Kang Hyunwoo, age 21.
Just your average, everyday college student.
Except for one minor detail: he was a virgin.
Of course, being a virgin at 21 wasn't exactly rare; there were even people older than him who hadn't experienced it yet.
"Ugh, it's just rationalization in the end."
Just because there were many virgins didn't mean that being one himself was something to be proud of.
In fact, spending over a year living the campus life in an all-girls major where the gender ratio was extremely skewed, yet failing to even make a single close female friend, let alone get a girlfriend, definitely meant there was something wrong with him.
"I think my face is decent enough…"
Both his face and body were decent enough that he definitely wouldn't give off a bad impression from the get-go.
'I have to go to the army soon, and when I get back to school, people are definitely going to treat me even worse than they do now, so does that mean a college student is going to be a virgin until graduation?'
At least when he was in high school, there were a lot of other virgins besides him, so it was okay.
But now that he was an adult, being a virgin until he graduated college was something he couldn't tolerate as a man.
"Haa, but going to a brothel to lose it is really a last resort…"
His pride wouldn't allow him to lose his virginity at a brothel.
He'd rather just live as a virgin until he was 30 and become a wizard.
Grumble-
"…Should I eat first and then think about it?"
He ripped open a pack of instant noodles, as usual.
The poor student's soulmate.
Then, suddenly, he thought that if he were in a relationship, he would be eating pasta that cost over 20,000 won a plate instead of instant noodles that cost less than 1,000 won a pack.
And that 40,000 won would be spent on just one meal, including his girlfriend's.
He only imagined it for a moment, but it sent shivers down his spine enough to make air conditioning unnecessary.
As expected, dating was a luxury for his wallet.
"I think it's about cooked enough. Where did I put the thing to put it on?"
He placed the pot on top of his textbook.
He'd paid a lot of money for this damn thick textbook and even had it bound, but the professors only lectured with PowerPoint presentations.
Thanks to that, he just ended up with an unnecessarily expensive noodle stand.
But what could he do? If he didn't like it… what could he do?
There was nothing he, a lowly student, could do. He just had to eat noodles.
Slurp – He put a mouthful of noodles in his mouth and browsed NewTube when a piece of news caught his eye that he wouldn't normally even glance at.
The title of the news was ominous.
[New S-Class Hunter Appears in Japan!]
"What a mess."
If his memory was correct, this meant that Japan now had a whopping 11 S-Class hunters, making them a monstrous hunting powerhouse.
In comparison, South Korea had only 4, which was woefully inadequate for a country that also had to fend off magical beasts coming down from the north.
"Well, South Korea is… relatively safe, though."
Just because this wasn't South America or Southeast Asia didn't mean he could complain that his spawn point was screwed up.
Even if people occasionally died from monsters, the country hadn't been occupied by villains.
While he was lost in thought, the woman who had newly become an S-Class hunter came up onto the platform in the video.
She was devastatingly beautiful.
The Japanese Prime Minister was on the platform, and he put a medal around the woman's neck, then they laughed and shook hands while being showered with photographs.
Watching that, he suddenly felt like he was losing his appetite, so he pushed his phone aside.
He was envious.
Even if he couldn't become an S-Class hunter, if he could just awaken a cool superpower, he could quit his lifestyle of eating ramen all the time and get a pretty girlfriend.
Of course, he knew very well that such a thing would never happen and that such a life was absolutely impossible in this life, so he just let out a hollow laugh.
It felt like there was a bitter taste in his mouth.
But he didn't want to waste what was left, so he shoved the noodles into his mouth and grabbed his phone to find something to cheer himself up.
Ding-
[Otherworld Dating App has been installed]
Just then, a notification popped up.
"…?"
It was a notification that an app he had never seen before had been installed.
"What's this?"
Of course, he had never installed something like this.
How would he have time to install something like this while watching NewTube?
"Did I accidentally click on an ad while putting my phone away earlier?"
There was no other way to explain it.
No matter how advanced voice phishing technology was, there was no way a strange app could be installed out of nowhere when he hadn't even clicked on a link or received a text message.
"But anyway, a dating app…"
He had tried random chatting a few times before.
He quickly quit because everyone would just go into the room and ask, "Proof of gender?", but anyway, this was his first time with a dating app.
"Should I try it out?"
It seemed like it would be worth a try just for fun.
From the crude icon design to the strange naming sense of "Otherworld Dating App," it reeked of being hastily made by a small company looking to make a quick buck and run, but he wasn't planning on paying for anything anyway.
Usually, these apps would give you the first match for free, but the problem was that the match was highly likely to be a company employee.
When he launched the app, a really uninspired design greeted his eyes.
[Otherworld Dating App]
[Shop] [Matching] [Profile]
"…Look at the main screen design."
It was almost as if it had been made with Paint instead of PowerPoint.
Well, the UI design wasn't the important thing.
Whether it was a company employee or an AI, it would be enough as long as it could kill time.
After thinking for a moment, he went into the profile first.
Sure enough, it was a place where he could enter his information, and uniquely, there was also a place to write his race.
"So that's why it's called Otherworld Dating App? The concept is kind of interesting."
He only wrote down his age and name for now.
Next, he went into the shop. As he said before, he wasn't planning on paying, he was just curious about what they were selling.
