Something broken in the clockwork - Moreta - 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서

Chapter 1 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You are looking harshly at Suk Simyeong, ordering the people to monitor Han Yoojin to ensure he is not getting caught up in some dangerous situation again. The World's Edge guild needs to protect him from getting involved with anyone like those dungeon killers ever again. Find someone trustworthy to get closer to him and keep him safe.

Nononono noNo NO NO!

Blood and flame, black-purple-red, hardened into the long shape, point piercing deeply into the scales, limbs reinforced for greater impact.

Dragonscales parting under the fine point, the weapon-blood, hardened out of the… is digging into the enemy. Enemy. Dragon. Another head, jaw displaced by the blow, flame setting on fire the poison that could seep out, pushing back into the dragon's throat.

You are forcing yourself to turn around, because your will is about to break seeing your dear older brother hurt. But you must stay strong because he will get killed in the dungeon soon if you don't stop him from going in there. You know something out there is out to get him, deep within what connects the dungeons. He can never visit any of them again. So you walk away, directing your subordinates to deposit a large sum of money for your big brother, hoping that it will be enough to, together with his broken legs, keep him away from danger.

The dragon corpse finally falls lifelessly on the rocky ground and Han Yoojin almost doesn't notice it's really dead, trying to rip into the body another time, just so Rauchitas really stays down.

The broken ribs are sticking out as Yoojin digs into the monster, ripping out the mana stone just to ensure this damn lizard stays dead for good.

You must hunt down anyone who dares to harm your dear brother, your only family. They can't get away with trying to do anything to him. But you can't act personally or it will make him a bigger target. But he needs to be safe.

You need to ensure that no one ever will harm him, by any means necessary, because he is the only person in this world who ever could truly matter.

He is the only reason it's even worth trying to save this world. Only reason why you made guild in the first place. Only person to hold your hand and believe in you back when you were a child. Only one to genuinely smile at you. He is your world, and that's why the world is worth saving.

The system message rudely chimes in with the achievement message, listing the rewards for dragon's death. But all of them are useless with Yoohyun gone. He is dead so there is no reason to keep living.

And yet Yoojin can't make it shut up. The Dragonslayer legendary title, 10 gate stones, 5 first-tier enchantment drafts, red dragon sword, WISH STONE, that piercingly pushes itself into the awareness, not allowing itself to be plainly pushed into inventory like rest of the things did. Mythical rating. Yoojin must look at it.

This can't be it.

He hates seeing the rewards, pointless now as he can still feel memories of his brother welling up in another wave, the you must stay away because everyone is after you and it's not safe, entangled with his own love and now the world might not exist anymore because the reason to keep going is already broken.

We were so close as brothers. They meant the world for each other.

Wish. What could fix this divide? Better version of the story, fixed and whole. Wouldn't it be better to start this over?

Yoojin is reaching out to the harsh light of an item ranked beyond what any human so far has ever seen, the crystallized brilliance searing into his senses as he opens his mouth and makes the wish.

“Bring me back to the past, before Yoohyun awakened.”

~~It tastes like blood and ash, with a bitter twinge of poison forgotten in the air.~~

The crystal floods the world with prismatic brilliance and mist of light, forcing Yoojin to close his eyes against the onslaught of too much all over his senses. ~~Something cracks and twists just before everything is gone.~~

You know you can't trust promises of power, but the deal is a necessary risk.

Yoojin blinks rapidly, trying to orient himself with the unexpected weight of the box in his hands. He quickly puts it in the van, ignoring the call of his co-worker when he pulls the phone to check the date and hour.

No. No!

Few seconds before the dungeons break all at once, no more than a few minutes before Yoohyun awakens in the bus on the way from school.

There's no way to get to him in time.

Yoojin abandons the job he can't really remember and runs in what he is certain must be the right direction. He can see the bridges, first, second in the distance. It must be there, the light of the dungeon gate high in the air above the river, is churning and sparkling, uneven, changed, opened up.

He is running. There's no way he could make it, his muscles burn with the strain. The monsters pour out of the gate, and he knows it's happening everywhere.

Death toll in millions.

“No, please. Wait for me, please. Don't leave me.” It's too late, he knows as the flames erupt over there, as his own limbs fill with power he could never have.

And he barely thinks about it as he is stepping on the barely visible leaves, the memories of future-past that never was burning along with his blood, circling in his chest painfully.

He dismissed the system messages without sparing them glance, all too easily reaching for what remains of caretaker's ‘Final Gratitude’ to pile the enhanced limbs together with the boosted stats and willow leaves to meet with his little brother, still so sweet and innocent.

The fire is singing in his veins, painfully churning in his chest and he doesn't think much about the blade in his inventory as he sets it free with an easy cut. It wants to burn and there are monsters right in front of him waiting to be burnt after all.

How dare they ruin his little brother's happiness? How could they break their future? It all could have been so much nicer, more peaceful if the stupid dungeon monsters never came crawling out.

He drops the sword in Yoohyun's hands, because his brother looks so strange without a weapon on him. Still, he doesn't look too scared. But maybe it's because they are together? Maybe because for just a moment longer Yoojin still holds onto power to sweep away everything in his way, even if the timer on those abilities is about to run out, whichever way that interacts with the reversed time.

The pain in his chest only intensifies, but he holds on. Yoohyun is right there, and he is just a child who knows nothing.

“This is happening everywhere. Monsters. We need to help people survive. There are so many monsters in those portals, all over the world. Make sure to never take any mysterious, otherworldly deals, alright?”

The pain burns even higher, like something is crushing him from the inside. He quickly casts all buffs he can on Yoohyun, doing his best to ensure his brother has just a bit more power, before Yoojin's hold on the ability is gone.

The blindingly bright, iridescent darkness invades his vision, making his head feel like it's being crushed.

He has no idea how long ago it was. The system message greets him. He brushes it off.

Yoojin is back home.

Yoohyun is holding his hand.

His little baby Yoohyun is crying.

His chest still hurts and power still burns in his veins.

It's dark outside.

It's been hours.

Notes:

You know that someone sent this dragon into the dungeon where you died, and called it a gift.

Chapter 2 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

He sits up, and an accidental press of his hand dents the sofa with a loud crack.

Yoojin freezes as he realizes that he must still have the increased stats. And he has to be really careful, because they are doubled and that's enough to hurt even his wonderful S-rank brother if he isn't careful. Thankfully it also means that the hug into which his brother clearly put all his strength in did not turn him into a paste.

“Hyung! You're awake!”

The baby-faced student-Yoohyun is still wearing his student uniform, now torn and burnt at the sleeves, with a smudge of dark soot smeared across his cheek. So messy. And the reddened eyes only fill in the image of misery from his little brother.

f*ck .

He's barely back and here he is, making Yoohyun sick with worry all over again. Failed in the most basic big sibling duty.

“Yes, I'm fine. You brought me home? Thank you, Yoohyun-ah. You did great.”

He touches Yoohyun's hair, making sure to not put absolutely any pressure on his head in the process.

He never had to adjust to new stats, but he knows to expect a lot of broken things before he can get a grip on it. Both of them are probably going to be a mess for at least a day.

“I have your sword right here!” Yoohyun offers and instantly pulls out a sword. The red dragon sword, Yoojin vaguely recalls.

“You should keep it. I… don't want to fight.”

He makes a decision just then and there. He would need to devise ways to protect his little brother. There is so much danger ahead of them based on those countless pieces of memories still floating around in his head that all of it just can't be confronted outright.

They can do so much more together.

“Then I will fight for you,” Yoohyun-ie declares, with a face so serious it looks outright cute.

It hits Yoojin again just how long since he last saw his earnest little brother being all cute. This baby version somehow makes it hurt anew that he couldn't see his Yoohyun grow up properly the first time around. But now they will stay together. Yoojin can ensure destruction of anything that will try to stand between them.

“The world is changing. Please, stay close so I can have your back.” Yoojin smiles at his little brother, at the new chance to do it just right. “It’s getting late and I'm sure you didn't rest sitting by me. You need some sleep…” he trails off before he is reminded again that Yoohyun-ie is in exactly the same state as freshly awakened that likely will obliterate most things he interacts with now. “You know you need to be gentle with everything around, right? It'll take a while to get used to.”

“I’m not a kid. I noticed.”

“Then do your best to not destroy the shower when you wash that soot off you,” Yoojin tells him playfully, barely stopping himself from poking at the cheek bearing the smudge.

This time Yoohyun definitely noticed, his eyes flicker to the finger before he nods and steps away.

“Good night. Remember that passing out is not resting, hyung,” the brat lectures him with an unfair amount of insight.

Had Yoojin really been that obvious, or was it something from before the dungeon shock came, about old habits he's long since forgotten?

The system messages demand attention constantly even as pain in his chest dulls a little. Or maybe he is just getting used to the persistent ache.

Blue boxes marked with icons holding categories underneath them. Red, red, gold, red, red, green, gold, green.

None of the familiar gray.

He flicks them open, feeling a little sick at the impossibly long list for freshly awakened.

First ones he knows must be his own. Caretaker he used to know now upgraded into vibrant red, L-rank standing proud, and four skills underneath, all of them equally in the color that is beyond realm hunters' mention. ~~The whole world tilted by a degree and moved half a step to the left~~.

There is supposed to be a week the abilities gifted from the Final Gratitude last. But there is no ongoing countdown, even if he knows for fact that it wouldn't be possible for everything to be there on its own.

The normal skills he had are somehow all now crowded together in green, like something pushed them up the ranks forcibly. And yet, there is still a surprise there. Agility and Strength up are familiar, Mind up is not. Another green he opens because it's just… something that feels the least potentially painful. Strengthen limbs, Stamina UP, mana transfer. Green, green, blue, none of it really his. All upgraded, like versions he could use with his cruel skill, stealing power from corpses just to cling to his pathetic life. He chose to use it anyway, because he wanted to live in hopes of at least seeing his brother again.

And then there is dragonslayer, just to prove to the world that what happened in the past is truly not gone in the eyes of the system, like he had any doubts left. Dragon was there, 8 years in the future, and it died.

And then all that was left were skills he could use as good if not better than his own. From his little brother. From grown Yoohyun, the one ~~dead~~ gone. And standing as proof that he truly died there and the universe recognizes that his corpse is still there, swallowed up by the ruthless nature of the dungeon.

Then, what is this Yoohyun? New version born of his wish? Older one but pulled and twisted and reshaped under the hands of the system as the universe diverged to accommodate for the new reality?

Impossible to answer.

Is anything about this even real?

What does ‘real’ even mean?

But then he glances at another red down the list and it's another title. This one without doubt something he stole from his brother. Nothing he could even have earned in his life, and yet the system counts it as done and… here it is, utterly undeserved.

Yoojin wants to pull it out of himself, give it into proper hands, back to his dear brother, one he still has and can save, trying to atone for letting him die so foolishly.

The ache in his chest flares and he covers his mouth with both hands trying to muffle a scream.

Don't disturb baby Yoohyun.

He needs to go to sleep.

It hurts but it will pass. It burns and pulses across his veins along with the heartbeat, but it'll be fine.

Don't make Yoohyun-ie worry about his brother ever again. Because now Yoojin has power to protect him and himself, so in this world his dear brother can live free of the worry ~~that's been plaguing his other self~~.

Notes:

EDIT: Changed "reinforced bones" to more regular sounding "Stamina UP" to match with the regular "up" series.

Chapter 3 Chapter Text

In the morning, the pain seems to have moved into dull ache all across his bones. The sound of his heartbeat drums so loudly, accompanied by rumble of the breath and blood flow, and this noise almost distracts him from just how silent the city outside is. There shouldn't be a moment of silence, not with the huge city around them, and yet, somehow, while he can pick up buzz of electricity running through the circuits and water in the pipes, and now that he is actively listening, he can hear Yoohyun sleeping on other side of the wall… it doesn't seem like there is anyone else in the area.

The morning sun is blazing brightly but it doesn't take much for his eyes to adjust when he peeks outside of the window. Outside… There are still monsters out in the streets. Traces of fire marking the surrounding buildings, a bunch of burnt husks of cars almost blocking the streets…

No wonder there are no people around, everyone must have evacuated. It's a wonder that the amenities weren't cut off, since it seems like the whole area has been forsaken for now. It's hard to say why it would be this time around while last lifetime it was one of the first areas where hunters started the dungeon clearing to secure the city.

“Yoohyun-ah, time to get up!” he calls and winces at the sound of his own voice. Too loud. Unexpectedly jarring.

Yoojin very gently opens the drawer, relying heavily on inherited experience from Yoohyun about ways to balance his body and to handle the materials, but even with that help he still ends up tearing one of shirts before he can get himself dressed. Doubled stats of what Yoohyun in five years worked up to still are too much to act natural with. He goes to the kitchen, wondering if he really can prepare a breakfast without destroying anything in the process.

The sound of breaking wood from Yoohyun's room suddenly reminds him that actually it would be so much worse for his little brother, not prepared to handle it at all.

He forces himself to walk slowly into the room, to handle the doors gently as he opens them, because adding to the destruction is going to be the opposite of helpful.

Yoohyun, his cute baby brother is half-naked, standing over the broken furniture with blank expression, crushed piece of wood still clutched in his hand.

“Oh, come here, let big brother help you. I’m sorry I didn't realize you are having a hard time.” Everything is still a bit too loud, but maybe he can get used to it. If he keeps going, pushing against the overwhelming mess the world is.

Poor baby must be so confused by the new experience. Yoojin pauses just for a second before applying both agility and mental boost to Yoohyun, because together they should help offset the sudden increase in strength by helping with precision. Then Yoojin picks up a shirt from the wreckage, noting that the way everything collapsed looks like Yoohyun must have grazed the front with careless swing of hand or similar movement on top of the piece he accidentally tore out.

“Lift your hands,” Yoojin smiles, thinking back to helping little baby Yoohyun like this before he could properly take care of himself. “Here you go.”

“Hyung, how are you so good at controlling your strength? I know you are stronger than me.”

Yoojin sucks in a breath. There is absolutely no way to explain it in a reasonable way.

“You handled it well yesterday. I think you won't have much issue when you properly wake up.”

Yoohyun (little baby brother, only 17!) hums in vague agreement.

“Why are we getting up this early anyway? I think the school is canceled with the monsters running around.”

Yoojin is still thinking about comparison between the distant 25 years old Yoohyun, and this teenage version when bringing him the rest of the clothes to help him out, minimizing risk of anything getting torn.

“Someone needs to get rid of those monsters and the army isn't going to help much… since no one is clearing the area we should go. To stop more monsters from coming we will need to go into those portals and find a special monster inside to kill. It'll stop them.” He explains.

He can't justify how he found it out and there is obvious consideration from his brother. Yoohyun is obviously figuring something out, but thankfully he is not asking about that right away… maybe it'll be fine.

“Are we in a hurry to solve this? It's not that bad to just stay together without anyone around getting in our way.”

“Yoohyun!” he scolds, on first instinct wanting to remind his brother about people around likely dying to monsters en masse. But then… no one cared for the two of them as they were children. It's hard to just want to help others for no reason after that. “We should fix the area before they cut off gas, water and power from the whole district. Even with powers we still need food.”

And then he recalls how he had rewards from the dragon in his inventory. The level of health and mana potions he could afford won't be of much use as they are now, but… he opens the inventory window and is only a little disappointed to see that in fact he has nothing in there other than rewards from Rauchitas including its mana stone… and one gate stone that Yoohyun gave him before ~~dying~~ regression. Still, he pulls six gate-stones and hands them to Yoohyun. He is not sure which one of them is the one that belongs to his brother.

“I got these as a reward for killing a special monster. If something really bad happens inside those portal-spaces you can use one to teleport outside. Just in case, keep them. I have more, don't worry.”

“So, we can get more things, like those escape stones and that sword if we hunt those special monsters? We probably should go before someone else gets the rewards.”

