Don't Call Me a Goddess
Dereliction of duty, my ass. The words sounded off, but I couldn't exactly call them wrong. Just like the Chungmugun soldiers who attacked me yesterday had said, there were definitely moments when soldiers had to act as ordinary citizens. Still, for some reason—maybe a scrap of military stubbornness and competitive spirit still lingered in me—the sight of the escort vehicle accelerating to close in on the bus left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like that vehicle shouldn't be allowed to overtake the bus. So I got a little rough.
A whirlwind kicked up. I delicately manipulated the sandstorm covering a four-hundred-meter radius around the incident, gently laying every vehicle on its side. Of course, the people inside probably didn't experience it as "gentle." That explained the screaming.
"Driver, you son of a bitch!!!"
"Don't take your eyes off the monster!!"
"Hold the kids tight!!"
"I can't see anything through the dust!!"
"Kyaaaaaaa—!!"
I smirked and shaped the wind into blades.
There was only one place where lycanthropes were considered "boss level": an F-2 Gate. Even the regular civilian unit I'd belonged to in my previous life would have laughed at it. Naturally, for the current me, a single slash—shluk—carved the creature into dozens of pieces inside the sandstorm. The following gust of wind carried the remains far into the distance.
Fortunately, the spot where the vehicles had overturned was perfect. A small ruin sat right beside it, with a river behind that led straight into the city. The ideal hiding place for a child caught in an unexpected accident.
I kept the sandstorm going and shifted into spirit form. Riding the currents of natural mana, I flew to the abandoned house by the roadside and reformed my body. The floorboards crumbled the instant my floating form touched down. Must have been an old ruin.
I gradually let the storm die. Peeking through the tattered door, I spotted the two overturned buses and single escort vehicle about thirty meters ahead. Just in case, I maintained the Dew Lens I'd created overhead and waited in the doorway until the people found me.
I ended up waiting quite a while. It took the guards who crawled out of the escort vehicle over ten minutes to smash the bus windows, lead the twenty civilians to an open area with clear sightlines, and only then begin checking for injuries.
...Way too slow. In my day, we ran injury checks the moment we completed a rescue. We'd confirm retreat routes and danger zones while moving. And here they were, already thinking about running from just five lycanthropes...
Realizing I was having these thoughts only a few days after my "discharge" in real time, I had to admit I sounded like a cranky old man.
Anyway, I was finally discovered. The guard who made eye contact with me jumped in surprise.
"L-Lieutenant!"
He rushed over and pointed me out to her. She still looked dazed. Time for the performance.
I let my eyes glisten. Sniffled pathetically.
The lieutenant's eyes widened. She hurried over, barking orders.
"Bring water and food! Antibiotics and the first-aid kit too!"
Her face, which had brightened for a moment, twisted as she passed a woman comforting a crying child among the civilians. Humiliation. Rage. It looked like she'd inflicted a deep wound on herself with her own sharp emotions.
Unfortunately, it was entirely self-inflicted. I didn't feel like comforting her, but my mere existence would probably be comfort enough.
As if trying to atone, the lieutenant who had rushed to my side put on an excessively worried expression.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
I nodded, generating moisture in my eyes. She picked me up and carried me to where the others had gathered.
Just then, the soldier who'd fetched the supplies asked her with a confused face.
"Is it really okay to bring her? She might be a transformed monster."
Oh boy. I nearly lost control of my expression from the sheer absurdity. Good thing the lieutenant knocked some sense into him first.
"If you have time to listen to urban legends, read the official monster encyclopedia. The only human-mimicking monsters are Demon King class."
Exactly. If I really were that kind of creature, it would be a full level-one national emergency. A Demon King class monster had emerged outside a Gate, after all.
...Wait. This situation was actually pretty similar.
I quickly changed the subject.
"I'm thirsty..."
When I said it in the most pitiful voice possible, the lieutenant hurried the soldier along.
"Open it quickly. I'll perform the examination myself."
She set me down, handed me a water bottle, and rummaged through the emergency kit the soldier had spread out. Temperature, pupils, pulse, skin condition. While she diligently checked my health, the soldiers gathered near the escort vehicle were having an ominous conversation.
"Does it make any sense for a single kid to be standing alone in a place like this?"
"The sudden lycanthropes, that whole mess earlier—it's all way too suspicious."
"Did you guys actually memorize the encyclopedia? Is there seriously no human-mimicking monster?"
"How the hell would we memorize all that?"
"Hey. Someone needs to step up and tell the lieutenant. We should at least isolate her."
"Yeah. She looks like a jinxed little brat..."
The anxiety-fueled complaints were about to spiral into full-blown superstition when a cheerful female voice cut in.
"Wouldn't she be more like a lucky charm?"
