Past Life Returner

“How are you today?”

“What do you think?”

“You don’t seem to be doing well today. Why?”

“Because I don’t think I can continue getting this treatment. I’ve spent more than fifty thousand dollars over the past three years. I’m broke now. Do you get it?”

Camil vented his pent-up anger as he had poured money into psychotherapy, but he still continued to see a message that ordered him to do something. A month ago, a message that told him to kill someone had popped up.

“You said it’s a hallucination, but how can you describe this?”

Then, Camil took out a metal object the size of a thumb from his pocket. There was a delicate pattern carved on it, and it was a navigator that pointed to the location of the object he had to kill.

“Let’s talk about your parents today,” the psychiatrist said.

“I said this is going to be the last session. Damn it. There’s no problem in my family.”

“We’ve already talked enough about that stuff. Do you think that was not enough?”

“It’s not lacking, but I’m just regretting my decision. I should’ve bought a flight ticket instead of wasting money on your consultations. I just needed one ticket.”

“Then, why didn’t you do that?”

“Are you able to kill someone? Can you give up on your livelihood and fly away after receiving a weird command that may or may not be a hallucination?”

The psychiatrist asked while checking Camil’s past record, “Do you still see the location of Na Seon-Hu?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s in the ocean between Korea and Japan.”

“Why is he there?”

“I think he’s heading from Japan to Korea.”

“What is he taking?”

“Plane. Oh, gosh. I don’t have a phobia about airplanes, but I’ll tell you in advance. I also don’t have a ship phobia.”

“Have you been on a flight before?”

“...This is it. I wasted both my time and money on answering these useless questions. You are incompetent and suck at your job. You just sit back and extort hundreds of dollars an hour. You’re more vicious than the System. Okay?”

“That’s what you think. Let’s talk again about why you think the System is malicious. Before the System gave you an order to kill a man named Na Seon-Hu, have you ever considered the System as evil?”

“Stop asking the same question, and rummage through your awesome records!”

Camil expressed his rage throughout the entire consultation hour, and he had intended to do so from the very beginning. However, his angry rants were written down as new sentences in the doctor’s thick consultation record, and the psychiatrist didn’t react much to his anger.

The psychiatrist mentioned that there had been progress in his treatment today, and surprisingly, that was comforting for Camil. He still saw a quest window that ordered him to kill a person and the location of said target, but the treatment seemed to have helped him to a certain extent as the psychiatrist claimed.

When he thought more about it, he realized that his problem was his inability to regulate and express his emotions. Had he ever vented his anger like this before in his life? No. He usually didn’t get along well with people, and the issue was still there even when he played online games. Therefore, he thought the ‘hallucination’ occurred due to his suppressed fury.

Camil came out of the office and looked at the navigator. He was determined to trust the psychiatrist’s words that he had bought this object from a stationery store and that his memory had been distorted.

On his way home, he saw an unfamiliar van that had been parked at the same spot for a month. He thought someone in his neighborhood had been rudely occupying that space for an entire month and left it at that. What he didn’t know was that there were guys wiretapping and watching him in the car. That night, robbers broke into his home, and they were the same guys who had been watching him. When the robbers left, Camil grabbed his phone with trembling hands. Then, he suddenly remembered the conversation he had with them.

“We’re here to retrieve the Location Seeker.”

“Location Seeker?”

“It’s better for you not to pretend you don’t know anything.”

“You mean… this?”

“Yes. I warn you not to make us come back again. We’ll have to behead you next time.”

***

Although Camil continued counseling by getting a loan, the psychiatrist had acted oddly ever since Camil told him the story of the Location Seeker being robbed. Then, a few weeks later, the psychiatrist came to a sad conclusion.

“Have you heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder?”

“I don’t understand difficult words.”

“It’s often called multiple personality disorder. It happens in different ways depending on the patient. You sometimes remember situations when other personalities dominate you, but sometimes, you don’t. Also, there are cases where those two personalities get mixed together and create one situation.”

It sounded horrible because ‘Na Seon-Hu’ and the robbers could be two of his personalities. Even before that, Camil had a sense that someone was always watching him. His paranoia was expanding to schizophrenia. Camil teared up and grabbed the psychiatrist’s hands.

“What should I do? Please help me. I’m going to be crazy,” Camil’s voice shook as he begged.

“I recommend facility care.”

“No… I don’t have enough money for that.”

“There are government-sponsored treatment programs. I’ll put you through.”

“P…please give me time to think.”

