Right. We field-grade officers are disappointed in you who can’t even properly manage the stairs.”

“W-we’re sorry!”

“Tomorrow, everyone will march toward the sea.”

“All the way to the sea palace to secure communications.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

The field-grade officers passed it to the company-grade officers.

…And tomorrow, the disappointment would likely be passed down among the enlisted soldiers as well.

‘Well, considering they were originally going to die, stopping it with just a march is pretty good, right?’

Sorry, but this is the best I could do.

“Dad, Dad! What about our king crab party?”

“Huh? King crab?”

“Yeah! Since Mom and Shinwoo are both hurt, eating king crab will make them better right away!”

Sophia, do you think king crab is some kind of cure-all?

But if I could eat expensive king crab instead of red snow crab for once.

*Gulp.*

“Hehe. Shinwoo wants some too, right?”

“Yeah!”

Maybe it’s because I just finished exercising.

I was extremely hungry too.

“Alright. Then let’s eat together, the three of us, and make some king crab porridge to take to Mom.”

“Awesome!”

“That’s not fair~.”

“I’ll buy some for you later. For now, just rest and recover.”

“Okay~.”

The three of us walked side by side through the streets of Busan that would have been completely destroyed in the original timeline.

I especially noticed Sophia holding my hand and smiling with pure joy.

“Hey, hey. Shinwoo. You know what?”

“What?”

“I’ve thought of a monster I want to command as a Beast Hunter!”

“Really?”

Sophia whispered secretly into my ear.

Seeing this girl who eats king crab shells and all say such things, I couldn’t help but be impressed.

‘Whatever monster it is, it’s going to get pushed around a lot by its owner.’

Looking at Sophia, whose future had become bright thanks to history changing, I smiled happily, thinking it was all for the best.

And so time passed.

Ten years later.

The year I turned 19 and could finally take the official Hunter exam.

“Liar.”

“Sophia…”

“You said you’d always be by my side. So why are you so weak?”

Sophia, praised as Korea’s greatest talent, had earned her Hunter license at the young age of 12.

In contrast, I was an ordinary human with zero talent who failed the Hunter exam from the first round.

After a full two years away on missions, Sophia’s reunion with me in Korea was:

“I don’t even want to look at someone like you…”

“……”

“Get lost. You liar.”

It was truly the worst.