Jessica’s heart pounded. “What!? No! I—”

  Min-woo didn’t believe her. She could see it in his face. But he also didn’t seem about to kill her. However he had found out, it most likely wasn’t because of Akuhara. She couldn’t imagine him being this nonchalant around someone who attacked another adventurer with a gas bomb.

  “What gave me away?” she asked.

  Min-woo chuckled. “Believe me when I say that there is literally no one, human or monster, who doesn’t know about the Original Eight. Plus, I can tell you’re mixed, which pretty much never happens here unless it’s half-elves. Are you from America?”

  “Ohio.”

  Min-woo stroked his chin. “I knew it.”

  His three harem members were fascinated. At the very least, Min-woo, unlike Akuhara, seemed to treat his teammates as smart enough to understand what Earth was and why people kept reincarnating from there.

  “You’re half-Korean then?” he asked.

  Jessica blinked in shock. Was it that obvious or were East Asians really that good at telling? Back home she was just ‘Asian’ unless someone happened to know off-hand where the last name ‘Moon’ came from.

  “I am, yeah. On my dad’s side.”

  Min-woo said something in Korean.

  “Uh… I’m third-gen. I don’t speak it or anything.”

  “I see.”

  “Wait, what language are we talking in right now?” Jessica asked, suddenly realizing ‘Korean’ was an audibly distinct thing.

  “English,” Min-woo replied. “This world is in English.”

  “The world is in— wait, what!? Not ‘common’ or whatever? Everyone speaks English!?”

  “Yes. Although when we’re reincarnated we gain fluency in English if we didn’t have it before. I knew some from school but I can speak it natively now. It’s very strange.”

  Strange barely came to the starting line of what it was. Languages were tied to geography, culture, politics, and so on. They should not have been able to leap through whatever reincarnation portal she fell through. But apparently that’s what happened.

  On top of that, it just so happened that, out of all possible languages, it was English. And based on the slang she had used around John without him noticing, it was up-to-date English too. Unless it was deliberately archaic like Morkal’s.

  “Min-woo, what year was it on Earth when you reincarnated here?”

  “It’s been over a century here, so I hardly remember now,” he said, “but it was after the millennium and… Oh! The 2002 World Cup was a couple months away. I had tickets to go to a couple games with my dad. Time passes differently here, as you might have guessed. How long ago were you reincarnated? I might be able to guess what year it is on Earth by that.”

  “A couple weeks ago,” Jessica said.

  “So the last adventurer I recall being reincarnated was about twenty-five years ago and he said it was 2020 then, so you probably came here in October of 2025? Is that right?”

  Jessica raised her eyebrows. “Uh, yeah. Bang on. I could probably figure out the exact factor if I had pen and paper, but I estimate it’s around five or six times slower?”

  “Five. You’re pretty smart when you’re not pretending to be dumb,” Min-woo said.

  Angelica, Ritva, and Saengjwi all looked at her with barely-disguised jealousy. If only there was a tactful way to explain to them she wasn’t interested in their harem leader’s flirtatious praise. Nonetheless, she was starting to warm up to him. His eyes were a bit dull, just like Akuhara’s, but he didn’t come across as outright sociopathic. At the very least she was getting a different perspective on adventurers than what Akuhara and Morkal had given her.

  “It sounds like the Original Eight have a good lay of the land already then,” Jessica said.

  “We’ve had a while to figure things out,” Min-woo said.

  “Not that our knuckle-headed master contributed much,” Ritva said.

  “H-Hey! You can’t make me look bad right out the gate!” Min-woo said.

  “Of course not, dear Ritva. We have to give him time to do that himself,” Angelica said with a hoo-hoo-hoo laugh.

  Jessica’s mouth, accustomed to frowning, contorted itself into a reluctant smile. There was something enjoyable about the silliness of the interaction. And its predictability. Unlike with all the other bizarre things that had happened so far, it felt like she had a script she could turn her brain off and follow.

  “Have you found a way back to Earth yet?” Jessica asked.

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  Min-woo gave her a look of raw confusion. There was awkward silence for a moment.

  “Why would you want to go back?”

  It was a reasonable question, but it threw Jessica.

  “I— I was almost finished with my PhD program.”

  “You want to go back to a PhD program? And do what, work some bullshit job all day? Teach rich kids who also want some bullshit job? And for what, so you can travel? Have hobbies? Have—”

  He looked around at his three teammates.

  “I’ve got everything I want right here. There’s adventure, romance, excitement, fun, and best of all, you actually get rewarded for the work you put in. This world is a real meritocracy, not some fake one where asshole rich kids pay their way to better credentials. Or worse, get born to the right chaebol and live a life of luxury. That sucks ass. And I’ve heard enough from others to know things haven’t gotten any better since 2002. If anything they’ve gotten worse.”

  “I mean… you’re not wrong. But I had plans to improve things back in the real world,” Jessica said, her voice softening. “I was— I mean, I am a materials scientist! I wanted to help create new materials, new ways to build the world. I wanted to improve science education and maybe fight back against pseudoscience a-and anti-intellectualism and things…”

  Something about her circumstances had drawn out a kernel of earnestness she forgot was in there. When she articulated her life plans to friends and parents it was also with a veneer of realism. She would take pains to mention ‘job prospects’ and ‘grant proposals.’ Always with managed expectations. And yet, the way she’d just described it felt closer to the truth.

