The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 619: We’re Getting Married (2)

I was confused. I’d thought she’d be someone connected to Crescent Moon, or at least another Transcendent. I clutched my head, trying to sort out the situation somehow.

‘First of all, she had a skill similar to Perfect Nurturer.’

So far, there were Park Hayul and Chloe. Those two had each gotten optimization–type skills and grown into S–rank Hunters. There was a good chance there were more Hunters like that out there. In China, they’d kept Yun Yun tied down and tried to use me to get her free, and they’d passed information about Chatterbox’s party through Chloe. Not to me, but to Seong Hyunjae.

She’d asked me to be her partner, but when Chatterbox’s party actually happened, she’d stayed quiet.

‘In the end, she was after Seong Hyunjae more than me.’

Park Hayul kept an eye on me, but his sister clearly didn’t. She hadn’t seemed to care too much what happened to me in China either. I was just a convenient tool. On the other hand, she’d been pretty favorable toward Seong Hyunjae and… what, marriage was the goal? I mean, he looks good on the outside, sure, but really? Actually getting married? As in, for real?

[This is Mari Taylor.]

Mari Taylor. She wasn’t directly on set, it looked like a video call on screen as she smiled. A twenty–something S–rank Hunter. From the way Park Hayul had talked, she was probably actually a lot older. You can’t really guess the age of S–ranks from their faces. And there was a chance this Mari wasn’t that older sister I’d seen.

[Just like Princess Isabella posted on social media, I’m the one marrying Sesung’s guild leader.]

Isabella? A reference clip came up. It was Isabella’s post saying she and the Sesung guild leader weren’t involved and that the real bride was Mari Taylor. Why did Isabella suddenly… I hurriedly pulled out my phone and searched, and several articles had already gone up.

…What the hell happened in Africa? Were Yerim and the others okay? While I was frantically scrolling, the TV kept up a light Q&A. When they asked why the Sesung guild leader hadn’t made an appearance, Mari answered that he didn’t want to. When they asked if they’d been secretly dating, she just smiled.

[It’s a match our parents arranged.]

…Parents? Parents? He had parents? Well, he had a proper resident registration, so of course they existed, but still, seriously? More than that, he was the kind of guy who listened to his parents? In a way, that was more shocking than hearing it was a love match. A union between families, that kind of thing. Wow… although honestly, it did kind of suit him.

[We’ll be holding the ceremony on January 1st at 10 a.m. Sydney time.]

Mari wrapped up the short interview and disappeared from the screen. The program shifted to talking about the Sesung guild leader’s whereabouts. Sydney… where was that again. More importantly, what was this… I thought this was going to be Transcendent–related. What even was going on. I was clutching my head when Yuhyun stood up.

“If we use Haeyeon’s private jet, it’ll draw too much attention. Let’s just rent a normal plane and go home.”

“…Huh?”

“It’s a marriage between families, so there’s no need to stay here any longer. We can send the cash gift from the guild and the Breeding Facility side to Sesung’s people.”

“N–no, wait, hold on a sec.”

“Australia’s not exactly close either, if it’s Sydney. So let’s go home, hyung.”

But, still. “Our parents arranged it” didn’t sound that strange. But there’s no way Seong Hyunjae would quietly accept getting married like this. There’s just no… way? No, even if he did get married, he wouldn’t do it this quietly. So it felt wrong, or like… like…

“Yuhyun!”

• Pwee!

Yuhyun scooped me up. The kid who’d been on my lap tumbled onto the bed and started bouncing. Hey! Wait!

“Why are you in such a hurry— think this over! Hey! If I just bail like this it’s embarrassing for me!”

“Got it.”

He set me back down on the bed. Then my little brother grabbed the end of the blanket and tried to roll me up like a burrito. Hey! The kid sitting on the edge of the blanket rolled along with it, giggling. This is not playtime. You, back inside for now.

“Going straight to Australia is weird! Just, wait, January 1st isn’t just some random date, okay?”

“You worry way too much about the people around you.”

The blanket came up over my head. At this rate he was going to roll me up and carry me off, so I hurriedly pulled out a dagger and slashed the blanket open.

“If you line up the time just right. Midnight… hits this region!”

France, Italy, Germany. Not the UK. This area hit exactly midnight on January 1st when it was 10 a.m. in Sydney.

“You’re worrying about people that don’t need you to worry about them.”

“Do Hamin’s here too, so let’s at least look into it a bit before we go, yeah? We have to meet up with Yerim and the others anyway! Peace, Gyeol, Noah, Chief Song, they’ll all be coming!”

