Chapter 745: Sleeping Beauty (5)
“That sounds perfect to me!”
“In return, you send my group back to reality safe and sound, and you grant me one thing I want.”
If I could pull that off, I would not need anything else. Now that Park Hayul’s power had grown, this was actually my chance.
Moon Hyunah frowned, but stayed still and watched me. She was trusting that I had some kind of plan. Park Yerim looked frantic, like she did not know what to do, but she also seemed to know she should not act rashly and kept glancing at Moon Hyunah. And Yuhyun was calm. Coldly glaring at Park Hayul, sure, but calm.
‘Yuhyun saw it too.’
He had probably already figured it out. Yeah, just hold on a little longer. Trust me.
“Hmm, no.”
“…What? Why not!”
Park Hayul’s answer caught me completely off guard. I had expected him to agree instantly.
“For one thing, I don’t think I should let your group go just yet.”
…Was that Crescent Moon’s influence? Park Hayul lifted one finger and kept going.
“And what if the thing you want is to go home? I’m not stupid, you know?”
I thought that shiny head of yours was just decorative, since nothing ever seemed to happen inside it.
“Then at least agree not to hurt them. You can do that, can’t you?”
“That I can do!”
“I’ll exclude anything like asking you to untie me from what I can ask for. You can just add restrictions to the contract.”
Those blue eyes curved into a bright smile as he looked at me.
“Hyung, you really think I’m that easy~.”
His tone was light and easygoing, not offended or angry. That was why I reacted too late.
His fingertips flicked. Thorny vines appeared in midair. Dozens of sharp spikes shot toward a single point all at once.
“Stop!”
Ping—
The sound of them cutting through the air brushed my ears, and I saw Yerim trying to dodge in slow motion. Yuhyun and Moon Hyunah both twisted to knock the thorns away, but they were too late.
And then—
– Kyarrrk!
“…Peace!”
Yerim cried out.
Red fur swung hard as Peace threw himself in front of her. The Flame Horned Lion’s body shuddered under the impact. Yuhyun and Moon Hyunah rushed to check him.
“He’s okay. None of them hit anything vital. Yerim, open the potion.”
“O–okay!”
“His hide and muscle are way thicker than a human’s. They didn’t go that deep. I’ll hold him.”
Yuhyun wrapped his arms around Peace to keep him steady. Moon Hyunah yanked the thorns out of his hide in one swift motion. Peace let out a low growl, and Yerim hurriedly poured the potion the Saintess had given her over the wounds.
The sight of it squeezed my chest tight.
I had entrusted Yerim to Peace. Peace had protected her.
The back of my throat burned. I turned to Park Hayul.
“You…”
“I was thinking of you when I left the Haeyeon Guildmaster alone, though. Besides, hunters die all the time, right? If they go up against an enemy as strong as me, losing one or two is normal.”
Park Hayul said it like it was nothing. A contract appeared in front of him.
“I’ll agree not to hurt them. But granting you whatever you want is too annoying. I know how to write contracts too, you know. I read my agency contracts carefully, and I looked up a lot of hunter information.”
“…”
“If you tell me exactly what you want, I can decide whether I’ll do it.”
“I want you out of my sight forever.”
“Hyung, come on. So are you doing this or not?”
Moon Hyunah looked at me, then slowly started backing away with Yerim and Peace. Yuhyun hesitated too, then widened the distance between us. But Park Hayul could wipe everyone here out whenever he wanted.
Without the slightest hesitation.
I swallowed hard. I could not say what I really wanted, not now. I nodded.
“Two contracts.”
“Not one?”
“One for what I want, one for what you want. It’s more precise that way. The more clauses you cram into one contract, the more loopholes it gets.”
“As expected, hyung really knows this stuff! I’ll have to be careful.”
“I don’t know exactly how much influence you have, so for the people you can’t harm, let’s say my group and anyone I like. I have a lot of monsters I’m raising too. You won’t be able to identify all of them, so if I say I like someone, from that point on you can’t touch them.”
“Oh, but then couldn’t you just claim you like anyone and make them untouchable?”
“If I lie about how I feel toward someone, a mark appears. Write that a small red spot shows up on my face.”
“And! If they attack me first, I should be allowed to fight back.”
“I might do something by accident, so give me three chances. Only defend or dodge. You’re way stronger than me anyway.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Honestly, even one is generous.”
Something twisted in my gut at how casually he said it. The bastard knew exactly how much leverage he had.
