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There was a side door in the back of the grocery store.
He thought it was an entrance to an illusionary space like the other stores, but it wasn’t.
It was just a back door leading outside the building.
Minhyuk went out to the backyard of the store.
There was a single, small tree in the center of the yard.
A woman was trimming vegetables in the shade of the tree.
The shopkeeper spoke to her.
“Honey, can you watch the store for a bit? I’m going to talk with our guest.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
She was the shopkeeper’s wife.
As his wife went inside the shop, the shopkeeper spoke to Minhyuk.
“We’re going to be talking about coffee, so it would be a shame if we didn’t have any coffee, right?”
He began preparing the coffee.
Just in case, Minhyuk hummed a tune that only modern people, especially Koreans, would recognize.
“If we’re going to do this, I’d like an ahh.”
At this, the shopkeeper asked with a look of surprise.
“Did you just say iced americano?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wow! You too?”
Judging from how surprised he was, it was certain.
Donnie was Korean.
Minhyuk said with a grin.
“I knew you were a visitor because you brought coffee from Ethiopia, but I never would have guessed you were Korean. Is your wife, by any chance…”
“No, my wife is a native of this world.”
“I see.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Kim Yeong-don.”
He revealed his real name without hesitation.
“Is it okay to just tell me your real name like that?”
“Why not?”
To Minhyuk, it seemed like a very dangerous thing to do.
Wasn’t this a world where someone could steal your soul if they knew your real name and where you were born?
That’s why Minhyuk had never uttered his real name in this world.
Hmm-
Minhyuk looked at the shopkeeper once more.
His shoulders were devoid of any muscle, and he had a bit of a belly.
And he was a grocer.
Decisively, he had married a woman from this world and was living an ordinary life.
It was a life completely different from Minhyuk’s, who spent his days fighting against enemy troops and dragons as the emperor of the empire.
In that sense, his careless behavior was somewhat understandable.
“I suppose it’s fine. Nice to meet you, Kim Yeong-don. Is your nickname Donnie because the last character of your name is ‘don’?”
“hahahaha! That’s right. I’m the Donnie from the famous Doni Chari. But what is your name?”
“Michael.”
“Wow! That’s a cool name. What’s your real name?”
“Well, that’s…”
He couldn’t just carelessly reveal his real name.
Although the rooftop plaza he was currently in was an isolated world that didn’t overlap with other timelines, he couldn’t be too careful.
Minhyuk simply gave a fake name.
“Park Kyung-tae.”
“Nice to meet you, Park Kyung-tae! I never imagined I’d meet a Korean in this world.”
“Me too. But have you met any other visitors besides me?”
“No, you’re the first. That’s why I thought I was the only one here until now.”
Minhyuk asked what he was most curious about.
“How did you come to this world?”
“It was not long after the end of the World Cup in Qatar.”
Kim Young-don explained to Minhyuk in detail how he came to be in this world.
He first set foot in this world in 2022.
He lived in a similar era, but for some reason, he arrived 20,000 years before Minhyuk.
“I quit my job and was planning to start a cafe. I even got my barista certification and visited coffee farms abroad. I was preparing enthusiastically.”
Kim Young-don visited an Ethiopian coffee farm for hands-on training.
“During my vacation, I went into the woods near the farm alone to collect wild coffee berries. That’s where I found a strange-looking statue.”
The moment he touched the statue, Kim Young-don was blown into this world.
When he came to his senses, his body had changed, but his clothes were the same as the ones he had been wearing in Ethiopia.
The bag he had been carrying on his back was also the same.
“I’ve been living here ever since.”
Kim Young-don was not able to travel between this world and the other world like Minhyuk.
“You didn’t gain any special abilities when you came to this world?”
“Unfortunately, nothing like that. By any chance, did you gain any superpowers, Mr. Gyeongtae?”
Minhyuk flexed his chest and bicep muscles and replied.
“My body got better.”
“I envy you. I don’t have anything.”
“But you’ve adapted well. You even got married.”
“It’s all thanks to coffee beans. If it weren’t for that, I would have starved to death.”
Kim Young-don soaked the coffee seeds in his bag in water and planted them in the ground.
“The climate was different, so I didn’t expect much, but the coffee trees grew incredibly well. The quality of the coffee beans is also very good. It was like magic to me.”
After successfully harvesting coffee, he sold it under the name ‘Donicha’ and raised capital for his business.
He then started operating a grocery store and ended up marrying a woman he had hired as an employee.
“I see.”
“How did you come to be in this world, Mr. Gyeongtae?”
“I was in a Gosiwon when I suddenly came here.”
This wasn’t a lie.
However, he didn’t tell him about the refrigerator.
As they talked about this and that, the sun set and it became dark.
Minhyuk got up from his seat.
“I should get going.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m staying at an inn near the square.”
Minhyuk went back through the store from the backyard and into the alleyway.
Kim Young-don and his wife followed him out to see him off.
“Come by tomorrow evening. Let’s have dinner at our place.”
Min-hyuk waved his hand at Kim Young-don’s words.
“You don’t have to bother.”
Then Kim Young-don’s wife said.
“Please come tomorrow night. I’ll prepare a delicious home-cooked meal.”
Min-hyuk gave them a bitter smile.
Tomorrow night will never come.
They all died 20,000 years ago due to a massive explosion of magic power that occurred here.
The people of Matop Square now were beings repeating the same day in a cloned world.
Kim Young-don and his wife were no exception.
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Min-hyuk parted ways with them, promising tomorrow.
He moved to the inn where he always stayed and rested until the sun rose.
And in the morning, he visited the armor shop and found the cold-proof armor he had ordered.
BAM!
