Chapter 749: Wake Up, Hero (2)
The same message went out through every kind of broadcast and communications channel across the world. Get out of bed. Wake up from your dreams.
[Anyone who is not elderly, infirm, or a young child is asked to remain awake if possible.]
[For at least the next 3 hours, and preferably 5 or more, please do not fall asleep!]
[Anyone can help save the world. Fight off the drowsiness just a little longer.]
Just stay awake for three hours, and you too could become a hero who saved the world. It was a lot easier than learning to lucid dream, and people started jumping in one after another.
“Kindergartners can go to sleep.”
“Mom, I’m starting elementary school now. I’m a big kid. I can stay up.”
“Wake up!”
“I’m awake! I said I’m awake! Hey, are you insane? Why’d you dump water on me?!”
– I was starting to feel left out because I couldn’t lucid dream, but staying awake is easy
└ Same lolllll I tried so hard and still couldn’t do it
└ I’ve got insomnia T_T
– Energy drinks are on sale!
– Okay but who even is Park Hayul?
– Wait, there were three Han brothers? I heard the oldest one showed up
└ Think the oldest is Awakened too, he erased Dragon Breath with his fingertips
└ wtf what kind of family has two S-ranks
└ Three, if SF counts as basically S-rank
– Why does Director Dodam keep getting kidnapped even in dreams
– The Sesung Guild Leader said hi to me!!!111111111111111 I protected the S-ranks11111111
– lolol apparently they’re doing fireworks in real life too!
Emergency programming sprang up to explain and reenact what had happened in the dream world. Events and promotions started popping up everywhere. There were still people who wanted to go back to sleep out of curiosity, but once word spread that only a small group with permission could enter the place where Han Yujin and the others were, most gave up.
Now that people were awake, they started swapping stories, comparing what they’d experienced, and reveling in the chaos together. A festival had broken out in the real world, and more and more people woke from their dreams and merged into that bright, excited tide.
“What’s going on?”
Park Hayul kept tilting his head in confusion.
This world had been built from the dreams of our world. From people’s dreams. Mari had drawn dreams into the sleeping sea of the Mermaid Queen and made them real, and Park Hayul had inherited that power.
Which meant the root of Park Hayul’s power was dreams.
And that meant the fewer people were dreaming, the weaker Park Hayul became.
‘He’s still got the power contained in the seed of a Transcendent.’
But a huge part of that Transcendent power had probably been spent creating this world by pulling in dreams. And the seed hadn’t even fully sprouted yet.
It would be impossible to wake literally everyone in the world. Some people wouldn’t hear the news. Some wouldn’t care.
But most people would want to help.
I believed that.
“Ugh… still, it’s fine!”
After grumbling to himself, Park Hayul jerked his head up.
“It doesn’t matter! You’re the only one I can attack anyway, hyung. All I have to do is let the monsters loose! The monsters I already made won’t disappear. And they’re strong.”
He sounded completely confident.
And he had a point. They looked strong. A few S-rank monsters seemed to be mixed in there too. If they attacked like this, the castle walls would come down in no time.
“Meanwhile, the Hunters on your side got weaker, didn’t they?”
“That’s right. The mana’s unstable.”
“Then I’ll give you one more chance, hyung.”
Park Hayul held out a hand to me.
“Come with me. Let’s make a new contract. As long as you don’t run away, I promise I’ll never hurt you, hyung. That solves everything, doesn’t it? I never meant to hurt you in the first place.”
Like that was supposed to sound reasonable.
“Park Hayul.”
“Yes, hyung.”
“I’m going to stay where I want to stay. No matter where that is.”
“But I’d treat you really well!”
“It wouldn’t matter who made the offer. Even the Sesung Guild Leader offered to be my guardian.”
And I turned him down.
Young Chaos had offered too. I turned that down as well.
“S-rank, Transcendent, some god that might be above them, whatever. I’ll live my own life my own way.”
“…You’re so stubborn, hyung.”
Park Hayul pouted.
He still didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. But even if he did, I didn’t think it would matter. He was the kind of person who put himself first and wanted things his way no matter what.
“Then I guess I’ve got no choice. I’ll just tear everything apart and drag you back.”
Low growls rumbled through the monster army. I looked over the field spread beneath the moonlit sky.
Just how many of them were there?
‘Noah would’ve been perfect for this.’
In a fight like this, Noah would’ve been the best. Liette too, obviously. Noah’s name was still on the influence list, so it couldn’t be that something had gone wrong.
Then what the hell had happened?
Hwang Rim had vanished too, without a word.
Swallowing the disappointment, I turned to the Puppeteer beside me. He gave a small nod, and the mana around us began to ripple. His magic spread outward in an instant. The old Transcendent used himself like a filter, stabilizing the warped mana.
Then—
[Dad, I can use the inventory and all the items now!]
