The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 393: The Prophet (1)

No matter how fast her body was and even with teleportation, it was impossible to dodge all the falling rain. There was a limit to blocking it by freezing it, and in the end, Dang Ye’s water touched Park Yerim’s shadow. As an A-Rank, with her current stats comparable to an S-Rank, her movements only became slightly sluggish, but the effect was still sufficient.

Compared to the weakened Park Yerim, Dang Ye received an additional buff. Including the basic buff of Shadowless Day, it was more than enough to make up for her lack of experience. In addition, the momentum of the water she had drawn out was still strong.

The water, under Dang Ye’s control, consumed more power than usual for Park Yerim to freeze and control. And if the ice melted, it would soon fall back under Dang Ye’s control. It was like bailing out the surging sea with a bucket. Park Yerim’s ability was by no means low, so in reality, it would be like a large pump, but the fact that it wasn’t enough remained the same.

“Oh no. I’m out of mana!”

The soaked Park Yerim shouted, raising one arm high. With no mana potions, it was practically a defeat.

“Should I give you mine?”

Dang Ye, who looked like she had just come out of a swimming pool with her clothes on, said. Park Yerim shook her head.

“I’m not the only one in this dungeon. Usually, you can’t even talk, and you have to fight to solve things, so save it.”

Park Yerim made an ice bench with her little remaining mana. Saying she had a headache from using too much mana, she leaned back against the bench and sat down limply. Dang Ye also approached and sat down next to her.

“They say you can faint if you have little mana left. It’s okay to use one potion. I have plenty.”

“It’s not that bad. Besides, once a high-rank Hunter gets used to it, they can hold on with just 1 percent left.”

Usually, if the remaining mana level is less than 10 percent, you lose consciousness. But a high-rank Hunter, with their basic stats to back them up, would often become resistant to mana deficiency. Especially the higher the magic stat, the more base mana they had, the easier it was to hold on.

“I still have a hard time making it this cleanly.”

Dang Ye said, fiddling with the ice bench. It was as if it had been mass-produced in a factory, with a perfect shape and balance.

“Simple shapes are easy, but if it gets a little complicated, it’s made differently from what I imagined in my head.”

“You have to practice that too.”

“Did you practice?”

“Yeah. And this is more about sense, sense. Anyone can draw with just paper and a pencil, but not everyone can draw well. There are people who are good at it right away, but it’s usually practice.”

“…Then do I have to study art too? There are so many things!”

“Civil engineering is good. Especially things like balance and force distribution. If you learn it, you can produce a bigger effect with less power. Even the same ice wall has a different strength depending on its structure. And it’s good for various uses when clearing as a team.”

Dang Ye looked on the verge of tears. She thought she wouldn’t have to study as much if she awakened as an S-Rank.

“But does he really not remember me?”

“Huh?”

“I’m talking about Mister Yujin.”

Park Yerim said, brushing away the hair stuck to her face.

“If he had remembered, he would have already told you these things. The things I told you, most of them were things I had talked about with Mister too. Mister likes to collect Hunter information. That’s why he and Mister Do Hamin got along so well, even though they pretended not to.”

“Oh, if it’s Mister Hamin, I know him too.”

“He’s famous as an information broker. But you probably didn’t know him at your age, right?”

“Mister hired him.”

“What? He doesn’t remember me, but he remembers that cheapskate? Even though he usually grumbled about how annoying he was!”

Park Yerim stomped her foot in frustration. Then her expression quickly changed to one of worry.

“Did something happen a year ago? I should have gone to see him myself, but I was too busy getting settled, so I couldn’t.”

“Let’s go ask him!”

Dang Ye jumped up from her seat. At those words, Park Yerim’s eyes widened.

“What?”

“Ah, you can’t go out. I’ll go and bring him.”

“Wait, is Mister here? If this is a real dungeon, it must be at least S-Rank, right? Mister is an F-Rank!”

At Park Yerim’s shout of “What crazy thing are you doing?”, Dang Ye made an awkward expression.

“Well, this dungeon isn’t a normal one. We were forced to come in. And it’s not the first time Mister has entered a high-rank dungeon.”

