Chapter 799: A Stranger (3)
– Kyaaaang!
The first to wake up was Peace. In his cub form, he found his own way to the drawing room and immediately threw himself at me.
“Yeah, Peace. Are you hurt anywhere?”
– Grrrnn, kyaang.
I stroked Peace while watching Seong Hyunjae. He saw our Peace and did not react much at all. Even though Peace was this cute. Apparently, he was not the type who particularly liked animals.
Next, Liette woke up and came into the drawing room with Yerim slung over her shoulder. Almost at the same time, Chief Song opened his eyes too.
“Chief Song! I’ll explain everything!”
“…Pardon?”
“Oh, he looks exactly like Mr. Bureaucrat. Doesn’t seem like an actual human, though.”
Liette said it while laying Yerim down on the sofa. Her gaze was fixed on No. 71. Chief Song also looked at No. 71.
“Last time, it was certainly… in Hunter Han Yuhyun’s form.”
“No, that’s, you see!”
“What, so it turns into your sweetie? I thought you loved your brother the most, but your heart’s changed already?”
“It was Y–Yuhyun! I just changed it for a little while! So…”
– It is the person Han Yujin wanted to hire as a butler.
Ru Ga Pheya butted in for no reason.
Aaaaagh.
After hearing that, Liette nodded and said, “Noah used to do housework for me too.”
“So you didn’t want your little brother waiting on people, so you changed him into Mr. Bureaucrat? I get it~.”
“That’s not it, Chief Song!”
“It’s all right. I also believe my form is preferable.”
“I absolutely did not want to order you around, Chief Song!”
“Please feel free to make use of me in the future as well.”
Chief Song got up from the bed and spoke calmly. Before I could even figure out how to fix this, Yuhyun and Yerim woke up too.
“Are you two all right—”
“Apparently Honey wanted to keep his brother all to himself, so he made Mr. Bureaucrat his butler instead!”
“Hey! Liette!”
Why would you blurt out something like that without any context!
“Before Chief Song Taewon, it was me.”
“I figured~.”
Even Seong Hyunjae joined in.
Wait. Seriously, wait a second!
That made it sound like I wanted to make some man I had just met into my butler!
…
Even though it was true.
Why the hell had I done that? Had my desire to capture and order around a kind transcendent been that strong?
“Um… it’s okay, Mister. I understand.”
…
Yerim, your expression is screaming, “Wow. Oh my god,” though.
At this rate, there was a one hundred percent chance this would make it all the way to Hyunah–ssi and Soyeong–ssi, and then I would be teased to death. They would both immediately shout, “I want to see it too!”
“That’s right, it’s okay, hyung. You care about me a lot, so I think that’s just how it happened.”
Yuhyun comforted me in a calm voice. But none of them probably understood why this had happened at all. As I checked the state of Yuhyun’s magic power, I explained this space to everyone.
“So it really does reveal your desires—”
“I said that’s not it. Hey, Liette, if you were the owner here, Noah–ssi would pop out, so what are you even talking about?”
“I think I’d like Bunny Bunny Bear to show up. It’d be cute~. But if it’s the person I cherish most… these days, would it be Sanho?”
– I’d be Yerim too!
Sanho squeaked and kissed Yerim on the cheek. Hearing that made me curious about the others too. For Yuhyun, it would obviously be me. Would it be me for Myungwoo too? These days, he had gotten pretty close to Rookie. Noah–ssi would maybe be… Liette. I could not even guess for Chief Song. Still, he and I had gotten a lot closer, so maybe I would appear? Or one of the people from the Awakening Management Office? For Soyeong–ssi, would it be Noah, or Liette?
“Let’s eat and rest here until Rookie contacts us. There’s food in the dining room over there.”
I also had the food I had stocked away beforehand.
“Seong Hyunjae–nim prepared the meal.”
When I had hesitated to leave Yuhyun, he had offered to do it for me. He really was considerate…
Hm?
“Mister, did you make another bet or something while we were out?”
“What happened between you and Hunter Seong Hyunjae?”
