Chap 137 Snowfall (1)
‘I should have brought my clothes to the bathroom.”
But you never really do that, especially when the bathroom is connected to your bedroom. I had a large towel, but it would seem strange to hide my chest. I did that anyway.
“Can you go out so I can change?”
“Why?”
My little brother looked me up and down as if to find the wound. It was a weird request since I washed him and went to public baths together when we were young.
“I feel like it. You know, an inferiority complex?”
It was true that my body was less developed than my precocious little brother. I had nothing to be embarrassed about, but he was too much.
“You don’t look so.”
“Anyway, turn around, at least. Irin, you go somewhere too.”
Irin went to Yoohyun, but he did not move a muscle. I must have raised his suspicions, so I went to the closet using my towel as protection. I wore my pajama top first, trying not to disturb my wound since his gaze followed me everywhere. Yerim has gifted them to me, but I had never worn them. What was with the baby chick embroidery?
“Since everyone couldn’t have used gate stones, did you come alone? What happened to Peace and Yerim? It was an S class dungeon.”
I asked, turning around after I finished wearing my pajamas. I could not help frowning since it meant that Yoohyun had been irresponsible as a Guild leader.
“Yerim Park told me to get out after knowing what was going on, and Peace probably felt the same. Since the information is reliable and there are experienced guild members with 2 S classes, it would be all right. Anyway, the dungeon fits Yerim Park’s skillset.”
That calmed me down.
“Yerim told you to get out so easily? She would also have tried to come out.”
“We fixed that peacefully by rock, paper, and scissors.”
“That was the right decision.”
It was nice that they agreed without a fight. However, Yerim would have been at a physical disadvantage, and her hands might have made it easy for him to know.
“It ended smoothly after you left.”
I took an old phone out of the drawer. At least I had this since my data probably could not be recovered. I should have made back up files of the pictures and videos.
“There were no problems?”
“Yes. The dungeon break ended well, too.”
Yoohyun seemed not to have contacted Hyunjae Sung or others yet. I sent a text message to Hyunjae Sung while paying close attention to Yoohyun.
[Please don’t say anything to Yoohyun.]
The answer came back quickly.
[^^]
What was this? What was he trying to do? A simple emoticon made me want to curse.
[Please don’t say anything. Really.]
I already had convinced Noah and Taewon Song’s phone must be as dead as mine. He would not say anything if I managed to convince him later. Therefore, I just needed to sew Hyunjae Sung’s mouth. I literally wanted to do so.
“Who are you sending text messages to?”
Yoohyun approached as I received Hyunjae Sung’s reply. I managed to hastily press the power button as Yoohyun snatched my phone away. He spoke in a sour voice.
“There had to have been problems.”
“I’m fine. Isn’t that all we need?”
“You seem pale.”
“I’m tired.”
Yoohyun nodded at me as I said I wanted to go to sleep but turned on my phone anyway. Well, the phone’s locked, so…
“Hey! How did you know my unlock pattern?!”
“You unlocked it in front of me a few times. I remembered it then.”
“Why do you remember such things? You can’t just see someone else’s phone without their permission! Give it!”
I tried to take it away from him to no avail. I just made myself more tired. As I caught my breath from that little movement, Yoohyun’s eyes narrowed as he seemed to have checked Hyunjae Sung’s messages.
Damn, everything went to hell. My spine chilled a bit.
“Hey, chick!”
Please use your teleport skill for your father. I heard a peeping noise from the living room and saw him slowly fly to me. However, my little brother caught me before I could escape. Well, I also did not know if he could teleport me.
“Hey.”
“Hyunjae Sung just did some outlandish things again.”
“He was asking if you were all right.”
“Huh?”
“You have a fever.”
Did I? I was not aware of it. Yoohyun checked my body temperature and made me sit on the bed. The chick sat on my lap. Hey, can you take your father to another place? But if I disappeared from here, more mayhem would ensue.
“Your body is that of a civilian. If you push It too far, there will be consequences.”
Yoohyun spoke, drying my hair. I was reminded of the past, even though our positions have switched.
“I didn’t do much.”
“The monsters were at least A class, and you should have escaped instead of jumping in. Leader Song and Noah should have been more than enough, so you shouldn’t have gone in.”
“Yeah…that was irrational of me.”
I had not needed to act, but I managed to protect civilians from flying poisonous insects and underground monsters. If I had not served as bait, at least tens of them would have escaped outside the barricade. We also would have probably lost the baby wolf.
‘Should I act as bait from now on if a dungeon breaks?”
I did not want to, but my conscience will suffer if I ignore them. I could save so many lives… Damn, at least dungeons are being managed well enough, so there is little chance of breaks happening. If Hayan Seok manages to develop the gate location seeking device, there will be no more undiscovered dungeon breaks.
Ms. Hayan, please hurry. I really do not want more attention as I had more than enough now.
“Turn off the poison resistance for your medicine.
Yoohyun took two pills from the inventory.
“What are they?”
“Fever reducer and painkiller. I use them for magic overloads, but they are effective for common fevers.”
“Aren’t they expensive? We have countertop medicine in the kitchen.”
“They don’t cost much.”
Yoohyun thinks that a million dollars for a meal is manageable, so I had little comfort. Medicine relevant to magic used by S class hunters will go at least by millions.
I used a magic potion instead of water to swallow them. As they were for hunters, the effects showed immediately, and I felt lighter. I really had a fever as my condition improved considerably. Also, I began to fall asleep fast enough that I could not turn the poison resistance skill up again.
“Nice dreams, Hyung”
I fell asleep with Yoohyun’s faint voice in my ears. You bastard.
