I Became a Foreign Worker Loved by Transcendents

Hero Yi Ga-ram.

Once known by the disgraceful title of “Fallen Hero,” she now faithfully fulfilled her role as a hero leading the people.

If it weren’t for her, the establishment of the ark wouldn’t have even begun, and many lives under its protection would have been lost.

The people of the ark never hesitated to show their gratitude and support for her, who always took the lead in the face of danger.

“Ugh…”

But even that idealized image of a hero was ultimately just a facade.

No matter how much her body had grown and how much experience she had gained, inside, she was still just a young girl who hadn’t even gone through her coming-of-age ceremony.

“Blegh!”

The fact that the girl who had been acting as a hero was finally breaking down might have been something that was inevitable all along.

All that was there was the pale, cloudy liquid unique to stomach acid. She had skipped several meals due to lack of appetite, so it was no surprise.

“…I’m sorry. I made a scene in front of you, sir.”

Ga-ram tied up the bag and used her ability to push it into a corner, then looked at the urn in front of her and gave a bitter smile.

Hero Im Tae-yang.

Despite being titled the strongest hero, he had willingly lent a hand in establishing the ark—a person she was grateful for.

And someone she felt she would have to atone to for the rest of her life.

“…Yes, I haven’t forgotten.”

Right, there was no way she could forget.

In the inexplicable situation where everything around her collapsed, she had always remembered the one who saved her frozen self and sacrificed himself instead.

So, every time she went to sleep, she dreamt of that day’s tragedy as a nightmare, and whenever she felt like she was about to break down, she would visit the urn to steady her heart… Р𝘈ΝＯꞖÊŝ

“It’s only now that I’ve grown so much bigger that I realize it—that monster, it definitely was the one that devoured you, wasn’t it?”

But at this moment, when she needed to steady her fragile heart, Ga-ram felt the knot in her heart growing uncontrollably.

There was no way she could maintain her composure.

The monster that had appeared that day had reappeared before her in an even more massive form.

How could she, who cherished him, remain calm when the danger of losing the one person she wanted to rely on had just occurred?

“…I couldn’t do anything.”

Though she might have naturally felt a desire for revenge in the place of her crumbling heart, her hand, which she placed on the urn, could do nothing but tremble.

It was only natural. The monster that attacked them was a calamity in its own right, and humans were not beings who could overcome such calamities.

All they could do was run and set up measures to protect themselves.

Having grown up too quickly, she accepted reality as it was, and so resignation quickly followed.

“I couldn’t do anything but watch as he made that face.”

And that resignation turned into self-blame when she saw the despair on his face, accelerating the collapse of her fragile heart.

Because it was she who had placed the responsibility of protecting everyone on him.

And yet, she felt pathetic for not even being able to properly support him.

“I’m scared… of living.”

Such weakness quietly echoed in the darkness, away from everyone’s gaze.

She hoped to end it and shake it off quickly, but perhaps it was a collapse so severe that she would never stand again… quietly, where no one’s eyes could reach.

-Vrrrr.

Her body reflexively flinched at the vibration that followed.

Ga-ram, finally coming to her senses, quickly looked toward the source of the force she felt, and her eyes widened.

“…Mister Tae-yang?”

[Hero Im Tae-yang]

A blue current rose from the urn bearing his name, gradually taking shape until it formed a hand that reached out toward her.

She didn’t know what had caused this phenomenon.

She didn’t know what the hand reaching out to her intended, nor what would happen if she took it.

“…Yes.”

Even so, she wanted to take the hand because she was so broken that she no longer cared about her own safety.

“I’ll follow you.”

And because she felt that now, more than ever, she needed to continue the mourning she hadn’t been able to complete…

“Miss Ga-ram, please wake up. Miss Ga-ram!”

A tragic scene unfolded as I arrived at the destination.

Pushing through the crowd gathered at the ark’s columbarium, I quickly approached Ga-ram, who was lying surrounded by priests and Flang, and shouted urgently.

