come back

10 years ago. The whole area of Yongsan-gu, Seoul, has been turned into a prohibited area due to the unidentified giant ‘cubes’ appearing all over the world.

The only high-rise building in this place completely deserted, except for the military base and essential amenities.

In the past, it was the main building of the Department of Special Ability, a newly established departmental administrative agency, fighting the monsters poured out of the cube for the first time.

Somewhere in the middle of a building. The Office of the Director of the Area of the Office of Returnees under the Ministry of Special Ability.

“ah… . I will die.”

Na Sang-gi, the head of the Returnees Management Agency, was making a sound of pain over and over again.

The reason for this was the liquor he drank while receiving entertainment last night.

It wasn’t that he was slowing down. There’s just nothing to do.

Currently, there are three major tasks at the Returnee Management Agency.

With the appearance of Cube 10 years ago, people who have been missing for about a year. The first thing to do is to respond when they die and return to Earth after moving to the Pan continent.

The second is to take care of the returnees who are unable to adapt to this place after experiencing the continental time that flows much faster than Earth.

Post-care of returnees was the third.

However, the problem is that the time ratio between the continent and the time here reached 10:1.

One Earth year is 10 Pancontinental years. It was data calculated by analyzing the disappearance and return times of returned returnees.

It has already been 10 years since the cube appeared in 2015, so 100 years have already passed since the Pan Continent.

The missing person who is believed to have moved to the latest continent in a dimension occurred around 2016, so it is a little over a year later than when the first dimension shift occurred, but even considering that, it is a whopping 90 years.

Since all those who were about to die had already died and returned to this place, it was true that there was nothing to do for a Qing-level administrative agency with a chief.

It’s like two out of three things to do are missing.

With less work to do, Na Sang-gi, head of the Returned Persons Management Office, naturally had no choice but to go outside.

It’s been a long time since his main job has been to build a network and help each other with the awakened groups that have naturally awakened on Earth and the returnees who have returned from the pan continent.

Yesterday’s drinking party was in the same context.

Na Sang-gi, who was struggling, took a hangover cure drink from the small refrigerator in the office of the Commissioner.

jump-

“Chief!”

“I’m surprised, Mr. Ai!”

An employee of the administration who came in scared when Na Sang-gi opened the lid of the drink.

“What’s the matter, are you making such a fuss?”

He gasped for breath and shouted for the commissioner’s office to leave.

“It’s a return wave! There is a returner from Pan continent who has returned after 100 years!”

* * *

“You may be confused, but let me greet you first. I am Na Sang-gi, director of the Returnee Management Agency under the Ministry of Special Ability.”

Na Sang-gi carefully reached out his hand to Ha Yeon-woo, who was looking down at him with an expressionless face.

After the first meeting, Ha Yeon-woo, who came up from the crater after being guided by the management office staff, was about to face the commissioner immediately wearing the delivered sportswear.

Na Sang-gi pretended to be relaxed and responded with kindness with a smile like a caretaker. My head was overheating and rolling as if it was about to explode.

‘Unconditionally 7th level or higher… !’

Eileen, an American 6th-tier wizard, is said to be the strongest among the naturally awakened Awakeners on Earth.

As far as is known, he had an IQ of 203. He spoke four languages at the age of 5 and immediately received a score of 760 on the SAT, a college entrance exam, the following year.

The system naturally opened the way for her to become a wizard, and with the synergy of the knowledge injected whenever her fighting power rose and her innate brain, she was able to claim the title of the strongest natural awakener in no time.

But great talent and a natural sense of battle. The current reality is that even she, who is said to be a genius at using the knowledge injected through the system, is pushed out of the top 100 in the world fighting power rankings.

It was because of the beings called returnees.

Shaolin of China is said to be the strongest in the world right now. He was a returnee who lived on the Pan continent for about 60 years and died, and was a 7th rank swordsman.

All the Awoken have is the blessing of the system.

On the other hand, the returnees are blessed with the system, the overwhelming years spent on the Pan continent, and even the fact that when they die there and return to Earth, they return to the body they had at the time of the dimension shift. It had so many advantages.

As if loading data, the system gave their bodies back to Earth the strength they had accumulated on the continent.

I don’t know what will happen as the years go by, but at least for now, the gap has to be narrowed to not narrow it.

‘There are around 200 Awakeners known to be in the 6th tier or higher in the world. About 90% of them returned, and they all spent more than 40 years on the continent they sold.’

However, the man in front of me spent 100 years on the Pan continent. At least it was 90 years.

Shaolin, the world’s strongest, returned to Earth four years ago. Considering the total number of years he has spent since awakening the system is 64 years.

‘The world’s strongest might be born in Korea… !’

It wasn’t just a vague guess based on the awakening period.

Pan continent is said to be a crazy town where wars wield cold weapons and monsters inhabit their territory. In terms of roughness, it means that the neighborhood is several times more brutal than here.

Besides, unlike the natives of the Pan continent, haven’t earthlings been blessed with a system?

Unlike the natives, who had to become strong on their own, earthlings who awakened to the system climbed the hierarchy at some point and were ‘infused’ with knowledge as long as they hunted.

It’s the same as risking your life to become stronger, but it’s also true that you eat it raw.

It was also the reason why the Earth’s Awakeners had far surpassed the level of known natives of the Pan continent in just 10 years.

It was the reason why I had no choice but to think that the man in front of me, who was believed to have lived close to 100 years in a much more barren environment than here, had overwhelming strength.

Na Sang-gi immediately felt his back get wet.

If the predictions of all management agencies, including myself, were true, it would have been the most controversial thing in the world as soon as it was known.

