MRPO :02

CHAPTER :02

“……A person?”

He was a massive man with hair whiter than snow.

*Wow.*

To be honest, I had never seen a truly handsome man in my entire life.

Let alone idols or actors on TV, social media celebrities famous for their looks, or even global stars dubbed the handsomest men of the century—I had never once looked at them and thought they were handsome.

At most, I just thought, *Well, they look a bit better than the average guy on the street.*

My friends often told me my standards were sky-high, and I agreed. I used to feel quite bitter, thinking I would spend my whole life only swooning over 2D characters from games and webtoons, and that I’d never get to experience the awe of finding a real, flesh-and-blood human handsome. But…

This man was genuinely, incredibly handsome.

A real person—well, actually, I didn’t know if this place was reality—but this was the first time I had ever looked at a three-dimensional being, rather than a two-dimensional one, and thought they were gorgeous.

Yes. That is exactly how a handsome man ought to look.

It wasn’t that my standards were too high; it was that the real world’s standards for handsome men were too damn low.

Clad in silver armor, the silver-haired beauty was exceptionally tall, yet his slender face and pale skin kept him from looking intimidating. Instead, he possessed a holy aura, as if he had just stepped out of a cathedral mural. He was so breathtaking that even these desolate, barren mountains suddenly felt grand, as if touched by divine grace.

A solemn reverence washed over me, making me feel like dropping to my knees.

“What brings you to a place like this?”

My god. Even his voice was perfect. A 3D, non-2D hunk was breathing, speaking, and moving right in front of me. Hallelujah.

His reality-shattering beauty forced me to take a deep breath just to pull myself together.

If someone talks to you, you have to answer. *Inhale.* It’s rude to ignore him just because you’re ogling his face. *Exhale.* Let’s answer. *Inhale, exhale.*

“I-I don’t know either.”

……What a painfully foolish response. I quickly added more.

“I lost consciousness for a moment, and when I woke up, I was here.”

Better not mention what I was doing before I passed out.

I could hardly tell him, “I died saving someone by getting run over by a subway train, but then a crazy system window popped up, resurrected my body, and sent me here.”

Besides, there was a high chance he wouldn’t even understand terms like “subway” or “system window.”

Judging by the armor this handsome man was wearing, the fur cape over his shoulders, and the sword at his hip, I could roughly guess the era.

‘Probably early modern. Or maybe…….’

Seeing how clean and fluffy his fur cape was despite him wandering through these rugged mountains, this could be one of those modern fantasy worlds that was medieval in name only.

‘Since monsters aren’t likely to spawn right at the starting point, this man is probably meant to be a companion.’

Common sense dictated that I should be wary of a stranger met in a suspicious place, but strangely, I felt no suspicion.

It wasn’t just because I was captivated by his unrealistically gorgeous looks. It was just an intuitive feeling.

“I don’t know where this is. I looked around, but it’s nothing but mountains…… Is there a village nearby?”

I doubted there was, but it didn’t hurt to ask. Playing the victim who was kidnapped, lost consciousness, and got dumped in the mountains sounded far less suspicious than being a person who literally dropped out of the sky. It was better to appeal to my harmlessness first and gain his sympathy.

“This is not a place where people usually travel.”

Did that make me look even more suspicious? Should I have just pretended to be an otherworld saintess who fell from the heavens after all?

“I do not know how you ended up here, but wandering around alone is dangerous.”

Exactly. We should stick together.

No wonder that party recruitment window had popped up earlier. The “waiting” text must have been prompting me to form a party with this handsome man.

‘But how do I form a party?’

Just by thinking it, the system window materialized in the air again. Fortunately, it appeared to the side, without blocking his handsome face.

Current Waiting Members: (1/2)

A party request has been received. Do you wish to accept?

Of course I had to accept. Declining here meant certain starvation within two days.

Even if my remaining time was only thirty days, it was human nature to want to live out every single second of it to the fullest.

‘Accept! Absolutely accept!’

As soon as I sent the mental command, the “waiting members (1/2)” changed to “(0/1),” and a new window popped up.

[Party Formed!]

You have successfully formed a party!

The difficulty of all missions has increased by 2x.

……What kind of nonsense is this?

I only did what it told me to do by forming a party, so why the hell is the difficulty going up? Are you kidding me?

When I glared at the system window, it vanished with a playful *ding!* Was it mocking me?

But I didn’t have time to be angry at a vanished system window. Even though we were now systematically grouped, I still hadn’t given the handsome man in front of me an actual answer.

“In that case, would it be alright if I traveled with you?”

We were already locked in a party by system standards, but let’s ask for permission out of politeness.

“Yes. That would be best. Let us travel together until we reach a village.”

“Is there a village nearby?”

