Chapter 785: Twenty–Six Years Old (2)
I whipped my head around.
It was the twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun.
A swarm of black butterflies was gathering around my little brother. I wanted to run over right then and there and scatter every last one of them. Between the pitch–black beating wings, one crimson eye looked back at me.
Normally, I would have thought, Iryn went in again. But that red eye felt strangely, impossibly unfamiliar.
And a moment later, that fear turned real.
— Hyung!
A tiny red lizard clung to me and shouted.
“Iryn? Then that red eye is…”
— Run!
What? I had no time to ask.
Before I knew it, the hem of a black coat spread wide before my eyes.
It was Yuhyun from before the regression, his body already recovered enough to move. My little brother grabbed me and threw me back. At the same time—
Clang!
The crash of sword against sword hammered the air.
“Yuhyun—!”
Someone caught my helplessly flying body.
When I looked back, I saw a familiar face.
“Sesung Guild Leader?”
Why was Seong Hyunjae here?
He held out a bracelet to me. It was Grace.
Why did the Sesung Guild Leader have Grace?
“You seem to need this.”
I quickly took Grace and fastened her on, throwing Seong Hyunjae a guarded look. Of all times for the Sesung Guild Leader to show up.
“This is between Yuhyun and me. Between brothers. Do not interfere.”
At my words, Seong Hyunjae’s eyes went round.
What was with that look?
“Naturally, I intended to stay out of it. Still, that rather hurts.”
Naturally? Hurts?
You usually wouldn’t even pretend to listen if I told you to get lost, so what was with this act now? He was suspicious as hell, but Seong Hyunjae was not the problem right now.
In that brief instant, dozens of metallic clashes had already rung out. Iryn climbed up to my ear.
— Yuhyun is trying to return to fire!
“What the hell does that mean?”
— He’ll return someday, but—not that Iryn hates that, but it doesn’t feel like now is the right time, so!
The two Yuhyuns came into view.
The twenty–six–year–old Yuhyun should have been stronger. I was sure of it. And yet, for some reason, he was being pushed back. Even as he struggled to deflect the pitch–black blade sweeping toward him in arcs, he kept blocking the twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun from reaching me.
Flames tangled with black fire—
‘Red fire?’
The flames that had been turning bluish–black had gone red. But they did not feel like ordinary fire. The most common image of flame, bright and red, had wrapped itself in blinding scarlet and was burning down the black flames.
“Han Yuhyun! Both of you, stop!”
I shouted, but neither of them listened.
The black sword curved long and wide, carrying a flame so vividly red that it felt alien. Sparks scattered like shattered grains of ruby.
— Yuhyun is hyung’s little brother!
Iryn stated the obvious.
— A Yuhyun who isn’t hyung’s little brother has no choice but to become fire itself, and Yuhyun’s place just got shaken!
Yuhyun’s place got shaken?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Yuhyun is my little brother, no matter what!”
— But one existence cannot become two.
Iryn scrambled all the way up to my face and shouted.
— Hyung is the one who decides what “Han Yuhyun” is!
What the hell—
Suddenly, I remembered what the twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun had said.
‘Twenty–six years old… I see. To hyung, you are.’
Twenty–six years old.
Not twenty–five.
The twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun had heard those words.
I also remembered the conversation I had with my little brother before. I had definitely told him I was searching for my dead brother. I had told him I wanted to bring his body home and send him off properly.
The current Yuhyun had accepted that.
Because the twenty–five–year–old Han Yuhyun was dead, and from the moment I regressed, the living Han Yuhyun—Han Yujin’s little brother—had only been one person.
‘But saying that he aged another year…’
That was not how you treated the dead.
Han Yujin’s little brother had become two.
A place meant for one person had been split in half.
“…Damn it, Yuhyun!”
As I tried to jump in, red flames roared up in front of me like a wall.
I raised Grace’s rank and tried to charge through anyway. But a sharp birdcall cut off my movement.
— Piiik! Piik!
Grace cried out in warning, and Iryn spoke in alarm too.
— It’s dangerous, hyung! For Yuhyun to fully return to fire, he has to swallow hyung! Because hyung is the one holding him back!
I did not know the exact details, but apparently the twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun’s fire was dangerous to me right now.
Dangerous enough that even Grace would struggle to block it.
But I did not have time to stand here hesitating.
I stepped back once, then twice, wondering if I could somehow go around, and then—
Clink.
A sound rang out in front of me.
A golden chain.
‘…What?’
That’s Seong Hyunjae’s weapon, I thought.
And then my feet moved on their own.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, I stepped onto the chain and leapt. One end of the long chain stabbed into the ground, while the other stretched upward like a staircase. I ran up it quickly.
At the final link, I kicked off and soared higher than the flames towering into the air.
“Han Yuhyun!”
I pulled out the King of Harmless’s drawer.
There were only three items inside that I could take out without having put them there myself. I had not used any of them yet, but I had checked what they were. As I pulled one of those out, I also dragged out one thing that was not an item.
The cube in my hand shone.
Shwaaaaaa—!
Water began to pour down.