Yerim and Chief Song were both looking at me strangely. What? Why?
“What do you mean, what happened? Chief Song, you know Seong Hyunjae–nim?”
“…Han Yujin–ssi?”
“There were certain circumstances.”
Seong Hyunjae opened his mouth. Yerim raised her voice, asking what had happened. Yuhyun lightly wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“Hyung, are you all right?”
“Nothing happened? I didn’t even lose consciousness. I rolled around a bit, so I might have some bruises—”
Bang!
A loud sound rang out.
Startled, I looked back and saw Chief Song’s fist slammed hard into the wall. Seong Hyunjae stood in front of him.
“How could you possibly do something like…!”
Without so much as blinking, Seong Hyunjae looked at Chief Song.
Why all of a sudden?
“Chief Song!”
When I tried to step between them, Yuhyun held me back. What the hell was going on?
“Seong Hyunjae–nim is on our side! He even said he’d help us, and he’s a good person! He’s nice!”
“So he says.”
Seong Hyunjae smiled, his eyes curving. Chief Song’s jaw tightened. No, Chief Song was not the kind of person who acted like this!
“He is suspicious, but even while everyone was unconscious, he stayed perfectly behaved! I’m safe too—”
“You are not safe.”
Chief Song spoke in a low, heavy voice. Even as he stepped back, he kept his cold gaze on Seong Hyunjae. Seong Hyunjae lightly brushed stone dust off his shoulder and arm. A brief silence passed.
“And there you have it.”
Seong Hyunjae said.
Have what? What am I supposed to be seeing?
Yerim and Liette turned to look at me. Yerim hesitated helplessly for a moment before speaking.
“Mister, for now… just call him Seong Hyunjae–ssi.”
“Uh… okay.”
Chief Song still looked angry. Yerim’s gaze toward Seong Hyunjae was not exactly friendly either. Even Liette had an oddly uncomfortable expression on her face.
I did not understand.
Did Seong Hyunjae and Chief Song know each other? Even Yerim and Liette too…? What on earth…
“…Ugh.”
My vision swam a little. Yuhyun and Peace looked at me worriedly. The jellyfish floated up. I could not hear her voice properly. It kept cutting in and out.
– That is why he is still unstable.
Ru Ga Pheya waved her tentacles.
What was she talking about?
“Mister! We’ll eat on our own, so you should go take a walk or something with Hunter Han Yuhyun… I mean, with him.”
“…With Yuhyun?”
“It’s been a long time for you, right? You can catch up. I’m sure you have a lot you want to say.”
That was true, but still.
Yuhyun also told me we should go outside.
“Then… No. 71. Listen to Yerim. Only Yerim.”
I had no idea what kind of prank Seong Hyunjae or Liette might pull, and with Chief Song, the same face made things a little awkward. I was uneasy about leaving Seong Hyunjae behind in this atmosphere, but for now I left the drawing room. It also seemed like they all knew each other anyway…
“Does everyone know Seong Hyunjae–ssi except me? Chief Song especially isn’t someone who would threaten people for no reason.”
I spoke quietly as I walked down the corridor with Yuhyun.
“…Yeah. Everyone knows him.”
“You too, Yuhyun?”
“I’ve crossed paths with him a few times.”
Crossed paths? Chief Song had also called him Hunter Seong Hyunjae. Was he an S–Rank Hunter from overseas whom I did not know? Like Hwang Rim, maybe he had been connected to transcendents, or had entered our world as a transcendent’s incarnation and operated in hiding. In that case, ordinary people or mid– to low–rank Hunters might not know him, but he would have been known among the S–Ranks.
“He’s probably close with Chief Song Taewon. I know they often moved together.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know the details. It’s private anyway.”
“Well, that’s true.”
So Chief Song had a friend like that too. The atmosphere had been murderous, but the fact that Chief Song reacted like that meant they were probably especially close. Had Seong Hyunjae done something wrong to Chief Song and run away?
“I don’t know what happened, but I hope the two of them work it out.”