Yoojin almost feels silly to hear his brother use an argument he didn't think to make. It's no wonder his brother ~~had been~~ will make a great guild leader.

“Let’s eat something first, and talk about our abilities.”

The kitchen had not suffered much from attempts at cooking, but Yoojin had destroyed one knife by trying out if with sword predator he could take a mundane knife into inventory for later use. Unfortunately, while he could control molten mess of mundane steel, it refused to be put to inventory for later.

“Among skills I can use, ones that look like yours… actually are yours.” It feels weird to try to explain the parts of ‘Final Gratitude’ trying to not make it sound like anything bad. “It's a one-use skill. I should lose them after a few days, but you are my brother and I thought you might die. Do you realize how much I was afraid I might lose you?” and here he is, getting all teary eyed thinking about his dead brother while looking right at him, warm and alive, right in front of him.

“Hyung,” Yoohyun sounds also quite shaken as he hugs him close, “I won't ever leave you, I promise. We will stay side by side, no matter what.”

Yoojin isn't certain at first where this came from, but then he glances at his new keyword "Don't leave me"... He must've said it sometime yesterday, in the frantic mess it was.

“Of course. I'll stay with you and help you out. My own abilities are few buffs, and immunity to poisons and curses, so you can use my help to climb to the top of the world safely.” And he is smiling, thinking about how this time he will be able to be right next to his brother. C-rank buffs might not stay useful for very long, but for the time being…

“Top of the world?”

“I want everyone to know my little brother is the best.” Yoojin smiles and looks at the plates he is too worried he'll destroy in an attempt at washing. “Let's go and start building your reputation.” He winks at his brother, but as tempted he is to open the window and start running across the sky on ‘Blue Willow Leaves’ he just goes for the door instead. Because with trying to do as many dungeons as they can, he can't really go around wasting mana for the sake of playing around. Logic unfortunately has to rule, for now.

Yoojin would like to say he can remember the dungeon locations from the previous timeline, but unfortunately, he never really memorized anything but the low rank dungeons he actually could go to… do he only planned route to try leaving those for the last, since even the first time clear bonus isn't really going to be worth the time as they are now.

And it's a strange thing to think about.

Still as they kill the thunder wolves prowling the street, he slows down to dog the D-rank mana stones out of the corpses, because it's just too much of a waste to leave them for whoever will scavenge the area later.

“Hyung, what are you doing?”

“Oh, those crystals are made out of mana. Abilities, like your flames, use up mana so we can powder them and drink to recover.” It's awkward way to explain, but not like Hunter terms are alrea—

“Homemade mana potions?” Oh, right. Those come from gaming terms originally, don't they?

Yoojin nods in agreement. “Just like that.” And since that moment Yoohyun is also stopping after monsters are dead to also dig out the mana crystals out of monsters. And he needed no explanation to start hiding them in the inventory.

Soon after, when they come upon an abandoned shop Yoohyun goes inside without a word and Yoojin is just a little amused to see his little brother try and fail to put a water bottle inside inventory.

And then Yoohyun (cute kid) pouts at the bottle, or maybe at his inventory, and then he turns around simply leaving everything as he seems to have figured out the main rule of inventory use.

Yoojin is tempted to tell Yoohyun about reusing bottles from the dungeon, but he already has shown far too much of what he knows. Impossible knowledge that he has no way of explaining and he fears that it could end up pushing Yoohyun, his little brother, away from him.

But instead he just offers Yoohyun his hand, to continue making their way across the city, slaughtering monsters; once they are in the areas not evacuated properly, gathering passing wide-eyed wonder of civilians huddled inside the buildings as they pass, aiming for the rectangular anomaly spewing out the monsters.

Chapter 4 Chapter Text

The gate in front of them is ominous red.

Han Yoojin is not certain how he forgot about that, and yet, he was fully expecting the familiar blue. It's even more jarring than the lack of reinforced walls framing the gate. The energy seems to be pulsing with the vein-like structures hooked into the space in the air around the gate making it look almost alive, like cancerous growth on reality.

He can't recall gates appearing like this ever before. But he pushes down the feeling, because Yoohyun is right by his side, holding on his hand tightly while the other wields the Red Dragon sword. The weapon suits him.

Yoojin wonders for a moment if he should apply the doubled growth at this moment, but… no, it's better to do this once they enter and find a higher ranked dungeon. B-rank should be as high as those early gates go, so one of those.

They cross, and it's just D-rank, Yoojin can tell easily checking the cramped stone walls around and the crawling mole-like monsters. Two of them would be just a waste of resources and yet he still applies half set of buffs to Yoohyun.

And then he lets go of his hand.

“Go, get used to your powers, get rewards,” he tells him because, as much as he hates to see his baby brother go alone, Yoohyun is strong and he needs to fight on his own. It's better to let him go, because holding his hand all the time would be… hah, who is he trying to lie to. He is not leaving.

Yoohyun hesitates for half a second before he can see it as well, his big brother following closely behind him, watching over him while Yoohyun is massacring his way through the dungeon with disappointing ease. Trying to harvest many mana stones would be a waste of time with that many dungeons waiting for them, but Yoojin still ends up just grabbing a bunch of monster corpses into inventory to process after they are done with the whole dungeon shock situation.

Yoojin almost wants to laugh at being included in the first clear reward distribution despite doing literally nothing. He isn't getting much, because the system is not that broken, but a few low ranking potions (bottles!) and nice, comfortable boots are great to have.

They just leave the dungeon, side by side, and the gate behind them turns into a secure blue. There is still something disgusting about the way it's spreading roots into reality around.

“Hyung, why don't those items have descriptions in the system?” Yoohyun asks, holding up a jacket he must've gotten as his first dungeon clear reward.

Yoojin is already steering them toward the next red gate nearby doing its best impression of an otherworldly abomination, another one he doesn't quite recognize. And isn't it closer than any of the early gates should be?

“Dunno, but the system doesn't tell you much. Like it says nothing about stepping on your leaves. And that your control of your blood allows you to form it into a weapon. Just put a jacket on, check what it does.”

The cursed items used to exist, but as far as he can remember those were work of some specific hunter abilities, either making them or corrupting what already existed. He never got a clear explanation of that.

The monsters around have wrecked the mall and Yoojin lets go of Yoohyun just for a second to wipe them away and run around picking the stones from ashes. They seem pretty good quality.

His brother is looking at him very intensely with a blank face as he comes back, only smiling when they are together again. Poor baby still must be shocked by what is happening.

And Yoojin again sends a set of buffs to his little brother; agility, mental, strength, stamina, elemental skill effect, strengthen limbs, right as they are walking into the gate. Whatever is on the other side, a good buff never hurts.

The air on the other side of the gate is humming with mana, and the skies of space inside are bright and wide.

“It's one of the most dangerous kinds, be careful.” He never was in the higher ranking gates, but he knew that the space inside gets larger the higher rank dungeon is, so this one must be pretty strong. Still, they can handle it.

As the bird launching sharp stones passes over them Yoojin for the first time tries to use the unfamiliar skill to see the potential of the creature in front of him.

It's A-rank. It's still half a year until the first A-ranked dungeons would appear.

Think about it later. It's a perfect chance for the growth buff then. This one won't even show in Yoohyun's notifications, that much he knows.

He chases the bird down in the air and stabs it with a spear of his own blood and promptly shuffles the whole corpse into the inventory. A-rank materials are valuable.

Yoohyun doesn't ask, but he stops trying to burn monsters, also shifting to collecting the corpses into inventory. Kid really is so smart and perceptive… No wonder, Yoohyun always knew how to find helpful people and valuable chances to grow his guild.

And when Yoojin recognizes some fruits on a tree and grabs them Yoohyun also is right there by other of those trees, joining in the collecting without really asking about the reason for that.

The silent acceptance is somehow incredibly comforting. He clearly noticed Yoojin knows too much and yet he isn't digging into the reasons for it. ~~He won't need to talk around that dragon.~~ Nothing will make them separate this time.

Unexpected message from system rings loudly, startling him.

「GOT IT! HE IS HERE!」

Isn't that a completely ominous thing to read from what everyone assumed is just an automated mechanism running the world.

「OOPS!」

And somehow reading this is even worse, like someone just pressed the big red button with ‘Do Not Press’ on it.

“Careful, Yoohyun!” Yoojin has no idea what he's warning against, but it's clear that something really bad is about to happen.

Yoohyun snaps to attention instantly, sword in hand and wide eyes scanning surroundings. ~~He looks scared‽~~

The ground shakes and splits open as it parts revealing massive paws wreathed in the flames. The canine maw reveals itself soon after, the scorching heat flooding the area and Yoojin almost panics realizing that Yoohyun doesn’t have proper fire resistance skill yet. The flames reach close enough they might leave burns as Yoojin is launching himself to Yoohyun and hugs him close for the sake of this small aura radius sharing part of the future/past skill needed. S-rank flames are still weak enough to be stopped by this boosted up version of resistance anyway.

The trees burn up in a blink and the fire spreads across the green landscape obliterating the pretense of peace.

“I got you.” He mutters to Yoohyun, shifting how he hugs him so he can place his hand on the handle of the sword while shielding his little brother with his own body from the swipe of the paw he barely dulls in time with the leaves blindly gathered between him and the monster. The claws still dig into his back, and it hurts… but he still grins at the much softer surprise on his brother’s face. ~~Since when Yoohyun can make such expressions?~~

“Let’s cut its neck,” He whispers as he pulls his brother along; side first to avoid another attempt from whatever this stone spiked, lava dripping menace is; finding himself actually happy that they met something strong enough to be dangerous this early on.

Yoohyun will learn much faster with early experience like that. And he might reach level 10 in one go. It’s worth it.

Moving together like this is not as smooth as he could have wished, for the first time his little brother being so tall might not seem like such a good thing. But there is no way he is risking leaving little Yoohyun alone in a situation where he could be swept up in the wide area flames emanating from the monster.

Jump on the leaves, find an angle where the monster has trouble keeping track of them.

And if they both hold the sword then the share of experience should be equal for them, rather than risk taking up most of the points if he went to attack the monster alone.

Launch at it from above, with willow leaves as the foothold to fully utilize the boosted strength as the sword is aimed to pierce down into the spine, by the base of the skull.

Not quite hit, but the sword skids against the bone and Yoohyun is one to guide their hands to cut more to the side while pulling the sword out, widening the wound and sending a fountain of blood spraying out.

He focuses his senses on reading the way Yoohyun wants to move, supporting his decisions as they get away from the monster’s back covered in the basalt-covered spikes.

Jump to the side and ducking low underneath the swipe of paw, jumping together again, this time aiming at the neck from below. But they are just a little too slow, Monster turning to them with the maw wide open to bite at them. The sword sinks just as well into the monster’s palate.

Yoojin winces, trying to angle his own hand to reduce how much fangs can sink into Yoohyuns arm. He wants to tell him to pull back and stay safe, but… he isn’t sure if this won’t cause the system to distribute rewards favoring him, and he would hate that.

He can endure with his ~~fake~~ new stats, he just knows, he is one better suited to handle the damage.

“Hyung, stop this! I’m also strong, you don’t need to shield me so much!” Yoohyun protests, just as the monster finally stops trying to bite off their hands and dies.

The system dings cheerfully with announcements of the dungeon first clear and list of rewards.

Perfect chance to stuff another corpse into the inventory and take a large step away.

“I’ll be fine. See, we even got healing potions in rewards this time. Oh, and here’s a woldo, so I have my own weapon.” He attempts to use the distraction to deflect from worry as he shows the weapon he just got. First dungeon clears are the best. Please drop that subject.

“Hyung.” Yoohyun looks at him with a trembling bottom lip, with such shining sad eyes Yoojin has to look away.

“Hyung, please. You can't let yourself get hurt for me.” He whines, reaching out for Yoojin and as an older brother he just had to accept his hug. It feels nice despite the situation, the warm arms feel so comforting and he actually can hear his heartbeat and breaths assuring him that those efforts were not in vain, that Yoohyun is right here and alive and…

“I won’t help you put yourself in danger again,” Yoohyun declares firmly, clinging to Yoojin with all his strength, fingers pressing against the slash in his back and sending another wave of pain radiating from it, in a clearly intentional reminder of the wound.

“I get it, sorry, I get it. I won’t go into unnecessary danger, promise.” He quickly promises, detaching Yoohyun as gently as possible so he has hands free for pulling out the potion.

“I’m just planning to help you get stronger so you won’t get hurt either, because I just can’t see my little brother in danger either.” He lightly uncorks the potion, making sure it’s well visible what he is doing. “It’s more effective if it’s poured into the wound let me show you. I will be fine in a sec.” He tilts the bottle to drip on the wound, making sure to not waste any drop as he mends his arm. And then he hands the two-third full bottle to Yoohyun. “Help me with my back?”

“…” Yoohyun reaches for the bottle slowly, with a little frown on his face as he glances at the smooth skin visible through the hole in his sleeve made by the monster's teeth.

“I still don’t like it,” he declares in a soft voice, finally stepping around his older brother.

The slightly itchy warm feeling spreads from where he spreads the potion is proof it’s done right.

“I promise this was as dangerous as those,” he hesitates a half second about the name, but since Yoohyun already compared it to a game, “dungeons can be. If you hunt the monsters around here you’ll get stronger faster than in other dungeons or outside.”

There is a moment of silence and Yoojin turns to see his little Yoohyun with eyes focused on the invisible system screen in front of him.

“Oh, I got fire resistance.”

“That’s perfect!” He grins at this, pulling Yoohyun into another hug. Absolutely perfect. And he really won’t have a reason to try to shield Yoohyun like this. Well, he might need to help with poisons, but poisons usually can be burned so… hopefully he really won’t need to.

“Hyung, you knew I didn’t have it before.”

So. He probably can't really hide from it. Not fully. Now, how to say it in the way that doesn’t sound too terrible? Yoojin takes a deep breath and can feel himself flushing already, the system put so many cringy names on his skills it is basically painful to even look at.

“Yeah. I have the title in the system? It’s…” he pauses trying to collect himself. This sounds so bad to say out loud. “It’s called ‘perfect caretaker’. I– you are in my custody. My little brother to help and protect.”

But Yoohyun doesn’t look happy with this at all, more like he is upset at the whole situation, frowning as he looks around the burnt surroundings and the exit portal hovering nearby.

“I wanted to be able to pay you back for everything,” he complains. “I studied hard so I can get a good enough job to give you a comfortable, safe life.”

Ah, thinking about how far would Yoohyun go in his efforts to keep his big brother safe brings a reminder of the pre-regression memories back and Yoojin finds himself tearing up. Oh, He is not going to let Yoohyun go this time even if he has reason to think it’ll be safer to separate because there is no way he could make ~~this~~ Yoohyun go through anything like that.

Chapter 5 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“There’s another one!” Yoohyun points at another vibrantly red gate pulling his older brother in that direction and Yoojin hesitates just for half a second, glancing at the nearby shop, since time for dinner is coming close and they both could use a break from this hurried race across dungeons. The pros and cons appear and vanish just as fast because he just can’t quite say ‘no’ in face of this pure, radiant excitement.

“Coming, coming.” He chuckles. How did he forget just how cute his baby brother can be?

The gate welcomes them in the forested canyon space, with trees and thick bushes limiting the vision.

“This one will be an easy one, right?” Yoohyun asks as soon as he has a look at the surroundings and Yoojin smiles at gow quickly he makes a good guess.

“Yes. Good eye.” He reaches up to ruffle his little brother’s hair, with amusem*nt realizing that despite all those years of trip back, Yoohyun is still taller than him.

“Anything other than mana stones to gather?”

The question pulls him back to here and now and Yoojin takes proper look around, with a single enhanced step traveling to the greenery and quickly picking out the little pink berries that can be used for some low rank ‘healing’. More like staunching bleeding, but still, something is better than nothing in those early stages.

