Homecoming
Speaking Korean again after all this time felt incredibly awkward. It didn't help that my memories were still a jumbled mess.
"Uh... ah... ooh." I strained to move my lips, desperately trying to coax the familiar syllables out.
"H-He... llo? How... do you do?"
"Oh, thank God! You can speak Korean?!"
The man fell to his knees, offering a tearful prayer of gratitude to the heavens. His overly dramatic display was mildly irritating, but I held my tongue. Right now, he was my most valuable source of information.
Once they realized I could speak their language, the other people huddled deeper in the cave began to creep closer, their curiosity piqued.
"W-Where... is this?" I asked, dredging up the words from the depths of my memory. Man, even if someone hasn't spoken a language in ten years, is it really supposed to be this hard? My tongue felt completely tied.
"Ah, ah... Ga, Na, Da, Ra, Ma, Ba, Sa..."
"We're inside a Gate."
A Gate? What on earth is that?
"Are you... a Hunter?"
A Hunter? What's that supposed to mean? I searched my brain, translating the English word literally. A hunter? Like... someone who hunts wild game? Has that become a common profession now?
"N-No, I'm not."
"Ah, I see..."
"I... don't know what a Gate is."
I did my best to keep the conversation going, trying to piece together the situation. From what I could gather, these "Gates" were some kind of new phenomenon—a bizarre modern development that had appeared on Earth during my ten-year absence.
"We were just unlucky," the man explained, his voice trembling. "We got caught in the gravitational pull when the Gate opened and were dragged in here against our will."
I couldn't grasp his explanation perfectly, but it seemed these Gates were a global disaster that materialized without warning. When they formed, they generated a powerful suction force, dragging nearby living things inside. No one seemed to know why. Furthermore, monsters inhabited the space within, which usually took the form of a labyrinth. Apparently, the Orc I had just pulverized was considered an exceptionally dangerous monster by Earth's standards.
"If we can just hold out a little longer, the Hunters will come and rescue us."
Despite their dire circumstances, the survivors clung tightly to hope. I gave them a silent nod. Perhaps to distract themselves from their terror, they kept chattering away. Thanks to their endless gossiping, I managed to gather a wealth of information, and my dormant linguistic skills rapidly began to resurface.
First, I confirmed that they were indeed South Koreans. However, the timeline was completely warped; they kept using slang and referencing events I had never heard of. But the most shocking revelation was the year. In my memory, it was definitely the year 2000 when I left. Now, they claimed it was 2010. A whole decade had passed.
I spent ten years fighting in a fantasy world, and ten years passed here too? Did time flow at the exact same rate in both worlds? If I had known this would happen, I would have demanded the Goddess send me back to the exact moment I was summoned...
Ten years. They say even rivers and mountains change in ten years. Would my parents and my little brother even remember me? And more importantly, my body was now female. Would they ever believe that this girl was their son? A heavy wave of depression washed over me.
As I sat slumped in the corner, thoroughly demoralized, the survivors began to whisper among themselves. They clearly thought they were out of earshot, but my ridiculously enhanced, superhuman senses picked up every single syllable.
"She must be a Gate missing person, right?"
"Poor thing..."
"I know we're in no position to worry about others, but... she really is pitiful."
A Gate missing person? What does that even mean? Dammit, what had happened to the world? I had absolutely no idea what had transpired over the last ten years. I tried to piece together the fragments of information I overheard, but the clues were too sparse to form a coherent picture.
Naturally, my mind flooded with questions. Was my family okay? I was especially worried about my younger sibling. There was a huge age gap between us, and I had absolutely doted on them. Ten years later... they would be in their twenties now, wouldn't they?
As time ticked by, my clumsy Korean gradually smoothed out. Honestly, it would have been stranger to completely forget a language I had spoken for over twenty years, even if I hadn't used it for a decade. Listening to the survivors talk was a massive help. Hearing the words triggered old memories, and once I started speaking myself, it flowed naturally. Of course, a word or two from the Other World's language still slipped out occasionally.
At first, everyone had gathered around me, making a huge fuss. But that frantic energy was likely just a coping mechanism to stave off their anxiety; before long, the atmosphere grew heavy and silent. Waiting to be rescued was mind-numbingly boring.
"I wonder when they'll get here..."
Looking at the others, I couldn't help but feel a pang of concern. I was the only one perfectly fine, having survived in far harsher environments for ten years. As the hours dragged on, the survivors grew visibly exhausted. The lack of food and water was taking a toll, but dehydration was the real threat. A human can survive a few days without food, but going without water is rapidly fatal.
I had been in this cave for less than a day, but these ten or so people had been stranded here for two whole days. Apparently, they had even taken in a few more stragglers who had fled from other parts of the labyrinth. In short, they hadn't had a single drop of clean water in forty-eight hours.
"They'll come for us today. Tomorrow at the very latest."
"Y-Yeah, of course they will."