“We should add ‘on purpose’ too. What if I fold a paper airplane without thinking and it hits you?”
“…Fine. If you break the contract, I’m released, and I get your power.”
“Shouldn’t you just be released? That’s harsh.”
“Otherwise you could just come after us and kill us anyway. That would make the whole contract pointless. If you hate it that much, make it half your power. Honestly, to make it fair, it should say that if you break the contract, you become mine this time. I’m already going easy on you.”
“Hmm, okay!”
“The contract activates the moment we shake hands. If you put the same condition on the second contract too, then both contracts can be linked and activated together.”
“Oh, right!”
Park Hayul created the second contract too. This one was about ownership of me.
“Han Yujin will belong to Park Hayul forever. Hyung, you haven’t made a contract like this with another Transcendent, right?”
“…Huh?”
“If you stack contracts of the same type, they get voided automatically. That’s why, when people trade items, they either add a penalty if a similar contract already exists or check in advance.”
“You know a lot.”
“You’re popular, hyung~. You never know.”
“I’ve never made a contract with a Transcendent.”
I had been offered plenty. I had always refused.
“Also, if the rank gap is big enough, similar contracts can ignore priority order too, so write in that if there’s already a similar contract with someone SSS–rank or above, there’s a penalty.”
“With who?”
“What do you mean, with who.”
“The fact that you answered like that means you probably do have one. Is it the Sesung Guildmaster?”
“I made one with my brother. Why.”
If I had made that kind of contract with anyone, Seong Hyunjae really would have been the most likely candidate. If you stretched the definition, it was similar enough.
“Then if you break the contract, the price is the death of your biological younger brother, the Haeyeon Guildmaster~.”
“You insane bastard!”
“It’s the most reliable option.”
“You use the actual person involved! Don’t you know you never cosign for family!”
“I don’t want you dying, though.”
“If you drag someone else into it, you obviously need their permission too!”
“He’s right here, so I can just ask. Excuse me, Haeyeon Guildmaster. Can I stake your life in place of hyung’s?”
The answer was so obvious it made me want to tear my hair out. Yuhyun quietly nodded.
Damn it. It was not like that penalty was ever going to happen anyway, but it still made my insides churn.
“Judging by your reaction, hyung, I think this is the better choice. Why do you like the Haeyeon Guildmaster that much? Is it because you’re too nice? Or is this, uh… Stockholm syndrome?”
“Shut up and sign.”
We made the activation condition for the second contract the handshake too. Both contracts were complete. Park Hayul held out his hand with a pleased smile. I stared at it. He wiggled it impatiently.
“Come on~.”
I took Park Hayul’s hand.
We shook.
The contract activated, and Park Hayul broke into a wide grin.
“Now hyung is—”
[Mine.]
A voice rang out.
Screeeech—
Space tore open with a sound like metal scraping in my ears. A white hand came through the rift, pried it wider, and waved lightly, almost like a fish flicking its tail. Park Hayul’s face twisted instantly. The flowing moonlight crumpled, and the warped mana around us bucked violently.
Thud!
As if trying to block the intruder, something hammered against the split in the air. The white hand turned over and effortlessly brushed away the force pressing against it.
“Han Yujin—”
The rift opened all the way. Someone stepped through it and landed on the floor.
“…Hyung?”
Park Hayul’s eyes went wide.
“Has belonged to me for a very long time.”
He smiled.
A face like mine. But taller. Broader. Long black hair, tied back loosely, falling past his waist. Once, we must have looked exactly the same, but now he had changed a lot. He was more striking than I was, and more mature too. The kind of face where, if I introduced him as my older brother, people would instantly go, Ah, I see.
The Puppeteer spoke.
“Since long before half a year ago.”
“Hyung! You said you’d never made a contract with a Transcendent!”
I had said that.
But the second contract was still there. The Puppeteer waved a hand, almost elegantly.
“To be precise, he belongs to one of the people under my protection. And what belongs to a Transcendent’s subordinate belongs to the Transcendent too.”
“I made a contract with an SS–rank.”
A long time ago, in a vanished world. With Sigma.
Yerim let out a small gasp. Moon Hyunah’s eyes widened.
“To be honest, I did think the Puppeteer might be Sigma. Either way, the contract was made when they were SS–rank, so it wasn’t technically a lie.”
But the person standing before me had my face.
Sure, this was someone else’s dream of me, but the fact that he had needed to use that dream at all meant he was a being similar to me—in other words, my doppelgänger puppet.
