The Way to Save the Crazy Returnees Chapter 44 - Lee Man-deuk (5)

 

 

“Ugh, so heavy…”

 

“Shut it!”

 

Whack!

 

A blow struck the back of his head, forcing it to droop forward.

 

Lee Man-deuk’s eyes trembled faintly.

 

‘Why am I being humiliated like this?’

 

But the thought didn’t last long.

 

“Since when do chairs talk? Keep your mouth shut!”

 

“Hahaha!”

 

The surrounding laughter made Lee Man-deuk realize—it was all a dream. As soon as that awareness hit, he tried to wake up, but it wasn’t easy. Instead, he sank deeper, swallowed by memories of the past.

 

“Hey, chair! Try moving!”

 

“Yeah! Move around!”

 

Under the jeers of children whose faces and names he could no longer recall, Lee Man-deuk struggled to move his body.

 

“Hahaha!”

 

And when he actually did as they said, the children only laughed louder, mocking him. Ignoring their voices, Lee Man-deuk twisted his face in anguish.

 

The bullying had started the moment he entered elementary school—and it only grew worse over time.

 

At some point, unable to bear it anymore, he asked them why they were doing this to him.

 

Why did they torment him so much?

 

“Because your name’s lame.”

T/N: “Man-deuk (만득)” literally translates to “ten thousand virtues,” symbolizing great moral character or virtue.

 

Such a ridiculous reason.

 

When he heard that, Lee Man-deuk threw a punch. But it was one against many. 

 

And with his small, unimposing frame, he couldn’t land more than a couple of blows before he was beaten down himself.

 

His parents saw the bruises on him when he came home, but said nothing. They showed no concern at all. 

 

Too busy preparing for their divorce, they focused only on pushing the children off onto one another.

 

The only people who cared about him were three.

 

“Oppa, are you okay?”

 

“Hyung, who did this to you? I’ll go beat them up!”

 

“Me too! I’ll help!”

 

Two of them were his younger siblings.

 

And the last was—

 

“Oh, my poor baby! Which little brat messed up your handsome face like this?!”

 

His grandmother—the one who had given him the name Lee Man-deuk.

 

She’d said giving a child an old-fashioned name would bless them with a long life, so she’d chosen it with care.

 

For a time, he’d resented her for that outdated name. But aside from his siblings, she was the only one who truly loved him—and her warmth meant everything to him.

 

Unfortunately, that warmth hadn’t lasted long.

 

The grandmother who had showered him with affection passed away soon after. Then, when his parents divorced, Lee Man-deuk and his siblings were sent to foster care—

 

Because both parents had given up custody.

 

“Oppa, are we orphans now?”

 

“Do we not have a mom and dad anymore?”

 

“What about Grandma? Can’t we live with her?”

 

Their grandmother had passed away not long ago, but his younger siblings were too young to understand what that meant.

 

So Lee Man-deuk smiled and said,

 

“We’re not orphans.”

 

Even when the kids at school mocked him for being an orphan, after they’d already mocked his name—

 

“I’m not an orphan.”

 

He kept denying it.

 

Even as fists rained down on him, his conviction never wavered.

 

That was how his school years, stained only by violence, finally passed.

 

And then came adulthood.

 

“Mr. Lee Man-deuk, have you ever thought about changing your name?”

 

“My name?”

 

“Yeah. It’s too old-fashioned. Not just that—it’s… not normal.”

 

And in that moment, Lee Man-deuk realized.

 

He wasn’t normal.

 

He’d been told that all his life—but only then did he truly understand.

 

No—

 

“Mr. Lee Man-deuk, are you alright?”

 

“Huh? Ah, yes.”

 

Only then did he finally accept it.

 

‘I really am a fool.’

 

Lee Man-deuk let out a hollow laugh. Even so, he never changed his name.

 

If he had, maybe people would stop calling him strange.

 

But he held on to it—the name his grandmother had lovingly given him. Old-fashioned, yet uniquely his.

 

And then one day—he became the protagonist of a story.

 

“Young Master Kallion! Are you awake?”

