Chapter 262 – Side Story 66. Homecoming (1)
“This place… ?”
“Oh. Have you already forgotten? “It’s your hometown.”
“No, I know that.”
I looked around her with blank eyes.
People passing by glance at me and Isis.
The sight of citizens plastered with uncharacteristic black hair and suits seemed unfamiliar to me now.
It’s definitely a sight I saw every day in my past life.
Now that I was more accustomed to life as Saint Thesia, it was literally just a scene from another dimension.
“Are you feeling homesick?”
“… “I don’t know.”
“That’s a mysterious answer.”
Perfume.
Even empty words didn’t give me that feeling.
I’m just confused.
It was nothing more or less than that.
“… Why did you bring me here?”
“I told you. “It’s a trip.”
“Normally, you don’t go on a trip to another dimension. Especially the world I lived in before I was reincarnated.”
“Is that so? I really don’t have any other intentions.”
Lies… It didn’t seem like it.
Did I just bring this world because it was a place that was at least slightly familiar to me?
Isis took a step forward with a gentle smile.
“Okay, let’s start with what to do with those clothes. “Don’t people look strange when a nun appears in the middle of Seoul?”
“Yes.”
I held hands with the goddess, who was smiling brightly as always.
Following her, I quietly took in the unfamiliar yet familiar scenery of Seoul.
***
“Wow! This really suits you!”
“Ugh…”
Wow, Isis clapped her hands.
The goddess scanned my entire body with her sparkling eyes and immediately spoke to her clerk.
“How much does it cost to do all this?”
“It will be 672,000 won~.”
“… It’s ridiculously expensive.”
Isis whispers so quietly that the clerk cannot hear.
Still, she rummaged through the small bag she had on her shoulder and took out one of her plastic cards.
“Please make a lump sum payment.”
“Yes~, please wait a moment~.”
Isis is glaring at the clerk who is walking away at a fast pace.
I could almost hear the murmurings coming through my inner world.
“What kind of piece of synthetic fiber glued together costs hundreds of thousands of won? People on Earth really don’t understand.”
“Ahaha…”
“It would be nice if humanity here could also use magic or supernatural powers. “If you don’t know when your life is at stake, unfair transactions like this will disappear.”
“Don’t say that. If that happens, there will be problems with demon lords and monsters in this world as well.”
“Uhm. “I guess that’s true too.”
Isis agreed immediately.
She soon returned, and after receiving her card back from her clerk, the goddess once again stared at her attire.
“Why, why?”
“Just. After all, I thought it would be prettier if the tits were big enough to be exposed to some extent.”
“… “I’ll just wear a nun’s uniform.”
“You can’t do that. “At least wear those clothes while you’re in Seoul.”
Isis embraces my nun’s robe that the clerk gave her in a paper bag.
It looks like I have to follow the goddess’s foolish behavior today.
Ha, I sighed softly and looked at myself in the mirror again.
Her silver hair, which was always covered with a veil, was long and reached down to her waist.
The tank top with thin shoulder straps drastically exposed her cleavage, and a cardigan that was see-through covered it.
By wearing a short skirt underneath, the overall fashion keyword was fixed as ‘sexy’.
What can I say?
It seemed like any man I encountered on the street would always fixate my gaze for more than 5 seconds.
“Um, um. Very sexy and nice. “If I go to the club like this, there will be a line of guys waiting to get my number.”
“I’m not happy at all…”
I don’t even have a cell phone number to hand over in the first place.
Seeing me frowning, Isis smiled and said, “Hehe.”
“I’m kidding. There’s no way I would see you like that, right?”
“That’s true too.”
“Hehe. “Then shall we go again?”
“Where… ?”
Where are we going again?
I was already starting to lose energy and was getting a little sick of it.
Please just tell me that we can go to a motel and have sex.
I feel much more relieved that way.
“Hmm~?”
Ah. Oh, my.
It seems like my thoughts just entered the inner world.
Isis looking at me with a sly smile.
With a faint blush on his face, he approached me at a slow pace.
“Have you thought about that already, Thesia?”
“Oh, no. “Is that possible?”
“Oh my. Since when did our saints become able to lie to the goddess?”
“Ugh…”
I started thinking about something.
I know Isis’s playfulness best.
Is it really going to get eaten up like this?
Returning to Seoul after a long time, and in a place with so many people?
“…”
“Hehe. This is also a joke.”
Isis said, lightly pinching my cheek.
“You said it was a trip. “I just want to go out and have fun, just the two of us, so don’t worry too much.”
“That… Are you going?”
“Huh. That’s it. Of course,”
Taaak.
Isis snapped her fingers.
