Return

“Are you really leaving?”

The little girl spoke, her face tight with the effort of holding back tears.

Her golden hair, usually brushed to perfection, was a tangled mess today, and her eyes were slightly swollen, as though she had already shed quite a few tears.

“Yes.”

I gave the girl a bitter smile.

“You know that as well as I do.”

I looked down at my hands, which had grown noticeably weaker.

No matter how strong I had once been, there was nothing I could do about old age.

As a human born to live, grow old, and die… as long as I was bound by that law, it was an unavoidable fate.

I gently patted the little girl’s head and said,

“A human lifespan is far too short compared to yours. It’s hard to live even a hundred years.”

“Th-then… if I gave you my heart…!”

“No. It’s all right.”

I shook my head slightly. I didn’t want to prolong my life by using the heart of a disciple I’d raised like my own child.

Besides, there were arts that could extend my lifespan, but I had rejected them all.

I had lived long enough in this world. I’d fallen into an incomprehensible other world, struggled desperately and grown stronger, and in the end become the hero who saved it.

The only regret I had left was…

“I don’t want to live any longer. I just want to see my homeland one last time.”

“But….”

“Don’t say anything more. No matter what you say, I won’t change my mind.”

After gently patting my young disciple on the shoulder, I looked at the large pot set over the fire.

A special reagent made by processing and combining various precious ingredients, then using alchemy to amplify their effects.

It wasn’t finished yet… but as soon as it was, I intended to make the final gamble of my life.

“I understand. I’ll do as you wish, Master.”

“Then would you go check the mana circuits in the Sky Citadel that we’ll need for the ritual? I’m afraid my mana won’t be enough.”

It was a blatant lie. My mana was more than enough, but I didn’t want this girl caught up in the fallout if something went wrong.

I didn’t care if I died, but I didn’t want that girl to die.

“All right. I’ll be back soon!”

“Thank you.”

As I watched my disciple’s small figure hurry off at my final request, I quietly apologized.

“I’m sorry, Asha.”

Unlike me, whose time was running out, she still had so much time ahead of her… I had to keep her away, even if it meant lying to her.

I was a little worried about leaving the little girl behind, but all I could do was trust that she’d be all right.

With that, I prepared to finish the reagent.

The final ingredient was none other than blood imbued with mana. It was the easiest ingredient for mages to obtain, and the most useful medium of all.

So I picked up the small dagger lying on the table.

The amount I needed was… about a teaspoon. All I had to do was cut my fingertip and add it. Simple enough.

But the hand holding the dagger was trembling slightly.

It was a blade I’d once wielded as naturally as a part of my body when I was young, and yet now it felt so awkward. Time really is cruel.

But I didn’t have much time left.

I readjusted my grip on the dagger─

“Cough! Cough!!!”

A sudden fit of coughing made me drop the dagger.

I hastily stepped back, so I wasn’t hurt by the falling dagger, but…

“Oh dear….”

The hand I’d used to cover my mouth as I coughed was smeared with bright red blood.

Whether my insides were damaged or my airway had been injured, I was coughing up blood. I didn’t want her to see me like this again.

I stared at the red blood on my hand. Hmm… could I use this without making a cut?

Though it had come up with my cough, it held enough mana and shimmered with a faint blue light… It seemed more than suitable as an ingredient for the reagent.

Rather than make a fresh cut on my fingertip, I might as well use the blood that had come out on its own like this. I’d never tried it before, though.

I carefully gathered the blood on my hand and dropped it into the gently simmering reagent. Just as I’d expected, its blue color began to turn pale purple.

After quickly cooling the finished reagent with ice magic, I poured it into the magic circle I’d inscribed on the floor beforehand, completing the preparations.

And with that… everything was ready.

“All right. Let’s do this.”

What I was about to attempt was the final gamble of my life. The last challenge I could undertake after being stranded in another world.

If I succeeded, I’d be able to see my homeland again. If I failed, it would all end here.

“Please, let me see my homeland one last time.”

