[1] “Oppa, you haven't gotten yourself another girl while I was gone, have you?”

[In Loving Memory of Jeong Sia / 2000.08.25 – 2023.08.25]

Exactly one year ago today, she suddenly passed away.

It had been barely six months since she had officially become a Hunter after graduating from the Hunter Academy.

Having already lost her family during the Gate Break incident when she was in high school, I had thought that perhaps she could never suffer a greater misfortune than that.

Who could have imagined that she would meet such a futile death on her very birthday?

“It’s already been a whole year since our Sia left your side, Oppa.”

Today, on the anniversary of Sia’s death—and her birthday—I came to visit her grave.

In one hand, I carried the spicy rice cakes that Sia had loved more than anything when she was alive.

“I still can’t believe that our beautiful Sia has really left me.”

Jeong Sia.

She was the only love of my life, my one and only precious girlfriend in this world.

It was supposed to be the day when, after our practical training, we would have dinner at a nice restaurant and celebrate her birthday together.

But a major accident occurred inside the Gate.

Gates were inherently dangerous places where no one could know what might happen inside, but who could have expected such a terrifying inferno to be waiting for us inside a D-rank Gate?

The horrific accident left three people injured and one dead.

And that sole victim had to be my Sia.

If only I had been a little stronger.

Ever since Sia died, that thought had never once left my mind.

If only I had been just a little stronger, if only I had moved a little faster, could I have saved Sia’s life?

If only that Trait had awakened...

By every measure, I was nothing more than an ordinary D-rank Hunter in the swordsman class.

Except for one thing.

[??? (EX)

Skill Description: ???]

The problem was that I had no idea what this skill actually was, nor did I know how to use it.

I didn’t even know whether it was a passive or an active skill.

But if I had known what this skill was...

If I had been able to use it, even just a little...

Would Sia really have had to die such a meaningless death?

What good does any of that do now?

A skill I had never once used, a skill that had failed to protect the person I loved.

It was better to live as though such a skill had never existed.

Setting aside the meaningless what-ifs that continued to bind me, I took out my phone and slowly scrolled through the photos I had taken with Sia, one by one.

Every time I looked at another photo, the memories from those days came rushing vividly back to me.

Sia, the straightforward girl who boldly confessed her feelings to me without caring what anyone else thought.

Our Sia, whose smile was more beautiful than anyone else’s in the world.

Our Sia, who would cling to me whenever she was in my arms, saying I was so warm, and never wanting to let go.

My beloved Sia, who had been the reason I lived.

As I began recalling my memories of Sia from when she was alive, I felt the corners of my eyes gradually grow hot.

We had loved each other so passionately that we could hardly bear to live without one another.

So why did we have to part like this?

Holding back my tears, I poured the rice wine I had brought along with the spicy rice cakes into a cup and placed it in front of Sia’s grave.

I placed the spicy rice cakes she loved beside it as well.

The moment the spicy aroma of spicy rice cakes reached me, I was reminded once again of the day Sia had left this world.

“Sia, let’s go eat something delicious tonight. What do you want?”

“Hmm... spicy rice cakes! Let’s add lots of extra toppings and eat!”

“Spicy rice cakes? Come on, it’s your birthday. Let’s eat something better than that. I told you I’m buying today.”

“You don’t really like spicy rice cakes, Oppa? I want to eat spicy rice cakes.”

If I had known that Sia would leave my side so soon,

I should have eaten spicy rice cakes with her one more time instead of grumbling about how we were eating the same thing yet again.

Thinking about that made regret wash over me once more.

I poured the rice wine from the cup over Sia’s grave, then poured myself another cup and drank it in one go.

“Sia, you don’t mind if Oppa gets a little drunk today, right?”

But just as I emptied the cup and was about to fill another...

Ruuuumble—!

All of a sudden, the ground began to shake, followed by a roar so loud it felt as though my eardrums would burst.

Then the air split apart, and a small crack began to form.

Gate Break!

There was no mistaking it. This was a precursor to a Gate Break.

As the crack gradually widened, my thoughts began racing.

Of all places, why here? On the anniversary of Sia’s death, at the very place where her grave was?

I knew about the phenomenon known as a Gate Break, but this was the first time I had ever witnessed one with my own eyes.

Faced with a situation I had never experienced before, I froze on the spot.

I have to do something.

I needed to report it to the Hunter Administration, and then somehow buy time on my own to prevent the damage from spreading.

The moment I reached for my phone to do something—anything—

The Gate began to writhe, and something emerged from it.

Naturally assuming it was a monster, I hurriedly tried to pull a weapon from my subspace, but... the moment I saw what it actually was, I couldn't help but stop.

A young woman with exotic features who looked around my age.

Astonishingly, the unidentified lifeform that had emerged from the Gate was none other than a woman.

But she was by no means an ordinary woman.

Her red hair resembled a sacred flame, while her ruby-like eyes were so unnatural that they could hardly be considered human.

And that wasn’t all.

Her skin was as flawless as white jade, while her delicate features were so beautiful that calling her a goddess would not have been an exaggeration.

Even her clothes appeared to be unlike anything from Earth, making her seem even more otherworldly.

No. I can’t let her appearance fool me.

She might be an as-yet-unreported monster taking the form of a human woman.

I couldn't afford to lower my guard.

Even though there was no one else around, I had to prepare for any eventuality.

I knew nothing about this woman’s true identity, so I needed to proceed with caution.

First, I had to determine whether she was friendly toward humanity or hostile.

Although I cautiously began drawing my weapon, the woman seemed completely unconcerned by it and kept her gaze fixed elsewhere.

Specifically, on the spicy rice cakes and seaweed rice rolls I had placed beside Sia’s grave, along with the birthday present I had bought for her a year ago but had never even been able to unwrap and give her.

After examining those things, the woman shifted her gaze toward me.

I could understand why she was looking at my face, but why was she so interested in those spicy rice cakes?

But there was something even stranger.

“Oppa?”

Despite having such exotic features that I could never have mistaken her for a Korean, she called out to me affectionately in flawless Korean.

Oppa?

She called me Oppa?

Just as the question of who—or what—she was rose to the very tip of my tongue...

“Minjun Oppa, it’s me. Your girlfriend, Jeong Sia.”

...What?

“Oppa, I spent two thousand years without going on a single excursion, holed up in my lair and researching dimensional-transference magic just so I could meet you again. I did well, right? I did really well, didn’t I?”

Two thousand years? A lair? Dimensional-transference magic?

The woman who introduced herself as the Sia who had died was throwing around words I couldn’t possibly understand.

“But Oppa, you haven't gotten yourself another girl while I was gone, have you?”