Almighty God of War - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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002

Lee Jin-woo regained consciousness.

No, to say he regained it wasn’t quite right—something was different.

His body felt heavy, his chest tight with every breath, and he felt an unusually strong chill.

The rough texture of the bedding also felt unfamiliar.

Though his eyelids felt incredibly heavy, he forced his eyes open to see an unfamiliar scene.

A ceiling made of old wood appeared blurry, and the air was filled with a strange mixture of herbal medicine scents, musty dust, and the faint smell of burning wood that stung his nose.

The room was still as death, heavy with silence and not a breath of wind.

Lee Jin-woo turned his head toward the window.

Faint morning sunlight seeping through the window cracks cast long shadows on the wooden floor.

What was peculiar was that every wall had tall bookshelves filled with books that looked like something from a medieval drama.

‘Where… is this place?’

His head was spinning.

The warning alarms from the research laboratory just before the explosion still seemed to echo in his ears.

He tried to raise his hand, but his arm wouldn’t move as he intended.

When he managed to lift his hand and looked down at it, surprise washed over him.

His small, delicate hand was unmistakably that of a boy who hadn’t finished growing yet.

“Young Master, are you conscious?”

Lee Jin-woo raised his head.

Before him stood an elderly man around sixty with white hair, wearing a gray traditional robe like something from a historical drama, holding a bowl of herbal medicine with a worried expression.

“Oh my, thank goodness!! You suddenly collapsed and I was so worried.”

Strangely, though the language the old man used was clearly neither Korean nor Chinese, he had no trouble understanding it at all.

Lee Jin-woo asked cautiously.

“Um… where is this place?”

The old man looked puzzled.

“What do you mean by that? This is your home, the Guyang Family Estate, isn’t it?”

Lee Jin-woo became even more confused.

‘Guyang Family Estate?’

He had never heard such a name before.

The old man spoke with a face full of concern.

“I think you might have hit your head when you collapsed… Don’t you remember who I am either?”

“Who are you?”

The old man’s face turned pale.

“Oh no… this can’t be… I’m Hwang Jin-gon, Old Hwang, who has served you since you were a crawling baby.”

Worried that the old man might collapse if this continued, Lee Jin-woo said.

“Old Hwang, I’m just dizzy so I can’t think clearly for a moment. You don’t need to worry so much.”

“Phew… thank heavens.”

“I’m tired and want to rest a bit…”

“The family head ordered me to bring you… but first, please take your medicine. I’ll tell the family head that your condition isn’t good so you’ll be a bit late.”

“Father wants to see me?”

Hwang Jin-gon’s face turned yellow.

“Have you forgotten that today is your seventeenth birthday?”

“Ah! It was my birthday?”

“That’s right.”

“Give me the medicine first. Maybe my memory will come back after I take it and rest?”

“I certainly hope so…”

Old Hwang kept sighing deeply as he handed the cup of herbal medicine to Lee Jin-woo.

The strong smell of herbal medicine stung his nose.

Lee Jin-woo hesitated for a moment, then downed the herbal medicine in one gulp.

The bitter taste flowed down his throat and spread throughout his body.

Lee Jin-woo handed the bowl back to Old Hwang and said.

“Thank you.”

When he drank all the herbal medicine in one gulp without complaining as usual, relief appeared on Old Hwang’s face.

“Then I’ll go tell the family head about your condition.”

“Yes, please do that.”

After Hwang Jin-gon left the room, Lee Jin-woo tried to sit up in bed, but his whole body felt languid and weak, so he lay back down.

When he took a deep breath in that position, he felt a cold energy deep in his chest.

It was a strange sensation, as if ice was flowing through his blood vessels.

‘My body… hasn’t just gotten younger, it seems like I’m suffering from some serious illness…’

Then a familiar yet calm voice echoed in his head.

[Doctor, you’ve come to your senses.]

Lee Jin-woo was startled and looked around.

“Who’s there?”

His voice was hoarse and muffled, but still had a pleasant tone.

[It’s Akasha. When your consciousness and the nanobot system moved to this world, I was transferred along with you.]

“Hmm…”

Lee Jin-woo let out a low groan and took a deep breath.

The laboratory explosion, the intruders, and the brainwave synchronization at the last moment. Even the dimensional rifts that felt like a dream…

Everything came back to him in fragments.

‘Akasha.’

[Yes, Doctor.]

‘Thank goodness. It seems we can communicate through thoughts.’

[That’s correct.]

Being able to communicate through thoughts was truly fortunate.

If someone saw him talking to empty air, it would be difficult to explain.

‘What exactly happened?’

[There’s still insufficient data to draw conclusions. More data is needed for complete analysis. Currently, we can only speculate that quantum anomalies from the explosion transported us to another world.]

‘If we were transferred to another world… does that mean I’m not dead?’

[That’s somewhat ambiguous. Your physical body was completely destroyed, and only the nanobot system containing your consciousness synchronized with me was transferred to this world and settled in this boy’s body.]

‘Do you know who the owner of this body is?’

[Yes. His name is Guyang Cheongang, seventeen years old.]

Lee Jin-woo asked in a tense tone.

‘I didn’t… push out this boy’s soul and take over his body, did I?’

[You don’t need to worry about that. When you arrived here, the boy had just died from a fatal illness.]

Lee Jin-woo looked around again with a relieved expression.

Antique furniture, bookshelves filled with old books, and bird songs coming from outside the window.

Everything was surreal yet vivid.

‘Anyway, this place is a real world, not a fantasy or dream, right?’

[That’s correct.]

‘Have you learned anything about this world?’

