The Modern World Is Hard on a Saintess

"Whoa..."

Buildings climbed so high they looked ready to pierce the sky. Roads ran ruler-straight and perfectly level, and people beyond counting flowed along them.

"So this is Seoul."

The sun was hanging at the top of the sky when Eila arrived in Seoul. By all rights she should have been here long ago. Nothing limited her speed the way walking on water once had, so she could have run at full strength the whole way. She was late for one reason only: every gate she had passed, she had smashed to pieces. At least she had eaten her fill along the way.

Eila looked around, then sank into thought. The first thing she had to do was find information about the Hero.

"...There are so many people."

Stopping every one of them to ask would be impossible. That left three options: an adventurers' guild, a government office, or an information broker. The first made information easy to get, but the further down the list she went, the more trustworthy it became. Brokers, though, usually demanded staggering sums, and even a government office would charge a fee.

Eila rummaged through her pockets. Nothing. Of course there was nothing.

She felt the chain at her throat and drew a finger along it until the blue gem slid free. She tucked the necklace back inside her clothes. It was the only thing from this world the Hero had left behind. Not for all the gold in existence would she sell it.

Eila let out a sigh.

A broker or a government office — either way, without this world's money, the guild is my only option.

She started off in search of an adventurers' guild, then stopped dead.

Come to think of it, did this world even have adventurers' guilds? Nothing in the stories the Hero had told her mentioned one. No — maybe one had appeared in the years he was gone. There were hunters here, close enough to adventurers. If she looked for a hunters' guild instead, that ought to work. But where was she supposed to go?

Eila closed her eyes and took in her surroundings, searching for the strongest-looking person nearby.

"...Found one."

Northwest. Roughly ten to fifteen mitra away.

She opened her eyes and gathered strength into her legs—

Wait. If I drop out of the sky in front of him, he'll panic, won't he?

She let the strength drain away and walked toward the man at an ordinary pace, glancing around as she went. People, people — wherever she looked, there were people. They made up the city and went on smiling through their ordinary days, and a smile found its way onto Eila's lips. She was simply glad. The sight of people living. How hard they had all run, just to win a scene like this back. The world was different, of course. She was glad all the same.

She was walking along with that faint smile when she noticed it.

"...Oh."

Across the road stood an enormous building, stately and old-fashioned, almost as if...

"Seoul... City Hall?"

City Hall. Some kind of government office?

Eila thought for a moment. Should she keep following the man and pull the information out of him, or step into this place called City Hall? She made her decision.

"Number 128?"

"Yes!"

The civil-affairs desk at City Hall. Eila sat with a thin, transparent panel between herself and the clerk.

"Uh... um, what brings you in today?"

"Well... I'm looking for someone."

"A person? And what would their name be?"

"Ah, Kim Jiwoo... that's his name."

Keys clattered under the clerk's fingers.

"And what is your relationship to him?"

"Pardon?"

"What is your relationship with Mr. Kim Jiwoo?"

"D-do I really have to say...?"

"If I don't know that, I can't tell you anything."

Eila's face went red in an instant. She could have sworn the clerk was teasing her. R-relationship. How embarrassing...

"Th-that's... we're l-lovers..."

"Pardon?"

"We... we promised our futures to each other..."

She mumbled it with her face burning. The clerk's expression, however, only grew stiffer.

"......Not that. Do you have a family-relation certificate, a resident registration extract, anything of that sort? If the relationship isn't confirmed on paper, I can't give you any information."

"......What?"

Eila's mind went blank.

A little later—

"Ugh..."

She walked with unsteady steps. They wouldn't tell her unless she was family or kin? Then how was anyone supposed to find a person? And she was about to become family — what would it hurt to tell her a little early—

"......"

The thought died cold in her head.

Yes. They had promised each other a future. But that promise belonged to the other side. It meant this place had nothing to do with it.

Nothing to do with it.

She had only recalled that single sentence, and already her chest ached with the cold.

An outsider. An uninvited guest. In this world, a person named Eila did not exist. Something that had suddenly appeared, cut loose from everything else. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠She had known that. Thinking it again made her chest sting all the same.

"Haa..."

She shouldn't keep thinking like this. She was supposed to keep a bright face. She was supposed to show people a smile.

She was tired. Her head was spinning. The world in front of her flickered, and she barely managed to straighten a body that had nearly collapsed.

Was it simple exhaustion? Now that she thought about it, more than two weeks had passed since she had last slept properly. She had laid the blessings on thick—

Even so, Sacred Arts were not all-powerful. Put plainly, the dose had worn off. She could feel the exhaustion she had been holding back come pouring down at last.

Eila looked for a place to sleep. The sun had not set yet, but after two years in a world where the sun had vanished, her body clock had been tuned to let her drop off whenever she needed to. Crushed under the fatigue, she forced her eyelids up and searched for somewhere she could lie down. What caught her eye was a narrow, dark back alley.

"Dark..."

Walled in by buildings, the alley received none of the sun's favor.

"And narrow..."

Eila looked around. A tight gap, closed on three sides. The door right beside her was an annoyance, but if she kept an eye on that door and the open end in front of her, there shouldn't be any danger.

"Haaahm~."

She yawned long and deep. She was at her limit. Hugging her sword to her chest, she curled into the corner of the alley and closed her eyes. A few seconds later the thread that had been drawn to its breaking point snapped with a soft tuk, and Eila sank into sleep.

She dreams. A happy dream, and painful because it is happy. Her mind slips free of the world. Her body floats, and the scenes whip past. Slowly, her spirit rises out of the Eila who had been sitting beside the Hero in front of the campfire.

A forced awakening. The feeling is as unpleasant as ever. But it can't be helped. Better to be dragged awake than to die inside a dream.

Her eyes flew open.

A man stood in front of her. Shaggy black hair, grown long enough to hide his eyes, and one hand reaching out.

Eila sprang up at once and landed behind him. The man whipped his head around. His bangs covered his eyes, so she couldn't see his face clearly, but she imagined he looked startled.

Eila spoke.

"......Who are you?"