The Grill-Wielding Saintess of the Dead

Chapter 13 Returnee Isiah 1

“So, the Great Rift has occurred twice now… and there are dungeons… and hunters. The world has changed a lot.”

“There are many people who returned after being sent to other worlds during the First Great Rift.”

Afterward, the Returnee Shia and the A-rank hunter Yeonhwa grilled and ate the Black Minotaur’s Eopjinsal on a stone slab, without any interruptions.

When the slab became unusable due to the grease and fat from the meat, they would find a new, thin slab, wash it in a nearby stream, relight the campfire, and continue grilling.

By the time Yeonhwa had finished eating her first serving of Black Minotaur’s Eopjinsal, she was about to burst.

“Hah, I’m full… I can’t eat anymore.”

“Really? Take a break.”

“…You’re still going to eat more?”

“Sorry, but I don’t feel full at all…”

But Shia was different.

She meticulously gathered every bit of meat from the Black Minotaur’s corpse, even the pieces stuck to the bones and ribs, and grilled them again.

Sometimes, the grotesque tentacles from her back would gnaw on the remaining bones as if eating raw meat.

Crunch, crunch, gulp!

Shia simply ate and ate, silently enjoying the taste.

Although Shia had consumed many malevolent entities in the other world, this was the first time she had eaten something of such high quality, both in terms of malice and meat.

As Yeonhwa, feeling at ease after having her fill in the dungeon, rubbed her slightly swollen belly and sighed, she glanced at Shia, who was still grilling and eating the Black Minotaur’s meat.

“…It’s a little late, but thank you.”

“Gulp, hmm? For what?”

“For saving me.”

“……”

Shia stopped chewing the meat and looked at Yeonhwa.

“…I have a confession to make.”

“What is it?”

“…You almost died earlier.”

“Huh? Oh, you mean the Black Minotaur? Yes… It was much stronger than I expected for my skill level…”

“No, I don’t mean that.”

Suddenly, Shia lost her appetite.

She stopped the tentacles from chewing the bones and sat down.

With a shadow falling over her face, Yeonhwa wondered if she had unknowingly upset Shia.

“I mean, you almost died by my hand.”

“What?”

“…Binggu… no, Yeonhwa. Do you think I saved you?”

“Of course! I mean… you’re Unnie, right? Can I call you Unnie?”

Shia gave a slight nod and used the miracle of purification on her face, which was smeared with Black Minotaur fat.

At that moment, the blood covering Shia’s body was cleaned away, along with the meat residue, grease, and dust.

Yeonhwa finally saw Shia’s true appearance for the first time.

She didn’t look much different from before.

She was quite tall for a woman, with slightly prominent muscles on her thighs and arms, a very large chest, and… vampire-like pale white skin, along with silver hair that was even whiter and well-maintained.

“What do you think when you look at me?”

As Yeonhwa looked at Shia, she felt an odd sense of unease.

‘What is this…? Why do I feel strange? Even though her appearance stands out, she must be human… right?’

“I’m not human.”

“Huh? Then… are you saying you’re a different species?”

“No.”

At that moment, Shia grabbed her own neck with one hand.

“Don’t be alarmed.”

“Huh? Unnie!? What are you…!”

Crack!

“Kyaaaaaa!”

Shia twisted her own neck.

Yeonhwa jumped up in horror, but Shia’s neck, which had been broken by an immense force, bent in a grotesque direction.

Self-harm? Suicide? What on earth is she doing…!

“Unnie… Unnie…!”

“It’s fine.”

“…Ah…!?”

Despite her neck being twisted in a strange direction, Shia continued speaking as if nothing was wrong.

With her neck turned that way, any normal human would be dead.

Hunters wouldn’t be an exception.

Even if a hunter’s body were strong or filled with mana, making it difficult to break their neck, if their neck were twisted 180 degrees, their spine and medulla oblongata would rupture, and death would be inevitable.

However, Shia, with her neck bent, showed no signs of pain and spoke as if nothing had happened.

“Sorry for showing you something so gruesome.”

Crack!

“Eek!”

Shia grabbed her head and started adjusting her neck back into place.

The sound of her broken bones realigning was even more horrifying than Yeonhwa had expected.

“Mm, mm… What do you think?”

“……….”

“I understand. You’re scared, right? It’s horrifying, isn’t it? You must be wondering if I’m some kind of monster.”