[A little. I was able to obtain about 10 percent of the memories just before death from Guyang Cheongang’s brain.]

Akasha continued in a calm tone.

[Though fragmentary, analyzing Guyang Cheongang’s remaining memories suggests this is a planet similar to our original world. The era resembles Ancient East Asia from Earth.]

‘Ancient East Asia?’

[Yes. Most of the continent is under the rule of the Daehwan Empire, with several foreign nations existing beyond the borders. And there’s one peculiar point.]

‘What’s that?’

[It seems there’s a separate world called Murim that exists apart from the empire on the continent.]

Lee Jin-woo’s eyes widened.

‘Murim? That Murim from martial arts movies? The place where internal energy and palm wind run rampant, where sword immortals and beggars from the Beggar’s Sect perform chivalrous deeds, and where great demon lords of the Demonic Cult wreak havoc?’

[That’s correct.]

‘Martial arts too?’

[Yes.]

‘Whoa… is this for real?’

[It’s real.]

‘Do you have proof?’

[The boy we’ve settled into is the proof.]

‘This kid?’

[Yes. The boy is a descendant of the Guyang Family Estate, which was once one of the Ten Great Martial Families but has now fallen into decline.]

‘Then this boy must have learned martial arts too?’

[That’s not the case.]

‘Why? You said he’s a descendant of a prestigious martial family?’

[This boy suffers from a very rare disease where yin energy accumulates in nine crucial acupoints of his body. That’s why he couldn’t learn martial arts.]

Lee Jin-woo frowned.

[This disease has symptoms similar to the Nine Yin Severed Meridians from martial arts novels. However, since the boy’s memory of the disease name has been lost, we haven’t been able to determine the exact details yet.]

Lee Jin-woo, who had devoted his entire life to research, only knew about Murim from watching a few movies in that genre.

Naturally, he had no idea what Nine Yin Severed Meridians was.

‘Well, I’ll find out soon enough. But surely this body isn’t… terminally ill, is it?’

[It is terminal. According to the boy’s memories, if it’s not completely cured before he turns twenty, all his meridians will freeze and he’ll die.]

‘Ugh… it’s embarrassing to even call this being alive… Can’t you cure it?’

[My current state is barely operational, using the bioelectricity generated from your body as energy. So while conversation is possible, I don’t have the capacity to rebuild your physical body.]

‘What if you were fully activated?’

[Then a complete cure would be very easy. Theoretically, nanobots are nearly omnipotent when it comes to physical enhancement and disease treatment. However, this requires the prerequisite of having sufficient energy to utilize them freely.]

The nanobot system that Lee Jin-woo had combined with Akasha consisted of a total of 100,000 units.

While the number of nanobots was enormous, the energy needed to operate them could be supplied by glucose within the body alone.

The problem was Akasha.

As a quantum-based superintelligent AI, her power consumption was nowhere near manageable by glucose within the human body.

Although he had created her with an ultra-high efficiency structure that minimized power consumption for operation, she still required about 100KJ (kilojoules) per second.

So if Akasha were operated at 100%, the glucose in the human body would be completely depleted in just 4 seconds.

Therefore, fully activating her in the current state would mean Lee Jin-woo would immediately cross the River Styx.

‘Is there a way to obtain energy that could activate you?’

[I’m searching, but there’s too little information about this world, so I haven’t found even a clue yet.]

Lee Jin-woo wasn’t the type to obsess over problems that couldn’t be solved immediately, so he changed the subject.

‘You said there were some of this boy’s memories you’ve restored?’

[Yes. Shall I bring up Guyang Cheongang’s memories for you?]

‘Please do.’

At that moment, memories flooded into his mind like waves.

The sudden increase in information could have been dangerous to his brain, but thanks to Akasha’s proper modulation, there was no major shock.

Shortly after, fragments of Guyang Cheongang’s life surfaced in Lee Jin-woo’s mind.

The eldest son of Guyang Family Estate head Guyang Baek, a sickly body, mother Seol Hyang who died thirteen years ago.

In every scene that passed by like a panorama, he felt the boy’s deep sorrow and resignation, as well as the small ember of hope that never died out.

The feeling was so intense and vivid that Lee Jin-woo sighed inwardly.

It hurt as if it were his own memory.

‘So I’m both Lee Jin-woo and Guyang Cheongang…’

He struggled to get up from the bed and approached the window.

‘To think this place is the Murim world… it feels so unreal.’

A bitter smile appeared on Lee Jin-woo’s lips.

Since he was the creator of Akasha and the nanobot system, he knew their capabilities better than anyone.

While it was frustrating that he couldn’t use them immediately, he had no choice but to endure for now.

‘Akasha, is there a way to return to the original world?’

[If you wish, I’ll search for one.]

‘Of course I want to. How can a 21st century Korean live in ancient East Asia? This is probably a world without even toilet paper.’

Lee Jin-woo’s eyes grew cold as he continued speaking.

‘And I need to uncover the identity of those who killed me—though it’s a bit strange to say this while in a living body—and make them pay for their crimes.’

He looked down at his gaunt body and thin arms and legs as he spoke.

‘First, let’s find a way to save this boy. He’s a benefactor who provided me with a body to settle in this world, so I can’t let him die twice.’

[Understood. I’ll gather as much related information as possible. In times like these, the best way to acquire information is…]

‘…books.’

Lee Jin-woo looked around at the books filling the bookshelf.

The boy who had suffered from a serious illness seemed to have reading as a hobby.

Taking his eyes off the bookshelf, Lee Jin-woo turned his head toward the window.

His gaze deepened.

‘So this is another dimensional world? I have to live not as Lee Jin-woo, but as Guyang Cheongang.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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