2. Still, We Live On
2. Still, We Live On
***
"Haa..."
I let out a deep breath, gradually coming to understand the situation before me.
But the more I understood, the more a massive surge of emotion kept welling up.
I tried to pull myself together somehow...
Yet my vision kept blurring against my will.
Dense, heavy emotions kept swelling as if to swallow me whole.
"Fuck. Fuck... Fuck!! If you were just going to send me back like this... then what the hell did I... why did I go through all that... suffering."
A sense of utter exhaustion filled my entire body.
This reality, where everything I had was stolen from me...
swallowed me whole like a despair so immense it was nearly impossible to endure.
It felt like a pain entirely different from the countless pains I had already suffered.
More than returning to reality like this, it was everything I had achieved in that world.
The perfection of technique I had attained through grueling training, through hundreds and thousands of repetitions.
The energy that had kept growing and accumulating in my body.
The equipment and rewards I had earned by barely completing quests I had wanted to give up on so many times because they were too hard and exhausting.
Now that all of it had been taken from me.
It felt as though I had lost the very will to live.
My eyelids kept sinking heavily, and in my blurred vision, only the unfamiliar space around me hazily filled my gaze.
The sense of omnipotence that had filled my body with energy.
And beyond that, the equipment, items, and consumables I had earned through all kinds of hardship.
Those memories, so vivid, remained clear even now that I had returned to reality.
Through my lowered head, silver hair brushed against my face as if tickling it, obscuring my vision.
"......"
My character.
No, the woman who had now become me.
Even now, I still wore Rin's appearance.
Right. Even though I had returned to reality, I was still exactly as I had been as my in-game character.
"You left me as a woman, just like this... and then you took away everything I achieved..."
I roughly grabbed a fistful of pure-white hair and stared blankly, trying to steady my emotions.
Tears kept clouding my vision.
My unfocused gaze wavered, and my head kept spinning.
A reality that was hard to accept.
But a reality I had no choice but to accept.
Suddenly, novels came to mind—stories of protagonists who returned to their original world after being dropped into another world.
A protagonist who closed out the story by returning to the ordinary life they had led before falling into another world.
Returning to reality as a reward for all their suffering.
That was always how their stories ended.
Then was I now...
Was I in that kind of situation too...?
"...Don't make me laugh."
The happiness of having returned.
The relief of no longer having to live under the threat of monsters, surrounded by dangers whose next move could never be predicted.
I didn't feel any of those emotions at all.
Only the heights I had reached.
The rewards I had claimed after surviving dozens of brushes with death.
"I said don't make me laugh..."
Only a thick resentment toward whoever had stolen all of it in an instant filled my chest.
Only deep resentment and hatred filled my chest.
I had certainly thought, someday... someday I would return to my original world, but I had never wished for it to happen like this.
I had already adapted to that game-like world beyond the point of return.
Washing was inconvenient, transportation wasn't even properly developed, and I was half-forced to move my body along with the massive flow of events...
Even so...
Even so, I had been satisfied with myself in that world.
The rewards given whenever I moved under the name of quests.
Adventuring through the world while following the great flow of events.
Maybe I had been intoxicated by the heights I reached and the equipment I earned as I grew within it.
The presence that came from the energy brimming throughout my body.
The sensation of being alive.
A life of feeling ecstasy as I killed monsters.
That was why, even though I had accumulated unimaginable wealth in that world from some point on, I never sought safety.
I had invited all kinds of danger upon myself, wandering through various regions and adventuring.
Simply...
Because it was satisfying.
Because it was a life more satisfying to me than anything else.
To me, who had even forgotten the passage of time in that world, life there had been like a paradise in itself.
Constantly feeling threatened.
Uncomfortable.
It couldn't be called an easy life, and it was chaotic.
But even so, I liked it.
I liked the me who lived that kind of life.
To the me who, in my original reality, had felt no interest in anything, not even any real sense of value in life.
Every moment. The sensations of that world, which made me feel alive, were like a drug to me.
A life of rolling through danger.
I had lived that life feeling pleasure and exhilaration.
As if constantly intoxicated by a drug. I had adapted to that world.
Through my blurred vision, I blankly clenched my hand.
"......"
At the sheer emptiness—no, the futility of it all—a self-deprecating laugh escaped me.
Frail.
Weak.
I couldn't feel any strength at all.
The familiar crimson energy no longer bloomed from my hand.
As if I had become an ordinary woman.
Only endless helplessness pressed down on me.
As if this was reality.
As if I was nothing more than a powerless woman.
To myself, clenching and unclenching my fist over and over.
The name of reality pressed down on me far too heavily.
"How the hell am I supposed... to live on now..."
How the hell.
How was I supposed to live on after being sent back to reality so suddenly?
Only those blank thoughts filled my head.
The omnipotence of being alive.
The ecstasy and pleasure I had felt while killing monsters—now, in this reality where I could no longer feel them.
—How was I supposed to live on from here?
The worry I had agonized over every single day when I first fell into the game world...
That worry had now come back to me.
......
How much time passed after that?
I forced my strengthless body upright and wiped at my blurred vision.
Then I began rummaging through the items around me one by one.
Information about me.
Right now, I still had Rin's appearance, but I didn't think there would be nothing at all about me as a person.
I endured the heavy heart that kept trying to sink endlessly and forced myself to face this reality somehow.
Feelings of injustice and resentment kept churning, and endless bitterness toward this world surged inside me.
Even so, I forced my body to move.
Clunk.
Clunk.
Still dazed, I frantically rummaged through cabinets and desk drawers for information.
I even had the thought that some absolute being was toying with me. But even so, I had to face reality.
And before long, I found something like a wallet.
I placed the wallet on the desk and pulled out everything inside, spreading it all out.
Credit cards and check cards from unfamiliar brands.
And above all, the card that caught my eye—a card bearing the image of a woman with a familiar appearance.
In the photo, her silver hair was neatly tied back.
Exotic features that suggested mixed heritage.
She was a beauty no one could reasonably deny.
A character whose looks seemed like they couldn't exist in reality was printed on the card, transformed into something utterly real.
It wasn't like a character.
There was proof far too clear that she was a real person.
Now... that was my own appearance, a real person in this world.
"Han... Serin."
As I read the name written on the card, a voice that felt awkward even to me followed.
"Han Serin. Han Serin. Han Serin..."
The more I said it aloud, the initial awkwardness faded until the name rolled naturally off my tongue.
[xx0516 - xxxxxx]
—Seoul Special City, Gangnam-gu xxx
I checked the rest of the information and looked over the other items when a sudden thought struck me.
'What was my original name?'
My name...
...
Then, without realizing it, a chilling feeling came over me.
I kept trying to remember... but I couldn't recall my original name no matter what.
'Han Serin.'
That was all that kept coming to mind, as if it were my name.
My original name.
The me who had been a man, not a woman like now.
That name wouldn't come to me.
Then suddenly.
'Rin.'
The name I had made for my game character came to mind.
"......You stupid bastard."
I let out a faint sigh, my voice hollow.
Right now, I could remember the name I had given my in-game character, but I couldn't even remember my own original name.
My original appearance.
Personality.
Things like the university I attended.
Those I remembered clearly.
But strangely enough, the name wouldn't come to me.
I couldn't even understand how I was failing to remember it.
"Han Serin..."
After agonizing for a moment, I finally just said my current name.
The me from now on.
And the me right now was Han Serin.
The me who had once been a man in the past was now nowhere to be found.