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Chapter 12
I’m a Returnee from an Adult World
It may sound somewhat cliché, but when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
Min Hyemi blinked for a moment and then realized that she had fainted and just woken up.
Wait a minute… then this place is…!
“Ahhh!”
Min Hyemi let out a scream and bolted upright. The moment she felt the soft mattress beneath her, she couldn’t hold back.
‘I’m sick of waking up on a bed after fainting!’
I won’t bother explaining why—she’s not under 19, after all.
Anyway, as she got up, the figure in front of her came into view: a burly man wearing a black hat and mask.
He was the one who had hidden in the backseat of her car and knocked her out.
“C’mon, don’t waste your energy screaming.”
A playful, cheerful voice came from the man, completely at odds with the situation.
“You… kidnapped me, right…?”
“Ahhh! Stop calling it a kidnapping!”
“Kidnap…”
“I said, stop the kidnapping, you crazy bastards! Stop! Aaahhh!”
Min Hyemi couldn’t hold back and exploded in panic.
But considering her circumstances, anyone would understand her reaction.
“Aaahhh!”
“C-Can you calm down, please?”
“I’m calm.”
“No, don’t suddenly calm down…”
Though his face was hidden under the deep brim of his hat, the man seemed to be looking at her as if she were insane.
‘I have a location-tracking artifact.’
If she destroyed it, it would send a signal.
It was definitely in her pocket…
‘But if I take it out now, I’ll get caught.’
Rather than risk ruining the artifact, she decided to bide her time.
[Skill <Unshakable Reason> Activated!]
She tried to converse with him while keeping her composure.
“Why did you kidnap me?”
“Ah, that….”
The man shrugged and looked toward the doorframe.
“Our boss will explain that.”
“Are you part of Exodus?”
“Mm, that’s right.”
“So why did you kidnap me?”
“Well… our boss was supposed to appear by now, but… hasn’t shown up yet…”
He stammered slightly, sounding flustered.
Min Hyemi looked at him with a disdainful expression, and he shrugged helplessly.
“What do you expect from just a subordinate like me?”
“Hmm…”
Her <Genre Shift> skill was still on cooldown.
Even if she used it, being alone in a room with a man would only lead to bad results.
At that moment, the man, looking frustrated, removed his hat and mask.
Min Hyemi’s eyes widened slightly as she saw his face.
‘Judging by appearances, he looks completely normal.’
For a member of Exodus, the country’s largest terrorist organization, he had an unexpectedly healthy face.
In fact, he was handsome—very handsome.
Beneath his black hair, his facial features were striking. In terms of sheer attractiveness, he was somewhat like Seon Jejun, though there was something a bit… unhinged in his eyes.
“…Is it really okay to show your face like this? You’re not going to kill me and let me go, right?”
“No, I have no reason to kill you.”
Those words gave Min Hyemi a small glimmer of hope. Right now, her most important task was to negotiate as best as possible with them.
“Well, I guess my face will be known eventually anyway…”
The man teased playfully, stretching the end of his words.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, the boss wants to put me forward as the representative of Exodus.”
“…Why?”
At that moment, a thought flashed through Min Hyemi’s mind.
When Exodus had raided their headquarters, an S-class Awakener had reportedly joined…!
“Because I’m the strongest?”
Sure enough, the man’s words confirmed it.
“Even if my face gets out, no one would dare try to take me down.”
“Could it be… you’re an S-class Awakener?”
“Yes, pretty smart, huh?”
He smiled, clearly satisfied.
“Yoo Sungtae. Call me that.”
“Ah… okay…”
He claimed to be just a lowly underling, but it was all a lie.
Min Hyemi scrutinized Yoo Sungtae’s face once more.
He seemed incredibly relaxed, which made her even more nervous. Usually, a man with such a calm smile tends to be the crazy type.
At that moment, the door slammed open.
Yoo Sungtae’s gaze immediately shifted toward it.
“Ah, Boss.”
‘The boss of Exodus?’
High-ranking hunters who tracked Exodus had encountered him a few times, but the boss’s face had never been publicly revealed due to lack of photos.
When she finally saw the boss, Min Hyemi was surprised once more.
‘Much more ordinary than I expected.’
She was dressed in a way that didn’t fit this place.
Her bright makeup and pink dress would have been much better suited for somewhere like Seoul Forest than this dark, gloomy room.
Even for the leader of the country’s largest terrorist group, she looked very young—probably in her early twenties.
“….”
“Surprised?”
A cheerful voice came from the woman.
“Sorry. We didn’t plan to bring you here violently. We actually have a pretty positive view of you.”
“You know me?”
“Ah, when we recently raided your headquarters, we got some information about you.”
“My information?”
When Min Hyemi asked, clearly confused, the boss smirked.
“What did you think the reason for your kidnapping was?”
“…Because I recently entered a dungeon with Hunter Seon Jejun, right?”
“Ah, that also interests us, but this time there’s another reason.”
Though she couldn’t fully grasp what was happening, Min Hyemi listened carefully.
“We think you could sympathize with our ideology.”
“…A terrorist organization?”
“We have our own beliefs, you know!”
The boss continued brightly.
“Sure, our immediate goal is to plunge this country into chaos, but the ultimate goal is something else.”
“What is that…?”
“We’re going to turn the world upside down!”
More and more absurd words flowed from the woman’s mouth.
“Returnees like you fell into a foreign world and came back. We’ll use that in reverse to bring those from other worlds here.”
“And the goal… is?”
“Revenge.”
For a moment, Min Hyemi thought she saw flames in the boss’s eyes.
“I think you’d sympathize with our ideology. You’re a returnee from an adult, high-level romance fantasy world, right? You also went through hell with those bastards?”
“….”
“Don’t be so wary. I’m a returnee too. We’re just gathering returnees who haven’t been discovered. We’ve been diligently collecting information about returnees.”
Min Hyemi finally understood what she meant.
Like her, this person had gone through harsh experiences in another world. And now, to take revenge, she was gathering other returnees who shared the same hatred.
“Returnees working at headquarters or freelancing under their real names all lived relatively peaceful lives, right? Even in your team, there were people who were school idols or from a boys’ soccer comic.”
“But not all of us were like that.”
“Right. There are types like those from an apocalypse world. But even then, they received protagonist perks and did well, right?”
Min Hyemi recalled Kang Jinhyuk’s case.
He had fallen into an apocalypse world and received strong skills like ‘Only Me’ and ‘SSS-class,’ allowing him to build a shelter and live a fairly peaceful life.
“So when we got your information, we took interest immediately.”
The boss smiled softly and whispered to Min Hyemi.
“Tell me, don’t you want to bring those bastards who tormented you here and make them suffer?”
