I returned to Croatoan Island after a long time, the Damas perched precariously on a barge. The reason I’d brought it was obvious: there wasn’t a decent way to haul things on Croatoan Island.

The Damas might seem pretty pathetic, but that’s only because we’re looking at it from a 21st-century perspective. The engine of this tiny car can generate a whopping 35 horsepower. …Okay, that still sounds incredibly pathetic, but as I said, that’s by 21st-century standards. Let’s consider what the standard for ‘horse’ power actually is. A horse. That’s right.

From the perspective of this era, where horses pull carts, doesn’t that mean the Damas has the immense power of a carriage pulled by thirty-five horses?

Clunk!

“…Nope.”

Anyway, after getting off the barge, I was driving along a well-paved (by 16th-century standards) road, and I felt like I was going to lose my mind with anxiety every time I hit a stone. Isn’t this thing going to tip over or something?

I wouldn’t mind if it were just me driving, but I was loaded up with all sorts of equipment for the maintenance of the Chesapeake settlement, so the anxiety was off the charts…

Clatter! Thud!

“Whoa, whoa… whoaaaaa…!” Wait, wait, wait, why is the wind blowing from the side right now? Nah, no way. It’s still a car. It’s not made of cardboard or corrugated paper; how could a car made of steel tip over in the wind…

CRASH!

…Apparently, it could.

I thought I was dead. No, to be precise, I had actually died once already. I could tell because I could feel the sensation of my broken ribs rattling around inside my gut. Normally, this would have been 100 percent fatal. The reason I can assert that is obvious. Medicine in this era is so undeveloped that sayings like, ‘You have too much blood in your body. Let’s bleed you,’ and ‘Blood… circulates around the heart? Eeek! I’ve never even heard of such a thing!’ are commonplace. If your ribs break and puncture an internal organ, you die without anyone having a chance to do anything. You just die, painfully.

But I lived. I am living. I could feel the bones knitting together inside my body and the wounds on my organs healing. Right. Still, how many times has this Immortal cheat saved me from near-death situations? I should be grateful for just that.

‘…Though if I hadn’t been dropped in the 16th century, I wouldn’t have been in danger of dying in the first place.’

Getting my heart stabbed by the Spanish army that came out of nowhere, having my entire body turned into a showcase by some assassins, or dying helplessly like this when the Damas flips over on a remote, unpaved road… Ah, that last one is perfectly achievable in the 21st century, too.

A cold sweat trickled down my back. As I crawled out of the car through the shattered window, dressed in blood-soaked clothes, it finally hit me. If I had kept driving this piece of junk, I would have ended up dead sooner or later even in the 21st century. Could it be that Hwangsook Soft actually extended my life? I shall… bow three times a day in the direction of Montreuil, France, where Hwangsook Soft’s headquarters is located.³

No, it’s not like I originally drove a piece of trash like this. In the city, maybe (though it’s dangerous even there), but in the countryside, with its many unpaved, narrow, rough, and winding roads, driving a Damas was a good way to get a one-way ticket to a naked swim in the River Jordan.

You think I would have driven this car by choice? This coffin that weighs just under a ton? A car that lists and then tips over if the wind blows a little too hard? You say anyone who drives a Damas, with or without a reason, is a crazy person? Why must you rub salt in a fresh wound? I, too, had a car that was better than this piece of shit.

A 2017 Hyundai Porter.¹ A sturdy double-cab, long-bed, 4-wheel-drive model. With that, I used to haul grapes to the wholesale market, and strike a pose in the driver’s seat for an article in the local paper with a headline like, ‘Shine Muscats? They’re not dead yet! A young farmer’s cry.’ That’s how it was.

That’s how it was, until a flood washed it away into the woods right behind the farm. From that point on, my income level had already started to plummet, so I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it. Honestly, it would have cost more to find it, pull it out, and scrap it, so I just left it there. Those bastards. The ones who sold watery Shine Muscats and tanked the brand value should all go to grape farmer hell.

Anyway, after that, the car I bought used was a 500,000-won 1992 Damas. A Damas that I had barely managed to drive, which had been on its last legs before heading to the junkyard.

“Gasp… wheeze… gasp…”

A Damas that would once again be found in perfect condition in the warehouse after midnight. This Damas, which was ‘for the time being’ a temporary personal car, had now become my life’s car (by force).

I went to the back of the overturned Damas and loaded the various bundles that had been in the trunk onto my back. Ugh, so heavy. I had been cursing the Damas just a moment ago, but now that even that was gone, I was about to lose it. The paint cans and other things I had loaded from the coast were already overturned and a mess. I’d just have to consider them lost and say bye-bye. See you after midnight.

…

…

…

Ah, this is so pathetic. I want to go back to the 21st century. I don’t mind going into debt; I just want my car back.

My Porter, if I just had my Porter, I could move these bundles with ease. They say in foreign countries, the Porter is even used as a weapon in civil wars; what can you use a Damas for? Scrap metal? A coffin?

Anyway, after leaving the crumpled-like-paper Damas behind, I walked with shuffling steps, my legs trembling and my body shivering. To think I’m in this state even after my physical strength has increased enormously since coming to the 16th century.

After walking for about an hour and a half, “Uwaaaaah! I-I’m saved!” I finally changed out of my blood-soaked clothes and lay down on my bed. The people who remained in this settlement rushed over when they saw me covered in blood, but since they all knew I don’t die, I roughly shooed them all away. I just wanted to rest.

I clenched my trembling hands and let out a sigh. Why, why did ‘Immortal Order: Origin’ have to be released when I was driving a Damas? Could it be that I got the immortal cheat because of the Damas? Could there have been an agreement among the executives at Hwangsook Soft, like, ‘His personal car is a Damas; let’s give that bastard a cheat so he doesn’t die’?

