The First-Gen Summoner Has Returned — Chapter 1

In the moment her breath ran out, Jeyeon dreamed a kaleidoscope of a life flashing before her eyes.

Seventeen years old, when she had become one of this world's first-generation Awakened.

The appearance of the Tower, prophesying humanity's annihilation within ten years.

Jeyeon had turned away from school and walked into the Tower instead, and on its first floor she had met Ki Taewon, someone trapped in the same predicament as her.

Clear one floor, wait for the next to open. That was how they had climbed together for ten years.

And in the end, they had saved humanity from the brink of extinction.

Though I'm the one who died.

Jeyeon forced away the bitterness welling up inside her.

It wasn't a dog's death — surely this much counted as a meaningful end, didn't it? If anything, she worried more about the ones left behind.

I just hope they don't grieve too much.

Time solves everything, in the end.

Every sorrow fades with time, and every empty place is eventually filled by someone else. That had been true of her own life, too, after she lost her parents.

She had handed over the Book of Summoning, so the summoner's bloodline wouldn't break. Everything that needed doing, she had done.

Yeah. It was a pretty decent life.

Having settled even her last lingering regrets, Jeyeon accepted the coming death with an easy heart.

Come on, then. I'm ready.

Except — this was strange. It hurt far too much.

Wasn't rest supposed to be peaceful?

A surge of agony crashed through her, as if her spine were shattering.

In the distance, she could hear the toll of a familiar bell. Then a whistle, and the blurred shouting of many voices.

...What?

Her mind was a jumbled mess, but the dizzying pain kept on coming. A faint metallic taste of blood spread through her mouth. When she swept her teeth with the tip of her tongue, blood and grit were caked together.

Damn, this seriously hurts. This isn't a dream, is it?

She shoved her eyelids up in irritation, and her eyes opened.

Huh?

Wait, aren't you supposed to stay dead at this point?

...I died just a minute ago, didn't I?

Before her blood-stained eyes, a deep blue spear flashed.

It was a system window she knew all too well.

Returned from death?

Unable to believe the situation, Jeyeon quickly scanned her surroundings.

What looked like the back of a building, a sandy patch of ground, and a glaring red smear of blood...

And there, lying in the middle of that pool of blood, was herself.

"...So it seems I actually died and came back to life. Huh?"

Without thinking, Jeyeon brought a hand to her throat.

The voice had come from her, but it was an unfamiliar one.

A tone younger than she remembered, and more delicate.

"What is this?"

Jeyeon tilted her head and slowly rose to her feet. The current of recovery power that had swept through her entire body drained away out through her toes.

"Well, I'm definitely healed."

Her body felt a little stiff, but it didn't interfere with movement. The world looked perfectly intact, so apparently humanity's extinction had been averted after all.

And somehow, she appeared to have been resurrected.

Ugh, whatever. Who even knows anymore.

Her head spinning, Jeyeon blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Status window!"

"Is this... supposed to make sense?"

Jeyeon blinked, unable to believe her eyes.

It wasn't the dying-and-coming-back part, nor even the fact that she'd become a nineteen-year-old kid named Lee Sihyun.

I'm... Level 1?

Level was the term for the number of floors of the Tower you had conquered. Before she died, Jeyeon's level had been 99. No — she'd cleared the final floor, so technically it should be 100.

And now it was 1.

"Ugh, this is such an injustice."

Jeyeon felt like screaming at the sky and sprinting off somewhere, just to vent.

Hold on, wait a second?

Looking again, the things written for grade and stats seemed a bit off.

EX-Rank? And what on earth is "Resonance"?

The Summoner class was exactly the same as in her past life, but those two entries she'd never once seen before.

Grades were supposed to run from F to S, and an Awakened's stats consisted of exactly four: Health, Strength, Agility, and Mana.

Jeyeon blew a puff of air up at her bangs.

"Is this a good thing or a bad thing?"

Standing there doing nothing wasn't going to produce an answer. Jeyeon decided her first move would be to get out of this deserted space.

Just as she started to move, something bumped against the tip of her foot.

"A phone?"

When she picked up the device and touched it, the screen lit up — by coincidence or by design.

"Oh?"

On the display was a photo of a boy, apparently Sihyun's age.

A boyfriend?

It gave her goosebumps, but it was a perfectly unremarkable lock screen for that age group. Except for one thing.

The date on the screen: August 27, 20XX — 13:18.

That date was a full ten years and more after the day she had died.

"...You've got to be kidding me."

No matter how many times she rubbed her eyes and checked again, it was the same.

"No, seriously — how is this possible?"

Jeyeon grabbed her chaotic head and looked up at the sky.

