“Y-You, how did you…?!”
Idan-ah, eyes wide open, stammered as she pointed a finger at me.
Judging by her flushed face, she was so flustered that she couldn’t properly control her expression.
It would’ve been easier if she’d been as fierce as in the dream.
That suited her much better.
But seeing her so scared that she stammered was a bit hard to watch.
‘So, it really was just a dream?’
But if she’d never once confronted her original body, then a reaction like “How did you…?” wouldn’t make much sense.
I was confused.
It really looked like someone caught off guard.
“Have you seen me before?”
At my question, Idan-ah’s hand, which had been stabbing toward me, relaxed, and she lowered her arm.
Then, bowing her head, she fidgeted with her fingers and answered in a hushed voice.
“In a dream…”
Up to the words “How did you…?” she hadn’t seemed particularly wary, but suddenly she looked noticeably nervous.
This was exactly Idan-ah’s usual personality stored in the memories I’d gained after possession.
“I saw you in a dream too, but you looked a little different then.”
“I-I thought it was just a dream back then. Sorry.”
I never expected to be apologized to like this.
So, interpreting that, it meant she had, knowing it was just a dream, acted out of character with reckless bravado.
A smile crept up on me from deep inside.
I’d never seen someone show such a sharp change in attitude before.
“Sit down and let’s talk.”
I nodded toward the dining table with my chin, then passed the stiff Idan-ah standing with her shoulders tense and went into the kitchen.
For a while, silence lingered.
I narrowed my eyes and carefully observed Idan-ah occupying my body.
More precisely, I was waiting for some kind of status window to appear, but there was nothing.
Idan-ah kept glancing up at me briefly, then hastily lowering her eyes again in repetition.
“Turn your body back.”
I sighed and gave her a brief explanation about how I’d ended up here.
A Level 5 Gate had occurred, and the Four Heavenly Kings, especially the half-blood monsters, were in fierce battle.
Hearing that made her ears tremble noticeably.
“So, the Gate disappeared because you came?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know…? Then what about the half-blood?”
Idan-ah suddenly stood up, slammed the table, and shouted in a strained voice.
“…Right now, it seems like saving our side should be the priority.”
She furrowed her eyebrows and raised her voice slightly, then slowly sat back down in the chair.
“Do you know how to switch souls?”
I asked bluntly, hoping for a glimmer of hope.
Since no status window appeared, I thought maybe Idan-ah might know something.
‘She did say a lot of cryptic things in the dream.’
But she mercilessly shattered my expectations and shook her head.
“No way I’d know that…”
She was right.
Who would know how to switch souls?
“System? I’ve only met Idan-ah so far, but shouldn’t you tell me how to switch souls?”
I shouted at the empty air toward the system, but no status window appeared.
“If our souls switch, the Gate on the other side disappears, right?”
Idan-ah asked cautiously.
I leaned back in the chair, crossed my arms, and simply nodded.
She had expected more to be said, but when I gave her a suspicious look, she quietly asked in a trembling voice.
“Do you want to switch?”
“Me? I… I like my life as it is now.”
“So you mean you don’t want to switch souls?”
She nodded at my question and, with red, moist eyes, spoke wistfully.
“Of course, I really want to see the half-blood, but since I came here, I’ve tried to forget and have actually forgotten quite a lot…”
“Do you only want to see him? What about your parents?”
Did she really only miss the half-blood? Memories of the time spent with her parents sprang to mind, and my words came out sharply.
Startled, she rolled her eyes and looked around the empty room, then opened her trembling lips.
“I’ve thought about it, but… I don’t know.”
Her eyes looked confused as she said that, as if she herself didn’t understand why she didn’t miss her parents so much.
“I think living alone like this might be fine.”
It was something that would’ve pierced her heart if her parents had been here.
After hearing Idan-ah’s words and pondering deeply, I finally seemed to understand and slammed the table.
“Alright. How to switch souls.”
At my words, Idan-ah stiffened as if she were a person in danger of having her body taken away at any moment.
It was absurd to see such a reaction when all it was was reclaiming her original body.
“We really have to hope for the souls to switch, huh? Right, system?”
At my sharp question, the status window I’d been waiting for finally appeared.
[Soul Change remaining time: 2 days 23 hours 59 minutes.]
222032606
[If soul change is not successfully completed within the period, forced transfer to Dimension H?-486 will occur.]