“What on earth happened? Ga-ram isn’t breathing?”

“Exactly what it sounds like—she’s completely lost consciousness. The priests are doing their best to keep her alive, but…!”

Among the priests who were using their divine power with all their might, Flang placed her fingers on Ga-ram’s wrist to check her pulse.

The reason why this ended in shock rather than despair was because Ga-ram’s pulse hadn’t stopped yet.

She appeared unconscious, her eyes half-open, but her face still had some color.

“…I can’t feel any mana.”

But if she had merely lost consciousness, Flang wouldn’t have had Sanson fetch me with such urgency.

“Mana…?”

“Mana is energy that is driven by will. It may not manifest as physical force, but it usually emanates a unique aura, even unconsciously.”

That was something I was somewhat familiar with.

In fact, techniques used to detect hidden enemies or sense presences rely on detecting the faint energy emitted by such unconscious mana.

In other words, if even the mana driven by the unconscious was absent, it practically meant that the person was not truly alive.

“But if her vital functions are still going, yet her unconscious mana has vanished… I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s as if her soul has left her body.”

Even Flang, who had accumulated all sorts of experiences over a thousand years, found this situation strange.

As the gravity of the situation became increasingly clear, my gaze shifted to Ga-ram’s vacant eyes.

The only relief was that they were forcibly extending her life with divine power, but the priests’ divine power wasn’t infinite.

If the breathing that should happen unconsciously had ceased, then the moment the divine power ran out, her body would rapidly approach death.

-Rustle!

And then Flang said this to me.

She said that Ga-ram’s current state looked as though her soul had left her.

“M-Master!”

“…What happened?”

As I realized what she meant, a hand suddenly shot out from behind me.

The hand grabbed the collar of the King of the Dead, and I immediately unleashed the frustration that had been building up inside me.

“She was perfectly fine before we came here. So why did she end up like this after arriving?!”@@novelbin@@

If she ended up like a corpse, then a corpse should know the reason why.

No, perhaps the cause of this was standing right in front of me.

I wasn’t entirely sure, but there was no way I could stay calm with Ga-ram in such a state.

“…Is that girl precious to you?”

His quiet questioning in such a situation felt utterly ridiculous to me.

I felt the respect and admiration I once held for him completely crumbling away.

“She’s a girl I promised to protect.”

She was that precious to me.

Even though her life in this world was ruined because of me, she still trusted me and was willing to entrust her life and fortune to me.

“At a time when we had nowhere else to turn, we trusted each other with our lives.”

In the darkest times, when the world turned its back on us, she was the only one I could lean on, the only one who stood with me as we faced the dangers around us…

‘Do you remember the promise you made with me?’

‘Promise?’

‘The promise that if you had no reason to leave my side, you’d stay with me.’

Even after a year-long separation, I knew that trust still remained strong between us.

‘Please don’t leave me, Oppa.’

The proof of that trust still sat boldly on my finger even now.

How could I betray that trust and remain calm in this situation?

“Tell me right now. Everything you know about her condition…!”

As I pressed him with these thoughts, Boudoin quietly looked down and tightened his grip on the hand clutching his collar.

“…A thought.”

As he calmly removed my hand, he spoke.

“That girl’s consciousness is currently being devoured by a thought, placing her at the boundary between the living and the dead.”

“…A thought?”

“You must already know what revives the dead like myself.”

Regret.

The most intense memories of a lifetime, unfulfilled desires, wishes… It was a concept rightfully called the lingering thoughts of the dead.

“This land you currently stand on…”

The one most knowledgeable about this began to explain before those who were now focusing on him.

“This place was once the domain of my former lord. Her power mixed with the thoughts of the dead, creating an environment where their will could easily manifest.”

“…Are you saying the power of the Corpse Lord did this to Ga-ram?”

“It didn’t directly affect the living. More precisely, it likely stirred the lingering thoughts of a certain dead soul buried here in the ark.”

His gaze shifted smoothly away from me, toward a specific spot in the columbarium.