[The shop function is currently locked]
"What?"
What was this? Weren't they trying to make a quick buck and run?
He couldn't understand why the most important shop was locked.
"Come to think of it, I don't see any ad banners either?"
Was there even a revenue structure?
If their goal wasn't money, did they make the app to steal personal information?
But if that was the case, there were probably easier ways to do that, and besides, he heard that personal information wasn't worth much anyway.
"Well… it's not my business if they don't want to make money."
Anyway, a dating app was only good if it matched you well.
Hoping that the AI was at least somewhat decently made, he pressed the matching button.
Ding-
[First match has been confirmed]
[Thank you for using this app. Please complete the survey before proceeding with the match.]
"Survey?"
[Preferred Race]
[Preferred Gender]
[Preferred Age Range]
[Preferred Hobbies]
·
·
·
·
·
"Wow…"
So this wasn't an app made to make a quick buck, but just an app made for fun?
Otherwise, there was no way they would have brazenly put races in the survey questions, or things like corpse dissection in the preferred hobbies.
"They really nailed the concept."
At this point, he was starting to find it quite fun.
He didn't know who made the survey, but there were a variety of questions that showed that they had put a lot of effort into making it. About 50 or so?
At the same time as being impressed, he filled out the questions with a mix of seriousness and fun.
He put elf as the preferred race, female as the gender, and about 500 years old as the age range. As he continued to fill out the questions bit by bit, time quickly passed.
[Thank you for your cooperation with the survey]
[Matching will proceed shortly]
[Please note that matching may take some time]
He started to feel a little excited at the thought that the app developer might reply with a 500-year-old elf concept.
"…It's taking a long time."
Contrary to his expectations, it wasn't easy to get a match.
'Did they all leave work because it's evening? Then can't they just match me with an AI?'
In the end, he couldn't get a match even after he had finished eating his noodles.
Waiting too long wasn't in his nature, so he roughly threw his phone down and cleaned up the table.
As more and more time passed, he was forgetting that he had even started matching.
Ding-
He heard an oddly grating notification sound.
He picked up his phone at the sound.
[Matching has been completed]
"Oh, finally."
The developer is finally working.
With a strangely excited heart, he hurriedly touched his phone.
Fwoosh-
"Huh?"
[Moving to planet EB-17]
A tremendous light that shot out from the screen swallowed him whole.
***
Deep beneath the ground, beneath the World Tree, the last known god on earth, lies a vast cavity unknown to most.
Even the citizens of Pelledia, the nation of elves built around the World Tree, are unaware of its existence.
In such a place, there was one prisoner who had been imprisoned for 200 years.
"…Resillia."
Even in the pitch-black darkness, her blond hair and soft green eyes, as well as her long, un-human ears, sparkled.
She was an elf.
She was so beautiful that one could hardly imagine that she had committed a great crime worthy of being confined in this hellhole where not even a speck of light could penetrate.
"How much longer will I have to stay here?"
Her soul, which echoed emptily within the hollow, scattered into nothingness without a listener.
Although elves were known to live tens or hundreds of times longer than humans, 200 years of imprisonment was by no means easy.
The hellish loneliness of not having a single visitor, as well as the fact that the reason she was trapped here was because of the betrayal of her most trusted subordinate and beloved friend, were all reasons that ate away at her mind.
Now, all that remained for her was love-hate for her friend and unresolved questions.
Why did you betray me?
What was so important?
In this place where there was no one to answer, even that question echoed emptily before dissipating.
"…I'm lonely."
Iris, the sole prisoner of the underground hollow, was growing weary of the ever-increasing loneliness.
Can you even imagine it?
She had spent a full 200 years without contact with anyone.
Let alone conversation, there wasn't even a single visitor.
There were no guards, nor other prisoners.
Iris was the only one here.
This unfillable emptiness and loneliness was not the kind that could be easily endured.
Even she, a high elf who had lived for hundreds of years, valued interaction with others so dearly.
"I'd rather…"
Her eyes darkened as she looked at a sharp piece of rock rolling on the floor.
'If I end this wretched life, would I be able to find peace?'
Even elves, who were known to be free of greed unlike humans, could frame those who followed them for power and imprison them in an underground prison for 200 years, and commit the great sin of ending the life given to them by God for the sake of peace.
The moment her slender, white, trembling hand grasped the piece of rock.
Fwoosh!
"Kyaa?!"
An enormous beam of light exploded in the dark void where not a single ray of light came down.
She squinted her eyes at the long-awaited brightened vision and caught a glimpse of a blurry figure in the light.
"Ugh, uaaaa!!! What the hell!!!"
"…A person?"
A person was falling from the sky.
Without a moment to think about what was going on, Iris instinctively pulled up her magic power.
She used magic with what little magic power she had left.
Levitation.
Thanks to the successfully activated magic, Kang Hyunwoo, who was falling in real time, was slowly descending towards the ground as if he had deployed a parachute.
Thanks to that, Kang Hyunwoo was able to safely set foot on the ground. If it wasn't for Iris's quick action, Kang Hyunwoo would have been 'what used to be a human' by now.
Kang Hyunwoo, who barely stood up with his trembling legs, stared blankly at Iris standing in front of him.
"…An elf?"