Though exhausted, they refused to despair, firmly believing that rescue was on the way. At this rate, they're not going to make it... If only I could use elemental magic, I could just conjure some water. Unfortunately, using Holy Power to create water was... Wait. Is it possible? If I conjured Holy Water, it might work. The only problem was how I would explain it to them. I closed my eyes, trying to come up with a plausible excuse. Fortunately, before I could stress over it too much, the dilemma solved itself.
"Survivors over here!"
The rescue team—the Hunters—had finally found us.
"Survivors located! Initiating evacuation!"
Our group was quickly secured by the Hunters. My first impression of them was that they looked like warriors. They had the distinct air of the knights and mercenaries I had seen so often in the Other World. This impression was only solidified when I sensed the mana swirling inside them.
The ordinary civilians I had met earlier possessed no mana whatsoever. But these Hunters radiated it—and a substantial amount, at that. In other words, Hunters were humans who had awakened mana. Because they possessed this power, they were capable of fighting back against monsters. A literal translation of their title: hunters who hunted monsters.
In any case, the Hunters handed out bottled water and began guiding us toward the exit of the Gate. But that was where the real trouble started.
"A Gate missing person? Are you sure?"
"Most likely. She doesn't even know what a Gate is. It's highly suspicious."
The survivors had started whispering to the Hunters about me, prompting them to cast wary glances in my direction. I didn't mind a little suspicion, but... The exit of the Gate looked like a sheet of semi-translucent glass, offering a blurry view of the world outside. And that blurry world looked completely different from the Earth I remembered. Then again, ten years had passed. It was only natural for things to change. Am I finally going outside?
Stepping through the Gate, an unfamiliar landscape unfolded before my eyes. The buildings and infrastructure had evolved significantly over the past decade. I stood frozen, staring blankly at my surroundings, utterly overwhelmed by how much Earth had changed. It felt exactly like ten years ago, when I was first summoned to the Other World and stared in awe at its alien landscape... I just stood there, dazed. Still, as the cool air hit my face, the reality of my return finally sank in, and a wave of relief washed over me. But my celebration was cut short.
The Hunters' initial suspicion peaked once we reached the surface. The real trouble began with the identity checks. Being rescued was great, but things took a sharp turn for the worse when government agents arrived and began verifying everyone's identities.
The moment I saw them pulling out identification devices, my blood ran cold. My identity? What identity do I even have now? I had absolutely nothing to prove who I was. If I were in my original male body, it might have been a different story... but this female body had no legal existence on this planet. I was essentially an illegal alien! I certainly wasn't registered as a South Korean citizen. There was no way this body had any record. What was I supposed to tell them?
To make matters worse, this body didn't even have a name. In the Other World, everyone had simply referred to me as the "Saintess," and I had never bothered to give myself a name. I had always treated this body as a temporary vessel, so I never gave it much thought. I had just gone about my duties without a care in the world... Who could have predicted this? When I begged the Goddess to send me back, I naturally assumed I would return to my original male body. I never dreamed I would be sent back in the Saintess's body. If I ever lay eyes on that damn Goddess again, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind.
Meanwhile, the line was moving, and my turn was rapidly approaching. What do I do? Should I just play dumb? Honestly, that seemed like my only option. I didn't have a name, and I couldn't exactly invent a plausible backstory on the spot. Ultimately, when my turn came, I was left completely speechless by their questions.
"Do you really not remember anything?"
I couldn't answer a single question the agent asked. My age? I didn't know. How was I supposed to know the physical age of this body? Technically, since I had inhabited it for ten years, was I ten years old? If I said that, they would think I was mocking them, given how ridiculously well-developed this body was. So, I said I didn't know. My name? I didn't know. This body had no name. It had no parents; it was a vessel created directly by a deity. There was no mother or father to give it a name. Even when I was fighting to defeat the Demon King in the Other World, I never needed one. Being called the Saintess had been more than enough.
The closest thing this body had to a parent was the Goddess. And even she had never given this vessel a proper name, usually addressing me as "you" or by my original name, Kim Seo-yul. But that was my name, not the name of this body. So, I kept repeating that I didn't know. Parents? Personal history? These were questions I either had no answers to, or simply couldn't answer even if I wanted to. The investigator grew increasingly frustrated, his irritation mounting with every silent shrug. He even raised his voice a few times, but as the interrogation dragged on, his anger slowly melted into a look of profound pity.
"Sigh... A Gate missing person who's lost her memory, huh..."
Since I claimed to know absolutely nothing, they had jumped to the logical conclusion that I was suffering from severe amnesia. It was a massive stroke of luck for me. In any case, once the preliminary investigation wrapped up, I was... detained. They didn't treat me like a criminal, but they kept me locked up for further investigation under the guise of "public safety." Well, at least I was back on Earth. The world had changed so drastically that I still couldn't be entirely sure if this was the home I remembered... but for now, it seemed I had indeed made it back.