<2 – I Have Returned>
Long, ebony hair cascading down to her bottom.
A slender face with milky skin.
Petite shoulders and a voluptuous bust.
A narrow waist accentuated by curvy hips and firm thighs.
An exotic beauty that embodies both Eastern and Western aesthetics.
The reflection in the mirror felt all too familiar.
It couldn’t be helped.
She had seen this face for 20 years.
‘I have successfully returned.’
Returning player, Hae Eung Eung.
She had succeeded in coming back from the world of the Murim, where people died like garbage, to the modern civilized society.
Her face, which should have been brimming with joy, was filled with deep emptiness and loss.
Now, with all her connections in the Murim gone, she found herself alone.
‘There’s no one here.’
There were no family members.
No friends either.
Even if there were, 20 years had passed in reality since the time spent in the Murim realm.
If she hadn’t seen their faces for 20 years, it would be a reasonable time to call them strangers.
Even familiar faces felt like strangers after 20 years.
‘It’s rather fortunate. I lost my family before all of this began.’
Twenty-five years ago, one day.
There was an accident.
Her parents and sister, who had gone on an overseas trip.
A selfie taken aboard the airplane.
That was the last image of her family.
As she opened the drawer, a cheap printed T-shirt caught her eye.
A gift received along with her family’s belongings.
A gift she had been unable to part with for five years after selling the unnecessarily large house and moving into a studio after losing her family.
A lingering attachment to the family she lost.
The last traces left by her family.
For a long while, she gazed at the T-shirt.
Remembering the past that could never be returned.
Now, feelings that had become memories rather than mere nostalgia were carefully folded with the T-shirt and placed back into the drawer.
‘What has happened cannot be undone.’
She had spent enough time accepting that fact.
The days when she lived like a hermit after losing her family.
She discovered a strange game.
She spent 20 years in the Murim realm, possessed by the character she had created.
No sea is beyond the reach of the Haenam faction. As long as you do not abandon the Hae family name, our Haenam faction will protect you.
Unni, can’t you live with me in the Northern Sea Ice Palace?
Please, Soja, do not hate the volcanic plum blossom too much.
Cherished memories.
Irrevocable bonds.
Those who became guests of the afterlife.
Lost connections were far more numerous in the Murim realm than in reality.
People who had become her second family.
Elders she had regarded like her parents.
Those who liked and followed her.
They were killed by enemies who targeted her.
Beauty beyond compare.
The most beautiful in the world.
The greatest beauty throughout history.
Hae Eung Eung became a character with a charm level of 100.
Her very existence stirred the desires of powerful figures, and she refused to become their ornament.
From that day on, there was not a single day without bloodshed and chaos.
The factions, organizations, and masters that embraced her faced injustice, unfairness, and corruption without exception.
Many sacrifices, sufferings, and acts of revenge continued without end.
‘Compared to other possessed individuals, my situation was especially harsh.’
Despite facing adversity because of her charm, she also received help thanks to it.
It took a full 20 years for the girl, the greatest beauty in the world, to establish her name as a self-absorbed beauty.
With profound inner power equivalent to three cycles and a trained body, she achieved great renown.
The many accomplishments she had made as herself vanished in exchange for clear rewards.
[Body Reset]
At the moment of entering the game.
The first moment she was possessed by the character she had created.
She returned to that time.
She had lost a lot, but she had no regrets.
She had regained much as well.
The brainwashing she suffered in the imperial palace.
The engraving she endured in the Blood Cult.
The restraints that bound her mind and soul.
All of those had completely disappeared.
Her lost right arm returned.
She reclaimed the flawless appearance of her girlhood from head to toe.
She was no longer a puppet of the imperial palace.
Nor was she a slave of the Blood Cult.
She was not a public figure of the Murim alliance either.
And she was no longer one-armed.
All of the Murim’s hidden connections had also vanished.
She had become alone.
‘Being a returnee is generally like this.’
A boy who was alone.
Returning as a girl who is alone.
A story that no one knows.
A story only she remembers.
She organized all of it in her mind, as if folding it neatly into the drawer.
She had to do it.
The Earth was not the Murim, which washed blood with blood.
There was no need to fuss over it.
Hadn’t she experienced it once already?
Adapting to a changed world was nothing special.
This time, it was just her turn to adapt to Earth instead of the Murim.
Still, it wasn’t without its perplexities.
In the Earth she remembered from 20 years ago, in 2030, there were no virtual reality games, gates, or awakened individuals.
A two-room apartment in the city.
A room equipped with living appliances such as an air conditioner, refrigerator, TV, computer, bed, and wardrobe.
This somewhat spacious hideout, a bit too large for one person, is one of the products of the Reality Return Support Package.
‘The house has been upgraded.’
From a studio to a two-room apartment.
And that’s not all.
【Resident Registration Card】
[Hae Eung Eung]
[300930 – 4******]
【Registration Information and Completion Notice】
[Owner: Hae Eung Eung]
[Registration Number: 300930-4******]
【Total Account Balance】
[Changwon Bank Account]
[2,000,000,000]
Identification. House documents. Bank account.
These are the three essentials for living in South Korea.
Among them, the noticeable 2 billion won.
Considering it as compensation for living in the Murim for 20 years, it’s hardly a large sum.
