The familiar voice instantly pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts.
I blinked and looked toward the entrance.
Jiyeon walked in confidently wearing a sharp suit, casually lifting her sunglasses over her head.
Even indoors, she somehow looked like the main character walking out of an action movie.
Behind her were the other two girls as well.
"Noona, I haven't seen you in so long."
Before I could even properly greet them, Hyein hurried over and wrapped her arms around me tightly.
Her face was full of worry.
"MinMin said you got sick again and ended up in a coma..." She pulled back slightly to look at me. "Why do you keep collapsing all the time? Aren't healers supposed to be healthy?"
I laughed awkwardly at the accusation.
"Sorry, Hyein-ah." I gently patted her head. "I'm okay now. See?"
To reassure her, I flashed the brightest smile I could manage.
Thankfully, it seemed to work a little.
"Actually," I continued, trying to lighten the mood, "I'm thinking of opening the café soon."
The moment I said that, everyone's attention shifted immediately.
"But before that," I added, "I still need to register a business name."
"Do you already have one in mind?" Chiyeon asked casually as she took a seat nearby. "If you do, I can contact our people and have everything processed by next week."
As expected of rich hunters.
They talked about legal paperwork like they were ordering delivery.
I chuckled softly.
"Actually... yeah. I do have one in mind."
The memory from earlier surfaced briefly in my head.
"...I'm thinking of calling it Shurelia."
"Ooh, I like it."
"It sounds pretty."
"It fits the atmosphere here."
The girls immediately responded positively, making me smile without realizing it.
Maybe because the name carried memories precious to me, hearing others like it made my chest feel oddly warm.
While they looked around the café, I moved behind the counter and started preparing drinks for everyone.
Thankfully, Jinhyuk had stocked this place so thoroughly that it felt less like a café and more like a high-end laboratory for beverages.
Since I practically had every ingredient imaginable, I decided to experiment a little.
A darker roast coffee for Jiyeon. Something sweet and iced for Hyein. A citrus tea with mana-infused honey for Chiyeon.
I even tried combining some of the otherworldly ingredients together to test new recipes.
Honestly... This was fun.
For the first time in a while, I felt genuinely relaxed.
"By the way," I asked while steaming milk, "who's MinMin?"
The nickname sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember if Hyein had mentioned it before.
"Her boyfriend," Chiyeon answered immediately.
My hands nearly slipped.
"...Boyfriend?"
I slowly turned toward Hyein in shock.
Wait. How old was Hyein again? Wasn't she still way too young to date?!
"It's not like that!" Hyein's face instantly turned red. "It's just my nickname for Minwoo oppa!"
She pointed at Chiyeon accusingly.
"And he's not my boyfriend!"
I quietly let out a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness.
Meanwhile, Chiyeon calmly sipped her coffee with zero remorse for nearly giving me a heart attack.
"...Goodness."
The three of us ended up laughing after that.
And somehow, the atmosphere gradually became lighter.
We spent most of the afternoon simply talking.
Nothing serious.
Just small stories, random conversations, complaints, and laughter filling the café that had felt painfully empty until now.
No one brought up the heavier topics involving me. Actually? It seemed like they also deliberately avoided heavy conversations.
I think we all understood without saying it aloud.
Right now, I wasn't ready for a deep, and heavy conversation yet.
·•—–٠✤٠—–•·
Since Elena had gotten better, the acceleration of the dungeons that were originally supposed to appear over the span of ten years had suddenly condensed into a single year.
It was as if the world itself had begun spiraling out of control.
Minwoo and I had been moving nonstop across different countries under our pseudonyms, closing gates before they could fully erupt into disasters.
First came the appearance of a double S-rank gate.
Then the mental-type dungeon that surfaced in China, the one that dropped an artifact capable of blocking all mental interference abilities ranked S-class or below.
And those were only the major incidents.
There were countless others appearing one after another without pause, enough to leave almost no room to breathe.
Because of that, I barely had time to process the things Elena had told me.
It wasn't that I didn't trust her. If anything, she was the only variable in all my regressions that felt genuine. But there were simply too many things surrounding her that I couldn't explain.
The strange powers, the constellations, the sudden acceleration of the fate of the world itself. At some point, a new title had appeared on my status window.
『 ??? 』
I stared at the question marks silently for a moment before looking away.
Somehow, I had a feeling that knowing the answer wouldn't bring me anything good.
"Hyung, we're done here. I'm heading back first."
Before I could even respond, Minwoo immediately ran out of the dungeon.
Lately, he had been doing that more and more often, disappearing the moment our subjugations ended as if he was rushing somewhere. But what exactly was he even doing? We were in Japan right now, so it wasn't like he could casually wander off to somewhere familiar.
Clicking my tongue lightly, I returned to the hotel Hiro Kishida had arranged for us and the members of his guild. The moment I entered my room, exhaustion settled over me all at once. I laid down on the bed and stared quietly at the ceiling, letting the silence fill the room.
