I racked my brain to come up with an excuse.
“I intended to wish to return to this world from the beginning. The goddess knew that too, so what I said back then came from that thought. I was certain that I’d return after death.”
“Return, is it?”
Hearing my words, Arna straightened her posture and sat on the sofa.
Then she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. It was a look she sometimes made when someone said something that irritated her.
I had seen that expression a few times when our party had just formed.
“So you’re calling this situation ‘returning’?”
“…But I did come back, didn’t I?”
Not fully understanding what she meant, I responded with a question of my own.
“No, you can’t call this returning. The right term would be being reborn. Look.”
Arna gestured directly at me, and I instinctively looked down.
There was my body.
A body that had turned into a woman’s.
“The word returning assumes you were alive in the first place. At the very least, even if you die, you’d have to return to your hometown as a corpse to call it returning. Being born again in an entirely different person’s form isn’t something you can call returning.”
“But… I’m still me. I have all my memories, and when I met you all again, I recognized everything properly.”
“That’s true.”
Arna didn’t deny my words.
“But let me ask you again. Is this the place you were so desperate to return to?”
“Returning doesn’t just mean coming to this world. It means returning to the country you lived in, the hometown where you grew up.
Sure, in a broad sense, maybe this could be the country you once lived in.
Narrow it down further, and maybe this could even be the city you lived in.
But from what I can see, this city isn’t small enough for you to simply claim, ‘This is my hometown.’”
Korea isn’t a country large enough to be considered vast. Compared to the world’s largest nations, it doesn’t come close. A single U.S. state is far larger than all of Korea’s land combined.
But even so, it would still be strange to suddenly claim, “This is my homeland,” if you just happened to land somewhere in Korea.
Sure, if you’d spent a long time overseas and came back, you might say that, but typically, you’d head straight for your real hometown afterward.
Even if you narrowed it down to Seoul, if someone asked you, “Where did you live?” and you answered “Seoul,” the likely response would still be, “Where in Seoul?”
“…I met my sister. And I saw my mom too.”
“…..”
Arna knew my story well enough to understand who I meant by “sister.” She also knew that my desire to return was rooted in them.
After a brief pause, as if making up her mind, Arna finally spoke.
“So, how are things with that sister of yours? Does she know that you’re still you? …Did your mother properly accept you as her son?”
“…..”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer.
“Let me ask you one more time. Why did you end up with that kind of body when you came to this world?”
“It’s because I asked the goddess to make it so I wouldn’t be recognized.”
“Was there no other reason before that?”
“What other reason?”
Arna paused for a moment before slowly opening her mouth to speak.
“You became that body because, in the end, you died once more.
If the prophet had originally intended to send you into this world in your original body, you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to make an unreasonable request to start anew.
Considering your personality, you’d never have done that.”
“……”
“So, here’s what I think. When you were reborn into this world, there must’ve been a reason you couldn’t bring your original body with you.
And in that case, perhaps you chose to be reborn as someone else entirely, just to meet your family again.”
At Arna’s question, I couldn’t answer.
It was true….if I had survived until the end, and therefore still had my original body, I would have crossed over to the other world as I was. I wouldn’t have thought of dying and being reborn.
…And, honestly, part of me thought everything would somehow work out.
The goddess gave me one more life, but she never said she would revive me by granting a wish.
It’s not like she said, “I’ll bring you back again and again, so try as much as you want…” or anything like that.
So I worked that hard to survive.
At Arna’s words, Kalia was now looking at me with a serious expression.
Even Dana furrowed her brow.
She was smart but often narrowed her perspective according to her interests, so she was probably revisiting possibilities she hadn’t considered before.
Fia was covering her mouth with both hands, tears welling up in her eyes.
“…Haha.”
In the end, I let out a weak laugh and nodded.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“…So, there really was a reason.”
“The goddess could recreate my body, but every time she did, I’d drift further from the ‘original’ me.
So… rather than becoming someone only vaguely resembling myself but ultimately someone completely different, I figured I might as well just become someone ‘entirely different.’”
I spoke as I tapped my fingertips together.
When I looked up after staring at my hands for a moment, all four of them wore expressions as though they were about to burst into tears.
“I told you, I already died once in this world.
My sister, my mom—they wouldn’t think of me as the child who had died, even if I returned here.
So, yes, there was a reason like the one you’re thinking of, but it’s not as though I had no choice.
I just thought about it carefully and came to what I believed was the best conclusion.”
“……”
At my words, Arna closed her eyes, lost in thought. Then, with a small sigh, she reopened them.
“…I see. If that was your choice, I won’t press you any further. However…”
“Huh?”
Before I could react, Arna quietly rose from the sofa.
She turned toward me and bowed deeply.
“Thank you for saving us, even at such a sacrifice.”
“W-wait, huh, hold on—”
But it wasn’t just Arna. Kalia, Dana, and Fia all stood up as well.
One after another, they bowed their heads deeply in my direction.
“On behalf of the kingdom, thank you. Thanks to you, countless lives have been saved.”
“…It’s a sacrifice I could never have made in your place. Truly, thank you.”
“Just… thank you. No one would have blamed you if you refused, but you still saved us.”
“……..”
Standing there awkwardly, I tried to think of what to say.
In truth, there wasn’t much to think about. My mind had gone completely blank, and I had no idea what to do.
“I am…”
I barely opened my mouth and mumbled.
“…No. It’s not something I did alone.”
From my awkward posture, I fully straightened up and bowed towards the others, who were still bent at the waist towards me.
“I also had a lot of fun traveling with all of you. If it hadn’t been for you following me and helping me, I wouldn’t have even made it halfway and would’ve died. And… there were so many others who helped us, too.”
That was true.
The knights who risked their lives to fight on the frontlines, the mages who followed the knights despite the danger to open teleportation gates and set up defensive barriers, and the workers who came along to construct our strongholds.
Without all of them, we wouldn’t have been able to protect the world.
Defeating the Demon King wasn’t just my achievement.
It was a feat made possible because everyone’s will to protect their homeland had come together.
For a moment, we remained bent towards each other, and then, as if on cue, we burst into laughter.
Really, it had been so long.
How long has it been since I laughed out loud like this?
Whenever we had a chance to rest in a village, we’d often gather in a tavern, drink a glass of ale, and laugh our hearts out.
The familiar sound of the four of us laughing rang in my ears.
Just that alone made my chest feel full, as if something warm was overflowing inside.
…Still, amidst all the mingling laughter, it was a little disappointing that my own laughter had completely changed.
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