A Fellow Returnee
Lee Chaerin of the Divine Martial Unit under the Extreme Martial Cult.
Her specialty was stealth and ambush.
Her concealment technique had earned direct praise from the Pope himself as “quite excellent,” so it was more than worthy of being called her forte.
Her ability to hide within the gaps of space was so refined that even high-ranking experts several levels above her would fail to detect her.
‘But he noticed me?’
Lee Chaerin had arrived in the city of Bellangs some time ago and thoroughly investigated Lim Dojun.
A genius mage who had tamed a drake.
Yet he had only been in the magic tower for less than a year.
While he had accomplished quite a few notable feats for a mere first-year mage and had apparently caught the attention of the tower’s upper echelons, Lee Chaerin found the whole thing laughable.
If she couldn’t capture a single first-year mage, the name Divine Martial Unit would be a disgrace.
However, under orders to avoid direct confrontation, she had quietly waited in the city.
She planned to kidnap him the moment he stepped outside.
And as she waited, an opportunity finally presented itself.
Thankfully, he had left the city first and headed into a sparsely populated forest.
Lee Chaerin hid nearby, biding her time, and struck before he could prepare against the powerful magic that even affected the gaps in space.
“Cough, cough… So you came all the way out here to capture me quietly. Looks like I was the one who fell into a trap.”
“……”
Lim Dojun stared at Lee Chaerin, who was coughing up blood, and felt bewildered.
He had only been practicing magic when something suddenly latched onto him.
‘She was hiding and waiting for me? The only ones who would pull something like this…’
It had to be the Extreme Martial Cult.
He had heard the Pope was looking for him.
There was no other reason for an attack.
Though surprised inwardly, Lim Dojun maintained a calm exterior.
He quickly assessed his opponent’s strength.
‘A master capable of stealth so refined that even I couldn’t detect it.’
Unlike the previous assailants he had dispatched with ease, this one was the real deal.
Still, he had the advantage.
If she had ambushed him first, it might have been different, but the area around them was already under his domain.
Within a prepared space, a mage could become endlessly powerful.
Meanwhile, his opponent was injured.
—Crackle!
At Lim Dojun’s gesture, ice spikes erupted from the ground and coiled around Lee Chaerin.
She drew her sword in a flash and sliced through them before charging straight at him.
“Hah!”
Her speed left afterimages in its wake.
Yet Lim Dojun read her movements with cold eyes.
Against a mage who could cast without chanting, a contest of speed meant nothing.
An ice wall rose to block her path while bullets of ice fired forward.
—Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Lee Chaerin spun sideways, slipping out of the line of fire.
More ice walls materialized, sealing off every possible escape route as countless projectiles rained down.
“Haah!”
With no way to dodge, she knocked them all aside and charged again.
But each time, a barrage of spells blocked her approach, steadily widening the distance between them.
While Lim Dojun stood motionless, casting magic with nothing but hand gestures, Lee Chaerin burned through her stamina with constant movement.
Normally she would have shrugged it off, but now she was suffering from internal injuries.
‘Kidnapping is impossible. I need to get out of here.’
She quickly changed tactics.
Continuing to clash head-on offered no chance of victory.
Her opponent was a monster who couldn’t possibly be a first-year mage.
She didn’t know if another chance to kidnap him would come, but she had to survive first.
—Boom!
The moment she tried to retreat, ice walls surged up around her.
A circular barrier formed along the edge of the domain, like a prison.
Lee Chaerin looked at Lim Dojun in shock.
‘He read my movements?’
His gaze was relaxed, as if he had known all along.
And he had.
Lim Dojun had truly anticipated her next move.
‘Figured she’d try to retreat soon.’
He had fought countless battles.
More against monsters, but even more against humans.
He had played mind games more times than he could count.
Lee Chaerin hesitated for a split second, unsure whether to break the wall, leap over it, or attack again.
That brief moment of indecision created an opening, and Lim Dojun did not miss it.
“Do you know about high-class magic?”
“…What?”
“When facing a high-class mage, it’s not enough to defend against direct spells. Since they can manipulate space, you must always be aware of your surroundings.”
“!”
Lee Chaerin realized what he meant and tried to move, but she was too late.
Cold energy had been slowly layering itself over the space, gradually freezing her body without her noticing.
Because the chill had seeped into the very fabric of space, her detection came too late.
—Crack!
“Kuh!?”
By the time she realized it, the cold had completely engulfed her.
Both legs frozen solid, she collapsed.
Lim Dojun approached slowly, an ice sword forming in his hand.
“Extreme Martial Cult. Correct?”
“Ha…”
“The Pope must have ordered you to capture me.”
“What a vicious spell. Not only my body, but even my mana won’t move.”
Lee Chaerin ignored his questions.
Instead, she muttered in resignation.
This damned ice hadn’t merely frozen her on the surface—it had also frozen the mana circulating through her lower body.
