“Who is the outsider?”
At that one sentence, dropped from the doorway of the healing sanctuary, the sounds that remained inside sank just a little further.
I muttered briefly to myself.
‘Why’s he acting like that when he saw me right in front of him?’
Still, I opened my mouth.
“...Me.”
Even after I answered, the air remained heavy.
The man standing in the doorway did not continue right away. Instead, he slowly looked me over.
My face.
My shoulders.
The bloodstained dagger.
My hands.
My torn sleeve.
Then my face again.
Those weren’t eyes looking at a person. They were like eyes checking the condition of an object of unknown origin.
“Name.”
The word was short and hard.
“Baek Si-yun.”
The man’s eyes moved ever so slightly. I couldn’t tell whether my name sounded unfamiliar to him or whether the pronunciation had caught him.
“Where did you come from?”
“That’s...”
I closed my mouth for a moment.
‘Fuck... what am I supposed to say?’
“Speak.”
He didn’t even wait for an answer. It wasn’t urging, and it wasn’t pressure, but that single word made my throat feel pointlessly dry.
“...I don’t remember.”
Beside me, Mari let out something like a snort.
“See? He’s like this from the start.”
“Mari.”
Kaya called her name in a low voice.
The man at the door didn’t even look Mari’s way. His gaze stayed fixed on me.
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember basic common sense and language, but... I don’t remember much else.”
A short silence.
From deeper inside, a stretcher creaked, and an elderly priest was lifting the armor around Roy’s side higher. Over the smell of blood, the scent of medicinal herbs lay thick.
“Your memory is blank.”
“Yes.”
“And why should I believe that?”
“You don’t have a reason to.”
The words came out first.
I was a little surprised myself. But I couldn’t take them back. If I made up some clumsy excuse, I’d look even more suspicious, and if I was too honest, they’d definitely treat me like a lunatic.
“I’d be suspicious too. But it’s also true that I don’t have anything more plausible to make up right now.”
Mari’s brow furrowed even more.
“Wow, how shameless.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“That’s the most suspicious part.”
Kaya took one breath and cut in.
“He is suspicious.”
Mari immediately responded.
“Then that settles it.”
“But he didn’t run away during the fight.”
Kaya’s voice was still dry. It was the voice of someone whose head was still working despite being dead tired.
“At the very least, he doesn’t seem like an evil person right now. It’s also true that he dragged Roy all the way here.”
“That’s what makes it even stranger.”
Mari glared at me as she spoke.
“From head to toe, he’s not from around here. His hands too.”
I reflexively looked down at my hands.
Blood had dried on them. Dark red stains had spread across the backs of my hands, between my knuckles, and along the edges of my palms.
Mari wasn’t wrong.
They weren’t hands hardened with calluses from manual labor, nor were they hands that had held a sword for a long time, and they weren’t exactly hands raised in luxury either.
Hands that were awkwardly intact.
That probably made me look even more suspicious.
And with these hands, I had just killed living things.
I felt a little sick.
Kaya cut it short.
“If we’re going to kill people based on appearance, why does the guild even exist?”
“So you’re saying he isn’t suspicious?”
“No... I’m saying we need to watch him.”
It was then.
From the stretcher came the rough sound of breath scraping through a throat.
It was Roy.
The elderly priest had his hands gathered over the wound. Faint golden holy power flowed from his fingertips, and the split flesh was closing very slowly.
It wasn’t healing completely. It only closed enough to stop the bleeding, after which he placed crushed medicinal herbs on top and pressed them in place with a bandage.
The priest muttered softly.
“No internal injuries, then. That’s fortunate.”
Roy looked this way with half-closed eyes. More precisely, he seemed to be struggling to look.
“...This kid.”
His voice was cracked.
Kaya turned her head toward Roy, and Mari also shut her mouth for a moment.
Roy forced himself to draw in one breath.
“That guy...”
Each word broke off heavily.
“Saved... us.”
For a very brief moment, the inside of the healing sanctuary went quiet.
Roy, unable even to properly open his eyes, practically crawled his next words out.
“I... vouch for him.”
The words weren’t loud, nor were they impressive. They were a sentence carried on the breath of a man who had lost far too much blood and forced himself to speak.
The man at the door looked at Roy for a moment. His expression didn’t change, but he paused very briefly.
