Everyone Else is a Returnee

Apocrypha (1)

Secret File, Dark History - 1

Yoo Il-Han had been a very quiet child since he was young, and he had been so quiet that the teachers in his nursery school could not find him if he stayed still and silent.

His mother dropped him off at school every day and then the teacher looked after him. However, during lunchtime, the teacher would call his mother once or twice to ask if he would rest at home that day.

Other than that, his nursery school and kindergarten years were fine. However, he still struggled to socialize well.

No matter where he went, he was never left alone.

"Wow!"

A month after entering primary school, Yoo Il-han opened his mouth for the first time in public. He had realized that he had been left alone on a spring picnic by his classmates and teacher. However, since he was alone, there was no one to hear him speak.

"That's strange. I was told to gather here."

No, maybe not? Since he didn't have any close friends, he just crouched on the floor, all alone, and observed the ants. He didn't even know when they had gone.

"Have you seen them?" Yoo Il-Han asked the innocent ants, but they were busy crawling around with food held on their heads. He put a stone in their path to catch their attention, yet he felt a little sorry about doing it, so he took it away at once.

Blocking the ants with a stone was his way of playing with them. However, upon realizing he had disturbed them, he offered them a piece of chocolate in exchange for having given them a hard time. In fact, he didn't want to eat it because it tasted like a strange toothpaste.

"Teacher... I can't see you," he muttered to himself.

These days, Yoo Il-Han has slowly realized that people around him were not aware of his existence. That's why he had tried his best to stay as close as possible to the teacher on this picnic. However, he was too busy playing with the ants to realize he had been left alone.

"Phew!" Yoo Il-han sighed. His eyes were teary, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. A few moments later, he began shedding tears, lamenting the fact that he had been left alone.

"Oh, cute baby. Why are you crying?"

Suddenly, Yoo Il-han heard a voice. He stopped crying and raised his head to see the speaker: It was a very beautiful woman. Because she had found him first, he decided to talk to her.

"Who are you?" Il-han asked and continued staring at her face and figure, "Wow!"

The child raised his head carefully. A foreign woman was standing in front of him with a beautiful face and body, one that he had never seen before. She had mysteriously twinkling purple curly hair and exotic eyes of the same color. Her distinct appearance was so attractive.

"Me? Well, it would be easy to understand if I call myself a devil."

The woman grinned and introduced herself. Yoo Il-Han could see, indeed, something like a devil's tail fluttering behind her butt. He widened his eyes in amazement.

"You're a real devil!" Il-han exclaimed. He paused to look at her again, then asked innocently, "Are you so pretty because you're a devil?"

The woman laughed at the boy, who felt surprise and mystery rather than fear for such an unrealistic being.

"No, I'm always pretty. I'm the prettiest in all the world," the woman remarked.

"I see... Wow!" Il-han nodded as if he understood.

"Hahaha, you believe so easily. You are such a funny boy. By the way, it's a shame... if you were only a little older..."

The woman burst into laughter as she looked him up and down with her glistening eyes.

"Anyway, I can't use my power in this world. Little boy, why were you crying?" she asked.

"Oh, uh, um."

Yoo Il-han mumbled and hesitated, struggling to reply right away, not only because he was embarrassed to admit that he was crying but also because he was afraid of telling his thoughts to a stranger.

But upon seeing the woman's smiling face, somehow, he could talk naturally.

"My teacher. She left me..." Il-han remarked.

"Teacher? Oh, the leader of the group," the woman commented.

"My teacher and friends all went first, so I was left alone," Il-han continued narrating.

Then the woman smiled at Il-han's sad face. However, her next words were unusual.

"That's what humans often do," she said.

"Often?"

Il-Han tilted his head.

"Yes, humans, if they don't unite and cooperate, they seem to die right away. But they'll ignore the personality and value of individuals in the group, and sometimes even act as if they're invisible, for the benefit and convenience of the group," the woman continued.