A beautiful girl in a school uniform suddenly shoved her face in front of the soldiers. She stretched her neck, scanning the area, then spotted me and broke into a radiant smile.
That smile was so pretty it threw my first impression into chaos. Color contacts. Blonde hair. A ridiculous amount of rings and earrings. She looked like the literal personification of the word "gyaru."
A style that should have been terrible clashed with that bright smile, creating a messy first impression. So when she jumped toward me, I felt uneasy.
I flinched. The instinctive rejection made the lieutenant turn in surprise.
"Stop! The child might feel anxious..."
Thankfully the lieutenant tried to stop her, but—
"It's fine!"
The gyaru girl casually brushed past her, squatted in front of me, and let out a soft gasp.
"Wow..."
Mouth slightly open, eyes growing wider. What on earth was she so shocked about? Her incomprehensible behavior only deepened my confusion.
Even after hearing her next words, I still couldn't understand.
"You're actually really cute."
That part was true. But I had no idea why it would cause surprise bordering on reverence.
What was even harder to understand was the way she suddenly grabbed my waist and lifted me clean off the ground. With a bright, sunny smile, she stood up, held me high, and spun in place while babbling.
"You're a total fairy... no, a goddess, aren't you? I knew it—you're luck itself! The goddess of luck! I felt it the moment the bus flipped over. This wind was called by someone trying to protect us! The monsters will definitely disappear soon too!"
She stopped spinning and turned toward the crowd. The moment I saw the look in her eyes as she made her declaration, a cold sweat broke out.
"I'll take care of her myself!"
The green mana rippling in her irises. No way...
An uneasy prediction flashed through my mind. I already understood the situation, but I desperately tried to deny it by pulling up my status window.
Instead of denial, that's what appeared. This vassal bullshit... I already knew about it thanks to the vine that had made elixirs for me right up until its death. But I never imagined it would work on humans, let alone like this.
Besides, the natural mana I sensed from the gyaru girl was incredibly faint. Even I—who could read natural mana more precisely than anyone else in a world saturated with it—had to concentrate to detect it. Such a tiny amount. For a human with only that much to show affection bordering on madness...
If I wandered around the human world like this, a cult would form in no time.
Seized by sudden anxiety, I quickly scanned my surroundings. Thankfully, I couldn't sense any natural mana from the other humans. Based on this sample, the percentage of humans capable of holding natural mana in their bodies was roughly three percent. On top of that, the gyaru girl's reserves were extremely low. There was still hope.
A clear hope that I could live out my life as a wandering hermit, drifting through existence like a lazy bum.
That was a complacent thought.
The lieutenant accepted the gyaru girl's declaration far too readily.
"You're such a good kid, aren't you? All right. Take diligent care of her until we reach the village!"
The gyaru hugged me with overflowing energy and answered.
"Yes! I'll raise her like my own little sister!"
Raise me? How long exactly did she plan to cling to me?
As if to make that anxiety real, everyone immediately acknowledged her.
"Our Seo-hyun is so kind. Oh my, how can a child be this cute?"
"Well done, Seo-hyun! If anything's hard, call the uncles!"
"Sister Seo-hyun! I still have some chocolate left! Can I give it to her?"
She looked like a total gyaru, so why was she so universally loved? More importantly, put me down already. It was obvious my legs were fine.
I barely swallowed the words that almost slipped out, thanks to the concept I'd stupidly chosen.
At least more than half the group were civilians, which was a relief. The lieutenant decided to stop the march as soon as the sun went down.
"Is communication still not connected?"
The person answering her was, as always, the sniper who stuck to her side like a sycophant.
"Yes. Corporal Yu says there was never a communication network in this area to begin with..."
He lowered his voice, but I heard every word.
"Shouldn't we send an emergency signal soon? This is technically an emergency."
Having served in an era where emergency signals rang out like meal-time alarms, it sounded like a perfectly normal suggestion to me. But after hearing the lieutenant's reply, I realized just how stupid the sniper's proposal was.
"Absolutely not. If the monster that escaped from Yangmok City is nearby, we're finished."
To think he'd been planning to use a mana communicator. I was surprised that even a low-tier unit like this was issued mana communicators in this era, but the sniper's abysmal knowledge surprised me even more. Weren't they in the same national army? Why were they so different from the Chungmugun?
But it seemed my underestimation still wasn't harsh enough.
That night. While I lay pretending to sleep, quietly watching the stars embroidered across the sky, the sniper—who should have been on patrol—approached the area with the radio backpack.
No way. It couldn't be. The moment I thought that, a hemispherical wave burst outward. The communication mana pulse spread ten kilometers in a single second, passing through the bodies of every living thing in range. The creatures that would detect it were probably a few awakeners with detection abilities and every monster within a five-kilometer radius.