Seong Hyunjae did not seem like that bad a person either. We walked slowly toward the back of the mansion. When I opened the glass door and stepped out, a terrace connected directly to the lake appeared. Gentle ripples shimmered over the water.
“Yuhyun.”
I opened my mouth with my eyes on the surface.
“It really isn’t possible, is it? For you.”
A cool body.
A heart that did not beat.
A body moving painfully, powered only by memories.
A person whose source of existence had already disappeared.
“No.”
The answer came back calmly.
“Before too long, I’ll return to being an ordinary corpse.”
I walked to where the water lapped against the toes of my slippers. I wanted to jump in with a splash and have cold water pour over my head, but instead, I turned around. I faced Yuhyun.
“…I see.”
“Yeah. Then the twenty one year old Han Yuhyun should be all right too.”
“That Yuhyun…”
“Even ordinary people struggle to endure the existence of someone identical to themselves. That’s why dungeons with doppelgangers are considered harder than their rank suggests.”
I had heard that too. Even mid–rank and higher Hunters found them mentally difficult.
“Something like a doppelganger wouldn’t shake me. But if the existence itself is perfectly identical, instead of just being a simple imitation, that’s different.”
“But you seemed fine, Yuhyun…”
“Because I recognize myself as someone dead. But the current Han Yuhyun did not. The moment hyung acknowledged me as the twenty six year old, he had no choice but to lose the ‘Han Yuhyun’ that was himself.”
I reflexively sucked in a sharp breath. My heart pounded hard.
“Lose himself…”
“Hyung, I’m closer to fire as an existence. I’m different from other natural born S–Ranks too. The human being called ‘Han Yuhyun’ is something Han Yujin created, and he can only exist through Han Yujin.”
A faint smile touched Yuhyun’s lips.
“Don’t make that face. It isn’t something sad or unfortunate. Like water flowing together and mixing, like wind stilling and scattering, it’s natural and inevitable. Fire burns and then dies out. If the lamp called Han Yujin disappears. And that lamp is only enough for one person.”
Just as Yuhyun said, my sorrow was probably only because I was human, and familiar with human society. Even though to fire, it was simply the way things were supposed to be.
“Finding another lamp… would be impossible, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah. Even if we found one, in that moment, Han Yuhyun would stop being Han Yuhyun. Someone else, not me.”
A stranger I did not know.
If that happened, then all that would mean was that the original Han Yuhyun had died. In the end, it was impossible. As always, the end was coming.
Splash.
– The water washed in and wet my slippers. Yuhyun held out his hand as if telling me to come over. I grabbed that hand and pulled. I leaned my body back. Though he could have easily supported me and stayed standing, my brother let himself be pulled toward me.
Splash!
Water shot high into the air. Our sinking bodies soon floated back up. Blue Willow Leaves sank all the way beneath the surface. Holding on to me, Yuhyun jumped upward. The breath that had been blocked for a moment burst free. My drenched body felt cool.
“…I wanted to do this.”
After working hard enough that we had some breathing room, and after Yuhyun got into college.
“Go have fun somewhere! Even if it wasn’t overseas, even if it was just the beach!”
We landed back on the terrace. Flames rose in the fire pit between the sunbeds.
“It could have been that simple, couldn’t it? Who cares what happened to the world.”
Even if I, even if we, ended up going wrong.
Even if the transcendent who found the nurturer killed me, and Yuhyun also disappeared as fire.
Even then, I would not have regretted it.
Because it would not have been our fault. Because I had only wanted us to be together.
“Yeah. But I don’t regret it. Not anymore. Because I saw you, hyung.”
Those memories.
“Hyung, I…”
“You lived well too, Yuhyun. You did your best.”
Even if those years had gone crooked, painful, and hard. Han Yuhyun had been desperate, fighting with everything he had to protect what was precious to him. No matter what anyone else said, that was enough.
“I’m okay, so you’re okay too. You made it.”
“…Yeah, hyung.”
I opened my arms and pulled my brother into an embrace. Yuhyun hugged me back.
