Chapter 10

Homecoming

It had been a month since then. Even thinking about it felt like a fever dream to Jinah. Transmigration to another world, a violent one at that; the fact that your teacher was actually a supernatural entity, who then dies trying to protect the class, and being threatened by a Sage, who killed said entity, to level up or suffer a fate worse than death. Oh, and your classmate abandoning you and your friend because you didn't get the system downloaded.

It was a lot to take in… but not as much as the fact that this wasn't your first time here; that, for some reason, your memories of your time here were wiped after being returned to your world!

Even now, running from a BEAR could not even reach the foot of the mountain of madness that the sheer insanity of the first day had erected.

She was living in a one-day-build hut, in the monster infested woods, with a classmate who, by the way, turned out to be a martial-artist assassin who also carries with her a guardian spirit, the one being the cause of her classmate not being able to receive the system.

Again, it was a trip to even try to recount it all into words.

Wait, Jinah thought. I'm forgetting something important…

Right, she was being chased by a FUCKING BEAR at the moment.

Jinah found a tall tree and climbed up its trunk. She'd never been really athletic, barely being able to do three pull-ups. But adrenaline is a wonderful drug, and so she was able to crawl up the trunk like a monkey.

The downside was that now that she was safe on a branch, she suddenly felt all the muscle pain that was neglected. It made staying still and balanced hard, which wasn't a good thing when you're trying to keep out of reach from a be ar.

"HEEEEY!"

Jinah heard a voice coming from outside of her field of view. Jinah didn't need her sight to know who it was, however. The rambunctious savior, the reason she was able to live this long in the woods: Tomochika Dannoura, the modern day ninja.

Finally entering within sight, Tomochika could be seen running straight for the bear. Any normal person would be worried for a girl like her, especially one beelining to a FUCKING BEAR (I already said it too many times, but it just shows how much more insane the outside world was). But Jinah saw enough to not think too deep about it. For now, it wasn't a warning, but a bit of cheering Tomochika needed.

"Kick his ass, Tomo-chan!" Jinah hooted, swinging her arms above her head.

Tomochika put up her guard and disappeared. She suddenly reappeared behind the bear and hit it with a nasty kick to the inner knee. The bear fell on its knee and, before it could swipe at the gorilla girl, was hit on the head with an arrow.

There was an echoey thunk that accompanied the vibration of the arrow, and thud accompanying the fall of the creature.

"Nice work, Jinah!" shouted Tomochika from below.

Jinah climbed down the tree, slowly due to her aching body, and hobbled to the corpse.

"It's pretty big," Jinah commented. "I wonder how much it'll cost if we sold it."

"Why don't we just eat it?" Tomochika asked. "Mokomoko taught me a way to get rid of the smell, and to soften it."

"Yeah, but we really need more supplies like more clothes and a new weapon, like a sword."

"Yeah, I guess. Why don't we just take it to the hut for now?"

With both parties consenting, they dragged the carcass to the hut as fast as they could, to not attract any more monsters from the smell of a dead animal. With her unnatural strength, Dannoura did most of the dragging.

Jinah saw the small, plump Japanese woman floating with a torso tapered to a point, a typical appearance of a ghost, following the girls. That was, as she found out on her first week here, Mokomoko, Tomochika's guardian spirit, and ancestor. She acted as a scout to find food, to look out for monsters nearby as well as other candidates. She also acted as mentor to the growing Tomochika, teaching her more of the ways of the Dannoura clan. The School of Archery, however, was a total mystery to the both of them.

Mokomoko was vital to their survival, as you could see, repelling evil spirits (apparently them being a thing here and back at home) and finding a nearby stream where they bathed, washed, and drank from.

"Ah, I wish I still had my phone…" complained Tomochika, the minutes into the walk.

"Without internet, it would be useless anyways," countered the spirit.

"I still had a lot of stuff downloaded on it, you know!"

"I wish I still had my phone too…" Jinah spoke up. "But I couldn't find it today. That sucked."

"Y-yeah, I'm sure it did," replied the spirit. Her tone this time trembled for an instant.

That's weird, Jinah thought to herself. She put it to the back of her mind, however. It wasn't important.

Really, what was on her mind was her brother. She really missed him. She hadn't contacted him for some time, usually due to him being busy with police work. Even with the host family to chat with, it honestly felt kind of lonely without him around. And though no one ever talked about it, his sudden disappearance during middle school still intrigued her to this day. Everyone acted as if it didn't happen, but she was sure that her parents were also curious about it.

Tomochika suddenly put down the bear, causing Jinah to run into it. She tripped on the body, immediately leaping up as soon as she felt the still warm coat of the animal.

"EEK! Why did you do that, Tomo-chan!" Jinah shrieked.

"We're here," said Tomochika, raising an eyebrow and puckering her lips in confusion. "You must be blind or something."

"I wasn't paying attention," Jinah admitted, feeling sheepish.

The two left the bear outside and went into their place. Jinah brought out the tarp, and Tomochika the knife and bags, the bags for storing important organs and some cuts to sell to medicine men and meat shops.

Jinah was still too squeamish for de-gutting an animal, so Tomochika did the work while she prepared a fire behind the hut. They had made a large clearing while making the hut, so there wasn't much risk of a forest fire being started from a small fire.

