The Story Begins for Real

A shrill gust swept over him like the lash of a sharpened whip, and Seonwoo’s mind snapped awake.

Only a beat later did he realize it was the brutal, biting cold of winter.

He had known such a thing existed, of course. But he had never felt it in all his life.

He had lived a life where even opening his bedroom door had been difficult, let alone stepping outside. Because of that, Seonwoo had spent his days shut up indoors, never once experiencing real cold.

Ironically, the people who had given birth to him but had never truly been his parents had at least kept the heating running around the clock.

In any case, that was why the unfamiliar chill shocked him fully awake—yet for that instant, he still couldn’t understand what was happening.

"Seonwoo!"

Then another kind of cold touched him.

With a rush, someone threw their arms around him.

The cold soaked into that person’s clothes pressed against him.

It should have startled him. But Seonwoo wasn’t startled.

Because louder than anything else, he heard a voice—a voice that was unquestionably the first time he had heard it, and yet somehow not the first at all. A voice he knew.

The arms that had wrapped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him with all their strength finally loosened after a long while.

Then, gripping him tight, two wrinkled hands clutched his shoulders, and only then did he finally see her face.

"Seonwoo, do you recognize me?"

Silver hair, faded by time yet softly luminous.

Her lined face held no dryness, only elegance. Time had settled over it layer upon layer, as though the passing years had completed it at last.

Just like her voice, it was a face he was seeing for the first time.

But just as with that voice, Seonwoo knew this face.

He knew it far too well.

"Yes, Grandma."

Of course I recognize you.

How could I not know my grandmother?

My grandmother.

There was no way he could fail to recognize his family.

"Oooooppaaaaa!!"

His little sister came barreling in with all her strength and clung to his leg.

He had only ever seen her in illustrations, and even her clear, vivid voice—heard not through a speaker but in reality—was something he was hearing for the first time.

But just as with his grandmother, there was no world in which Seonwoo could fail to recognize his family.

And the moment he did, a warmth he had never known before filled his entire body.

The wind howled.

That winter had been especially cold.

And in that winter, Seonwoo learned for the first time what the biting chill of cold truly felt like.

"Welcome home, my grandson."

And for the first time, he also learned the warmth of family.

A two-story house, old but lovingly maintained by its owner, so that age had become not decay but dignity.

Seonwoo sat in a chair rather ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than on the bed and came to a conclusion.

I think I’ve possessed the protagonist of Goddess Saga.

For now, there was one decisive reason.

What he had experienced today—what had happened the moment he awakened from death into that piercing cold—had unmistakably been the opening scene of Goddess Saga.

The protagonist of Goddess Saga vanished without warning at the age of seven.

Then, four years later, just as suddenly as he had disappeared, he reappeared.

He was found on the street by members of the Latea Order—better known on Earth as the Goddess Church—and returned to his family’s arms.

No one knew why he had vanished.

No one knew what had happened during those missing years.

The game never explained it at all.

It simply stated that he had disappeared and then come back, and that the protagonist remembered nothing of what had happened in between.

What mattered was this:

Goddess Saga began with the scene of the returned protagonist having an emotional reunion with his grandmother and little sister.

And Seonwoo had experienced that moment not through a tablet screen, but through his own senses.

He remembered it clearly—the moment his entire body had been shutting down.

But instead of dismissing it as a dying hallucination, Seonwoo had wished for it with all his heart, without a moment’s hesitation.

And it came true.

His wish had been granted.

It wasn’t a dream.

The vivid sensation in every inch of his body proved that this was real.

And...

He rose to his feet.

I can stand.

On his own strength.

On his own two legs.

In his previous life, it had been something he could only do as a child, and even then only by wringing every bit of strength out of himself.

But now standing on his own two feet felt this free.

Even his breathing, which he had been forced to be conscious of every second of his life, came easily now.

If meeting his family had been a joy beyond words, this was a quieter emotion—soft, lingering wonder.

He took a step.

And another.

He could do more than stand. He could walk under his own power.

His breathing didn’t even grow ragged.

When he walked freely to the mirror and looked at the face reflected there, it was the same face he had worn in his previous life.

And yet, unquestionably...

Unquestionably, this was not Earth’s Kim Seonwoo.

This was Kim Seonwoo, the protagonist of Goddess Saga.

That was enough.

He had no reason to doubt anything else.

I’ve finally been given the life I wanted so desperately.

Seonwoo’s chest swelled, and for the first time in his life, he pictured the future.

It was a modern fantasy, wasn’t it?

Despite its title, Goddess Saga was a game set in the modern world.

Not everything was the same, of course.

There were plenty of differences.

But even so, it was a story set in a modern age.

One day, dimensional fissures appeared, linking Earth to other dimensions.

And from those other worlds flowed things called Mana and monsters, changing the world forever.

A completely new power: Mana.

With the addition of that mysterious support mechanism called the System, humanity gained access to all kinds of powers.

Using those powers to clear Dungeons—other-dimensional spaces where monsters dwelled—and claim the spoils they yielded, humanity advanced beyond mere scientific civilization.

It gave birth to another civilization entirely:

Mana civilization.

And there was more.