Casually adjusting her head back, Shia gave a self-deprecating smile.

“Let me introduce myself again. I’m Shia, the Saintess of the Dead. Not a saintess for the dead, but the Saintess of the Dead.”

“…Are you saying you’re not human?”

“Yes, it seems many other Returnees had much harder experiences than I did, but… I’m a bit different.”

Crack!

Shia cracked her neck back into place and continued speaking.

“…The thing that made my life hard wasn’t magic, or a demon king, or monsters. It wasn’t an oppressive power structure, arrogant nobles, or privileged classes. What really tormented me… was the wretched existence of ‘me’ itself.”

At that self-deprecating smile, Yeonhwa realized that the shadow looming over Shia was not just a shadow on her face.

“If I were to put it in a way we understand, I guess you could call me… an undead. Like a zombie, a living corpse, or a being that moves even after death… Oh, are there dungeons with undead in this world?”

“Yes. There are liches that command skeleton soldiers. While liches harbor animosity toward humans and the living, they are intelligent, and communication is possible.”

“Then you could say I’m a more advanced form of undead than a lich.”

With that, Shia summoned her tentacles again and resumed tearing into the Black Minotaur’s corpse.

“Binggu, I… I’m always hungry. No matter how much I eat, I’m always hungry.”

“…I see.”

“The body of the Saintess of the Dead is quite strong, as you’ve seen. Under normal circumstances, I can’t die. Despite being undead, I can use healing and a variety of miracles through the power of the Holy Power. But… I’m eternally hungry. That’s my curse.”

“Does that hunger mean… you want to eat humans?”

“No. More precisely, I need to consume malevolent energy.”

“Malevolent energy?”

Shia opened her mouth wide and began gnawing on the Black Minotaur’s Eopjinsal raw.

While grilling it was delicious, she probably ate it raw due to the comment that the dungeon could collapse once the boss was defeated.

“Sorry, I can’t explain the exact definition of malevolent energy very well. Teresa explained it much better than I can…”

“Teresa…?”

“Oh, that’s a story from the other world… It doesn’t matter now. Anyway, things like demons, monsters, and even this Black Minotaur carry something dark—hatred, malice, killing intent. Humans also have a bit of it, though. That’s what I eat. While the meat is important, what truly calms my hunger is that malevolent energy.”

“……”

The more Yeonhwa listened, the more she realized that Shia’s experiences must have been far deeper and darker than she could have imagined.

That self-deprecating smile, as if it were only natural that she, despite being human, wasn’t treated like one.

“When I said you almost died earlier… that’s why. I didn’t save you. I just attacked and ate the closest thing, which happened to be the Black Minotaur.”

“I see.”

“…Yeah, that’s how it is. I can’t resist the hunger. No matter how hard I try, the hunger eventually erodes my sanity and morals, turning my soul into a ravenous beast. In the end, I’ll devour anything I can like a wild animal.”

Shia no longer met Yeonhwa’s gaze.

She lowered her head and continued to eat the meat.

Whether she was eating because she was genuinely hungry, Yeonhwa didn’t know.

She wasn’t even checking if the meat was fully cooked, just stuffing it into her mouth.

Whereas earlier, Shia seemed to be enjoying the flavor, now she appeared to be eating out of fear—fear of losing her sanity and devouring humans.

To Yeonhwa, it seemed as if Shia just wanted to forget something, frightened of how others might see her.

“Still, I’m glad… that I didn’t kill anyone again.”

It sounded as though she had killed someone before.

“…What will you do now?”

“Well, I don’t know if my home is still around. I don’t know if my parents are still alive…”

“I’m sorry to say this, but if you went missing during the First Great Rift in 2024, it’s currently 2088. More than 60 years have passed, so… there’s a high chance…”

“You’re right. My home and my parents are probably gone… Then I guess I’ll find a quiet place in the mountains and live there. Luckily, these monsters have malevolent energy. If I eat monsters, I should be able to manage.”

Despite being so strong and having such extraordinary power, Yeonhwa couldn’t shake the feeling that Shia was on the verge of collapsing.

But who was she to say that someone else looked fragile?

Ever since the death of her sister, Yeona, Yeonhwa had developed a deep trauma, unable to rely on anyone.

