The Shaman Wants Transcendence

2 – Death Is Not the End

See

Just as the seed sown becomes a sprout, bears fruit, and then sows the seed again.

Even if the blooming flame disappears into the air, it will not be the end.

* * *

“It’s strange. It’s really strange.”

Jinseong exclaimed admiration at his younger body.

When he opened his mouth, he felt no terrible pain in his jaw, nor did his voice come out smoothly from his vocal chords, nor did he feel the squeezing and tearing of his lungs and vocal cords, even as he spoke.

In addition, when I raised my hand and touched my face, the countless bullet wounds and stab wounds I had received during my mercenary days were gone, and the numerous self-harm marks made by doing things in a trance state as if I had learned witchcraft were also nowhere to be found.

Clean body.

He did not just become young, but returned with a clean body.

What made him even more admirable was the place he was.

“This is my past, and it’s so bizarre…”

The house he used to live in.

It was a space that perfectly matched what he remembered.

At first, I thought it was a hallucination seen as a pleasure substance excreted just before death, or a hallucination under the influence of unknown witchcraft, but surprisingly, this place is a reality.

‘Even though I finished the reality check and the spiritual check, this place is reality.’

All the elements that could not be reproduced even by S-class hallucinations or hypnosis were present here, and his terrible mind was also claiming that this place was real and that it was the truth.

Putting all of this together…

‘I came back to the past.’

Only one truth remains.

That he returned.

“ॐ—“

Jinseong quietly muttered the main predicate and controlled his heart.

This method of controlling his mind while muttering incantations was a life wisdom and routine he acquired while serving as a mercenary. Despite his harsh and terrible life as a mercenary, he always had to sharpen his mind in order to demonstrate his power as a shaman.

“ॐ…”

However, the shaman who had calmed his mind for a long time could not easily calm him down. The fact that he had returned was enough to cause a great uproar in his heart.

‘Joy and irritation coexist. It feels like a storm and a raging wave are blowing.’

All sorts of emotions were running through his mind.

The biggest emotion was joy.

The joy of being able to change the fate that had become short-lived by breaking the body out of the blue. It was a joy that stemmed from the idea that, as magic, it would be possible to transcend the realm of human beings and obtain fire in one’s hand and keep all the magic in the world in one’s head.

Witchcraft was the joy of his life, the purpose of his life, and everything to him.

‘Some people say it’s an obsession, but what if you have an obsession? I am not an ascetic or an ascetic trying to break free from the cycle of reincarnation.’

Jinseong was similar to, but different from, other shamans.

If other shamans tried to transcend existence through self-mortification, enlightenment, or spiritual practice, he was only for life.Because I longed for transcendence.

Unlike other shamans, the means and ends are reversed.

Because of that, he could not transcend, and instead of transcendence, he pursued a state beyond his means, learning magic with Junggu heating, and then his body disintegrated and became a body that could not live in his own life. In the end, he burns himself in endless agony with a body that is nothing short of a corpse.

That was all of his life.

‘Should I have listened to the wise men?’

Numerous wise men he met while serving as a mercenary told him.

Let go of obsession

If I don’t let go of my obsession, someday the end will not be good.

And their prophecies came true.

It is the last thing to lead a body that is no different from a corpse and set yourself on fire to die.

If someone saw it, they would have said it was a novel suicide method of a shaman who was consumed by madness.

But in a way, it might have been the end that suited him the most.

There would have been nothing better than magic to end his life, which he had lived only in magic. In particular, since the outbreak of World War III, the number of people who are killed by dogs has increased significantly, and most mercenaries are worthless deaths that even dog deaths seem like a good reward, so it may seem all the more so.

However, what is certain is that Jinseong met his death without achieving his purpose.

He wanted life, he wanted to live even when he was miserable, and he wanted to continue breathing even when he was miserable.

『 Parasite warlock 』

That’s why he was called a parasitologist.

He uses magic to imitate parasitic creatures, and is obsessed with magic only to survive.

He was not ashamed to parasitize on anyone, only he did not betray, but lived with an excessive price for his faith.

A shaman who cannot act alone, but will surely survive alone.

That’s why he was called a parasitic magician with contempt and lived as a mercenary.

‘One failure, another opportunity. It’s just strange that I don’t know why this was given to me.’