The water of the lake that Number 71 had clearly told me was not an item.
I threw the item I had taken out toward the immense volume of water pouring over both Yuhyuns.
[Fairies’ Water Jelly – SS–Rank
Completely harmless to the human body! Safe no matter what kind of prank you play! Gives children a fun and happy time!
※ Safety rating increases according to the amount of water absorbed by the jelly.]
Countless beads of jelly absorbed the lake water in an instant and swelled.
Safe no matter what kind of prank you play, it said, but it was still only SS–rank. It was not an item that would last long enough to be worth spending one of my three chances on, or so I had thought.
Hissssss!
The black and red flames were buried under jelly.
Even after absorbing all that lake water, the jelly could not withstand the fire and immediately began burning away. Still, it managed to stop my two little brothers’ fight, if only for a moment. Their bodies and even their weapons were buried in jelly, keeping them from moving properly.
I landed on top of the soft, wobbly mass too.
I moved the enormous mound of jelly and split it in half, separating them.
On one side, the current Yuhyun was trapped.
On the other, Yuhyun from before the regression.
I dropped down between them.
“It’s dangerous!”
My twenty–six–year–old little brother shouted.
Black fire rapidly devoured the jelly around him.
The red flames were faster.
A black and red eye turned toward me.
— Hyung! It’s really dangerous! The Yuhyun right now has no reason to leave hyung alone!
Iryn said, fretting anxiously.
“You were the one telling Yuhyun to swallow me before.”
— That was different, because right now, Yuhyun isn’t completely acting on his own will. If it were something Yuhyun truly wanted, Iryn would help too.
Red fire.
My gaze moved to the hand and wrist visible beneath the sleeve of his ceremonial clothes.
The mark that had originally sunk in invisibly now shone a clear red.
The Fragment of the First Flame.
When Yuhyun’s existence became unstable because his place as Han Yujin’s little brother had been shaken, that fire must have begun consuming him.
“…I’m guessing cutting it out won’t work.”
— Hyung.
Iryn hesitated, then glanced back at the black fire.
— Tell him hyung only has one little brother.
“No. I can’t do that. I can’t mean it, and even if I lied, he’d know.”
I would not give up on my little brother.
The twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun knew that clearly. He must have experienced it, must have felt it through everything that had happened so far.
That must have been why he had been shaken all the harder. Once I called the other Yuhyun twenty–six, he must have felt that changing me was impossible.
That Han Yujin would carry Han Yuhyun from before the regression with him forever too.
When I thought about what Yuhyun must have felt hearing my words…
My insides burned dry.
Even so, I could not take them back.
Black butterflies danced between the red flames. The jelly burned away completely, and even the drenched ground dried, cracking brittle.
“Hyung should have left me alone.”
The twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun opened his mouth.
“You should have let me give up. Let me bury myself and live like that.”
“…Why should you have to? There is nothing wrong with you. Being born the way you were is not wrong. So why should you be the only one forced to endure it?”
I wanted to give Yuhyun what he wanted.
He had endured for twenty years. This time, shouldn’t it be my turn to endure?
But at the same time, I remembered what another Han Yujin had told me.
Stand on the shore.
‘That’s really… hard.’
When you truly love someone, you want to give them everything. You want to listen to everything. You want to accept them even if you have to crush yourself down to do it.
Whether it was between parent and child, lovers, friends, or all the countless other kinds of relationships, it would be the same.
Even though giving everything away usually ruined both people, it was still hard not to.
“I can’t give you a clear answer. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as a right answer for something like this. All we can do is keep trying to move, little by little, toward something better.”
How nice it would be if there were one clean, obvious answer.
But I had learned firsthand that life did not work like that. Before the regression, countless people had slashed red lines through my life and called it wrong, but now, with that time still continuing, it was the opposite.
“But I did not let you go. And I won’t let you go from now on either. That much, I can promise you for sure.”
And so—
“The twenty–six–year–old Han Yuhyun too.”
The tip of Ruler’s Sword, hanging low in his hand, twitched.
The black flame that had been behind me surged forward. Fire collided with fire. Heat warped the sky.
“That is my proof to you! Han Yuhyun!”
My voice was swallowed by the bursting flames.
Between the sounds of sword clashing against sword, a small gleam of gold flashed.
Seeker’s Chain wrapped around me and yanked me away in a single breath.
It was Seong Hyunjae.
“What are you—”
The smell of blood flooded my nose.
I saw his white coat stained red.
What? Why?
“Little brothers tend to chase after their older brothers, do they not?”
Seong Hyunjae leapt to avoid the fire burning and devouring the ground. Electricity sparked, knocking back the flames surging toward him.
A large red shape quickly approached his side.
It was Peace.
“Do you remember that the young lady is holding back the water?”
“What? Ah, she… was.”
“Fortunate.”
“Yerim…”
Even if it was the First Flame, it was only a fragment. The sea of the Mermaid Queen should be able to stand against it.
I looked down at the ground where fire and fire were swirling together. Forced far back, the twenty–six–year–old Yuhyun looked up at me.
