Past Life Returner

The notification message was floating in the dark.

[You have fulfilled the conditions required to complete the quest ‘Desperation.’ Please agree on the first and second person to finish the quest.]

I saw a steep slope when I opened my eyes, and I wasn’t able to move my body. I could easily escape the slope, which seemed very high before I lost consciousness, with a single stamp of my foot. I would have been able to survive from that pit filled with blood without suffocating, likely due to my unconscious instinct to survive.

My surroundings stank with blood, and the floor was slippery with flesh. The aftermath of the slaughter remained heavy in the air. Blood still poured out of the decapitated head of the Baclan Commander, and its chest was burning with the Sun Sword stuck in there.

Yes, it hadn’t died yet even after it had been beheaded. Its final blow was terrifying. If Strongman hadn’t activated and I hadn’t increased my Power Resistance, I would have died instead of it.

I retrieved the Sun Sword from its chest and pulled Woo Yeon-Hee out as she was buried in a pile of exploded corpses. She had already fully recovered due to her high-class Health stat. Although she was covered in blood, the bugged-out eyeballs and bones that had stuck through her skin after she used Mary’s Hand were now completely healed.

When I lifted her up, she was very light.

You have managed to follow me all the way here despite having such a small frame.

I was touched by the years we had gone through together. We had finally conquered a B-class dungeon with just the two of us. I couldn’t believe it.

There was no clean area nearby. I had gone all out with Odin’s Wrath, and it had swept the monsters away, by burning, bursting, or tearing them apart. Their flesh had turned into ashes, and the fine particles made my vision blurry as they blew in all directions when I walked around.

When I was searching through the body of Baclan Commander with Woo Yeon-Hee in my arms, I felt a mana stone in my hand and she opened her eyes at the same time.

“I’m not dead,” she remarked with a smile.

I had wanted to see this smile as it put an end to the painful journey of the past few years, where desperate screams and groans had filled my ears. She got down to the ground and began moving around. She crouched down and stood up, then turned her arms and head. She smiled even brighter after confirming that she had fully recovered.

She commented happily. “We’re tough.”

Yes. I answered inwardly.

The B-class dungeon was hell.

Meanwhile, we were naked, but clotted blood had covered our entire bodies. Items we had worn like clothes had been destroyed during the boss fight. The only items left were those above A-class, such as Deva King’s Protective Gloves, Youxia’s Scimitar, Ra’s Sun Cape, Hermes’ Almighty Anklet, and Adonis’ Sacred Pitch, which I had gained from the Accomplished Reward quest two years ago. So since Woo Yeon-Hee had only one item above A-class…

She asked, “Can I try that quest?”

She must have been thinking of the same thing. We had fulfilled one condition for a quest by somehow capturing the Baclan Commander, but we weren't sure if we would be able to qualify for another condition. There was one Accomplishment Reward quest in progress which was related to Doom Arukuda, one of the Seven Demon Kings.

I used my Sixth Sense on the mana stone that I had taken away from the Baclan Commander.

[You have started Power Extraction (Quest skill).]

[Baclan Corps’s Interrupter: Extracting power from the Baclan Commander 1/5]

The black energy didn’t absorb into me.

Shhhhhhh-

The System was collecting it.

The best box I could get from a B-class dungeon was a master box, and it was the same in A-class dungeons. The only difference between the two difficulty levels was in how many boxes one could receive. In order to obtain a challenger box, I had to either conquer an S-class dungeon, open an S-class gate, or accumulate points and exchange them. At least, that was what I had experienced in the past.

However, one more quest had arisen due to the trait Interdiction. Of note, the difficulty of the Accomplishment Reward quests was lower than how it was classified. Basically, I was certain now that the System placed more emphasis on the meaning of the quest than on the difficulty.

My first Accomplishment Reward quest was ‘Obstructor of the Barba Corps.’ It had asked me to slow down the Barba Corps’ plague research in order to stop the disease that made South America an unviable area in the future.

The second Accomplishment Reward quest was ‘Obstructor of the Maruka Clan.’ It was linked to Doom Insectum and instructed me to devastate the Maruka Clan’s Altar. Overall, it wanted me to suppress the explosive productivity of the Maruka Clan as they had dominated Central Asia in just a few days in my past life.

The ‘Obstructor of the Baclan Corps’ was the third Accomplishment Reward quest I was dealing with now.

[Obstructor of the Baclan Corps (Quest)

The power of Doom Arukuda resides in the Baclan Commanders. Doom Arukuda is waiting for the power he planted in the souls of Baclan Commanders to be cultivated. When the day that Doom Arukuda has been waiting for comes, the Baclans will become more powerful. Don’t let them gain more power.

Mission: Extract power from the Baclan Commander five times.

Class: S]

In the past, the Baclan Corps had become stronger with a single bound. All dungeons that held the Baclans had their levels rise all of a sudden, which had been an issue, but when their gates opened, it had been more problematic. The habitat of humans had still been destroyed regardless of whether the Awakened succeeded or failed the gate battle. The third Accomplishment Reward quest was to stop that from occurring. This was why we entered the B-class dungeon even though we knew this was hell.

Woo Yeon-Hee’s voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts, “I’m second place.”

“I’m first,” I replied.

[You have completed the quest ‘Desperation.’]