She wondered what kind of magic could do such a thing, but there was no way out.
“Kill me.”
Lee Chaerin closed her eyes.
She had no intention of begging for her life, nor did she want to betray the Pope by leaking information, even superficially.
The Pope had taken good care of her, and she didn’t want to betray him like this.
Besides, if she died, she would return to Earth anyway, so there was nothing to fear.
‘I just wanted to get a little stronger…’
With a bit more guidance from the Pope, she might have been able to overcome the wall blocking her path one more time.
That was the only thing she regretted.
Once she returned to Earth, such opportunities would rarely come again.
“Still, once I’m back on Earth… I can eat whatever I want. Heh heh.”
“What?”
Lim Dojun flinched at her muttering.
“Earth? You came from Earth? Are you a returnee?”
“……??”
Lee Chaerin was startled as well.
“…What did you just say?”
But that was as far as she got.
Already injured and with her entire body and mana freezing over, she lost consciousness and fainted.
* * *
In the forest where the battle had taken place.
After roughly felling trees with magic to create a temporary shelter, Lim Dojun laid Lee Chaerin inside.
‘A fellow Earthling. I figured there had to be others in Astelgard somewhere, but I never expected to meet one like this.’
Judging by the numbers in the Astelgard returnee community, Earthlings seemed to keep falling into this world.
Lim Dojun had never thought he was the only one, but finding another Earthling across such a vast continent was no easy task.
So he fed her a potion and simply restrained her.
Once she recovered enough, he planned to wake her and talk.
Beside her, Lim Dojun slipped on the Flame Stone gauntlets and sank into meditation.
Though the Flame Stone raised the surrounding temperature, reversing its effect allowed it to hold cold energy instead.
Then, using the Valteon-style Cold Circulation, he focused on stabilizing his body.
“Huu… haa…”
This was his first real battle using both high-class magic and dragon spirit magic.
The power had been absurdly strong, but the problem was that his body refused to stabilize easily.
The longer he used dragon spirit magic, the more the dragon’s will tried to rampage.
That was why he was working so hard to suppress it now.
How long had he been meditating?
—Tap.
Lim Dojun opened his eyes just as the spent Flame Stone turned gray and cracked apart.
“That was expensive…”
Lim Dojun sighed.
He had succeeded in stabilizing his body, but if he kept burning through his assets like this, nothing would be left.
“Ugh…”
Lee Chaerin woke up without a trace of regret on her face.
“You’re awake?”
“……!”
At first, Lee Chaerin looked confused, but then her memories returned.
“…You spared me.”
“Yeah. Can’t exactly kill a fellow countryman without reason.”
“……”
Though Lim Dojun said that, Lee Chaerin did not lower her guard.
In a foreign land, fellow countrymen were the most reliable and welcome, but they were also the ones most likely to exploit that trust.
Besides, this wasn’t a conversation between equals—she was completely subdued, with a clear power imbalance.
She couldn’t afford to relax.
Even seeing her act like a wary stray cat, Lim Dojun remained unconcerned.
“Eat this first.”
“Hah. If you think I’ll fall for food, you’re underestimating me—”
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes wavering.
What Lim Dojun had taken out were instant rice, a canned tuna mayo, and a cola.
He had pulled them from his dimensional storage earlier.
‘Good thing my storage is small enough to use as a food pantry.’
He had spent nearly all his time in Astelgard over the past few months, and every now and then he craved Earth food.
Logging out in the middle of nowhere each time felt like a hassle, so he had stocked up on supplies in advance.
“H-how do you have this…?”
Lee Chaerin’s pupils trembled violently.
These were the very foods she had desperately craved during her ten-plus years in this other world!
There had been times she wished she could die quickly just to return to Earth and eat them, and they often appeared in her dreams.
“Don’t want it? Then I’ll take it back.”
Lim Dojun smiled faintly and slowly reached out.
Of course, he had no intention of actually taking it away—he was only acting—but even that was too much for Lee Chaerin to bear.
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait!”
She shouted desperately.
“I-I’m just so happy to meet someone from home in a place like this!”
“Same here.”
“What do you want from me? Information on the Extreme Martial Cult? The Pope’s weaknesses?”
“That would be nice, but let’s eat first and talk later. You’ll need a full stomach for a proper conversation.”
Requesting information in exchange for food was something only amateurs did.
It was better to give generously and ask later.
‘Once she’s had a taste, she’ll crave it even more.’
It was a technique for handling prisoners.
Lim Dojun even dispelled the magic restraining her.
Since he hadn’t fully healed her injuries, he was confident he could win again if they fought.
“……”
As Lee Chaerin watched him, a halo seemed to shine behind Lim Dojun’s head.
Perhaps the living god wasn’t the Pope of the Extreme Martial Cult, but the man standing right here.
The thought crossed her mind.