Prologue
Thud— Thud— "Hoo..." Squish—
The cool blade sinks into the mud. The mud was made from the blood of countless people.
How many had there been? How many died? How many were sliced apart, crushed, pulverized?
All for this. For this one moment...
Exactly...
"How many..."
....
"Now's not the... time to think about... others... *cough*..."
Blood clings stickily all over my body. Most of it belongs to the bastard I just carved up.
The Devourer. The Anomaly that turned half the world into scorched earth and spawned countless victims.
Right now, that disaster's head lies severed.
By my hand.
Now the world will reclaim the peace it lost long ago.
"*cough*..."
Blood spurting from my mouth mixes with the blood streaming down my face.
'Left arm... gone already... Legs... the broken ones aside, the rest seem fine.'
Or not... Broken means they're not fine, right...?
...I don't know.
To hell with legs or whatever—how much blood have I even lost? Can't tell anymore.
Hell, how am I still alive at all? Guess I stopped being human a while back.
"Hng..."
Well, not for long.
"Goddess... you fucking bitch... why me..."
'Goddess, El.' To the people of this world, an object of worship. To me? A goddamn mongrel.
'Why this world of all places...'
Throwing me into someplace peaceful wouldn't have killed you, right? If I was gonna reincarnate anyway, I wanted to live easy like web novel protagonists—penning my hero's saga in comfort.
'And I did pen one.'
Probably get passed down as the saintess or swordmaster who saved the world and died a hero. Close enough.
But that wasn't what I wanted.
I'm not from this world to begin with. In my previous life, I was just an ordinary boy in peaceful Korea, hooked on manga and anime. Didn't even believe in God.
So why dump me here of all places—and as a girl, no less... Goddamn it.
"Goddess... that do it for you...?"
You got what you wanted, didn't you? Desperate to save your precious world, summoning reincarnators like mad, shoving us onto battlefields, getting us killed...
Nice, huh? Pulling it off like that.
—I'm sorry—
"Fuck... now you say it..."
—Thank you—
'...Good that you know.'
With that final thought, my breath cut off.
—I'll definitely repay you—
2062, the age of Gates, Awakeners, and the metaverse.
With the sudden appearance of Awakeners and Gates, humanity was more or less forced to seize mana, supplanting their old energy sources.
Mana turbocharged a civilization already on the march, propelling human technology to incomparable heights in under half a century.
And in that era...
"...An unfamiliar ceiling."
A certain returnee opened her eyes.
"..."
Lying on a plush bed, in a cozy, quiet home beneath a clear sky...
"Where the hell is this?"
I mumbled the words.