Only then did the young priest beside him speak in a low voice.
“Deputy Guildmaster Garen...”
Garen.
Before the name could even settle in my head, the man’s voice dropped again.
“I’ve heard the vouching.”
He took one step forward.
“But that and trusting him are two different matters.”
‘Uh... you’re a little too close.’
Before I could say anything else, Garen’s hand suddenly shot toward me.
The dagger.
It was a hand reaching to take the goblin dagger still in my grip.
It was too fast.
‘Fuck!’
But my body reacted first.
My wrist curled inward first, and my foot twisted half a beat ahead. My fingers tightened harder so I wouldn’t lose the blade, and my waist and shoulders locked at the same time.
The dagger I thought would be taken stayed in my hand. Garen’s fingertips brushed past it.
“...”
I was dazed.
‘What was that. Did I just dodge?’
Garen also stopped for a very brief moment without withdrawing his hand.
This time, his eyes did not scan my face, but my hands, feet, shoulder line, and center of gravity.
A short breath burst from Mari’s mouth.
“What was that just now?”
Kaya looked at me too.
Only belatedly did my heart start pounding like mad.
‘Heavenly Demon Body, sir. I don’t think I can live without you anymore.’
Garen withdrew his hand.
“That wasn’t trained movement.”
His voice was low and firm.
“And yet your reaction and judgment were both fast.”
“I don’t really know how I just did that either.”
“That sounds like you’re saying your memory was cut off too.”
“That is actually the case.”
Mari muttered under her breath.
“He’s suspicious in a really unpleasant way.”
“Mari.”
“I know. But suspicious is suspicious.”
Garen showed little reaction to my reply. Instead, he asked the priest behind him.
“Any demonic energy response?”
“None.”
“Curse?”
“I don’t see one. At the very least, there is no malignant reaction right now.”
“He is human, correct?”
“Yes. He appears to be human.”
Appears to be human.
I don’t know why that was so funny. The fact that I was in a situation where I had to be confirmed as human felt kind of absurd.
Garen looked at me again.
His eyes were heavier than before. They weren’t simply the eyes of someone looking at a suspicious outsider. They were eyes looking at something he needed to verify personally at least once.
“Formal registration is impossible.”
What is formal registration?
He continued.
“But I don’t intend to simply send you away either.”
Mari crossed her arms, and Kaya wordlessly checked Roy’s condition again.
Garen spoke solemnly.
“Stay near the healing sanctuary tonight.”
“...”
“Do not leave the village.”
“Yes.”
“And tomorrow morning.”
His gaze stopped at my fingertips. He slowly looked over the dagger, the back of my hand, and my torn sleeve.
“Come to the training ground behind the Loenheim guildhall.”
A brief silence.
“There, I will see for myself what you are.”
Those words sounded like a notice of interrogation, and also like a warning of a test.
Probably both.
Garen turned around without saying anything more. It felt as though he had drawn a clear line with the final order not to leave the village.
After he disappeared, the sounds that had stopped inside the healing sanctuary slowly began to return.
Someone carried water, someone brought bandages, and someone checked Roy’s condition again.
Kaya let out a long sigh. Her face was pale, and her fingertips were trembling slightly.
Mari leaned her back against the wall and muttered.
“Haa... I’m seriously so tired.”
“How much mana do you have left?”
Kaya asked.
“Almost none.”
“Me too.”
Both of them looked utterly exhausted. Now that I thought about it, those two had also endured to nearly their limits.
Kaya looked at me once.
“Sleep here tonight.”
“Here?”
“It’s awkward to send you outside, and we have no reason to get you an inn. There’s a temporary guest room in the back of the healing sanctuary.”
Mari cut in.
“If you run, it’s the death penalty.”
“I told you, I have no intention of running.”
“Then good.”
After exchanging a few short words with the young priest, Kaya took me toward the back of the healing sanctuary.
At the end of the hallway, there was one small room.
One bed, one basin, one table.
The window was small, and the place was faintly steeped in the smell of medicinal herbs.
It wasn’t a prison, but it wasn’t exactly a comfortable room either.
It was exactly the kind of room where you temporarily laid someone down.
“We won’t lock the door.”
Kaya said.
“But if you try anything stupid, we’ll know right away, understand?”
“Yes.”