Since he was Jinseong, who has been called such a nickname, most of the emotions that are swirling around him now are joy. But he had a feeling that was slowly swelling up, and that was anxiety.

Why does Jin-seong hate the luck that came to him?

If it’s only human beings who are happy when money comes in, a new life came into their hands going back in time. Of course, it would be a lie if I said I didn’t feel like jumping up and down and screaming in joy.

But the malice of everything is hidden behind the scenes.

‘Why did I regress?’

Why and how

Two questions I learned while living as a mercenary and must come to mind.

Being a mercenary is full of money, so there are a lot of people who want to stab you in the back at any time, and if you’re not careful, it’s a perfect job to die from a colleague’s attack or get stabbed in the back. In particular, after World War III, the humanity of Earth’s human beings was all the more dangerous because they ran amok to the extent that the expression of hatred was insufficient.

That terrible back of the head casually hit even the closest and most trusted client. The most common case is when someone cheats or distorts information because they don’t want to pay for mercenaries. The next most common case was a case in which, upon returning from a request, he would definitely try to kill him with poison or ambush.

This is the amount of clients you have to trust.

In the case of a colleague, an enemy is betterThere were many cases of level, and brokers and mercenary groups were not much different from criminal groups.

“Enemies are better than allies. At least I won’t stick a knife in my back. 』

That was what the mercenaries were saying openly, so it was a total mess.

Therefore, Jin-seong’s life was always accompanied by two questions, ‘why and how’.

If it wasn’t, it would be dead.

‘Why am I returning to the past?’

That experience made Jinseong suspicious.

Why and how could I return to the past?

Could it be that some transcendent being capable of such a miracle sent me back to play with it?

Wouldn’t I die in frustration in the same situation, tied to a string like a puppet and unable to escape my fate?

Those doubts, along with the fuel of anxiety, swelled to a terrifying level.

“ॐ-“

Jinseong calmed down his shaking spirit.

‘There’s no way a transcendental being would do that.’

Transcendent existence.

Beings called by various names such as transcendent species and transcendental beings.

Gods, gods, dragons, demons, spirits, monsters, giants, etc…

Transcendental beings appearing in legends possessed great power.

Literally transcend.

They are beings that have reached a certain level by ‘transcending’ the limits of living things and souls.

Immediately, the gods were able to manipulate natural phenomena, the demons were second to none in terms of mind and soul, and were so powerful that spirits and monsters also wielded tremendous power in their fields of specialization.

That’s why many people feared and worshiped them, and it continued even after it became difficult for transcendental beings to interfere in the world at some point.

‘But these are beings who do not need to be feared more than necessary.’

It was better to stay away from each other and not get involved, but at least they weren’t afraid of them.

Because transcendental species liked and loved humans without a single exception.

However, what meaning their expression of affection will come to humans… Though it was separate.

‘Transcendent beings have the power but won’t do it, humans want to do it but don’t have the power.’

If it is divided into those who can do it but do not do it and those who want to do it but cannot do it, why do things that can happen in the world happen?

Exceptions are everywhere, but they work only as a game of probabilities, and I call them coincidences.

Coincidence has many names, but the only thing needed is my mindset to accept it as it is.

“ॐ-“

Jinseong quietly put his palms together and calmed down.

– Knock Knock

As he calmed his mind, a knock sounded as if he had been waiting.

As Jinseong turned his head toward the door, the uselessly flashy door slid open and someone poked his head out.

“Hey, are you awake?”

The one with her head poked out was a slightly sullen-looking girl.

‘Isaline. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.’

Jin-seong fell in love with her face, which looked much younger than the last face she remembered.

The look of his eyes rolling here and there because of lack of confidence was the same as his memory, but unlike his last memory of short hair, his black hair long enough to be described as long and skin without makeup was different from his last memory of short hair.For some reason, it gave him the real feeling of ‘returning to the past’.

“Okay, it’s breakfast time…”

On top of that, as if he uselessly insisted, ‘I’m awkward with you’, his awkward expression, slack tone of voice, and voice that seemed to crawl into a rat’s hole.

All of that was a fragment of everyday life that existed only in memory.

“Oh, brother? Morning…”

“Okay.”

“Yes yes.”

As soon as his insincere words fell, Lee Se-rin closed the door as if she had waited and disappeared.

“Come to think of it, this family had rules.”

What is so much to ask?

Jinsung smiled and changed his clothes.