After being born in Korea, I honestly hadn’t thought much about my past. I’d died at the hero’s hands in the end, what was there to look back on fondly?
Still, there were moments when I found myself wondering.
After defeating the enemy called the “Destroyer of Worlds,” did that world get a happy ending? No… if it had, something like the Enemy of Humanity wouldn’t have appeared.
The very fact that someone was trying to connect this dimension to Earth said enough. And the fact that they had become a complete enemy on Earth made it clear that something had gone wrong in that world after my death. That was probably why it now looked so utterly ruined.
What a shame.
Reality isn’t a fairy tale.
In stories, the hero defeats the Demon Lord and lives happily ever after. In reality, however, countless tedious problems remain. Those problems don’t magically disappear just because the Demon Lord is slain; much like Hunters on Earth who return to reality after killing monsters, only to find their lives unchanged. No matter how many monsters you kill, gambling debts don’t vanish, and broken relationships don’t fix themselves. Honestly, if defeating the Demon Lord solved everything, then how would the Demon Lord be any different from a god?
…Wait. Am I being punished for having such blasphemous thoughts?
Yu Hanul, holding the torch I had created, spoke politely. "Watch your step."
Once inside the castle, all that stretched before us was an endless corridor. The castle had looked fairly large from the outside, but a single straight hallway extending for hours on end was absurd.
“Do you know where we’re headed? It feels like a maze.”
“I told you. The space itself is under the enemy’s control. If they don’t want us to leave, we could wander this maze forever.”
Just as the village chief had said, it wasn’t a coincidence that no outsider who entered this castle ever returned alive.
“Then what should we do?”
I badly wanted to give him the simple answer—
just swing your sword
—but I held back. There was no telling when Yu Hanul might regain his sanity. And if he did, he might start wondering why Jeong Daon, who had only recently awakened, was already so proficient with magic. That would be a headache.
Though… it does feel like he’s already suspicious.
Still, since he’d decided not to pursue those doubts, it was best not to provoke any further questions.
I’ve stalled long enough.
It was time to move. Feigning sudden realization, I spoke. “Ah, now that I think about it, Han Jaeyeong said that in situations like this, you should disrupt the enemy’s magical framework. Shake it enough that they can’t maintain new pathways.”
“Then I will do it.”
Of course
you
will. Who else? Thinking that to myself, I nodded with an expression of full confidence. “I’m still a beginner; I only just awakened. I really need your help. Just…try to control your strength. If you damage the structure too much instead of merely destabilizing it, the backlash will be severe.”
The goal was only to disturb the magical framework enough to reveal a path toward the enemy. If the space itself were destroyed, the enemy might notice immediately and flee, or worse, the mana could detonate and cause the entire area to collapse.
“Understood. Please step back, Your Highness.”
…I hated to admit it, but he really was easy to work with when he followed orders so smoothly.
Couldn’t he just stay this cooperative and never regain his sanity?
Yu Hanul wouldn’t appreciate it, but his delirium worked in my favor. Even I had to admit it was a rather devilish thought, especially after all this time.
The system criticizes the thoughts of User “Jeong Daon”.
Come on. It’s just convenient.
Yu Hanul drew his sword and took a deep breath. I felt a powerful surge of magical energy well up from his core. Just as Han Jaeyeong’s magic naturally carried the unmistakable traits of a fairy, even without conscious intent, Yu Hanul’s magic reflected him just as clearly. That made sense. After all, the soul itself was the source of magic. And Yu Hanul’s straight, unwavering soul was the kind that would stand out no matter where he went…
“Hyaaaah!”
The mana carried by Yu Hanul’s sword was powerful enough to illuminate the corridor with light, no matter how deeply it was ruled by darkness.
Crash, boom!
The blade’s aura surged through the pitch-black hallway where visibility had been nonexistent just moments before. At the same time, the magical framework of the mage controlling this space was violently shaken. And in that instant, the end of the endlessly stretching black corridor finally came into view.
"Over there!"
"Yes!"
Yu Hanul swept me up into his arms and sprinted straight toward the corridor’s end.
Ah. This is comfortable.
Crash!
Yu Hanul kicked down the door at the far end of the hall.
What lay beyond was completely different from the corridor they had been traveling through. We had arrived in a vast hall. At its center stood a massive dining table and rows of chairs, as if prepared for a grand banquet. But thick dust coated every surface, suggesting that no one had used it in a long time.
That wasn’t all.
Instead of people, countless candles packed the floor so densely there was barely space to step. Their flames flickered weakly, as if they might go out at any moment. The instant Yu Hanul entered the hall, however, the flames suddenly flared brightly, as if welcoming someone they had been waiting for.
Yu Hanul carefully set me down and looked around. “It seems we’ve escaped the maze, but this place is…”
“O—oooooh!” a shrill, inhuman cry echoed through the hall.