"Personality and value..." Il-han trailed off, pondering on the woman's words.

"The one who is so alienated from the group. The one who is left alone like you are now: In solitude. You're left with a feeling of betrayal," the woman added.

Her words seemed too much for Il-Han right now, but he didn't understand what she was saying anyway.

"Alone..."

However, the word 'alone' was particularly bothering Yoo Il-han. He curled his lips. Somehow, the woman had a strange feeling of love for the child who was not very handsome, and she patted his head and spoke again.

"Yes, alone. We like destruction and despair, but we really can't keep up with such shady tricks of humans. We never do anything foolish like abandoning individuals in a group,"

Yoo Il-Han didn't understand half of the woman's words. Strangely, she had a mysterious spell, and he even felt like the whole sentence had been engraved in his mind.

"So, you should remember this," the woman spoke again.

"What?"Il-han asked.

"There's no one in the world to trust. Everyone apart from me is the enemy," she said.

"There's no one... to trust," Il-han repeated her words.

"That's it. You're smart," the woman complimented him and nodded as if Yoo Il-han had said something really good.

"If you're going to be alone anyway, it's easier to think you don't have any allies. Then you'll never cry like that again," the woman advised.

Yoo Il-Han, who still kept his innocence, hesitated and answered her in a sorrowful tone.

"But it's so sad."

The woman shook her head and pointed to the place without any students and a teacher. The strange silence made the child want to cry again．

"The important thing is whether you win or lose to them. After you win, you can make as many friends as you want! Think of winning first. That's the discipline of our Destruction Devils," the woman remarked.

"... Yes," Il-han was momentarily silent, then he nodded, even though he didn't know what Destruction Devils are.

He just felt sad that he was left alone, and the woman's words were so impressive that he agreed with her.

The woman watched the boy followed her words with a straight face and smiled with pride. She thought that she had proved her worth once again．

But why? Indeed, this boy had something that makes her want to conquer him. Then, she suddenly stood upright.

"Phew! I guess it's time now. Sweetheart, I'll see you next time. Your ability to hide your presence, well, you'll certainly be strong if you practice it a little more," the woman remarked.

"Yes..." Il-han agreed and nodded.

The woman put her hand on Yoo Il-Han's forehead. He thought that her hands were amazingly cold yet produced a pleasant feeling. Soon, a strange cozy drowsiness came to him.

While Yoo Il-Han somehow managed to keep his eyes open a little bit, he saw bat wings spread behind the woman's back in the dim view．

She hugged Yoo Il-Han, whose consciousness had become hazy, and laid him on the floor. With his vision came a small murmur of a voice in his near-deafened ears．

"It's possible to see the fifth since a talented man was born into a world with no mana... and the Akashic Records. I tried so hard to get into a world without access, but the rewards are certain..."

Yoo Il-Han became unconscious after hearing her words.

When he opened his eyes again, there was his father, Yoo Yong-han.

"Daddy?" Il-han asked as he adjusted his vision.

"Yes, Il-Han. It's Dad," his dad replied.

"Why are you here?" Il-han asked again.

"I came here to take you home."

Yoo Il-Han was relieved, and sighed upon confirming his father's appearance. However, he noticed he was still in the place where he had come for a spring picnic. He blinked then asked his father again.

"What about the sister?"

"What sister?" his dad asked back.

"Uh... She's very pretty, and she's wearing torn clothes, and..." Il-han recounted.

It was strange. He had been talking to her face to face a little while ago, but he couldn't remember anything else about her, not even her clothes.

"You must have been dreaming," his dad deduced.

When Yong-Han heard his son speaking gibberish, he continued to speak in a firm voice．

"You slept outside, so you had nightmares. Forget it. Let's go home."

"Yes, I guess so."

Yoo Il-Han nodded blankly and held his father's hand, but he still couldn't forget the words in his mind．

There's no one in the world to trust. Everything but me is an enemy.

From the very beginning, I have no allies. I'm alone.

Let's think about winning first.

