Return 1
"Sob, hic... sob..."
Chomp, munch.
"......"
"Sob, my Emperor Goblin Head Soup... hic..."
"I'm really... sorry about that again..."
Smack, chew.
Munch, gulp.
"Sob, this place makes a mean soybean paste soup... hic... sob... gulp... Auntie, five more bowls of rice here, please!"
"Five more? Oh dear, we're clean out. I'm putting a fresh batch on right now, so just wait a smidge, dear."
"Sob, I can't wait..."
"Oh my, then I'll go borrow some from the shop next door. Just wait a bit, young lady."
"Okay..."
Sniffle, chew.
Sob, gulp.
Whimper, slurp.
A large barbecue restaurant near Hapjeong Station in Seoul.
It was a historic establishment that had been running since before the Great Rift.
Though expensive, the quality of the meat and the service were highly guaranteed. It was so famous that not just the meat, but even the rice, side dishes, and water were said to be delicious, making it a popular spot frequented by hunters.
Yeonhwa, also known as Icicle Nine, had been here before for association dinners. It was also the very first restaurant where she had brought Sia, the deceased saintess who was currently weeping while relentlessly stuffing food into her mouth.
For both Yeonhwa and Sia, this place held a fair share of memories.
"...But sister, you sure eat well for someone who's crying."
"Sob, beef... beef... gulp... is so good... chuck flap tail is the best..."
Shortly after the Deceased Saintess Sia had turned the Emperor Goblin into soup, and right after Yeonhwa arrived, a flood of trainees and researchers dispatched by the Hunter Association and government agencies had poured into the Goblin Empire.
Naturally, Sia, who had essentially engaged in illegal poaching without reporting it, had all the byproducts of the Emperor Goblin—including the soup and every single scrap of meat—confiscated by the government researchers. In return, she was promised a massive payout, but... to Sia, the only thing that mattered was the tragic fact that she couldn't eat her 'Emperor Goblin Head Soup,' regardless of the millions of won promised.
"Sia, eat this too."
"Yeah, gulp... the chuck flap, the ribs, and the tenderloin are all delicious... sniffle..."
"This is the neck chain. It's a very limited cut of beef, but they say it's quite tasty. Try this one too."
"Thanks... gulp!"
Thanks to that, the precious resource known as the S-grade hunter Icicle Nine was busy grilling beef to soothe the deceased saintess.
Knowing Sia's appetite, Yeonhwa had rented out the entire restaurant for the day and bought not only the meat on display but also all the beef stocked in the restaurant's freezer.
For the restaurant, such a sudden, pushy transaction without a reservation was naturally troublesome in many ways. However, at the mention of Yeonhwa's fame as an S-grade hunter and her offer to pay double for all the meat and service, they gladly welcomed Sia and Yeonhwa as guests.
The restaurant staff, who were used to hosting not just celebrities, politicians, and high-ranking officials but also hunters, did not question Yeonhwa and Sia.
Even though Sia had just devoured her 80th serving of chuck flap tail, polished off her 30th bowl of rice, and consumed 10 bowls each of spicy cold noodles and cold noodle soup, the experienced staff, accustomed to eccentric hunters and massive capital, silently carried meat and scooped rice for Sia and Yeonhwa.
Some staff members weren't even serving; they had brought out separate grills to cook the meat elsewhere and were delivering it straight to Sia's table.
"Is it good?"
"Sob... yeah. It's good."
"Oh dear... stop crying now."
"Do you, hic... know that the Emperor Goblin soup... sob! is still calling out to me...?"
"How on earth would I know that..."
Sob, sob, sob. "Binggu! I thought you, of all people, would understand me!"
"No, sister. I like you, but... I can't understand your food preferences."
"......Is that so?"
Thinking about it calmly, that seemed to be the case.
Sia, who stopped crying in an instant, picked up and ate the meat sizzling on the grill.
Still, it was true that her mood, which had been hitting rock bottom earlier, had improved.
