Hyung?

It was shocking enough that the sudden passage had appeared earlier than in the original timeline, but now even the erosion levels of the surrounding passages had risen.
Because of that, teams had gone out to clear the surrounding passages around the place where the sudden passage appeared, leaving a gap.
The Association and the guilds had tried to work together to fill that unavoidable gap and resolve the incident, but a troll that suddenly appeared had left all of them stuck in place.
After sorting out the situation in his head, Ro-un said one thing.

“What a shitshow.”

Haha. Yeah. A total shitshow.
He had known that the current Korean Awakener Association was full of vicious self-preservation, complacency, safety blindness, and people who swallowed what was sweet and spat out what was bitter, but in the face of a disaster like this, it had just been exposed for the sandcastle it was, ready to collapse at a touch.

‘Right. I’ll use this chance to purge the Association too. That was the plan from the start, wasn’t it?’

Great. Fine. But shouldn’t we solve this first, you motherfucking bastards?
Ro-un’s thoughts kept veering in a foul direction.
Without knowing the dark direction Ro-un’s thoughts were taking, Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun kept relaying the troll’s latest antics.

“He’s making a huge fuss right now saying the Gangnam Alliance Guild needs to be dragged into a parliamentary audit.”
“Mm. I think that man used to say the Gangnam Alliance should be given preferential treatment.”
“Wow. Look at that fast cut-off.”
“But it seems to be a unilateral move that wasn’t discussed with the Association. Right now the spokespersons for the Korean Awakener Association and Gangnam Alliance Guild are both insisting there was not even any sign of a passage collapse, let alone a passage appearing, and the Association is saying it will focus on handling the situation first. That one man alone is the only one making a scene.”
“What the hell? Why is that old man making such a scene? Acting like he’s some martyr.”

If that kind of bastard were a martyr, the patriots buried at the national cemetery would rise from their graves.
Ro-un stared as if to burn through the bald man’s hologram face as he puffed his veins up and pushed Gangnam Alliance responsibility like he were some great patriot thinking only of the nation.
Instead of saying shit like that, send support already.
As if he had read Ro-un’s thoughts, Joo Hee-jun spoke with a slightly fed-up face.

“To be honest, I don’t think the Association has any personnel it can send either. They keep talking about support, but all the Association is doing is telling nearby guilds to send people, and the guilds based around Seocho-gu and Gangnam-gu are saying they don’t have any teams that can move right now, so they’re making a fuss that the Association should send support instead. And honestly, part of it is that none of them can guarantee this won’t happen in their own district too, so they’re refusing to move from their positions.”
“I don’t think anything like that was in the articles. Where did you see that?”
“I don’t need to see it. It’s obvious. I heard the other guilds assigned to Seoul have been ordered to stand by too.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. I confirmed it from someone on the inside.”

Joo Hee-jun laid out even the parts of the situation that hadn’t made it into the articles.
This guy really was unexpectedly good at digging up information.
And he combined it pretty logically too.

‘So he’s got abilities other than just being an engraving slave.’

Ro-un was re-evaluating Joo Hee-jun when he fully processed what he had just heard and his face twisted.

“So in the end, no one’s sending anyone.”
“Right…. Because that old fart possessed by the spirit of some independence fighter is stirring up shit, no one can move in.”
“Independence fighter my ass. He’s a traitor.”

Blocking support in a situation like this was no different from selling the country out.
In the end, it meant they were in a power struggle over which side would dispatch personnel, all to avoid even a little more responsibility.

‘Their old habit of running from disaster really never went anywhere.’

Ro-un twisted his lips cynically.

“Anyway, Lee Ro-un! It’ll be hard to get support!”
“We’ve got to stop this ourselves!”

And in a situation like this, the two who came to help were these idiots.
Ro-un looked at the comparatively reliable Cheon Su-ho, then at Joo Hee-jun, and said with a flat, unimpressed face,

“Joo Hee-jun, I don’t think we can count you in.”
“Hey! Seriously, someone comes all this way to help you and this is what you say?!”
“Who asked for help? Even without you two, Proprietress Gu and I could have handled this place by ourselves.”

Joo Hee-jun’s eyes drooped as if he were hurt.
Even so, that won’t work on me.

“Lee Ro-un. I don’t know who that lady is, but seeing her hold them off so easily alone, you’re probably right that our strength isn’t needed. But even so, we still want to help you.”
“…Why?”

Ro-un asked from a place of genuine confusion.
At the look on Ro-un’s face that said he really didn’t understand, Joo Hee-jun finally exploded in hurt.

“How can you even ask that! If you’re somewhere dangerous, how could we not come?! We came because we were worried about you and wanted to help somehow! But all you keep saying is that we’d be useless, or why did we even come. Damn it!”
“Are you… crying?”
“I’m not crying!”

