Homecoming
“I’m going home now.”
At Han Yujin’s declaration, every mouth around him fell open.
“Hero? Why so suddenly?”
Suddenly? I’ve told you people I want to go home hundreds of times already.
“You mustn’t, Yujin! If you leave, how are all the lives of this world supposed to go on?”
How is that my problem? They’ll figure it out among themselves.
“We still need you. We won’t ask you to stay forever—can’t you just give us a little more time?”
Give you a little more time, my ass. You lot would chain me here for life if you could.
The moment the words left his mouth, voices rose from every direction trying to stop him. On any other day those pleas might have tugged at him a little, but the Han Yujin of today only wore an expression of pure exhaustion.
“…You’ve been saying that same crap and holding me here for a whole year already. Don’t you think it’s about time you let me go?”
“But Hero… we…”
“I’m sick of the whole ‘Hero’ thing too. Kids, just let me go home already. I’ve done everything I can in this world. My lifelong wish is white rice with ramen and kimchi on top. That’s it. Wish granted, please.”
That was the truth. Twenty years earlier, Han Yujin had fallen from Earth into this world. The reason was simple enough: the world stood on the brink of ruin under the Demon King’s invasion, and the Empire had performed a summoning ritual to bring forth someone who could defeat him. Out of seven billion people, the lottery ticket had landed on Han Yujin.
Of all the countless people walking around on Earth, why the hell had it been him? He had always thought of it as the most fucked-up, rotten fate imaginable. Even though he had received the isekai reincarnation that so many people dreamed of, not once to this day had Han Yujin ever considered himself lucky.
When he dropped into this world he never met any divine being, never received any special power or status window. A perfectly ordinary high-school student who had never held anything heavier than a kitchen knife was suddenly expected to swing a greatsword and cut down monsters and demonfolk—that was pure fantasy. And when that pure fantasy becomes your own documentary, there is nothing left to laugh about.
Anyway, after rolling through hell and back, getting tangled in every kind of disaster, and barely surviving death more times than he could count, Han Yujin had finally brought down the Demon King. Nineteen years after falling into this world, he had done it.
“I did everything you wanted. The Demon King’s dead. There’s nothing left in this world that can threaten humanity. So what more do you want from me?”
Irritation colored his voice.
“The monsters that used to live inside human territory are wiped out. The traitors who sold out to the demonfolk are all dead. The so-called Legion Commanders and Four Heavenly Kings—I tore every last one of those bastards apart. The Demon King himself I cut into seven pieces and sealed in the deepest part of the continent, so peace should last at least a thousand years. So just let me go home. It’s been nineteen years since I fell here. Nineteen.”
He pressed a hand to his throbbing temple and let out a long sigh.
“Nineteen years is easy to say, but I was eighteen when I landed. I’ve spent more time in this world than I ever lived on Earth. I can barely remember my parents’ faces anymore. Playing hero here hasn’t been the worst life, but don’t you think I should go see my hometown at least once?”
“But Yujin, you said yourself you were just an ordinary person on Earth. If you stay here with me, you could live more nobly than anyone else and enjoy every luxury imaginable.”
As if she could not bear to let him go, a woman with platinum hair and splendid clothes seized his hand. She was the Imperial Princess and one of the comrades who had fought the Demon King at his side—Arieta von Riengranz.
“Marry me, and if you wish it, you could even become the next Emperor. Not a single soul among the people would object. After all, you are the hero who saved this world.”
She was not wrong. In the past twenty years, what Han Yujin had built in this world was absolute. But that was a story that belonged only to this world, not to Earth. If he returned, he would simply become an ordinary Korean high-school student again—exactly as he had been twenty years ago when he first fell here.
“I don’t care. Even if that’s how it ends up.”
At his firm answer, the woman standing beside Arieta rounded her eyes at him.
“Is it… that you don’t like Arieta? Then what about me? I can say with confidence I’m far better than that woman.”
“What was that? Lumina, you’re wagging your tail at Yujin right in front of me while I’m standing here with my eyes wide open?”
“Wagging my tail? That’s a bit much. From the start I never liked you going on about marriage when you’re not even anything to him.”
“Of course you didn’t. What man in the world would want to marry an elf granny who’s hundreds of years old even if she looks young on the outside?”
“You really want to go a round with me? I told you never to bring up my age in front of Yujin!”
As Arieta and Lumina began snarling at each other, Han Yujin watched the scene and sighed once more.
“…Anyway, I’ve decided I’m going back to Earth, and I’m not yielding on this. And if you two don’t want the brand-new Imperial Palace smashed to pieces, keep it to a moderate fight.”
While Arieta and Lumina sank into their private world of murderous intent, Han Yujin quietly edged backward. No matter how hard his comrades of twenty years tried to stop him to the very end, his resolve did not budge. Wealth, glory, the Emperor’s throne—he needed none of it.
If there had been no way back, giving everything up and living it up in this world until he grew old and died would not have been such a bad option. But a way existed, so there was no reason to plant himself here and stay. However fine this world might be, to Han Yujin it was still only a foreign land. The place he could truly rest his body and live was Earth—his home in Korea.
So he had decided. By any means necessary, he would go home.
…Yes. By any means necessary. Without fail.
“I’ve already finished every personal preparation. So don’t even think about stopping me. And… thank you, all of you, for the past twenty years. Thank you for becoming my comrades and fighting at my side.”
“Yujin…”
“Let’s make the farewell clean. Let’s part with smiles on our faces, so that when we remember this moment later, not a single speck of regret remains.”
Saying so, he turned a bright smile toward his other companions.
Not long after, Han Yujin used the dimensional gate buried beneath the Demon King’s castle and returned to Earth.
Three months had already passed since his return.
“Haaaaah…”
Han Yujin stared blankly at the sky and let out long, regret-soaked sighs.
“Fuck… if I’d known it would turn out like this, I should’ve just pretended to lose and sat on the Emperor’s throne and lived there for the rest of my life…”
The man who had slain the Demon King and held the entire world in his hands now, three months later, still had no job. In other words, Han Yujin was currently unemployed. And he regretted returning from the other world with every fiber of his being.