In her heart, she wanted to smash the trainees, the association, or whatever else was trying to take her 'Emperor Goblin Head Soup,' eat it all, and shout, "Ahhhh, heck yeah!" But human reason, discernment, and a conscience still remained in Sia's heart.
Even if she was a returnee and a deceased saintess, shouldn't she keep the rules?
No, rather, because she was a returnee, she had to be even more careful.
"Sister, after you finish eating this, please go to the association later and write a statement."
"What do I have to write in the statement?"
"Well, the higher-ups have already received your stream as classified material, so they won't ask for a very detailed statement. Probably just how you discovered the Goblin Empire, how you realized it was a mimic dungeon, and maybe some brief impressions or analytical data you felt about the Goblin Empire?"
"What, that's a lot to write...?"
"It's fine. Just write a rough draft, and I'll help you edit it."
For returnees, this kind of thing was extremely annoying and tedious.
However, even if the behavior of the Returnee Management Bureau or the Hunter Association seemed to be pestering her, she could understand it.
Because a few years ago, one of the returnees had caused a massive terrorist attack.
It was in China.
She heard it happened because China's unique dictatorship and the president treated the returnee terribly, and it eventually blew up... but she wasn't particularly interested, so she didn't look into the details.
A returnee... Yes, she was a returnee too.
From the perspective of an outsider, she was a giant bomb that could go off at any moment...
There was an event called the Great Rift.
There was no warning for this major event that shook the Earth, which was ruled by the human race.
One day, people going about their daily lives suddenly saw rifts in space opening above their heads. They experienced losing their loved ones, lives, and property to the strange creatures that poured out of those rifts.
That was the First Great Rift.
Forests, city centers, the National Assembly building, military bases, hospitals, rural areas, oceans, mountains, underground, and the sky.
The Great Rift opened simultaneously without choosing a location, bringing great chaos and death to society.
In the aftermath of the Great Rift, countless people died or went missing. The Great Rift caused a massive ripple effect not only on human life but also on human society, culture, and politics.
Also, with the opening of the Great Rift, people with strange abilities that did not exist in reality began to appear.
They were called by various names such as awakened, telekinetics, espers, and heroes, but today, they were all unified under the name 'hunters.'
There would be another opportunity to talk about the socio-political impact of the Great Rift and how human life had changed because of it.
What to talk about now was not the Great Rift, but the story of 'Lee Sia.'
Real name, Lee Sia.
As of 2024, a 21-year-old male.
Right after discharging from the military, he was one of the people who went missing after getting caught in the First Great Rift during a trip with his family to celebrate his discharge.
People who went missing in the Great Rift were generally treated as deceased.
It was common to be processed as dead, whether they were killed by monsters pouring out of the rift, eaten by the dungeon, or died due to natural disasters.
However, Sia did not die.
Well, physically, she did die.
Her body was torn to pieces at the molecular level after getting caught in the gap of the Great Rift.
However, unlike her body, her soul was not torn apart and drifted into the dimensional gap created by the Great Rift.
Well, why drag it out?
Lee Sia's soul possessed the body of a saintess in a medieval fantasy-like otherworld.
But the original owner of that body was already dead, leaving the saintess's body empty.
Even though she couldn't properly grasp what situation she was in, Sia was excited at first, thinking she had reincarnated in another world like she had seen in subculture media.
At first, perhaps because he was a young man who still had a childish side despite having discharged from the military, he didn't think much of the fact that he had possessed a saintess's body with his gender swapped.
However, Sia soon realized there were four blind spots.
First, Sia did not possess a living human saintess.
She had possessed the body of a saintess who had lost her soul due to an unfortunate accident and had become a corpse. It was quite a nonsense that she had possessed a dead body, which was confusing enough since a man had suddenly become a woman, and the state of that woman's body was highly abnormal, yet she could still use the foreign and holy power of miracles and holy power even with a dead body.
Second, in this world, the deceased were not treated as humans.
No, human treatment wasn't the issue; they were considered horrible children of Satan. In the original world where Sia lived, 'the deceased' was just a word to refer to dead people. However, the deceased in this world meant zombies, undead, ghouls, liches, and other horrible, non-human creatures like hungry ghosts crawling up from hell. They were pests that deserved to be exterminated, those who could not die even if they died.