Ro-un’s expression turned strange as he watched Joo Hee-jun roughly wipe at the corners of his eyes with his sleeve.
With no reward, no hidden agenda, he came just to help me?

Could that even be real?
As Ro-un fumbled, unable to accept it, Joo Hee-jun huffed and shouted with reddened eyes,

“Hey! I know you can’t trust me because of everything I’ve done until now! But still, we’re f-friends, aren’t we?!”
“Friends? And because of that, you came all the way to a passage collapse site?”
“Lee Ro-un. A friend is someone who runs to their friend when that friend is in danger. Without expecting any gain, without wanting any reward, a friend is someone who runs to a friend in crisis, isn’t that right?”

Cheon Su-ho answered that while patting Joo Hee-jun on the shoulder.

“Lee Ro-un, when you helped me, you didn’t do it expecting a reward either, did you? If not for you, even now I still wouldn’t be able to fight otherworld residents properly or protect anyone. But thanks to you, I can now do my part like this.”

There was gratitude in every syllable.
A strange feeling suddenly came over Ro-un.
I only used Cheon Su-ho so I could clear the dual passage.
It wasn’t for your sake. I used you to stop the disaster that was coming.
And yet you thought of it that way?

“Lee Ro-un. It’s thanks to you. So let me help you too.”
“M-me too!”

What he had thought at the Gokseong passage might have been right.
Cheon Su-ho was the sort of guy who would still come find him even when the Big Wave hit three years later.
Joo Hee-jun was a little less convincing, but still.
Ro-un looked back and forth between the two standing before him, waiting for his answer.

“…Do whatever you want.”
“Understood, Lee Ro-un.”
“You should’ve just said that from the start.”

Having someone answer that they wanted to help him felt unfamiliar.
Ro-un looked at Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun as though seeing something strange, but the two had already turned toward the barrier, saying they would help him.

‘Right now, this is a time when even one extra pair of hands matters.’

Ro-un forced himself to rationalize the unfamiliar feeling and bury it.

When they knocked on the barrier, Gu So-ye smiled beautifully and opened a gap for them.

“Oh my. Have you come to rescue this humble maiden?”
“Hahaha. We came to help.”
“How dashing.”
“I-I came because of Lee Ro-un, though.”
“So you’re the Saint’s friends. A pleasure. I’m Gu So-ye. Let’s leave introductions at that and have you help deal with these creatures, shall we? From the look of it, support doesn’t seem to be coming.”
“How did you know?”
“A woman’s intuition?”

Gu So-ye welcomed the arrival of Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun.
It had been fun to perform a sword dance again after so long, but it had just begun to grow tiresome.

‘Even with me, Gu So-ye, personally stepping in to hold this off, they’re still dragging their feet? Once I get out there, there’ll be quite a few things to deal with.’

Gu So-ye’s eyes cooled sharply.
She still loved lovely children, but she was not merciful enough to extend that love to sinners who had committed irredeemable wrongs.
If they failed to answer her love before this was over, then they would be punished.
The two boys entered first, and Ro-un stepped toward the opening in the barrier to go in last.
Just as Ro-un was about to slip through quickly before another otherworld resident emerged, something suddenly popped out in front of him.

“Meooow!”
“A cat?”

Why was a cat here instead of running away?
Disgust and fear toward otherworld passages should have been a basic instinct shared by every living thing on this land.
While Ro-un was staring at the cat in surprise, someone else sprang out in front of him too.

‘A civilian? From where?’

Cheon Su-ho said there was no one else nearby!
As Ro-un stared in shock, sharp claws thrust out through the open gap.
The scene entered Ro-un’s eyes in agonizingly slow motion.

‘No!’

A frightened cat, and the civilian chasing after it.
As the otherworld resident targeting them swelled its body outward, the distance between its awl-sharp claws and the two rapidly shrank.
Ro-un threw out his arm.

‘Please let me not be too late.’

Jjeeeong!

Ro-un threw himself between the jutting claws and the two of them.
The person who had barely managed to catch the fleeing cat curled inward, and Ro-un threw his body over them both.
He used [Protection] on reflex.

‘Just this once, please block it!’

Ro-un wrapped both of them into his arms and braced himself.

Jjeeeong!

He heard the sound of powerful force colliding.
From far away, he heard the voices of Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun.
There was… no pain.

‘It worked!’

Sensing that they had survived the danger, Ro-un opened his eyes and moved to block the gap in the barrier, only to notice first that the otherworld resident’s jutting claws were already being flung back through it.
The claws seemed to rebound in exactly the direction they had come from, as though they had struck something with tremendous protective force.

‘What? My [Protection] skill can’t reflect attacks.’

When Ro-un blinked, he noticed what he had missed.
It was a brilliantly multicolored film covering a milky white half-dome.

