Ch.212207 – Password

The flight path from Washington Dulles to Incheon International Airport.

Two passengers who were able to board first in Delta One Class chose beef tenderloin steak with red wine sauce for dinner.

The man speared the last piece of meat with his fork, soaking up the remaining sauce on his plate before bringing it to his mouth.

“You’ve finished that already?”

“This Korean beef is delicious. Did they say it was from Jeju Island? I’m really looking forward to visiting Korea.”

“Dr. Fuller. We’re not here for tourism.”

The beautiful platinum-blonde woman looked disapprovingly at the bald man accompanying her as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“I know, I know. But since we’re representing the Cephiron Foundation, we need to be well-versed in Korean culture.”

Dr. Fuller fingered the gold-plated badge on his suit lapel.

The logo resembled an hourglass, with thick lines on the top, bottom, and one diagonal, making it look like the letter ‘S’.

Robert Fuller and Emily Mayakovsky.

They were representatives dispatched from the Cephiron Foundation.

“Anyway, I’d like you to remember that our purpose is strictly verification.”

NoName’s proofs for the seven mathematical problems had all been deemed “unverifiable.”

To quote mathematicians, it was like driving on a well-paved road and suddenly hitting a massive boulder.

The path was blocked before they could even determine if they were heading in the right direction.

In the end, the only solution was to confront the road’s designer directly, so Dr. Fuller and Emily were heading to Seoul where NoName resided.

Dr. Fuller had a general interest in Korean culture, including K-Pop.

Their current altitude was 10km above the clouds.

“Isn’t this NoName?”

It was no coincidence that after finishing dinner, he searched for NoName online.

This was a trending video ranked 10th on VTube’s real-time rankings.

[Island Gayageum Rock Paganini]

“What? Gayageum…?”

From the title alone, it was impossible to guess what the video was about.

As if entranced by a gumiho, he played the video, which showed NoName plucking a gayageum with insane speed for five straight minutes.

“What on earth did I just watch!”

His review was brief.

Even after watching the entire video, his brain refused to comprehend what he’d seen.

“Oh my, oh my God… Do Koreans keep pet snakes too?”

“What did you say?”

“Emily, look at this. There’s a snake watching and flicking its tongue next to her.”

“…!”

Just as Dr. Fuller said, a massive snake as big as NoName’s body had slithered up a pillar onto the pavilion and was suddenly dancing, shaking its body.

Emily Mayakovsky seriously considered canceling her Korean business trip.

* * *

“Someone might come to the island after seeing the video.”

“Is that so?”

“If you meet them, please don’t be too cold and welcome them warmly. They’ll all be coming because they like you, Teacher.”

Leaving everyone else at home, I climbed the hill behind the house with the teacher.

I had just received a message from Seo Ma-ru that he had uploaded to VTube.

Teacher Baek Bong-gon sat on a stump, pressing his seaweed tree walking stick into the ground.

Looking at the sea spread out in all directions, he let out a deep sigh.

“The world has changed too quickly. Don’t you think so, Na-me?”

“Yes.”

“Do I sound like someone from the distant past saying this?”

“Yes.”

“My, you’re certainly honest.”

There’s something called the Red Queen hypothesis.

In the world where the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland lives, there’s a peculiar rule that one must keep running just to stay in place.

This is a biological theory suggesting that one must constantly struggle in endless competition to avoid becoming obsolete.

According to this hypothesis, Teacher Baek Bong-gon could be considered someone who’s fallen behind the times.

“But the world isn’t a 100-meter dash. It’s like a circular track—you think you’re falling behind, but suddenly you find yourself ahead. They say trends come and go.”

You can easily see this in the periodic retro waves.

Double denim might be considered a fashion disaster at one point, but then suddenly become the height of fashion.

“I think it’s meaningless now to separate the old from the new. If you truly want to promote your magical crafts, you shouldn’t be holed up on an island—you should actively promote them online or through other means.”

But the teacher must know this.

Although he bought Bitcoin because of ransomware, he’s well-versed in digital culture, has a digital door lock installed in his room, and even uses a medical capsule without issue.

“I heard you used to be a well-known master craftsman. Why did you choose to live in seclusion like this?”

“Seclusion? This is my hometown.”

“Until they built the mana power plant, this area didn’t even have communications. That’s practically the same as hiding.”

Professor Cheon had told me.

Teacher Baek Bong-gon had opened a well-known workshop in Seoul and had quite a few regular customers.

“Here.”

“?”

Teacher Baek suddenly handed me his phone.

“Didn’t you want this Bitcoin or whatever it’s called? Go into the cryptocurrency exchange app there.”

“What…? Now?”

“Were you planning to take it after I die? Hochan was making a fuss about the price going down.”

It feels incredibly unnatural to hear the teacher mention cryptocurrency.

