Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant novel Chapter 527

It wasn’t that he’d seen it wrong.

It was real.

What was it?

A trick? An illusion?

It was neither.

These... no, everything in the spirit world truly had no shadow.

Except for Su-ho himself, and the things that had branched off from him.

Su-ho lifted his head and looked up at the sky.

A blazing sun.

There was light—so how could there be no shadows?

Just then, an excited farmer came up to Su-ho and asked.

“What are you? How the hell did you do that? How can only you have a shadow?”

“That’s what I want to ask. Why don’t you have shadows? Is everyone here like this?”

“What the... hey, don’t tell me.”

The farmer wore a look like he couldn’t understand, then his eyes suddenly went wide as if something had occurred to him.

“Y-you... don’t tell me... you’re an outworlder?”

“An outworlder?”

An outworlder.

It wasn’t a word he’d never heard.

Outworld... meaning anyone who came from a world other than the one they lived in was called an outworlder.

Su-ho’s brow furrowed.

'From the natives’ point of view, I really am an outworlder.'

But then what were these people?

What kind of people were they, to toss around a word like outworlder as casually as common sense?

Su-ho nodded.

“Yes, well. If you mean outworlder, I’m an outworlder. I came all the way to the spirit world to find the Shadow Lord... and since we’re on that subject, do you happen to know where the Shadow Lord is?”

That was the moment.

At Su-ho’s answer, everyone’s eyes bulged like they’d seen a ghost, and their mouths slowly fell open.

“My god....”

“So he really was an outworlder....”

“R-right! If you think about it, it makes sense. If you weren’t an outworlder, how could you have a shadow?”

Among the startled people, one of them pulled themself together and said,

“Th-this isn’t the time for this! Hurry and bring that gentleman to the village!”

“Yeah, this isn’t the time—hurry and bring him with us!”

“My god, to think a day like this would really come to us!”

Overwhelmed with emotion, they quickly showed Su-ho proper respect.

“Outworlder-nim, what should we call you?”

At their question, Su-ho hesitated briefly, then answered honestly.

“My name is An Su-ho, but you can call me comfortably.”

“An Su-ho... ooh, as expected, even your name is mysterious. It really sounds like an outworlder’s name. Then, may we call you Mr. An?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Then, Mr. An—if you would allow it, we’d like to escort you to our village. There are quite a few things we want to tell you. Would you permit us to accompany you?”

Unlike their initial attitude, they’d become extremely attentive.

They weren’t being aggressive, and since Su-ho knew almost nothing about the spirit world, he figured there was no harm in going with them.

'And if it’s a trap, I can just kill them all.'

He wasn’t worried.

Even if he wanted to lose, he had a body that absolutely must not lose.

“All right.”

“Thank you...! Then we’ll escort you right away.”

The farmers picked up their farm tools and began walking quickly in front.

Su-ho followed them on foot instead of riding Cheolma.

As they walked, other farmers joined up, and once they heard what Su-ho was, they all made faces like the farmers up front and reacted the same way.

“Ooh, an outworlder...!”

“Finally, even for us...!”

“My god, how can this be...!”

The reactions were all the same.

Which made it all the more strange.

'This place is way too different from what I thought it would be.'

He’d thought the spirit world where the Shadow Lord was would be a world with the moon hanging overhead, filled with darkness and pitch black.

But the spirit world he’d come to through Guiyeong didn’t have so much as a glimpse of the Shadow Lord, and instead it was swarming with typical foreigners... meaning, people closer to Europeans or Americans than Asians. And they were busy tossing around the word outworlder and being shocked.

'Even after I told them my name, they called me “An”—is Su-ho hard to pronounce for them?'

That felt foreign, too.

Anyway, after following these oddly familiar yet alien people for a long time, Su-ho finally saw a small village where the farmers lived.

Honestly, it was closer to a tiny hamlet than a village, but since they called it a village, he just went with it.

“This way, please.”

“Before we go any further, may I ask where we’re going?”

“We’re going to the village chief’s house. What we want to tell you is a pretty important matter, so we need the village’s highest elder, the chief.”

“I understand.”

They walked for a while longer, and the chief’s house came into view.

In the meantime, more people had gathered.

When they arrived, the crowd packed in near the chief’s house, and the farmer who’d been leading went inside to find the chief.

Not long after, the chief came running out in his socks.

“An outworlder has come!”

Since they’d called him the highest elder, Su-ho had expected a very old man, but he was a middle-aged man with less white hair than Su-ho had imagined.

The chief spotted Su-ho, immediately looked down at Su-ho’s shadow, and started marveling just like the others.

“My god... to think a being with a shadow would appear...! You said we should call you Mr. An, yes? Come inside for now, Mr. An. I have so many things I want to tell you.”

“Yes. All right.”

He went inside.

The inside of the house was exactly what you’d see in a small village in a fantasy game—typical, ordinary rural housing.

Su-ho sat in the chair the chief offered him. The chief sat across from him, and the first farmers who’d come with him lined up behind and beside the chief.

The ones who’d joined later waited outside the house.

The chief greeted him properly.

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