Jinah went inside the hut to get matches they bought after selling their first monster kill.

Whoosh!

Huh?

"WHAT THE—" Jinah heard Tomochika shout. "Who are you!?"

Jinah swiftly turned around, grabbing the cutting knife and a small dagger, and faced the outside through the open door.

For an instant, she saw black smoke (mist) surround a man before dissipating into clear air.

The man was tall, at least 185 centimeters. He wore a long black overcoat with dark jeans. His chin was sharp, and his hair was unruly but clean. His face was…

"Oppa?"

It was Tomochika's time to be surprised at Jinah.

"Oppa… he's your onii-chan!?"

There he stood, right in front of her and Tomochika, grinning with twinkling eyes. Eyes that transcended space just to find her.

Jinah lumbered out the door, unable to believe the sight in front of her. She rubbed her eyes, pinched her arm, and slapped herself—

"Oi, Jinah, what are you doing!?" shouted her brother with a worried tone.

"Jinah-chan!?" shouted her friend.

"Jinah-san!?" shouted the ghost.

And he was still there. This wasn't a dream. Or maybe it was? Another world, evil gods, and now her brother in this very world with her. No, it was a dream, it had to be…

"Jinah, I know you're surprised," Jinwoo quickly reassured her, "but for now, let's focus on going home."

Home?

"Huh, Jinah?" asked Tomochika, not understanding Korean. "What'd he say?"

"Home…"

"Home?"

"We're going home?" Jinah asked Jinwoo. "What do you mean?"

"As I said," Jinwoo said, "we are going back. I have a teleportation stone ready, but I need your friends too, and…"

Jinah, unable to contain herself, sprang to her brother and hugged him as tightly as she could, not daring to let him go fearing he'd dissipate like the mist he'd come from. She felt the hot tears stream down her cheeks and nose, wetting her brother's coat. She clenched the thing in her grasp even tighter as a floodgate of emotions broke down the dam she'd built over the weeks. Anger, fear, sadness, despair, homesickness; but also joy, exceptional joy and gratitude. And especially love, love for her brother.

"Wehhh…" Jinah whimpered out a cry. "Wehhhh… it was so scary…"

Jinwoo, smiling even more softly, gently patted her back, and then hugged her back.

"I know… I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner," Jinwoo said, with regret in his tone. "We're going back home, alright? There, there…"

Jinah rubbed her face into his coat, sniffing as she sobbed.

"Our substitute teacher died, we were left behind… everything's insane!"

Jinah continued her sobbing and crying, puddles forming underneath. After such a stressful start, a release felt so good. And such warmth… how she'd missed it.

Meanwhile, Tomochika was standing by, just kinda awkwardly by the side, watching everything unfold. While she did feel glad for her friend, and herself as well now that they had a way back home, not being able to understand Korean made just standing here a little awkward, no offense.

She looked at Mokomoko, who was wearing an expression she couldn't help noticing…

"You know him?" the descendant finally asked, while Jinah was loudly pouring her voice into her brother's coat.

"Yup," said Mokomoko nonchalantly.

"How?"

"When Sage Sion said that this was your second time coming here, that meant that you would have had to return to your world at some point. Not just you and her, but your entire class. Now, who do you think transported you back home then?"

Tomochika took a second to comprehend the question. Then she snapped her head to Jinwoo, her eyes becoming wider than plates, and her jaws more open than Kentucky's Mammoth Cave.

IT WAS HIM!?

When Jinah started to stop sobbing, Jinwoo gently pulled Jinah away, bent down and faced her.

"Jinah, I need you to grab your things and come back, alright? Until I get to your other classmates, I need you to stay somewhere safe until I finish."

Jinah, her eyes reddened and still wet, nodded as if she were a child and ran back into the hut, hurriedly packing her things.

Jinwoo put on his translation bracelet and poured some mana into it.

"You should start packing too," Jinwoo said, smiling like the gentle rising sun of dawn.

Tomochika, a little flustered by his handsomeness, shook herself from her stupor and ran into the hut, preparing to get away from this hell hole.

While they were busy, Jinwoo walked over to the Japanese ghost. Mokomoko flinched and froze up. The aura emanating from him, while still subdued, was already terrifying for even a divine-spirit like her. She was in front of a god, the god of death himself, after all. Fear was surely the first reaction any ghost anywhere would feel when facing him.

"Thank you," the god of death said, "thank you for protecting them until now."

The god in man's form smiled, a smile so human that you could forget who he truly was. It was a cool smile, but as if a contradiction, warmth emanated from it, signifying that he was truly thankful to the spirit.

Her, a tiny, insignificant ghost in comparison to the legions of angels and terrible monsters he had in his shadow. He was thanking her. No higher honor could ever compare to this.

"I just did as I was commanded by you, Ruler of Death," said Mokomoko.

"No need for those titles," Jinwoo chuckled, snorting a little. "Just call me Jinwoo."

"No, I really can't—"

"Let's go!" shouted a newly emerged Tomochika.

"Where are we going?" Jinah asked timidly, now looking like a small hamster.

Jinwoo smiled, this time mischievously, and said, mysteriously:

"You're already there."