The Returnee Wants Peace

“…”

Rosha had first encountered that youth with light brown hair eight years after she had arrived in Korea.

-You wish to join my team? But you’re only fifteen?

-Yes.

The adolescent boy had approached her while she was leading a fledgling but rising raiding party.

Introducing himself as Choi Hajin, a student from the Middle Tactics School’s Swordsmanship Club, Rosha had promptly turned him away, insisting on at least a high school student.

Regardless of the Tactics School’s mandate to cultivate trial-combatants from an early age, wasn’t fifteen too young?

‘He’s even younger than I was when I first arrived in Korea.’

Of course, Rosha couldn’t have foreseen Hajin’s rapid rise to fame as the Monster Hunter ‘Sword Ghost’ before even reaching high school.

Nor could she have known that his entire family had perished at the hands of monsters during the first trial.

-Is there still a spot for me?

She vividly recalled Hajin’s bright smile as he inquired, clutching the commendation plaque bestowed by the government.

They had remained comrades until Rosha’s departure for her original world – a considerable span of time, their bond.

Yet…

‘He died…?’

Rosha froze in place, staring blankly at the orb.

The sounds around her seemed to muffle and distort, her thoughts slowing as if submerged underwater.

It was simply inconceivable, witnessing such a vibrant depiction of his living, breathing form.

“Do you know him?”

“…”

Froy’s whisper barely registered as Rosha gave a faint nod.

The slender young man with tousled light brown locks. While his hair had grown slightly longer in her absence, his face remained unmistakably familiar.

‘…I had thought he would live well, even without me there.’

In the peaceful world that had followed the trials’ conclusion.

Yet to suffer such tribulations within this realm only accessible via Hardmode progression, even losing his life in the process…

‘…No.’

Shaking her head vehemently, Rosha raised her gaze with renewed conviction.

Impossible. Someone of his caliber couldn’t have perished in a place like this.

“The third play you mentioned failing – how did it end? Are you certain he died there?”

Without realizing it, she had lapsed into informal speech, but none seemed to take notice amid the gravity of the situation.

Yura lowered her head as she replied:

“Yes… the third play was a ‘Tragedy’, and the western fortress was completely destroyed by a colossal monster. It diverged from the usual bright mana burst from the fortress that typically signaled the ending. Sensing something had gone wrong, we recklessly charged towards it, only for a blue window to appear, declaring our performance a failure.”

“And then?”

“And then… everyone participating in the play turned into ashen gray dust and vanished. None have returned since…”

Yura’s demeanor was visibly despondent.

Yet as Rosha mulled over her words, her expression gradually revived.

‘Wait, she didn’t witness their deaths firsthand, did she?’

While Yura’s youth likely meant limited trial experience, merely witnessing disappearance into ash could hardly be conclusive evidence of death, especially without personally witnessing a fatal blow.

The possibility remained that they were still alive.

Moreover, Rosha possessed the very ability to locate them:

[The Guiding Lantern] ability.

‘…I didn’t want to use it because I didn’t want to admit death.’

In an instant, her entire being focused with heightened clarity.

Her heart began pounding feverishly as she absorbed her surroundings, a profound tremor resonating through her very core.

For stretched before her gaze, as if beckoning her to follow, a vivid golden trail pierced the air in a blazing arc.

“…Haha.”

“Rosha?”

Without shifting her transfixed stare, Rosha extended her hand towards Froy.

“Can you move us directly to the circular theater right now?”

“Have you found out something?”

“Yes. We have to go there as quickly as possible.”

The man, who had silently stood vigil by her side, seemed to grasp everything from her smile alone as he wordlessly clasped her hand, summoning the full power of his long-restrained ability.

Yet at the very moment Froy’s space-bridging power manifested-

“Waaaaait!”

A frantic Koko came fluttering in from the greenhouse’s interior and stopped them.

Upon closer inspection, he was levitating a dust-caked crystalline orb through sheer mana force.