“Those are pretty useful. Oh–” He grabs the faintly shining blue flower. “I’ll just grab a few of those, they do nothing useful but taste nice. If there’s a spring, I’ll grab water from the empty bottle left from that potion before.” He adds to the explanation. It’s kind of fun to think about how in the future when they aren’t trying to close breaks there's a possibility to try mining for dungeon-metals and even cut the trees for mana-rich wood. But nothing they need to hurry with.

Notes:

Why woldo you might ask.
well, the answer is: Han Yoojin is evidently used to polearms, enough that when he is able to use anything he could want he picks a spear. BUT also, Yoohyun's techniques are clearly adjusted for having a bladed weapon. So versatile weapon, allowing to apply the skills based on both weapon types seems like the choice here.

Chapter 6 Notes:

Apologies for the delay; strawberry field snuck up on me.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Having a moment of break makes one thing clear. The strange pain in his chest is not really gone, even if the rush of adrenaline helps to forget about it when they are fighting. He is doing his best to not let Yoohyun notice. Keep it all in. They will think about it if it’s not gone by the time the dungeon shock is over.

Han Yoojin glances toward where he noticed a girl looking in their direction and while she isn’t visible at the moment he is pretty sure she hasn't gone anywhere far.

“Hey, come, join us. If you are hungry we can share.” he calls, not certain if it’s really going to help… but it’s dangerous for her to stay like this when it’s certain more monsters will be coming after them. “We can keep you safe from monsters,” he promises, pretending to not see how Yoohyun frowns at him unhappily.

“Hyung, we don’t need dead weight to slow us down.”

Yoojin frowns in disapproval, because where did even this kid learn to treat others like that? He did his best to make sure his little brother is sociable and makes a good impression on others just to be betrayed like this.

“Did you already forget what I told you? Humans live in society. It doesn’t matter how nasty the situation is, it’s not a reason to abandon civility.”

Yoohyun is pouting like he is a little kid and not a young man taller than his hyung. If he wasn’t worried about the risk of accidentally hurting him Yoojin would have swatted him for not taking scolding seriously.

At least the girl is peeking out again, and with some hesitation he activates the skill from his caretaker title… just to get the name, he tells himself, but what he sees as the result makes him pause.

「Unawakened Person – Bak Yerim

Possible Awakening stats: rank A~S

Optimized Initial Skills

Shadowless Day(SS)

Hermes’ Sandals(S)

Pale Corpse(S)」

He heard of the Ice Witch Bak Yerim, the A-rank awakener who later on climbed up to S-rank with her ruthless ice-based skills. It takes him a while to recall the story about her parents dying during first dungeon shock— but she shouldn’t be in this area at all, he is almost sure that she was near when ~~it doesn’t matter.~~

What matters is that she could be a great addition to their little group. And if he managed to start with two S-ranks for future Haeyeon Guild…

“Hello. I’m Han Yoojin and this is my little brother, Yoohyun.” He smiles at the girl before glancing around just a little to make sure that there aren’t any more of those cats prowling around.

It would be helpful if she awakens faster, but he would hate to put the girl in danger she doesn’t have to be in.

“Hi…”

Yerim takes a half step forward, then looks at Yoohyun and almost steps back again (oh, heavens, she’s just a tiny baby, looking NOTHING like that young lady on the news.)

Yoojin puts hand on Yoohyun’s arm, trying to gently stop him from trying to scare the girl off. Because he has no doubt his little brother is foolishly trying to be intimidating, like a little animal trying to guard its territory.

“Yoohyun-ah, come on, it’s just a child.”

“Um… ajussi?” Yerim sounds small and scared. Probably it's a little miracle that she didn’t run away.

“Yes? Don't worry about Yoohyun-ie, he'll come around.” He gives his little brother a warning look, because he really doesn't want to ruin this excellent chance at early networking.

He isn't sure how his brother found other Haeyeon Guild members first time around but Yoojin will need to get them as well, and maybe he could find a way to get in contact with the female athlete team that ended up hunter core of Breakers' Guild, just to get them away from managers and politicians who ruined the guild first time around with their meddling.

“Ajussi, how are you killing monsters?” she asks, and… that's not the question Yoojin expected. But the girl is coming closer to them, despite the obvious fear at Yoohyun's posturing, she still has enough determination to get closer.

“I could say that I'm doing it by slashing with my sword-stick, but as to how it works… the answer is a little complicated.”

Yoojin glances at his skills again. He could try to awaken her with his skill. If he gets her under his influence. The problem is, his key phrase changed. And it's awfully cringy as well as highly situational. «Please, don't leave me» is so much worse in every aspect than previous «Keep up good work»… and even if the phrases have some tolerance for variants, at best he will be able to omit «please» if he sounds pleading enough or replace «don't leave me» with «stay with me». Either way, it's going to be a pain to get people… did he even want people under his influence? They could die off too easily and it would bring more useless suffering. Bak Yerim is a special case. And S-rank isn't going to die on him easily.

“What complicated?” Yoohyun asks in an almost offended tone.

Yoojin takes a deep breath. He's just a teenager, he will grow out of this, Yoojin reminds himself that Yoohyun a few years down the line is a responsible guild leader trusted by his people.

“I don't know exactly where those powers came from and neither do you,” he reminds his brother while glancing at Yerim who seems disappointed to hear that.

She is looking away from them now, shifting her weight uncomfortably.

“But I can do my best to help you also get powers if you want.” Yoojin can hear his little brother whine as he is making this offer, but he isn't going to change his mind. It's going to be better for Yoohyun long term.

“You can?”

She looks so sweet and innocent, but Yoojin doesn't let himself change his mind about potentially dragging the kid into a battlefield. It's to make Yoohyun's position in the future stronger. To ensure that his guild will prosper on scale with global impact.

“Not right away, but I think I can. Let's eat first… oh, it might taste a little weird because I mixed mana stone in. It won't harm you, Yerim, but might feel a little tingly.”

The girl suddenly looks at him with more focus, her body tensing.

“I never told you my name.”

Yoojin takes a moment of checking on the food to stop being dramatic about losing the chance because he stupidly overlooked something. Not the worst blunder he ever did, not by the long stretch.

“Get used to hyung knowing a lot of stuff you have no idea how he knows. Or get lost.” Yoohyun sounds grumpy, but something in the tone suggests that he is at least a little saying that to complain about all the dungeon knowledge Yoojin ended up leaning on to make those first moments easier on both of them.

He might need to address some of it one day.

But not now.

“We don't have enough plates. Yoohyun-ah, would you mind going to find some?”

There is just a short moment of hesitation before his little brother nods and runs off to do it. At least this much cooperation.

Somehow it seems to really have helped with convincing Yerim. Or maybe she is still too confused by everything in the world right now and just fell for the idea rhat at least there's someone who has some answers.

“I’m sorry but I can't explain many things. But I can promise that you can rely on me. This new state of the world is dangerous, but I'm not leaving you behind.”

Yerim nods and comes closer slowly, peeking at now starting to cool meat.

It's a good chance, now that Yoohyun isn't watching for a short moment.

Yoojin pats the girl's head very gently. It feels like he is barely touching her hair.

“So don't leave us behind either.”

It's almost a relief to see the skill connect. It's terrible to do this, trying to use a child and… but she obviously wanted to awaken. And it's just lined up too perfectly.

He triggers awakening right away.

She's sure to break everything she touches while trying to eat, but he can help and if he waits it might be harder to make it seem like it was an accident. It will still be suspicious, but more of just a chance that he is involved in that somehow and rather than that he actually has control.

“Ohh, what are those pages‽”

“Probably awakening information, but I can't see yours. I can try to help you figure things out if you tell me what isn't clear…”

Notes:

The removed fragment because I realized that he probably had to figure out how much grip strength he has trying to handle fruits and pots and meat earlier; so it actually wouldn’t happen:
[He can feel his brother quickly shifting away, covering his arm and looking at him with hurt beyond physical pain. And Yoojin knows he f*cked up, because he can’t even reach out to him and try to soothe away what he just did because clearly he doesn’t have as good hold on his current strength as he thought. It was supposed to be a warning, nothing like this.
Way to f*ck up everything.
“Yoohyun-ah, I’m sorry. I promise I will control my strength better… I’m so sorry I hurt you. You know it was an accident, right? Please, forgive me.”]

Chapter 7 Chapter Text

Yoojin is trying his best to ignore the very suspicious look Yoohyun is sending him.

If anyone asks, he did not encourage Yerim to try lifting a nearby car and the fact that she awakened at all was nothing but a coincidence, just like all other people who awakened because dungeons all over the world started spilling out monsters.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

Please.

“Come, let’s eat! We probably should focus on removing the dungeon they are coming from next.” He adds, pointing to the frozen corpse of another lightning cat, one that Yerim handled ‘by herself’ just with a subtle buff ~~or three.~~

Yoohyun crosses his arms and frowns at Yerim. Yerim sticks her tongue out at him in return.

“Children, please.”

They shuffle closer, but still seem ready to fight at any moment, even as they accept the food.

Yerim ends up breaking utensils and then proceeds to eat with her fingers, acting rather unbothered about it.

When she thinks he isn't looking there is something dark and harsh flashing across her face before she pushes it away and smiles at him.

Right.

She saw her parents die. It's not strange to want vengeance on the monsters.

If they were better people they would be trying to hunt as many as possible to save people and avenge those dead in the dungeon breaks. But it pays better to focus on gathering as many dungeons' clear rewards as possible. Not like there is any other way to get really good items, and collecting surplus will place them in a better negotiating position when establishing a guild. This is the best option.

With the meal Yoojin discovers that he is actually enjoying the taste of mana stone. It's strongly sour and sweet at the same time, almost like some kind of candy. ~~They were barely palatable before.~~ Still, it wouldn't be a good idea to ingest any more of them than necessary to keep the mana levels high.

After the meal they move on, almost-racing on the way to the next dungeon. Yoojin quickly sets the first skill for Yerim to gain to be cold resistance, because with no resistance gear in their possession so far the only thing they could use when encountering elemental type danger is to rely on each other's skills. Her AoE attacks can wait a bit. Even if he knows that if he asked she would insist on getting the damaging skills first.

Only when they cross into the dungeon does he remember to give Yerim one of their gate-stones, for emergencies.

And not a moment too soon it seems, because as soon as both children race off to eliminate the monsters Yoojin can see the strange emoji filled message from the system.

Some kind of apology. About time? And dungeons.

「MEET US IN A WEEK IN A DUNGEON, KNOCK THRICE」

The wrongness of this irregular message seems to sparkle in the air and the splinter of reality growing tendrils, almost like a dungeon gate in the real world, starts opening up.

The black, scaly dragon paw… no, a hand covered in the scales appears out if it.

Yoojin grabs his weapon, tensed for the fight, but then a vertigo hits as voice that is not voice at all seems to ring from bones of his skull.

«You seem to have incredible potential. We could help you realize this potential, in order to defy the fate of this world…» it sounds all encompassing as the bloody red eyes peer deep into him, the toothy smile and crown of draconic horns on the figure adding to the sharp-edged impression of being beyond.

「EFFECT OF THE TITLE:

‘RAUCHITAS' BANE’ APPLIED.

ALL SKILLS EFFECTIVENESS

DOUBLED WHILE FACING

THE POISON-CURSE DRAGON SPECIES」

So that's the enemy. One connected to the dragon that killed Yoohyun.

He pulls his weapon from inventory, aiming to pierce the creature before it has a chance to do anything.

«Foolish creature. This was your one chance to reach greatness. Die as everything turns to dust if that's your wish.» The voice shakes him to the bones even despite his new power, enough to make him stumble and give dragon-man-thing the second it needs to vanish back behind the wrongness.

And suddenly he can feel the bane title deactivate and…

Yoojin calls for the leaves, launching himself to where Yoohyun went. If ~~it went after him next~~ he is in trouble Yoojin couldn't forgive himself.

That thing might again rip his little brother away from him and he just can't stand the idea of possibly seeing his little baby brother gone as he failed to keep him safe ~~again.~~ He just needs to be there, the creature wouldn't run if he couldn’t face it. Even if it is clearly stronger than Rauchitas used to be.

From the distance he can see the space fracture, the figure of Yoohyun seemingly broken into pieces just as it turns to look toward Yoojin, before it vanishes and the world seems to snap into place, pretending to be unchanged, but missing this important piece.

He comes to the skidding stop where Yoohyun was a little over a second ago and he is no longer there, the spot without even a trace of something going wrong. There is nothing he can dig into to pull and try to find his brother and he opens the system messages in search of another mysterious screens that should not be there, because those things just have to be somehow connected. Nothing.

Only then Yoojin remembers Yerim, also somewhere in this dungeon. While it might have been just targeting two of them, at this point he made her also into an anomaly acting in the way that shouldn’t have been. He leaps among the leaves, searching for her, but there still is this frantic energy in the back of his mind because Yoohyun , ~~YOOHYUN~~ Yoohyun is the most important thing ever and he just vanished and nothing is right. He has to make sure his little brother is fine.

It’s hard to pull himself from that worry enough to focus on Yerim.

Girl notices him and stops in the air, turning to look at him. She visibly picks up on his nervousness and tenses up, hovering a bit higher in the air than the moment before to stay out of the reach of monsters around.

Yoojin forces himself to stop panicking. It won’t help Yoohyun. It won’t help Yerim either. This little girl who decided to trust him. So he owes her a proper explanation.

“I had to check if you are fine. Something happened to Yoohyun and…” He can’t stay away, maybe he missed something about the way he vanished, maybe there was something… “Would you come with me to the place where he vanished?” He asks, trying to keep hold on mounting panic.

Here goes being the one responsible person they can rely on… Would the ‘Final Gratitude’ trigger again if this Yoohyun dies? Or would he be left without knowing?

Yerim flies up to him and grabs his hand, and. Right. He can bring her to where it happened. Maybe Yoohyun will come back. Just breathe.

Step after step he focused on just moving, gently touching down in the same place, just with Yerim in tow. Her little hand in his is a reminder to keep his wits about, to breathe and watch the area closer, try to stretch his senses in search of anything that would help.

“Yoohyun is my only family.” He tries to explain to the girl why he reacted this badly, even if there’s no way to properly apologize for getting her involved in his personal mess without warning.

“I get it, ajussi,” she assures softly, also looking around, shuffling her feet awkwardly. “You said he vanished. What happened?”

“I don’t know. I saw something weird with system messages, then a strange monster, so I ran to Yoohyun and saw him standing here… and then he just vanished.”

“Maybe it wasn’t really him? Like, are magic illusions a thing now?” She offers with a tilt of her head.

“Maybe.”

Yerim squeezes his hand harder and presses herself closer to Yoojin. He takes a deeper breath and gives her a weak smile.

He could explain that there's no way someone with his stats would be affected by any illusion possible in this rank of the dungeon. And then he recalls that a monster higher than legendary level appeared in front of him. The image wasn't perfect, it was clearly wrong and that weird fractured effect might not even have been intentional.

Maybe he should be looking around for where else Yoohyun could have been.

Maybe —

The reality shudders again, and this time Yoojin is so close he can feel the wrong with all his senses.

And then Yoohyun is standing there, just like nothing happened.

Yoojin just has to give him a hug. Questions can wait.

Chapter 8 Chapter Text

Yoohyun.

Whole, looks fine, heart beats steady and is warm. It’s just fine. No wounds anywhere. Probably there wasn’t even a poison to be chased away by the aura of Yoojin’s poison resistance, but it’s still comforting to press him close (just in case).

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

“Hyung?”

He lets him out of the hug just far enough to look him in the face. Right. He needs to know if he needs to intervene.

“Do you realize how worried I was when you disappeared? What did that monster tell you?”

He can feel Yoohyun stiffen and try to turn away. So there was something. This brat barely slipped out of his sight for a few minutes and already landed himself in trouble.

