A face both familiar and completely different. It was definitely me, but the pupils were shining with an eerily vivid golden light. Each time they caught the light, the gold rippled subtly, and that appearance was closer to an illusion than reality.
“Did someone put in contact lenses while I was sleeping…?”
Unable to bring myself to poke my eyes, I tousled my hair with my fingers. Because it was curly, my hand kept catching on it and wouldn’t come out easily.
“Ah, it hurts!”
Eventually, when I forced it out, tears welled up slightly from the pain of hair being pulled. I lowered my hand with tears just glistening in my eyes.
Sniffling at the still unfamiliar smell, I looked around for no particular reason. Instead of lighting, sunlight seeping through the windows faintly colored the space. This place looked closer to an old inn rather than a restaurant. There was no cauldron, no modern kitchen equipment to be seen. And strangely, it somehow… looked medieval.
Eventually, after hesitating, I moved my feet. The creaking wooden planks cried out irritably, but I deliberately ignored the sound and carefully moved forward, opening the door.
Clunk, thud—!
The moment the unoiled door opened, a landscape I’d never seen before in my life unfolded before my eyes.
“…Huh?”
Verdant greenery, grass blades swaying in the wind, a peaceful pastoral landscape. All of it was dazzling like a painting.
But when I turned my head slightly to the side, a completely different landscape entered my view. A desolate sandy plain and parched earth stretched endlessly, and over it, gloomy energy rose insidiously. It was as if two worlds had been forcibly stitched together, connected unnaturally.
However, this scene that should have been horrifying somehow looked beautiful enough to be dazzling.
I stared blankly, mesmerized by that landscape. When two extreme landscapes were captured in one glance, the sense of reality disappeared instead.
For a moment, my heart beat quietly. Awe and ecstasy, indescribable emotions mixed together and my mind went blank. But after that instant passed, an ominous premonition coldly swept down my spine.
“…Wait.”
It was unfamiliar yet strangely familiar. It was a scene I seemed to have seen somewhere. No, more precisely, text that had been pressed somewhere in my head suddenly surfaced.
[Amidst the chaos of demons and humans, the primordial dragon awakened. He and his companions split the world in two and drew a boundary, and that land came to be called the Boundary Line. And the place located at the heart of that boundary, the name of the empire built upon it was called Chevalier.]
The bizarre spectacle unfolding before my eyes was explained by that single passage.
Unable to believe this reality, I hastily looked around before turning my gaze back to the face in the mirror.
Curly hair covering even my eyes, and an apron covered in grease stains.
Now that I think about it, this appearance…
…Isn’t this that innkeeper from the novel?
The mob innkeeper of an inn described in just one line, who exits as soon as the protagonist’s party finishes a meal.
[Amelia took a sip of the broth and said with satisfaction.
“As expected, this inn’s soup dishes are excellent.”
Sion, the innkeeper with bangs covering down to his nose, smiled faintly at those words.]
I clearly remembered that scene that only appeared a few times.
Why? Because the name was exactly the same as mine.
During my weekend bookstore part-time job, there was a novel I opened by chance, unable to bear the boredom. The title was 《The Saint Wants to Live Peacefully》. It was a fantasy novel with romance mixed in. Normally I wouldn’t have even glanced at such a book, but there was only one reason my hand went to it.
That title about wanting to live peacefully. There had never been a single moment of peace in my life.
Of course, my expectations weren’t wrong. The content was typical, the romance predictable. However, the worldview was somewhat interesting.
In a world where war between demons and humans continued endlessly, the background was that the primordial dragon and his companions drew a boundary and split the two worlds. However, as time passed, war repeated again.
The novel’s starting point was the eve when disputes were becoming frequent on the Boundary and war could break out at any moment, and it was a story about how the saint and the protagonist’s party led the war to conclusion amidst that chaos.
Right. It was a very common, typical fantasy story.
At least, that’s how I remembered it.
“…Ha.”
Since it was called “on the Boundary,” I’d imagined a landscape like desolate ashes, land of death, but what actually unfolded before my eyes was a magnificent spectacle dividing worlds.
My legs gave out and I plopped down on a nearby chair. The old chair creaked— ominously and swayed precariously.
“…Is this a dream?”
Smack!
“Shit, that really fucking hurts?”
