Peaceful Iseworld Life (1)
When I first opened my eyes, one thought rose above all the others.
Ah… did I die…?
It was a fair assumption. Only moments earlier I had been standing in front of the gate that led to the final floor of the Tower. The last thing I remembered was the raid leader and the old man screaming my name like lunatics as my vision flooded red.
Anyone who got that far usually figured they were dead. That was the normal conclusion.
And yet.
"…For heaven, there sure are a lot of trees."
An endless stretch of blue-green forest rolled out before me. Birds chirped peacefully. A breeze brushed gently against my cheeks. Clear creek water babbled along, transparent as glass.
…
This was way too peaceful.
Back in the Tower, scenery like this almost always meant at least one A-rank monster was lurking somewhere nearby. I waited. Not even a single wolf wandered past.
"Don't tell me this is some final-floor gimmick?"
That was my first theory. A hallucination, a psychic boss skill, mass hypnosis—Tower mechanics could pull any of those off without breaking a sweat. So I didn't particularly panic.
The raid leader will show up soon enough.
The old man'll come barreling out of somewhere, cursing the whole way.
Then we kill one boss and we're done.
…Or so I thought.
An hour passed.
Then two.
Half a day later, still no one had come.
Instead, I got hungry. Extremely hungry.
I'd starved plenty of times inside the Tower, but for some reason this time my stomach was staging a full-scale revolt before a full day had even gone by.
"What the hell."
Clutching my belly, I muttered my way down to the creek. I figured I could at least drink some water.
Then.
"…?"
The moment I saw the face reflected in the water—
Wait.
This.
This isn't me.
Who the hell are you?
No matter how I looked at it, the kid staring back at me wasn't twenty-three-year-old Lee Rowoon. It was a little brat who looked about nine years old, mimicking my every move on the surface of the water.
"…Huh?"
I lifted my left hand. The kid lifted his left hand.
I waved my right hand. The kid waved too.
I pinched my cheek. It hurt.
"……"
I pinched it again. Still hurt.
"…Whoa."
It was real.
My body had gotten ridiculously young. My height had plummeted. My arms and legs had shrunk to absurdly stubby lengths. And right along with them, every scrap of the crushing physical power I'd once possessed had vanished.
"This is exactly what I looked like when I was nine…?"
No way.
This is actually possible?
I stood there blankly for a moment, then finally tilted my head back toward the sky.
"…Admin."
"I'd like to file a ticket."
Of course, no one answered.
For the next few days I wandered the forest looking for people. I searched pretty hard. Really hard.
The problem was—
"…Haven't I been here before?"
I was lost.
I mean, I hadn't originally been directionally challenged. Did getting younger mess with your sense of direction too?
Either way, by the time I snapped out of it I was looking at the same creek for the third time.
"…"
"…Fine."
"From now on I'm just going to focus on finding a person."
Less than half a day after making that resolution, I collapsed from starvation. When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at the ceiling of a strange house.
…And that whole mess already happened six months ago.
In the meantime I tried denying reality, pinching my cheeks in case it was a dream, and even seriously considered slamming my head into a tree on the off chance I'd wake up back in my original world. I really did try every ridiculous thing imaginable.
After careful deliberation, I reached a conclusion.
I was fucked.
Just kidding. This was clearly an isekai transmigration.
Under normal circumstances I should have finished the Tower, become humanity's hero, and been lying on my own bed at home, lazily scribbling web novels.
But it was far too late for that kind of complaining. A full six months. Half a year! They say even mountains and rivers change in half a year, right? Wait, is that right? Whatever.
I had perfectly understood the situation. Yeah. This wasn't the Tower, and this hyung was no longer a munchkin…
And furthermore—
—squish squish
Oh, Softie hyung~ Soft as a slime!
That? That was the current state of my mind.
Maybe it was because I'd finally accepted this place wasn't the Tower, just a plain old transmigration. The razor-sharp edge was gone; I was completely soft and squishy now!
Well, this was a peaceful world far removed from combat. Figuring that made it okay seemed reasonable enough, right?
I looked up at the sky. The sun hanging at its zenith warmed my skin to a pleasant temperature, and a cool breeze slipped through my clothes and chilled my body just right.
The sound of village kids running and playing. The rhythmic clang of a hammer on an anvil from the blacksmith. All of it had already become part of my everyday life.
In short: perfect adaptation.
"Rowoon."
A deep voice made me turn my head. It was the hunter of the village I lived in. He strode over with a bow slung across his shoulder and the moment he saw me, he sighed.
"I told you not to go into the forest alone."
"I wasn't alone."
"Who were you with?"
"…A wild boar."
