Conversation
“I mean, he-.”
Suddenly, I was pulled over and hugged from the back by a strong strength. The firm arms tightened around my body to the point of it hurting. No, it really hurt?
“It hurts, loosen up a bit!”
I knew you were alarmed, but this was too-.
“Ugh, hey!”
My body was lightly raised, I was carried over Yoohyun’s shoulder. I tried to resist in my own way, but it didn’t work at all. Obviously.
“Yoohyun! Peace!”
Putting aside that little brother, Peace was just staring at me. He was following after us, frowning hard. Even though he wasn’t fully grown, the four legs stretched out long and the mane and tail became abundant, so it was cool. The horn was more sparkly, and the long canines were sharp.
It really was a heartwarming sight, but.
“Let me down! I know I made you worry, but let’s talk it out, talk!”
“…What more would we say here.”
A voice that was tightly suppressing anger replied.
-Keureureung!
And Peace agreed? …It was a happy thing that they had become friendlier while I was gone, but Peace, dad is being dragged away by force. The other person was my younger brother, but it was undeniably kidnapping. But where were we going? It seemed like it was toward the seashore.
“Yoohyun, I’ll explain it all to you. Calm down and let me go.”
“Shut up before I shut your mouth for you!”
Right after the hysterical shout, I heard the sound of him grinding his teeth.
It was dumbfounding.
I did know that he would be really alarmed because I had suddenly disappeared. Since I would’ve been shocked if it were me, too. Still, he wasn’t even listening to what I had to say.
……He probably wouldn’t actually shut me up for real.
“Just listen this one time. Truthfully, I-.”
“Hyung, do you really want to see me go crazy?”
Though you already didn’t seem normal.
“This is enough!”
“I mean, what…”
“Putting aside the things outside of the dungeon! But this, exactly what… once might be a coincidence, but this is the second time! Why do weird things happen whenever hyung goes into a dungeon?!”
It was so, from Yoohyun’s point of view. Since he didn’t know I secretly went into dungeons. I had stepped into dungeons exactly twice, but the first time, a monster outside of the rank popped out and the next time, I suddenly disappeared.
It was enough to go crazy.
“I’ll expla-.”
“No need.”
Come on, let’s talk.
“I-.”
“This is the last time. Stop talking.”
It was mood like he really would shut me up if I talked any more. For now, should I quietly follow along and then bring it up once he calmed down?
The sound of waves came close and Yoohyun stopped walking.
-Geueuoo
I heard something like a repressed groan. Was it a monster?
“I even thought that it would work out if I put up with it a bit. Since hyung was establishing yourself well on your own. Now it’s also past the point I can handle. So it’s right for me to restrain myself.”
The words were quite praiseworthy, but his actions were different.
“It’s right, but as expected, I can’t.”
Yoohyun finally put me down. Peace came to my side and rubbed his thick neck against my hip.
-Geureureung
How did he suddenly get this big? When I searched the surroundings while I petted Peace, I saw a monster whose four legs were cut off. It was this dungeon’s boss monster. The head that was similar to that of an eagle opened its beak from time to time and coughed out groans.
Why did he leave it alive?
“So I’m going to put it that hyung died here.”
“……What?”
“Since I can’t do what I want with a hyung who is alive. There’s too many things involved for me to handle. Though my reputation would probably hit rock bottom if I say I couldn’t protect one companion in a D-Rank dungeon.”
“…It’s not to the level of your reputation hitting rock bottom, but that you’ll also receive suspicion.”
It wasn’t even a newbie, but an S-Rank combat Hunter with 3 years of work experience losing a colleague in a D-Rank dungeon – did that make sense? Even as a joke, it wasn’t funny.
“And what about the consequences? Like you said, there’s a lot of things left open.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The guild leader guy spit out irresponsibly. He was like a guy who had thrown away his life even with it all figured out[1]. Did I raise the kid wrong?
At any rate, it seemed like he had calmed down a little, so I should try to pacify him.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? If you make a mistake, Haeyeon could fall instead of MKC. It’s a bigger issue than kidnapping.”
“Hyung doesn’t need to pay it any mind. Still, I have to decrease the suspicion, so I prepared things like that.”
Like that? What… the monster?
“To make it certain, it would be good to cut off an arm or leg, but I don’t think I can go that far. Still, there needs to be bloodstains or a piece of flesh. The Sea Rutum isn’t big enough to swallow a person whole, so they rip them up and eat them with their beak.”
Yoohyun calmly explained. I didn’t want to agree with the assessment that my younger brother was a crazy guy this way. Still, since he said he couldn’t cut my arm or leg, it did seem like he was less crazy.
I hugged Peace’s neck and stepped back. Peace might have also felt that the atmosphere was seriously grave, because he was slightly tense.
“Don’t think of laying a hand on me.”
“Sorry. I have painkillers, so it won’t hurt. And you can recover right away with a high rank potion.”