But to leave Yuhyun behind like this—
“Go, hyung!”
He shouted that he would be fine.
The lips that had been expressionless this entire time seemed to hold the faintest trace of a smile. But before I could look closely, Peace beat his wings hard.
‘Yuhyun.’
I swallowed a small sigh, and Iryn started slapping my cheek with tiny smacks.
I thought he had gone to Yuhyun.
— Hyung, I think the Gardener is after Yuhyun too!
“What? The Gardener… uh, the Gardener.”
Wasn’t he originally after Yuhyun?
So then—
“…Seong Hyunjae! Right? He was after Seong Hyunjae…”
“What an honor, to be remembered.”
My thoughts would not come together properly.
The fruit.
I had eaten it.
Even the third autumn.
Was that why part of my memory had disappeared?
I snapped my gaze toward Seong Hyunjae. The corners of his lips lifted gently.
“It seems you still like my face, but there is no affection in that gaze.”
“…What kind of nonsense are you talking about? The Gardener, the transcendents, were after you… after a similar source, weren’t they? But now you’re saying the Gardener is targeting Yuhyun too?”
— The butterflies keep sticking to him! The Gardener gave Yuhyun the authority to control butterflies too! That’s why Yuhyun got weaker earlier when Yuhyun pulled the butterflies back. The butterflies are giving Yuhyun magic and helping him move more easily!
Iryn called both of them Yuhyun without distinguishing between them, which made it a little confusing.
So the twenty–six–year–old Yuhyun had a dead body, and because of that… he needed the mana the butterflies gave him. But when the twenty–one–year–old Yuhyun recalled the butterflies, he staggered.
“What the hell is that Gardener bastard trying to do?”
Had he touched the Yuhyun from before the regression from the very beginning in order to capture the living Yuhyun?
But Yuhyun was a born S–rank. There were five people like that in our world alone. Why go out of his way?
Because Yuhyun was closer to fire than the others?
Or was it because he was connected to the First Flame?
While I groped through my tangled memories, the towering water rapidly drew nearer. The sheer wall of water was visibly tilting to one side.
The one overwhelming her opponent was Yerim.
“Mister!”
Wrapped in water, Yerim raised one hand toward me.
Thank god.
Peace landed on top of a building a short distance away from the column of water. I was about to message Chief Song and Liette at once when Seong Hyunjae spoke first.
“I have already contacted them both. By phone.”
Ah, so that was why Peace came—
Why would Seong Hyunjae do that?
Wait.
What had the Sesung Guild Leader been doing here in the first place?
First… Crescent Moon was after Seong Hyunjae too.
Right. That was why Chief Song and Seong Hyunjae had gone into the dungeon together…
“…Ugh.”
One side of my head throbbed sharply.
I did not like the Sesung Guild Leader.
He was an annoying bastard in all kinds of ways.
“There is a simple solution.”
The Sesung Guild Leader spoke.
I looked up at him.
His golden eyes were smiling.
“If we hand me and Sigma over to the Gardener, he will try to trade us for Han Yujin–gun’s little brother.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Of course, I will resist. Would you like to fight me?”
I glared at Seong Hyunjae.
What kind of bullshit was he spouting?
And who the hell was Sigma—
Ah.
Seong Hyunjae’s past self.
Right now, hm, he was with the Puppeteer, wasn’t he?
“Sesung Guild Leader–nim, self–proclaimed twenty–something. Could you maybe tone it down?”
“…Twenty–something?”
Seong Hyunjae tilted his head slightly.
“Even for me, claiming to be younger than Han Yujin–gun would be… excessive.”
“Younger, my ass. You’re old enough to be an uncle.”
“I see. Uncle Yujin.”
“Not me! You!”
Was the Sesung Guild Leader always this kind of person?
Maybe he was.
Apparently, some of my memories about Seong Hyunjae really had been erased. I checked the situation through Hayul while throwing Seong Hyunjae a suspicious sideways glance.
“…Were we, by any chance, kind of a little close?”
Seong Hyunjae’s eyes curved roundly. Instead of answering, he took out his phone and showed me an internet article.
[The child in the care of Dodam Breeding Facility’s Mr. H is the biological son of Sesung Guild’s Mr. S]
“This is the nature of our relationship.”
For a second, I went blank.
Then I scowled hard.
That was about Hangyeol, damn it!
Why was he showing me some trash gossip article like it was the truth?
Our Gyeol did resemble Seong Hyunjae, but—
Wait.
Gyeol was not the only one.
There was Byeol, and…
And…
Yuhyun’s voice came back to me.
Eyes.
Right.
Seol!
Holy shit, I almost forgot the kids too.
[Yujin–hyung! The fire is spreading!]
Park Hayul informed me.
Even with my own eyes, I could see the distant haze of heat growing stronger. Burning and devouring everything he touched, Yuhyun was approaching.
I looked up at the sky.
Even though it was daytime, stars—the gazes of the transcendents—glittered above.
“All right, then.”
Should we start tallying up my achievements?
I was pretty sure dozens of subjects had been caught in the blast.
I opened the system window.
–TL Notes–
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