Chapter 20: Between Worlds and Wounds

“Haje.”

“Hup! Y-Yes?”

My chin trembled, my lips quivered, and my words got tangled up—I almost bit my tongue.

Even though I managed to answer in such a pitiful way, Kang Dohee didn’t laugh at me.

With the same calm, indifferent expression as usual, she simply gave a small nod and tapped my trembling forearm as she spoke.

As my whole body trembled uncontrollably, I barely managed to nod my head.

Kang Dohee continued tapping my arm in a steady rhythm and said:

“You’ll never forget what happened today. So don’t force yourself to try. It’s okay if you throw up or have a seizure whenever you remember—just don’t try to bury it. Got it?”

Nod, nod.

“If it gets too hard, talk to someone. Anytime.”

Nod, nod.

The nausea welled up, and even saying a single word like “Yes” felt impossible, so I responded with only a nod.

Honestly, what Kang Dohee said didn’t comfort me.

If anything, it just deepened the despair.

But maybe because she said it out of concern for me, the trembling seemed to subside a little—just a little.

Maybe it was the way her hand kept tapping my arm at a steady rhythm.

Of course, I was still shaking pitifully, but at least I was stable enough to stand on my own two feet.

★★★

About an hour later, Gamja returned pulling the empty cart.

He must have gone quite far.

In the meantime, Kang Dohee and I had washed the men’s bloodstains from the yard.

Thank goodness there was a faucet outside.

While I volunteered to clean up the yard, Kang Dohee washed and began tending to the arrows she had used.

Sitting on the stone steps at the entrance, she used a small knife borrowed from the elder to sharpen the dull arrowheads.

Her movements were quick and nimble.

I thought it might be safer to go inside, but with no dark spots around and the quiet of the night, sitting outside seemed like a good way to notice if anything approached.

Once I finished cleaning, I plopped down beside her.

Kang Dohee didn’t look at me—she was completely focused on her task.

When I looked up, the sky was filled with stars.

Beautiful.

Back in the world I lived in, I could never see this many stars.

And now, only after coming to a place like this, do I finally get to see them.

Maybe because of the physical labor, the trembling in my body had mostly settled.

Still, I sometimes shuddered involuntarily, like a hiccup, which made me tense up again.

I looked over at the arrows she was refining.

They weren’t made of standard materials but carved from wood.

I had fired a regular arrow earlier, but it seemed like Kang Dohee only used wooden arrows, excluding standard ones.

As I quietly watched the arrows grow sharper with each scrape of the knife, I spoke in a small voice, careful not to be heard from inside:

“Come to think of it, we haven’t really had a proper conversation yet, have we?”

“You’re right.”

Of course, while traveling here, we had exchanged casual chit-chat,

But there hadn’t been any meaningful conversation where we got to know each other.

Kang Dohee had filled me in on what happened while I was unconscious, but that was more like a status report, not an actual conversation.

It would be nice to talk and get to know each other now, but the problem was I wasn’t very good at conversation and didn’t know how to start.

I was decent at small talk with people I’d only see once, but talking with someone I’d be seeing regularly somehow felt much harder.

I hugged my knees, partly to hide my still-trembling hands and partly because the night air felt chilly.

In that position, watching the arrows gradually sharpen in Kang Dohee’s hands made me feel a little more at ease.

It was like watching one of those repetitive task videos with ASMR on YouTube.

Though I had a lot I wanted to say, my thoughts were all jumbled, so I just sat in silence and watched.

Then Kang Dohee spoke first.

“If you have any questions, go ahead and ask.”

“…Anything’s fine?”

“As long as it’s something I can answer.”

If it were anyone else, that might sound like she was just dodging things she didn’t want to talk about.

But coming from Kang Dohee, it felt different.

If the information was restricted, she probably couldn’t even mention it.

So I went with the safest, most personal question I could think of.

“Um… can I ask what you used to do?”

“I did a bit of everything. Worked regular jobs, traveled aimlessly… did some rescue work, even tried something like public service.”

“Wow…”

Maybe it was my own bias, but even her normal-sounding jobs felt extraordinary.

“What about you?”

“Ah, I… just did a few part-time jobs here and there.”

Yeah.

That’s what this body’s Ha Je had done.

Still, I kept it vague just in case I said something that Hayul might later find suspicious.

“Why are you so good with a bow?”

“I went to an archery café.”

“…….”

Was she mimicking my vague answers?

I just stared at her, unsure what to say, and she turned her gaze away.

“Yeah. So it was a lie.”

The way it subtly showed gave away that Kang Dohee hadn’t even really intended to hide it from me in the first place.

Still, the look on her face clearly said, Don’t ask me any more about it, so I changed the subject.

“Have you ever done any martial arts or self-defense training?”