Outsiders were still beings I could never truly understand.
Even after countless regressions, all I really knew was that one day they descended from the sky and brought an end to the world. At first, I had thought they were nothing more than monsters from another dimension, but after hearing Elena's explanation, things no longer felt that simple.
Apparently, some of their kind had already been living among humanity for years, working together with the Church while studying humans from the shadows. And according to Elena, their world had begun dying long ago, forcing them to search for another planet capable of sustaining their species.
My thoughts drifted toward their appearances.
Their fluid-like skin. Their strange movements. The way some of them resembled aquatic creatures capable of walking on land.
And yet the other one of their kind looked nothing like an aquatic species at all. Red-skinned, sharp-toothed, built like something pulled straight from a human nightmare of what a demon should look like.
How could they possibly be the same species?
...Was that why they were targeting Earth? Because our planet happened to be the perfect environment for both of their species?
Still, the thing that bothered me the most wasn't even the Outsiders.
It was the System itself.
Not once throughout all my regressions had I questioned where it originated from. The System had always simply existed, like a law of nature that no one fully understood. I had even asked the constellations about it before, but surprisingly, even they seemed completely ignorant regarding its origins.
And yet Elena knew things that even constellations didn't.
The more I thought about it, the stranger everything surrounding her became. Ever since meeting her, I had come closer to the truth than I ever had in all my regressions combined. The accelerated dungeons, the sudden changes in fate, the unknown title appearing on my status window, even the constellations reacting strangely toward her existence.
Everything abnormal seemed to begin with her.
I closed my eyes briefly before letting out a quiet breath.
"...Just who are you, Seo Elena?"
A ridiculous thought suddenly crossed my mind.
Ridiculous... yet impossible to completely dismiss.
Could she also be an Outsider?
I thought carefully about everything Elena had told me, but no matter how much I tried to connect the pieces together, she still didn't resemble the Outsiders I knew.
She didn't act like them.
Didn't speak like them either.
Didn't even look like them at all.
If anything, she felt far too... human.
Then what exactly was she?
And if she truly possessed knowledge connected to the System and the origins of the world, where had she been throughout all my regressions until now?
The more I thought about it, the heavier the unease in my chest became.
Just as my thoughts were beginning to spiral deeper, I suddenly felt it.
A pressure.
My eyes narrowed immediately as a foreign presence spread across the area, heavy enough to distort the air itself. Instinctively, I reached for my mask and stood up, but before I could leave the room, Hiro Kishida came rushing toward me with an unusually pale expression.
"Saber-sama," he said hurriedly, struggling to steady his breathing. "There's... a humanoid monster outside."
My expression hardened instantly.
"What rank is the gate?"
Hiro hesitated.
"There is no gate." He replied.
The moment those words left his mouth, my heartbeat sank heavily.
Humanoid monsters were already rare existences even within dungeons, but for one to appear without a gate...
There was only one possibility.
An Outsider.
A cold sweat slid down my forehead as I immediately followed Hiro outside.
The pressure grew stronger the closer we approached, thick enough to make even breathing feel uncomfortable. By the time we arrived at the scene, dozens of Japanese hunters had already surrounded the creature from a distance, weapons drawn as they waited for the slightest sign of movement.
And standing quietly in the center of them all was a humanoid figure.
The moment I arrived, its gaze locked onto mine.
Then it smiled.
Its blue translucent skin and gem on its forehead were the most noticeable features. Unlike most of the Outsider's I've seen, it was rare to see one of this kind.
"Finally," it spoke calmly, "someone capable of understanding me."
The surrounding hunters stiffened in confusion.
Hiro glanced at me immediately. "Saber-sama... what is it saying? You understand that thing?"
I kept my eyes fixed on the creature.
"Tell everyone here to leave immediately if they value their lives," I said quietly. "I'll speak to it alone."
The hunters around us looked visibly unsettled, but I continued before anyone could argue.
"Even if all of you attack together, you won't stand a chance against this being."
Because unlike humans, Outsiders could read the System itself.
That was the true reason they were terrifying.
It wasn't simply their strength. It was the fact that they could perceive the flow of the System in ways humans couldn't even begin to comprehend. Just as Elena had explained, they could read it almost instinctively.
But how?
Even now, I still couldn't fully understand it.
The Outsider tilted its head slightly before speaking again.
"So you are the beloved of the one cherished by ▓▓."
I frowned faintly at the incomprehensible words.
"...You're an Outsider, aren't you?" I asked coldly. "What is your purpose for coming here?"
The creature's smile widened slightly.
And at that moment, instinct screamed at me.
This thing was different.
Every Outsider I had encountered before felt dangerous, but this one stood on an entirely different level. If the others were comparable to wild beasts that had only just learned how to hunt, then the being standing before me now felt like the guardian watching over them all.
A predator powerful enough to tear apart anything it considered a threat.