“Seolma…….”
I was muttering to myself in disbelief when it happened.
Bang—!
The rooftop door slammed shut on its own, as if a fierce wind had blown it.
Startled by the sound, I immediately turned around and froze on the spot.
The door handle, which had been rusty and neglected like in an abandoned school for years, was now pristine.
Not a speck of dust or cobweb clung to the door; it looked spotless.
‘The status window looks exactly the same as when I was possessed?’
Panicked, I reread the words displayed on the status window and spread out my palms, checking myself thoroughly.
But my body was still Lee Dana’s—the very body I had possessed.
Could I be hallucinating again?
Clench—
If I really was hallucinating, I wouldn’t know how to wake up, so I tried hitting my own arm.
But it only hurt sharply with no change.
[Error! Error!]
[Error occurred during dimensional transfer.]
[Failed to send soul of external dimensional entity back.]
[]
Return to your original body!
Go to the possessed body and personally exchange your soul.
Reward – Dimension Stabilization -486.
222032606 Seol
I was at a loss for words, just mumbling while staring at the status window.
I wanted to vent my frustration at such a ridiculous quest, but my words simply passed through the window and dissipated ahead.
In the meantime, seeing the status window’s text perfectly restored in my original dimension made me realize I had truly returned.
“Hey, guys……”
Just a moment ago, I was with the Four Heavenly Kings and Yeon Ha-Yeon, but suddenly I was completely alone, and loneliness stabbed deep.
“Why? Should we film again?”
“Commander, why do you look like that?”
“…Feels like déjà vu.”
As soon as Red, Visharp, and Sahin popped out of my internal space, each muttered something.
Sahin had apparently already moved to another dimension.
“I’ve returned to my original dimension. Before possession… And there’s a quest?”
I couldn’t help but laugh awkwardly even while explaining.
“The quest says I have to find the possessed body and personally switch back. But it doesn’t say how to do it. The reward is dimension stabilization, which sounds like it removes the gate.”
I blurted everything out like a rapid-fire missile without organizing my thoughts, but the spirits quietly listened.
“Did I do something wrong with the system? Why is it doing this to me? When did I even want to come back?”
Now, I even started cursing the system out of despair.
“Who suddenly just comes back like this……”
Excited and ranting roughly, my voice started trembling.
I slumped down right there and leaned against the rooftop door.
Then, with a hollow expression, I gazed out at the surrounding scenery from the rooftop.
[How about first going to find your original body? Then maybe we’ll figure out how to proceed.]
Sahin sat beside me and patted my shoulder to comfort me.
Suddenly returning to the body I had lived in, with a quest to recover it myself, I was feeling hopeless—but thanks to Sahin, I regained a bit of composure.
I glanced at the rooftop door handle again.
Then suddenly jumped up and swung the rooftop door open.
[Where is this?]
Red asked, seeing the stairs beyond the door.
I held back from answering immediately and cautiously stepped over the threshold.
I hoped that opening one door might allow me to move dimensions again, or that the status window would reappear—but it didn’t.
Down below, I could hear the sound of lessons being held in classrooms, echoing down the hallway.
It was so peaceful that I doubted if I was really in the same place where I had just been fighting with the Four Heavenly Kings, or if it was all just a dream.
“Seonam High School.”
“What?”
“This is Seonam High School.”
Once I confirmed reality, I calmed down.
I replied to Red’s question and closed the rooftop door behind me.
[Skill, ‘Shadow Self-Transformation’ activated.]
In the dream, the gates in this dimension had all disappeared and the Four Heavenly Kings were gone.
So I hoped the skill might activate here, but it still failed miserably.
I headed straight for the apartment where I had originally lived.
“If I switch bodies, I won’t be able to return again, right?”
If that happened, then the Lee Dana who currently occupied my body would be the one returning.
Those who had been close to me would surely realize that I had changed.
“What do you want to do? Stay here?”
“If I could, I’d want to live here.”
“Then even if you suddenly disappear, I’ll find you somehow.”
I recalled a conversation with Ban Eun-Hyeol back in the playground.
He had confidently told me that no matter what, he’d find me if I disappeared.
He claimed he’d figure out a way.
There was no way he could find me.