Because of the succubus in the upper-rank group that only thinks of oppressing and killing other beings, he learned something wrong, but not very incorrect and another thing...

"Daddy, what does it mean to hide one's presence?"

When Yoo Il-Han asked those words, his father turned pale instantly and avoided the boy's gaze. He was frozen for a moment, but then regained his composure and replied to him.

"Don't worry about it. It's not that I am not to blame for this, but it still proves we're family... No, it's nothing. Let's go home."

Il-han tilted his head for a moment, "Yes!" he exclaimed cheerfully.

***

Every quarter, every month, and every week after that incident, Yoo Il-Han still kept being excluded from group events, but he stopped crying about it. There was no reason to be sad if he thought it was natural to be left alone without allies.

Instead of crying, shriveling, or craving affection from other children, he decided to learn how to do everything by himself.No one helped him if he was crying alone. It was just a foolish act that revealed his weaknesses.

"Top student, Yoo Il-han," the principal announced. She paused and wondered who is the name's owner, "Yoo Il-han? Who is this?"

"Oh! He's in my class. You know, the nerd with no presence," Il-han's teacher remarked.

"Wow, he's good at studying? But why doesn't everyone know him?" the principal asked.

"Because nobody talks to him," the teacher replied.

"He must have been studying well."

People underestimate others just because they are loners. They set their standards and ostracize those who deviate from the norm. They even lower their values for them.

Yoo Il-Han had to stay on the sidelines from the very beginning, so he had to arm himself with the fame of an 'educational background' so that no one could look down on him.

"Who's in our group?"

"Oh, Yoo Il-Han is in our group. Where's he?"

"I don't know, did he not come?"

"He was on the plane earlier. He's grown up so he will not get lost."

"Or maybe somewhere."

"Teacher, we're all here!"

"Then shall we go to lunch right away? We're going to eat the black pork of Jeju Island!"

By the time Yoo Il-han became a high school student, people had gone beyond being aware of him and didn't care whether he was there or not. Having established a great educational background, he succeeded in gaining the reputation of 'the student who could be left alone.'

He always thought it was much better than 'a loser who couldn't hang out with others.' He had been used to being left alone more and more.

"Oh, I shouldn't have gone to the bathroom," Yoo Il-Han murmured blankly after emerging from the bathroom, as he looked back at Jeju International Airport's waiting room, which all his classmates had left. The seats remained empty.

Yoo Il-han arrived at the accommodation, but he was left behind when he arrived at the travel destination on his high school field trip. Seeing that he was left alone on numerous occasions, he strongly felt that he would be left behind even before leaving for the college MT.

"What a surprise. I should play alone."

An ordinary high school student might have been embarrassed, teared up and contacted his parents, or called his teacher to whine. But Yoo Il-Han was different. He already knew the accommodation address and carried a lot of money with him to help himself at any time.

He could enjoy Jeju Island by himself and then return to the accommodation when the time came. Maybe even if he didn't come back, no one would pay attention to his absence.

"Cost-efficient Hairtail set... Hahaha, good, I'm coming now. Wait."

Yoo Il-Han bravely took the first step of his trip by gathering information uploaded by the local people.

"Mirae. Isn't this Italy?"

"You know that now? We're not going on a field trip."

"Why?"

"You're in danger... It's frustrating to move with the other kids. We're going on vacation in Italy. Let's take a rest in Jeju Island during our school trip."

"Hmm. You are too overprotective, but I love you!"

"Be quiet. Go away."

Yoo Il-Han heard a pile of guards moving and making noise behind him, but he moved away without paying any attention to them．

It was said that noblemen didn't go to dangerous places. For loners, all unusual people, all special people, and all good-looking people were dangerous. Those people were not to be trusted, and he even avoided their shadows.

"Hairtail roast, sea urchin seaweed soup, abalone stone pot rice..."

With a quick murmuring of a menu like magic spells, Yoo Il-Han left there. It was the beginning of his solo school trip.