Hermit Wizard
Chapter 14

Taking a Risk to be Safer (1)

Someone was pointing at me and grumbling.

“It’s him…”

Yoon Min-joon says he doesn’t have a dad / Really? Where is his dad? / He said he didn’t know.

It was a dream. As I learned magic, my spirituality expanded, and I often had lucid dreams. Today’s dream was a bit boring. It was a dream about past memories, so they didn’t have much sentimental value. If it weren’t something I had experienced, I would have expected it to be a foresight dream. I watched myself in my dreams like a stranger without much emotion.

I think I was about nine years old—the withdrawn old me. I was used to this whispering around me. But I pretended I didn’t hear it and played well with my classmates or neighborhood kids. I played around the playground or the neighborhood alley and imitated the Soul Warrior Parvache. Ah, yes. Parvache—that cartoon, that toy, and my…

The landscape changed. More fingers were pointing at me.

“It’s him…”

Yoon Min-joon talks with toys. / Really? Yoon Min-joon, are you crazy? / Mom told me not to play with him.

Oh my! What I thought while observing myself in my dream was reflected in the dream scene. What I see now was myself after meeting “My Parvache.” Yes, I started getting bullied. I, in my dreams, no longer hung out with other kids. I was quarreling with my friends while I was arguing that Parvache was talking to me. But more than that, I think the parents told their children not to play with me because they found out that I was getting psychiatric counseling.

At the age of nine, I was completely self-conscious. Of all things, I met Parvache when I was too young and before my head grew any wiser. I put myself in a difficult situation by talking casually about stories that others couldn’t believe. As I’m thinking about Parvache, it seemed natural that Parvache appeared in front of the young me in my dream. It appeared in my dreams, not as an ordinary robot, but always as a young man with sharp eyes.

Both features and bodily shape weren’t very different from humans on this planet. The peculiar thing was that the colorful tattoos on his face, neck, and arms exposed outside his clothes wriggled as if they were alive, and they ran dynamically over his skin. In Parvache’s words, this was the actual image of Parvache as perceived by my spirit. To be precise, it was a form close to his origin. Just because I saw this in my dreams didn’t really mean his mental body was in my dreams, though. It was an illusion that my brain had made up using all the ingredients left in my unconscious mind.

With the face of a young man, Parvache in my dream spoke. With a child’s face, I answered in the dream.

[You have to run away. You have to hide. You have to be prepared]

“Yeah.”

[If you die, I can’t exist either. We’re in the same boat.]

“Now, I know what it means. I understand.”

[You are a genius, with a little more effort, ‘we can be safe.]

“I’ve heard it over and over, I know.”

[I will help you. I am the collective consciousness of great magic. I will give you the knowledge that the wizards of my world have dedicated generations to master. This is all for…]

“…For my safety?”

[Right. For your safety. To avoid the hands of Truth-Seeker.]

As I listened to our conversation – in my dreams, I heard a word that suddenly popped out, and I had an ominous feeling. And, as always, this kind of hunch was never wrong. Suddenly, the ground collapsed, and the surrounding landscape poured in. At one time, Parvache disappeared, and the house ceiling, where I lived at the age of 9, was now visible. In a single room, something huge was standing and looking down at me, lying down.

I squinted my eyes. A blue light flashed, but my vision was blurred; I couldn’t see it well. My mother and my younger sister, who was sleeping next to me, weren’t aware of anything. After looking at me for a while, the colossal being made a small sound.

“…Tsk!”

It sounded like terrible displeasure. And just like the dream that I had repeated several times, a Channel was opened in my chest. It seemed to be watching me for a while, then quietly disappeared from the room.

‘What was he so unpleasant about?’ I tried to think while looking at myself in my dream, but I couldn’t know the answer. As I fell asleep in my dreams, the world began to sway and sink into darkness. Instead of falling into a deep sleep, I was going to wake up. Not me in my dreams but me in reality.

***

-The German government has deployed the second unit of federal troops to rescue the victims in downtown Munich at 2 a.m. local time today.

-German Prime Minister Neunman, who declared a state of war, immediately took over the command of the war from the Minister of Defense and approved the Armored Division and Special Operations Unit’s subsequent operation.

-There is a high voice of criticism in Germany over the entry order issued without a means of escape.

-After three hours of operation, all communications with the troops have been lost…

I must have slept with the TV on again; it had become a long-standing habit. I woke up listening to the news. After 5 a.m. yesterday, I fell asleep while watching TV and Internet trends. Looking at the phone, it was already broad daylight. Even though I took a nap all day yesterday, I could sleep much more. As I slid the mobile phone screen open, I saw several messages of concern from my mother and younger sister.

I solved the Mapo Bridge incident yesterday afternoon and made a phone call before going to bed, but they still seem to feel worried. The two who believed I’m in a university dormitory in eastern Seoul couldn’t even imagine that the Mapo Bridge Channel and where I lived was this close. They were just anxious that the incident took place in downtown Seoul. I replied with the report that I was alive and well, and I got up after clearing my seat.

‘Ugh!’

If I add up the nap time, my whole body ached because I slept uncomfortably on the sofa for over 15 hours. I did a bare-handed bodyweight workout and questioned Parvache.

“Is there anything big that went off last night?”

[Almost the same situation as when you slept. There seem to be no additional Channels open.]

He didn’t tell me the news that woke me up, the one about soldiers entering the Munich Channel and losing contact. Was it because it was on the news anyway? I asked Parvache as if nothing happened, “Today’s lesson, what time?”

[No, for the time being…let’s take a few days off.]

“Really? Shouldn’t we be accelerating our lessons at times like this? What if the world goes down before the Truth-Seeker comes to get me? I must get ready to run away.”

[We don’t know if the Channels have stopped or will continue…we don’t even know what dimension the quiet Channel has led to. What if we suddenly have an accident when we’re out of Mana because of practicing? What if a Channel suddenly opens in your bedroom when you blow your Avatar to another dimension?]

“Ah…well, that’s true.”

[I need some time to get a sense of how things are going. Don’t do useless things for a while, and save your Mana. I can’t give you the Mana you don’t have.]

“Yes, yes.”

[And! If you hear a different dimension language on the TV, don’t use translation magic that doesn’t work, or you will really fall behind. If you are curious, just ask me.]

“If I don’t practice like that, I can’t use that magic all my life?”

Although he was about to curse, he didn’t.

[Practice later when you are at peace or when you are free.]

“…I don’t know if I can come back to peace and leisure in this world.”

Parvache pretended not to hear me and just kept talking.

[And, you!]

“Ah, what else!”

[Go out and buy batteries! While you’re sleeping, I can’t turn channels with this idiot remote control, and I was so frustrated! I endured trying to stick it into your snoring nostrils!]

Ah, that’s kind of annoying. I replied, trying to escape somehow.

“Hmm…shake it hard here and there, and press the button tactfully, and it’ll work.”

[Shut up and get out of here!]

“I went out yesterday. The next outing is when I shop next week.”

[Ah, you lazy couch potato bastard.]

“For my own safety, I prefer to hide in my safe house…”

[Did I tell you to go to Myeongdong to buy batteries? Did I ask you to go to Gangnam? The mart is two minutes away on foot. It’s still inside the barrier anyway!]

“The safest place within the barrier is our home…my magical fortress on Earth…”

[The backdoor connected to your mind is not closed yet. I can’t force you to walk to a distance like a mart, but I can make you clean the toilet with your tongue inside the house!]

“Ah, yes! I’ll be right back! Give me five minutes!”

I left the front door, swearing inwardly. I would definitely buy rechargeable batteries today.