“Who’s there?!” Yu Hanul raised his sword in alarm.
“Ooooh, ooooooh!”
Ignoring his warning entirely, a figure emerged from the shadows cast by the candles. At first glance, it looked like an insect. But it wasn’t. It was a person crawling toward us on all fours, too weak to stand.
Thanks to the candlelight, we were soon able to see her clearly.
“Ah… at last, at last you’ve come!”
Seeing her did nothing to lessen the sense of unease. Her skin was dried and brittle like an old woman’s, yet her facial features looked strangely young, as if frozen in early adulthood. Each time she crawled toward the hero, clumps of her long, unkempt hair dragged across the floor. Her shrill, piercing voice stabbed at the ears.
“At last, at last the hero has come to save us!” With obsessive determination, the crawling woman finally reached Yu Hanul and clutched his ankle. “Ah… the magic I poured my entire life into has finally succeeded.” Her bony fingers wrapped around his ankle like shackles. “I waited. I waited for the day the hero would come to save us!”
Yu Hanul tried to pull her up in shock, but despite her emaciated appearance, she possessed disturbingly great strength. The skin around Yu Hanul’s ankle was already turning blue.
“A hero? I’m not a hero—”
“No. You are the hero’s soul. That is what my spell was designed to summon!” Ecstasy and hope danced across the woman’s twisted face.
“You cast a spell?”
“Yes, yes! A spell to summon the hero, the one who will finally save this world!”
The words were deeply unsettling, but in Yu Hanul’s eyes, still holding the torch, a system message was likely appearing before he could fully process her speech. The same was true for me.
Monster: Lifeless Idol (Rank S)
An S-rank lifeless idol.
There was no doubt about it; this woman was the true core the barrier had been protecting, the one who had used the souls outside. Unlike the lifeless idol we had seen on Yeongjong, her body was intact. Which meant only one thing: she was a mage powerful enough to withstand this immense mana herself.
Looks like even Han Jaeyeong won’t have an easy way to deal with this one.
The reason Han Jaeyeong’s purification had worked last time was because the lifeless idol had been an impure construct, an artificial body stitched together unnaturally. This woman, however, was enduring all of it within her own intact body. Fairy power wouldn’t work on her.
After seeing the system message, Yu Hanul addressed the woman in a calm, measured voice. “I don’t quite understand. Could you explain? Are you the master of this castle?”
“Yes, yes. Of course! I am a descendant of the noble bloodline that has guarded this castle for generations—the House of Count Burke. And you are the hero chosen to protect this world!” Her heated voice grew louder and louder, as if she had been waiting centuries for the chance to speak. “I summoned you. And so you must grant my wish!”
“…Summoned? Are you saying you cast a spell on me?”
“Yes. A person’s soul does not change its essence no matter how many times it changes the body it wears. A soul bound to the land where it was born and raised can be drawn back with only the slightest pull. And so, you came here to save me.”
"..."
Yu Hanul glanced at me hesitantly. He clearly didn’t understand what she was talking about, and that was hardly surprising. Without magical knowledge, her explanation was difficult to grasp, and with his past-life memories and current identity overlapping, it must have been even more confusing.
Just go along with it.
Catching my signal, Yu Hanul continued the conversation, “…If you say we came to save you, does that mean someone imprisoned you here?”
The mage shook her head vigorously. “No, of course not! This is the castle my family has protected for generations, a fortress designed so that I could wait for the right time.”
“But the people outside this castle—”
“Ah, you saw them? How tragic… If only I had been more capable…”
As she spoke, the mage covered her face with both hands. She truly looked sorrowful.
“This world has run out of mana, Hero.” As she said this, a circular afterimage, like a floating mirror, appeared above her palm. “Just like humans, a world is born and grows old. Eventually, it reaches the end of its vitality and dies.”
Inside the mirror, scenes from this world unfolded. The despairing faces of mages who had lost their magic flickered past. Wounded people died because there was no strength left to heal them, fighting over the last scraps of food. No matter how hard anyone tried, no new life was being born anymore.
“And yet, we still had to live in such a world. So we searched for hope. If its vitality was exhausted, then all we had to do was restore it.”
By candlelight, the mage’s face gleamed with a desperate hunger for survival.
“And so I had no choice but to cast this spell, making sacrifices along the way. You cannot imagine how many lives were given for this grand magic. I offered up everything I had. But I do not regret it, because I believed that one day, this world would be reborn!” Her fervent voice echoed through the empty hall. “So, Hero, please, pay the price for my sacrifices. Please give us our lives back!”
Yu Hanul stared down at the mage, his expression full of confusion. “I…”
“In other words,” I cut in before that fervor could consume him, “you’re saying you intend to survive by devouring another world.”
Both of them turned to look at me.
“That’s absolutely disgusting.”