“Before you go rushing off, you haven’t even examined this place thoroughly!”

“There’s cause for haste. But why have you retrieved that orb?”

“Ahem. It seems to be the eldest orb here, and its contents are rather unsettling.”

Indeed, as Koko had claimed, this particular orb stood apart from the others containing ‘The Perishing City’ play.

After Rosha blew away the accumulated dust, a spacious, tranquil study lined with bookshelves came into view.

A bespectacled middle-aged man calmly narrated:

[Imperial Calendar 13th Month, 1st Day. The city’s devastation is imminent.]

[Having observed the trials’ ominous prelude, the city council has requested the Sordel family’s cooperation until a means to avert annihilation can be devised. As our Sordel lineage specializes in magic pertaining to souls and memories, they likely intend to temporarily entrust the citizens’ souls to our safekeeping upon the day of ruin.]

[Thus, as the Sordel patriarch Rodrigo, I have decided to seek a solution to circumvent the city’s destruction while simultaneously housing the citizens’ souls within this circular theater provided by the council.]

[All elements of the ‘Devastation Simulation’ can be manipulated from the theater’s control room, and I shall archive the records here within this greenhouse.]

…I’ve found it. A lead.

* * *

Heres had always thought that his life was an unbroken chain of misfortune.

‘Just look at this body alone. If I was destined to be born into a magician family, couldn’t they have at least allowed me to properly wield magic?’

The anguish of living with an innate inability to harness mana whatsoever was simply indescribable.

Yet in this very moment, a peculiar thought crossed his mind:

Could this be his lifelong accumulated luck finally manifesting?

“Whoa!”

As he tumbled to evade the monsters’ attacks, every assault bizarrely veered wide of its mark.

To the point where, had Rosha witnessed it, she would undoubtedly have inquired if he was playing some rhythm game – such was the deftness with which he danced and weaved through the onslaught.

And for good reason. Before his eyes, azure platforms materialized.

-Step onto the platforms!

By simply timing his footfalls correctly upon those platforms, his life remained unthreatened.

Even when sustaining occasional injuries, merely entering the ‘white circles’ scattered throughout instantly restored him to full vitality.

“Just what sort of place is this… Oh!”

A minuscule platform abruptly flickered into existence beneath his feet.

Its rapidly blinking pattern indicated a formidable difficulty, but the needle-like projectiles raining from all directions left him no choice but to brave it.

‘Oh no, I’m going to get hit…!’

Having mistimed his step due to an ankle twist, Heres squeezed his eyes shut in dread.

But at that moment.

“…Are you dancing right now?”

Prompted by that unexpected voice, he opened his eyes to behold a radiant golden barrier.

Never had the sight of Lady Roshanak Aper, once his former fiance, now an object of awe and trepidation, been more welcome.

“A comedy genre involving dance battles, it seems.”

While her murmured aside had inadvertently brought a lump to his throat, other matters soon took precedence:

Warning! Non-performers have invaded the stage.

All monsters within the play will now treat them as hostile entities.

Regardless, after confirming Yura and Koko’s arrival through the gap in the space Froy had torn open, Rosha addressed him:

“In any case, you’ve endured enough. We’ll take over from here, so all of you, withdraw.”

The ‘actors’ had been summoned to the waiting room and assigned roles, then thrust into the performance.

Within the stage’s confines, any manner of peril could befall them, their actions dictated by the blue windows, rendering the actors the most vulnerable.

Rosha swiftly ushered those arriving one by one back through the rift, away from the hazardous stage.

“We’ll proceed ahead! Take care!”

“I’ll do it… but don’t you dare die. Don’t skimp on elixirs.”

“I’ll be cheering from the outside!”

Grumbles from the spectators drifted through the spatial gaps, lamenting their inability to witness the play’s progression.

Utterly disregarding them, Rosha turned her focused gaze towards the towering circular theater dominating the stage’s vista.

‘He mentioned a control room located there.’

Her narrowed eyes traced the shimmering golden trail’s trajectory.