‘First, report to the minister and crack down on the surroundings first. When deciding where to go, you will need a management plan so that no one sticks to you, and a plan to utilize the media… .’

Ha Yeon-woo was just looking down at the manager.

I felt like I could hear the sound of my head rolling, and I thought about how long it had been since someone reached out to me first.

“I need information.”

As soon as I opened my mouth and said what I wanted, Na Sang-gi withdrew his hand with a sad expression.

“Ah yes! There are audiovisual materials at the Returnee Management Office… .”

“What year is it? Where are you?”

First of all, Na Sang-gi’s words to somehow take Ha Yeon-woo to the management office in Yongsan were cut off.

Not all returnees are strong. In the early days, Na Sang-gi also handled work through enough control that it felt like coercion.

However, the man in front of me now has a very, no absolutely high probability that such things will not work. There was no answer other than just coaxing.

‘If you don’t take it, it will break properly. If you stray here and this person has an accident… .’

Just imagining it was terrifying.

He answered honestly, maintaining a smile on his face.

“It is now 2025, and this is Opo-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do. The exact location is Mt. Moonhyeong.”

“2025?”

“This is the part that confuses the most. Time passes ten times faster on the continents than on Earth. The work of our management office helps those returnees adapt quickly… .”

“… … Ten times?”

Ha Yeon-woo’s confusion was revealed through his expression.

It felt like something was wrong right from the start. If this is the Earth in 2025, he must have spent a hundred times as much time, not ten times as much, because he was right.

“Ah yes! Among the current returnees, it is known that they returned after living the longest for six years. It’s 60 years in continental time, so… The returnee has been there for many more decades!”

The head of the management office, who is more pleased with himself as if congratulating him by calling him a returnee without even making a full statement.

I couldn’t even hear the voice that I would do my best to serve the country that followed.

“How many people went over there like me?”

“Ah, so far only about 200,000 are known.”

There were more specimens than expected. A lot of data must have been accumulated. It was clear that this was a special case, so it was right to save words for now.

It is best to extract information and judge for yourself.

Whether it’s a hundred years, a thousand years, or Nabal. The most important thing of all was that only 10 years had passed on the Earth, putting the thousand years spent on the Pan continent to shame.

‘Maybe alive… there is.’

Two ‘families’ created on the Pan continent. It gave him a reason to live, and it was also one of the biggest reasons why he went mad along with his 1,000 years of solitude.

That’s why family was so special to him. Maybe it was close to self-obsession.

As the thought that blood relatives, whose memories have now faded, could be alive dominated my head, at some point, my fingertips trembled.

“I need to find my family.”

Have you come across a situation like this? Is it because most of the returnees said the same thing after returning?

Even in the conversation that was cut off without context, Na Sang-gi gave an answer without any blockage.

“I know you have a lot of questions. As I said at the beginning, if you accompany our returnee management office in Yongsan, the situation of the earth for the past 10 years. Registration of personal information. Based on that, you can finish tracking family members all at once. I guarantee it will be the easiest and fastest way.”

Ha Yeon-woo, who looked at him even at first glance sad, nodded slightly.

* * *

10 years ago. A mysterious ‘cube’ measuring 20m in width and 20m in height appeared all over the earth.

Made of materials that don’t exist on Earth, it caused enormous damage to the surroundings just by being created thanks to its huge scale.

A world where everything is connected through the Internet through technological advancement. At the time online, three topics dominated everything.

Hundreds of thousands of cases of disappearances around the world, where people were absorbed like smoke through cracks in the air.

It says that he sees a hologram with his eyes, and there are two short words written on it: Hierarchy and Fighting Power.

Finally, things about cubes.

Of course, the missing people were the ones who moved to the Pan continent, and those who naturally awakened on Earth were the second.

Soon after, an unknown energy was released from the cube, and the energy spread to create gates all over the earth.

Gate’s role was simple. Pouring out a lot of monsters and disappearing.

And among the military troops dispatched to deal with those that first occurred, the soldier who opened the system experienced ‘growth’. That was the real beginning of the awakening.

Even the government, which was quiet, had no choice but to admit that everything was true after a short time.

Monsters appeared at any time and place, and it wasn’t just the military who dealt with them.

Advanced countries, including the United States, were relatively quick to accept these changes.

It is a fact that was known later, but it is said that the fact that the internal organization prepared in advance did not dismiss the things that first spread on social media as false rumors.

So the world entered a new phase. Monsters became a common enemy, and the system of each country began to be reorganized with a focus on eradicating them.

An estimated 100 million people around the world with status windows. They were called ‘Awakeners’, and they rose to a new power class with money and government power.

Of course, Awakeners weren’t the only ones who could handle monsters.

Modern firearms showed a sufficiently threatening and destructive aspect to the monsters that first appeared in the world.

The problem was that the absolute majority of military personnel were ‘ordinary people’.

The early Awakeners, who had grown up before they knew it, arrived at the gate faster than the dispatched military troops. Because they realized that hunting them would increase their value.

Besides, the firearms that can be used in the middle of the city are automatic rifles at best. It was a reality that even that could be used on a limited basis after defeating the crowds and improving posture.

It was only now that it was possible to analyze the cube’s energy emission, wavelength, etc. to roughly determine which area and what size gate was created, but at that time, no knowledge existed.

Nowadays, monsters with uppers and skins that are basically not used by modern firearms have appeared, and the awakened people are taking care of them.

Hunting monsters in itself is a way to become stronger, and Awakeners who benefit themselves have naturally established themselves as a necessity rather than a necessity of the nation. It was all the power of the system.

“And in that series of processes. The returnees came back one by one.”

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