It's Just a Feeling

It's just a feeling.

Let me try to describe the me of a few moments ago. Up until just now, I had reached the very end of the Main Quest.

The war between angels and demons — a staple of MMORPGs so ubiquitous these days that it barely warrants a mention. Angels and demons are powerful. And not merely powerful in a way a single word could settle; they were powerful from birth. A one-year-old angel could flatten a full-grown orc with a cheery little boop! — that was the scale of their raw strength. Everything an angel's hand touched was purified, to the point that even undead-attribute creatures couldn't approach one. And what of the demons? Innately fluent in magic and demonic energy, even a low-rank demon could work spells on par with a human archmage. The leader of the demon race, meanwhile, wielded an insane ability that could bring an entire continent to a standstill.

Angels and demons were locked in their own private arms race of power, so far beyond every other species that no one else could so much as lay a finger on their affairs. It was no exaggeration to say the fate of the whole continent rested in their hands.

So where did that leave me?

"Hmm, what would I be."

Call it extra number 297, passing through. One of those humans descended from an angel through generation after generation after generation after generation — blood so watered down that even if you boiled it down for stock, all you'd get was, Ah, there go the bones, melting.

A girl from an ordinary village. Not destitute, exactly, but a place with nothing remarkable about it whatsoever. That was where I'd been transmigrated.

The one silver lining was that even a 0.1% trace of angel blood earned me a certain reputation as a "saintess." That lasted right up until I laid eyes on a real saintess and got thoroughly depressed about it.

Anyway, the first thing I encountered in that world was neither the girl's mother nor the village chief. It was a system window.

...along with that piece-of-garbage message.

Seriously? At least hand me something before telling me to clear a quest.

And the finale of the Main Quest, no less, was the conclusion of the war. You cram me into a part-angel body and ask me to resolve a conflict where monsters were running wild?

For the first two years or so, back when I knew nothing about games, I followed the quests along well enough and built up a certain confidence. But after I saw a real angel, I quietly retired that dream.

Ah. This wasn't made to be beaten.

How exactly was I supposed to win against beings who could knead a giant ogre into dough with a single wave of the hand?

So I changed my mind. I gave up on returning and resolved to live out my days as the village saintess. There was no family to speak of, and no particularly meaningful connections waiting on the outside, either. That, incidentally, is also why I'd been able to advance so quickly in those first two years.

"Hah."

And so, about ten years slipped by. Living as the little saintess of a village, I found myself aching for the modern world amid the endless routine. Not the people I'd left behind, or my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠old ties — just the basic things I could no longer have. The food. The culture. The games.

At the same time, it struck me all over again: this world was a game. And if it was a game, there had to be special items or skills somewhere.

So I put the system to work. I was the only benchmark I had, and I hardly understood this game inside and out either — but hey, throw enough time at a problem and nothing's impossible.

And so I set off hunting for game-related abilities. I came within a hair's breadth of death more times than I could count and weathered ambushes beyond number, but playing up my angelic pedigree carried me past most of it.

Unlike demons, angels cherish their own kind. Lay a finger on an angel and the story reaches the ears of a higher-ranking one, and you can kiss your entire clan and every settlement connected to you goodbye — scorched earth, all of it.

Granted, the fine print excluded Heaven-Scented humans like me. But then, ordinary people drink banana milk without once wondering whether it tastes anything like actual bananas. It was just like that.

So, awakening abilities one by one, I wandered the world for twenty years. And I got considerably stronger. Even so, measured against the genuine article, I was still merely a Heaven-Scented human — but I was no longer someone who got slapped around wherever she went. However thin the angel blood ran, the power itself was never weak.

And then, thirty years. I crossed battlefields beyond counting. The angels and demons were as mighty as ever, but as a Heaven-Scented human, I had done everything in my power. And so, at the end of that long endurance, I cleared the finale of the Main Quest.

That's right. I cleared it.

"You people actually made peace."

The finale of the Main Quest was, after all, simply the ending of the war. Since the war ended whether I lifted a finger or not, the quest cleared itself, naturally enough.

So even the system was capable of being flustered. Well, that was news to me.