At that moment, silence came to the whole world.
The midsummer wind that wrapped around the scorching heat.
A clerk greeting a new customer at the store.
The noise of the car running noisily outside.
In a world where everything had stopped, only two people, me and Isis, were able to move.
“Uh… Eup!?”
A moment of panic.
Page——.
A soft kiss covered my lips.
The warmth of Isis came in an instant.
The sweet scent of the goddess holding my hand fiercely pierced the tip of her nose.
“… ♡”
The kiss that was shared quickly fell apart.
However, the body heat applied like lipstick on my lips stayed for a long time and disturbed my mind.
“They won’t show any mercy at night♡”
Isis, who sends seductive glances and voice.
Seeing her expression as she lightly licked her lips, I reflexively tightened my lower abdomen.
“Yes hehe… ♡”
As I made a dumbfounded voice, Isis gave me another sweet kiss.
***
A trip to Seoul led by Isis.
More than 20 years have passed since my last memory, and Seoul has changed much more than I thought.
Kiosks take the place of store orders, robots take the place of employees in unmanned stores, and no matter where you go in the world, everything can be done with just a smartphone.
“There was nothing like this in my time…”
It was difficult for me to come to my senses amidst the waves of newspapers pouring in.
As I was holding my head, which was slowly becoming dizzy, Isis approached me with a grin.
“Now, ice cream. Eat this and cheer up.”
“Thank you…”
Fortunately, this was a familiar ice cream brand that had existed for 20 years.
Then and now, I took a big bite of the expensive lump of frozen milk and slowly cooled down.
“Is it that difficult? “If you look at it, it’s nothing special.”
“It’s not that it’s difficult, it’s that it’s so unfamiliar. “I almost feel like I have been reincarnated in another world, not in Seoul.”
“Is it that much?”
I nodded, shook my head, and took another big bite of ice cream.
“Since when did riders receive tips? … “3,000 won is enough to buy a meal at a convenience store.”
“What are you talking about? Now even convenience store lunch boxes cost over 4,000 won.”
“… Korea is ruined. This is not the future I wanted…”
I munched on the ice cream quickly and glared at the signs hanging on the street.
“Tanghulu, Maratang, Tanghulu, Maratang… Why are they all serving the same food?”
“Uhm, well. Isn’t it just because it’s a popular food?”
“I don’t understand the tastes of today’s generation. “For me, even if I just smell it, I can’t bring myself to eat it.”
“So? If you try that too, it’s delicious in its own way.”
“I don’t know. Why on earth do you pour sugar water on fruit that is already sweet and refreshing? How on earth can one endure the awful scent of spices in malatang? “I don’t understand anything.”
Have I developed too much of a taste for other world food?
I can’t help but think that fresh fruit juice would be more delicious than Tanghulu, and spicy and salty meat dish would be more delicious than Malatang.
“Korea is ruined… A world where you have to wait in line to eat something like that even if you pay a lot of money…”
“Hehe. “It sounds like an elderly person in his 60s lamenting.”
“It’s not really wrong, right? “If you add up the ages before and after reincarnation, it’s about that much.”
Ahaha, Isis followed me with a playful smile and raised the corners of her mouth.
And then, blankly, I watched the world go by for a while.
Isis sitting next to me on the bench.
He spoke quietly to the goddess who was looking at the same place while gently holding her hand.
“Thank you. “For letting me see my hometown like this.”
“… “You missed it, right?”
“Yes. “A little bit, right after I was reincarnated as Thesia Rupilberg.”
It wasn’t that I had no regrets about life on Earth.
Because there were so many things I couldn’t do yet.
But.
“But you can’t live too tied up in the past. “What has already happened has happened, and there is a lot that has been given to me.”
New name: Tesia Rupilberg.
A new destiny as a saint.
Since I was given a second chance, I had to live while affirming the existence of a new ‘me’.
There are no regrets.
Even if there is just a little bit of longing.
And now.
Even the vague longing that remained within me was being resolved.
“… I feel nostalgic. “Back then, this street wasn’t this fancy.”
“Hehe. So?”
Isis let out a short laugh.
As I looked at the street, which had become much more colorful than before, the goddess just held her hand tightly without saying a word.
***
Current time, 1:10 PM.
The sweltering heat in downtown Seoul was so painful that it could not be compared to the summer of the Sonia Empire.
“If I didn’t have divine power, my whole body would be covered in sweat…”
The best in this world. Best cheating ability.
I quietly prayed a prayer of gratitude in my heart.
It was a prayer to Isis, who was away for a while, saying she had some business to do.
It was then.
“…”
A tingling, unpleasant sensation arose.