 

Kallion? Don’t tell me… Iz Kallion?

 

Lee Man-deuk’s mouth fell open in shock.

 

Of course—it was the name of the protagonist from The Great Mage Is None Other Than Me, the very novel he’d been reading before he fell asleep.

 

Here, his name wasn’t strange or outdated. But everything else about this world was far from ordinary.

 

“Young Master, from here on, you must go alone! But don’t worry! I’ll follow soon!”

 

“Uh… uh-huh…”

 

He was the sole survivor of a slaughtered family—a fugitive constantly on the run, yet blessed with extraordinary talent.

 

That was fine.

 

The protagonist of The Great Mage Is None Other Than Me—Iz Kallion.

 

Lee Man-deuk remembered his entire story by heart. If he just followed the plot, everything would turn out fine.

 

Or so he thought.

 

But it didn’t.

 

The people he trusted betrayed him, the ones he’d grown close to died before his eyes, and his talents were exploited.

 

‘Iz Kallion never went through this.’

 

He had never been betrayed. He had never had to watch someone precious die before his eyes. And above all—his powers were never used to kill.

 

“Aaaaagh!”

 

“Guaaaagh!”

 

They were never meant for slaughter.

 

‘Then why?’

 

Why was he living such a different life? Wasn’t he Iz Kallion now? Where was the satisfying, exhilarating life where he wiped out all his enemies like in other novels? Standing atop a mountain of corpses, Lee Man-deuk realized something.

 

‘This isn’t normal.’

 

Even here, he wasn’t living a normal life.

 

Savior of the World. Great Tower Lord. Noble of the Slums. Punisher of Trash. Mage of the Stars…

 

All the titles that once belonged to Iz Kallion were now attached to him—but they brought no joy.

 

Killing those who betrayed him, slaying the ones who killed those he loved, murdering those who had used him—none of it made him happy. It only left him empty. That was why, when Lee Man-deuk returned to his own world, he was overjoyed.

 

But that joy didn’t last long.

 

“Why…?”

 

Because the powers he’d wielded as “Iz Kallion” had come back with him. He tried to erase them, tried to seal them away. But nothing worked.

 

‘I’ll hide them.’

 

In the end, Lee Man-deuk decided to hide everything he could do. If he didn’t, he would never be able to live a normal life.

 

Here—where only his name was unusual—he refused to give up the ordinary life he’d finally gained, unlike the life he’d had as “Iz Kallion,” where only the name had been normal.

 

“Oppa, you’re back? Want some chicken?”

 

“By the way, I already ordered it, hyung.”

 

All the more reason—because here, he had something to protect. So Lee Man-deuk hid his magic, his talents, his abilities. Or rather—he had hidden them.

 

Like any other day after work, he was on his way home carrying a box of fried chicken his siblings had been craving. If only he hadn’t heard his younger sister’s scream.

 

Without thinking, Lee Man-deuk ran. The scream had come from his house. Bursting through the front door, he found his younger brother lying in a pool of blood—

 

“O-Oppa!” —and his sister, her hair being yanked by an intruder.

 

The horrific scene left no room for hesitation. Lee Man-deuk unleashed every shred of magic, talent, and ability he had kept hidden until now.

 

“Guaaaaagh!”

 

The intruder screamed—but Lee Man-deuk sealed his mouth shut with magic.

 

“Mmgh!”

 

In an instant he blinded the man’s eyes. Yet he left his hearing intact—so the bastard could still hear him.

 

“Just die.”

 

“Mmgh! Mmmgh!”

 

The uninvited guest writhed in pain, but Lee Man-deuk didn’t let him go. He only released him when—

 

“O-Oppa!”

 

—his younger sister, face soaked in tears, clung to his leg.

 

“Stop!”

 

Only after she cried out did he halt.

 

“P-Please, stop.”

 

…Right. He needed to stop.

 

Right now, checking on his collapsed younger brother was more important than killing that son of a bitch. What if his brother died?

 

‘Then I’ll kill him.’