[You have gained 100,000 points.]

[You have obtained a ‘master box’ for being the first one to complete the quest.]

[You have completed all the quests in the dungeon.]

[You have gained 100,000 points.]

[You have obtained a ‘master box’ for being the first one to complete the quest.]

Yes, it was high risk, high return.

***

During the past five years, I had defeated twenty-two D-class dungeons and upgraded every category except Explorer to B-class or higher by 2005. Before entering this dungeon, I went around exactly twenty-two C-class dungeons. The number of categories I had upgraded to A-class was five out of sixteen (four stats, eight traits, and four skills). Therefore, the result I got after adding the two new figures I just earned from the master boxes could be seen in my stats box.

[Name: Na Seon-Hu

Health: B (11), Strength: A (0), Agility: B (95), Sense: B (39)

Total points: 255,390

Accomplishment Rewards: 406

Trait(8), Skill(4), Insignia(1), Item(5)]

[Trait - Man Who Overcomes Adversity: B (25), Strongman: A (1), Explorer: C (91), Interdiction: B (60), Forerunner: A (0), Gifted: B (31), Sensitive: B (1), Collector: A (0)]

[Skill - Odin’s Wrath: A (5), Devi’s Sword: B (2), Gaia’s Will: B (38), Night Eyes: B (5)]

The blue barrier that led to the outside grabbed my attention, and the fact that the two of us had conquered the B-class dungeon by ourselves sank in. Again, we had done something that couldn’t be understood by common sense in the past!

In my previous life, I had pulled consecutive all-nighters after being filled with excitement after I defeated my first C-class dungeon. Since I had achieved something much more difficult this time, I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days.

On top of that, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Woo Yeon-Hee’s back who was walking ahead of me. She had changed into the clothes she had left at the entrance, expecting that we could come out alive like we did today. She was wearing a skirt, and her toned legs and hips kept grabbing my attention. This meant I was relaxed now, and at this moment, it became real that I was going back to reality.

Woo Yeon-Hee got out of the barrier first and looked back at me. I saw a group of people crowding behind her. When I got out of the dungeon, the lights in the room brightened.

Bling! Bling!

The lights that had been turned off began to lighten up as if they were saluting us. We were inside a dome-type structure that had been built with reinforced concrete. I had constructed this in case I needed to flee if I failed to conquer the dungeon. It was designed to be used as an air defense shelter for the Day of Advent. Of course, this concrete building would be meaningless if monsters in B-class dungeons crawled out. However, Tomorrow’s Team One could have bought time for Woo Yeon-Hee to recover as they waited here.

“Congratulations,” the man with the mustache said.

His name was Marco, and he was Team One’s leader. He had upgraded his stats to E-class the fastest out of everyone in the team.

“Thank you. Was there any issue to report?” I asked.

“No, sir.”

“Okay, then start cleaning up.”

Woo Yeon-Hee was waiting, and she looked eager to smell the fresh air outside as soon as possible. We opened the door and went out together. Only then did the stench on our bodies prickle our noses as it contrasted sharply with the fresh air. When Woo Yeon-Hee began to shake off the smell by jumping lightly in place, Mick’s agent said hi to her as if he was close to her.

Tomorrow’s Team One had been preparing for the worst inside the dome, and Mick’s agents had controlled the surrounding area outside. The agent gestured towards the back, and those who greeted and passed by Woo Yeon-Hee and me were holding steel boxes. The trophies we brought were placed there and moved to the ‘Cat Food Warehouse.’

[You have destroyed the dungeon.]

[You have gained 50 Achievement Rewards points.]

Since the agents had experienced this almost every month, they weren’t startled by the vibration of the ground. We quietly joined Tomorrow’s Team One.

“Are you going to go back with me?” Woo Yeon-Hee asked.

Nope.

There was only one place I could go to relieve this excitement. I suddenly wondered how she eased the high that came when the tension disappeared.

When I first met her, she was twenty-four years old. Her face and body were no different now than before, but it had been ten years since we had gone through dungeons. She was in her mid-thirties now, but she still had zero dating experience. Her former fellow teachers were busy posting pictures of their children on social media, but she had been focusing on two things: medical corporation work and dungeon subjugations.

She, of course, had sexual desires as it is a natural instinct like appetite and sleep. Moreover, Awakened always had young blood boiling inside, and it exploded whenever they overcame a life-or-death crisis. There was a reason why civilians flocked to sell their bodies to Awakened right after the dungeon attack and gate battles in my past life.

“Huh?”

Woo Yeon-Hee raised her eyebrows as she must have felt that my gaze was weird.

“Go date someone because there will be no subjugations for the time being,” I replied.

“Whoa, you are interested in my love business.”

I responded, “I’m just worried about you.”

She chuckled. “You are acting like my mom, haha. It’s nice to talk with a smile. I truly feel like I’m truly alive now. This is good.”

Woo Yeon-Hee took a deep breath of forest air, then exhaled. I was concerned, but whatever… There must have been a way for her to solve this issue on her own as she had not caused any issue with it. Anyway, it was good to see her smile. Her relationship with her family had become much better to the point where she could freely mention her mother without hesitation.

That night, we set off on our own ways. Woo Yeon-Hee returned to Seoul, and I headed to Las Vegas, the city of pleasure. It was April of 2008.