“Hey, we only have three days to figure this out.”
Seeing the status window that had just appeared, I calmed the pounding in my chest and whispered quietly.
***
“Idan-ah!!”
“Gyaaaah!!”
“Idan-ah, where are you?!”
Following Ji Kang-han’s shout, on the way up to the 4th floor, some of the monsters in the hallway started chasing the half-blood, trapping him at the staircase.
He dodged and counterattacked multiple times, trying to move, but gradually his strength began to fail.
By the time he barely made it to the 4th floor, blood flowed from the wounds all over the half-blood’s body.
He quickly downed a recovery potion and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, catching his breath as he carefully scanned the hallway, straining his hearing to catch any sign of Idan-ah.
Grrr-
But there was no sound.
The only noises were from the monsters he hadn’t yet killed.
The moment he freed himself from their grasp, his eyes rapidly darted toward the stairs leading up.
“Rooftop?”
Maybe she was handling the monsters alone there.
Without a second thought, he moved.
Bang-!
The rooftop door burst open with a violent force.
His face stiffened as he spotted the figure standing beyond the threshold.
“Damn it…”
It was a boss monster.
His face showed despair at having encountered a Level 5 boss monster alone on the rooftop.
As he backed away and glanced down, a brief moment of hesitation seized him.
[Focus (1): Boss monster on rooftop.]
He quickly sent a chat message.
If he ran away from here and went down, he would be releasing the boss monster among the monsters already fighting the Holy Crusaders.
It was better to let them fight off the monsters and force them to come up to the rooftop.
Meanwhile, he had to somehow hold the boss monster in place.
Crossing the threshold, he swallowed dry saliva from the tension, feeling a nervous chill he’d never experienced before.
“…Idan-ah, where are you?!”
Kuwaaaah!
The boss monster answered his call with a roar and charged at him.
It was bigger than any of the monsters he’d fought before.
The half-blood dashed madly across the rooftop.
Countless fire arrows rained down like a storm.
“Where is Idan-ah?!”
By now, Idan-ah should have appeared.
Not only was she nowhere in sight, but not even a trace of her was visible, amplifying his unease.
Moreover, the summoned spirits she’d released were slowly disappearing.
Rolling his eyes, he glanced down toward the courtyard and winced at the vanishing spirits.
During the brief battle with the boss monster, new wounds began appearing rapidly all over the half-blood’s body.
“Idan-ah!!”
Idan-ah — Idan-ah —
His shouts echoed back to him.
A sharp strike from the boss monster narrowly grazed his side, causing him to kneel on one knee.
Despite the pain distorting his face, he met the boss monster’s gaze with fierce determination and prepared to attack again.
But before he could kill the boss monster, the monster’s form began to blur.
The surrounding scenery followed suit.
The gray, desolate sky and the ruined courtyard gradually restored their original colors.
It was as if the dungeon itself was about to transform back into the real world while the boss monster, as if singling out Idan-ah as its target, slowly disappeared into the Level 8 Gate.
“I won’t let you go.”
The half-blood summoned all his remaining strength and unleashed a final strike on the boss monster.
Gwaaaaaaah-!
“Idan-ah, my brain!!!”
An unprecedented blaze erupted on the rooftop.
The Holy Crusaders who were climbing the stairs to the rooftop to aid the half-blood had to dodge the explosion that tore the rooftop door apart like paper.
The tremors and blasts continued one after another, and when it finally settled, the rooftop they saw was completely blackened, with only dust swirling around.
***
Idan-ah, who had originally been just an extra in the novel, had left home hastily due to a scheduled commercial shoot.
The conversation with the body’s original owner kept flooding her thoughts, disturbing her mind.
‘So I have to truly want to return?’
Upon arriving at the commercial shoot, she glanced around the surroundings, then shifted her gaze to a mirror in the studio.
In the reflection, instead of the original short and ordinary face, a beautiful woman with an icy aura that no one dared to touch stared back.
She was silently looking at the reflection in the mirror when—
Bang-!
The studio door was thrown open loudly.
“Who— Aah!”
“What… what’s going on?!”
Idan-ah frowned and turned her head sharply, frozen in place.
Idan-ah’s expression remained as she remembered it—covered in wounds and bleeding—while the half-blood entered, eyes blazing like a beast, and growled in a low voice.
“Where is Idan-ah?”
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