The moment I slapped my cheek, sharp pain was definitely transmitted. Slowly cradling my swelling cheek, I gritted my teeth. I’d always bruised easily, and it seemed this place was no different.
The pain and the landscape before my eyes were both real. Then there was only one conclusion.
“So I really possessed someone?”
As the innkeeper right in the middle of that Boundary Line?
No wonder I had a clear field of vision even with bangs covering my eyes. This is what they call novelistic license. The unwritten rule that a bangs character’s bangs don’t obstruct their vision.
…No, that’s not the problem.
As I fell into escapism, my thoughts kept veering off in strange directions.
Anyway. At this very moment, only one conclusion remained.
That I had possessed into a novel right now.
But usually, aren’t there clichés like getting hit by a truck, or game characters you raised popping out into reality?
But me? I opened my eyes to find I’d possessed a mob innkeeper who just serves food and disappears.
My head instantly went white, then soon emptied as if in escapism. When my strength drained and I leaned back in the chair, the rotten wooden chair made an unpleasant creaking sound like setting broken bones.
I roughly ignored it and buried my face in my hands.
How do I get out of here now? If an inn in the middle of the Boundary is this quiet, it’s definitely the eve of war. Besides, if it’s in the middle of the Boundary, won’t it burn down overnight?
No, more than that, war?
I hadn’t even been to the military. I was exempted because I was an orphan, and after leaving the orphanage, I was just a part-timer barely making ends day by day. No matter how much we lived in a divided nation, there was no chance of directly experiencing a battlefield in the peaceful 21st century world.
But now I’m in the middle of a battlefield?
I covered my face with both hands. My vision was pitch black, and that darkness felt like my future.
“…I want to go back.”
But as soon as those words scattered into the air, only helpless emptiness remained.
Right. I knew I didn’t know how to go back.
Could this be a realistic dream, could it be a fantasy? I hesitated about slapping my cheek again, but my hand wouldn’t rise. The pain from earlier was too vivid. The still stinging ache was persistently imprinting the fact that this place was ‘real.’
Eventually, I sat there blankly with my head bowed for a long while. Somewhere in my heart, a struggle to deny reality squirmed.
“It can’t be, this must be a dream gone wrong. Soon I’ll open my eyes and be in my studio apartment, and I’ll have to get ready for my part-time job…”
But no matter how much I denied it, the smell of dust and mold, the creaking sound of the chair didn’t disappear.
Just as I was being consumed by depression, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
“Wait… what was the original me, Baek Sion, like?”
An orphan with no relatives, a life working not just two but even three part-time jobs.
I left the facility when I became an adult, but I couldn’t go to college, let alone get a decent job. I barely hung on until twenty-four doing two, three part-time jobs, and I sent a considerable amount of the money I earned to the orphanage. There was no particular reason. I just didn’t want to be caught living wretchedly without a single decent job.
But now?
I was the owner of this old building.
“Building owner… inn income…”
My throat burned dry and I gulped. With eyes mixed with anxiety and desire, I scanned the kitchen.
“Maybe… if I just run the inn well, I can make a living?”
However, before that sweet thought could even ripen, anxiety roughly grabbed the back of my neck.
What if war breaks out before that? What if customers stop coming? They say it’s in the middle of the Boundary Line—what if demons rush in?
I was just a commoner who’d only worked part-time jobs. I had no experience running a business. Just waiting for payday and being desperate for hourly wages was completely different from being responsible for account books and running a shop.
But, but still, at least here I wouldn’t be chased by overdue bills for insurance or gas, right? The war breaking out was also a year after the original story’s start, and if this is the early timeline? Then wouldn’t I just need to earn desperately for exactly one year and evacuate to a safe place?
Fear and calculation clashed fiercely above my head. And what eventually came out of my mouth was…
“…Building owner life might not be all that bad?”
It was calculation.
Having finished thinking, I immediately headed to the kitchen. The thought of resting never existed in the first place. Laziness was a luxury, and leisure had no place in my life.
The moment I entered the kitchen and opened the old cupboard, dried-up garlic came tumbling out, followed by half-rotten onions rolling down.
Thud, thump, thump—
“…This is all?”
Swallowing an absurd lament, I thoroughly searched the other shelves, but the result was the same. The grain sacks were empty, and the meat was half-rotten like the onions. I stared into the cupboard for a long time, holding onto some hope, but eventually gave up and hung my head low.