“If you’re sorry then don’t do it! I mean, I said I would explain? And besides, you think it’s okay to do whatever as long just my body is safe? What, I should be thankful if I get forced protection? I was thinking we were only just getting along better, but now you’re saying we shouldn’t even talk properly for the rest of our lives and live indifferently?”
“Anyways hyung doesn’t have any intention of accepting me.”
“…What?”
What was this now.
“I was the idiot for expecting something. Or should I say I didn’t have shame? Hyung probably only wanted to quickly and safely prepare the groundwork.”
“No, I don’t get what you’re talking about at all.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Hyung was hiding everything from the start. The magic beast trainer skill, is it really true that you got it at 10 levels? It’s weird starting from when you immediately said you would raise the baby Horned Flame Lion as soon as you saw it. The food costs aren’t a couple of cents and even if it wouldn’t be much of a burden for me, that you would take it without thinking it over, isn’t like hyung at all.”
That… was true. No matter how cute and lovable he was, there was no reason to immediately try to raise a pet for whom ten million won wasn’t even the body price, but the price of one meal. On top of that, I was an F-Rank Hunter who was living all that time as a normal petit bourgeois and had just Awakened. I should’ve waved my hands and been like ‘oh no, I can’t raise it’ as soon as I heard the food costs.
When I couldn’t say anything, Yoohyun’s gaze became even chillier.
“Exactly what was there that you told me truthfully and honestly? On top of that, hyung wasn’t taken aback at all over disappearing today. About the skills at least, I tried to bear it. Hiding your own skills to a certain amount is something that’s common if you’re a Hunter, and there’s no need to make an exception even if we’re family.
But things like what happened today, that I couldn’t even raise a finger against, that I couldn’t understand at all.”
Yoohyun turned his gaze to the side. I also reflectively looked to the same place.
It was the forest that was horrifically destroyed so that you couldn’t even guess the original appearance.
“……There’s no reason I could endure that.”
The justification that I would explain it all only stuck in my throat[2]. I had to say something, though.
“Is there anything else that was suspicious?”
“……I don’t know. Since hyung told me you love me, ever since then, continuously. At first, I was just excited and pleased. It’s weird starting from the fact that you suddenly told me you were sorry. Still, I just pretended I didn’t know, since it was a good thing. Because, it seemed like we had gone back to before.”
“Yoohyun.”
“You seemed like the hyung before our relationship got bad, but you also seemed like a completely different person. I don’t know.”
Even if we were distant for several years, it seemed like family was family. I didn’t know that Yoohyun was feeling that clear of a sense of difference. I had thought it would be enough if I said I was sorry first, if I was of help in various ways.
It seemed like I had thought wrong.
“It’s true that there was a lot I hid. Like you guessed, I was thinking of growing Peace since I first saw him. For the Awakening skill, it’s true that it’s once per month, but it’s not simple Awakening, but optimized. Yerim was originally expected to be stat rank A~S. The probability of becoming A-Rank was higher, so you could say that I made her into an S-Rank.”
I swallowed a sigh and continued speaking.
“I’ve even secretly gone into dungeons. And I brought Chirpie over from those dungeons. I have an A-Rank hiding skill, and I can share some of my skills too. I have poison, curse, and fear resistance, too.”
“……I knew about the poison.”
“You knew?”
“Because Hunter Bak Yerim read the Bricks’ D-Rank Hunter’s memory. The memory that he thought it was weird that no matter how much he searched, there wasn’t a detoxification item, but still the Watchman’s Fruit item didn’t work.”
“In addition, it’s L-Rank.”
“The painkillers wouldn’t work then.”
“Turns out I can turn off the skill.”
“……The resistance skill?”
“Yeah. If you tell a passive type to turn off twice in succession, it turns off. Though normally, there’s no reason to turn them off.”
“You must have turned it off when you got drunk.”
Sharp[3] guy. I was the one in the wrong for trying to deceive a guy like that.
“I have skills that doubles dungeon reward items, and doubles attack skills. It’s pretty useless to me though. My stats are still F and I don’t have attack skills.”
“…Hyung’s status window is really unusual.”
“I know, right? Even though I was honest, it should be hard to believe.”
A huff of laughter came out on its own. Yoohyun also quirked his lips slightly.
“The skill sharing is only possible while in contact. The standby time for usage is 15 days.”
I left out the My Brat and Our[4] Kid that couldn’t have its effect known. Also the awkward-to-explain Last Repayment and Lauchtas’ Natural Enemy. I wanted to refreshingly spill about the regression too, but.
[˙⌒˙ >>∞<< ˙=˙ ☞ ˙≠˙]
A message to close my mouth popped up. Don’t speak about infinity symbol. It probably meant the regression. Then again, if I told him about even that, too much information about the system would be exposed.
“And me disappearing a while ago is related to the system manufacturers.”
“The system manufacturers?”