* * *
-Peep, peep.
The little bird sitting on Yoojin Han’s chest sang softly. Yoohyun looked down on his brother’s deep sleep.
One of the pills was a painkiller and fever reducer, but the other was a sleep inducer. It could be obtained from S class dungeons, and expert hunters would use them for sleep when their senses had become too sensitive after completing a dungeon.
The pill was known to relax the body and have psychological effects for deep sleep, but Yoohyun had not used it after he had bought the medicine. While he was allured by an intensive rest, he did not like his body to be out of his control.
“You shouldn’t take them so easily.”
Yoohyun gently admonished his brother, but he would have been more bothered if Yoojin had suspected and resisted him. Yoohyun pressed the call button, and the call was answered shortly.
“What happened?”
[Why are you asking me this instead of your brother?]
“He’s asleep.”
[You must have put him to sleep.]
Yoohyun did not comment on Hyunjae Sung’s piercing words.
“What happened to Taewon Song?”
[I wonder how you were in that place.]
A question answered his question, and Yoohyun responded indifferently.
“I’m asking because I was not there.”
[Can you send an S class scallion from your kitchen? I want to see one.”
“What are you talking about?”
[If you really weren’t there, there must have been an S class scallion.]
Yoohyun’s brow furrowed in Hyunjae Sung’s strange words.
“Tell me about Taewon Song since I need to decide what to do in the future.”
[You don’t have to worry about chief Song.]
Hyunjae Sung continued leisurely.
[He could not protect Yoojin against me. That would firmly fix Yoojin Han’s place for Taewon Song.]
He would have been disturbed to see a sheep playing with a wolf and wonder if the sheep was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. However, a sheep is a sheep even if he was taken in by a wolf giving a sheepdog‘s protection.
[Of course, since a wolf is a wolf even if he’s pretending to be a sheepdog, a sheep could get hurt during protection.]
Maybe I should send leader Song a comforting message. Yoohyun opened his mouth as he let Hyunjae Sung’s low laugh pass.
“What did my brother ask you to not say to me?”
[So, he did keep it a secret from you.]
Yoohyun breathed softly to control his anger as he heard Hyunjae Sung’s pitying voice. He knew something that Yoohyun did not. That bothered him to no end, and the back of his neck stiffened.
However, even if it was possible, Yoohyun could not remove Hyunjae Sung. That bastard held some meaning to Yoojin, and if he disappeared, his brother would push himself even further than he had been up to now.
Since Hyunjae Sung was efficient and useful, Yoohyun had to tolerate him if he was cooperated with Yoojin.
“Please tell me.”
There was a coherent reply this time to Yoohyun’s subdued voice.
[His chest wound.]
“A wound?”
[It was a scar that a B class healing skill was useless on.]
If it were a flesh wound, healing skills lower than a B class would remove it cleanly. So, it was not an ordinary wound.
Yoohyun unconsciously clenched his teeth as he reached out to Yoojin.
-Peep!
The little bird pecked at his hand as if to let his nurturer sleep. The chick rolled and moved right next to Yoojin’s face and peeped as if to complain.
-Peep! Peep!
“Be quiet.”
Yoojin would not wake easily, but if that chick incessantly peeped, who knows what would happen. Yoohyun tapped the little beak and unbuttoned his brother’s pajama top. There was a wound, as Hyunjae Sung had said. It was a cut near the heart, a recent one he had not seen.
Yoojin frowned and picked up a high-class potion to try, but even that could not remove the little scar.
“What is this?”
[Yoojin Han seems to have found something fun again, but he’s keeping it a secret for now. I only know that it has something to do with a magic stone. If you concentrate, you can feel a faint aura of the magic stone from the wound.]
Yoohyun placed his fingertips on the wound and concentrated as Hyunjae Sung had said. There was faint, strange magic.
He remembered that the monsters would only rush at Yoojin. Monsters are more aware of magic stones compared to humans. The magic stone detector was made using a monster’s skill. So, to monsters Yoojin Han was
‘a prey with an F class body, but with a high-class magic stone…”
If Yoohyun could feel a faint aura, the magic stone was not a low to middle class magic stone. Even an S class hunter who is sensitive to magic had difficulties knowing the magic stone in a monster. Even an S class stone could not be felt if it was deeply embedded.
So, if the aura was anything to go by, the magic stone was at least an S class, maybe stronger…
“What are you trying to do, Hyung?”
Yoohyun ended the call uneasily, and the phone fell on the bed with a thud.
* * *
My view was filled with white snowflakes falling when I opened my eyes. It was then that I knew this was a dream, as snow fell incessantly, and white branches reached out endlessly.
A tree from which snow fell.
‘I knew I would see this sooner or later.’
Maybe because of my fear resistance skill, I had seldom dreamed of my little brother before my return.
However, my fear resistance level was lowered and dreams attacked you viciously as soon as you lower your guard.
I will probably get no sleep for a while. They had said that the skill would last for about four days, and since it was going to be twice as effective, it might last longer. I had so much to do and now everything was going haywire. Taewon Song, it is too much. Can you cancel the skill?
‘At least this place isn’t too bad.’
Since it was a dream, the place would be different from reality, but I looked around to confirm in advance. While I could not move my body, I could shift the view. The snowfields were wide and barrenly empty. I seemed to be standing in the middle of a snowy field in the middle of nowhere.
I saw something then. A body that seemed too small was between the thick roots of the tree.
I take my words back. It was a nightmare. But I could not take my eyes off it, as I would in a common nightmare.
Proofread by Para, edits approved/adjusted by Parra