Modern Exploration
The girl with snow-white skin and golden hair looked around.
A girl as beautiful as a doll, with violet eyes.
It was Joan of Arc.
Jeanne.
The girl was openly displaying her astonishment at the transformed scenery. To her, it must have felt as if the space itself had shifted straight from the burning stake to the general store.
But this was no time to be surprised by something so small.
“Seojun-nim, look outside.”
Jeanne’s violet pupils widened like a startled rabbit at the view beyond the glass.
“My goodness, the iron carriages are moving on their own.”
Her adorable reaction brought a smile to my face.
Beyond the window she stared through stretched a gray cityscape where cars flowed like a steady current. The “iron” she spoke of were automobiles.
“This is the world I live in. It looks like you were transported here along with me, Jeanne.”
“This place…”
Jeanne gazed out the window with eyes full of wonder.
“It’s completely different from France.”
“To put it simply, it’s the future.”
I explained the modern world to Jeanne in terms she could understand. This was a future six hundred years removed from fifteenth-century France. It wasn’t exactly the same world, but I left that part out. Simply accepting the idea of the future would already be overloading her mind. Explaining parallel universes on top of that would have been asking too much.
“Then… are you a man from the future, Seojun-nim?”
“You could think of it that way.”
“So I’ve come to the future together with you.”
Jeanne looked surprised, yet she seemed to accept it. After all, I had always given her advance warnings whenever she stood on the brink of death.
On the other hand, I was just as shocked.
I never imagined she would come with me.
I had saved Jeanne, but I had never once pictured her actually following me back. Until now, other worlds had only sent over relics—never a living person.
Is it because history was distorted?
The status window had labeled Jeanne a “Distorted One.” By surviving past the death that should have claimed her at the stake, she had created an error in history. That error had apparently been purged. In exchange, I hadn’t received the “Banner of the Saints” as a reward, but I didn’t mind. Seeing Jeanne safe and sound was worth far more than any flag.
Besides, even without it I still possessed two legendary relics of my own.
I was quietly smiling at Jeanne’s fascinated expression when a message appeared.
A new entry has been added.
A catalog I had never seen before unfolded before my eyes.
Reading through Jeanne’s entry, my eyes widened at the grade.
Jeanne… is Legendary?
The Joan of Arc I knew had been an ordinary village girl who couldn’t even wield mana. A normal girl forced into sacrifice by the Saint’s Banner and the fake stigmata. Yet that same ordinary girl had become a Legendary existence.
It was astonishing, but I could understand why. This was a world where even the relics of famous figures possessed power. Joan of Arc wasn’t a relic—she was a person—and her level of recognition was arguably the highest on Earth. Everyone in the world knew her as a saint. As long as countless people remembered Joan of Arc as a saint and revered her as a hero, Jeanne’s power would never fade.
I had given up the Saint’s Banner, but in return I had gained the saint herself. Still…
Holy attribute?
I tilted my head at the listed property. I had heard of the Light attribute, but Holy was entirely new to me. The question lingered, but I set it aside for now. The first priority was checking on Jeanne’s physical condition.
She had been locked in prison until just moments ago, freshly freed from the execution platform. My concern, however, proved unnecessary.
“For some reason, I feel overflowing with energy.”
Jeanne twisted and turned, examining her own body with open fascination. Her movements showed no trace of the exhaustion that should have come from her imprisonment.
Must be the effect of becoming Legendary.
Even so, certain things still needed to be done.
“Let’s change your bandages first.”
I pulled fresh bandages from my subspace backpack and carefully removed the blood-soaked ones wrapped around her back. What I saw left me stunned.
It’s completely clean.
Jeanne’s back was astonishingly smooth. The stigmata hadn’t vanished, but the deep wounds that had torn into her flesh had shallowed considerably, and her once-rough skin had turned pale and fair. The scar-like marks now resembled elegant tattoos—much like the genuine stigmata said to have been borne by the Catholic saint Francis of Assisi.
“Is something strange?”
When I simply kept staring at her back, Jeanne asked with a puzzled look.
“Does the stigmata not hurt anymore?”
“No… now that you mention it, it doesn’t hurt at all. What happened?”
Jeanne herself seemed to realize her condition only then, her eyes widening in surprise.
I suppose we can do without the bandages now.