Someone’s gaze with clear malicious intent was focused on my entire body.
Slowly, I rolled my eyes to the side and glared at the source of the malice.
Two men and one woman.
Although they were ordinary people with no magical power or divine power, their eyes were stained with as much evil as that of the devil’s army executives.
“Whoa.”
I don’t really like this kind of cliché trend.
No. If there is a beautiful woman with a face like this and a body like this, then of course those guys will be attracted to it too.
Until a little while ago, Instagram… The men who approached me asking me to tell them what I was doing were unpleasant.
As I pretended not to notice and was doing something else, I saw a woman among them approaching holding something.
A small glass bottle filled with liquid.
Looking at the tiny hole in the iron lid, it seemed like they had done something strange.
‘Is it a drug?’
I knew it intuitively.
It was a tactic often used by enemies in the warrior party and spies from the Demon King’s army.
It can’t be helped.
Now that things have come to this, should we at least do street beautification activities?
“Oh, well. Excuse me~?”
The woman slowly approached me and spoke broken English.
She gave me a forced smile, and her ugly nature was still evident in her eyes.
“Um, do you know the Korean Medicine? Uh… It’s good! Good drink! Good Medicine, Anne…”
“I can speak Korean.”
“Uh, ah, eh? Ah, are you Korean?”
“Well, it’s similar.”
I thought he would hesitate for a moment at the subtle answer, but the woman instead raised the corner of her mouth toward her ear as if she was satisfied and continued speaking.
“Oh my, it went well. This is a nutritional supplement newly developed by our company, right? It was originally sold as a limited edition product for 150,000 won each, but today we are having a special free tasting event.”
“Yes, but?”
“Student, just looking at you, I think you’ll do really well in your studies. This nutritional supplement activates the brain and greatly improves concentration. “Why don’t you try it?”
“Do you want to improve my concentration?”
When I intentionally responded with interest, the woman’s face lit up.
“Sure! Did you know that our brains can only use 30% of their original capacity? If you drink this nutritional supplement consistently, you can supply proper blood flow to the cells in the brain and increase the brain’s operating rate to over 70%!”
Nonsense.
… However, even here, he pretends to be deceived for now.
“Really? “Then can I just drink this for free?”
“Yes, of course! Moreover, since this is a medicine that increases blood flow, it is very effective for skin care and diet!”
Although he just confessed with his own mouth that it was medicine.
For now, I continued to act like I was fooled.
I opened the cap of the glass bottle I was handed and poured the contents into my mouth.
At that moment, I felt the gaze of the two men watching me from afar become more intense.
The moment I faint from the drug, it must be a system where those two transport me somewhere.
Gulp, gulp.
I drank the drink from the glass bottle without hesitation.
As expected, what was mixed in the bottle was quite a powerful drug.
If an ordinary person drank it, he might have died.
The overflowing divine power completely purified the toxins.
Although the drink was now just plain water, I continued to act.
“Uh, ah…”
A shaky bridge.
The body quickly lost its strength and collapsed into place, losing half of its consciousness.
… While acting, I looked with open eyes at the two men running from afar.
“Move quickly. “Don’t attract the attention of people around you as much as possible.”
“Do your best.”
The two people lifted my relaxed body lightly, probably because they were used to this sort of thing.
The group quickly ran to the parking lot and pushed my body into a van.
Without delay, he tied my wrists tightly with tape and drove the car, and the group left the parking lot.
“Fuck, this is so fucking awesome! “This product is truly amazing!”
“Yes? Hey, roughly how much can I get if I come to this level?”
“Well. Just looking at it, it’s a foreign-made chicken, so wouldn’t you charge at least 25 per unit?”
Three people who started self-evaluation with me and the van rushing by.
In their eyes, I was just a product to make money.
“Hey. Before that, can’t we just have a taste?”
“It’s crazy? Then how are you going to take responsibility if your boss turns his back on you?”
“Oh, fuck! Just say it was Fuda from the beginning!”
“Hmm~? “What on earth are you trying to taste?”
“What the heck, fuck! Taking a bite first before putting it out as a product… Ji… ?”
Rattling, shaking inside the van.
The three villains’ eyes widened at the voice of the fourth person who suddenly intervened.
Squeak, the sound of tape being roughly torn.
I held out two fists filled with feeble divine power and spoke in a gentle voice, befitting a saint.
“He is in heaven… Goddess Isis, who will be following me fiercely by now. “Please allow me to dare to condemn their ugly sins.”
This was right after I had recited a prayer I had made up on the spot.
In the middle of a road in Seoul, a penance room shaped like a van was opened.
