To survive on the battlefield, especially within the territory of the Demon King, all your senses had to be maximally alert.
Sight and hearing were naturally the most important.
These two senses are the most crucial for survival, enabling you to detect danger visually and gather additional information through sound.
It was essential not only to be aware of approaching enemies but also to assess how loud your footsteps were or whether your equipment made noise when it collided.
Touch was no exception.
It allowed you to feel the direction of the wind or notice if you were injured.
Sometimes, sharp tactile awareness helped identify traps camouflaged as ordinary objects or hidden from sight.
Taste was another sense that played a role, letting you gauge whether what you were eating was dangerous or vital for your body.
Cravings for sweet or salty foods might not matter much in daily life, but on the battlefield, where food was limited, it was different.
By understanding what your body desired, you could roughly assess your condition.
And then there was smell.
Smell was surprisingly crucial for survival.
If the air was thick with demonic energy, it had a strong odor.
The stench of decay nearby was a clear danger sign, prompting an immediate retreat or defensive positioning within the holy barrier created by a saint.
The smell of burning often indicated the presence of enemy camps.
If such a smell came from near a village, it likely meant the village had already fallen to the Demon King’s army.
Among all senses, the nose detects changes the fastest, although it quickly adapts and dulls over time.
Yet, in rapidly shifting situations, smell was often the first to react.
However, this heightened sensitivity also made it easier to be deceived.
Deceiving sight was difficult since it directly interprets light refraction.
Only magic that manipulated the brain’s perception or perfectly camouflaged objects could effectively trick it.
In fact, a well-crafted disguise was sometimes more effective than magic.
Our party had an elf named Arna, whose keen eyes and ears made her twice as hard to deceive as a human.
Thanks to her, we rarely misjudged things visually.
As for hearing, complete concealment was often more effective than deliberate deception.
A sound where there should be none was inherently suspicious.
In the Demon King’s territory, voices calling for help or murmurs of people were invariably traps.
But smell…
Its acute sensitivity and ability to detect subtle changes made it highly prone to being tricked.
Even in the unfamiliar world I lived in, there were scents I recognized from this one.
Back home, I used to walk to school with my sister every morning.
On the way, we passed a bakery.
It wasn’t a famous bakery, just a local shop selling three pieces of bread for a thousand won—a business focused on high volume and low profit.
The bread wasn’t particularly large or tasty.
Yet, every morning, the smell of freshly baked bread tempted me to buy it.
Occasionally, when we had a bit of money, my sister and I would buy three pieces of bread for a thousand won.
We’d eat one each and save the last one for later, splitting it on our way home from school.
“Cream bread might spoil,” my sister used to say.
So, the last bread we ate was always soboro bread.
The crumbs on top were sparse, but my sister always gave me the piece with the most crumbs.
Even though I hadn’t lived in a culture that regularly ate bread for breakfast, the smell of bread in the other world always drew me in.
I knew it wasn’t the same bakery smell I remembered, yet I often followed the scent and bought bread.
Unfortunately, there was no soboro bread to share with my sister.
Even now, I was following a faint scent.
I had no information about the shops in this area.
The neighborhood was mostly residential, and the bustling areas were a few bus stops away.
Few stores stayed in business long, though some had been around for over a decade.
Most, however, were closer to bars than eateries.
After five years, many restaurants had likely changed hands.
This wasn’t exactly my old neighborhood, but the one next to it.
I’d been here a few times but remembered little.
The roads and sidewalks seemed more organized than before.
The bakery we used to visit was in our neighborhood and had probably disappeared.
“Ah.”
The source of the smell wasn’t far.
It was a modest bakery with a sunflower painted on a white background.
The bright yellow sunflower stood out against the white, though the design wasn’t large.
The name of the bakery, written in evenly spaced letters, was “Sunflower.”
Compared to the old thousand-won bakery from my childhood, it looked much cleaner.
The smell of freshly baked bread wafted from the shop.
There didn’t seem to be many people inside—perhaps because it was a weekday afternoon, and there weren’t any large workplaces nearby.
Yet, through the sunlit windows, I could see staff bustling about.
“Hmm…”
Honestly, I was nervous about going inside.
Outside the clean bakery were tables and chairs for people to eat.
Perhaps they also sold coffee.
I’d never been to a café before.
I’d been to bars and budget eateries like kimbap shops or fast-food joints, but never a place like this.
Back when money was tight, I couldn’t understand spending thousands of won on a single drink.
Even in the other world, cafés like this were rare.
The nobles’ salons had a similar vibe, but I disliked them just as much.
So, in short… it felt oddly overwhelming.
It gave off the vibe that I didn’t belong there, as if only people who understood and enjoyed such an atmosphere should enter.
Of course, it wasn’t as if the owner had intentionally designed the place to feel that way.
Still, that smell of freshly baked bread was hard to resist.
Well, I had money now… though I hadn’t withdrawn any cash, I could always pay with the payment app on my smartphone.
“Whew.”
I exhaled deeply, trying to calm my nerves.
Alright, I’m just going in to buy some bread.
How hard can that be?
Courage begins where hesitation ends.
Engraving the words of the hero of the past into my heart, I confidently walked to the bakery’s door.
Without hesitation, I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
A soft chime from a small bell on the door announced the arrival of a customer.
“Ah.”
The woman bustling behind the counter let out a small sound of surprise.
“Welcome!”
She greeted me with a bright smile.
“Ah.”
And as I saw her, I too let out a small sound and froze on the spot.
She tilted her head, looking at me curiously as I stopped mid-step, frozen in place with a startled expression.
I had thought she’d gotten a little shorter since becoming a woman, but even among women, she hadn’t been particularly small.
Now, as she looked at me, she seemed just slightly shorter than I was.
Her appearance didn’t seem to have changed much.
Five years had passed, yet she still looked almost exactly the same.
Ah, no. Her hair had gotten shorter.
She used to tie her long hair neatly behind her back, but now it had been cut to about shoulder length.
It was still tied back, but it looked as if she had gathered it to avoid the inconvenience of loose strands.
She wore a uniform I’d never seen before.
A baker’s hat with a short brim sat atop her head, and over a white blouse, she wore a deep navy apron that matched the hat.
It was a sight unfamiliar to me.
“Ah.”
Only after our eyes met again did I realize I’d been standing there like an idiot.
I quickly moved aside, though all I did was step away from blocking the doorway.
“Uh… well…”
I had thought about starting fresh if we met again.
“Yes?”
But now that we were face-to-face, I had no idea how to start a conversation.
What should I say? What could I say? To her, we were practically strangers meeting for the first time.
How do people greet each other when meeting for the first time? How do they carry on a conversation and become friends?
When I first met her, what did we talk about?
I couldn’t remember anything.
Even my oldest memory of her was of her smiling and reaching out her hand to me.
“Ah, um, well…”
In the end, not knowing how to begin, I blurted out:
“I came to buy bread…”
It was such a stupid thing to say.
“Uh…”
She stood there, looking unsure of how to respond to a customer standing at the entrance announcing they came to buy bread.
But soon, she smiled softly and replied, “Please, take your time and look around.”
She looked exactly as I remembered her from my childhood.
It made me wonder how I hadn’t recognized her properly through the window earlier.
Five years since I’d left this world.
A short time, or a long time, depending on how you look at it.
At the end of those years, I was finally able to meet her again.