Coming back to life in someone else's body was already absurd enough, but waking up not right after her death — ten years later? What was she supposed to make of that?

Jeyeon squeezed her eyes shut once, then opened them.

Ha. Well, what else can I do about it now?

If there was one thing Sung Jeyeon had always been, it was faster than anyone at resignation and adaptation.

"Nothing in life comes easy, does it?"

Jeyeon quickened her pace.

First, she needed information. And she needed help — from someone who would actually believe the absurd situation she'd found herself in.

If I'm thinking of someone like that...

Without a moment's deliberation, Jeyeon picked one person.

Ki Taewon.

Her entire twenties had been Ki Taewon. Who else would she possibly choose?

No, no, Jeyeon...!

The image of his grief-stricken, screaming face surfaced in her mind.

He's going to be absolutely floored.

A dead friend coming back to life — and in a high schooler's body, no less.

Jeyeon swallowed down the laugh that kept trying to escape.

I should go find him at Giwon.

The guild Ki Taewon had built side by side with her: Giwon. With that hopelessly rigid personality of his, even as the strongest man alive, he'd still be clocking into the office every single day like clockwork. It was obvious.

Jeyeon dug through the unfamiliar device and found the map app. Fortunately, using it wasn't much different from before.

"I wonder if they're still in Yeouido?"

But when she typed in "Giwon," a strangely familiar address popped up.

It was the building in Gangnam where Seongyeon Guild had been.

"Why is Giwon in our building?"

Had they moved into the same building to help each other out?

When she searched "Seongyeon" this time, an unfamiliar location appeared instead.

"Huh? Why did they move there of all places?"

Sillim, out of nowhere?

What on earth had happened over the past ten years?

It's probably not good news.

Eyes fixed on the map, Jeyeon hurried along.

"Hey, look at her!"

"Is that real blood? Please tell me it's a prank!"

Students in uniforms clustered around, muttering at the sight of her.

Only then did Jeyeon look around and realize she had come out behind a gymnasium.

Oh, right. This is a school.

If Sihyun was nineteen, she'd be a third-year high school student. A student being at school was the most natural thing in the world.

What was strange wasn't the location — it was dying and awakening here.

I'll worry about that later.

Jeyeon stepped quickly around the gathering crowd. Once she left the school grounds behind, the bustling city center arrived in no time.

Giwon — and Ki Taewon. For now, that was all she could afford to think about.

Except...

"Whoa."

Her steps slowed of their own accord.

This was definitely a neighborhood she knew. To her senses, she'd walked these streets just a few weeks ago.

But it was completely transformed.

A meticulously paved plaza, high-rise buildings lining both sides without end — and even on their outer walls, billboards so vivid they stung the eyes.

Korea's doing well for itself...

No. This was no time to stand around gaping like a tourist.

Jeyeon shook her head and was forcing her gaze away when—

"Huh?"

Amid all that unfamiliar glitter, the first familiar face in ten years crossed her sight.

On the billboard: Ki Taewon.

- Congratulations to Hunter Ki Taewon on his safe return.

The voice flowed out of the billboard. It looked like an old broadcast clip being replayed on loop.

That's... the day we finished the final raid, isn't it?

Covered in blood and dust, the Ki Taewon on screen was exactly as Jeyeon remembered him in her last memory.

A reporter thrust a microphone toward him and asked a question.

- Hunter Ki Taewon, what has become of the Tower? And is it true that Hunter Sung Jeyeon has died?

Ki Taewon inhaled slowly. His mouth opened with heavy deliberation.

- The final floor was cleared within the time limit, and humanity is now free from the threat of extinction. And... yes. Sung Jeyeon did not come back.

A brief silence.

"Dear God, our hero..." — gasps of grief and choked breaths rippled through the crowd.

Someone spoke up.

- So Hunter Sung Jeyeon ultimately made a noble sacrifice for the sake of all humanity?

Jeyeon swallowed a cough. Nobody was watching her, but the question sounded so melodramatic that it embarrassed her anyway.

The Ki Taewon on screen didn't answer right away.

His tightly clenched jaw trembled once, hard. The sound of him drawing breath came faintly through the microphone.

...Hey. Don't tell me you're about to cry, right there?

Jeyeon was just about to snicker. Ki Taewon sobbing in front of the entire nation? Wasn't that ammunition for teasing him about for the rest of time?

- Hunter Ki Taewon?

The reporter gently pressed.

Ki Taewon closed his eyes, then opened them. And when he lifted his head, not even the slightest tremor remained on his face.

- Sung Jeyeon did not make a sacrifice.

Jeyeon blinked.

...What?