After back to the real world, I locked myself in my room for a solid six months.

  I didn't really recall much from that blurry half-year, but one day, I suddenly remembered exactly how much I had craved a bowl of Pho back in Averula.

  So, I finally crawled out of my cave, found my mother - who was divorced by then - and asked her to go grab me a bowl.

  The silky noodles, the crystal-clear broth, the melt-in-your-mouth beef... the aroma and the taste were just perfection.

  I lived again.

  After that, I got my life back on track. I finished high school, picked a random Linguistics major in college, and started moonlighting as a web novelist.

  Fast forward to now: I'm 26, graduated with honors, and I’ve got over 300,000 followers on my novels. The pay is great, and my life is officially "freedom-flavored."

  Those memories from when I was 16 feel like some weird, distant fever dream now. Looking back, I even think to myself, "Hey, for a clueless 16-year-old kid stranded in a foreign land, I actually did pretty okay, didn't I?"

  But if you ask me if I want a do-over?

  No.

  Please. Hell no.

  I’m still creating web novels, and yeah, a few of them are Isekai. But let’s be real: writing an Isekai is infinitely more fun than actually living one.

  When I’m writing, I’m basically God. I pull all the strings. No matter how much my protagonist suffers, he’s guaranteed to pull through. He starts as a total underdog, flips the script, and basks in all the glory. Oh, and of course, he’s got a literal line of girls falling for him.

  All in all, I was pretty damn satisfied with my life.

  Until one day, the pattern on the back of my left hand suddenly decided to pull a glow-up.

  Wait, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, the Hero’s Crest was still there, a permanent souvenir reminding me that Averula wasn't just some fever dream. But since it just sat there like an un-erasable tattoo, I figured it has lost its effectiveness.

  But now, it was glowing, then dragging me straight into a pitch-black void.

  Standing there was this insanely gorgeous girl. Long golden hair, eyes as blue as the summer sky, rocking a white dress and some kind of laurel wreath on her head. She greeted me with a smile that looked like it could heal the darkest, edgiest soul on the planet.

  I’ve read and written enough Isekai to know exactly what was going on. This had to be a Goddess or some divine entity along those lines.

  She spoke, her voice as clear as a golden bell on a crisp morning:

  "Welcome back, Chosen One."

  That line made me scowl. I actually looked over my shoulder to make sure there wasn't someone else standing behind me.

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  "Uh... you've got the wrong guy, lady."

  The golden-haired Goddess shook her head gently.

  "Not at all. I remember you perfectly. You are the one I personally handpicked 10 years ago, one of the five Heroes of Averula chosen to take down the Demon King."

  I shot back:

  "Then you definitely have the wrong guy. I was the sixth one."

  The Goddess froze. The divine smile on her face flickered with a hint of confusion.

  "Wait... were there six last time? Oh, I guess there were... Is that the variable this time? Usually, there are only five..."

  She started muttering to herself, descending into a spiral of internal monologues.

  I was starting to lose my patience.

  "Look, if you've realized your mistake, please just send me back. This whole setup is seriously triggering my PTSD."

  The Goddess quickly snapped out of it.

  "No, no, it's not a mistake! You still have my mark on your hand. You are definitely the traveler from ten years ago! I am Halunar, the Goddess of Averula. I’m the one who bestowed the blessing upon you and the other Heroes."

  I scratched my head.

  "Fine, let’s just say I’m your guy. But I already died in Averula. The rest of the squad probably wiped the floor with the Demon King by now, so what do you want from me?"

  Halunar looked away, her expression turning somber.

  "Actually... they haven't defeated the Demon King yet."

  "It’s been ten years and they still haven't finished the job? Even if they flopped the first time, couldn't they just try again?"

  "To be precise," she replied, "we've tried over a hundred times... and still failed."

  At this point, my brain started to glitch. If time flowed at the same rate in both worlds, each crusade should take at least three months to half a year to prep. And that’s not even counting the recovery time the Heroes would need, assuming they were lucky enough to keep their limbs attached after a loss.

  How the hell do you squeeze over a hundred crusades into just ten years?

  Even if time on Earth moved faster, since my three-year stint over there only equaled six months here, it still didn't add up. If they couldn’t beat the Demon King after a few tries, those original Heroes should be old geezers by now. Or does the Goddess just swap them out for new models every time they kick it?

  But then again, I clearly remembered that the Goddess's Sanctuary only opens once every 50 years to pick the Heroes, right?

  "The timeline's not mathing," I told Halunar. "I’m telling you, you’ve messed up somewhere."

  The Goddess took a deep breath and tried to explain with the patience of someone dealing with a particularly slow toddler.

  "That's thanks to my power. I have the ability to rewind time. After every failed crusade, I can reset everything back to square one so the Heroes can have another go. Of course, they don’t retain any memories of the previous loops. But even after a hundred resets, it's still a total fail. This batch of chosen ones is just so..."

  She dialed the volume down significantly on the last word, but I still caught it: "Useless."

  "Can't you just swap them out for a better batch of Heroes?"

  "No. The magic chooses them randomly based on potential, it’s the law. If they can’t do it, then nobody can."

  I picked up on a very interesting detail in her explanation, but I decided to play it cool and didn't ask. Instead, I just shrugged.

  "Well, that still has nothing to do with me. Whether I'm there or not, the result's the same, isn't it?"

  "No! There is a difference! The loop where you were in the party was the only time the Heroes actually made it to the Demon King’s castle. In every loop since then, they’ve managed to fail almost immediately after starting!"

  I looked at this Goddess. She had completely lost that "mystical and divine" aura she started with. Now she just looked like a bratty rich girl throwing a temper tantrum. I sighed.

  "Alright, so what exactly do you want from me?"

  Halunar replied:

  "I want you to go back to Averula."