Jaehw.a.n.g carried a 40-kilogram backpack on his back as hiked up in the mountains. Reminiscing the time when he was young, he remembered the time that he would take a hike up the mountains with his father and they would usually spend their time together during vacations or on holidays.

It would usually take about 3-4 hours to reach their destination and they would stay for only one hour before going back.

It wasn't long before he found himself soaked in sweat while trying to catch his breath. So he decided to take his backpack off and placed it on the ground so he could take a rest.

He soon then got back on his feet a couple of minutes later and did some light stretching before he got back to hiking.

"I guess I haven't noticed how much I hated fitness when I was in school."

If someone heard that then they would pa.s.s out screaming but, it's true to Jaehw.a.n.g. His mom and dad worked at the bottom of the mountain and they have done this every single day. But they didn't carry much so it was so much faster. His father would never get tired, he definitely did not grow to have that same energy

"Phew…"

A mountain cabin soon appeared in the distance. It was a structure built with trees and wood down its very fence. There were never any other houses nearby except for the house of his father's parents but now his parent's house was the only one left standing…

"It's a relief that no thieves came by."

The lock combination to the front gate still worked just fine. Although the people that lived on this mountain went here from time to time, everything was still just as it should be.

After dealing with the impact of losing his parents and all his injuries, he's now ready to relax and focus.

Maybe he won't go back to the way he was before again.

"Phew…"

It was a tall and an exhausting mountain to climb so he fixed his tangled hair as well as his messy clothes. After that, he took a white plastic bag out of his backpack and went back to the back of the cabin. He followed along the broken wooden fence and saw his mom's vegetable garden, making him remember his past the longer he walks by it.

There, he greeted two small burial mounds in a sunny spot on the ground. There were a bottle of soju and a pack of dried pollack for his dad. And for his mom, there were rice cakes stacked on a plate right next to her grave.

"Dad, mom… I'm here."

So far, he had struggled to handle everything on his own. He didn't want to neglect them here especially when there's nothing else around him but the mountains and their graves. He didn't even want his uncle around the cabin after he took all of their money and disappeared.

"Mom… I'm sorry."

He gave up archery and rejected to follow her footsteps. She never pressured him about it but he can't help but feel terrible. He knew that her mother loved archery just as much as he did and she never gave up and worked hard to achieve her dreams. He always had endless support and help from his mom but since now that he quitted archery and school, He felt like he had let her down.

He stared at his parents grave for a moment before he took out a pair of gloves from his plastic bag. There was someone who came by from time to time to tidy up but, weeds grew fast in the mountains. He put the gloves on his hands and just when he was about to start cleaning, he noticed something.

"Huh?"

When he looked ahead and everything was intact but when he turned around, he saw the tracks of a wild animal that had made a mess digging around his father's grave. Jaehw.a.n.g then used his hands to cope with his injured left eye to feel the tracks with his fingers.

"Wild pigs... Those stupid animals…"

It was impossible to avoid things like this from a wild animal in the middle of the mountains. Wild pigs are always around on this slope but Jaehw.a.n.g can't help but get angry after seeing his father's unkempt grave.

He jumped back on his feet and took his arrows as he planned to hunt for those pigs as soon as possible. But he took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

'Relax.'

He learned from his father… No… The Joseon Dynasty period when a group specializing in hunting tigers were formed. That group of talented hunters pa.s.sed down their skills to the next generation until his father pa.s.sed it onto him. And thinking of that helped him managed to blot out the anger in his heart.

Family

At the same time, the tiger hunter group knew every root of martial arts. So with that special skill, they were ranked the highest in the military in the Joseon Dynasty times. The ancestors pa.s.sed through the j.a.panese invasion of Korea and then they pa.s.sed the last Korean war. Now they settle here in a remote mountain village..

"Huu…."

He learned relaxation from his father's strict training when he was young. Jaehw.a.n.g has been learning the basics of that little by little in archery. The Gagseogs didn't use things from others, they made their own.

He calmed himself down and repaired the grave with utmost care. Knowing that cleaning through the smallest of odors could keep the pigs away.

After he finished up, he opened the lock and went inside the cabin. Jaehw.a.n.g stepped inside the house and gathered his family's ancestral tablet. He placed them in the shrine before he started to clean the cabin. It already got dark in the mountains even though it was only early in the evening. He soon finished up cleaning and went to a bathhouse in a different location.

Whirring

He turned on the boiler and the bath began to fill itself with warm water. The boilers here were great but his parents would buy an expensive boiler when they would come here. He remembered when his dad carried a huge expensive boiler on his back up the mountain. Thinking about that made him miss his father and with that, he felt sad once again.

"I'll quickly wash up."

He has to get back to cleaning tomorrow so Jaehw.a.n.g took off his clothes and sunk himself into the warm water of the bath. He let out a sigh of relief as he felt all of his stress and fatigue of the day melting away.

His father would always say that it was not good to use a wet towel when you're tired. He mentioned that a person's body was always honest. For one's strength to improve, he/she could use a wet towel but soon that method would not work anymore even if it felt refres.h.i.+ng. So when one had to rest, he/she needs to make sure that it would be a good one.

Jaehw.a.n.g got out of the boiler and dried himself with a towel. He had a tall slender body with detailed muscles. He didn't get many muscles through working out or medicine, he just went and let his archery sculpt his body for him.

He had a small tattoo on his chest. He didn't know exactly what it means but its shape resembled that of an animal.

Jaehw.a.n.g didn't even know where this tattoo came from. It just showed one day out of nowhere but he knew that he shared the same tattoo with his father who had the same symbol on his chest, which was only was bigger.

Jaehw.a.n.g woke up the next day at dawn and did a morning workout after a little cleaning. Morning workouts always start with some light jogging. The sun hasn't come hasn't even come out yet. He sees others running on the course.

He would always only run half of the course with his father. They would spend time walking on the paths and practicing archery.

"Huu… Huu…"

He stopped to catch his breath after he reached his goal. He stopped at his favorite place to take look at the sunrise while resting on a giant rock. Two black rocks showed up from the direction of the Korean river. They weren't just any plain black rocks, they had a s.h.i.+ny and smooth surface with glittery silver specks just like the milky way.

The sun started to rise as he continued his heavy breathing to recover from his early morning workout. After tirelessly running, He did a simple and easy breathing technique that his dad taught to him when he was young. He could not do it correctly at that time when he was 9 so he just would just mimic his dad. It was another happy memory that he and his father shared.

After taking a break for some time, he opened his eyes and saw the sun rising right in front of him. Jaehw.a.n.g used that as a cue to get up from his sitting spot and start running once again.

He finished his morning run and went back inside the cabin. He cleaned the shrine and his ancestor's ancestral tablets.

"Our ancestors have done great during all those years."

He did a deep bow towards the ancestral tablets on the shrine and closed the eyes of the tablets one by one. The tablets on the shrine were originally from Yanggang-do Province of North Korea. An independence movement that happened during the j.a.panese colonial era in Manchuria. Because of his ancestors, the leader's surprise attacks had decreased and a 325 definite war broke out. The ancestral tablets and the family's treasure were all packed, was sent away and they weren't able to get some of them back.

After that, the tablets slowly closed their eyes until Jaehw.a.n.g finally picked them up. They were skillfully hidden behind the building and Jaehw.a.n.g had to dig them out of concrete.

Snap… Piing…

Jaehw.a.n.g went through the dark hallway and walked down the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs with care. He then turned on the lights.

To the Mountains Again…2 The end..