“I’m going to keep living. I’ll get the twenty one year old Yuhyun back, say goodbye to you, and then keep going. I won’t forget you. I’ll think of you from time to time. I love you always, Yuhyun.”
His body was even colder now from the water. Still…
“Hey, hyung.”
Yuhyun spoke softly.
At the same time—
[Some keyword registration targets are partially invalid.]
A message window popped up.
Keyword?
No way, was it because I had just said I loved him…?
I quickly checked my skill window.
[Han Yuhyun (SS)]
Han Yuhyun’s name had newly appeared on the list of fully influenced targets. SS–Rank. He was clearly different from the Han Yuhyun at the very front.
“Hyung?”
“W–Wait a second.”
[Final Recompense cannot be applied because Han Yuhyun (SS) is deceased.]
…
So even dead people could be registered with a keyword?
Now that I thought about it, among monsters, there were undead types like zombies, ghosts, and vampires. Instead, since dying twice was impossible, it seemed Final Recompense could not be used. I did not want to receive that one anyway.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah. A message came up.”
In any case, the keyword had been applied to the twenty six year old Yuhyun. In other words, it meant I could use My Kid Is The Best on him too. Double stats for an SS–Rank. It might still not be enough against transcendents, but the other side was not in perfect condition either.
“Yuhyun, can you tell me about your skills and titles?”
“…For titles, Lone Raider is SSS–Rank, and Footsteps of Ash and Blessing of Fire are SS–Rank. I have other S–Rank titles too.”
Yuhyun told me about his stats. So his stats rose dramatically when he was alone. True, from around twenty two onward, he had often cleared dungeons by himself… A bitter taste spread through my mouth. I wondered if Liette might have earned the Lone Raider title after Noah–ssi died too.
“How large is the surrounding range?”
“It isn’t that wide. About two hundred meters.”
“Then we can just move out quickly.”
Though unless it was a wide–area skill like Noah–ssi’s, even support would be difficult from that distance. If possible, it would be nice if Noah–ssi could join us, but Liette was still keeping her mouth shut. And she said I could not remove the curse either.
“Wasn’t the ranking battle way too unfair to you? You couldn’t use Solo Action or Footsteps of Ash. Blessing of Fire couldn’t display its full effect either, and because of the safety observers and filming… if it was two hundred meters, Lone Raider wouldn’t have activated either. You didn’t use Blade–Devourer even once!”
“It was mandatory participation anyway. I had to protect you, hyung, so there was no reason for me to go all out in such a meaningless fight when it wasn’t even a dungeon raid.”
“That’s true, but still.”
Even so, that was basically the same as fighting with one or two limbs tied down. Otherwise, of course Yuhyun would have taken first place… To begin with, there were no Hunters stronger than Yuhyun anyway. As for combat type natural born S–Ranks, only Yuhyun and Liette existed. Even if Marisa–ssi had awakened on time, I felt like she would have been a support type.
“…Just looking at your skills tells me how hard it must have been.”
“It wasn’t, hyung.”
“Tell me about yourself too. How you lived.”
“There isn’t much to say… You’ve probably already heard about everything up to when I was twenty. After cleaning up the mess caused by the Awakening Center, I really only cleared dungeons. Haeyeon had fully settled down too, so there was almost nothing I needed to pay attention to.”
Yuhyun said, a little embarrassed, that he had only gone back and forth between home and dungeons. Even when he did filming or interviews once in a while, it was only inside Haeyeon Guild. The fact that he was so rarely seen had added to his mystique and played a part in making him even more popular.
“Sometimes, I went to your place, hyung. To our old place too.”
“I’m going to keep our old place exactly the way it is.”
I talked about myself too. There was so much to say. I laughed as I told him that now even Haeyeon welcomed me. I patted my brother on the shoulder and told him to stop saying he was sorry. We talked about this and that, and since we had fallen into the water anyway, we washed up, dried our clothes, and headed to the dining room.
Thankfully, Chief Song and Seong Hyunjae seemed to have reconciled, because they were sitting at the same table. It looked like everyone had finished eating and was now having dessert. Peace came trotting over to me.
–TL Notes–
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