  “How was that going before you were reincarnated?” Min-woo asked.

  She wished he had asked with more condescension. It would have been easier to answer if he was being an asshole, But no, he was sincerely asking, and that made it harder to come clean.

  “Not great.”

  Min-woo shrugged. “See? That’s why I stay here. If I go back to Earth I’ve gotta find a job, a wife, take care of my family, and even if I do all that, I’ll probably still die of cancer or something. But Tushita? I can do whatever I want here.”

  Tushita. So that’s what the world was called.

  “I guess that makes sense,” Jessica said.

  “And truth be told, I have no idea if we could go back even if we wanted to. And what if I go back to my body on Earth and it’s still mangled by a truck? Between that and spending my time with my beautiful harem—”

  “Gross,” Ritva said.

  The mouse girl giggled and turned to Jessica. “Ritva’s just a tsundere. If she was really bothered she’d leave.”

  “I won’t take any chances. The other adventurers are more gross,” the cool elven archer said.

  “It’s really because she likes to cuddle with me at night,” Angelica said, rubbing her cheek against Ritva’s leather shoulder pauldron.

  In the span of a blink, Min-woo drew an obsidian dagger and slashed through a spiderweb in their path before gently slotting it back into its scabbard. Jessica’s startled reaction came seconds too late. His party members seemed oblivious to this feat.

  “So, how about my offer?” Min-woo said.

  “E-Excuse me?” Jessica said.

  “I assume you were serious about the serf thing. I have no idea how you managed to get yourself stuck as one, but if you roll with me, I’ll teach you the ropes, show you the best classes and their builds, where the best training spots are. All that. Gimme a couple months and I can have you more overpowered than adventurers who’ve been here for decades.”

  On paper it was a great offer, however there were two problems. First, she didn’t have a progression system because of Morkal. Second, Min-woo would clearly not be doing all that for free. and the implications of what he wanted in exchange were pretty obvious.

  “I appreciate it,” she said, slowly and tactfully, “but I’ve got my own plans. I’m going the cozy farming route.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “The cozy farming route?”

  “Yeah.”

  She wasn’t entirely lying, but she wasn’t about to explain that ‘cozy farming’ involved opium alkaloids. Though admittedly Jessica wasn’t certain anymore if she wanted to go through with her plan. Was re-inventing chemistry in a fantasy world any better than what she wanted to do on Earth? When she thought about it that way, it felt somewhat pointless.

  Jessica felt a dainty hand on her back.

  “Don’t be afraid of joining our party, darling. We don’t bite,” Angelica said and then leaned into her ear. “Not unless you ask nicely.”

  Tingles ran up Jessica’s spine. “N-No really, I—”

  “Aw c’mon big sis! It’s way more fun than farming!” Saengjwi said, clutching her arm.

  Ritva stood aloof. “I don’t care what you decide… but I wouldn’t say no.”

  Jessica felt her brain melting. The past half hour had contained way too much information for her to process and now she was being pushed to make a life-altering decision. For all she knew that was Min-woo’s intent.

  However, she was still thinking clearly enough to recall her obligations to the Serf family and to Morkal, neither of whom she was willing to abandon on a whim. Not even if a nice priestess lady with a deep, pretty—really, really pretty—voice whispered in her ear.

  “Let me sleep on it,” Jessica said.

  “Yay!” Saengjwi shouted.

  The birds and squirrels monitoring their arrival scattered at the mouse girl’s celebration.

  “You’ll make the right decision, sweetie,” Angelica said.

  “It’s pointless to be a serf,” Ritva added calmly.

  Min-woo was looking at her with a good-natured smirk like her acquiescence was a foregone conclusion. It was not, Jessica reminded herself. She hadn’t made it to her fifth year of grad school by being a pushover. She was still going to get Morkal situated. On that she wasn’t budging.

  But imagining roaming around with an adventurer and his trio of cute girls, she felt hungry, and as though if she turned Min-woo down she might miss out on the better parts of this fantasy world.

  If time passed slower here, Jessica thought, she could take five gap years for the price of one and come back fully refreshed and ready to write a dissertation. The more she thought about it the more she liked the idea. Not that she would tell Min-woo that.

  As they followed the stream toward Morkal’s former home, Min-woo’s team regaled Jessica with stories about the kinds of fun she would be missing out on, including a long episode about how they found a cursed puzzle which caused them to switch bodies.

  Just as the story was reaching its comedic conclusion, Saengjwi stopped, held up her hand, and sniffed.

  “Min-woo… Someone got there first.”

  Min-woo’s relaxed smile clenched into a frown. “Oh did they? Can you tell who?”

  Saengjwi sniffed again.

  “Junfeng.”

  Min-woo made a gesture and Ritva pulled out her bow which strung itself with magical blue wire. Saengjwi produced a crossbow and cranked a bolt. Angelica leaned over to Jessica.

  “Sweetie, why don’t you rest here for a bit?” she said with a smile.