“Yoohyun-ah, come on, what happened? I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong,” he insists, reaching to make his baby brother face him properly. He can’t afford to let him dodge this, not when the shadow of his so recent death hangs over them again. Too close, too soon.

“I can’t—” He mutters and then cuts himself off, hand twitching nervously before he suddenly reaches into his inventory, bringing out…

Dark, ominous red dripping into black, with burning pattern of alien writing scrawled across the indescribable material, stiff plate with sharp aura radiating off it.

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

Yoojin takes a deep breath and grabs it firmly. Person who made the contract will know when it is broken.

Will he come back so soon? That could be interesting.

He breaks the plate quickly, not surprised in the least that the material resists the amount of strength normal S-rank should have. But it bends and finally splinters in the furiously sparkling sheards as he refuses to let go.

「CURSE RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

and right after it another screen shows in his vision, right under the previous one, like the messages themselves promise to reinforce each other,

「EFFECT OF THE TITLE:

‘RAUCHITAS' BANE’ APPLIED.

ALL SKILLS EFFECTIVENESS

DOUBLED WHILE FACING

THE POISON-CURSE DRAGON SPECIES」

Yoojin smiles, seeing the result exactly as he expected it to be. Legendary curse resistance alone was overpowered, but with this? Of course it had to work.

“Here you go, Yoohyun.” He shrugs, pretending that the whole situation was nothing much for him. “Hyung is here to take care of those nasty things for you.”

“But that was a legendary contract… He told me it can’t be broken. Hyung can do even that much?”

Yoojin can just see the intense thinking from Yoohyun and Yerim seems to also be considering something, as they suddenly look at each other.

“Can humans also make contracts?” Yerim asks, putting hands behind her back and laying the innocent act far too thick.

Oh no. He can just tell what they are thinking about at this exact moment.

“It is possible… that there will be people who can.” He says carefully, slowly. Why are they like this? Well, he was planning to do exactly that, but those are children .

“If we happen to make a contract we don’t really want, you could do that again?”

“Don’t go around promising things just because you can escape from direct consequences. You don’t want people to think you are untrustworthy. And please, do not sign any more contracts with otherworldly mysterious entities. They might find way to stop me from removing another—”

Dungeon around them twists again and would you look at that, the black scaly hand-paw is peeking from the break in the reality again, the furious red eyes flash as the being no longer even tries to speak, instead lunging at them with a snarl. Rauchitas Bane screen flickers into vision and then vanishes on its own before he can dismiss it away from obscuring the vision.

The sound lacks the same otherworldly quality the words had, but the dragon is dangerously fast, even for the senses enhanced to SS-rank.

Yoojin pushes kids away in the short moment he has to make a choice and the claws sink deep into his side. He ends up grinning at this. The blood dances with fire, with all the explosive power he can before the enemy has time to pull back.

There is a moment the monster stumbles as Yoojin pulls his woldo out of inventory with the blade already halfway in the open maw as it materializes. And he tries to trigger his seedling skill in hopes of at least finding out the name of the being he is about to kill.

「Class 1, SSS-rank poison-curse dragon species – Vicus」

That… can't be right.

He remembers clearly the demeanor and voice moments before, but now what he is facing is a much more animalistic being. He barely stops a wide swipe of claws, but it still sends him back a few steps as the ground can't hold under the force.

Kids luckily took the clue and scampered away, lessening the risk of being swept up in damage. Hopefully far enough they won't be reached by draconic poison rising like mist around the creature.

Vicus is physically stronger than any of them, but it's nowhere near what they should expect from the master of species…

It's probably just a puppet usable as a mouthpiece.

Rauchitas Bane is just barely enough for Yoojin to keep up as the dragon lunges toward Yoohyun, but not quite enough to fully deflect its attack away.

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

Yoohyun takes this moment and his sword pierces into the creature's chest, but clearly not deep enough.

Yerim grabs him and both of them flicker away into safe distance again, but not without leaving behind a strange flicker in the shadow and errant blast of cold air.

Just enough to keep Vicus out of balance for Yoojin to thrust point into the scaly neck and,

Yoohyun is back with the sword driving point first from behind and Yerim sends a much more concentrated blast of freezing air from above.

Looks like children won't do the smart thing and stay safe.

Hard to deny them getting a share of experience from such prime prey stumbling right to them anyway.

Only after Vicus is dead Yoojin can see Yoohyun is swaying on his legs, with deep hash from dragon claws across his forearm.

The poison.

He pulls his little brother to him quickly, pressing hand to wound as he looks for a healing potion within the inventory. Not as important as detoxification, but everything needs covering.

Yerim also was fighting and he can’t be sure she wasn’t poisoned… but they aren’t close enough that he could just hug the girl without being weird about it,

“Yerim, come here too.” Unexpectedly she leeches on with some force, hugging close as soon he said that. “I have really good poison resistance so hugging me will help with poisoning,” he explains anyway, because he really would hate to be seen as some weirdo.

She hugs close, one of her arms ending up around Yoohyun as well and grins at them.

“You’re nice. Oh, and I got the curse-contract making skill as a reward!” She informs them cheerfully. So cheerfully that Yoojin can already feel the incoming headache this will lead to.

Yoohyun moves his arm and jabs his finger in her side, making Yerim detach from the hug and Yoojin quickly moves his arms trying to stop them from fighting.

“Be nicer, Yoohyun-ah, she is whole 5 years younger!” he scolds, in despair. Yoohyun is 17. He really shouldn’t be this childish. ~~Where did the cool teen of last lifetime go? One that could leave home and make his own guild without turning back?~~

“But you are my hyung.” Yoohyun complains and suddenly Yoojin realizes that he might have spoiled him too much while trying to compensate for being the only person to take care of his brother, since even teachers were terrible to his baby brother… No wonder he is clinging so much.

“I won’t love you any less just because there is someone else I’m helping too.” Yoojin sights with exhaustion before smiling back at Yerim who looks happy enough with this solution.

“Come on, kids. We have the dungeon to finish. It's a high ranked one so we should collect as much materials as we can around here.” He says as he bends down to the corpse of the humanoid dragon monster, considering if he should try butchering him right away. Probably not. He had boosted kids' growth for 3 days and A rank dungeon is the best possible place for them to train in. The corpses should still be in good enough condition in 3 days when they won’t have reason to keep rushing like this.

“Do you think that guy will send more dragons?” Yohyun asks with something sharp in his voice, as he watches Yoojin put the creature into his inventory. He looks like he is thinking about picking a fight. And this time Yoojin doesn’t really have a reason to try to talk him down from trying unlike when it was against bullies in school .

“He might, but I don’t think he can afford to send that many when we can just kill them. Just in case, we should stay as a group when going into dungeons. I don’t think he has anything stronger than this.”

Yoojin smiles and after a short moment of hesitation both Yerim and Yoohyun nod along and start looking around for targets to hunt down. He smiles and checks if both of them have all possible buffs working for them.

He renews everything anyway, because underneath the confident facade he just needs to make sure they are going to be ready to handle any threat that comes.

Chapter 9 Chapter Text

Despite trying hard to let kids have all the kills, three days later, when they exit the A-ranked dungeon, Han Yoojin has reached level 12. Still no skill from level 10, but maybe it’s not that bad? After all, he never got skill from leveling up last time around, despite reaching all the way up to level 36. He knows how to live with that. The kids on other hand both managed to get up to level 20 and are both gaining new skills easily. He can even see on both of their lists appearing the opposite resistance skill, almost certainly thanks to two of them using skills next to each-other all the time. It’s going great. It’s only making the choice as to what to pick for them to gain from level 30 a bit harder.

He took time to properly butcher the monsters, since he really wouldn't want to risk anything getting spoiled unnecessarily. They might become rich easily even without putting much care into it, but it's still better to get them a head start. Really, he is going to give humanity as a whole a better start, since he knows the painstakingly put together contract regulation standards, the uses for so many dungeon materials…

Regression can be turned into a great opportunity, even if he can see that the timing of dungeons appearing clearly changed.

The backpack with stolen stuff they were using might not be the best thing to show; Han Yoojin thinks as they approach the dungeon exit. He really would rather not become known as one of those S-ranks who use their power to throw weight around and do whatever. Justification of the emergency situation and some payments made as soon the situation clears should work.

When they come out there are more people in the area, clearing the streets from remnants of destruction. Clearly, the more organized wave of dungeon clearing finally reached over here. It's almost a pity they couldn't monopolize the rewards… but they still can go, report their powers with some white lies mixed in and volunteer for handling the dungeons that are too dangerous for other groups.

Yerim grabs his hand and smiles up at him as they walk and second later he can feel Yoohyun grabbing his other hand. From the corner of his eye he can see his little brother glaring at Yerim behind his back and… pretty sure she stuck out tongue in response. Children.

There is a group of hunters gathered together, weapons in hand and wearing the equipment already; gathered in front of the dungeon gate they just left as if they are waiting to go together in case their dungeon clearing failed.

Not that stupid when they don't have any idea who was in there.

“Hello!” Yoojin calls out with a smile, walking closer to them. He purposely pushes his aura down to non-threatening level, trying to suppress power below level where it's obvious. If it's not perfect, well, Yerim and Yoohyun both make no attempt at hiding theirs, so probably he can hide underneath their presence.

Maybe it's even a little too much, as the entire group seems to recoil away from them as they approach.

“Don't worry, kids won't hurt anyone. We are just going to take a break to replenish mana before moving on.” He quickly scans the gathered hunters, checking for names he recognizes. None from those that stuck in his mind. 5 D ranks, 8 E, 1 C. Not really anyone worth trying to take under his wing. “You too make sure no one faints from the mana depletion!” He calls out advice, before leading his two kids away. It's better for both sides like that.

“Competition?” Yoohyun asks quietly, glaring at other hunters.

“No, they are too weak. They can be useful for taking care of the low rank dungeons so we aren't wasting time we could use focusing on harder ones.” Yoojin explains easily and it feels like both Yoohyun's and Yerim's auras turn a bit softer and less obvious in response.

“There should be people we could recruit as allies as well. Could you please try to not intimidate people into the ground?” Yoojin asks as soon as he realizes that it was in fact not just an accident. Those two are really something…

“Why would we need allies? We are the best team already!” Yerim asks with fervor, squeezing his arm with both her hands.

“The city is large, and it probably isn’t happening just around here. As hyung said, other people can handle those weak dungeons so we can focus on ones they can’t.” Yoohyun responds before Yoojin can.

Great, he didn’t mess up the chance to found a guild with the interference… it was worrying for a second there.

“Don’t forget someone to handle our paperwork, especially when the government catches up with all of this.” Yoojin adds playfully, even if Yerim is not likely to even understand the importance of this. He still would like to have prepared justification in advance for as many people he’d try to recruit as possible.

And the list is pretty long.

He really hopes they can find Suk Simeyong before the army gets their sh*t together enough to start trying to organize and enlist hunters. And another person who could be a great help… OH!

One of the most reliable people he had contact with in the previous timeline, was pretty proud of not changing his phone for years. And Yoojin can dial the number from memory, he had to do it plenty of times with how often he had to change phones himself.

As soon as kids aren’t clinging to him this much he can call Do Hamin.

But he was serious about worrying about their mana levels and exhaustion, they’ve been camping and rushing with use of skills for those last few days without a proper break. He can’t just send them off to monster-hunt around the city just so he can have privacy to make the call (one which will definitely sound suspicious).

“Sooo… What are we doing?” Yerim asks, pulling on his hand.

“A dinner and a nap before we try another dungeon. It looks like the situation is calming down a little, but I think we should try to do one more day before we are taking a longer break. We need to figure out what we're going to do from now on, since… Well, you definitely noticed that dungeons don't disappear after being beaten, just go back to that blue state they first appeared in.”

“They will start sending monsters out again.” Yoohyun spells out the obvious conclusion. “There will be a need for people to keep beating them.”

“We are strong so we can tell people to pay us a lot.” Yerim grins as she adds, “I can make contracts!” gleefully. She really likes having that new ability.

“Sounds perfect.” He would love to ruffle her hair, but unfortunately he has his hands already occupied. It's great that Yoohyun doesn't protest, just nods along with the idea as well. It's nice that he didn't actually have to be one telling kids to try making a guild.

It'll be easier to slink into shadow as 'just a support hunter' this way.

“Now, what should we make for dinner?” He smiles and nods along with the mixture of ideas, to try and fry that A-rank bird in bread and to make some rice with that and it would be great to find some really, really spicy sauce, and some cheese to melt on top…

He tries to not worry if he can even keep the power he's been relying on since Awakening. He will see one way or another, sometime around 34 hours from now.

He doesn't have a countdown to make sure, but he will find out soon, one way or another. Maybe it won't be gone. Maybe he can keep protecting his kids like this. Maybe they won't leave him behind.

They manage to find working shop, and Han Yoojin has to hold back his anger at how outrageously overpriced everything is. But they'll be rich soon, just few days more and everyone will understand how valuable the mana stones and dungeon items are qnd then they can sell the extras and he won't need to worry about his almost empty account anymore.

It's worth it to see kids enjoy themselves. And he laughs a little at them seeing how both of them wince at the taste of powdered mana stone mixed in water. Most people are like that so soon enough manufacturers will start adding flavors to the potions... But Han Yoojin decides that he won't be using those.

As strange as it is, he has no reason to pay extra to cover up the taste he really doesn't mind.

Chapter 10 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When they enter the gate and he can see the dungeon is pretty much high B-rank it's pretty clear it might not even be possible to clear it without risk of them suddenly losing Yoojin's support in the middle of something. And he still didn't tell them this could happen. But he simply can't make himself to.

Did he make up any lie about that already to say in case he really is left powerless?

He mentioned the Caretaker without details… maybe going off that and a sudden apocalypse? Call it emergency situation starting boost.

And then he decides that he just won't tell them. There are skills from other person he got dozen minutes before ▒█▓█

He will know if he is going to lose his power before the main bulk of it vanishes and that warning should be enough.

He is just following along like he did before, just a little more active in the slaughtering and harvesting, adding a new type of bulbous root to their future menu, as well as lovely meat of those deer-like monsters. It's kind of fun on its own, to think and plan around scavenging food around the dungeons. They can make whole meals out of the mana-rich ingredients, and food like this clearly helps his kids grow their mana a bit faster than it would normally on leveling up. — He wouldn't know, no one really knew it last time around, but he remembers Yoohyun's stats exactly ~~the reminder of them echoed into his own status~~ and so he knows. This time around his mana is growing faster in comparison while the rest of his stats keeps the same rate of growth per level.

「SKILL: STRENGTH UP HAS REACHED

REQUIRED PROFICIENCY LEVEL

SKILL: STRENGTH UP

RANK UPGRADE (C→B)」

It hits him almost like a hammer, out of nowhere. It's been less than a week of constant use and suddenly what didn't happen for the last 8 years of frequent use just drops into his hands?

「SKILL: AGILITY UP HAS REACHED

REQUIRED PROFICIENCY LEVEL

SKILL: AGILITY UP

RANK UPGRADE (C→B)」

The second one pops up soon after he is done gawking and dismisses first.

Hello you too, traitor.

If it did him a favor of leveling up to D last time around it would do wonders for his financial situation. Maybe he wouldn’t even be desperate enough to join that dungeon on a mining contract.

He stops and dismisses the notification, expecting another one to pop up in his face since he was using all of them at once ever since he got them… but no more notifications come.

It takes him embarrassing five seconds more before he realizes what those two specific skills have in common:

They are versions of skills he was using before regression.

(It looks like pretending that last time around didn’t happen is not going to work after all. And the last few days have been going so well.)