Yoohyun had an expression that was shocked. Finally his face was loosening a little.
“Somehow I came to help the system manufacturers. Even though I want to tell you in detail, I can’t. I’m not allowed to. Still, I wanted to tell you, so I asked them to send you a message. It’s the consonants in ‘system’. Please send it now.”
Yoohyun’s gaze went toward the air in front of him. It seemed like the message window had popped up. It was a hugely taken aback expression.
“So…… there really are people-like things that made it?”
“Turns out there are. Isn’t it weirder if it suddenly appeared naturally?”
“That’s true but……”
“This is something I’m only telling you, with permission. It’s a secret to other people. You can’t ever tell anyone.”
For a moment, there were no words. Still, my brother’s complexion became even brighter.
“Are hyung’s skills also related to the system?”
“Not all of them. I said I couldn’t tell you in detail. Still, they’re really not normal skill states.”
“……Yeah. No, but why hyung of all people? They’re not making you do anything dangerous?”
“It’s not dangerous. It’s the same as what I’m already doing.”
Since it was just gathering S-Ranks. Currently, you were the most dangerous, younger brother.
Suddenly I thought of Water Droplet’s advice to be careful of high rank Awakened People. Goodwill could become violence; it was exactly that.
“If you have anything else you’re curious about, ask me. Don’t hold it inside again.”
After a short silence, a wilting voice replied.
“……I’m sorry. I complained that I couldn’t trust hyung’s words, but it was actually the opposite.”
“No. If it were me, I wouldn’t have been in my right mind with today’s matter either. And it was the truth that I hid various things. Peace, I’m sorry to you too. You were really alarmed, right? I didn’t think they would take me that suddenly.”
-Gareureung
Peace who rumbled while looking back and forth between me and Yoohyun, suddenly became smaller. No, he became younger. It wasn’t that he got smaller, but that it was just the appearance when he was young.
[2nd Rank Unicorn subspecies – Horned Flame Lion(Juvenile) Peace
Current stat rank C]
The status window also said ‘juvenile’ and he became C again.
“Peace, you…”
-Kkiang!
He scratched my leg with his front legs, asking to be held. Hey punk, could you have possibly.
“Did you grow to an adolescent but purposely stayed as a juvenile?”
-Gyareureureu
He had on an innocent expression that said ‘I do not know anything at all’. When I held him like he wanted, he wagged his tail.
“When did he get big?”
“A bit after hyung disappeared.”
Then it wasn’t that he grew after catching monsters. Was he really purposely not growing? From just when?
Just in case, I opened Peace’s My Brat skill status window.
[Time required for adult transformation(71:22)]
71 hours?! But there was definitely over a hundred hours left? Even after staring at it for over 1 minute, the time didn’t decrease. Then, normally it was the same as ever; was it possibly due to the training? Even after the skill’s application ended, I played often with Peace.
I should check after going home.
“Is there some problem?”
“No. But why didn’t Peace grow until now? Did he get a related skill?”
“I don’t know about skills, but if he gets bigger, he wouldn’t be able to be held by hyung. You said he likes being held.”
Just because of that?
“Still, Peace, show that you’re becoming an adult.”
-Kkiang
If there really was a training effect, then he might finish growing before the skill standby time ended. I was already a little sad.
I petted Peace as I looked at my brother. As soon as our eyes met, he was embarrassed. Whew, okay. If you calculated it out, it was my fault. When I thought of how uneasy he was all this time, I felt sorry.
“I’ll tell you this ahead of time, but the person I trust the most in the world is you, Yoohyun. To the point that I would think there must be some reason even if you were a danger to my life. Even from now on, that won’t change.”
There was no reason for that to change, unless someone died instead of me and revived or regressed.
“So don’t be concerned or worried about it. You can interfere. You’re my brother. Of course, you can’t do something too excessive. If you’re excessive about it, I’ll get mad. The same for confining. You can’t.”
“……Hyung.”
Yoohyun came towards me and hugged me. Peace, who was stuck between us, must have felt suffocated because he let out a small ‘kkiing’.
“If you need any help, tell me anytime. Don’t do too much.”
“Don’t worry. There’s no reason to do too much.”
I just had to do the task the system people gave me. I shouldn’t increase the work.
[1] lit. sth like ‘put [aside] the food that is past being done and was already even set on the table, and throwing away his life’.
[2] lit. ‘only rolled on top of my tongue’ but I think this is the general meaning?
[3] lit. ‘ghost-like’ which you use when sb is really proficient at sth, apparently, according to the krn dict, but which I’ve only ever heard my mom use when she thought sb realized/noticed sth that she didn’t expect them to catch or that should’ve been hard to catch.
[4] after thinking abt it, I realized I’ve been using ‘our’ more often that I would’ve thought, and that it actually doesn’t sound that weird in eng, so I’m changing this to the lit. tl of ‘Our Kid is This Amazing