Gyeol’s voice came through my earpiece.
The second I heard that, I pulled out the Lynx Gun from my inventory. Grace had regained her strength, and mana overflowed from the Fountain of Young Mana into the weapon. I aimed at Park Hayul and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The magic bullet grazed past Park Hayul’s hair.
“Ah! Hyung!”
“Take good care of that pretty hair of yours.”
“I am pretty and handsome, aren’t I!”
Park Hayul kept babbling, but he was already pulling the chimera back. He must’ve sensed the mood shifting. But there was no way I was letting go of someone who’d walked right into range on his own. We hadn’t been sitting here waiting for nothing.
“Ancestor, just stop him from teleporting! Gyeol, open the gate!”
[Okay! And Dad!]
“Hello, everyone!”
A bright, cheerful voice rang out.
Emily Spence.
Carried by a Hunter using a flight skill, she landed atop the wall. Right behind her, familiar faces began to appear from inside the castle.
[They’re here!]
Mari’s people.
Emily looked down at the monsters, visibly excited.
“We only get one attack each, right? I’ll stick to support, of course. Still no sign of Noah, I take it?”
“No. He’s safe, but…”
“Then I’ll just have to work harder. Since this is a dream, my cooldown’s gone too.”
She immediately cast a wide-area healing skill. I activated my Teacher skill at the same time, and then—
Boom.
The castle gates opened.
With a deafening roar, two motorcycles shot out beyond the walls. Seong Hyunjae and Moon Hyunah split off in opposite directions and charged straight into the monster army.
“…There are still too many of them!”
Retreating behind the swarm, Park Hayul kept his eyes on me.
Yeah. There were a lot.
Chrrring.
The clear sound of chains rang out. A massive armored bull stepped in front of the much smaller bike. Monsters of every size crowded around it. For a split second it looked like Seong Hyunjae was about to be swallowed whole.
Then—
Crunch!
A golden chain slashed diagonally through the air. It pierced straight through the bull’s head, pulled tight, and Seong Hyunjae used it to lift his bike cleanly upward. The wheels, accelerating even harder, held perfect balance as he rode straight up over the bull’s skull.
– Kooaaaar!
The bull staggered. Monsters surged in. Perched on the highest point, Seong Hyunjae tossed the bike upward and dropped beneath it.
Crack—BOOM!
Lightning struck.
The current exploded down the chain, which ran from the bull’s head deep into the ground. A storm of blinding light swallowed everything around it. Even the bull’s skull blackened and burned. Seong Hyunjae caught the falling bike, swung back onto it, and reeled in the chain. He slid smoothly down the collapsing body of the bull.
“Knew it. Nothing beats being fully Awakened!”
With her full S-rank stats restored, Moon Hyunah tore forward with her great spear leveled ahead of her. Wind gathered around both the bike and the spear tip, splitting the air open and carving a path no one could obstruct. Her speed shot up in an instant. She reached the front line of the monsters in the blink of an eye, laughing as she thrust.
The mana that crashed forward like a storm—
– Kyaaargh!
—tore through everything in front of her.
KWA—BOOM!
The monsters she hit head-on were blown apart, literally shattered. The violent wind flung the blood and gore away before a single drop could touch her. Everything near the path she pierced got sucked into the maelstrom.
Her bike screeched to a stop, and behind it a wide road had been carved clean through the horde.
Nothing remained.
Moon Hyunah clicked her tongue and got off the half-wrecked bike.
“This is why I need a mount. All right, who’s next?”
Her great spear swung with a heavy whoosh, and the monsters flinched back.
But there were still too many of them.
On the ground and in the sky.
“Chief Song!”
Hunters from Chief Song’s division leapt up onto the wall. Chief Song himself stayed inside the perimeter rather than going outside. Instead, he moved to stand in front of me and the Puppeteer. I had Grace, but if Park Hayul ordered a flying monster to snatch me up, I wouldn’t be able to resist. And the Puppeteer, already burning through power stabilizing the mana, needed protection too.
“Air formation C.”
Song Taewon’s command snapped through the noise. It sounded like the name of a formation. The Hunters of his division surrounded me and the Puppeteer, falling into battle positions. As if they’d been waiting for it, the flying monsters swooped in.
Song Taewon looked up.
He didn’t have a flight skill.
But—
“Got it!”
One of the division Hunters hurled a chain tipped with a broad blade. At the same moment, Song Taewon jumped. He planted a foot on the blade and launched himself again, then swung the spear he’d already drawn in a long arc.
Slash!
A flying monster’s head came off clean.
Suspended in midair, he turned every eye toward himself at once.
– Kiiiik!
– Kyargh!