He looks at the skills both his wards are going to get in the future and he honestly can’t wait to see just how much more powerful his kids are going to get soon… but the weight of being one to make the right choices for them is so heavy. Seeing how Yoohyun is a close-combat fighter and Yerim’s attack skills are area of effect Yoojin is forced to select the cold resistance for him rather than the showy signature move of ‘Sword Predator’. Of course he can get it later, but… It might be better if he gets it later. This way it would be less obvious that most of Yoojin current abilities are ones from the future Yoohyun. ~~For now. But it can’t~~ ~~last.~~

Yerim will be getting her second… well, technically third; area of effect cold-based attack so there really is no choice. (He could select the Effective Coldpack skill, but with the unstable situation she probably needs—)

He cuts himself off from this line of thought, considering again. They are storing whole monsters in inventory and throwing out meat that could be eaten and passing by fruits and roots, because there is a risk of things spoiling on them. Even raw skins and horns are at risk of deteriorating on them before any crafting capabilities emerge.

With a heavy sigh he opens the screen again and switches her next skill gained to the storage one. He can even justify it as happening on its own due to how they are using their skills so far.

Yoohyun is still getting cold resistance.

No one could even guess that he can be blamed for this.

The dungeon itself is nothing special, easy enough he can see both kids getting bored. Comparison to chance they had to run around A-rank one does it no favors. Theoretically each of them could solo this rank of dungeon and it wouldn’t even be much slower.

Only reason Yoojin would not suggest they try is because there might be this f*cking dragon lurking around in hopes of hurting them as soon they let guard down. It’s almost a pity that it didn’t send something strong at them again, because it would be a lovely chance to get more valuable materials and some levels. ~~Yoojin might want to stab the master of those lizards rather than what they can send.~~

「ACHIEVEMENT: One More to the Collection (A)

HAS ACHIEVED THE FIRST CLEAR ON DUNGEONS

OF EACH AVAILABLE RANK (F–A)

※upgradeable once higher rank dungeons are connected to the world」

That’s… how is it possible Yoohyun didn’t get this achievement title his first time around?

“Woohooo!!” Yerim flies high in the air in celebration. Looks like getting the title has lifted her mood quite a bit. Or maybe she got something nice from the dungeon clear rewards?

Yoohyun is looking at his big brother like he is suspicious.

Yoojin has nothing to say in his defense even if this time he really had no idea there is going to be something special waiting for them as the result. Because what he did was insisting they try to clear as many dungeons as possible, for the first-time-clear special rewards. At least getting both kids the ‘Dragon Hunter’ was not something that could be planned and Yerim could testify he really was terrified when the strange things started happening.

So, yeah. At this point he just has to accept that kids will assume he knew something and is purposefully helping them get titles.

“Hyung… are there any more titles for clearing dungeons we could get?” Yoohyun asks just before they exit the dungeon.

“I don’t have a list…” he starts and he can see frown on his brothers face deepening, like he is going to argue about this so he lifts his hand to ask him to wait a little, “but I know there is one for clearing the hundred of hardest dungeon type, so maybe there are other kinds too.”

“But we still will get the stuff if we are first ones to beat one of those dungeons, right?” Yerim asks, floating above them.

Yoojin rolls his eyes at her and taps her with the Mana Transfer because he is just certain she was abusing her skills to play around. (And he really doesn’t mind using F-rank mana stones as a snack. They are soft enough for his current teeth to just chew on them.)

“Yes. I didn’t lie about that. But we are taking a break before going for any more dungeons. You are both still too young to be working so much,” he insists, well aware how it felt when he quit school to work two shifts, trying to earn enough money to pay for apartment and additional tutoring for Yoohyun, repeatedly failing to do enough to get his little brother enough spare money to try out hobbies he’d like.

sh*tty, painful, like he could never be good enough.

~~Don’t think about it.~~

“Let’s go. I bet the city is slowly going back to normal by now.” He forces a smile and gestures for kids to come along with him to the outside world. “There are a lot of people with abilities around now, trying to beat dungeons as well, even if I don’t think we’ll meet anyone as strong as us.” And then he pauses in half step, already touching the surface of the exit gate. “If there’s someone as strong, they might have also met that dragon creature with their contracts,” he whispers, but even in lowered voice it’s obvious that the senses of high-ranked hunters next to him would still catch what was said.

Both of them tense just for a moment before looking at each-other and nodding seriously.

“We’ll keep an eye out, hyung. Since we know you can fix it, it's not that bad. Could be our chance to control them instead.” Yoohyun says with a little smile, grabbing on his hand and Yerim grabs on the other side (again) before both of them pull him with them out of the dungeon, forcing him out of the moment of hesitation.

The world outside was, as they expected, already much more organized. Someone put barricades around the gate, likely to keep curious people away from it. And curious people they are.

So many curious people who seem to swarm even closer as they see someone coming out of the gate. With their phones out.

With cameras.

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

Yerim shrinks away behind him and he has to be an adult in this situation. Yoohyun stays by his side, holding his hand and it helps a lot.

His little brother, looking always so good in interviews. Charming if cold, so perfectly collected even when he was still a teen.

Of course the potential is right here.

Notes:

If you are curious about the way I described taste of mana stones: I just copied answer to "what does uranium taste like"

Chapter 11 Chapter Text

“Please, we need some space. Is there any kind of official organization for people with powers?” Han Yoojin is trying to act stupid, to keep his face blank and ignore excessive questions, and pretend he doesn't hear accusations about bringing children into the dangerous monster-holes.

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

“Hyung has support skills and the two of us have fighting skills! Of course we had to go in together to make an effective team.” Yoohyun defends him in front of the reporter who got a little too vocal about ‘just children’. It's lovely, really, but it would be so much better if they didn't have to.

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

“My little brother is much more impressive than me, so quick and efficient, but our Yerim is really talented as well. She has really amazing skills, both for attacking and keeping enemies in check. You wouldn't believe how well they work together despite being literally fire and ice.”

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

He lets himself fall into the familiar mode as soon as someone asks about their powers, to brightly focus on those amazing kids while keeping himself as small and insignificant as possible. “We did our best to stop as many of those gates from spreading monsters as we could, but now I hope at least kids can have some time to rest properly.”

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

They are trying to maneuver from the area gently, rather than escape with their skills, because Yoojin just knows that they have to network and establish some publicity in order to make the guild foundation work.

“Oh, look! There really is a Hunter family here!” Han Yoojin can hear a joyous shout from the distance, an athletic woman waving energetically in their direction, surrounded by an equally impressive looking group of 9 women.

“Hi! We heard about the dad herding his superpowered kids in the area—”

“I’m not their father! Miss Moon Hyuna, it's not even funny, I'm only 3– 22 and my younger brother is 17, in what world do I look like possible parent‽”

“You know her, hyung?” Yoohyun asks him quietly, with light pull on a sleeve and Yoojin realizes he has to quickly fix that little slip-up.

“You don't recognize our national female Olympics team?” He uses the skill to figure out their names before he lists a few names. It would be suspicious to know them all, but it's even worse to be able to name only one. And secretly being a sports fan is a pretty good cover. Other than Moon Hyuna, 3 A-ranks, 4 B-ranks and 2 C-ranks… that's an amazing core team to build on.

“Oh, big bro taking care of kids in the apocalypse? Isn't that a cute story?”

He might not be too fond of their teasing, but suddenly being surrounded by those women has one benefit. Suddenly there's a wall of people blocking the reporters away and they have perfectly good reason to not even try to interact with them.

“Hey, little one! Big sis can take care of you!” another woman declares and Yoojin almost feels the urge to warn them to be careful… Yerim sends a chilly warning by herself, not cold enough to hurt anyone, but undoubtedly magic in nature.

“Now, kids, be nice. I told you it's a good idea to have more allies with how the world changed, right?”

He can feel Yoohyun's hand tighten the grip on his in the response, the wisp of his aura sneaking into the area like a scent of smoke.

“Aunties, have any of you signed any magic contracts so far?” Yerim asks out loud and suddenly Yoojin is reminded exactly what possible worry would be. Luckily the girl asking is the most innocent looking from their group. And the fact that, as she loudly declared, she can make contracts only helps as the justification for why she would ask.

Good game plan.

“Magic contracts?” The girl who doesn’t look older than 20, A-rank, with asymmetrical bangs tilts her head playfully.

“Yeah. Like, 'you’ll get cursed if you break this contract' kind of thing. I can make those!” The girl tells them with a bright smile and pretended innocence. Yoojin is honestly impressed with how tricky this child is.

“Nope. Only a few very evil corporate contracts!” Broad-shouldered B-rank woman with greataxe joins in with playful wink.

“I bet Yoojin-oppa can help you out of them!” Yerim informs them.

He can't facepalm at this, but he really, really would love to. He really made an impression on this child, didn't he?

“I'm not a lawyer, the kid's just a little too enthusiastic,” he informs them quickly which prompts an amused chuckle from three of the women. They are really nice. Much better first impression than anything Breaker’s Guild as whole ever did.

“So you mean you could get us from an evil magic contract if we end up in one? Good to know!” Moon Hyuna grins and hooks her arm around his neck in what seems like a friendly display.

It's probably going well. If he just can figure out how to get them to sign up for Haeyeon Guild as it is forming rather than let them get recruited by investors who surely are already aiming at them.

“I would say my main ability is to buff people up, but I do have few skills that seem to exist just so I can keep kids safe better.” He smiles awkwardly and ducks his head low to get out of her hold. It would be great if he can find a way to apply his key-phrase to at least some of them. (Both sides have a lot to gain from the caretaker influence now that he can double growth rather than provide a mere 10% buff.)

There is amusem*nt among the group and some nudging to list what exactly he can do… but as great his current set of abilities is, he has no idea if he will still have all of them in a few hours. It would be stupid to boast.

“Sorry, as lovely as it is to chat, I would like to talk business.” He interrupts the jovial atmosphere as Yoohyun starts glaring with his arms crossed in response to teasing. “We are planning on making an organization to cooperate with other Awakened people. I bet the government will be willing to do a lot to make sure dungeons don’t start spewing out monsters again so if we band together we could negotiate better. What would your team think?”

“You know what? Lay those buffs on me and we’ll see.” Moon Hyuna challenges Yoojin with a grin.

That’s… quite reasonable way of evaluating a support Hunter without any standards set in place so far. And he is uniquely lucky to be able to cause buff overflow effect all by himself. At least for now. It might be cheating as a basis for evaluation of his future value, but if he can get the initial guild running like this it will be worth some dishonesty involved.

It won’t be hard to trigger buff after buff, all of the skills far enough below his stats that neither mental nor mana expenses are going to be a significant drain. He probably could buff up their whole team and… Why the hell not, let’s try doing that, put buffs on all of them at once.

“Why not try to test it out in a friendly match? All of you against two of my kids. Should be more or less fair.”

He can see most of the group tense up at this declaration but Yoohyun instantly pulls out his red dragon sword and takes a stance and Yerim also grins eagerly, with spear appearing into her hands.

“Aren’t you bold? Hiding behind kids?” One of A-ranked Hunters challenges him playfully, her electric ability making Yoojin all too eager to have her fight against Yoohyun more often, hopefully dueling until they get that resistance among the options for kids, or at least they learn how to handle electricity on smaller scale. Perfect step of preparation to handle the biggest obstacle.

“Ha, let’s try it out!” Moon Hyuna at least doesn’t have anything against it, likely able to feel that both kids are also S-ranks, born into the power beyond human.

He can see the effect of buffs enhancing all the stats in sum pushing almost all of them up the whole rank temporarily, which in feedback loop forces the enhancement of skill use as well, additionally synergizing for those of them who have elemental-based skills. He can see the surprise and moment the ladies team needs to adjust to the change while Yerim and Yoohyun take to it easily, perfectly used to effects after the last few days of doing it frequently.

With 12 of the people he buffs all at once the drain of mana is significant enough for Yoojin to feel the slight dizziness so he quickly pulls a D-rank mana stone and pops it in his mouth.

And then all he has to do is to sit back and watch as they launch forward with tremendous force behind them, a simple clash causing more damage to the neighborhood than all dungeon breaks of the dungeon shock combined had done. But it’s certainly going to be worth bringing all those Hunters to his side, proving his worth and strength of his kids all in one swoop.

He has no doubt that Yerim and Yoohyun together will win, they definitely have at least a few levels on Moon Hyuna, and the optimized period of boosted skill growth and each of them already has two titles on top of that. It's impossible for them to not have a significant advantage.

He can see his kids purposefully cause the thermal shock explosion and he grins at the sight of ice shards launched into an area with far more power than either of them could put on ranged attack separately.

Yeah, those two are going to be perfectly fine.

Their superior mobility also so easily beats the wind enhanced speed Moon Hyuna can put out even with temporary enhancement making the gap less stark.

Han Yoojin turns with a grin to face two men coming running to the destructive power dancing above the street level like a beacon.

“Don’t worry, my kids are just establishing a pecking order. No one is going to die.” He calmly shifts his head to the side just a little so the stray metal beam flies harmlessly right by his ear.

「FEAR RESISTANCE ACTIVE」

That was close. The price of being cool.

“Well, we are establishing a professional group of Awakened people and we certainly could use someone with formal legal education. Would you be interested in joining us, Suk Simeyong-ssi? Or should I prepare the detailed proposal first? Oh, my little team already has a close combat damage dealer, ranged caster and support, so I would be delighted to have someone gifted with defensive abilities to round it up. Kim Sunghan-ssi, you would be a perfect fit.”

He can see both men pause, staring at him in shock at the casual reveal that he knows exactly who they are. Seeing them travel together it’s pretty obvious that two of them already established cooperation and might have even started discussing some sort of Awakened people worker union or however the idea started in the first place before Yoohyun hijacked the team as foundation of his guild.

“Don’t tell kids what I just said, please.” Just a little friendly threat.

The dull breeze of chilled air messes up his hair just a bit and he is pretty sure Yerim is just showing off at this point, so the fight is basically done. So he turns to face his little brother and girl that might just become his little sister with a proud smile.

5 minutes. They have even more advantage than he expected. Maybe he won’t really need to worry about the future Seseong Guild.

“So, how was the demonstration? What would you say about working together in the future?”

Chapter 12 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As everyone gathers, seemingly looking at Han Yoojin for the directions he lifts his hands like he's surrendering.

He still needs to call Do Hamin and probably ask him to call Kim Hayeon for him to get the man on the team without trying to figure out how it went last time. They'll need a lawyer anyway.

He briefly considers trying to look for other known S-classes for the sake of really consolidating power, but… Choi Sukwon is too ambitious, Sung Hyunjae is going to leave country too soon, Bak Mingyu has a bad relationship with Kim Sunghan and it wouldn't be a good move to undermine ally, Song Taewon would be great to have in the team… if they can convince him to join their side, not the government.

“I'm just here to support my baby brother. Talk with kids, it's up to them,” he declares, backing out of the gathering with a little awkward smile. Too many eyes on him are already making him feel antsy.

“What? Hyung, why are you telling me to handle this?”

“You're smart and I just— I can't handle the media and formal meetings. I'm not going to leave but… I don't want to be anything more than support…” he fumbles the words, unable to quite describe what he wanted. Oh, he wants to be there for Yoohyun whenever he’s about to face danger, to make good use of his poison resistance on parties and other skills in face of more physical danger. But hopefully he'd stay under the shadow of his brother's presence. At least mostly safe from overly intrusive questions, even if not from the camera lenses.

“Aww, big bro is camera shy!” Moon Hyuna laughs and reaches to hug him. He has half a second to decide if he’ll dodge or let her.

Her arms around his neck press him against her chest (probably on purpose) with enough energy to seriously hurt anyone below A-rank stats. He endures this stoically. As stoically as he can. He can hear a nervous giggle from one of her friends. And he is pretty sure he can feel Suk Simeyong observing him.

“Yes. Please don't bully me.” Yoojin deadpans. He could force her to let him go, but they're making enough of a scene as is.