“It’s not the first time? A high-rank dungeon? Are you crazy, really! Why on earth would he do that? You said you reconciled with the Haeyeon Guild Leader. Then why is he doing dangerous things again?”

“…It just happened?”

Even Dang Ye had nothing to say. Anyway, I’ll be right back, she said, and as she flew up, she hit a transparent membrane with a thud.

“Ugh! What?”

[You have not heard the boss monster’s declaration of defeat! The raider can exit the area after completing the area clear!]

A system message window appeared. Dang Ye stared blankly at the message.

“What? No, Mr. Volleyball!”

You didn’t say this at first! Dang Ye shouted. Even when she said she would just be out for a moment, no new message window appeared. Park Yerim gestured for the hovering Dang Ye to come back.

“It says you can’t go out before clearing it!”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How cheap!”

“Isn’t it a lot of help that they changed it like this?”

Park Yerim said, taking off the ring she was wearing.

“It’s an SS-Rank ring. It can contain two attribute powers.”

It was a ring of intertwined blueish silver and reddish gold rings. Dang Ye took the ring in a daze.

“…It has poison in it too? Why didn’t you use poison? I don’t have a poison resistance skill, and my poison resistance equipment grade is low, so it would have been very effective.”

“There’s no healer nearby. What if something goes wrong? It’s not someone else, it’s me. And… huh?”

Park Yerim, who was about to hand over her spear too, stopped. A system message window appeared before her.

“It says I can only give one reward item. The ring is better, right? I got that with great difficulty.”

A reward item. At those words, Dang Ye’s face darkened. She fiddled with the ring and let out a deep sigh, her brow furrowed.

“I, well, I want to fight a few more times.”

“Yeah, it was fun.”

“Yeah! Me too!”

“Maybe I’ll just go back to my real place. Then they’ll make a fuss about what happened to the ring.”

Park Yerim laughed. But Dang Ye couldn’t easily laugh. She raised Park Yerim’s hand and lightly patted her own smaller shoulder.

“Even if it’s not that, you are, so to speak, my future. Because I was there, you became you.”

“Still, it’s a shame.”

A short silence fell. Park Yerim rubbed her arm with her hand, slightly embarrassed.

“Ah, I think I’ll have regrets too. Let’s end it quickly. I lost! Park Yerim won!”

Park Yerim shouted without hesitation.

[Congra☆Clear Complete☆tulations]

As soon as the shout was over, a message window appeared. At the same time, Park Yerim’s form began to blur.

“Wait a minute! You know!”

“Give my regards to Mister. And find out about the memory. And also, um, I’ll do well on my own!”

Park Yerim smiled and waved her hand.

“Park Yerim, fighting!”

“Uh, uh… yeah! Fighting!”

Park Yerim shouted with all her might. And then it became quiet. The lone Park Yerim rubbed the corner of her eye with the back of her hand.

“Just like me, you’re so impatient. You could have stayed a little longer.”

She put the remaining ring on her finger. The slightly large ring shrank and fit Park Yerim’s finger perfectly. Seeing the faintly glossy ring, tears welled up even more. It wasn’t just that the farewell was sad. Various emotions mixed together and overflowed.

“Little Kim Seobang!”

“You surprised me!”

“Are you crying?”

“No, I’m not!”

Park Yerim rubbed her face with her wet sleeve.

“This is just water, water!”

“I know. But I’ve always been curious. Why is crying embarrassing?”

Yun Yun tilted her head.

“It’s just, if you cry, you look weak.”

“But Little Kim Seobang is super strong?”

Yun Yun said, looking around.

“I was far away, but I saw all the water gushing up. It was amazing!”

“…Yeah. I’m amazing.”

Park Yerim nodded her head. No matter when or where, Park Yerim was amazing. A round droplet of water appeared in front of her. Park Yerim washed her face with the clean water and then threw her wet hair back.

“Let’s go find Mister! Before the sun sets.”

“Okay. But the sun hasn’t been moving since a while ago.”

“Huh? Ah, you’re right. The sun has been setting since we got here, but the sky is still the same?”

The two of them looked up at the sky at the same time. Just then.

RUMBLE–!

