Prologue: How Did It Come to This
"Haah... How did things end up like this...."
I chewed on a piece of dried, tough jerky out on the terrace as I gazed at the scenery.
Before I knew it the sun had set, and the orange glow of the sunset was steadily giving way to a black sky that seemed to speak for this entire world.
The view spread out before me was a cityscape so choked with broken ruins that no one could honestly call it beautiful.
"When I said I was going back, I never once imagined it would turn out like this."
My plan to return and live in peace—playing games, reading novels and comics—had already scattered like dust. All that remained was a single goal: survive in this crumbling world.
I had been living an ordinary life of games and novels when, at some point, I was transported to another world called Maderona.
I had never even written a 5,700-character review of some famous novel or game, yet here I was.
At first, the mere fact that I had undergone an isekai transfer like the ones in games and novels filled me with so much joy that I thought, Finally, my turn has come too.
After all, for anyone who has ever enjoyed subculture, isn't "isekai transfer" one of the situations they dream about? Adventures unfolding in a fantasy world, forging new memories with party members and the people around you, writing a story that is yours alone—everyone has fantasized about that at least once.
But all that surrounded me was a forest dense with towering green trees. As time passed, the joy of the transfer was drowned out by a rising terror of survival that flooded through me.
No matter how many times I shouted "status window" or "status," nothing appeared. Despairing, I wandered the woods, yet the darkening forest only pressed greater fear upon me. My mind, swept up in that terror, soon conjured the word death.
I wandered aimlessly until a sound drew my gaze, and wolf-like monsters burst out after me. Fleeing into a cave, I found a crumbling statue of a goddess.
That encounter was what gave me the power to live in the other world—and the reason I ended up rolling through this damned place.
Inside a building wrapped in stained glass that radiated sacred atmosphere, a woman who herself seemed holy stood speaking with a man covered in countless wounds.
"Are you truly set on returning?"
Her voice was clear and pure; warm light like the sun itself approached me. The woman before me, with hair the color of flame, was named Partruna—the goddess revered in the other world of Maderona as the Goddess of Love and Purification.
"Yes. That was the contract between us, Goddess. Once I resolved every trial you set for me, you promised to send me back to my original world."
"That's true, but..."
Partruna looked at me with eyes full of unease.
The cave I had fled into while pursued by monsters had been Partruna's temple. Through the crumbling goddess statue there, I formed a contract with her and gained the power to survive in the other world. I accepted her trials, resolved them one by one, and at the same time spread her faith so that her authority as a goddess—what was called the Divine Throne—might be restored. Only then, she had said, could she reclaim that throne and return me to my original world.
It really was a hard time. How long has it been, anyway?
I calculated the years I had spent in the other world and realized more than twenty had passed.
Isekai transfer, my ass. Once I'm back, I'm never looking at anything related to isekai again.
While I was lost in thought she called my name, pulling me free of the reverie, and continued.
"Do you really need to go back? You've already formed bonds with so many people here, and only a comfortable future awaits you."
Of course, thinking of everything I had done, that would be true. But for me the other world had already become sickening. I missed the family whose faces I could barely remember, and the simple pleasures I used to enjoy.
"I've told you again and again—I'm exhausted. Yes, there are comrades I've spent time with and people I'm indebted to, but according to the contract I made with you, Goddess, I want to return to Earth, where I came from."
After the same exchange we had already repeated several times, she sighed as if she could no longer persuade me and spoke.
"I understand. Then, as per the contract, I shall return you to your original world."
I knelt and offered my thanks.
"Thank you. It's because of you that I've been able to survive until now."
"Don't say that. Rather, it is I—no, this entire world—that has been saved by you."
The goddess gently caressed my cheek.
"To you who passed the twelve trials I set and saved the world, I shall grant three additional blessings."
My eyes flew wide and I lifted my head.
"Blessings... you say?"
"Yes. To you who have resisted every fear and terror, the Blessing of Courage. To you who have protected so many from countless dangers, the Blessing of Protection. And finally..."
In that instant I could not hear what the goddess said last. Before I knew it a path back to Earth had opened beneath me, and I fell into it with a dull thud. At the same moment my consciousness cut off.
"Haah... Because of the world's providence I couldn't tell you, so I kept trying to persuade you..."
Goddess Partruna let out a long sigh as she thought of the apostle who had just left her side.
Why had she tried so hard to stop his return?
Unfortunately, the world he had gone back to—unlike her own world, which had been saved—was already racing toward destruction.
— End of Prologue —