"That time, I was desperate. Think about it. With so many last wishes to fulfill already, how would you feel if another one was added?"
"Yeah, it must have been a nightmare."
"Exactly."
"So, the last wishes you're working on now are ones that were already completed, like knitting and climbing mountains."
"Specifically, it was 'knit 100 sweaters by hand.'"
"And the mountain climbing?"
"'Climb to the summit of Baekdusan, Hallasan, Jirisan, Seoraksan, Geumgangsan, Deogyusan, Kyebangsan, Taebaeksan, Odaesan, and Garisan.'"
"…So, right before you were about to die, you recited all of that?"
"Exactly. I thought I was rapping or something. It was like a complete nightmare."
"Right, right. And they're all tough mountains."
Kwon Jihan leaned closer to Yoon Seo, showing his sympathy with his entire face.
"So, how many of these last wishes were there? The Revengers numbered over 1,200, right?"
"If every Revenger had left a last wish, I would have gone insane. Fortunately, I only had to fulfill 301."
"301 is still a huge number."
"Indeed."
"I didn't expect it to be that many. It must have been really tough."
Seeing Kwon Jihan's genuine empathy, Yoon Seo felt some of the frustration from the past decade ease.
"So, how many are left now?"
"Since I've completed the knitting, there are now seventeen remaining."
"284 fulfilled in 10 years? That's impressive."
Yoon Seo shivered a little. How does Kwon Jihan manage to be so good at mental calculations?
"By the way, I hope not all the wishes were like knitting 100 sweaters or climbing 10 mountains. If they were, you wouldn't have managed 284."
"That's right. Fortunately, there were some simpler ones as well."
Yoon Seo stirred his strawberry latte with a spoon, listing off some of the simpler wishes:
Scuba diving, paragliding, skydiving, writing five journals, eating 100 bowls of gukbap…
"How long does it take to write five journals?"
"If you use elementary school picture diaries, it's about 25 days per journal. The hardest part is the first five words, five lines, and five pages. Once you get past that, it becomes a habit to open the diary before bed."
"I'd like to read them. Show me."
"I burned them all."
"..."
Kwon Jihan stared at Yoon Seo quietly.
Yoon Seo met his gaze after taking a sip of his strawberry latte. Kwon Jihan's expression shifted from uncertainty to realization, and he gave a dramatically sorrowful look.
"Burning Seo Chaeyoon's personal diary like that. Who are you to destroy Seo Chaeyoon's relics?"
"I am him, you know."
"Again with the selective Seo Chaeyoon act."
"..."
"It's a pity. If we had met earlier, I would have definitely read it."
Yoon Seo was relieved that they met now.
"How challenging were the wishes like knitting 100 sweaters? Since you just finished it recently, it must be a high difficulty."
"Not so much challenging as it was just tedious and bothersome. I'd say it's moderate."
"Give me a few examples of those tedious and bothersome wishes. I'll judge how bothersome they are objectively."
To illustrate how troublesome it was, Yoon Seo listed some truly annoying wishes.
"300,000 squats, 5,000 runs."
"With a long life ahead, that's a piece of cake."
"…Bake 100,000 chocolate crack cookies."
"Can't you just buy a factory or use a machine? You'd finish it in a day."
Yoon Seo flinched at that idea, which he hadn't considered. It was a really good suggestion, though it would be expensive.
"120 landscape paintings, 30 portraits, and 30 still lifes."
"That's easy. I'm confident I could finish that by tomorrow."
"How?"
"There's no requirement to do it well. Even doodles count as drawings. See, hyung?"
Kwon Jihan took out a pen from his inventory and sketched on a napkin. He drew a small face with a sharp nose, round eyes, and full eyelashes. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either.
"Here's a portrait complete. By the way, this is you. Do you want it?"
"Throw it away."
"Too harsh."
"There's also 'Visit ten restaurants with long lines.'"
"Are you kidding me? That's the easiest thing you've mentioned so far."
Yoon Seo agreed with that.
"A gold medal in 'Hunter and Skill.'"
"You're talking about the game, right? I got to platinum in that."
"Write 500 poems."
"Throw me any topic. I'll show you how to do impromptu poetry."
Yoon Seo glared at Kwon Jihan.
"Write a poem about strawberry latte."
"Strawberry latte. Sweet. Plum blossom petals. Lovely. And you."
"What kind of nonsense is that?" Yoon Seo was confused, but Kwon Jihan looked pleased and said, "Isn't it impressive?" Overwhelmed by his confidence, Yoon Seo nodded in agreement.
"Fishing for ten 9-inch sea breams at dawn."
"Oh…."
Finally, Kwon Jihan looked surprised. Yoon Seo smirked with satisfaction.
"I've already caught five. There's a spot I always go to, and the local fishermen all know me. When I show up, they greet me with, 'Oh, is it the 9-inch sea bream guy?'"
"It seems you're misunderstanding. My surprise is because it's so easy."
Kwon Jihan flicked his fingers.
"What's fishing? Ultimately, you just catch the fish, right? If you go into the sea and grab them directly, that's fishing. 9-inch sea bream? Just give me an hour, and I'll catch even bigger ones."
"Kwon Jihan, you clearly don't know anything about fishing. A 9-inch sea bream is a fish that's hard to even encounter. It's like a giant leech eel in a dungeon."
"I think I've seen twenty giant leech eels so far. And I've caught them all."
"..."