“Yeah. Physical activity’s kind of a hobby of mine, so I’ve tried a bit of everything. I could teach you some basic self-defense, if you want.”

“I’d love that. I want to learn with Hayul later too.”

Learning self-defense from Kang Dohee, huh?

I didn’t know the details, but it definitely seemed like something worth picking up.

Especially if it could come in handy in an emergency.

As she sharpened one of the arrows to a fine point and picked up the next one to work on, I stared blankly at one of the dull-tipped arrows and asked,

“What’s your hobby?”

“Exercise. You?”

“Me… hmm. I guess I like reading? Mostly web novels, though, rather than paper books.”

“A web novel’s still a book.”

“Right? What about you, noona? Have you ever read one? Like fantasy or something?”

“Hm. A little, a long time ago. Not web novels, though. You really like fantasy, huh?”

“Haha, I guess so. I’ve read a ton of fantasy stuff.”

I left out the part about working in the industry, and only shared the rest.

Dohee gave a small nod, like she was encouraging me to continue.

I pulled my knees tighter to my chest, trying to calm the occasional involuntary shiver that still hit me, and went on.

“Honestly, I kind of feel like I’ve fallen into some novel. Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism, but thinking about it that way helps.”

“I mean, it’s a pretty common setup, right? A gate appears out of nowhere, sucks someone in, and they get dropped into a whole different world.”

“Hm.”

“But usually in those stories, if there are animal companions like acorn-shaped critters or potato-shaped friends, the plot is all cozy and cute—they end up farming or becoming summoners or something.”

“So I thought, maybe we could be like that too. Like a healing story, you know?”

It was such a scattered thought—I don’t even know why I said any of it.

Maybe I just needed to vent.

Dohee stopped sharpening and looked at me.

In a calm voice, she said,

“Look at the quest. You still think this is a healing story?”

“Ahem. Good point.”

Yeah.

The main quest literally said we had to take down a boss monster that eats people.

Not exactly relaxing.

But even more than the seriousness of the quest, it was something in Dohee’s dry comment that made me laugh a little.

She glanced at me as I let out a small, silly laugh, then went back to sharpening her knife.

I chuckled with a little shrug and buried my face between my knees, trying to steady my breathing.

‘You said you’d remember this forever’, I recalled.

And I really thought I would.

If I couldn’t remember today, something must be broken in my brain.

I shot someone today.

With my own hands.

It wasn’t a fatal shot, but still—

Even if those people were awful, they were still people.

And I hurt them.

If I ever forgot this, wouldn’t that mean I’d stopped being human?

I didn’t want to become someone like that.

And I didn’t want anyone else to, either.

But what could I actually do?

This might not be the last time.

Our journey had only just begun.

If this were a novel, we were still at the very beginning of the introduction.

There would be more to come.

To escape from here, we’d have to do a lot more.

And as much as I worried about how I’d handle that, I was even more worried about Hayul and Kang Dojin.

Even if Dojin was a regressor or possessed or had some other secret, he was still a high school student, the same age as Hayul.

I didn’t want them to face situations that chipped away at their humanity or forced them into morally compromising decisions.

If at all possible, I hoped those things could be handled by the adults.

I knew we couldn’t protect them forever.

I knew the day might come when we had no choice, and it would break my heart.

But still—I wanted to protect them as much as I could.

People might call that kind of thinking naive or idealistic.

Maybe it was.

I wondered what Kang Dohee thought.

Did she feel the same way?

Would she just walk away, cut ties—

‘These days, if a character like that shows up in a story, the protagonists usually just grab them by the collar and drag them along,’ I thought.

I didn’t really like that kind of “cathartic” plot.

But what could I do?

That kind of direct, no-nonsense drama sold well with readers, and unless a story was exceptionally well-written, anything else tended to lose attention.

‘Dohee and Dojin… do they find me frustrating too?’

Maybe it was because I kept seeing them as the protagonists.

Whatever the case, I wanted to work with the Kang siblings, to align with them as much as I could.

So I shared these thoughts with Kang Dohee.

It was even more of a ramble than anything we’d talked about before.

I even told her that, even if it was just because they were kids, I felt strongly that we had to protect them.

That I knew things might happen that were out of our control.

But at least until then, I wanted to keep them safe.

Every time I said it out loud, my confidence plummeted.

I wished I was someone who could speak well.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at conversation.

I’d always been more comfortable listening.

It kept me from exposing how little I really knew, or how clumsy I was with words.

I’d stuck to that role for so long, but now I was starting to regret it.

‘I can only hope Dohee has the patience to deal with how awkward I am.’

Thankfully, Kang Dohee didn’t interrupt, or disagree, or say anything like That’s not how it works.

She just listened.

Because of that, I was able to say a little more of what I’d really wanted to share.