Chapter 216
Abandoning a Name
"Day after day... Week after week... Month after month..."
Son Ju Woo continued speaking in a low, calm voice, yet one that carried the weight of countless years.
"I trained relentlessly...
With a brutality that showed no mercy."
"But as my training progressed...
you started coming home less and less."
"Some days, you would return late.
Sometimes you carried gifts you tried to hide...
and a little money as well."
"And yet...
I did everything I could to overlook it."
"I convinced myself not to see it.
Not to think about it.
To focus only on my goal."
He lifted his gaze slightly, as though the images of the past were passing before his eyes.
"To become stronger...
To become a Hunter...
And then make you happy by my side."
He paused for a few seconds.
"My very first dungeon...
I failed."
"I failed miserably."
A bitter, self-mocking smile appeared on his face.
"I almost died there.
I truly should have died...
if not for my friend, Sung Jin Woo,
who saved and healed me."
"But even that...
wasn't enough to make me give up."
He let out a deep sigh.
"Do you know?
That day...
I hid my injuries."
"I didn't want you to see them."
"I stood in front of the door of our crumbling home...
for twenty-four whole minutes."
"Straightening myself...
erasing the pain from my face...
doing everything I could to tidy my torn clothes..."
"And putting on that smile...
the one I had grown used to wearing in front of you."
"Then I opened the door."
He stopped.
Silence filled the room.
"But...
you weren't there."
"Please...
stop...
please..."
Mor Mai's broken voice escaped her lips.
Tears streamed down endlessly.
Her swollen, reddened eyes,
her trembling body,
all betrayed the unbearable pain and sorrow consuming her.
But Son Ju Woo continued,
his voice no longer angry...
only exhausted.
"You weren't there."
"I waited...
and waited...
until exhaustion overcame me and I fell asleep."
"The next day...
you still weren't there."
"I went to the dungeon...
my heart aching because I was worried about you."
"And there...
I found you."
He raised his eyes and looked directly at her.
"With that small, gentle smile of yours...
holding a bottle of water...
and some food."
He paused once again.
He raised his head toward the blue sky beyond the window,
then looked back at her.
"I know everything, Mor Mai."
"We were poor...
Weak..."
"While Kai No was rich and powerful."
"He began treating you with kindness...
with warmth."
"And because of that...
even if you had told me you were leaving me for him...
I wouldn't have hated you."
"That's life."
"A person clings to any piece of driftwood they can find...
just to keep from drowning in its sea."
"You're a woman...
You have needs...
Dreams...
Wishes."
"And I...
couldn't fulfill a single one of them for you."
"If you had simply told me you were leaving with Kai No...
I would have accepted it.
I would have genuinely been happy for you."
"Because it's your life."
A bitter sigh escaped him.
"Let's be honest..."
"Love doesn't fill empty stomachs.
It doesn't create money.
It doesn't put a roof over our heads."
"No...
A thousand times, no."
"Love alone would've killed us."
"It would've left us wandering the streets...
searching for a single meal."
"Life wasn't built upon love."
"It was built upon strength."
"Financial strength...
Economic strength...
Social strength...
And physical strength as well."
"When this world was created...
nothing called the power of love
or the power of friendship
was ever mixed into it."
"What it was given...
was harsh reality."
"A reality that forces a woman
to leave the man she loves...
simply to survive."
His voice grew even quieter.
"I never blamed you...
and I never will."
"If you had stayed with me...
we'd either be dead by now...
or homeless."
"We're not living in some fairy tale,
where the girl stays with the man she loves
and they live happily ever after
through the power of love alone."
"We live in a world...
where if you had stayed with me...
we would've become nothing."
"And that...
is reality."
He looked at her with calm,
pain-filled eyes.
"I don't hate you for your choice."
"I see you as a woman struggling...
trying to survive...
in a rotten, broken world."
"A woman who fell into the trap laid by her closest friend...
and ended up killing the man she loved."
"Mr. Son Ju Woo...
That's enough."
Son Ju Woo turned toward the calm, yet firm voice of Dr. Jin.
