Rolling
I rubbed my eyes again and again, but nothing changed no matter how many times I looked.
Gray dust drifted through the interior. The ceiling had collapsed about halfway through, and an old chandelier lay shattered across the floor in a pathetic heap.
And far off, in the center of what looked like a banquet hall—
—Thud.
—Thud.
A grotesque creature was crawling across the floor.
"…"
I turned around without a word, toward where the path I'd been walking just moments ago ought to have been.
There was nothing there.
—Crackle.
The only thing of note was a dark crimson spark making a strange, ugly sound. As if to say I had been in this place from the very beginning.
"…Ah."
I covered my face with both hands and sank into a despair that went by the name of thinking. This time, though, I kept my eyes open.
The landscape visible through the gaps in my fingers was terribly familiar and terrible all at once. Maybe because I had been so happy just a moment ago.
"This can't be happening."
Earth. The internet. Pizza. Cola. I'd been running every last happiness circuit I had — and now, after barely any time at all, I was back.
"…Wait."
No. Thinking about it, it was far too early to give up. After everything I'd survived in this world, I wasn't about to quit now.
I turned my gaze on the thing in the middle of the banquet hall. Definitely something I'd never seen before. Smooth, snow-white hide. A long torso maybe twice my height. And creatures that looked that strange usually came with abilities every bit as strange as their appearance.
I swept the surroundings once. No traps. No artifacts radiating some eerie power. At least for now, it was just that one thing.
Which meant…
"……If I just kill that thing."
Maybe I could go back.
"Oh?"
By the time I came to my senses, my straight sword was already buried in its torso.
First: stay calm.
Second: follow the first rule.
In other words, to stay alive you have to stay calm, and you have to stay cold. Head cold. Body hot.
"Hmm."
About five minutes after I'd jammed my sword in blindly — my vision narrowed to a pinprick by the thought of returning to Earth — I was resting my chin in my hand, looking down at the floor. More precisely, at the monster impaled on my half-broken sword, not moving a muscle.
"Definitely weak."
I carefully nudged it with the tip of my toe. No reaction. So I nudged it again, this time putting a little more force into it.
—Tap.
Still nothing. So… it was dead.
"Tch."
It was more anticlimactic than I'd expected. No — beyond anticlimactic. It was unsettling. Normally these things at least sprayed poison before they died, or split in two, or suddenly spawned offspring or a bigger version of themselves from somewhere nearby. This one just died. And I barely even put any strength into it.
"……Don't tell me."
A thought struck me and I quickly rolled backward, then stared at the corpse.
"…"
Ten seconds passed. Then thirty.
"…That's really it?"
Absolutely nothing happened. No explosion. No black magic. Nothing at all. Which actually made me more nervous. Usually when there were no monsters around, it meant some boss had already cleaned the place out. That had been the pattern so far.
Just in case, I grabbed a nearby chair and threw it.
—Crash.
The rotting wooden chair shattered to pieces. Nothing happened.
For real this time — just in case — I threw some of the rocks scattered around.
—Tick.
—Tiktiktik.
Still quiet. In the end I had no choice but to approach the thing and retrieve my broken sword.
"This is really the end?"
This couldn't be it. Earth — the place I'd thought I would never return to. And just when I thought I'd finally found a way back… it would be too cruel if that had all been a delusion.
I looked around. Nothing that looked particularly special. No devices, no objects. Just me and the fallen creature in this room.
But I couldn't give up like this, so I was about to try something — anything — when the floor trembled in the distance.
—Rumble.
"…Ah."
Of course. There was no way.
"Thank goodness."
Truly.
—Creeeak.
I slowly lifted my head. At the far end of the banquet hall, a massive stone door that had been shut was opening, very slowly. And through the gap, dozens of red eyes gleamed.
I gripped my broken sword tight and looked at them.
"That's more like it."
This is how it should have started. I almost got the wrong idea.
Shin Seo-ah frowned at the unusually thick gray dust and surveyed her surroundings. With every breath, the inside of her throat went dry. It was the air of a ruin that hadn't felt a human touch in a very long time. The air inside a gate was always like this, but the one she was standing in now felt unusually severe.
The carpet on the floor had rotted away, and broken pillars and shattered chandeliers were scattered everywhere. It looked like a space where medieval nobles might once have held their banquets. It was so different from every gate she had ever experienced that she grew even more wary of her surroundings.
"…"
But something felt off. From the moment she had entered the gate until now, she had barely sensed any monsters at all. And in place of that presence, an unpleasantly thick smell of blood filled the space.
"Ah…"
Her feet stopped mid-step. Her gaze was fixed on a white-skinned monster in the center of the banquet hall. Shin Seo-ah examined the corpse from a careful distance. No movement. No mana, either. It looked as though it had been dead for quite some time.
There's someone else here.
There was only one wound on its body — a piercing strike straight through a vital point. Her eyes grew cold. Even a monster that served as the vanguard in an A-rank gate had gone down without a single sign of resistance.