I poured every last bit of my mana into the magic circle. At its center, space began to crack little by little, like glass, and a pitch-black void appeared in the fissures.

Thankfully, the magic circle I’d researched and prepared for so many years was working as intended.

It was a magic circle that created a temporary passage by piercing a hole through the sturdy wall separating one world from another.

The world set as its destination was the one where I’d been born and raised, the world that was my homeland. The world I’d designated using the coordinates engraved on my soul. Earth.

The passage opening before me… no, since it was a door leading to another world, it would be more accurate to call it a Gate.

Though I couldn’t yet see what lay beyond the Gate… if the magic circle was working properly, Earth had to be on the other side.

The length of time the magic circle could remain active was proportional to the mana fed into it, so the Gate wouldn’t stay open for long. I had no time to hesitate.

I hurried toward the Gate, which had grown large enough for a person to pass through with ease.

Praying that this old, ailing body would get to see Earth’s scenery one last time.

Longing with all my heart to return to Earth.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thankfully, the magic circle worked properly and sent me to Earth.

The familiar, nostalgic smell of exhaust brushing past my nose. The sound of cars coming from outside the window. Even the pattern on the wallpaper, so rare in that other world.

The chances of failure had been high, and I hadn’t had much time left, so I’d attempted it as a desperate gamble. Thankfully, it had succeeded without a hitch.

But whether something unexpected had gone wrong, the magic circle had malfunctioned because of insufficient mana, the coordinates engraved on my soul had been altered, or the blood I’d coughed up had caused the problem…

There was a small problem.

“It’s nice to be back on Earth, but…”

I let out a quiet sigh and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

I had no idea at which stage a bug had crept in, but… I could accept being sent back to a point in time a little before I’d been transported to the other world.

“How did this happen…?”

The mirror reflected a beautiful girl with black hair that fell past her waist.

She wasn’t fully grown yet, but she looked quite mature for a teenager.

I was a girl who looked as though she’d grow into a beauty in another year or two.

“At least one good thing is… the memories I have as a woman seem to coexist with the rest.”

All the memories from childhood to the present were intact in my head, so I could understand my current situation.

After comparing my memories as a woman and as an old man one by one, I found that only one thing had changed at the very beginning: my sex.

My name was still Kim Su-yeon, the same as when I was a man. I was nineteen, or eighteen by the international age system, I guess? I still can’t get used to calculating age that way.

I was a high-school senior who’d taken the CSAT just a few months ago, a female student who’d escaped the grind of exam prep and was finally free.

My family, hometown, and overall home life were the same, but that one difference in sex had changed a great many things.

The biggest difference of all was…

“The CSAT… I completely bombed it….”

My period happened to coincide with the CSAT, and the period medication I’d taken beforehand to avoid a disaster caused all sorts of problems. On top of that, the exam was notoriously difficult, and I completely bombed it.

As a result, I had no choice but to apply to universities far below the one I’d had in mind while taking practice exams.

Unlike when I was a man and got into a decent university in Seoul… this time, I’d submitted an application to a decent private university in the Busan area.

“Ugh… It’s already in the past, so there’s nothing I can do about it.”

It had already happened, so there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, I was just an ordinary person with my mind half-occupied by a girl who’d only just finished high school and an eighty-year-old man.

It wasn’t as if there was any mana on Earth, and even though I had experience wielding a sword, there was nowhere here I could put that experience to use.

I’d returned from another world, but I had nothing to show for it.

“Besides… I need to figure out what to do about the female personality, too.”

My current situation was that the memories and personality of an old man who’d come from the future had merged with those of a girl who wasn’t even an adult yet, at an eight-to-two ratio.

I, the old man, had control… but it felt like I’d stolen a woman’s body, and it made me uncomfortable in all sorts of ways.

In particular, among the enemies I’d faced, there were demons who stole other people’s bodies and pretended to be them.

I didn’t want to do anything like that. If possible, I’d like to give the body back to the girl I was…

But Earth had no naturally occurring mana! That was a huge problem, since it made magic impossible by ordinary means.

Sigh. Why had things turned out this way? I really had no idea.