“Unnie, do you remember when I thanked you for saving my life?”

“I told you not to thank me. If the Black Minotaur hadn’t been there, I might have eaten you… Hunger is really terrifying for me…”

“‘What if’ scenarios don’t matter. What’s done is done, and we can’t change it. Speculating about what could have been is pointless. Unnie, you’re in control of your mind now, right? Do you feel like eating me right now?”

“…What… what!? Are you crazy?!”

Seeing Shia’s startled reaction, Yeonhwa felt reassured.

It was proof that Shia’s humanity and ethics were still intact.

“Unnie, no matter the cause or circumstance… If you weren’t here, I would have been devoured by the Black Minotaur. You may think it was coincidental, but you still saved me.”

“…I guess.”

“Is your hunger cycle shorter than an hour? Even after eating the Black Minotaur, do you still feel like devouring me?”

“…I don’t know. But… in that other world, when I consumed similar malevolent energy… I could endure for about a month.”

“Then you don’t need to fear losing control and eating me. And in this world, there’s probably even more ‘malevolent energy’ than you realize. You don’t have to worry about losing your sanity from hunger.”

“……”

Shia stopped eating again.

She glanced at Yeonhwa with her still-downcast expression.

Could someone like me truly return to humanity?

I’m not human.

I’m a terrifying Saintess of the Dead.

What I thought was okay isn’t really okay.

What seemed like eternal trust and bonds eventually came to an end.

That’s what I am.

All that remains for me is hunger, seizures, and cravings.

And you think I can return to humanity?

“When this dungeon collapses… Unnie, do you have a home? You don’t, do you?”

“…That’s true.”

“You have no home, no money, no identification. Do you know the process for proving your identity as a Returnee who disappeared during the Great Rift? If you have no relatives or family, proving your identity becomes incredibly difficult.”

“……”

Shia’s heart sank as the practical realities hit her.

Yes, this country, South Korea, had a very strict administrative system even before the Great Rift.

After the Rift, identification verification and various systems had only become stricter, not more lenient.

“It’ll be tough. Trying to stand on your own again… before you even start, everything will feel overwhelming, and you’ll become exhausted. That’s why, Unnie, come with me.”

“…What do you mean?”

“The Yeon family never forgets a debt of gratitude.”

Grandma always said that.

Repay your enemies tenfold.

Repay your benefactors without fail.

Yeonhwa never forgot what her grandmother, Yeonseo, had taught her.

Though their relationship had grown distant recently, Yeonhwa still saw Yeonseo as her role model.

Having been raised with her teachings, Yeonhwa didn’t want to let go of the precarious Saintess of the Dead standing before her.

Shia Unnie, the Saintess of the Dead, had already saved her life.

Even if it was an accidental occurrence, Yeonhwa saw her sister, Yeona, in Shia.

After her sister’s death, Yeonhwa had vowed never to rely on anyone again, driving herself into dungeon addiction. But by chance, she had been saved by Shia, and now it was Yeonhwa’s turn to help Shia in any way she could.

“Unnie, come with me. This world isn’t as frightening as you think.”

“…But.”

“There are many Returnees who aren’t human either. There’s even a Skeleton Knight who returned!”

“…Oh, really?”

A Skeleton Knight, huh?

That must be rare.

Imagining a knight made entirely of bones, drawing all eyes with his skeletal frame, Shia felt reassured about her own appearance.

Yeah, compared to a Skeleton Knight… this body isn’t so bad.

It even looks pretty good.

“Come on, let’s go.”

At that moment, the dungeon began to collapse.

After killing the dungeon boss, the dungeon could start collapsing as quickly as in one hour or take up to 24 hours, eventually disappearing entirely from reality.

As the dungeon crumbled around them, Yeonhwa extended her hand to Shia.

And despite herself, Shia found that she wanted to take the hand she had once wanted to avoid more than anything.

Because she still had a human soul.

Because she still wanted to live with humans.

Because she still had human ethics and sanity, and most of all, she hated the idea of being alone.

“…Alright.”

Shia took the hand once more.

Just like Menelapie, Teresa, and now this child, Yeonhwa.

Yes, taking a hand isn’t hard.

And the people who had taken her hand had never betrayed her.

Yeonhwa probably wouldn’t know.

That on this day, Shia had once again been saved—not only in the other world, but now, after her return to this one.