“Are we naming everything about the situation in game terms?” Yerim interrupts out of nowhere and Yoojin is thankful that at least someone is trying to proceed with discussion despite… this.

“System is already halfway there so that sounds good.” That lightning girl, Kim Ari, nods along with Yerim. Thinking about it…she probably is the third youngest person in their group? Actually, there isn't anyone older than Han Yoojin. Well, him before regression. Anyway, good to see at least kids are trying to help.

“Please let me go, miss Moon Hyuna.”

Yoojin tries to very gently push her off, keeping his voice peaceful, because it's really going on for too long.

He can hear a beginning of discussion of how the ‘Awakened people’ should be called since the system name is a mouthful, in the background, more people joining in, thankfully. Only Suk Simeyong is still waiting to talk with him, his arms crossed, but that was fine. Much better than trying to manage a whole bunch of people at once at least. It has to be fine.

Moon Hyuna looks surprised as he pushes away her hands with more force but then smiles and turns, clearly deciding to go along as she joins the group loudly, “Portals, Gates, Doorways or Passages is a better name for those things?” she asks, waving her hand at the dungeon gate. Took this in stride, really.

Probably everyone these days is getting used to things being a bit weird.

“Mr. Han Yoojin, I could use an explanation as to what your plan exactly is.”

It HAS to be fine.

He really, really hates feeling like he’s being analyzed and to be torn apart for all of his sins. Judgment for the messy shirt, too flamboyant necklace, tear in his pants and the mismatch dungeon-earned shoes have with the rest of the outfit. He’s even suddenly too aware that his hair is still a bit ruffled after the dungeon trip.

[FEAR RESISTANCE IS ACTIVE]

Yoojin hesitates just for another three seconds, taking another two steps more of distance from the rest of the group before he starts speaking.

“The whole ‘plan’ I have is to enable Yoohyun to do whatever he wants, and to ensure that his path is as free of obstacles as possible. It’s them who suggested the guild of awakened people in the first place.” He really doesn’t care that much about seeming unprofessional here. At this point Yoohyun already finished more years in school than Yoojin did and with better grades along the way, and he’s not going to stop just because the world changed. Of course he is better qualified. And making it clear that his personal priority is the future of his little brother could help the stability of the guild.

He gestures a little to try and keep the rest of the group out of the conversation. And to keep himself serious without looking too much at Kim Sunghan clearly not knowing what to do with the little girl smiling brightly as she lifts him off the ground.

He can see the future HR department head frown at this, but he follows, still looking like he is convinced it’s the older brother running the show. Whatever, he kind of is handling temporary measures to get everything off the ground. It will get fixed later.

“We'll need to have someone to handle the legal side of setting up the guild and to even establish monetary value of dungeon materials. I think I know someone to help with that, but your assistance would be invaluable. I’m not of the book-smart kind.” It’s pointless to pretend he was not a high-school dropout whose career history consists purely of unskilled labor. Some knowledge of the future doesn’t suddenly change the fact.

“Not— I suppose your unique insight is not something people would get from books . I’ll be waiting for details of your ideas. I won’t pretend to understand why you are so insistent on placing a teenager as the leader.”

Yoojin instinctively bristles at the term ‘placing’ before he forcibly pushes down his aura again. Technically it’s not that far from what is happening. And he can see the little slip-up was enough to make Suk Simeyong pale noticeably.

Han Yoojin tries to mend the situation with a smile.

“Yoohyun will make an excellent guild leader, and I will be there to keep him safe from whatever tricks will come.” He looks around, taking slow, soft steps. The topic might betense but if he focuses on breathing he can keep up the non-threatening facade. “I have really good poison resistance so I can be a shield, but it’s better to not make it too obvious. Chaebol aren’t going to take the change in the economy quietly. They might start getting ‘creative’ about keeping the position once it doesn’t look like a crisis anymore.” He smiles bitterly before pulling out his phone that somehow survived in pocket and turning it on. It has a few more cracks across the screen, but thinking back about it, it really is in a much better state than what should be expected after fighting that humanoid dragon. (If he remembered to worry about it before this moment.)

“Actually, do you have contact with Kim Haeyon?” He asks with sudden realization that he would really hate to be heard bribing (or threatening) the guy who doesn’t even work as a detective yet into helping him.

“We did business before… Is there a problem?” Suk Simeyong really doesn’t change, always expecting the worst from Yoojin. Not that it was completely undeserving back then.

“No. The deal with the new guild as our legal consultant, soon to be head of department, should be greatly beneficial for him. And I like the idea of recruiting only Awakened people to start with. Once we get the base set up Yoohyun can change policy, but the first month is going to be rough. Could you please reach out to him?” Smile, smile and play nice. There is no reason to be nervous. This time around this man has no power to get between Han brothers. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to try. Yoojin is perfectly aware that his worry is misplaced, and yet. Suk Simeyong doesn’t really look younger than last time he saw him. Even the suit he’s wearing looks unsettlingly ~~similar to the █ he ███ wh█~~ ███ ██

…

[FEAR RESISTANCE IS ACTIVE]

No, not going there.

Past is gone and it is not coming back.

Han Yoojin sends friendly smile toward man frozen in his tracks and hides his own phone back into the pocket, before he turns back to join to where his little brother is, his eyes focusing on young man from the distance and something deep in his chest settles at the confirmation that he is here, to be reached in few seconds, and perfectly safe. He’s even smiling, this charming smile perfectly tailored for charming the audience. Everything is perfectly fine.

Nothing bad is going to happen to him this time around.

Notes:

Han Yoojin did not register shock of Suk Simeyong he left behind.
As convinced he is that he is doing good with his aura management, he let his monstrous pressure slip out more than once. No one in the group has any illusions about who is the most powerful person around.
The man in business suit he managed to save even in fights with monsters is standing and slowly trying to process the situation internally, wondering to himself "is Kim Hayeon Awakened? And how would this man... no, this monster wearing mask of a human; how would he know?"

Chapter 13 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Yoojin smiles, trying to mask his nervousness. He asked Yoohyun to not interfere, since he will have to get used to being among the people who don't hate his guts, but he already secretly wishes his brother had a little worse grip on his jealousy.

There's no actual danger here, no reason to spook anyone with his presence. Yoojin needs to keep conscious control of his breathing to not end up freaking everyone out. It should be an excellent chance to have a look around and check the awakening status of everyone he meets. Maybe there's some hidden gem around that Haeyeon had missed out on recruiting last time. Or maybe some valuable A-rank that would in other conditions be recruited to some other guild, perfectly open to being invited now, before everyone else figures out that the big money lies this way.

What was supposed to be a little weekend off with some future co-workers of budding Guild somehow turned into a fast growing group of people, mostly awakened ones, gathering in the park, grilling food and talking. Someone brought along bottles of soju, some seem to be calling others to let them know there is this picnic event and make it grow even larger in the process. Unexpectedly many people seem to be swarming around Han Yoojin to get his opinion, very excited to hear that a lot of dungeon creatures are in fact edible.

He grins at his (former) coworker, waving at her in greeting.

“Hey, great to see you made it! Sorry for ditching you like that when all this started, I panicked a little about my brother.”

“Right, little Yoohyun.” She nods along politely, but without much enthusiasm “Is he alright?”

Yoojin turns quickly at the question to find his younger brother in the crowd.

Trio of S-ranks gathered off to the side with their own – actually Yetim is just grilling something on Yoohyun's arm – their own grill. Most newcomers keep a bubble of the distance from them, but the ladies sports team is still there, and even few new people joined it. The group seems to count around 20 people by now.

“He’s over there with other big shots. He grew really strong and I just know he will keep making me proud in the future. And he handled those reporters earlier so well!” It takes a lot of restraint to not talk too much about what exactly can Yoohyun do now, but Yoojin is doing his best to keep an eye on the unexpected newcomer in the S-ranks group.

Yoon Kyengsoo seems to have found his way to them but he doesn't seem to have intention of causing a problem for now. Yoojin doesn't quite trust the man with how previous lifetime went, but now that he knows about the contracts, it might not have been entirely his fault. Still. Not very trustworthy, but if given the chance to grab the man into his custody it's still a good option.

“Ooh… right. Well. Good luck to you. We'll probably meet again when everything is back to normal.” She's turning away, likely to rejoin someone else she knows.

“It won't be,” he responds before he can think better of it, “Back to normal, I mean. I don't think I'll be doing deliveries ever again.” He smiles, but there's something bitter in this smile. He can remember that she died somewhere around two years after this, in a dungeon break caused by some stupid territorial dispute between MKC and the Breakers' Guild lasting too long, over the rights to a dungeon too small for Breakers' Guild to even really want.

Hopefully it'll be a bit better this time around, but he still has no hopes that it'll be perfect.

He turns with a smile towards where he can feel messy flashes of the aura of someone trying to be subtle, but ending up moving with the grace of a bull locked in a china shop. It's not all that surprising to see that's chief Song Taewon. Man has a history of not being unsettling to the civilians despite being an S-rank Hunter, of course he had to start somewhere.

“You can eat these fruits if you boil them, but keep the water. Painkiller, about high C-rank.” He explains quickly to yet another person bringing some of their dungeon harvests. “Sorry, I need to go. Stay safe, don't eat things you don't know.” He already repeated the warning about 30 times, and yet he feels the need to mention it again, because he is pretty sure someone got themself high trying to eat poison type bird. – Unless that was purposeful after they discovered that even the lowest possible poison resistance (E) is enough to make people completely immune to effects of normal alcohol.

“Hello! Good evening Song Taewon-ssi. Please, S-rank people are gathering over there. I believe I should spare a moment to join as well.” He guides the man towards the group that just seems to have grown by another 3 A-ranks who clearly decided that this group feeling like important people is more important than them being a bit intimidating.

“So that’s why there’s this gathering.” Song Taevon isn’t keeping his composure perfectly but he is clearly doing his best as he follows with a questioning look.

“It shouldn’t be a legal issue, right? And everyone helped to get the monster situation in Seoul under control.” He waves with free hand at everyone, amused at how Yoohyun glares at yet another person brought to the gathering. “I believe some of us will be up to help clear the countryside, but at least my kids need a day off,” he continues with more confidence than he actually feels, really, really hoping that he is doing what he needs to. Maybe this man dead in mysterious circ*mstances doesn't have to die. It would mean keeping a much closer eye on him over the years than ones he knew, but it should be possible.

“Ther is no need to worry, military is already dispatched to handle the countryside. The situation is much less severe outside of population centers. Everything is already under control.” Song Taewon sounds like a well reharsed announcement, but Yoojin knows better than to believe that. The situation was not really contained last time around and he already noticed that in this version there are more gates. Even if his proximity is what is epicenter of that, he still doesn't have all that much belief in whatever official statements are.

He looks at another teenager, a girl looking maybe around Yoohyun's age, the A-rank who tragically died in an ill planned attempt to attack an underwater dungeon. This one he knows exactly how he could help, simply making sure people don't go raiding unprepared. He also knows he can't get this one under his influence, since there's obvious proof that someone in her family is both awakened and taking proper care of her. She is under a caretaker's influence already. ~~Back then in the future, was her caretaker already dead? Or just left behind to grieve afterward?~~ Which is good to know. More people with some version of the title means more people could get that title's unique growth boost.

Yoohyun frowns and crosses his arms, leveling a glare towards Song Taewon, and second later Yerim-ie joins him, but she is glaring at Yoojin.

“Hyung needs a time off too! Don't you dare try to make him work more right now. I won't forgive you.”

“That’s right! This wasn't resting at all, oppa just did a lot of work helping people and didn't even eat properly!”

As embarrassing as it is, he would really like to thank both kids for just how much they worry about him. Especially since he has no idea what's going to happen in— when the skill should have run out. Wait, was it already? In a few hours? Maybe actually there is a whole day more. He could have miscounted when he was too busy running trying to do everything possible to maximize the rewards his kids are going to gain.

He checks his status nervously. He definitely doesn't feel any different than the last few days. And… actually there are some things he's missing. Strengthen limbs. He'll miss this one. Ashen path - never touched this one. Blackblood flames, which actually was a great thing to be gone from his repertoire. It's better as something Yoohyun's. And. Right, mana transfer. Sword Predator. And… blue willow leaves are now gold? For some insane reason.

Really, other than Strengthen Limbs he wasn't really using any of those. Like the system just knew he's got to lose something and picked based on his usage… and then yanked what seems to have been somebody else's unique ability. Otherwise it really would make no sense why the list of what's gone from his status is what it is. (But why the hell 'gold willow leaves'?)

As for his stats – he opens the display – they look like there's a little less overall. The distribution skewed towards magic and mind.

Still all of it noticeably beyond what any of the newly Awakened S-ranks could have.

That's.

Probably good actually.

The timer ran out and the sudden loss is not devastating, merely a little inconvenient and a bit strange.

He can see everyone turned towards him, curious as to what happened.

“Don't worry, I just had a little initial boost for the first week and it seems it ran out a moment ago. So I guess we can say that the first week in the changed world has ended. Unless you want to count from since gates started appearing,” he adds quickly towards Song Taewon who seems to also be looking at him with something of a bewilderment.

Kids basically glue themselves to his sides, almost like they think he might need their protection now.

Absolutely adorable.

Notes:

Song Taewon was really surprised. When he was sent to try to handle the unknown gathering he expected more like gang raiding local shops, not a group of people talking about how to butcher what was obviously one of the mysterious monsters attacking the city.
And especially not a man confidently advising people about usage of what they pulled out of the dungeons.

Chapter 14 Notes:

Correction: I saw someone mention that Kim Hayeon is a woman. Since those old mtls are sh*tty with fragments like this I will just take that as fact starting from now. (I remember being hit with Yoojin sometimes being mtld to Eugene. And that Shalos about 40% of the time is Charlotte.)

Chapter Text

Yoojin is pretty much convinced the government absolutely deserved to crumble as it did the first time around, or maybe even worse, since this time around the legal age from which the minor hunters can be treated like legally independent adults is 12. Like someone just took a look at Yerim and went «That's a reasonable age to hunt monsters and manage your own funds».

He absolutely knows this is bullsh*t that will land so, so many teens in the streets without any support, even worse than it had previously. He really, really wants to throttle whoever is responsible. On the other hand it means Yerim can stay with him without worry that a distant relative, or even just an orphanage will pull her away, declare any agreements they made void and probably try to take away all she has in the process. (Not that they can take stuff she has piled in her inventory, but it'd make her management of finances impossible.)

Song Taewon seems to have noticed his reaction to those news, and, to be fair, so did his kids, who took this as a sign to come closer and hug him. He seems to have accidentally acquired a third limplet, since the youngest girl from the athlete team for some reason also is sticking to him at the moment. Whatever, he can survive having one child more on his head. It's not like he actually used…

Oh, damn. When the f*ck did that happen? He swears the key-phrase is just so embarrassingly clingy he never thought he could put it on anyone by accident and yet as he looks at the list there's all 10 of them, whole bloody team listed.

Not that he's complaining but he remembers how much effort it used to take to influence someone on the team.

Like someone is trying to interpret rules loosely to help him.

At that thought he pauses to think seriously about that invitation he saw appearing in system boxes, to come into a dungeon and talk. It's still… two days and few hours left till the offered time.

He probably should assume they are allies, looking at just how many little coincidences around the system are helping him.

He just needs to ask about that dragon and… yeah. As long as his enemy isn't some kind of ally to them it should be fine. Way both offers appeared almost at the same moment makes it look more like there's some kind of competition going on. Yoojin needs to check what exactly that means;

“Please, don't worry, it's not going to cut the legal relations unless the Awakened in question wishes to,” Song Taewon assures, likely taking his sudden silence and worries as something related to the issue at hand.

Yoojin shakes his head. “You know that sh*tty parents are going to use this against F and E ranked kids to kick them out and be free from responsibility.” he might have more important things to worry about around him, but it's issue he had ever since the law was passed and older-teenage Yoohyun used it to cut the relations between them. (Because of that sh*tty doomsday cult that just happens to be powerful.)

