I Was A Porter - Chapter 3

Return (2)

“Ah… Oh, my baby! You’re here! You’re here! I’ve looked for you everywhere, and here you are now!”

Due to her surprise, she forgot to wear her shoes and instead came running barefooted. She hugged him tightly and rubbed his back.

“Let me look at my baby, is this a dream, am I not dead? No, it’s okay because even if I am dead at last, I can finally see you.”

Tears poured down from his mother’s wrinkled eyes; she held his head with both hands, pulling it closer.

His heart ached as his mother held his face, touching his nose to confirm that he was there.

“Mother, it really is me. I’m sorry, I couldn’t come sooner.”

He wrapped his mother in a warm embrace, tear streaming down as they held each other.

“I’m so happy to see you’re safe; I knew you would come back. Thank you, God, thank you, Buddha, thank you very much.”

“Mother, it’s getting cold, let’s go inside.”

Worried about his mother standing barefoot, he wipes her tears with his sleeve and tells her to go inside.

“I can finally rest easy, now that you’ve come back, come one let’s go inside.”

After their tearful reunion, she checked his mole and saw how he appeared, finally noticing he was barefoot. Alarmed, she grabbed his hand and led him inside.

His mother brought him to the warmest room, asked him to sit, and began checking how his body was doing.

“Does anything hurt? It’s so cold outside, aren’t you freezing? Do you need anything?”

“Mother, I’m not cold, but I haven’t bather in a long time, so I’ll wash first.”

In response, her mother, supporting herself with her knees, got up.

“I’ll turn on the warm water, just sit here for a moment.

“Are you hungry? Would you like Kimchi Stew? I’ll make some.”

His mother added.

“Yes… I’ve missed eating your meals.”

“Yes, sit down. Good thing the rice is ready, I’ll start making Kimchi Stew right away. Then I’ll go out and buy some cake.”

He looked at his mother’s back as she walked towards the kitchen, his heart softened at sight.

While his mother was making Kimchi Stew, he went to the bathroom to clean himself.”

His body had not been washed for several months, even after soaking in the bath for a long time, his hair was still too greasy for suds to form correctly, he had to shampoo several times more.

“Son, I’ve left your clothes out the door.”

He planned to take a simple bath, but it had been so long that his body had missed the water so much that he spent 30 minutes in the tub. His hair remained shabby as he couldn’t cut his hair, but after shaving, he could finally see the same face he had before leaving over 20 years ago.

Once he was out of the shower, he wore the clothes his mother has left for him.

Unlike his face, his hair was still a mess. He looked like a crazy person as he entered the kitchen with a towel. Although he was over forty, he seemed unusually young, around his early twenties.

“Sit down.”

His mother said.

He was starving, so he ate heartily, barely getting a word out.

One could feel his mother’s affection as she refilled his large rice bowl.

He lifted a spoonful of rice towards his mouth and tried to reach the stew, but his tears burst again.

Back behind the gate, he never shed a tear, but how could he not cry now, when he’s has a spoonful of his mother’s warm rice in his mouth.

“Come on, eat more. It’s delicious, hurry, or else the stew might get cold.”

With her eyes red from crying, she fondly looked at her son.

As tears continued to run down his face, he ate the stew. He let out a scream because he was finally tasted his mother’s food again after so long. He swallowed his food and looked at his mother.

“Mother, it’s so delicious.”

“Yes, yes, stop crying and try this too.”

Like a mother bird feeding he young, with her chopsticks, she picked up a side dish and put it in her son’s mouth. As he was eating, a voice was heard from the front door.”

“Why did you leave the door wide open? Honey, where are you?”

Upon hearing his father’s voice, his mother’s face brightened like the moon.

“I’m over here, hurry come and see who’s here.”

“Are granddaughters here.”

When he heard his father was approaching, he hurriedly swallowed the rice in his mouth and went towards the living room.

“Huh? No shoes? Then who came…”

The father was still at the front door looking for his granddaughter’s shoes; then, he saw his son come out of the kitchen and froze in shock.

“Father, I’m back.”

“Are you sure you’re my son? Is this real” am I not dreaming?”

His father was so shocked that his dialect that he had thought he fixed 30 years ago jumped out without him noticing.

He jumped into the living room with still one shoe on, holding on to his son’s face with both hands.

The father rubbed his son’s face like clay, then turned so quickly that he could’ve broken his neck towards his wife.

“Wow, I can’t believe it, it’s not a dream.”

“Honey, you’re right. Seungho is back.”

He was still staring at his son’s face when he noticed the smell of Kimchi Stew in the house.

He remembered that his son emerged from the kitchen, so he led him back and sat him down.

“My son has returned, come one, let’s eat and talk.”

“I have too many stories to share.”

He said as he emptied another bowl of rice.

Seungho then ate the bachelor Kimchi made by his mother.

Jeon, his mother, who cooked the dishes, began to eat as well. After a glass of water, Seungho finally felt full.

“Mother, I can’t have any more rice, I’ve eaten so much already.”

“Then I’ll cut some apple, and we also have Honsi, would you like to eat it?

“I’d like to eat apples, please.”

“Then let’s move to the living room.”

The family sat down with his father on the floor of their living room, and they looked at each other’s faces.