Fortunately, in terms of appearance, this saintess was so beautiful and fair, and her reason was completely intact, so she didn't look like a deceased person on the outside.
Third, this deceased saintess was a living natural disaster, a biological weapon, and a terrible catastrophe just by existing.
Lee Sia was a human.
She had reason, a conscience, and modern ethical views. Even if she couldn't be a saintly person, she wasn't a rotten piece of trash. She was a normal person you could easily find. Someone who felt pity when seeing the poor and needy, and naturally felt compassion when people were in trouble and distress.
And finally, the fourth: this damn fantasy world was not a peaceful and happy fairy tale, but a terrible, shitty game, a disgusting, depressing post-apocalyptic world.
Monsters that were demons and disasters themselves were everywhere, and whenever they had time, they crushed human cities and villages as if kicking pebbles in a front yard. Humans in this world were truly less than dust, and it was a world submerged in countless battles, struggles, sadness, anger, and hatred.
And the human Lee Sia had done nothing. The greatest achievements of Sia's life were discharging from the military and luckily entering a good university by hitting the jackpot on the college entrance exam. She was still an adult who hadn't fully matured and had just happened to become an adult.
So, even with the massive holy power, miracles, and ridiculous physical abilities of the deceased saintess, Sia lived in hiding for almost a year. She set up a home in an abandoned hunter's cabin in the forest where she woke up and kept her distance from humans as much as possible.
Ah, Sia was scared of the post-apocalyptic world of the survival of the fittest, but fundamentally, there was a reason why Sia kept away from humans. It was because of the 'hunger' she inevitably felt as a deceased person.
Human hunger is not that severe. Nothing major happens to a human even if they don't eat a meal a day. A healthy person can fast for a week, or maybe even two weeks, without major damage to their body. But Sia was different. The deceased saintess was completely different.
Sia realized for the first time that hunger was such a terrible and horrible pain. Calling it pain was not enough. Even if she experienced a brief moment of hunger, Sia had to suffer from a terrible hunger and craving as if she hadn't had water or food for a year. And that craving could naturally be solved with food.
However, normal food was naturally not enough. At first, Sia barely survived and staved off her hunger with mushrooms grilled in the forest, fish caught in the lake (she was so strong that fish floated up just by punching the lake a few times), and occasionally deer meat that had died of something.
Instinctively, Sia realized that if her 'hunger' broke out among humans, she really didn't know what would happen. Sia did not want to harm humans, nor did she want to eat them. No matter how terrible the hunger she suffered, she did not want to give up her humanity.
"Ah... no. No... again...!"
And Sia felt that limit approaching quickly. When she woke up after being half-fainted from hunger, her hands and mouth were covered in blood, and the corpses of deer and beasts were scattered in front of her.
The cycle of losing her mind and tearing beasts apart to eat them gradually shortened, and Sia felt so miserable and afraid of herself that she gave up any thought of going outside. If she went to a human village in this state of body and mind, she might really eat someone.
Later, she could even smell a human village very far away. When humans who entered the forest gathered herbs and hunted without knowing anything and went back, Sia occasionally smelled the sweet and fragrant scent of human flesh. Every time that happened, she desperately bit her own hands until they bled to maintain her sanity.
And around the tenth time she lost her mind and tore apart wild beasts, Sia locked herself in the cabin.
Fortunately, from the moment she possessed the body of this deceased saintess, Sia could freely control the powerful miracles and holy power the saintess used. Was it thanks to the memories in the saintess's brain cells? She thought that perhaps from then on, the saintess's soul and her own soul had merged into one.
Anyway, Sia locked herself in the cabin with a barrier using the most powerful miracles and holy power possible. At this rate, she might really eat a person. She might invade a human village like a monster and eat them at random. Just smelling human flesh made her feel like she was losing her mind.
When she lost her mind this time, she fortunately ate the meat of wild beasts. But next time...? What if the next time she lost her mind and opened her eyes, she was holding a part of a human instead of wild beast meat?