“To reach the nearest village, we must cross two mountains.”

I had seen how massive these mountains were earlier. And we had to cross *two* of them?

“If we do not encounter any monsters, we should arrive in about five days.”

It was a rugged mountain range that took five days just to traverse normally, and now there were monsters on top of that?

Well, since this world—whether it was a game or whatever—seemed far from peaceful anyway, the mention of monsters wasn’t all that surprising. I had already braced myself a bit when I saw the party window.

“Um, in that case……”

“I am Kalion.”

Ah. Time for introductions.

Somehow, the name suited him perfectly. Perhaps because his looks were so unrealistic, resembling a high-end game render more than an actual Westerner.

“My name is Juin.”

Best not to say my last name. Judging by my knowledge of fantasy web novels, people with foreign names like his would struggle to pronounce Korean names, let alone understand why my family name comes before my given name.

Yet, surprisingly, he pronounced my name perfectly.

“Juin…… That is a beautiful name.”

That was an unexpected reaction.

“Juin-nim.”

“Ack! Please, drop the ‘-nim’!”

Kalion had probably just added “-nim” as a polite honorific, but with my name being what it is, “Juin-nim” sounded exactly like *Juin-nim*—as in, “Master.”

At the hospital, they at least used my full name, so it was fine. But when it was just my given name with the honorific, it became incredibly embarrassing.

I had absolutely no kink for being called “Master” by a strange man.

“I understand, Juin.”

Being called “Juin” instead of “Juin-ah” felt a bit awkward too.

But judging by Kalion’s name, people here would probably use nicknames, but they wouldn’t think of attaching grammatical suffixes to the end of a name.

If someone’s name was Amy, they would just call her “Amy,” not “Amy-ya.”

‘“Amy-ya, the soup is too salty……!”’

I swallowed down a joke that would have surely earned me a bizarre look had I said it out loud, and managed an awkward smile.

The way he addressed me was a little strange, but I had no intention of correcting him.

I was past the age where I cared enough to correct a stranger just because they pronounced my name slightly weirdly.

“I’ll be in your care, Kalion.”

Kalion quietly lowered his eyes.

His slightly softened expression almost looked like a smile at a glance.

He was a man as serene as a winter mountain.

His snow-white hair flowed smoothly without a single tangle, and on his flawlessly pale face, his silver-blue eyes—which looked as though they held the winter sky—shone vividly, like a statue brought to life.

Beneath his well-shaped lips, his firm jaw and masculine neckline prevented him from looking even remotely delicate.

“Beyond there lies the monsters’ habitat. This side is not their main territory, but occasionally, monsters that stray from their pack wander nearby.”

Kalion said he was a monster hunter.

His appearance was so holy that I wondered if he might be a holy knight fighting monsters in the name of some god, but he told me he was just a wanderer with no official affiliation.

“What kind of monsters are they? Are they different from regular beasts?”

Since I had already laid the groundwork by implying I had lost my memories from the shock of passing out, Kalion didn’t find it strange that I knew absolutely nothing about monsters.

Someone more suspicious might have interrogated me about my identity, but I couldn’t tell if he was just naturally trusting, or if he had simply judged me to be an utterly harmless Level 1 newbie.

“They are immortal beings powered by core stones. Normally, they wander the mountains without eating or sleeping, but the moment they spot a human, they turn savage and rush to devour them.”

“……Only humans? They don’t prey on other animals?”

“Monsters do not reproduce, so they have no need for sustenance.”

“If they don’t die even without eating, why do they eat humans?”

Kalion seemed to hesitate slightly, as if reluctant to pass on information that even he couldn’t fully comprehend.

“They say…… it is because they like humans.”

“…….”

If they like them, why eat them? Is it like that? Like how I “like” fried chicken, so I want to munch and chew on it? Is that the kind of ‘like’ we’re talking about?

It was absurd, but there was no point in arguing with Kalion when he couldn’t explain it anyway. I decided to change the subject.

“So, have you been staying in the mountains all this time, Kalion?”

“No. Once my hunt is finished, I restock my supplies at a nearby village and move on to another area.”

Since he called it “hunting” rather than “subjugation,” I guessed wiping them out entirely was out of the question.

Then again, hearing his story, the monsters seemed quite numerous. No matter how much Kalion looked like a holy knight beloved by God, it would be impossible for him to defeat an army of a million…… well, a million monsters, all on his own.

“Do the monsters living in the mountains ever attack human villages?”

“It happens occasionally, but as long as they do not swarm all at once, the villagers can fight them off.”

So they really were monsters that could be defeated as a group. If ordinary villagers could band together and take them down, they probably weren’t boss monsters.

“If possible, I would like to escort you to the safest ‘castle,’ but……”

A castle?