And so she walked even more carefully toward the end of the banquet hall.
"…Ugh."
At the mouth of what seemed to be a passage leading out of the banquet hall, dozens of monster corpses were jammed together, crushing one another. Shin Seo-ah couldn't help but grimace at the blood flowing down the corridor floor like a dark crimson stream. She had seen plenty of monsters in her hunter career, but some of the ones before her were species she had never encountered. And the way they were clumped together in the pool of blood was enough to make even someone as accustomed to grotesque sights as her wrinkle her nose.
"Haa…"
At the end of the banquet hall where the monster corpses were piled, there was a passage half-hidden by a heap of stones. Unable to simply stand there, she let out a sigh and pressed forward.
One step. Then another.
After walking a long way down the corridor, she stopped again. It hadn't been long, but she had learned a great deal. Even if the air was musty and everything was coated in dust, the art pieces scattered around told her what kind of status this place must once have held.
And on both sides of the corridor she had passed, monsters lay fallen as if it were only natural — every last one of them bearing traces of being slashed or stabbed. Shin Seo-ah stopped walking and silently knelt before one of the corpses.
It looked familiar. Of course it did. The monsters littering this corridor were ones she had encountered when she had solo-cleared an A-rank gate in the past. Specimens that, if it weren't for her, would take an entire B-rank subjugation party getting wiped out before they could even be brought down.
"…"
And it wasn't just one.
Two. Three. No — five.
Just the ones in her field of vision already numbered more than ten.
"…That's impossible."
The corridor, from what she could glimpse, still stretched far from its end. And these corpses, continuing as far as the eye could see, were quietly proving what kind of monster had passed through this place.
"Haa…"
But she tightened her grip on her sword and kept moving forward.
How long did she walk? Before she knew it, the corridor had ended. A massive stone door stood before her. The door was already half-open, and there was blood on the handle. Instinctively sensing that the monster she was looking for lay beyond it, she took a deep breath and checked her physical condition.
Her condition was nothing short of perfect. Thanks to whatever was beyond that door having killed all the other monsters for her, she hadn't had to do a thing so far.
"Huu…"
Shin Seo-ah quietly pushed the door.
—Creeeak.
A vast space greeted her. A high ceiling supported by dozens of pillars, and the corpses of monsters slumped against them. On the far wall, enormous beasts were impaled as if they were decorations. And beneath all these corpses was a pool of dark crimson blood that reeked of rot.
"…!"
She followed the bloodstains that began from that pool with her eyes — to the innermost part of the space she was standing in, to the top of a staircase there, and to a massive chair placed at its end.
Upon it, a being that looked like a young girl sat holding a sword. Her leather armor was torn in places, and from the half-broken blade in her hand, red blood still dripped, drop by drop.
—Tap.
—Tap.
Blood droplets ran down the stairs. And the being seated in the chair slowly lifted her head.
…A human?
She looked at the being on the chair and thought that. The red glow in the eyes was a little unusual, but it looked like a perfectly ordinary person. A child, even.
But then she looked at the monster corpses filling the space below the stairs, and immediately rejected the thought.
—Shiiing.
Shin Seo-ah slowly drew her sword. A cold metallic ring echoed long through the wide space.
Then the being in the chair rose without a word. At the same time, a blood-soaked cloak slowly slid down, and through the torn leather armor here and there, pale skin was revealed.
And then that being, as if intending to meet her, slowly raised its sword.
"…!"
It was clearly a half-broken sword. A blade so ruined it shouldn't even have been able to serve its purpose. But strangely, the moment that sword was pointed at her, the hand gripping her own blade began to tremble, ever so slightly.
…Dangerous.
Her instincts sounded the alarm. Even though they were far enough apart that she wouldn't have even perceived the threat without a hunter's exceptional physical abilities, she raised her sword.
In that instant, the being standing on the chair vanished.
"…!"
A chill ran down her spine. She couldn't see it. Not the way it moved. Not even a hint of it.
—BOOM!
Belatedly, a roar echoed as the staircase collapsed. And only then did Shin Seo-ah realize.
Above!
Her body moved before her head could lift.
—SWISH!
The half-broken sword that grazed past her head sheared off several strands of her golden hair.
I dodged it!
She immediately kicked off the floor and leaped toward where the attack had come from.
—CRACK!
The floor where she had been standing just a moment ago split like paper. Dust billowed up. But Shin Seo-ah was already in the perfect position to counterattack.
Her eyes flashed sharply. In them, she could see the enemy, posture broken, hanging in midair.
An opening.
You can't dodge this.
Her sword carved through space, leaving a golden trail the same color as her mana. The attack was perfect — a single strike aimed at the neck the instant of landing. You can't change direction in midair, and right after landing your balance is broken. An unavoidable blow. Anyone. Even herself, an S-rank hunter. This timing could not be dodged.
That was what she thought.
—Whoosh.
Until the thing rolled once across the floor and slipped right under her sword.
—Tap.