The sound of a trumpet announcing noon rang out in Matop Square.
BANG!
He returned to his original timeline with a flash of light.
Min-hyuk was standing by the lake below the pass of Hordan.
From Noble mtl dot com
‘Should I continue on my way?’
FLUTTER-
Min-hyuk rode Chun-sam and soared high into the sky.
And headed for the Berakan Plateau.
***
The top floor of Matop.
PING-
Space split sharply, and the Grand Duchess of the Sky came out of the gap.
The owner of Matop greeted her.
“Welcome. I see you’ve come back here, so I guess things didn’t go well with him.”
The owner of Matop guessed that the Grand Duchess of the Sky had tried to visit the visitor and make a non-aggression pact.
The Grand Duchess of the Sky said in a cold voice.
“Are you happy that everything is going according to your plan?”
“Please understand that I have no choice but to do this. It’s just a struggle to survive.”
“Do you want to live forever that much?”
“Do you hate eternal life, Grand Duchess of the Sky? I thought you would be the one who understands my feelings the most.”
HUM-
The Grand Duchess of the Sky let out a short sigh and opened her mouth.
“Alright. I’ll give you what you want if you cooperate in eliminating him.”
There was only one thing the owner of Matop wanted.
A means to obtain a new body.
It was the egg of a dragon.
“Give me one right now. Any request requires a deposit. And after the intruder is removed, I’ll give you one every 10,000 years.”
The Mother of the Sky nodded.
If she could eliminate the intruder who was trying to massacre dragons, she had to make some sacrifices.
“And…”
The owner of the Devil’s Tower added one more condition.
“Give me an egg that is free from the forbidden spell.”
“Forbidden spell? Are you referring to the spell of possession?”
“Don’t act dumb. I know. Another spell that you put on all the eggs!”
Pathesi, the owner of the Devil’s Tower, who was born between a god and a giant.
He had a neutral appearance now, but his original gender was female.
However, he became a male after he acquired a new body through a dragon’s egg.
At first, he thought it was because the self-duplication technique was incomplete.
However, he realized after repeating it several times.
There was another spell on the dragon’s egg besides the spell of possession.
The Mother of the Sky had manipulated the spell so that only males would be born from the eggs she laid.
“I won’t ask why you put such a spell on all the eggs. Just give me an egg that doesn’t have that spell on it. I’ve had to live as a man for tens of thousands of years, but my identity remains unshaken. I’m a woman. Just like you.”
Tremble-
The Mother of the Sky, whose secret had been revealed, trembled.
However, she quickly calmed down and reached out into the void.
Boom-
A dragon’s egg appeared.
As the Mother of the Sky gestured, two golden bands wrapped around the egg.
One was the spell of possession, and the other was the forbidden spell that the owner of the Devil’s Tower had mentioned.
Tick- Tick-
Both golden bands snapped.
The spells had been broken.
The owner of the Devil’s Tower approached the egg.
“Finally…”
His voice trailed off, as if his heart was too full for words.
After a moment, the owner of the Devil’s Tower looked at the Mother of the Sky and said.
“I will soon become your first daughter.”
***
At the foot of the Berakan Plateau, which was connected to the Hordan Pass.
The headquarters of the reconnaissance unit was stationed there.
The unit commander was Hans.
As he looked out at the horizon of the plateau, memories of the past flashed through his mind.
Losing his father at a young age and having to feed his family with the money he earned from cleaning sewers.
Spending two years in the military for free at a guard post.
Being selected as a special forces operative and earning a promotion to officer for his merits in the expedition to retrieve the Heart of Teidon.
He had continued to perform well since then and was now a mid-level officer in charge of a unit.
‘It’s all thanks to His Majesty the Emperor.’
He was always deeply grateful to Minhyeok for giving him a chance.
However, there was something that didn’t go well.
He had proposed to the lady next door and was rejected.
She didn’t want to marry a soldier who frequented dangerous battlefields.
His heart ached as if it were being torn apart, but Hans eventually gave up on her.
He couldn’t leave the cause of unification led by Minhyeok, even if it meant losing everything he had.
‘Someday, a better lady will come along.’
That’s when a woman caught Hans’s eye.
Trot, trot-
A female warrior galloping on a dragon horse from afar.
General Tarman’s daughter, Lynn.
Whoa-
She stopped the dragon horse and jumped off its back.
Then she ran to Hans and reported.
“We’ve found an entrance to the ancient temple in the center of the plateau.”
“Really? But why didn’t you report it right away from there and came here in person?”
He asked why she didn’t use the magic tool that could communicate remotely.
“The magic tools aren’t working.”
“What?”
There was a strange creature guarding the entrance to the ancient temple.
All magic tools stopped working when touched by the breath exhaled by the unidentified creature.
Not only the twin rings of Durango, but also the communication crystal balls that had recently been supplied only to the reconnaissance unit.
“That’s why I had to come here in person.”
“What about the scene?”
“Two men remained to monitor the situation.”
The princess and Rebecca, a reconnaissance team like Lynn, were still there.
The creature guarding the entrance to the temple did not attack them after they stepped away from the entrance to the temple.
So they were watching from a distance.
‘I have to let His Majesty know about this right away.’
Just when Hans was about to contact the main force stationed below the plateau,
Flap, flap-
A parrot griffin flew in and landed nearby.
Minhyeok got off Chunsam’s back.
Hans and Lynn bowed their heads to greet the Emperor.
“You’re here, Your Majesty!”
“Is everything okay?”
“We’ve found an entrance to the ancient temple in the center of the plateau. But…”
Hans reported to Minhyeok what he had heard from Lynn.
“Really?”
Flutter-
Minhyuk rode Chunsam and headed towards the center of the plateau.