Other dimensions held more than monsters and dungeons. There were worlds inhabited by other races as well—Elves, Dwarves, and more—and as humanity began interacting with them, the development of mana civilization accelerated.

Seonwoo had never lived in that world himself.

But he knew this world—no, his world now—very well.

And with that knowledge, a faint confidence rose in him.

Unlike his previous life, he now had a body that could stand and walk on its own.

He had never been especially good at the game, but he had certainly logged enough playtime to be called a hardened veteran.

So he would take everything he had accumulated over all that time and walk once more toward the happy ending he had reached countless times before.

That was what Seonwoo ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decided.

Seoul Hunter Academy.

First, there was Seoul Hunter Academy, three years from now.

The Kim Seonwoo of the story—the one who had vanished and then returned to his family—was eleven years old at this point.

After that, the game would simply skip ahead with the words three years later, and the protagonist would enter Seoul Hunter Academy.

There, he would learn everything needed to become a Hunter.

Grandma had spent a great deal of money trying to find him, but that was fine.

He could get a scholarship.

The countless experiences he had accumulated would let him choose the best path while earning that scholarship.

All he had to do was repeat what he had done over and over in the game.

Graduate by obtaining the A-grade Hunter License, a feat only possible with optimal play.

And along the way, he would meet his companions again—the friends who had been every bit as precious to him as family.

The happy ending had always been on the other side of a tablet screen, no matter how many times he reached it.

But now—

Thump.

Just imagining that he would finally be there with them made Seonwoo’s heart race.

Creak.

Seonwoo sat blankly in the chair.

Creak.

The old chair kept squealing under him. It probably needed fixing.

But he didn’t have the strength for that.

Six years had passed.

Not three. Six.

No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, that was the truth.

And now, six years later—

"...Haha."

He hadn’t even become a Hunter.

According to his plan, he should have earned the top grade possible in the game’s early Academy Part: A-rank.

He should have had an A-grade Hunter License in hand and been ready to properly lead the story forward.

Instead, he hadn’t even become a Hunter at all.

Was it because he lacked talent?

No.

He had never even gotten the chance to be judged on that.

Mana.

He couldn’t sense it.

The most basic prerequisite for wielding the special power of this world—the very foundation required to handle Mana—was something Seonwoo simply could not perceive.

Decades had passed since the first dimensional fissure—commonly called a Gate—had been discovered.

Back when it first appeared, it had all been strange and incomprehensible. But over the years, research had advanced, and theory had taken shape.

Even those who had not Awakened could study how to sense and handle Mana; there were now theoretical books sold openly on the market.

But Seonwoo couldn’t even manage the first step, something ordinary civilians could do.

No matter what method he tried.

He had come to suspect the reason was simple.

He wasn’t truly a person of this world.

He was from the other Earth—not the Earth of Goddess Saga.

He was from a world where a force called Mana had never existed at all.

He might have become the protagonist of Goddess Saga, but the one inside that body was still Kim Seonwoo from Earth.

A human lung could never breathe through a fish’s gills.

Which meant that not only could he never become an A-grade Hunter—he couldn’t even enter Hunter Academy in the first place.

This can’t happen.

It can’t be like this.

If this kept up, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Seonwoo couldn’t find even the faintest clue what he was supposed to do.

But the world wasn’t willing to wait for him.

Ding-dong.

And just like that, the real story began.

Ding-dong.

"Who is it?"

At the sound of the doorbell, Grandma checked the visitor.

Through the intercom screen, two men in suits came into view.

The moment she saw them, Grandma’s expression darkened.

It was because they looked dangerous.

They were dressed in suits, but there was something openly threatening about them. They didn’t look like ordinary office workers in the slightest.

"I don’t think I have any business to discuss with people like you. Please leave."

"Please leave."

"..."

A crack finally appeared in Grandma’s iron refusal.

Your grandchildren.

That phrase made her open the door.

"Haha. Thank you."

The two men stepped inside smiling, but there was nothing warm about those smiles.

Brutal faces, marked all over by the lives they had lived. Huge builds. Casual, instinctive violence in the way they moved.

Everything about them made it obvious what kind of people they were.

They dropped into the chairs across from Grandma without hesitation.

She hadn’t even served them tea, yet they showed no sign of caring and got straight to the point.

"We’re from here."

He slapped a business card down on the table.

The card had been made to look respectable, as if they were proud to represent a proper company.

But Seonwoo knew better.

Beomho Development was anything but a legitimate business.

In this age, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after the Gates had opened and changed so much, raw power often carried more weight than the law in a great many places.

Beomho Development was simply the signboard hung out front by an organization that wielded that power through violence.

"There’s nothing here to develop. This land was fully cleared ages ago, and even the Mana Stones were mined out to the last shard."

"So why exactly would people like you come looking for this place?"

"Haha. Normally, you’d be right. In fact, that’s why the land value here is rock bottom."

"But..."

"If a company can still find business potential in a place like this, doesn’t that just prove it’s a company?"

Though he was hearing the conversation for the first time, Seonwoo could predict every word of it without missing a syllable.

He had no choice.

This might be the first time he was experiencing it in person, but through the tablet screen he had seen it more times than he could count.

This was the beginning of the story where a violent organization unjustly stole away the home and land they had been living on.

What do I do?