Chapter 34
Original world. Her original world
There were times when she thought she missed it. For the first year or so after getting summoned to this world, she stayed up crying and thinking about her original world every night.
She thought that if there was a way, she would definitely want to go back. She missed the convenience of technology and machines, the democracy she grew up with, and the freedom of choosing which religion to abide by. She wanted to see family and friends she could converse openly with.
However, if she had continued clinging to those memories and crying over her loss, she wouldn’t have been able to survive here. She had no choice but to let go of her longing in order to survive.
But even that had its limits. After about a year, even her desperate desire to live dried up.
Everything in this unfamiliar world suffocated her.
At that time, she met Crown Prince Aleph.
It seemed that the world had turned upside down. She came to understand a little bit of this world, which she thought was unfamiliar and harsh, and decided to live with her heart.
She was now under the impression that there’s a meaning behind her dimensional shift into this world. She was a great individual who everyone looked up to, and she held such power within her.
It’s really worthwhile. Everything will be okay. Wherever people live, it will all be the same.
Seo Jiwoo smiled and asked herself, did she want to go back?
Those sentiments had already been cut off five years ago, even before she met the crown prince. Even if she tried to think of it again now, it was dry and there was no way the feelings could come back again.
“…Why do you think I’d want to go back?”
“Statistically, the majority wanted to go back to the world they came from.”
“There can’t be that many Akarna.”
“Records show that there is a history of Akarna summonings for nearly two centuries.”
“Are there any records of those who actually went back?”
“We have confirmed that about five people have crossed the dimensional barrier.”
“What about the rest?”
“They died.”
“……”
Jiwoo’s expression darkened.
Five people in two centuries? Didn’t this mean that the odds of success were very low? And if she were to fail, would she die?
“The odds of success sounds very low.”
“That’s not true. I won’t let that happen.”
Jiwoo looked struggling, Tevon, who was next to her, suddenly intervened.
“But Seo Jiwoo said she doesn’t want to go back?”
In an austere manner, Hellkainis tilted his head to the side, like a machine starting calculations on a problem he was encountering for the first time. However, even after waiting for a long time, he gave no response. He was now like a broken machine.
Still, his eyes were fixed on Jiwoo. That inorganic gaze, his resembling obsidians, shone with a slightly insidious glint.
“…Back off.”
Tevon stood guard and protected Jiwoo’s way. Then, almost immediately, a word came out of Helka.
“I’m still fine, Tevon.”
“Act like it to make me believe you.”
Jiwoo poked her head out from behind Tevon.
“Hey, isn’t everything better?”
“Thanks to you, my lifespan has been extended by about a month. I was thinking of using the lifespan you extended to send you back.”
It seemed like a very risky thing.
If this happened five years ago, she would have thought that she would want to go back no matter what sacrifices others made. She would have thought it was a good reward until she impulsively threw herself off a cliff.
But now, she wasn’t so desperate.
“What if I say that I really don’t want to do that?”
“……”
Helka’s short-circuiting again.
“Ha, frustrating old fart.”
Tevon grumbled.
“It’s trustworthy if Helka gives it as a reward. Well, even if you don’t want to go back right away… The more options you can take, the better, right?”
He’s right.
Whether she wanted to stay here, live somewhere else to seek protection, or go back to her original world, she had plenty of options to choose from.
It was far better than being dragged around by the temple, regardless of her will.
She didn’t want to think that this was a possibility in the future. Jiwoo first talked about a topic that seemed important.
“…Anyway, what can I do to help you?”
Helka turned to the man he had brought in and thrown mercilessly to the ground earlier.
“Enci.”
Jiwoo also looked at him.
He got up from the ground and was greeting the villagers he hadn’t seen in a long time. Perhaps because she had only seen thick and muscular people here, he looked especially slim.
She didn’t mean he was unsightly because of his physique, but he stood out among the bigger people.