And so I returned. Body unchanged and all.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Having finished my trip down memory lane, I looked around. A cramped one-room studio with the lights off. The space was familiar yet somehow alien, and I instinctively moved to cast the skill Light before catching myself.

Tick. Tick. No light came. Or rather, it flickered on and off in a half-hearted struggle before my mana ran dry altogether. My mana pool had gone from the Mediterranean Sea to a single glass of water. Not that I'd ever actually carried the Mediterranean's worth of mana.

"Why is my body still this body?"

While filling the sink in the narrow bathroom, I caught myself staring into the mirror. A pretty woman with blue hair and violet eyes, frowning back at me. Had my past self glimpsed this face, it would have been love at first sight.

Her figure, too — well. A chest that announced itself no matter what she layered over it, and I won't even get started on the hips and thighs. It was the kind of body that felt like some god had crafted it thinking, Won't everyone be delighted if I stick someone into a beauty like this?

Wonderful for looking at. Terrible for being. I'd landed in danger more than once or twice because of this body. Had I not held the status of a blood-of-angels saintess in a small village, something truly horrific would very likely have happened long ago. In fact, after I gave up the saintess gig and spent twenty years wandering the world, I ran into men who tried exactly that all the time. All the time undersells it — closer to once every three days. Naturally, I beat every last one of them within an inch of their lives, so nothing ever came of it.

The angels and demons beyond the heavens, for their part, had no interest in such "defective goods."

"System."

Silence. And I mean complete silence. Normally it would have come bounding up like an eager puppy the instant I called, but now there wasn't a peep. I suppose now that I've returned, this is a "goodbye and good luck" sort of arrangement?

I felt a twinge of melancholy, and at the same time felt it was only right. It was a shame, yes — but had it lingered, it would have felt like things weren't truly over.

In the mirror, Lily Elbrit was smiling brightly back at me. I must have been happier about returning than I'd realized.

By the time I'd washed up and come back out, the dark little studio was still there to greet me.

Click. I flicked the switch, and light spilled over a room of barely 250 square feet. A navy-blue bed barely big enough to sleep in, and a shabby closet holding only a few changes of clothes. Against the wall by the half-open window sat a desk and a monitor — and resting on top of it, a rectangular envelope I'd never seen before.

A red envelope, at that.

I dropped into the chair in front of the monitor. Looking at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the computer brought the old days flooding back. The me who used to play games. And the me whose life those games had flipped upside down. I sank into thought for a moment, and a gloomy feeling crept in out of nowhere, so I snatched up the envelope quickly.

Inside were a brand-new resident registration card, a bankbook, and a card. Lily Elbrit. Age twenty-one.

"I'm not twenty-one."

With even a trace of the ageless angel blood in me, I hadn't aged a single day past twenty. I suppose the idea was for me to live as a twenty-one-year-old, roughly speaking.

The pale yellow bankbook held twenty million won. Twenty million? After all that suffering? That's a bit rich. I wasn't asking for some dramatic, life-changing sum, but you'd think they'd at least give me enough to live on for a lifetime—

"If this was the deal, I should've just stayed a saintess."

Had I known the angels and demons were going to shake hands, I wouldn't have spent twenty years traipsing across the world busting my backside. Not that regret meant anything now.

My stomach growled.

I was hungry. Me — the former Heaven-Scented human who'd never once known hunger. I'd gone three months without food and felt perfectly fine, gone a month without a drop of water and felt no thirst — and now, after barely half a day without a meal, my stomach was complaining.

I got up and turned the place upside down. I ransacked the cupboard, the cramped space beneath the sink in what I could generously call a kitchen, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even the tiny refrigerator. Nothing edible turned up. A little food would have been nice, you stingy god, you.

"Convenience store. Convenience store."

Somehow, I felt I ought to go to a convenience store. It's just a feeling.

I pushed open the iron door — faintly familiar, or rather, deeply strange — and with a long creak, the night air brushed against my skin. Beyond the door of the small one-room villa, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the modern city unfolded before my eyes. A space drowned in neon signs and the glow of buildings, and the people living out their lives inside it. A scene utterly unlike anywhere I had ever lived.

And with the night air at my back, I stepped slowly out toward the streets.