While the digital wallet password screen appeared, he continued his lament.

“Na-me, you’re right. Leaving the secular world was entirely my choice. I was in so much pain that I needed the healing power of nature, or my insides would have torn apart.”

“Were you very ill?”

“My body, yes, but more than that, my heart. This heart was in too much pain.”

The teacher pounded his chest as if in deep anguish.

The sorrow in his eyes deepened.

“A husband who loses his wife is called a widower, a wife who loses her husband is called a widow, a child who loses parents is called an orphan, but do you know what we call parents who lose a child?”

“No…”

“There isn’t a word. It’s beyond expression. Instead, we have the term ‘chamcheok,’ using the characters for ‘tragic’ and ‘grief.'”

“Ah…”

It refers to the tragedy of a child dying before their parents.

He sobbed but shed no tears.

Teacher Baek’s eyes had dried up long ago.

“The password? It’s ‘baek221214lee221210’.”

A password with surnames and years.

When I typed what he told me, the electronic wallet that Baek Ho-chan had so desperately wanted to access opened.

December 2022. What does it mean?

Baek Ho-chan had tried his own birthday and his parents’ birthdays to unlock it.

The year 2022 wasn’t among the years he had mentioned.

“My precious only son’s name was Baek Ho-jun. And my daughter-in-law’s name was Lee Na-yoon.”

“Are they Uncle Ho-chan’s parents?”

“Yes. And December 2022 is the anniversary of their deaths. Haa…”

I turned off the phone and sat beside him, staring at the waves crashing on the shore for a long time.

This is definitely a view that hasn’t changed in 365 days of the year, and won’t change in the future.

Teacher Baek Bong-gon’s time had stopped in 2022.

“Ho-chan probably doesn’t even know his birth parents’ faces. They left him with me as soon as he was born and went off to the Middle East to kill people.”

In 2022, Baek Ho-chan was only three years old.

Losing parents is devastating enough, but what must it feel like when your child dies first?

I couldn’t fully comprehend the grief that Teacher Baek Bong-gon was suppressing inside.

“So I closed my business, pushed away all my friends who came looking for me, and came to this island, my hometown, as if I was being driven here. But I had to raise Ho-chan well, didn’t I? What did Ho-chan say about me? He doesn’t like me much, does he?”

“Yes, Uncle Ho-chan said he disliked his grandfather.”

“I’m sure he did. How could I let the child be teased for not having parents? That’s why I raised him strictly. Though I couldn’t break his stubborn desire to attend the Academy.”

“Were both his parents Academy graduates?”

“You’re not just one in ten, but one in a hundred in wisdom, Na-me.”

Still with a melancholy face, the teacher patted my head.

The reason he hated the Academy.

“They say America is individualistic and Korea is collectivistic? That’s completely wrong. The Academy and those foundation bastards—they pretend to be liberal and individualistic on the surface, but what they do is no different from communists!”

Baek Bong-gon’s teeth clenched.

“Those bastards who lure naive young kids with money and fame and send them to dangerous battlefields—if they’re not devils, what are they? Those who use the boiling blood of youth to command them to kill each other—if they’re not devils, then what… are they…!”

Baek Bong-gon hated the Foundation that took his children’s lives.

This was a value that would never change until his death.

When parents die, they’re buried in the mountains, but when children die, they’re buried in the heart.

The noble sacrifices of military mages were recorded in history, but those who were someone’s child, sibling, or parent were all buried in the hearts of their bereaved families.

“So Na-me, don’t get involved in dangerous things, and don’t even think about getting involved. That Byeong-ho is truly a pitiful child too. Perhaps even more than me.”

When I just blinked my eyes, Baek Bong-gon grabbed my shoulder and asked.

“Did your father tell you nothing?”

I nodded.

“Well, I never… Dulled feelings, my ass! I haven’t forgotten a thing. Alright, fine. If you’re really curious, ask Byeong-ho, or was it Kyu-jin? Yes, ask Kyu-jin. Now let’s go down and have dinner with those troublemakers.”

The red sunset had hidden itself below Biando Island, right next to ours.

Dragonflies were flying freely in the clear summer sky, which looked like a mixture of blue and orange paint spread wide.

“Aren’t you coming?”

The seaweed tree walking stick waved left and right next to the dragonflies, urging me on.

Teacher Baek Bong-gon, having unburdened his long-held grief, seemed somewhat relieved.

As the brilliant sun completely disappeared, deep shadows fell across the small forest.

When I thought of Professor Cheon, I felt an inexplicable discomfort in a corner of my heart and clutched my chest.

“I’m coming.”

* * *

[My Assets]

[10,825 BTG (Bitcoin Gold): ₩193,767,500]

I called Sebastian (the half-eaten snake) who was following right behind me.

“Teacher. Could you come over here for a moment?”