Echoes of Goni-ae Village
Seoya slowly scanned the dungeon.
This feeling—familiar yet so strange. What is it?
She'd ponder the System later. For now, she needed to find her guildmates…
“Ah.”
Seoya froze in place as realization dawned. Whoa, this dungeon…
A hollow laugh escaped her lips. Is this even possible?
Seoya never forgot anything she'd seen once. And I'd never forget a place where I fought mutants.
This was Goni-ae Village from her planet, Toda.
Mutants had suddenly spawned in the village en masse, and the well-trained villagers had abandoned it the moment they spotted them, fleeing for their lives. The village became contaminated, forever off-limits.
But zero casualties made it a model case.
Aside from the lack of contamination, the village looked exactly as it had in Seoya's memories. She pushed open the door of the house right next to her and peeked inside. The traces of a frantic evacuation were vividly recreated: dirty dishes piled in the sink, clothes scattered on the floor, books splayed open on desks with half-written notes in pen, footprints stamped into the ground from bolting out the door…
A place from Toda, manifesting inside an Earth dungeon?
And considering her bestowed world rank 0th—and how everyone else suffered under the mental strength drain from the System…
This System feels tailor-made for me.
She had no idea who created it or why, but intentional or not, it was clearly advantageous to her.
First things first—find the guildmates.
Then she could dig into the System's origins.
Seoya focused on the air. Sensing hunters' positions was child's play with her innate senses.
“Aaaah!”
“Help! Somebody save me!”
“Haa… haa… gasp…”
Sounds began filtering in—voices, cries, ragged breaths.
“Over there.”
Seoya tensed her legs and kicked off the ground. Her body floated lightly into the air.
“Found you.”
She soon halted her high-speed dash and landed gracefully. True to the dungeon's backdrop of the eternally frozen planet Toda, the ground was iced solid.
Before her stood a horde of hunters, facing off against mutants that kept trying to advance only to be repelled by a barrage of skills.
“…Why can't we take them down?”
Just seven mutants. Most with arms torn off, no less.
Among the hunters ahead were Baek Yena and Ji Sein.
To get closer to the mutants, Seoya strode forward and casually tapped Yena's shoulder.
“Sis, why haven't you guys killed these yet?”
“Our mental strength's tanking so hard we're going insane. How are we supposed to?”
“That bad?”
“No way humans can handle this. It's not even close… Huh?”
Yena whipped her head around, staring at the cloaked Seoya.
“Have I finally lost it?”
She clutched the nape of her neck with a smack, cursing herself. “Fuck, damn it—am I hallucinating? Why am I hearing our baby's voice here? First the visions, now auditory shit too. My mental strength must be in the toilet.”
“Yena… I think I'm hearing it too…” Ji Sein muttered, looking utterly spaced out.
“…For real? Is that really our baby standing right in front of me?”
“Incoming!”
Seoya thrust out a hand, yanking the still-dazed Yena aside. A mutant's swipe barely missed as Seoya conjured a blue mana spear in her grip.
One mutant glared at her with gleaming eyes.
“Not today.”
With a flick of her wrist, the spear pierced it clean through. The mutant staggered and collapsed limply.
Another charging mutant watched its kin die from a mere gesture and shrewdly retreated.
“Hah—one's down!”
The shout came from behind.
“Wooo!”
“We can do this! The rest too!”
The hunters, not seeing who'd done it, hyped themselves up.
Yena stammered, “Baby… your mental strength okay?”
“Huh? Mental what now?”
“I mean… these are way higher-grade than red water buffalo monsters, draining mental strength like crazy… So yeah, you're totally immune, huh.”
“You mean the mutants?”
Wait a second. Back when her guild sisters mentioned monsters draining mental strength on kill, Seoya hadn't fully grasped it. As a non-hunter, the “mental strength” stat hadn't clicked, and quantifying exact drain per kill seemed off.
Now I get it.
Linking “mental strength” with “mutants” made sense. In her world, mutants inflicted mental corruption on people.
Mutants came in three types: A-type, B-type, C-type.
These ones in front of me are A-type.
She'd hunted so many that she could ID them by looks alone now.
A-type mutants: pitch-black from head to toe, vaguely humanoid, eerie cries. They attacked with black energy. Their hallmark? Mere proximity amplified every negative human emotion to extremes.
But Seoya was the exception. She'd never once been affected mentally.
Mental resistance—that was one reason she was Toda's strongest pioneer.
It also explained why hunters suffered mental drain from non-mutant monsters. Probably weaker versions of mutants.
“Just kill 'em, right?”
Seoya tensed one leg, posing to strike. The mutants, sensing the unbeatable foe from the rising blue mana around her fist, turned tail and fled.
One light leap. That was enough.
Seoya soared above a mutant, blocked its surging black energy with a blue barrier, then smashed her fist into its skull the moment the energy shattered.
Squelch.
With a sickening sound, its head caved in. Seoya shook the mutant gunk off her knuckles.
Skills have stopped.
She felt the hunters behind halt their skills, eyeing her warily.
Kieeeek—
The remaining five mutants screeched grotesquely, limping away on damaged legs.
This feeling… it's been forever.
Seoya looked up at the sky. Did time flow in dungeons? The sun was setting. Sunset hues painted the clouds overhead, which almost looked their original orange.
I love sunsets.
Her gaze drifted down. The building styles, the ground's hue, the village layout—all too familiar from Toda's Goni-ae Village. And the fleeing mutants weaving through it.
Everything nostalgic, almost homesick.
I thought I'd never see this again.
Seoya slowly raised one hand skyward. Blue mana swirled around it, spiraling upward until it pierced the clouds.
The clouds glowed blue.
Orange sunset sky clashed with the alien blue light ahead.
And then.
“Lightning.”
Kaboom—
The sky roared. The earth shook.
Hunters instinctively plugged ears and hit the deck. The deafening boom overwhelmed mere hands.
“Ah.”
Lee Gayeon, who'd been huddled among them, cracked her eyes open.
Blue lightning from the heavens incinerated the five attacking monsters. Amid unrelenting bolts, they writhed with agonized howls, bodies twisting unnaturally.
It looked so unreal that Gayeon frowned.
Meanwhile, Seoya—as always—stood firm, unfazed by the gruesome deaths.
As the lightning faded, she strode toward the mutant corpses.
If these are the mutants I know…
She swept mana over the bodies, and magic stones tumbled out in a heap.
Seoya picked up a large one.
“…Yeah, this is it.”
The magic stones she knew. As a kid, she'd stacked them like blocks, skipped them with Taesa, chucked them at tree fruits.
Common as dirt on Toda—but she'd thought gone forever on Earth.
I might actually go back.
She didn't know the complex formulas or how to build a magic amplifier.
But everything's here, ready.
Clear dungeons for magic stone rewards. Sweep them, and she'd have all she needed.
This world held no danger for her; its materials were prepared just for her.
Seoya finally understood.
Everything in this world favors me.
So, probably, she could return to her own world.