“This is?”

Just then, light rose before his eyes.
Ro-un’s eyes widened when he recognized what the light was.

“The spirit egg?”

Crrrack!

The egg began to hatch.
The hatching happened in an instant.
Ro-un instinctively realized that the protective barrier that had shielded him was the spirit’s power.
Ro-un cupped the egg in both hands.

“You protected me.”

Crrk!

Behind him, the civilian cradling the cat lifted their head.
Between the low-pulled cap and the mask, beautifully shining eyes fixed on the spirit as it hatched.

Crrrraack!

Light burst explosively from the cracked openings.
Ro-un reflexively shut his eyes, then opened them once the light had vanished.

[Woof!]

A small white puppy sat down on Ro-un’s two hands with its little rear planted firmly.
Ro-un, carefully cradling the newly born spirit, blinked several times, then his eyes snapped wide open.
The glossy white-furred puppy with its stubby little legs licked Ro-un’s hand.

Whip-whip-whip-whip!

The puppy’s tail wagged powerfully like a propeller.

“…Hyung?”
[Woof!]

The newly born spirit answered Ro-un vigorously when he recognized it.
Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun, having rushed over and dealt with the nearby otherworld residents by the gap in the barrier, heard that and shot back in confusion.

“Hyung? You called it hyung? That dog?!”¹
“Mm. Brotherhood beyond species. I respect it, Lee Ro-un.”
“To hell with species, it literally just hatched! If you’re going to call it anything, it should be dongsaeng², not hyung!”
“If Lee Ro-un’s younger sibling is a spirit, then is Lee Ro-un a spirit too?”
“Ugh! How would that make any sense?!”

Joo Hee-jun immediately jumped in to pick a fight with Cheon Su-ho’s logic.
The two bickered over Ro-un and the newly hatched spirit, but none of it reached Ro-un’s ears.
The only thing that mattered was that the small, precious spirit in his hands looked exactly like ‘Hyung’ had when he was young, the ‘Hyung’ who had shared his childhood.
Ro-un lifted the spirit’s front right paw.
In the middle of the pink paw pad was a black spot.

It was Hyung.

“Hyung.”
[Woof!]
“So it really is you, Hyung.”
[Woof! Pant, pant, pant.]

My family.
The family member he had long ago lost had returned as a spirit.
Ro-un gently wrapped both hands around Hyung, who had returned as a spirit, and pulled him to his chest.

[Whine.]

The glossy white-furred puppy licked Ro-un’s cheek.
Cheon Su-ho, kicking away an otherworld resident trying to force its way through the gap in the barrier, called out to Ro-un.

“Lee Ro-un. I know you’re happy your spirit hatched, but shouldn’t we evacuate that person over there quickly? At this rate, it’s going to get dangerous.”
“Right! We need to get that person evacuated and then hurry over to join her!”

At Joo Hee-jun’s words, Ro-un came back to himself.
Right. Of course.
Ro-un turned and looked at the civilian and the cat.
The civilian, covered all over like some celebrity trying not to be recognized, bowed while holding the cat tightly in both hands so it couldn’t run off.

“I-I’m sorry. My little one suddenly ran off.”

Did they come all the way here to save their pet cat?
What a decent person.
Having just reunited with ‘Hyung,’ Ro-un was currently overflowing with mercy.
For a moment, it even felt like a status ailment had been lifted.
Smiling gently like he used to long ago, Ro-un cast [Healing] on the civilian and the cat, then pointed toward the shelter.

“This place is dangerous. If you keep going straight that way, you’ll reach the shelter, so please hurry and get there.”
“Th-thank you. And I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine. Go quickly.”

The civilian bowed several more times, then ran off in a hurry toward the shelter.
They were a very fast runner.
Was that how they had managed to appear in front of him so suddenly?
Cheon Su-ho and Joo Hee-jun came over to Ro-un, who watched the civilian until they vanished from sight.

“Lee Ro-un. A healer really should stay outside—”
“For a C-rank, you sure talk a lot.”
“Hahahaha! What Bomb Freak means is that even if we go inside the barrier, we won’t be of much use. I don’t know who that lady is, but she’s clearly someone extraordinary. It looked like she could handle the collapse by herself even without us stepping in.”

Cheon Su-ho’s instincts were still sharp.
He seemed to have sensed that Proprietress Gu was no ordinary being.

“Eh? Really? But how is she supposed to block all that by herself? There’s no support coming.”

Joo Hee-jun, on the other hand, seemed short on instinct.
Ro-un gave Joo Hee-jun a look of disbelief, then carefully hugged ‘Hyung’ to his chest and walked toward the gap in the barrier.

[Pant pant pant pant pant.]

Just as he was about to step in, Gu So-ye stopped him.

“Stay there.”