Ban Eun-Hyeol had talked big, but crossing dimensional boundaries wasn’t something one could do just by trying hard.
Even now, no matter how desperately I wished, it wasn’t possible—and as soon as I got comfortable, I’d be sent back to a different dimension.
It wasn’t something that happened just because you wanted it, nor would it happen if you didn’t want it.
So I never had any expectation that he would find me.
‘If I don’t switch bodies and stay like this, won’t there be a way to return to my original dimension?’
If I didn’t do the quest and just stayed still, since this wasn’t my original body in this dimension, maybe they’d send me back or find some way to return.
Of course, I’d have to fully give up on my original body, which made it a difficult decision.
But if I could just return, I wouldn’t mind living in this body forever.
Yet there was one problem.
The quest reward, Dimension Stabilization -486.
‘If I don’t do the quest, won’t that gate just keep opening?’
I pictured the people who had been caught in a level-5 gate and killed, their bodies strewn across the floor.
If the gates kept opening, more and more people from that dimension would be injured and killed.
Thinking of that, I couldn’t just refuse the quest simply because I wanted to go back.
Lost in thought, I found myself entering my old apartment.
“No one’s here.”
I released the Shadow Self-Transformation and looked around the empty house.
I had thought everything in the dream was all a lie, but signs of recent habitation remained.
The sink piled with unwashed dishes and the bathroom floor still damp with water made that clear.
[Commander, what will you do?]
“I have to wait.”
I sat down on the couch as if it were second nature.
Normally, I would’ve lain down immediately, but now I couldn’t relax enough to lie flat, so I just leaned back comfortably.
I flipped through the TV channels for a while.
Click—
The sound of the front door unlocking made me whip my head around.
It had already been about three hours.
“Uh… Who is it? What the hell?”
My voice came from the direction of the door, trembling with tension.
Hearing my original body’s voice like this was strange, but having experienced a similar thing in a dream, it didn’t feel so unfamiliar.
“Hey, looks like you’ve been doing well in my body.”
I stood up from the sofa and slowly walked over to Lee Dana, who froze in shock when she saw me.
Clothes, clothes, clothes—
At the warehouse, the Four Heavenly Kings fought monsters, all of them looking exhausted.
They were in terrible shape.
The attacks from monsters had made them bloated, their clothes soaked in blood, and their hair tangled in wild knots from the earth tremors.
“I’m going to die, seriously.”
This battle was definitely different from the usual ones against the gate monsters.
Even if each took one monster, the sheer number of enemies quickly wore everyone down.
“An emergency gate opened—where is everyone else?”
Baek Ji-woo roughly shook off the monster clinging to him and angrily scorched its flesh with electricity as he muttered.
Hearing that, Ban Eun-Hyeol glanced toward the stairs where Lee Dana had disappeared.
He thought she might have collapsed or something, but there was no sign of her anywhere.
[Are they looking for that woman?]
The Fire Spirit King Ifrit, burning monsters with powerful flames, asked Ban Eun-Hyeol, who was distracted.
“…They wouldn’t have gotten beaten by a monster, right?”
[Ha, who? Her? Dimensional outsiders aren’t that careless.]
Ifrit laughed outright at Ban Eun-Hyeol’s worried face and tried to reassure him in a light tone.
But Ban Eun-Hyeol still couldn’t shake off his anxiety.
Then it happened.
A boy was roughly thrown down, and Ji Kang-han and others looking toward the stairs came this way.
Ji Kang-han caught the boy as if dropping him on the ground, gave him a quick shield, then stepped into the battlefield.
Boom—Kraah—!
The sounds of monsters being attacked echoed loudly through the hallway, and as Ji Kang-han entered, the faces of the Four Heavenly Kings, which had been dimming, brightened a little.
“I’m here too.”
Ji Kang-han attacked the monsters lunging at him and looked around anxiously with a dazed expression.
“Did you see her? Where?!”
Ji Kang-han’s voice sounded like he knew something, and Ban Eun-Hyeol shouted urgently.
“Just now… ggrr… I saw her on the 4th floor.”
Ji Kang-han barely answered, still recovering from being grazed by a monster’s attack.
Without hesitation, Ban Eun-Hyeol entrusted the others to the spirits and dashed up to the 4th floor, urgency driving his every step.