“Those are just temporary measures—”

“Because if we are honest, with the number and power of dungeons, the army simply isn't enough.” Yoojin interrupts the justification he knows all too well. “We will need a system to match the power of individuals against the power of dungeons so we aren't wasting the lives of weaker people nor the time of powerful ones. Then we can worry about optimizing harvesting as well. Blindly throwing children into the mix will make it harder to manage.”

He can see the large man wince and take a step back, just as Yoohyun tightens his fists.

“I can see your point, but it's not in my power to influence government decisions.” Song Taewon protests without much conviction.

“You have a lot of power now. All of us do. It gives us a unique potential to be heard. Can you imagine what kind of riot all the people gathered here could make?” He glances around to make a point; at the crowd of hunters who seem to be still gathering, newcomers talking with people who already heard more about the situation. All ranks, all ages.

Tall and slender blonde man approaches them, clapping his hands slowly.

“What a delightful threat! I would love to see just what bright, new society are you planning to build, darling!” He seems to be having fun, approaching in languid steps, with his signature chains hovering over his shoulders already.

“Sung Hyunjae-ssi, how kind of you to join us.” Yoojin smiles back, not exactly sure if the man isn't just making fun of him, but still, if they can make him an ally then it would be worth sacrificing some sanity for sake of playful banter. “I would rather not overthrow the government. Replacing it sounds like too much work. Especially paperwork.” He makes a face, as if the very idea of paperwork is disgusting. Sung Hyunjae laughs at this and nods along. Seems like a right call.

“Good point, we will do so much better out where we can shine. You look just like a born princess, shining with charm and with a magical kingdom to your name… Wouldn't you allow me to invite you to a dance across a dungeon someday?”

Yoojin is doing his best to not be affected by those words, but it's really impressive to hear the flamboyant newcomer just swoop in and spew this bullsh*t with a straight face.

But he can give back as well as he gets, “Once the first S-class dungeon is located you can have that date.”

Yoojin can feel kids clinging to him even tighter, clearly not comfortable at this declaration, or just reacting to the wide smile it gets in return. With probably too many teeth, just on the right side of unsettling.

“I'll do my best to prepare accordingly for when the time comes. It'll be an honor to invite you.” Sung Hyunjae bows, with an exaggerated swoop of his hand.

With his well known mischievous nature, this much seems really tame so Yoojin responds with courtesy and batting his eyelashes, playing along with the silly game. It's not that high of a price to ally with the strongest hunter in the world… actually, with the accumulated power Yoojin has at the moment, Sung Hyunjae probably is the second strongest.

“If you do well you might just win my favor.” Yoojin winks. He suddenly is reminded about the curse-contracts. If anyone, Sung Hyunjae is one most likely to be a victim saddled with one. “Make sure no evil dragon kidnaps you on your way~”

“Hyung, what's wrong with you? Why are you flirting with that bastard?” Yoohyun clearly can't stay silent any more, but Sung Hyunjae seems unbothered by that.

“Worry not, I could not miss our meeting for anything in this world, even if I have dragons to slay on my way,” he assures with another flourish.

Honestly, it's actually quite fun. At least as long it's directed at himset, and not on some poor bystander without power to stop him.

He is still smiling as he watches the man wander off again, seemingly fascinated by people attempting to put together a whole meal using nothing but dungeon harvests.

“Don’t worry, Yoohyun-ah, I'm just having fun. No one will ever stand between us.”

“So… you are aware he's like that towards everyone?” Song Taewon interjects, which makes Yoojin shake his head in amusem*nt.

“Not everyone, just people who react in ways he finds fun. You are unfortunately part of the elite club.” And maybe Sung Hyunjae has a point. There is something fun about teasing a straight-faced official until the cracks in the serious facade start showing.

Chapter 15 Chapter Text

Yerim is only one of newly made friends and allies who tags along when Han brothers finally make their way together to their little apartment (home, like few places ever were in their life).

He will have to get them all registered but it's not like anyone really can do anything to them for a few hours delay.

“It's not the greatest place but let me check if there's still water and power.” He flicks the light switch and smiles as the light turns on. “I think all of us need to charge phones and finally wash properly…” He checks the faucet in the kitchen, watches water for a few seconds. “Great. Works.” He smiles as it looks perfectly fine.

Yerim has no pijamas but Yoojin couldn't quite bring himself to give away all of the things that Yoohyun outgrew, and with a few minutes of rooting through the wardrobe he managed to find something more or less correct size that girl could borrow.

Girl is grinning, for some reason looking happy despite too-wide shirt clearly not fitting her well.

Still, even if she doesn't mind, Yoojin knows he can't let this stand. He didn't gain her trust just to fail an attempt at parenting so miserably this fast.

He moved to the couch so Yerim can have the bed, but as soon as he settled in, Yoohyun came over and picked him up.

It's a startling realization that while stats boosted their strength it only means that Yoohyun clearly has no trouble lifting him.

“Oi, you spoiled brat, what do you think you are doing?” he pretends to be upset, even if he finds it more amusing than anything.

“You shouldn't sleep on the sofa. It's much better if we cuddle.”

“Aren't you too old for that?” It's been so long since the last time he cuddled with his brother. Would it be a decade? He can't even remember properly. But Yoohyun is asking so earnestly he can't say ‘no’ to that.

“Who’s here to judge?” Yoohyun pouts stubbornly, so Yoojin laughs at that and ruffles his hair, glad he finally knows just how much force he can safely put into that.

It's still strange, as they lay down in the darkness, to know that the person clinging to him in tight hug to him is his little brother. His heartbeat and calm breathing really help to chase away lingering worries.

Yoohyun is safe and close. Everything in the world is just right.

In the morning Yerim seems to have seized the shirt with a slightly faded print proudly staring 'THE WORLD'S BEST BROTHER'. She even seems to be purposefully sitting in the way to not cover the print while eating breakfast.

“Are you sure you want to wear that when we go out?” Yoojin asks. Seriously, why would she pick this one out of what they got? Yoojin is pretty sure he didn't even put it among the options he prepared for her in the evening.

Yerim just nods with a wide smile.

Well, if she's so sure then why not? He's not a clothes police or anything.

“Let me catch my wallet and we will go and buy Yerim new clothes. Yoohyun—”

“I'm going with you. You need nice clothes to deal with officials too and I just know you're not going to get anything for yourself if I'm not keeping eye on you,” little Yoohyun interrupts and Yoojin suddenly realizes that 17 is not really that little, this young man is almost independent and he can't keep thinking about him as little kid, even if he's so much younger than grown, competent Yoohyun he ~~lost~~ met little over week ago.

“Alright, let's go together. People seem to be moving back already, something definitely will be open,” he assures with more confidence than he actually has. Last time around everything was back to running 5 days after dungeon shock but there's no doubt that there are more and stronger dungeons than he remembers. There must have been more casualties across the city, more destruction. On other hand, hunters they just met were surprisingly decent for the first wave, and the way they gathered was clearly something more than an accident. Maybe it is the best part of the city right now.

As they went to check the shopping mall Yoojin almost laughed seeing some people with freestanding stalls, selling random assortment of things from dungeons, some of them looking like someone just ran in, grabbed whatever was growing right by the portal and then ran out. He is pretty sure that was happening the first time around, hence why the Association made special buildings around every portal, with ID confirmation as part of every entry.

And someone was trying to sell an egg. Yoojin almost passed that one by as well, but he looked at the egg just in case and

「Firebird class 2, Golden Beaked Maia

Current stat rank F

Grown stat rank potential A~S

Target is not influenced by the keyword.

※Special growth conditions: needs to be incubated covered in liquid gold for cumulative 96 hours in order to hatch.」

The requirement is absurd, but… he can imagine this terrifying A-rank boss monster at his beck and call, its wings threatening to burn whatever dares to come closer.

He ends up buying the egg basically for change. He kind of cheated the man out of fair money… but he also can imagine the egg ending up just being eaten. Or rather thrown away after a failed attempt at boiling it. It would be a waste.

He will think about the mechanics of getting the gold and actually keeping it molten later.

Yoojin looks at the way crowd parts to let them pass and he realizes that it's actually not much different from how it was before Yoohyun Awakened. Drastically different than when Yoojin was alone, then people had no hesitation to stand in his way or bump into him. But they always made way for Yoohyun.

Yerim is smiling brightly as she picks herself armfuls of clothes, mostly in soft greens and deep blues, and Yoojin has to remind her that she should get pijamas and sets for different weather. He doesn't really focus on how it looks, just checks if she has all she needs and if she seems happy with her choices.

News sounded like her apartment building was destroyed so she'll need everything new, not just clothes. But he really doesn't have that much money on hand. So first things first and then they'll figure it out.

He almost misses how quickly her expression changes when the girl turns to the store clerks who seem really unhappy to see them. She is trying to not show him how upset she is. Of course the workers should be more professional than that. Yerim is even trying to keep her aura down. Yoojin hesitates for a second if he wants to make a big deal out of this.

Honestly, people are not used to Hunters around. Probably it's better not to, just act normal so everyone can get settled to the new normal of the world.

Yoojin let himself strain their limited savings on this trip, because he just knows that it won't take long before their ranks will start paying off. The trading of dungeon items has already started and the prices will get really impressive really soon. Just a few days more.

By the time they return to the apartment again his account is empty and their arms are full, which would really worry him normally, but at this moment… in the worst scenario, they have already proven they can survive well enough scavenging through the dungeons. Even if it's definitely not a way for children to live.

Or maybe he can find some people he knows will be responsible for a lot of deaths as awakening brokers and just take them out before they can cause too much damage. He won't feel too guilty about robbing someone who he knows will live by stealing, cheating and murdering.

To be honest, he would just do anything to make sure kids are going to be fine.

Normal life. Or rather a good one. Peaceful and with everything they need.

He breaks out of his reverie with a sudden idea, “What if I registered myself as just B rank?”

Yoohyun levels him an unimpressed look.

“Didn’t you reveal yourself to a bunch of people already? It's obvious that you aren't that weak.”

“Fine. But I still will try to stay as 'just support' in the public eye. It'll be easier to watch your backs like that.” He lifts his hands in defeat, grinning with amusem*nt.

“Watch our backs? What does it have to do with dungeons?”

Yoojin almost flinches at the innocent question, suddenly realizing that the little girl really should not be facing the bloodthirsty politics. Yoohyun is older and clever, he definitely guessed what the issue is going to be, but there's no good way—

“Some people are going to be jealous of our power. We need to be careful so they can't trick us,” Yoohyun explains roughly, like he forgot he's talking to a child.

“Ooh, like those mean ladies at racing track, talking nasty because their kids are losing!” Yerim claps her hands with a smile. “We need to show them where they can shove their dumb ideas!”

That's… not concerning at all. Yeah. She probably will be fine. Yoohyun is smiling back at Yerim and nods along.

“Since the government is publicizing records of awakening it's a good idea to downplay yourself a little. Just so you have hidden trick to pull if someone thinks they can beat you.” There's nothing much he can do to soften this information but he can see kids nodding eagerly. They shouldn't face that, and yet here he is, leading them into a life where they won't be able to hang out with anyone they didn't run a background check on.

Yoohyun pulls out one of his notebooks and opens to a blank page.

“Let's write out what we all have and what we will put on the official record.”

“I think we should put down our title names for association, maybe with explanations of what it's for, but no details on what they give us. The same title tends to give something completely different for each person. For example, Yerim mentioned getting the ability to make contracts from killing a dragon. I got the Dragonhunter as well, but it gave me resistance and ability to grow protective scales. Yoohyun?”

“Mine helps to find weak spots and increases damage from critical hits.” Yoohyun offers with a smug smirk.

“Ooh, I got other thing too! Like, hating dragons to give me 20 percent buff when fighting one?” Yerim eagerly adds, which is surprisingly close to what he got from different dragon-fighting title. Those things clearly are a whole mess, without easy to follow logic behind them.

“Not everyone knows title skills aren't consistent and it's more convenient if we don't correct that yet.”

For whatever reason it happened, it really is more convenient this way, letting them keep more distinct combat roles despite the high likelihood that they will keep gathering the same titles as they keep hunting together. Probably last time around high ranked hunter teams had noticed something similar, but they also weren't very vocal speculating about how and why.

It is another (tentative) vote in favor of whoever is responsible for the system being an ally to humanity. He'll probably have questions to ask in two days' time, when he's supposed to see what they want with him.

He was just planning on bringing kids to finally register when he receives what seems to be frustrated message from Suk Simyeong who is asking why they aren't in register yet, because they started improvised guild paperwork but they can't even try to assign teen who isn't officially a hunter as the proposed guildmaster.

[We are coming. We just needed to figure out how to downplay what goes on record, because anything with SSS would just look too strange. We're going now.]

And maybe he is teasing the man unnecessarily, but it's also the truth, and as a key person for guild management Suk Simyeong should be aware of what's going on.

He's not sure what he was expecting to see at the provisional berau handling Hunters, but Song Taewon trying to look like he is ignoring Sung Hyunjae while stopping the later from placing a richly decorated with flowers fruit basket in his lap certainly wouldn't make it on a possible list.

Both of them seem to instantly stop as Yoohyun walks into the room first. Yoojin is a step behind, laughing after trying to hide a little behind his brother to get out of the insistent eyes of reporters trying to question everyone coming to register. Yerim is going last and moving a little slower for the sake of proudly displaying the 'best brother' shirt. (She simply refused to change despite having new, nice clothes.)

“The special guest is finally with us! You look positively radiant. Please, come here, look here are the forms. They look almost professional despite being put together in such a rush.” Sung Hyunjae looks like he's having fun, pretending to be in charge of the registration.

“Please note that this man has no relation to the government, despite handing you correct forms to fill for the sake of registration. Please do not let him take filled documents.” Song Taewon looks really exhausted by those antics, but he isn't trying to do anything to stop the man. Possibly because he knows that their little group is one of very few teams which should be capable of stopping Sung Hyunjae themselves if he goes overboard.

“I know, don't worry. And he knows that the information we fill there will be publicly available, if he's so curious.” Yoojin looks Sung Hyunjae right in the eyes as he responds, making a point that he has no intention of playing around this time.

The formerly most powerful Hunter of the world huffs with amusem*nt and takes a step back, dramatically placing hands on his chest.

“Oh, nooo… my darling won't even talk to me. What could I ever do to fix that? Chief Song, what do you think? Or are you too busy with your job to have any experience in relationships?” this man seems to be dead set on pissing off everyone in the room at the same time and he is probably halfway there.

“If you stop harassing chief Song for today I'll give you my phone number,” Yoojin offers peacefully. It instantly gets Sung Hyunjae to stop clinging to stoic Song Taewon, even if Yoohyun sends his brother really concerned look for this.

“You drive such a hard bargain, my sweetest… I have no choice but play your wicked games.” He clearly looks pleased with the turn of events and it's strange to know that Yoojin really doesn't need to be afraid of fabled mood swings of the Seseong guildmaster.

“Don't hesitate to ask me for help if you ever face anything beyond your capabilities to handle. We seem to have pissed off some dragon already.” Yoojin winks at him, maybe laying it just a little bit too thick. But he is really worried about the Filial Piety Addicts putting contracts on people all around and needs to somehow signal that they are here to fight them.

He put himself as just S-rank in the paperwork, for many reasons. But this way people who know will instantly notice he's downplaying his abilities.

“What a coincidence. I seem to have encountered some very upset dragon as well, spewing nonsense about wasted chance.” It's impressive to see how Sung Hyunjae suddenly changes entire demeanor, his golden eyes sharp as he takes in Yoojin with new focus.

The air is almost sparkling.

Yoojin considers Song Taewon for a moment before sighing. Probably it should become common knowledge among hunters. It would be much easier to find who can't speak about it when people are talking about it.