“The water’s over there. Wash off the blood first.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“...Save the thanks for when Roy wakes up.”
Kaya left only those words and turned away.
Once the door closed, it suddenly became quiet.
For a while, I just stared at the door.
Then I went over to the basin and washed my hands and arms. The water quickly turned red. I rubbed off the blood stuck to the backs of my hands and washed between my knuckles. The smell of goblin blood rose, mixed with the scent of water.
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
When I opened it, a young boy who looked like an apprentice priest held out a wooden tray.
“Your dinner.”
On the tray was a lump of coarsely baked grain bread and a bowl of soup that looked lukewarm. A faint mix of grassy and grainy smells rose from it.
“Ah, thank you.”
I closed the door and set the tray on the table.
Without much expectation, I tore off some bread, dipped it in the soup, and ate.
“...Oh?”
It’s more edible than I thought?
Not that it was amazingly delicious. The bread was dry and hard, the soup was lukewarm, and the seasoning was bland. But strangely, my hand kept going back to it.
After I finished eating, there was exactly one problem.
‘The portion’s a little lacking.’
It felt like my stomach was only half full.
I looked down at the empty bowl and sighed.
“Haa...”
I want ramyeon. Pork neck too.
I stared blankly into the air. Then I opened the Dimensional Archive.
[Record Updated]
Local Status: Night
Location: Ruen Order Healing Sanctuary, frontier village under Loenheim jurisdiction
Temporary stay initiated
────────────────
Dimensional Archive
User: Baek Si-yun
Reality: Earth-0300
Until Next Update: 16:38:42
[Dimension] [Ability] [Record] [Settings]
────────────────
Looking at the record only made me hungrier.
“Should I go for just a bit?”
I thought of my original world.
The dimensional gate opened without a sound.
[Record Updated]
Reality Time: 2026-03-26 20:38:11
Return to Reality
Earth-0300
As soon as I returned to my studio apartment, I turned on my phone first.
The time on the lock screen was 8:38 p.m.
For a while, I just stared at those numbers.
I had killed goblins in another world, held onto Roy as we pushed through the forest, entered a village, sat in a room at the healing sanctuary, and even eaten bread, yet in reality, it was still evening.
“Wow...”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
“Doesn’t this mean I can work in reality without getting tired?”
Right after saying that, I lightly slapped my own cheek.
“Fuck, are you stupid? Is work really the first thing you think about even at a time like this?”
I went to the kitchen area of my studio apartment, put water on for ramyeon, and took pork neck out of the fridge.
When the sizzling sound, the smell of splattering oil, and the scent of ramyeon seasoning rose up, I finally felt like I could live again.
“Kyaa... now this is sex.”
I lifted the noodles with my chopsticks, then put a piece of pork neck into my mouth, and it genuinely felt like my body was loosening up.
“Wow.”
I snickered as I drank the broth.
“You’ve got to eat a solid dinner, after all.”
After filling my stomach, I opened the Archive again.
Astrania-1337.
When I opened the dimensional gate and crossed back over, the room was exactly as it had been in the moment I left.
[Record Updated]
Reality Time: 2026-03-26 21:39:36
Dimensional Re-entry
Astrania-1337
Coordinates: Fixed to previous departure point
[Record Updated]
Local Status: No change
Previous departure point maintained
A half-torn piece of bread.
An empty soup bowl.
A cloth hanging over the edge of the bed.
Even the angle of the light pooling beneath the door crack.
Truly, it was exactly as it had been the moment I left.
There was not a single trace of time having passed.
For a while, I slowly looked around the room.
“Wow... it really stops.”
The words I muttered softly spread quietly through the room.
The world I leave stops.
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
My stomach was full, and my body had loosened up a little. But my head still hadn’t completely settled.
Tomorrow morning, the training ground behind the Loenheim guildhall.
Garen’s face, looking like a gigachad, came to mind again.
‘That wasn’t trained movement.’
Those words, and the speed of the hand that had tried to take the dagger.
“What’s going to happen...”
I muttered softly, leaned my back against the wall, and closed my eyes.
Outside the door, the sound of someone’s footsteps passed once in the distance, and from somewhere came the faint sound of what might have been herbs being ground.
Even as I listened to those sounds, strangely, my heart felt at ease.
At the very least, this wasn’t a world where I felt like I would die the moment I entered.