Anyway. Wow, I’ve seen people get into a car accident and go to another world, get reincarnated, or get transmigrated, but getting into a car accident after being transmigrated was pretty novel.

Now… I just want to quit everything. I want… to quit.

….

And so I drifted off to sleep.

And in my dream, I saw a scene from the past. It was definitely the day of the flood. This house, the faux-Green Gables that my Anne of Green Gables-fanatic mother had built, was thankfully not flooded because its foundation was built high to suit the Korean conditions. The problem was the fields.

—“Th-Th… you motherfucker! The grapes are all fucked! The grapes are all going to taste like water!” I was cursing the goddamn Korean climate and Great-Grandfather Dan-gun’s masochistic choice of a starting location for raining so hard right before the harvest season.

It was then that I saw it through the second-floor window (a casement window). The Porter I had parked outside… was… RUUUUMBLE! …drifting away…

You could tell from the fact that my parents’ return to farming was very late, and that they were city people through and through, that we originally had no ties to the countryside. And because we tried to return to farming in a place we had no ties to, we went through all sorts of hardships, and this land was part of that hardship. There was a reason our farm was stuck in a very remote part of the village. It’s a fact you can tell just by looking at the fact that a corner of a mountain is included in this 4,000-pyeong lot.

The car was stuck there… Huh?

“Whoa, whoa?”

Just as I was about to burst into tears as the Porter got stuck in the chocolate-milk-colored muddy water, I woke up. And my mind immediately started working. Wait. The things in my house, no matter how broken they are, are perfectly restored after midnight. Here, what is the exact meaning of ‘perfectly restored after midnight’? What is ‘restoration’? Does it simply mean returning to the original state? Then what is the standard for that ‘original state’?

For example, my cultivator, which used to rattle a lot due to my poor maintenance, when it broke and came back, did it return to that same rattling state? No. It comes back in a sparkling state, as if it were brand new and just unwrapped from its packaging. There’s a reason I’ve started using things more roughly these past few years. It’s better for it to be completely broken and perfectly repaired than to be vaguely scratched and vaguely strange.

If that’s the case… ‘What about the Porter, which was originally flooded and broken?’ The Porter… then… what would have happened to it?

When I went outside in my pajamas, it was still early dawn. Of course it was dawn; I had been dreaming and then my eyes shot open at the thought of the Porter. Even though North Carolina is a bit warmer than Korea, it was still chilly to be out in pajamas in the autumn dawn. But I didn’t care about such things. I wouldn’t catch a cold anyway, so I quickly put on my sneakers and went outside.

And from the warehouse, I grabbed a shovel, gave the damn Damas that had just returned a good kick, and ran toward the hillside. Then, in my dream, and in my memory of the past, I saw you in despair. I saw you get flooded and disappear, buried in the earth and sand. But… I can save you now, Porter!

I ran like a madman, wiping away the tears that were blurring my vision. After running and running, I could see the hillside where water parsley and mugwort were growing. I immediately grabbed the shovel and charged toward the place I had seen in my dream.

And! I dug like a madman! The excavator? It’s over in Chesapeake right now, so I can’t do anything about it. The only things I can trust are my two arms and two legs, which will never break.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Waking up at dawn to shovel dirt; I wondered what I was doing, but thinking of the ‘something’ that would come after, I gripped my two arms, which were trembling from the cold. It’ll be out soon. It’s coming…! The ‘thing’ I had dreamed of!

And finally. Clang!

When the shovel and ‘something’ in the dirt collided with a strange, clear metallic sound, I couldn’t believe my ears. I looked around and saw that I was stuck in a dirt hole as deep as my waist, and likewise, piles of dirt as high as my waist were piled up here and there. And this wasn’t the only hole I had dug.

“Wh-What? Who suddenly dug up the ground… Sir Nemo?”

“What are you doing over there!”

The villagers were calling me, but my heart was so full that I couldn’t even answer and just grit my teeth. As if my legs had given out, I knelt, threw down the shovel, and started digging frantically with my hands. And then… I saw it.

A color as clear and deep as the sea: Onyx Blue.

Beautiful curves and straight lines.

And, visible through the car window… the clean driver’s seat.

Ah. Aah.

“A-Are you alright?”

“…”

“You are alright, aren’t you?”

“…Everyone, please bring shovels over here.”

What would you do if an angel suddenly appeared in dirt-covered pajamas and told you to bring shovels in the morning? You might think he’s crazy, but my good-hearted settlers followed my words. They each brought a shovel and dug beside me.

And. The outline was revealed. “Ah… ah-heuk…”

Premium trim.

6-speed manual transmission.

Driver and passenger airbags.

External toolbox and spare tire under the truck bed.

And even a PTO (Power Take-Off) unit.

Finally.

133 horsepower. About 3.8 times that of the Damas.

The very thing that they say can support an entire village in a third-world backwater with just one of these.

I quickly sent the villagers away before they thought it was strange. I gave them all butter-grilled potatoes that I had been saving for my own snack, saying I was sorry for making them work so early in the morning.

And. I returned to the front of the Porter.

“Ugh, ugh… uuuugh…” Tears were streaming down my face.

When I had just realized I was stuck in the 16th century and was in a panic. When I rammed the fence with the excavator and my heart was pierced by a knife, causing it to stop for a moment. When I was riddled with dozens of holes by some assassins. When my shoulder was sawed off by that bastard Oitohtan. I didn’t cry.

I shed those precious tears here.

“Lord Hwangsook… overwhelming thanks…!”

That’s how much I loved this one-ton truck.