The ground shook. No, even the sky, the entire space, the dungeon itself, trembled violently. Park Yerim and Yun Yun reflexively hugged each other. They both held onto each other, ready to use teleportation and spatial movement, then remembered and separated again.

In the meantime, the vibrations subsided.

“K-Kim Seobang! What was that……?”

“I don’t know either. But when something like this happens, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s Mister.”

Park Yerim said with conviction. Then, as she was about to say let’s go to Haeyeon Guild, a system message appeared.

[The Sesung Guild area has been temporarily closed!]

The tears didn’t stop easily. My insides also continued to sting. The moonlight, the chain that had been wrapped around my body, placed me on the table. Seong Hyunjae looked up at me, who was crying.

“What are you looking at?”

“It’s not just because you suddenly missed your little brother.”

“I could have missed him. My little brother is always nice to look at, you know?”

Although I retorted, anxiety seeped in. I didn’t know why such an emotion had suddenly washed over me, but I had an idea of the cause. It must be Yuhyun. Since it’s a dungeon made from pre-regression information, it affects the raiders too—is this one of those things?

‘…But it’s not just sadness.’

Just before the regression, when my brother died, the effect would be more than enough to twist my insides. But what’s with the happiness? Does being happy too mean that nothing happened to Yuhyun? I wanted to go find my little brother right away.

“Hey, Mr. Seong Hyunjae. How about I bring Mr. Seong Hyunjae myself? I have a spare contract, you know. It’s an S-Rank. I’ll coax him well and present him before you within an hour.”

“It’s not urgent, so it’s okay.”

“Or I’ll just go to the bathroom. You’re not in a hurry, but I am. There was a cafe right in front of here.”

Seong Hyunjae smiled and gestured politely towards the wooded area.

“Urinating in public is a crime and a nuisance.”

“As the owner of this building, I allow it.”

“Forget it.”

I knew it wouldn’t work, but as expected, it didn’t. Damn it, but at least my heart has calmed down a bit now. I wonder if Yuhyun and the others are okay. Rookie, please take good care of them. Take care of the kids.

“Do you really not remember at all?”

Seong Hyunjae blurted out. I shook my head briefly.

“I really don’t remember. In the first place, you wouldn’t have appeared as the Sesung Guild Leader, would you?”

“But, perhaps……”

Seong Hyunjae’s words trailed off. A furrow appeared on his smooth brow.

“Perhaps what?”

“My memory is not perfect either.”

It was a voice thick with displeasure. Mr. Seong Hyunjae’s memory often… wait a minute. Is it a side effect of Plunder? If the Seong Hyunjae who had been filled to the brim had safely gone to the Alps or Greece, then Chief Song must have used Plunder. I don’t know exactly how he used that skill, but his experience, his memory, must have been lessened.

What I had extracted with the help of the Changeling seemed to be only information from the distant past, but the Seong Hyunjae in front of me seemed to have lost a part of his memories in this world as well.

“…At first, I thought you were a disgustingly perfect person.”

“Did it affect you too?”

“What?”

Me? Why me?

“Me and Song Taewon. Me aside, you don’t seem to remember Song Taewon either.”

“…Why Chief Song?”

“What about Park Yerim?”

Huh? Why is Yerim coming up here? As he carefully observed my confusion, Seong Hyunjae continued.

“The reason Park Yerim and Han Yuhyun almost fought was.”

“Th-that’s news to me! They almost fought? No, they do that often these days, but even before I regressed?”

Since their attributes were what they were, there were articles that tried to pit them against each other. But the pre-regression Yerim was an A-Rank, so it would end inconclusively. At best, they were mostly linked as the young representatives of each class, with Han Yuhyun, who had established himself as the strongest among Korea’s S-Rank Hunters at a young age and was even eyeing the world’s number one spot, and Park Yerim, who was not just young but a child, but showed a dazzling performance as an A-Rank Hunter. Since their grades were different, it was difficult to line them up for a battle.

“How on earth.”

“You really don’t know.”

Seong Hyunjae was about to tell me.

“But now it’s something you don’t need to know.”

He cut himself off again. Is he doing this on purpose? I’m starting to get angry.