“Yes, sure. Call me whenever you are ready.”

Camil left the office exhausted, and he felt like the world was spinning. He constantly imagined himself being stuck in a mental hospital and being drugged by medicine. In his imagination, his state was aggravating instead of improving.

He looked like the unhappiest man in the world. When he was walking helplessly with a dead expression on his face, a person came into his line of sight. She was a pretty Asian woman with a slim body.

If I could sleep with a girl like that before I get stuck in a hospital…

The girl was heading in the same direction as Camil, and his pace slowed down. The sudden appearance of an Asian beauty was like a flash of fleeting pleasure for him, who was in the depths of despair. Camil appreciated seeing her from the back and wanted to forget his conversation with the psychiatrist even for a short moment.

However… she stopped at his door and rang the bell. Camil let out a dry cough so that she wouldn’t be surprised.

“Did you come for me?”

“Mr. Camil Novak?”

“Yes, I’m Camil Novak. May I help you?”

“Do you have a moment?”

She handed him her business card.

「Tomorrow Corporation. CEO Aoki Yuria」

“I’m Aoki Yuria, and I came to see you from Japan.”

***

Camil denied the reality first. He didn’t know how the psychiatrist’s consultation record had been leaked, but he didn’t want to speak about his disgrace, especially in front of a beauty like this Japanese woman.

“Could you please take a look at this?”

As soon as she opened her palm, flames shot up all over her hand.

“Oh my gosh!”

Camil didn’t stomp out of the room but instead blinked in his seat. He was reaching his hand out unconsciously and realized it was an actual fireball after feeling the heat. The woman spoke nonchalantly at the unbelievable sight.

“The System has named people like us ‘the Awakened,’ and we, the Tomorrow Corporation, are recruiting the Awakened.”

Her rigid tone woke Camil up. The flames that had once wrapped the woman’s hand had disappeared.

“Awakened…” he muttered.

“Yes, Mr. Camil Novak. We came here knowing that you’re an Awakened.”

Then, she began her explanation. She stated that the Tomorrow Corporation recruited and trained Awakened, and although they were responsible for life-threatening duties, the corporation guaranteed an appropriate salary and welfare. It sounded like a movie, but everything including the flames that soared from Yuria’s hand and the status window was a stark reality.

Camil screamed inwardly. I was not crazy! That fucking psychiatrist! I was never crazy!

However, the flames Yuria had shown Camil were too impressive. Camil replied with complex thoughts running through his mind, “I’m… an ordinary guy. I don’t have any skills like you.”

“Everyone starts at the same place. Our role is to train our employees, help them obtain new skills, and support their survival,” Yuria replied.

New skills?

There was something that grabbed Camil’s attention more.

“You said you will be paying a salary, right?”

“Yes.”

“How much is it?”

“The starting amount is three hundred thousand American dollars, and the incentives are detailed there.”

Yuria handed him the contract file, and the numbers he had never seen were written there.

“Is it a dangerous organization? What do you mean by life-threatening duties?”

“Mr. Camil Novak. If you die in the middle of your duties, an amount of more than ten times your current salary will be paid to your designated beneficiary. I’ll explain the details when we head to the headquarters.”

Yuria never smiled earlier during their conversation, so Camil felt a strong, ominous feeling when he saw her smile when she talked.

However, he couldn’t take his eyes off the contract documents. Salary? Of course, the money tempted him, but what intrigued him more was the fact that the mental illness he thought he had was actually his own unique ability. Furthermore, there was an organization where people with superpowers like him existed in the world. A different world was beckoning at him. It felt like the boredom and frustration of his life would soon become old history. With a signature, he could have a special life from now on. Camil’s heart pounded harder than when he first saw Yuria.

Thud! Thud!

His heart beat due to his fear but also his anticipation.

“I’ll put my sister as the beneficiary. What should I do now?”

Yuria gave him a plane ticket to Japan and a memo with an address. There was a question Camil didn’t ask until the end, which was whether there would be an issue with his safety when he rejected the Tomorrow Corporation’s offer…

Camil wasn’t stupid enough to ask such a thing. Now that he had decided to sign the contract, he buried the question in his heart. Of course, he had also buried the Tomorrow Corporation’s relationship with the men who had stolen his Location Seeker.

Camil packed his bags and left a text message to his sister, his only family member.

「I got a job at a fancy place. I’m in Japan. Take care.」

When Camil left for Japan, the van that was parked across the street for a month disappeared.

<The cat has left for Tomorrow.>

Hissss…