The doctor stood beside Mor Mai,
who could barely breathe
from crying so intensely.
Son Ju Woo slowly exhaled.
Then he took out a paper envelope
and placed it on the table beside her.
Inside...
was a bank check.
For one final time,
he looked at Mor Mai with his calm blue eyes.
In a moment no one noticed...
a single tear slipped from his eye.
Was it Son Ju Woo's tear...
or Arthur's?
Perhaps...
it belonged to both.
He raised his hand
and quickly wiped it away.
Then he gently placed his palm against Mor Mai's forehead.
Her body was burning with fever.
She trembled.
Her eyes were swollen and red from crying.
Her heart pounded violently.
He sighed softly,
like someone saying a final farewell.
Then he turned...
and left the room.
The moment the door closed—
Arthur Narin
closed the shattered past of Son Ju Woo forever.
*'With this...
I've fulfilled your final wish, Son Ju Woo.
From this day onward...
I am no longer Son Ju Woo.'*
"I am...
Arthur Narin."
He spoke the words calmly,
steadily,
then continued walking,
leaving the hospital behind.
Arthur had tried to grow accustomed to the name Son Ju Woo...
but he couldn't.
He had also tried to abandon it...
yet he couldn't fully do that either.
Deep within his heart...
there remained a tiny white light...
hurt...
and grieving.
He could neither remain with that name...
nor cast it away completely.
...
Two days later—
| Arthur, have you finished? |
"Yes.
From this day onward, my name is Arthur Narin.
I've completely changed my name.
Nothing ties me to the name Son Ju Woo anymore.
I am Arthur...
and nothing else."
| How do you feel now? |
"I honestly don't know...
But that was a long chapter of my life.
Son Ju Woo...
Kai No...
Mor Mai...
What a hideous world..."
Arthur quietly sighed
while gazing at the sea road stretching before him.
He had fulfilled Son Ju Woo's final wish—
the wish that had remained inside his heart
even after death.
To take care of the woman he loved.
That had been his only wish.
Even after Son Ju Woo learned the entire truth—
learned that the woman he loved...
and his own brother...
had planned to kill him together...
learned that the water he drank before entering the dungeon
had never been ordinary water...
Even so...
his love was greater than his hatred could ever become.
He simply couldn't hate Mor Mai.
He truly couldn't.
Even during his final moments,
as life slipped away from him,
his heart had failed to do so.
"The power of love...
Tch...
What foolishness."
Arthur mocked quietly,
remembering Son Ju Woo's life—
a theatrical tragedy...
a cruel farce from Arthur's point of view.
Then he walked forward,
heading toward his home.
Yet despite that cold ridicule...
despite the contempt he now held for such ideals—
if the child Arthur,
that ten-year-old boy
who once believed in the power of friendship and love...
were ever to meet the current Arthur,
the one who had lived for millions of years—
who knew
what the child would say to the adult?
---
"Tell me...
Did you achieve your dream?"
"Yes...
and no."
"Did you find Mother?"
"Yes...
and no."
"Did she love us?"
"Yes."
"Did she leave us because she wanted to?"
"No."
"Did you become stronger?"
"The strongest."
"Do you want to go back?"
"Yes...
I want to go back.
I'm tired."
"But you still have a mission to complete."
"I know...
I know."
The child fell silent for a moment,
then spoke in an even softer voice.
"Do you know that Einver is the one who destroyed our world?"
"Yes...
I found out.
But I tried every possible way
to overlook it."
As those words were spoken,
the child's figure slowly began to fade.
A blurry silhouette...
of a little boy wearing a pure,
beautiful smile—
so beautiful
that even a heart of stone would tremble before it.
"Goodbye...
my older self."
"I'll see you later, kid."
And he disappeared.
Leaving Arthur standing alone
in the present,
still carrying within him
the child who had never truly died...
no matter how hard he tried to forget him.
---
You can contact me through my official page on the following Accounts:
telegram:
miraclenarrator
tiktok:
miracle_narrator
instagram:
miracle_narrator