If a Returnee Fell from the Sky
This was the end of everything.
Yu Sia thought as much as she gazed up at the altar.
What had been offered was the Amulet of Yendor — the reason the dungeon had lived and breathed, reshaping itself with every cycle. The source of its infinite vitality, surrendered to a god.
At once the grotesque monsters of the Astral Plane, the angels, the demons — all of them froze as if locked inside a bizarre stillness. Before long the air around her grew heavy.
Light poured from the fissured sky onto the altar. When it passed through Sia and touched the living things beyond, they crumbled to powder. Yet it left her untouched.
The disintegration spread wider still. Beyond living creatures, the terrain itself — and then the dungeon — began to collapse. It heaved and warped, crushing countless lives beneath it. Of course it did. The trial was over; nothing left had any use. Everything crumpled and twisted as it came apart.
But Yu Sia, whom the light had touched, remained whole. She simply looked down on the crumbling space with no emotion at all.
More than any of this… I just want to go home.
My home. Not this goddamn dungeon — the studio apartment where I'd lived alone. Small as it was, it had been my own safe space above all else.
Getting possessed while playing a roguelike at home? Ridiculous. Time to wake up from that dream.
Thinking that, Yu Sia watched a ring slowly approach her. Compressed from the debris of the collapsing dungeon, it shrank into the shape of a band. She took it in her hand without a word, and in that instant felt it fuse with her soul as one.
"……!"
She frowned, looking down at the hand that held the ring. It felt unpleasant. But regardless of what she felt, the beam of light shining into the pitch-black void slowly began to lift her upward.
…Whatever. What does it matter now? All that's left is going home.
Nothing that happened in this place concerned her anymore. With that thought, she slowly closed her eyes.
The pressure of the force pulling her up grew stronger still — which meant escape was close at hand.
…and you ascend to the heavens, blessed forever!
In-game ending credits scrolled across her retinas. And so Yu Sia Ascended from the dungeon and returned to Earth.
THUD!
"Argh…!"
I'd thought I was back on Earth — and what hit me instead was a shock that flashed white across my vision and rattled my brain. Clutching my head, I slowly pushed myself upright.
"Ow…"
I took a quick look around. The first thing to fill my sight was a blue rift.
Did I fall out of this crack?
Judging by the way things felt, I'd hit the floor headfirst. Nothing else would leave my skull ringing this hard.
Those fucking bastards.
They'd kidnapped me into a game on a whim, and when it came time to send me back they couldn't even be bothered to do it properly. Feeling the old hatred for the Pantheon surge up inside me, I tore my eyes from the rift and looked around again. And that was when I noticed.
Uh…
Why was the furniture different?
The layout of the room matched my memory, but everything inside it looked completely off. I'd always preferred black — the place had been full of dark colors — yet what filled my retinas now was a wash of bright, cheerful tones.
A bad feeling. An instinct that something had gone badly wrong set off alarm bells in my head.
But before I could even finish assessing the situation, a rattling sound came from the bedroom side of the apartment.
With a cautious creak the door opened, and a small face peeked through the gap to look at me. By eye her build was fairly solid, but the gentle, sheep-like cast of her features made her seem harmless.
"…Um, e-excuse me… who… are you…?"
Anxious, trembling eyes flicked back and forth between me and the rift. What I saw in them was unmistakable wariness and fear. Did she live here? If so, I needed to talk to her if I wanted information.
So I opened my mouth, intending to explain my situation as objectively as I could. The problem was…
"Th-this is… my place… I-it's true…"
After being locked in that goddamn dungeon for who knew how many years — decades, maybe — my language skills had been completely wrecked.
Ah, fuck.
Wasn't that the most pathetic loser move imaginable?
There was plenty I wanted to say. That I wasn't a suspicious person. That I knew it was hard to believe, but something even I couldn't understand had happened — and I could show her that blue rift as proof. That I'd originally lived here, and I was panicking because the place had changed.
But I couldn't unpack the injustice, the confusion, the unease, the anxiety one by one. They all got mashed together into one bizarre answer.
The woman listened, and her pupils shook like an earthquake. Right. So you're panicking too. Join the club.
"I've been living here for… over a year already. S-so if you suddenly say something like that, it's… a problem…"
Then the focus of her gaze shifted. Looking behind me? I turned around — and there was the blue rift, rippling, then fading like paint dissolving in water. Before long the transparent crack was swallowed by the space itself and vanished without a trace.
"…Are you a Returnee, by any chance?"
"A Returnee…?"
"Yes, um… people who got pulled into another world by dimensional pressure when the World Scar first appeared, and came back late… I've only heard about them myself."
No. If she meant a Returnee in that dictionary sense, I wasn't one. Those Pantheon bastards had just conscripted me — an ordinary person playing a game — as an unpaid slave, put a collar on me, and run me through the dungeon on endless loops.
Of course, if she wanted to invent her own explanation and accept it, that was convenient for me. So I didn't bother correcting her. I just gave a small nod. And then I thought:
What the hell is a World Scar?
Something… something big seemed to have changed in this world while I was gone.
Returnee? What was that supposed to be. I'd never heard the words World Scar either. But the woman across from me didn't look like she was joking. If anything, she was dead serious.
So I decided to start by reestablishing the basics.
"…Do you know what month it is? What day…?"
"Today is March 22nd, 2026."
The last time I remembered from reality was around January 2023. She'd moved in a year ago. That left a two-year gap in between, and for a missing-person report you usually needed…
…How many years was it again?
I didn't know the legal details. I'd been trapped in a dungeon for who knew how long — there was no way I'd still remember something like that.
But if I had to guess: while I was gone, a missing-person report had been filed and I'd been declared gone. The landlord had disposed of my things and taken on a new tenant. That seemed like the most likely scenario.
Which meant…
Me — no way to prove my identity, nothing but the title of "Returnee." And her — paying rent and living here for over a year…
Anyone could see the latter was the legitimate tenant. If I tried to claim my rights here, I'd be the only one who lost.
Besides, I wasn't even human anymore. Racially I was a Deep One, a species unique to the game; my gender had changed, and so had my appearance. Could I even prove that I was the Yu Sia who'd lived in this room three years ago?
The moment that thought landed, it felt like my breath had been cut off. I'd never once considered any of this.
No resident registration card — how was I supposed to live in Korea? Strength drained out of my body. My head throbbed. I'd been so sure that if I just made it home, everything would be fine. Instead I'd come back as a homeless wreck worse off than a migrant worker.
"Haa…"
I still had to figure out what the World Scar even was, and before that I needed to find a place to stay. I pressed a hand to my aching forehead, and the blue hair swaying at the edge of my vision annoyed me enough that I shoved it back roughly.
"…Um, if you're done… could you… leave now…? Or I'll… call the police…"
Fine, damn it. I'll go. Leaving solves it, right?
I shot the completely blameless woman a look for no good reason, then trudged toward the door.
…I did consider killing her. Bare-handed, I could end a small woman like that without breaking a sweat. The thought of just killing her, disposing of the body somehow, and claiming the place as mine again wasn't one I never had.
But kill a neutral NPC and the guards show up — or rather, this being the modern world, the police. This wasn't inside the dungeon. I couldn't just die and reset from the start.
So… I had to accept it.
Thinking that, I unlocked the door lock and turned the handle. Coming home only to walk out under my own power left a bitter taste in my mouth. I took one light breath, and opened the door. The cool night air peculiar to March greeted me.
High cold resistance. At least I won't freeze to death sleeping outside.
Cracking a joke that wasn't funny even to me, I walked toward the stairs.
All in all, it really was one hell of a first day back.