Before he could start falling, a wire shot out. His lightened body ran along the line stretched through the air. Whip—another Hunter below flung a dagger upward. It punched through a monster’s skull and flew toward Song Taewon. While stabbing one of the creatures closing in, he flicked the dagger again with the tip of his foot. It shot downward and buried itself in the neck of a monstrous bird diving in from below.
“Keep it up.”
After glancing toward the ground battle beyond the wall, Song Taewon spoke. Apparently he’d decided the situation below was under control. His division Hunters kept providing perfect footing and fresh weapons. While Song Taewon raced through the air and systematically cut down every flying monster that came near—
“The hottest Dragon Knight around has arrived!”
– Grrrr!
A familiar voice rang out.
Kang Soyeong and Comet.
A black wyvern burst powerfully out of the castle.
“Director Han!”
“Soyeong! You even brought Comet?”
“Yes! Mari unni helped us dream him in! Dragons dream too, you know. They even talk in their sleep!”
Fair point. Just because they were monsters didn’t mean they didn’t dream. Peace sometimes twitched his feet or growled in his sleep too.
“Don’t let Comet get anywhere near Park Hayul!”
It would be hard to explain something like don’t attack a monster more than once. That was why Peace was staying on the wall too.
“This one has arrived as well!”
Shishio shouted, finally able to use a translation item again.
That speech pattern—wow, I actually missed that.
Then Evelyn and Hunters from each guild started showing up one after another. Maybe because it was a dream and relatively safe, support types and healers were mixed in too.
That took care of the monsters.
But Park Hayul was still left.
Even weakened as much as he was, he wasn’t going to be easy.
And with things turning against him, he was clearly starting to think about running.
That wasn’t happening.
“Yuhyun. Yerim.”
Your turn.
The two of them, already standing by, nodded. Yuhyun stepped lightly onto the Blue Willow Leaves, and Yerim rose into the air as well.
“Soyeong, Evelyn, clear them a path!”
Kang Soyeong and Comet drew the flying monsters’ attention. Right after that, Evelyn—buried under layers of support skills from the support Hunters—fired an arrow. The blast of light, like a laser cannon, cut a long path through the middle of the cloud-thick swarm. Through that opening, Yuhyun and Yerim closed in tight on Park Hayul.
“Hyung! If you do this, I can attack too!”
Park Hayul’s shout rang out.
The chimera beneath him reared all three heads savagely.
Rumble!
Water burst from the ground. Underground water connected to a nearby river ran beneath this area.
“Well, taking them hostage would definitely make this easier.”
Since he couldn’t attack them first, Park Hayul shot Yuhyun an irritated glare. Yuhyun didn’t react at all. He pulled out the Ruler’s Sword.
At the same time, Yerim sent a stream of water flying behind Park Hayul. The water rose and froze solid at his back.
Tap.
Yuhyun’s foot brushed lightly off a willow leaf.
“Aah!”
He swung his sword at Park Hayul. Park Hayul barely dodged the blade, and the pillar of ice behind him was sliced clean through. The chimera snarled, and Park Hayul, sprawled awkwardly after falling, shouted,
“One more hit and that’s it!”
[No.]
My voice came through the communicator Yerim had taken with her.
[Yuhyun, how is it?]
“Same as before.”
Yuhyun said it while checking the back of his hand. Park Hayul’s eyes went wide.
“What are you talking about?”
[You can’t hurt my little brother, so I’ll explain in advance. Yuhyun made a contract: if he deliberately attacks you, a black mark appears on the back of his hand. Yuhyun.]
My brother pulled out the contract and showed it to Park Hayul. Park Hayul looked back and forth between the paper and the back of Yuhyun’s hand.
“But he clearly—!”
[Yuhyun didn’t attack you. He cut the ice pillar Yerim made.]
“…What?”
[To Yuhyun, you’re just a random rock lying on the ground. You’re not the target. That’s what it means. When you’re hunting monsters, you don’t worry about whether nearby buildings get smashed, right? You’re not attacking the building on purpose. It’s the same idea. Remember when we made the contract? There was a deliberate intent clause in it. You insisted on that part.]
Shock spread all over Park Hayul’s face.
“T, that works? That’s insane!”
[It does. For my brother.]
For anyone else, it would’ve been difficult.
But Yuhyun could do it.
Because if it had nothing to do with me, he was the kind of person who could assign no value at all to a person, an animal, or an object.
Of course, Park Hayul had kidnapped me and hurt me, so it wasn’t easy for Yuhyun to feel absolutely nothing toward him.
That was why I’d spent all this time smoothing it over.
‘Yuhyun, I don’t feel anything for Park Hayul. So don’t think about him. Just look at me. Just think about your hyung.’
‘Okay, hyung.’
Look only at me. Think only about me.
For Yuhyun, that was easy.
Which was exactly why—
“This is cheating!”
Park Hayul shouted.
Yerim drew in more water, and Yuhyun tightened his grip on his sword.
–TL Notes–
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