Overpowered Reincarnation Perks! - Chapter 8.1 - 8. The Place Where the Savior Left
The monster collective disappeared. It happened in an instant.
The villagers who had evacuated to the mountains witnessed the monster collective, larger than several buildings combined, vanish in a moment.
Unable to believe the situation, a few people came down near the village to scout. When those who confirmed that the monster had truly disappeared shouted, the evacuees returned to the village.
Corpses of strong men were strewn across broken buildings and destroyed roads. Only one person was standing upright and alive.
And opposite him, another person was sitting down.
“Hey, isn’t that… that person?”
“The one who brought Jin…”
Jin.
At that name, the man who had been standing still as if nailed to the spot turned around with a start.
A beautiful face was visible through disheveled silver hair.
With empty eyes, he looked just like a doll.
“Um, were you the one who defeated the monster? Thank you.”
Although there were casualties, it was entirely thanks to the silver-haired man who had cut down the most monsters at the forefront that most of the villagers were able to evacuate.
It was awkward and frightening to approach the unfamiliar monster hunter, but they gathered the courage to express their gratitude to Callion.
“It wasn’t me.”
“Pardon?”
“The one who made the monster disappear wasn’t me… it was Ju-in.”
***
“Huu-euk. Huuung…”
While those who evacuated survived, most of the strong men who fought against the monsters lost their lives.
The survivors collected the bodies of the deceased.
Callion looked down impassively as a white cloth was laid over the body of a young man who died luring the monsters with his bare hands, without weapons, to prevent them from heading south.
A young child was crying next to the corpse.
“Hyuung…”
“When I was escaping with the antique shop owner’s grandmother, this kid helped move Jin who had injured her leg. He always said he would repay the favor.”
A middle-aged woman explained the situation while holding and comforting the crying child.
Callion stood quietly, listening to her story.
They say Ju-in saved many people during her stay in the village. She even saved that child when he almost fell from a bridge into the water. The young man who had promised to repay Ju-in for saving his brother ended up dying while saving Ju-in.
“Jin was our village’s hero.”
“She even stopped the investigators from the castle when they were causing trouble.”
“She didn’t seem like someone who would stay in a village like this, so we thought she must have had some circumstances. We thought she might feel burdened if we approached her, so we sent the youngest, Bill, to communicate…”
Ju-in didn’t interact much with people during her stay in the village. Usually, even when greeted, she would just nod slightly in response and avoid people, but they said she was always the first to rush in when someone was in danger.
When he heard the story of how she used the magic stone she possessed to switch the positions of people and objects to rescue them, Callion understood how the monster had vanished in an instant.
And why his brother appeared in the place where the monster collective had disappeared.
Ju-in had switched their positions.
“But Jin’s body isn’t even…”
The villagers seemed to think that Ju-in had been eaten by the monster, or that her body was too scattered to be found.
Instead of correcting their thoughts, Callion quickly left the place.
“Brother.”
Senes, who had been sitting with a blank face, raised his head.
“Where is Ju-in?”
***
Callion ran up the steep mountain path. Although it was deep into the night and the mountains were shrouded in darkness, the blackness posed no obstacle to Callion.
Holding the black magic stone earring he received from Senes, Callion headed towards the bottom of the deepest cliff.
At the bottom of the cliff where Ju-in had fallen, black masses were scattered. They were the monster’s remains. Even though they had shattered from the impact of the fall, each piece was still enormous.
Callion drew his sword and sifted through the monster’s remains.
The crudely fused core stone of the monster became visible.
Ju-in was nowhere to be seen.
If Ju-in had fallen here, the magic stone earring she had been wearing should have fallen here too.
When he sent a signal holding the magic stone earring, he could see crushed pieces on the ground glowing brightly.
Fragments of the magic stone earring were there.
Ju-in was not.
“Ju-in.”
Callion called out to Ju-in.
There was no response from Ju-in.
“Ju-in…!”
Ju-in was not there.
Nowhere.
***
Callion returned to the village empty-handed.
He didn’t know why he came back. Perhaps because Ju-in wasn’t at the bottom of the cliff, he thought that if she was somehow alive, she might have returned to the villagers she liked.
But she wasn’t there either.
“It’s my fault. I should have taken Jin and run away…”
“Stop it, Bill. If you had gone to save Jin while injured, you would have died too.”
It seems the villagers liked her too.
It seems they genuinely mourned her death and shed tears.
Did she intend to sacrifice herself to protect those precious to her?
Just like he had?
Callion couldn’t understand.
He had always been prepared to die for Ju-in, but he had never prepared himself to accept her death.
Who did Ju-in save?
Was it his brother Senes, the villagers?
Or was it himself?
Callion left the village as if fleeing.
He didn’t look back anymore.
When he thought they were people Ju-in liked, he wanted to save them for her sake, but now that he thought she had died in their place to save them, he couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.
Overwhelmed by the anxiety that he might lash out at innocent people, Callion hurriedly climbed the mountain.
He threw the magic stone that could communicate with his brother down the cliff.
If what Ju-in had tried to save was his brother, he wasn’t sure he could avoid resenting him. He might even try to kill him.
So he eliminated the means of contact. He wanted to erase it from his mind.
“Ju-in…”
Callion collapsed to the ground.
The broken magic stone earring glowed in his fist as if crying, but there was no one left to answer.
He curled up and buried his face in his knees.
***
When I opened my eyes, I was in darkness again.
My body felt tilted as if floating in the air, but strangely, there was no shaking and it was comfortable.
Still, perhaps because I had died twice now, this darkness felt familiar.
It felt just like becoming a soap bubble floating in the air. I leisurely leaned back into the void and called up the system window.
Humble Sacrifice Lv.20 MAX
Experience points exceeding the current level limit have accumulated.
Would you like to expand your level?
Whoever created this, if they had developed a game like this, they would have been bombarded with customer complaints.
What’s the point of leveling up, what happens when you expand your level – without explaining any of this, how am I supposed to answer when they suddenly ask if I want to expand?
‘But thanks to this, I learned one thing.’
Expanding the level means there will be opportunities to gain more experience.
Since I can’t do anything while dead, this implies that I’m being given another chance.