[Current average market price per pyeong in Myungho 2-dong, Gangbuk-gu, Seoul – approximately 120 million won]
The price for a 10-pyeong house is 1.2 billion won.
This is not Gangnam, but Gangbuk.
I don’t know what value there is in this unfamiliar neighborhood that didn’t exist in Gangbuk 20 years ago.
But I knew that even 2 billion won wouldn’t be enough to live a lifetime.
‘In the first place, with this body, I probably won’t be able to enjoy a long life anyway.’
It wasn’t just her right arm that returned due to the body reset.
The gold restrictions she had personally included at the beginning of character creation began to haunt her once again.
【Gold Restrictions】
[Gui Eum Jeol Maek] – A condition in which the blood vessels of the entire body gradually close due to massive negative energy. Most patients with Gui Eum Jeol Maek die before reaching adulthood (30 years old).
[Ham Muk Jeung] – You have become mute due to severe psychological speech impairment. If you do not find psychological stability, the period of being mute will lengthen.
These are the most severe restrictions.
There are plenty of other restrictions as well.
[Ga In Bak Myeong]
[High-Class Doll]
[Permanently Tattooed: Lower Abdomen]
[Self-Pleasure Prohibited] [Addiction: Smoking]
[Slow Heartbeat]
[Low Lung Capacity]
[Feminine Gait]
[Lie Prohibited]
[Thought Control: Honorifics]
This list is full of traces of a desire to create a character more focused on pleasure than succeeding as a Murim person.
Considering that this is a filtered list, it’s remarkable that she succeeded in returning at all.
‘Thanks to pouring all my abilities into charm next to my appearance.’
While muscle and inner strength can be replaced with money and power, the five senses, which are closely related to intuition, cannot be substituted with anything else.
‘Open status window.’
【Status Window】
[Name] Hae Eung Eung(Female, 15 years old)
[Level] Third-rate (Lv01)
[Occupation] Wandering Swordsman
[Title] None
[Attributes]
Muscle: 15
Blood Vessels: 15 (-1)
Skills: 10
Intelligence: 35
Five Senses: 89
Charm: 100
Inner Strength: 5
▷ Remaining Points: 0
Muscle Weakness: The blood vessels are weakened due to Gui Eum Jeol Maek.
Desolate Inner Strength: Residing in a region with extremely low natural energy makes it extremely difficult to enhance inner strength.
Originally, all abilities are set to 30.
Players can freely distribute points to specialize in specific attributes, but Hae Eung Eung’s distribution was extreme.
‘In the Murim, I endured for a long time with elixirs given by those trying to win my favor, but this is Earth.’
A world without spiritual beings or elixirs.
It’s nearly impossible to increase abilities over time.
Even the inner strength has faltered.
In this arid world where she cannot feel any inner power, creating a Dantian from scratch is impossible under such poor conditions.
If inner strength does not increase, training in it is difficult, and if training is slow, the blood vessels will not strengthen.
Time is not on her side.
‘How many years do I have left until the blood vessels can hold out?’
Patients with Gui Eum Jeol Maek generally die before reaching 30 years old.
As the negative energy within her body grows stronger, it hardens the blood vessels, and if they continue to narrow and eventually close, she will no longer be able to cultivate inner strength.
After that comes the blood vessels.
If the blood vessels are blocked, a person cannot live.
Even with artificial organs, it’s impossible to replace the brain’s blood vessels.
There’s no possibility for her to survive, even with modern medicine and biotechnology.
But there is a variable.
【Inventory】
[Inner Elixir of Yanghwa] [1 Slot]
Remaining Volume: 0 Slots / 1 Slot
[Inner Elixir of Yanghwa]: A carp imbued with positive energy. It is used to alleviate the symptoms of Gui Eum Jeol Maek.
If she used 85% of her clear score from the body reset privilege, she spent 10% to obtain the Inner Elixir of Yanghwa.
The remedy for Gui Eum Jeol Maek is the Inner Elixir of Taiyanghwa.
Even in the Murim, it is unlikely to find two Inner Elixirs, even with the power of the palace.
‘I can’t be tied down by remedies that are impossible to find or buy.’
She cannot afford to become complacent.
An emergency remedy.
A smokescreen for buying time.
The value of the Inner Elixir is only that much.
She must find another way.
Either accept positive energy,
or undergo a transformation of her constitution based on strong inner strength.
The former is easy.
She just has to accept the affections of men.
But she doesn’t want to.
Does she, who was once a man, bow down to another man?
That’s absurd.
She doesn’t want to do it as a woman either.
‘Even if I abandoned my life as a man after living 20 years in a woman’s body, I cannot lose my life as a Murim person.’
Having once lost her identity, she had no intention of throwing away the pride of a warrior to seek happiness as a woman.
Then, there is still hope in the latter possibility.
Three cycles of time.
If she accumulates 180 years of inner strength, transformation is possible.
In the Earth of 2050, there exists the potential to gather such immense inner strength.
Gates and monsters.
And Awakened Ones.
Things that didn’t exist on Earth 20 years ago.
‘The news said that gates are portals to other dimensions.’
Unlike the barren Earth for inner strength, beyond the gates, there may be enough energy to accumulate inner strength.
She felt the need to see a gate with her own eyes at least once.
‘I have to go. Right now.’
Unconsciously, she opened the door with graceful steps,marking the first outing of the returnee, Hae Eung Eung.
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15 years old…yiiiiiikes!