There lay an urn that was all too familiar to me.

“Do you have any idea who among the dead buried here might have a reason to cling to that girl?”

Im Tae-yang. The one who, at the end of his life, threw himself in harm’s way to protect Ga-ram, sacrificing himself in the process.

If lingering thoughts were the most intense memories of a life, then the desperate resistance he put up at the end could well have been imprinted there.

Thus, the thoughts lingering in his ashes might have reacted to the forces in this land and gone rampant…

“…No, that can’t be all there is to it.”

As my speculation reached this point, Boudoin shook his head, his gaze moving from the urn to the fallen Ga-ram.

“No matter how strong a lingering thought is, it can’t devour the living on its own. If such an invasion is detected, the will of the living would unconsciously resist it, and that will is usually stronger than that of the dead.”

“Then why has Ga-ram ended up like this?”

If the thoughts of the dead couldn’t overpower the will of the living, she shouldn’t have ended up like this.

“…If that girl has lost the will to live.”

The moment that clear answer was spoken, my hand swung again in fury.

The urge to strike him down instantly turned into a sob that erupted from my throat.

“Stop spouting nonsense! Are you saying Ga-ram has given up on life herself?!”

“Is it really so impossible?”

“You call that an answer…?!”

Snap. My swinging hand was caught by his wrist.

The moment I realized the force in that grip wasn’t light, I saw the blue flames flickering in his eyes as he stared at me.

“Even someone with a will as strong as yours has been brought to despair countless times in this world.”

Overwhelmed by his spirit, my body recoiled as Boudoin stepped forward.

It was clear that his actions weren’t born from a light heart, as his voice pierced into my mind.

“You, too, have seen countless people fall to despair. In a world where even greater despair looms, can you really arrogantly claim that a girl much younger than you could overcome it all?”

It was an irrefutable argument.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I, too, had experienced moments when my will to live had nearly been broken.

And that was likely why the dead, like him, sought to create a world of the dead.

In a hopeless situation, the longing for death would become a trial and a temptation that would inevitably come to all living beings.

“…So you’re telling me to just let that girl die?”

But even so, we were still alive.

The dead had given up on preserving life in this world, but we, who instinctively rejected death, sought to maintain society and our ethics.

That was why we built the ark and gathered survivors within it—to unite and survive.

That framework hadn’t collapsed yet, and even now, everyone was working together to protect it.

“Ga-ram is still just a child…”

To keep that framework intact, shouldn’t children like Ga-ram have the right to rely on someone?

“She’s too young to decide whether to throw away her life or not. At the very least, adults should protect her until she becomes one herself!”

To not even give her that chance and let this happen…

To just watch this unfold and let that child, who had even given up breathing on her own, die was far too cruel, wasn’t it?

“…It might not be too late.”

His quiet voice reached me as I poured out my grievances.

As a glimmer of hope stirred within me, I looked up and saw a blue aura begin to rise from his body.

“If too much time passes, the thought devouring her will separate her body from her will, but that process isn’t complete yet. We might still be able to save her now.”

This wasn’t just mana taking form.

This was the dispersion of power, moving independently from the person it was connected to.

It was similar to the phenomenon I observed when handling a cluster of spirits.

“You, that’s…”

But similar as it might be, there was a fundamental difference.

A cluster of spirits was made up of countless fragments of will, gathered together to mimic and project a being with intent.

Its limitation was that it was a temporary solidification of many fragments, making it hard to see it as a truly independent entity.

But what stood before me now was a perfect entity on its own.

A central core formed a hub, around which endless cycles created a mass of bluish flame—unlike a cluster of spirits, this was a single, complete entity.

“…Then, are you prepared?”

Surrounded by these willful flames, he demanded an answer from me, almost as if testing me.

“Are you prepared to risk your own existence, to venture into the ‘world of the dead’ and save that girl?”

As the Blue Knight, the symbol of death.

He offered to open the path to the afterlife, where the consciousness of the girl I sought to save was heading.