Each parent held one hand; the mother almost cut herself while slicing the apples because she was looking at her son’s face.

“Mother, please let me cut it.”

“No, no, your mother wants to do it for you.”

“How did you manage to survive?”

His mother asked as she put an apple slice in her mouth.

“Mother, I will show you something wonderful. Give me an apple and a knife.

His mother looked puzzled but complied.

Holding the knife with his left hand, and the apple on the other.

“Now, take a good look.”

The apple’s red skin was finely peeled of revealing its white flesh underneath.

“…that was a pretty way to cut the apple.”

He didn’t know how to react, so he laughed with his mother awkwardly.

“Haha, I was able to survive by defeating the monsters beyond the gate, the weaker monsters were easy to vanquish.”

For the last 20 years, Seungho beat hundreds of monsters of varying strengths and sizes.

He would consciously hide his abilities and lets his enemies underestimate, continuously getting stronger while trying to find a way back.

“I roamed the area around the gate, so I’ve come to its secrets well.”

“You fought monsters? Seungho, aren’t you a porter? Even if you have a hunter’s license, you were only supposed to be a porter.”

“I was alone beyond the gate, whether I was a hunter or a porter it didn’t matter, I didn’t have a hunter with me, so I had to fight to live.”

“What kind of place is beyond the gate? Please tell us in detail.”

His mother stroked his back as she asked. He closed his eye and pondered a bit.

Fifteen years ago, Seungho thought about how after defeating such great monster that he’d go around and boast about his accomplishments so that people would look up to him.

Similarly, his thoughts ten years ago was that he’d show off his strength once he got back.

However, Seungho wished he could back. He realized that he should’ve valued something else other than strength.

“Many monsters were territorial, they would not attack unless you enter their area, so I had to hide around.”

There was no free space, all the monster areas overlapped. When one power grew, the others attacked it, and the weaker ones would get eaten.

“By killing the surrounding monsters, one could expand their area.”

He has spent ten whole years behind the gate, continually having to hide from the monsters.

His parents would only worry if he said more, so he stopped talking to free their minds.

“Yeah, well-done son. Your father always believed that you were alive and refused to sign your death certificate. We kept reporting you to missing persons, but I guess tomorrow we can finally release that.”

“But father, was our raid successful? Wasn’t the gate closed.”

Seungho’s father could only sigh.

“The gate started opening up again a decade ago, let’s leave it at that.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

It was a double-edged sword, on the one hand, the gate opening allowed him to go home finally, but it also means that the dangers that came with the gate have returned.

“Well, what is fortunate is that Kim Western also died because of that!”

However, his words seemed to have irritated his father.

Seungho looked at his mother with a smile, but he noticed his father spoke up.

“I’m warning you not to make that mistake when in front of Min-ju or her daughters. When you left the gate, Min-ju was already pregnant.”

His father continued to explain to him while his mother glared at him.

“Three years ago, he was driving his car just as he was passing by the Olympic Boulevard, the gate suddenly opened before of him. Kim Western rushed towards it with no safety gear and died. Since then, Min-ju has become a widow, so don’t say it was fortunate, especially in front of Min-ju and her kids.”

“Yes, father… I didn’t know that such a thing had happened.”

It was heartbreaking to hear that his sister Min-ju had lost her husband in an accident, an accident also caused by the gate.

“There’s no such thing as luck, yet who would have thought that before a running car, the gate would appear, the only silver lining is that he wasn’t eaten, so we were able to hold a funeral.”

“How’s Min-ju?”

After asking, his mother’s sadness was visible.

“I’m working as a cashier at the supermarket, some days I come home very late. I earning money so I could help said her kids to college, it’s the least I could do since she lost her husband.”

“What about her kids …”

“She has two daughters, they’re both pretty but don’t look like Democracy, they resemble her husband more.”

When Min-ju was brought up, his mother’s face was sullen, but she would be excited to talk about her granddaughters.

“The grandchildren come more often than my child. The sunglasses that they gifted your father wears, meanwhile I have to wear the same clothes every day.”

“lies… what are you talking about, I don’t own any more clothes than you !”

“Well, ten if your shirts cost more than my entire wardrobe!”

The sight of his parents’ bickering brought a smile on his face.

“Mother, Father, I’ll buy you new clothes. I’ll buy you any clothes you want.”

His words surprised his mother.

“Where will you get the money ?”

“Mother, I have a lot of money, even more than we need.”

Seungho’s confidence made both his parents make a shocked face.

Seungho laughed, then left and walked back from the bathroom, carrying a large sack.

“Where did you get that dirty thing, you should throw that away!”

Although his mother’s words were harsh, Seungho brought the sack over into the living room and opened it.

Inside were a multitude of mana rocks; they began to wonder how he got so many.

There were some low mana rocks, but most of them were intermediate ones.

His parents knew what they were but still asked.

“S…Seungho, what are all these?”

“I’ve been collecting them for 20 years, I took them from the remains of their bodies, right after they would fight each other.”

That was a lie.

When one monster defeats another, the first thing they do is swallow their opponent’s mana rocks.

Not many people were aware of what happens inside the gate, so it was a convenient lie.

“I don’t know their market value, but aren’t intermediate rocks expensive?”

Seungho asked.