The Returner's Road to Retirement

After two decades spent on the front lines of a war against extradimensional horrors, Dae-in Lim has earned every ounce of his hard-won peace. His body bears the scars of countless battles, his mind the weight of a world saved more times than he can count. When he finally hangs up his sword at a quiet retirement party, surrounded by weary comrades and the bittersweet cheers of those he protected, it feels like the closing of a long and brutal chapter. He allows himself a single night of rest, dreaming only of mundane mornings and lazy afternoons—a future finally his own. But fate, it seems, has no intention of letting him go so easily. Dawn breaks not on his new life, but on a past he thought he had left behind: the day before he ever awakened his powers. His body is young, his abilities gone, yet his mind remains a fortress of two decades’ worth of tactical knowledge and future forewarnings. Disoriented but far from defeated, Dae-in grasps the opportunity with a veteran’s cold calculation. He knows exactly which battles will come, which alliances will matter, and which fortunes can be seized ahead of their time. Now, armed with the ultimate insider’s advantage, he sets a singular, audacious goal: to amass enough wealth and security to retire permanently—and to do it in just three years. No more heroics, no more sacrificial last stands. This time, he plays only for himself. Yet in a world teeming with monsters and conspiracies yet to unfold, a man who knows the future may find that escaping the past is not as simple as cashing out early.