"So, are you telling me about some tedious and bothersome wishes?"
Kwon Jihan smiled with one side of his mouth tilted up.
Though his blood pressure rose slightly, Yoon Seo still had many wishes to go through. He revealed a different type of wish to this novice.
"Chew your food more than twenty times. By the way, you also have to chew ice cream more than twenty times with each bite."
"…That's a bit much."
"Always have breakfast."
"Isn't that torture?"
"During meals, you must have three kinds of vegetables, one kind of meat, and a stew or broth. Rice should be multigrain or black rice."
"Are you kidding me? Who leaves such ridiculous wishes? Is he an old-fashioned person or what?"
Kwon Jihan shouted angrily. Yoon Seo's nose rose in pride.
"Other wishes are just completed once, but the ones I just mentioned are ongoing obligations, which are quite bothersome. There are twelve of these passive wishes."
"Passive wishes…."
"There's even a wish to become a diligent office worker. By the way, there were no specific criteria or time limits for diligence."
Kwon Jihan clicked his tongue.
"This is insane. Who the hell left such miserable wishes?"
"Mark Farshim."
"Mark Farshim, that annoying foreigner…"
Kwon Jihan's expression turned to a frown. He didn't know much about the Revengers. Although they were heroes who saved the Earth, he didn't know every name and couldn't remember names outside of Koreans. But the unfamiliar name seemed oddly familiar.
Mark Farshim, Mark Farshim. Muttering the name, he soon realized why it seemed familiar and widened his eyes in surprise.
"Mark Farshim is a survivor Revenger."
Yoon Seo nodded.
"That's right, a survivor Revenger. One day, this person, barely surviving that terrible place, called me and left such a will before hanging up. Do you know how shocked I was? He didn't answer when I asked how he got my number, and he didn't pick up again when I called back. A few hours later, his death was announced. I was utterly dumbfounded."
"…That must have been truly shocking."
"The person who told me to chew twenty times while eating was also a survivor Revenger, Garis Romeo. I should have ignored that call."
"Why did they do that to you?"
"That's what I'm saying. They find comfort in their deaths, leaving all the trouble for others. Once it's all over, I'll be the first to rush to them and ask why they did that to me. I'll even throw a few punches."
Recalling that time made Yoon Seo's anger flare up again, and he blurted out his frustrations.
Kwon Jihan quickly picked up on the phrases "find comfort in their deaths" and "once it's all over."
But he didn't show any sign of it.
"So, that's why you kept your identity hidden and worked in a regular job. That's why your eating speed was so slow. They practically used you as a puppet."
"'Puppet' is an accurate description. Among the wishes, there were things like 'wear torn jeans and a denim jacket, and walk around the streets for an hour,' 'go out wearing a black sweatshirt and wide denim jeans,' 'stand in front of the station wearing a white shirt and dark navy slacks,' and so on."
Yoon Seo ground his teeth. Kwon Jihan suggested chewing on strawberry chunks instead to avoid damaging his teeth. Yoon Seo, realizing his mistake, reluctantly chewed the strawberry pieces twenty times with a resigned look.
"You've had a hard time, hyung."
Kwon Jihan said sympathetically.
Yoon Seo never expected he'd be sharing his struggles, and even less so with Kwon Jihan. The sympathy from Kwon Jihan made his feelings of resentment and injustice ease a bit.
"What was the hardest wish? Not the passive ones."
"Hmm…."
Yoon Seo thought for a moment before answering.
"Running 5,000 times. Oh, and playing five classical piano pieces perfectly. You might understand now that you heard it yesterday, but do you know how difficult Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee' is? I play it without looking at the sheet music now. It was truly a grueling time to get here. I originally didn't even know how to draw a treble clef. When someone who barely knew where do, re, mi, fa, so was suddenly told to play these five pieces, my piano teacher was incredibly flustered."
"Hyung."
Kwon Jihan interrupted Yoon Seo's rambling softly.
"I mean, not the difficult and bothersome ones, but the hardest one."
"..."
"What was the hardest wish?"
Yoon Seo fell silent. He knew the difference between 'difficult' and 'hard.' Although he had never clearly distinguished between the two, a particular wish immediately came to mind.
It had been truly tormenting.
Tasks like 5,000 squats or baking 100,000 cookies could be endured with curses, but if asked to do them all over again, he would likely choose to give up.
Kwon Jihan, observing Yoon Seo lost in thought, tilted his head.
"Is it so difficult that you haven't even tried it yet?"
"No, the really tough ones… I dealt with them as soon as I got out of the dungeon."
"You're the type who tackles the hard things first. I do the same."
Yoon Seo gave a small nod. Kwon Jihan seemed to be waiting for Yoon Seo to continue, but Yoon Seo's lips remained sealed.
Those tasks that had been so difficult they were completed immediately upon leaving the dungeon weighed heavily on his mind.
"..."
Kwon Jihan fiddled with the handle of his mug, which held a warm café mocha. He hadn't taken a sip since earlier.
"If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. I won't force you. What you've shared so far is enough."
"It's not that I don't want to talk about it, but I feel like I've only been talking about myself."
"Oh, then can I share something about myself? While listening to you, I remembered that my mother also left a will. Not hundreds of them, just one. Want to hear it?"
"..."
Yoon Seo looked at Kwon Jihan silently as he suddenly began talking about his mother.
Kwon Jihan met his gaze calmly and started his story.