He was tall with his slim body, and his close-fitting coat was nice. On top of that, he was wearing white gloves, so he looked like he was averse to touching.
What’s unusual, though, was that he had light-colored hair like the other children of Elandos, yet it was the kind of hue that could not simply be described as ‘light’.
It was completely gray hair. It was different from the silver hair that she often saw here. It was so pale that it didn’t even shine.
“Enci, come and explain.”
Hearing him talk to someone else like this, Jiwoo realized that Hellkainis had been treating her extremely politely.
Helka did not treat others with care or spoke politely. This perhaps cemented the notion that Helka’s status was quite high here.
The gray-haired man called Enci also followed the natural hierarchy. However, he seemed dissatisfied that he was called here.
Standing closer, he glared fiercely at Jiwoo.
Tevon said he was the most handsome of the group. In fact, she couldn’t quite see it. She could admit that he was handsome, but a black eyepatch was covering half of his face right now.
Even so, when she saw the remaining visible half, she might agree. The corners of his eyes were raised, the expression of glancing in this direction, the impression was a very sensitive one.
He glanced up and down at Jiwoo, then said suddenly.
[ Why is an outsider here? ]
Wham!
Tevon, who was standing next to Jiwoo with his arms crossed, bounced something off his hand. It hit Enci’s forehead exactly. He seemed to have been hit by something like a small pebble.
Cough, cough! Cough!
Perhaps because he was not feeling well, Enci coughed to death just from the shock.
“Does she seem like an outsider?”
[ What are you doing? ]
“I guess you want another one.”
Tevon just stared at him indifferently.
Leaving the two as they were growling at each other, Hellkainis took Jiwoo’s hand and started leading her away.
“…I’ve prepared something for you. Follow me. Tevon, you stay.”
The gray-haired man named Enci glanced at Jiwoo again. Then, he wrapped the coat he was wearing a little tighter, and followed Helka, crouching in hesitation. Seeing how he looked at her, Jiwoo couldn’t hide the feeling that she had become something dirty.
In the first place, Enci was showing signs that she didn’t even want to come here. And the people tend to reject outsiders, so this wasn’t a completely unexpected reaction. He could have been unaware that Jiwoo had cured Hekainis.
“His name is Enciertes. Humans call him the Alchemist of the Outer Wall.”
The Alchemist of the Outer Wall.
They were people who literally lived outside the borders set by the empire, on the outer wall. Most of them were human, but she heard that there were also individuals hailing from other races, like Enci.
At the temple, they were extremely wary of the Akarna and the alchemist meeting.
The temple endlessly brainwashed Jiwoo by saying that she should not meet with them. They blasphemed themselves and were said to be a group suffering from miasma.
In fact, she heard that they insisted on living around the land ravaged by the beasts, even though they could live safely after being absorbed into the empire.
According to the crown prince’s words, they were the subject of reformation. He said it was his mission to save them, no matter how messed up they live in blasphemy. He will change this world into a better world to live in.
In any case, for various reasons, it was the first time Jiwoo saw an alchemist in person. She even had a certain degree of prejudice.
The people of this race who did not believe in divine power were also very different from prejudice. So she wondered who the more blasphemers were.
“Helka.”
“Yes, Seo Jiwoo.”
Helka was secretly holding her hand. She wiggled her fingers to get them out, but she got a tighter hold instead. He played with the backs of her hand and fingers as if to soothe her hands that were trying to escape.
She looked up at him, his expressionless face showing no emotion.
‘They said he wasn’t feeling well yet.’
All that fuss, yet his life was extended for only a month.
Perhaps holding hands with the Akarna like this would make the pain go away, or the miasma in his body would dissipate even a little bit.
When he was sober, he felt heavy and serious, so she became a little reliant on him. Instead of pulling her hand away from Helka, she asked a question he was curious about.
“I heard that alchemists are heretics. Why do people of the Empire call them that?”
“Because once an Akarna falls under the protection of an alchemist, they tend to be sent back to their original world.”
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