 

He pictured breaking the intruder’s limbs, healing them, breaking them again—repeating the cycle until the man begged for death. And then the words slipped out of his mouth.

 

“Ah…”

 

In that moment, a cold clarity settled over Lee Man-deuk. The impulse was not new; it had haunted him countless times when he was Iz Kallion.

 

‘I’m broken.’

 

He’d wanted a normal life so badly, and he’d thought he’d finally gotten it.

 

‘Well.’

 

But since the magic, talents, and powers he’d used as Iz Kallion still existed, what he wanted could never be fully achieved. Still—it was fine.

 

“Oppa…”

 

Unlike in The Great Mage Is None Other Than Me, here there was someone to protect. So maybe he could fake it well enough.

 

Lee Man-deuk believed that. No—he had believed that.

 

“Lee Man-deuk! How could you handle a job like this?!”

 

But the people around him wouldn’t leave him alone.

 

“Fuck! You bump into someone, you apologize!”

 

“I’m not the one who hit your shoulder—”

 

“So what?! Huh?! You little shit!”

 

Every little thing turned into a fight.

 

“Hey, you know that guy in the other department? His name’s Man-deuk. Lee Man-deuk.”

 

“Man-deuk? What kind of name is that? If it were me, I’d be too embarrassed to show my face—I’d change it.”

 

The constant ridicule piled up. By day’s end, the urge to tear everything down rose in him dozens of times.

 

‘Why not?’

 

After causing an accident, couldn’t he manipulate memories with magic? When such a risky thought crept in—

 

“Lee Man-deuk.”

 

Ji Geon-hyuk appeared.

 

“Want to join forces with me?” Ji Geon-hyuk said, introducing himself as a fellow returnee who’d gone through the same thing.

 

At first Lee Man-deuk didn’t believe him—of course he didn’t.

 

“But what would change if I teamed up with you?” Lee Man-deuk asked.

 

Still, he decided to hear him out. He wanted to know how similar this man really was to him. Whether Ji Geon-hyuk knew what Lee Man-deuk had been thinking, Ji Geon-hyuk said:

 

“I’ll make it so you can live the life you want.”

 

“You know what kind of life I want?”

 

“A normal, ordinary life like everyone else.”

 

Lee Man-deuk’s gaze shifted with interest, then he smiled. “Interesting.”

 

So he agreed to hear Ji Geon-hyuk’s proposal. The man’s story was certainly intriguing.

 

“But I’ll meet him first, and then decide.”

 

The name that kept appearing in Ji Geon-hyuk’s story—Kwak Yoon-hoo.

 

“I’ll meet that person, and after that I’ll decide whether to join hands with you or not. That’s fine, right?”

 

At those words, the man nodded and opened his mouth again.

 

“There is one favor I would like to ask.”

 

“What kind of favor? Since you told me such an interesting story, I’ll hear you out.”

 

Then Ji Geon-hyuk spoke.

 

He asked Lee Man-deuk to cause an incident.

 

“The family of the one I mentioned may get caught up in it,” he said.

 

“And so what?”

 

Lee Man-deuk smirked.

 

“Other people’s families aren’t my concern.”

 

They say what’s precious to you must be precious to others as well—but not to Lee Man-deuk.

 

When the intruder had broken into his home, not a single person had helped his family. If Lee Man-deuk hadn’t arrived in time, his siblings would have been in serious danger.

 

‘So why should I care about someone else’s family?’

 

Lee Man-deuk thought, and laughed.

 

“Ugh!”

 

The dream buried in his past shattered in an instant.

 

Drip, drip—

 

Water fell from his wet hair. Lee Man-deuk blinked, blank-eyed.

 

“Are you coming to your senses?”

 

At the soft voice, his face twisted.

 

“You, you bastard—!”

 

But Lee Man-deuk stopped the curse halfway.

 

Because next to the one he wanted to tear apart more than anyone, Kang Ye-seong watched him with anxious eyes.

 

As if he knew exactly who Lee Man-deuk was staring at, Kwak Yoon-hoo smiled and spoke.

 

“Then shall we continue our conversation?”

 

He said it with a pleasant smile.