“The group of otherworldly, powerful beings calling themselves Filial Piety Addicts has approached us, trying to get us to sign their contracts. Yoohyun signed it to find out more, but I already got him out of that. We killed the envoy they sent.”

He adds on page, not even fitting well in the space, both his dragon-killing titles.

“So our young master is one who found out more? Well, don't hold us in suspense. What do they want from people?” Sung Hyunjae focuses his attention on Yoohyun for change, but he places hand on Song Taewon's arm. It's a very slender, pale hand, with well manicured fingers.

“Han Yoojin-ssi, I might need some help with getting out of the contract before explanation.” Unexpectedly, Song Taewon speaks up. Oh, so he found two hunters those people contacted. Maybe they are trying to get everyone with enough power or influence.

“Of course, just hand—”

“Or maybe we should let him play along a little more? Just watch the results closely to extract the answers at the right time.”

Yoojin wants to scold Sung Hyunjae for playing with others lives, but strangely enough everyone else seems to agree with this plan, including Song Taewon himself.

“Let's delay curse-breaking then. It's not like ability to do it will suddenly vanish.” Song Taewon looks already incredibly exhausted.

“I trust that Yoojin-ssi knows what we are doing. You certainly seem like the only person who does.” Sung Hyunjae comes close to Han Yoojin, with his hand outreached with expectation. Right, he was promised the phone number. Shifts in his act are somewhat unnerving, but that might exactly be the purpose of it.

Chapter 16 Chapter Text

Yoojin spreads the plastic foil across the floor of the sitting room and puts on protective gloves to ensure easier cleanup as he gets to butchering some of the monster corpses piling up in his inventory. Ones Yerim is carrying can wait for longer, but ones he has are at risk of going to waste if he drags his feet on this any longer. Well, the magic stones are going to be fine, but there’s so much more useful resources than that, even if it’s supposed to take years for some of them to be discovered.

He hits the button to just let TV play in the background as he works and he pulls out first of the corpses, a drake he’s going to skin and pull bones out from, and bag the meat with organs to toss it out next time they are in a dungeon.

On the TV screen the AD break ends and Han brothers and their freshly acquired little sister come up on the news. And Yoojin is pretty sure he knows what kinds of comments to expect after a photo with him visibly shrinking away in between two confident youths. He probably should change the channel, but his hands are covered in blood as he just started piling bones from the second corpse on the pile to prepare for drying.

He hears some talking about the ‘probably the most powerful Awakened team’ and it seems that Yoohyun has relayed them Yoojin's explanation about how he is striker for team, Yerim is ranged fighter taking care of area and Yoojin boosts them for fights. Then, with a small picture to the side there's mention about how they recruited a fourth member to fill the tank role in their team. And the statement from S-rank Bak Mingyu that Kim Sunghan is a reliable coworker and it's great to see him find a team to depend on. Which is kind of bullsh*t, but Yoojin is pretty sure he can read between the lines underlying gratitude that Kim Sunghan is going to get out of his sight and stop competing with him.

He quickly dumps what’s left of corpse into inventory, as it is, accepting it’s going to be unuseable mess and changes the channel somehow managing to hit the button with his elbow to avoid getting blood on anything, afraid that after the nice news they are going to start digging into their personal lives or whatever and he's afraid of what he's about to hear.

When looking over online articles he caught sight of questions if their group isn't a case of too much power getting concentrated in one place, but it didn't make it into the interview. Probably because the main answer they could give is "am I supposed to leave my sibling or a 12 year old alone?"

He takes a deep breath and pulls out the corpse of a goat monster that theoretically could be edible and leans closer to make sure the meat really is still in good enough condition to freeze portions of it for later. He’s already regretting not making sure Yerim had all of those encased in her ice.

Breaking news, the lightning storm out of nowhere that is unmistakably Sung Hyunjae. And, well, he certainly did a quick work of what, based on the description, used to be one of major corporation's headquarters. Good for him. No interview with him, but in moments a reporter found one of the workers and they went right to claiming they heard one of the executives arguing against special treatment for Awakened. Reporters are talking about superpowered terrorism, suggesting something absurd like a heroes vs villains future. Thankfully no one has pointed out any connection to any known friendly hunters to build a conspiracy theory instead. Maybe he really can get the financial confusion over with quicker under some more direct pressure. That would be helpful.

The regular program comes back on and he focuses on separating out feathers that can be put to use on piles depending on types. It's going to take a while to sort through.

Moon Hyuna, another face plastered on the news something like hour later, with her team closely behind; giving interview about her grief about the innocent victims of the catastrophe, how they need to organize to prevent such issues in the future, officially declaring her sports career is finished and whole team declaring now they are going to be putting their powers to public good, to ensure no monsters will wander the country. Yoojin can imagine smugness in her tone as she declares that all sponsorship deals they had are currently void since they were tied to her sports career.

Yerim comes and peeks over his arm before she finds the remote resting near his leg and just turns the TV off. He probably could have stopped her, but honestly he isn't in the mood to try fighting the child over the remote while trying to not damage it or spread blood around the room. Actually it might even be better if he isn't watching the news right now, and recent events seem to have temporarily changed TV programs quite a bit. He doesn't remember if it was like that last time.

Yoojin smiles at Yerim trying to quickly finish the corpse he was working on. It should be a reasonable place to take a break anyway.

“Yerim-ah, is there something you need?” he asks softly. Last time he saw her she was playing with Yoohyun, or as his brother called it «Planning to murder the nuisance». After figuring out it's about Sung Hyunjae he judged it as safe enough activity to just let them do whatever.

“We should go on a trip! We all can almost fly so we don't even need to take the train! I want to visit the mountains!” she seems really excited and Yoojin smiles at her enthusiasm.

“Ask Yoohyun if he has a place he wants to visit too,” he urges her, already starting to plan what he can afford to take for family picnic… and realizing that they are going to be eating mostly what they harvested from the dungeons until they sell something — and he refuses to sell their harvests for pennies before people realize they are valuable.

But he still can prepare something nice for his kids. Just need to clean up this mess first.

He brings the laundry detergent to preserve the bones properly, lays out the feathers, and he realizes he has no idea how one dries the skins.

“Are you working, hyung? You told us it's a day off,” Yoohyun complains as soon as he walks into the room to witness his brother trying to bing for instructions.

“Sorry, can't let it all rot, it would be a pity. I just need to figure out how to preserve everything until people figure out how to process it into useful items. Someone will be able to even make furniture out of wood from dungeons soon enough and you can guess how useful that is.” he explains casually as he frowns at the supplies he'd need for leather treatment… that might even not work since it's a monster material. It doesn't really matter because he doesn't have money to spend anyway.

“We should be working on this together.” He says and it almost looks like he wants to start butchering corpses in the living room right away, before Yerim bodily slams into his back.

Right. Promised mountain trip. And he will have to ask Yetim to store the rest of the gathered corpses so they can really rest easy without worrying over…

Next day he's going to the dungeon again to see what system exactly ⁵ him for. Kids are going to yell at him for nor actually taking even one day of break.

But the ones who actually are already had a pretty good rest. He can lie a little.

Chapter 17 Notes:

About the end of the last chapter: oops, it looks like I was kinda falling asleep on the keyboard and messed up text. Sorry not sorry, not fixing it.

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After some fretting over organizing everything and stuffing freezer full of meat, and cupboards and fridge full of fruits and vegetables, and leaving the egg by window to sun itself just to feel less guilty about making the firebird wait… after all necessary preparations, they really can go for their (it feels silly to do) little family trip.

“Yerim, stop jumping around, I don't 2ant to fix any holes in the floor or walls and you know there will be holes if you slip or jump too hard,” he scolds girl who is acting like jumping around him when he packs things is going to make him any faster.

“And just a little reminder, I don't want you to end up damaging any trees when we're walking in the forest, so you'll need to tone down your games. And I saw you testing how far you can throw each other. None of that,” he directs it mainly at Yoohyun because he is almost certain that he was the perpetrator of that accident.

And it doesn't feel fair to be directing all of his warnings at one person when he knows both of them could get rowdy.

It's just.

He can remember people assuming he was a terrible family to Yoohyun when his brother left him behind to become a guildmaster. On some days he even believed that.

Something about his current state makes it much easier to dismiss excess worry, but he definitely still could turn out to not be good enough.

And if he is, when he is the awakened powerhouse, his brother might end up too afraid to run away.

He sighs lightly, looking at two youths who don't seem to be paying much attention to his words, just waiting for him with smiles. Yerim stopped jumping, even if for a moment to put on her shoes.

They'll probably tell him if he goes overboard, right?

He probably should tell people that he would like to be told if he's messing up something.

He joins two of them quickly, also putting on shoes in the doorway before he winks at them and goes back into the apartment, followed by two bewildered gazes. And he opens the window wide.

Yerim laughs and comes over first, activating her skill to float gently. Yoohyun isn't far behind, scattering around the leaves from his skill and stepping into the air.

Yoojin pulls the window almost-closed behind them, just because he doesn't want to leave the apartment wide open.

He doesn't propose a race, mostly because he is pretty sure he'd win it unless Yerim decides to burn a ridiculous amount of mana on teleporting. But he does join in when kids start to play with their powers.

He is just starting to understand the freedom that comes from being powerful.

People down in the streets look up at them, the golden and cyan leaves marking their steps far above. Many pull out their phones, directing the cameras. And it's fine.

It could get twisted into many terrible stories, and yet he doesn't fear the results, because this time neither him nor Yoohyun could be used as a vulnerable point. Only way they would separate is if they want to.

Yerim doesn't seem to pay attention to people watching them, simply slinging herself over his back.

“Oooh nooo, flying is sooo exhausting!” She calls dramatically and by her weight he can tell that she actually deactivated her skill.

“What shall we do! My poor, exhausted baby!” he plays along, laughing as he pulls her in his arms trying his best to cradle her like an actual baby.

After a short moment of carrying her like that Yoojin can see his brother glaring at them.

He's trying to ask his little brother what it's about, but it just causes him to turn away and run ahead.

He… probably is a little jealous. But not like he could make this work with Yoohyun and his ridiculously long teenage limbs. (And he still has a second growth sprout from awakening to go through.)

Climbing mountains on one hand doesn't have that much of the charm of making those hard climbs when all of them are awakened and they could just skip to the top with ease, but being in this real natural surroundings IS something else than whatever 'wild' areas sprawl in the dungeons. There's just something to the way there is depth to stone layers, that every plant is truly alive in a way dungeon plants are not, that there doesn't seem to be a predetermined pattern to the way leaves grow… it really feels different.

He isn't sure if kids also can hear the different quality to the sound of soil underneath their feet. Even Yoohyun doesn't seem to be that focused on taking it in.

Which shouldn't be that strange, his little brother is still just a teenager. And Yerim is doing exactly as expected, climbing rocks that weren't supposed to be climbed just because she can.

There's less people around here, but still they seem to attract the attention of everyone passing by. Most people purposefully avoid getting close to them, some even going as far as stepping off the trail for them to pass while keeping a significant distance.

Being an S-rank certainly is a lonely experience.

Yoojin hooks his arm around Yoohyun, giving him a little, sideways hug. As long they're together there's no way he'll let it be really lonely for his kids.

And he probably made friends with other S-ranks already? Hopefully. They could definitely get along much better than last time around when everyone forced them to be competition.

They probably should be protesting against the awakening rankings as soon as the Hunters Association tries to make those, they are definitely going to have a terrible influence on cooperation. And if he had to guess they're also the reason why most combat hunters ended up looking down at support ones.

“Hyung, stop thinking about other stuff. It was supposed to be time off.” Yoohyun nudges him with elbow.

Of course he'd notice.

“Sorry. It's just…”

Yerim teleports from top of the tree to be closer to them, looking curious.

“I know. You're always working,” he states sadly.

Yoojin winces at that, but he can't even argue against the accusation. He was always working, barely able to spare time for his brother just to survive. And even after Yoohyun left he still was usually working, just to distract himself from the empty apartment ~~whenever he wasn't attempting to drink himself into oblivion.~~

“No need to be like that anymore. We will get paid for hunting monsters. And if they refuse…” Yoohyun's voice trails low and dangerous, and Yerim nods along with a look of determination on her face, barely softened by baby fat on her cheeks.

They probably already have enough connections to terrorize the country along with Sung Hyunjae to force everyone to give Hunters more than a fair share of wealth and influence. But he really is hoping it won't get to that point.

Suddenly Yerim's grabbing on his other hand, with a bright smile, like the moment before only existed in Yoojin's imagination.

“Come on, let's have a picnic! I can cool the drinks and we can even fry some meat, it'll be fun!” She pulls them along to the area with picnic tables, and Yoohyun also plays along with her, smiling and helping with pulling Yoojin along. Two of them together might even have a chance to drag him if he'd try to resist. He tries that, just to see what happens.

His feet dig deeply into the ground, damaging the area and he stops almost instantly and follows his kids. He's definitely not going to ruin the trail just because he thought it'd be funny.

They are still setting the table when someone unexpectedly comes to join them, stepping across the air surrounded by his chain, charged enough to leak influence into the surroundings. Just enough for Yoojin to feel the static gathering on his hair and skin in response to the charge, before Sung Hyunjae disperses it and drops a few centimeters to the ground as his chains snake out of sight and hide away. He's carrying a large cardboard box under his arm.

“If it's not my favorite little family! What an unexpected meeting! I see we really needed to catch a breath of fresh air after all this work.”

He lies shamelessly, with his golden eyes sharply cataloging what they had with them. It's pretty obvious he is here because people noticed them on their way and for some reason he decided to meddle.

“There's a lot of space on some other trail. Why don't you go and get your air somewhere else?” Yoohyun glares at the man, shifting just a bit closer to his older brother in an adorable, if misjudged, attempt to protect him.

“What if I like it better here? I can see quite a few delicacies you have that I never had a chance to try. Maybe we could exchange some snacks? I believe even a spoiled kid like you would know the concept of sharing?”

Yoojin wanted to protest, but Yoohyun really is a little bit spoiled. He never acted badly because of it—

“What's your offer?” Yerim demands, also stepping into the space between Yoojin and Sung Hyunjae, with hands on her hips and back straight like she's trying to look larger than she is.

Sung Hyunjae with an even wider smile than before shows them the box, and it turns out to be full of cupcakes of various types.

Yoojin is pretty sure at least Yerim is seriously considering the exchange.

“You can't be considering—” Yoohyun turns towards Yerim to protest,

“Yoohyun, who taught you to be that rude?” Yoojin pulls out his best parenting voice, “While it's not very polite of Hyunjae-ssi to invite himself like this, there's no need for conflict between us.” Then he shifts tone of voice and looks at Sung Hyunjae properly, trying to figure out what exactly caused him to come to them like that. “Especially if he has something new he found out about our situation.”

“Ah, yes. Our friends seem very cagey about what they would like. This situation could even turn dangerous for my unfortunate self.” Sung Hyunjae seems to be trying to exaggerate to hide actual worry underneath the shining layer of fakeness, but Yoojin can see he's not all that lighthearted.

He takes a deep breath, considering seriously if he should add this man under his caretaker influence. It would be beneficial for both sides, right?

Right.

Yoohyun probably will be disappointed to see this man sticking around.

“If you don't leave me, I will help you stay safe.”

He can almost feel his influence catch, before it slips. It failed. There are two possible reasons. Either Sung Hyunjae knows about his keywords, or he doesn't trust that Yoojin would care.

Either way, Yoojin shakes his head before Sung Hyunjae has time to respond verbally to that.

“Nevermind then. Still, let me show you what we harvested around dungeons. I'm pretty sure eating like this helps to increase mana stat beyond what just leveling up does.”

They can be allies. It's fine like that.

Something broken in the clockwork - Moreta - 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서 | S-Classes that I Raised (2024)

Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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