Still, better safe than sorry. I gently cleaned her back and wrapped it with the new bandages. If anyone saw those marks, they might recognize them as stigmata.
Safety first.
After replacing Jeanne’s bandages, a new problem presented itself.
“Hmm.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Not exactly, but you’ll need to change your clothes.”
Tilting her head, Jeanne looked positively angelic, but her outfit was the issue. She couldn’t walk around the modern world dressed in medieval execution garments. Since I knew next to nothing about women’s fashion, I called in reinforcements.
─Why? I’m busy right now.
“I’ll give you allowance money. Come to the store.”
─Right now?
“Yes, now.”
─Got it! I’ll be there soon!
The savior I summoned was my little sister, Choi Seoyeon.
*
“Oppa, have you moved on to kidnapping people now?”
“Keep talking nonsense and the allowance disappears.”
“Who is she?”
Choi Seoyeon whispered, glancing at Jeanne who sat demurely inside the store.
“Her name’s Jeanne. She’s a foreign hunter. The association asked me to look after her for a while.”
“Wow, she’s seriously beautiful.”
Completely ignoring my improvised story, Seoyeon was too busy marveling at Jeanne.
“I’ll give you my card. Go pick out some clothes for her with my money.”
“Okay, leave it to me.”
Her eyes sparkled with dangerous enthusiasm, like a child about to play dress-up with her favorite doll.
“If you put her in anything weird, no allowance.”
“Don’t worry. I’m an expert at this.”
Her confident declaration felt vaguely ominous, but it should be fine. She had inherited my sense of style, after all.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Choi Seoyeon, Hunter Choi Seojun’s younger sister.”
“Ah, so you’re his sister.”
At Jeanne’s response, Seoyeon tilted her head.
“If not his sister, who did you think I was?”
“You two seemed very close, so I assumed you were his lover.”
“Cough!”
Jeanne’s innocent reply made me choke.
“It’s absolutely not like that, so don’t worry. That would never happen even if I died and came back to life.”
When Seoyeon denied it with visible disgust, Jeanne’s expression brightened in a subtle but noticeable way.
At least communication isn’t a problem.
Jeanne was a fifteenth-century European who shouldn’t have understood Korean, yet she spoke with Seoyeon without any difficulty. It seemed the language privilege I received when traveling to other worlds extended to her as well.
Still, just to be safe, I followed the two of them to the shopping mall.
“I’ll wait here. Go pick everything out and come back.”
“Okay.”
While Seoyeon helped Jeanne choose clothes, I sat near the store entrance and waited. About ten minutes later, Jeanne emerged from the fitting room in her new outfit.
“How does it look?”
“……”
Jeanne was wearing a pure white dress. The atmosphere around her was exactly like that of an angel descended from heaven.
“Well?”
“You did a great job.”
I immediately sent Seoyeon three hundred thousand won.
“Nice! Oppa, I’ve got stuff to do so I’m heading out first!”
She really had been busy after all.
As Seoyeon hurried away, I turned back to Jeanne. She kept adjusting the unfamiliar clothes, clearly still getting used to them.
“Does it look strange?”
“It suits you perfectly.”
The pure white dress matched Jeanne’s aura like it had been made for her. Calling Seoyeon had been the right decision. She really did have an eye for clothes.
That aside—
“Jeanne, aren’t you hungry?”
“Bread is enough for me.”
Even during the war, Jeanne had survived on coarse black bread and watery soup. It had become a habit, which was why she answered that way. She had simply never tasted truly delicious food before. That damn Bishop of Cambrai had hoarded it all for himself.
Fucking bastard.
I still regretted not hitting him harder. I should have given him a few more blows before leaving the chapel.
“Instead of that, let’s go eat something delicious.”
“Delicious food?”
“Yes. This world’s food culture is incredibly advanced.”
I decided to feed Jeanne first. She had probably gone an entire week without a proper meal while those worthless bishops interrogated her.
“What does ‘gourmet’ mean?”
“It means the cooking is exceptionally tasty.”
Jeanne’s violet eyes sparkled like jewels. The way she swallowed her saliva told me just how much she was looking forward to it, even if she didn’t say so.
Chuckling, I took her hand and led her forward.
“Let’s go.”
Samgyeopsal, kimchi, bulgogi, chicken…
I wanted to introduce her to Korean cuisine.