The other Transcendents would have had a hard time interfering right now. But the Puppeteer was based on me, so he had been able to overlay himself onto my dream double and enter through it.
“So… wait. Mister’s copy puppet? But you were a puppet!”
“At first. But anything gains power if enough time passes. And since I was modeled after an actual human, it was even easier for me to become one.”
“What about the moon? Sigma?”
Moon Hyunah asked.
The Puppeteer let out a quiet sigh. The motion was strangely familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and it made me feel oddly off balance.
“Do you know how hard I worked taking care of our princess all this time? We couldn’t let Crescent Moon notice, so my child couldn’t step in directly. One thing led to another, and he became a Transcendent. It’s a long story, but we were beings that belonged nowhere. Because of that, we could enter any world.”
His gaze moved from me to Seong Hyunjae.
“Except this one.”
“We didn’t exist here yet. Not until you all entered that dungeon in Japan.”
In the original past, Sigma had been collected by Crescent Moon, and my doppelgänger puppet had never existed at all.
“The moment you entered the dungeon, and we began to exist here, Sigma fell asleep.”
“Fell asleep?”
“Because unlike me, who broke free of the puppet body, there’s still a part of him that remains connected.”
That was Seong Hyunjae.
The Puppeteer had told us to protect Seong Hyunjae. Eyes like mine, but not mine, rested on us quietly. He did not really have much personal feeling toward any of us. If it had not been for Sigma, he probably would not have interfered at all. Though he did seem to like me, at least a little. Maybe because I was something like a parent to him.
“Anyway, I’m six months ahead in real time as well, and I’m a Transcendent.”
Fwoosh—
The first contract in Park Hayul’s hand burst into flame.
“That contract is void.”
Just like the contract between Cho Hwawoon and Hwang Rim. Between Transcendents of the same level, only the prior contract remained.
Park Hayul stared blankly at the disappearing paper. The first contract had been destroyed, but the second remained. He could not harm my group.
“…That’s not fair.”
Park Hayul muttered.
At the same time, his hand shot out and seized me by the collar. I heard startled voices calling my name. I shouted back at them at once.
“As soon as the system applies, I can get out of here!”
So please, do not do anything stupid.
He only got one chance where retaliation was blocked.
I met Park Hayul’s now expressionless face head–on.
“You said you didn’t want to kill me.”
“Hyung, I think I’m starting to get a little mad. No, I think I am mad.”
Park Hayul shoved me away and let go.
At least he would not—.
“…Huh.”
There was no strength in my legs.
It was like two chunks of wood had been bolted onto me in place of them. They buckled uselessly, and I crumpled straight to the floor. Cold swept through my whole body. I could not feel a thing. My legs lay there slack, like they did not belong to me.
“It’s a dream.”
When I dragged myself forward with my arms, my legs scraped across the floor behind me. Yuhyun and Yerim were both staring at me, frozen solid.
I had broken legs before. I had lost arms before.
But this sensation was different.
My breath locked in my throat.
“This much is easy. I have to make sure you can’t run away, hyung.”
“Ugh!”
A cord wrapped around my neck. Park Hayul gave it a light tug.
“If you can’t use your arms or your eyes either, then you really won’t be able to run, right? And also—”
Park Hayul turned his head toward the others.
“I can do the same thing to all of you. Make it affect you in reality too. You know, mental damage and stuff like that.”
A cold silence dropped over the crowd.
It did not last long.
A few people panicked and tried to wake themselves up, but they could not.
“H–hit me on the head!”
“Water! Get me ice water!”
“It won’t work.”
Park Hayul smiled.
No one could leave this place now. At some point, even the stream of new arrivals had stopped. We were trapped. The meaning got across to the foreigners too. The murmuring grew louder. The Puppeteer looked mildly troubled.
“So listen up, everyone!”
Park Hayul shouted, throwing one arm high into the air.
“This time, we’re doing it for real~ Get them. The S–ranks over there. Don’t kill them, because I need to make a new contract with hyung! But breaking a few arms and legs is fine.”
People hesitated.
But they would not hesitate for long. The second Park Hayul made an example of someone, most of them would crumble.
“Now—”
“Park Hayul!”
I shouted as loudly as I could.
“I like every single person here! Everyone except you and the Puppeteer!”
Park Hayul froze.
He leaned down and searched my face.
But there was no way any red spot would appear.
The smile on his mouth twisted.
–TL Notes–
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