What Sia feared most was not just eating human flesh, but that she might not feel any guilt even after eating it. Sia made the barrier with the determination to starve to death and commit suicide instead.
To cut to the chase, the barrier was eventually broken. Sia had smelled human blood from a very close distance. The barrier was only for binding and locking something in; it could not block the smell of human blood and flesh.
Thanks to that, when Sia heard a huge roar and smelled human blood very close to the cabin where she had locked herself, she prayed for them to go away. The prayer turned into a plea, the plea into anger, and the anger soon turned into hunger.
And Sia lost consciousness from the continuous hunger and starvation. No, she became a hungry deceased who had let go of reason and ethics.
Even though she had cast such a strong barrier, it was eventually crushed along with the ground by Sia's craving for hunger and monstrous strength. Escaping the barrier, Sia rushed toward the smell of meat and blood.
Since her reason was already half-melted at that point, she didn't have the luxury to look around and break trees as she ran. And arriving at the place where the smell of blood and meat came from, Sia found a group of humans dead.
And she found a giant monster wearing armor and holding a greatsword slaughtering a massive army of humans alone. She found out later, but it was a mid-boss level existence in games, or a direct subordinate of the Demon King, known as the Giant of Wrath, Atalid.
And the knights fighting against Atalid in brilliant armor were the first humans Sia had seen since coming here. Dozens of them died every time Atalid swung his sword, yet the knights still rushed toward him.
Naturally, Sia, who had lost her mind to hunger, didn't care about that. She didn't care why they were fighting or what their circumstances were. Sia just wanted to solve her hunger. Drooling at the smell of meat and blood, Sia intruded into the battlefield.
The demonic energy and pressure emanating from Sia's body were already intense enough to make ordinary humans faint just by being near, so the Giant of Wrath, Atalid, and the humans fighting him stopped their battle at the sudden anomaly.
Blood, meat, flesh, smell, fragrance, hunger. That was all that was in Sia's head at the time. And Sia rushed toward the most delicious-looking and largest meat.
"Kyaaaaaaaah!"
A beast-like scream. However, the result was that the head of the Giant of Wrath, Atalid, was blown off in an instant by Sia.
As Atalid's giant body collapsed to the ground, leaving the dumbfounded knights behind, Sia began to tear apart the giant's body. She didn't grill it, nor did she butcher it. The thick and fragrant smell of blood and life. As if drunk on alcohol, Sia was drunk on blood, and at the ecstatic taste of meat she tasted for the first time, Sia instantly reached 'ecstasy.'
A sense of omnipotence and ecstasy as if everything in the world belonged to her. A smile formed as if she were floating in the sky, and a sensation of brain cells bursting wildly as if a lethal dose of drugs had been injected directly into her cerebral blood vessels. All of it was a first for Sia. She was so happy and so ecstatic.
Thus, Sia mindlessly tore apart the meat of her first 'intelligent being' and closed her eyes in ecstasy.
And when she regained consciousness, Sia found herself waking up in a luxurious room, covered in a white bed and blanket. What is this place? Why am I here?
She remembered killing and eating that strange giant. But everything else was wrong. Waking up in a luxurious room where high-ranking royals of this fantasy world would live made her feel that something was definitely wrong.
Creak.
"Are you awake?"
And at the person who opened her door and walked in, Sia looked at her with a startled face.
"They say beauties sleep a lot, and it is true. Well, I sleep a lot too."
"...Who are you?"
"My, I thought I was widely known... but I guess it was still lacking. I must work harder."
Brilliant blonde hair. The woman wearing a red cloak and draped in luxurious clothes and accessories was a woman of overbearing beauty at a glance.
"I am Menelapie Hailam. The Empress of this country."
Thus, in that world, Sia made her first connection with the high and mighty Empress.
Looking back, Sia was surprisingly blessed with people. In the otherworld, the Empress was her first connection, and upon returning, she made a connection with an S-grade hunter. Whether it was good luck or bad luck, that was something that couldn't be easily judged.