What Became of Them
"The only reason I could take down a boss stronger than me was because I knew how to exploit an opening."
Prolonged, meticulous observation. Senses he had leaned on far too heavily. And the arrogance that clouded his judgment. All of it had combined to let him bring down a B-Rank monster a full tier above him.
"If I'd gone at him head-on, I would have walked away with serious injuries. But by watching him relentlessly, I found the boss's weakness—and that was how I finished him."
"Right."
Canteas nodded along as he listened to Do-ha's account. Just as Do-ha said, even in a desperate situation, a clear read of the problem had been enough to solve it.
"Everything you're saying sounds completely right."
"You think so too?"
"Yeah. So how about you untie me already?"
Canteas dangled upside down, staring up at Do-ha, who sat perched on a tree across from him. He had been hanging from that damned rope of twisted plant stems for quite some time now.
"I think the blood's starting to rush to my head…"
"You don't have any blood to rush."
"Still, this is excessive. I have human rights, you know."
"A Lich talking about human rights. Keep spouting nonsense like that and I might just let go of this rope."
Do-ha loosened his grip. The rope slid.
"Aaaaah!"
He caught it again just as Canteas started to drop.
"Hah… hah…"
Canteas gasped for breath the moment Do-ha reeled him back in. It wasn't the fall from the tree that terrified him. It was the pit waiting below.
"Grrraaah!"
Inside a sizable hole in the ground, twenty hounds stared skyward, drooling in a frenzy. And for good reason—Canteas's body was liberally coated in pheromone attractant.
"You were cheering for the boss earlier."
"That was just a joke. To lighten the mood…"
"You were cheering for real. Of everything you've ever said, that had the most sincerity behind it."
"In the end you didn't get hurt and you didn't die, so it worked out fine, didn't it?"
"Then how about you climb into that pit and spend two nights and three days with twenty hounds? You won't die, after all."
"Petty human… No wonder you never got married."
"Hahaha."
Do-ha loosened the rope again. It slid freely.
"Aaaaah!"
He stopped it once more.
"Have you lost your mind… And for the record, I didn't fail to get married. I chose not to."
He was going back to his original world eventually. What would be the point of marrying someone in Belhart? It would mean nothing—and for the sake of that world, marriage was something he simply could not do.
"That's usually what people who can't get married say…"
"That's it. You're going in for real."
The rope hissed as it ran out.
"Aaaah! I'll tell you about Selenia!!"
"Grrraaah!"
Canteas's body jerked to a halt mere centimeters from the hounds' jaws.
Do-ha reeled him back up, his expression complicated as he looked at him.
"…Talk."
Selenia…
Selenia Kairamos. A high elf so brilliant she was expected to become the next Elven Queen, and one of Emperor Do-ha's closest confidants. She had also been in love with him. Do-ha had feelings for her in return—but as he had already said, he was not of Belhart, and so he had never accepted her heart.
"What happened to everyone after I disappeared?"
It wasn't only Selenia's news he wanted. He wanted to know about the comrades and friends who had spent forty years at his side.
"Argh, just untie me already!"
Do-ha hauled Canteas up onto the tree and immediately cut the rope free.
"I almost got tortured inside a hound's mouth."
"Talk. You said it's been ten years since I vanished. Everyone… no—what happened to Belhart?"
"First… the continents. After you went off to your final battle with the Demon God, every demon, every follower, and every remnant of the Demon God Cult vanished from the land."
Tens of billions of demons, noble-class demons, even a few Demon Kings—all of them had withdrawn to the Demon Realm at once. Even the Demon God Cult remnants hidden across Belhart had disappeared without a trace.
"Everyone assumed you died with the Demon God."
It made sense. A week after Do-ha set out against the Demon God, the entire enemy force had retreated. People concluded the Emperor had taken his foe down with him.
"Once the Demon God Cult and the demons were gone from every continent, Dimeloff took the throne in your place. He said he'd hunt down any remaining Demon God followers to the last man."
Dimeloff Bellon—Grand Sword Master, the man called the sword that parts the heavens. A comrade, a friend, and a brother who had stood with Do-ha from the very beginning.
"Good."
Do-ha smiled at the news. Truthfully, Dimeloff had always been better suited to the throne than he was.
"Namgung Je-u became Leader of the Martial Alliance."
"Oh? Really?"
That was unexpected. The man had stepped out of the succession struggle early, saying he didn't want to fight his brothers. And now he sat as Alliance Leader? That meant he had crossed blades with his own siblings.
"Hard to picture that soft-hearted guy fighting his brothers."
"I don't know the details either, but apparently his older and younger brothers brought in the Demonic Cult and the Blood Cult to build their own power bases."
"Ha. Those idiots finally lost their minds."
Now he understood why Namgung Je-u had taken the Alliance Leader's seat. He would never have stood by and watched his clan collapse. He must have cut down both brothers himself.
"Tunrad founded a blacksmithing academy. Said he wanted to pass dwarf techniques on to humans."
"Pfft. No disciple is going to last under that guy…"
Tunrad's reputation as a cantankerous dwarf was known across every continent. That man running an academy… It would collapse before long, no question.
"Emilton became the Second Tower Master of the Mage Tower. She hit Seventh Circle after you disappeared."
"I figured as much."
A genius scholar even the dwarves acknowledged, someone who lived for research and invention—he had always expected her to claim a Tower Master's seat eventually.
"Depnius vanished the moment the war ended. Said he was going traveling, said goodbye only to his closest comrades, and left. He was clearly running from inheriting the Lordship."
Depnius, once an enemy. They had only spent about fifteen years together, but he was the one who had shattered Do-ha's prejudices about dragons.