"…Is it your friend?"
"No."
"Then?"
"…It was chasing me."
"…"
The hunter uncle wordlessly looked up at the sky. That expression. I knew it well. Our team's old man used to make exactly the same face every time I started spouting nonsense.
"Anyway."
He looked at me again.
"Don't go next time."
"I won't."
"Really?"
"…As long as I don't get caught."
"You little—"
Only after taking a solid knuckle to the head did the conversation end. It didn't hurt. I just felt a little wronged. No—very wronged.
"Who does that kid take after, talking so much?"
"Thank you for the compliment."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Then is it genetics?"
"You don't even know your parents."
"…Ah."
I lost. You absolutely must never get into a verbal sparring match with the village aunties. Recent record: 0 wins, 27 losses. I'd taken down dragons in the Tower, but I still couldn't beat the aunties.
"Rowoon, have you eaten?"
Again? Every three steps some neighbor was striking up a conversation. I felt like I'd become a Pokémon NPC.
Still, I couldn't ignore them. When I turned my head, the grandmother from next door was standing there holding a huge basket.
"…I already ate a little while ago."
"Eat this anyway."
"I've already freeloaded three meals today. This would be the fourth."
"…Whose house have you been eating at?"
"I don't really know myself."
No, seriously—this was the fourth. Breakfast at our place. Lunch at the house in front. Snacks across the street. And now potatoes from Grandma. At this rate I was seeing other people's dinner tables more often than my own.
The next-door grandmother looked thoroughly exasperated, yet she still pressed a boiled potato into my hand.
"…Eat this too."
"…Thank you."
No.
Thank you, but…
Isn't this basically food torture at this point?
I was literally on my way home for dinner right now! Today was supposed to be pork stew!
But wait—what was all this talk about "village" and "home" supposed to mean? How was a Tower veteran like me just accepting free food left and right? And how was there even a commoner household willing to take in and raise some random kid of unknown origin?
That was…
"Rowoon!!"
Right then, a familiar voice filled the alley.
I looked up to see a fourteen-year-old girl marching toward me with both hands planted firmly on her hips, huffing with every step. Cherry-blossom pink hair. A smile like sunlight. And the single scariest person in the village the moment she started lecturing.
Isabelle.
…Does she look familiar?
Yeah. She was the heroine of the last romance fantasy novel I'd been reading right before I left the Tower for this world. Look at her. She was a carbon copy of the cover art.
Anyway, when I'd first arrived in this village I'd doubted everything twice over. Whether inside the Tower or out, no one ever offered baseless kindness to a kid with no connections. Busy commoners barely scraping by had even less reason to take in a freeloading mouth to feed.
But if this world was that romance fantasy novel? My wariness dropped straight from "danger" rank to "safe." The original tags hadn't included a single spicy flavor like tragedy, dark, or regret. Whether the author had written it with their brain switched off or not, everyone lived like they were inside a fairy tale—abundant and peaceful.
Especially whenever the heroine reminisced about her village past, you couldn't even tell if she was a noble or a commoner. In short, from here on out my future was officially a honey-sweet happy life.
So yeah. The plot holes checked out. Moving on.
"What are you thinking about so hard?"
Right. Isabelle was standing right in front of me.
"…I heard you caused another incident."
"No."
"Liar."
"The incident caused me."
"…What is that even supposed to mean."
"I was walking along peacefully and the boar charged me first, okay?"
"And?"
"So I dodged it."
"Why were you doing that in the forest?"
"…"
I had nothing to say.
More precisely, I had things to say, but saying them would just get me scolded again.
"Do you really think it makes sense for a nine-year-old to go into the forest alone?"
"Only my body is nine."
"Huh?"
"…I didn't say anything."
Isabelle let out a long sigh, crouched down in front of me, and flicked my forehead.
"What are you going to do if you get badly hurt?"
"…"
The truth was I was a Tower veteran, the ultimate munchkin who'd even taken down dragons and demons. For all I knew, I might still be the strongest even if every kid in this world ganged up on me!
If I said that out loud, though, I'd just get treated like a crazy little brat.
"…Sorry."
When I mumbled it quietly, Isabelle's expression immediately softened and she grinned.
"As long as you understand."
"…But."
"Hm?"
"Noona, you nag way too much."
"What?"
"Our team used to have someone just like you."
"…?"
"Ah."
Mistake. The words had already left my mouth before I could stop them.
Isabelle tilted her head and looked at me, but I quickly covered it with a fake cough.
"It's nothing."
"…What a weird kid."
She snorted a quiet laugh and ruffled my hair. I grumbled halfheartedly but stayed still and let her hand do as it pleased.