"Ah—come to think of it, he showed up in the Western Continent, where the Empire is, not long ago."
"Why?"
"To break up a fight between Jawoon and Dalekes."
Jawoon, a dragon of the Eastern Continent, and Dalekes, another dragon, had clashed. Depnius, the Gold Dragon, had come west to stop them.
"There was a woman with him at the time. From what I saw, they looked like they were together. He was stroking her cheek and everything."
"Well, he was always popular even among dragons."
"And last—Selenia Kairamos."
"…"
Do-ha fell silent and listened. All five of the people he had just heard about were precious comrades and friends—but Selenia's news was the one he had wanted most.
"I don't know about Selenia."
"…Do you want to die?"
"No—wait! Calm down and hear me out!"
Do-ha's face hardened as his fist clenched. Canteas waved his hands frantically.
"For years after you disappeared, she stayed at the imperial palace. She traveled around, lived among people—then one day she went back to Alfheim and never returned to the Empire."
"…"
"You know as well as I do. Alfheim, the elven kingdom—a Lich like me can't set foot there. So I have no news."
"Do you at least know why she went to Alfheim?"
"I do."
"Why?"
"Because of you."
Canteas pointed a finger at Do-ha. Who could endure after the person they loved was declared dead? They had never even managed a proper goodbye, and there was no tragic love story between them worth remembering.
"She waited years on the chance you might come back. In the end she couldn't hold on, and she returned to Alfheim."
"…"
"I told you two to get together. Look at this mess. Pining after the fact? You know how pathetic that is, right? Even if you were going back to your original world eventually, you should have loved each other while you could! Huh?! Ugh, you hopeless idiot."
Do-ha punched him.
"Aaaaaah!"
Canteas, still sniping, took the hit and tumbled straight into the pit. Do-ha wanted to argue back, but he had nothing to say.
He's right about all of it.
Do-ha let out a long breath, shook off the tangled feelings, and dropped down from the tree. The hunt was finished and the mana stones were all accounted for. Time to head back.
Slurp, slurp.
"Hey! I—pffah. Get off me, you mongrels! Pull me out of here! Please!"
Canteas's desperate wails echoed up from the pit.
A hundred million…
Sitting on a bench, Do-ha checked his bank account and let out a hollow laugh. One B-Rank mana stone from the boss. Sixty C-Rank mana stones from the hound drive hunt. Sold all of them at a Hunter shop, and after a ten-million-won fee, he had cleared a hundred million.
"So this is why Hunters make so much money."
Now he understood why people said you never had to worry about a Hunter's finances. At a million won per C-Rank mana stone, sixty of them came to sixty million. And a B-Rank stone went for fifty million apiece.
Prices have gone up, but at least a Hunter won't starve.
That, however, was Do-ha's misunderstanding. Low-rank and middling Hunters spent their careers bouncing between D- and F-Rank Gates. Entering a C-Rank Gate meant forming a party. As Do-ha himself had learned, a boss could appear, or monsters could swarm and turn the run lethal. Gate ranks were guidelines, nothing more—trusting the label alone got you nowhere. Party members split the take, and if the party was guild-organized, the fees cut deep. A D-Rank mana stone was worth five hundred thousand. Even collecting several, once everything was divided, the income shrank dramatically. You risked your life walking into a Gate and still walked out with almost nothing after all the cuts.
Slurp.
"Is it good?"
Do-ha looked over at Canteas while still checking his account. After sulking properly about being dumped in the pit, Canteas had finally been bought a fresh fruit juice.
"Feeling better?"
"Hmph. Buy me a few more of these and I might…"
Canteas pointed at his strawberry-banana fresh juice.
"Considering the sniping, you got what you deserved."
"Tch… Anyway, I've got a question."
"What?"
"How exactly did you end up falling into Belhart?"
Seeing this place called Earth had made him curious. How had Do-ha arrived in Belhart in the first place?
"Because of a comic book."
"…Huh?"
"Before I dropped into Belhart, I was reading a comic. Do you know what a comic book is?"
Do-ha explained to Canteas what comics were, and what had happened. It wasn't particularly a secret, and hiding it wouldn't change anything.
"So… our world was just a comic drawn in ink?"
"I don't think so."
At first, Do-ha himself had believed Belhart was nothing more than a world inside a comic—that everyone he met and greeted was only ink. But decades passed. He fought the Demon God and returned to reality, and he came to understand that Belhart was another world entirely.
"The comic was just a passage to another world."
Not a fake made of ink.
"Well. I'm certainly not some ink blot."
Canteas nodded, looking more at ease after Do-ha's words. For a moment his own existence had felt false, and a hollow emptiness had washed over him. But Do-ha's certainty cleared his head.
Do-ha stood from the bench, then looked at Canteas rising with him.
"Time to head back. Grandfather's waiting… Wait."
Come to think of it—what was he supposed to do with this guy? Bring him home to an already cramped house?
I've got clothes on him and a helmet over his head, so at least no one will know he's a skeleton…
The problem was how small the house was. Even his own room was packed full the moment he stretched his legs out while lying down.
"Hey. You sleep outside."
"What?! You're telling me to sleep on the street?!"
A wave of self-pity hit Canteas. Now it had come to this—sleeping outdoors.
"Your old castle was full of cobwebs and cracked and crumbling anyway."
"That was because I was sealed and the place corroded! There was no one to maintain it! I live cleanly, thank you!"
He sprang up from his seat, thoroughly aggrieved.
"Hah… Fine. Looks like we're moving sooner than I planned."
Well. Maybe it was for the best. He had intended to move once he made some money as a Hunter anyway. He just hadn't expected it to be this soon.