My little brother looked at me with eyes full of dissatisfaction, but even more full of anxiety. The expression on his face was like we’d gone back in time. To when I’d just regressed.

“…Because I almost got caught by Chatterbox, and then went missing?”

“Of course I was anxious and scared then. But I trust you, hyung.”

“Then it’s fine, for like, a day, right?”

Yuhyun closed his mouth and let his gaze drop. It really was strange. There was definitely something I didn’t know about.

“Because I trust you. That you’ll accept and love me, no matter which version of me it is.”

“That’s just obvious.”

“Yeah. I’m sure you will.”

His voice was dry and parched. My own mouth felt dry, and I swallowed.

“Hey, Han Yuhyun. You—”

“Stay here. I’ll go find Do Hamin. Just one day.”

Iryn shifted over to me and Yuhyun left the room. I blankly stared at the door as it shut with a dull thunk. Sure, the Chatterbox thing and my disappearance in a row were enough to rattle him, but still.

“…They said my lifespan got extended, too.”

So why. It was like he wanted to hide me away someplace no one could ever find me again, like before. There was no way he’d feel that way for no reason, but I couldn’t guess what that reason was. There was nothing besides the Chatterbox incident. When we met again in Africa, he’d seemed fine. Was it because I collapsed on my birthday? Or because I told him it was okay to be more selfish?

I swallowed a sigh and picked up my phone. Isabella’s socials… even if I searched her name, a few thousand results would pop up. I could probably dig it out of the articles, but I was feeling weirdly drained. I told Yuhyun he didn’t have to be that nice, and now he’s stressing me out like this. You have to say things if you want me to know, you have to talk.

“What’s this guy, Seong Hyunjae, even doing. Can’t even send a single text?”

I opened the message window.

[America’s hero^^]

I saw the last text he’d sent, and the abuse I’d replied with. It had been some nonsense about how well the clothes suited me after some outfit compliments.

“…We are kind of like friends, I guess.”

So I couldn’t just ignore this.

[If you don’t send me a wedding invitation by today, I’m crashing the place.]

I sent a text I knew he wouldn’t read. Thinking about it, this made how many times now. First the birthday invitation, then the party invitation, then he ghosted me and I showed up in person and blew up his house. The cruise ship got wrecked, the hotel didn’t exactly stay intact either. So he’d definitely skipped sending me a wedding invitation fully prepared to have the venue blown up too. It had to be a signal. “Come blow it up.”

Just then, my phone rang. I answered quickly, and a familiar voice came through.

[Mister!]

“Yerim! You okay? Is everyone safe?”

[Yeah. We’re at Cairo airport right now. We’re just about to board for France.]

Once word got out that I’d left Africa, the attacks and pursuit had stopped, apparently. Yerim told me they were scheduled to arrive in France by tomorrow at the latest.

“What about Isabella? They said she posted something new?”

[Ah, about that.]

Yerim dropped her voice as she continued.

[The prince got taken.]

“…Huh?”

[What was it, again, the official title… anyway, that prince. She told me they must have been bound by a contract or something.]

“A contract? So you’re saying the royal family took him?”

[Probably? Bella said it was a pain, but she couldn’t just leave it alone, so she went back too. And not long after that, she must’ve posted.]

…So that Mari person was also working with some Arabian royal family? She was a bigger deal than I thought. Or her family was just that impressive.

‘In the end, the post where Isabella uploaded that picture with Seong Hyunjae and Gyeol just made Mari and Seong Hyunjae’s engagement sound more credible.’

At the same time, the fact that they went as far as taking Samir hostage to force Isabella to post something meant—

“Yeah, this wedding isn’t normal.”

[So it is weird, right?]

“Yeah. It stinks.”

If the marriage were already a done deal, a few silly rumors wouldn’t matter. It’s not like they were just putting out a simple correction article; they were going to extreme lengths to erase some gossip. Which meant—

‘Just like how Chatterbox tried to keep himself in this world and turn me into the King of Harmless, people’s perception matters.’

Transcendents. And among them, especially Crescent Moon. This was definitely something tied up with her.

“Yerim, we’re going to the wedding too.”

[What, seriously? We only have a few days left, what about clothes?]

“It’s France. The UK’s right next door too. We can get suits easy.”

The problem was how to find Seong Hyunjae.

‘Now that Mari’s face is public…’

We could put that hamster–addict to work. If Do Hamin spent all night spinning around France, Germany, Italy, and so on, we could probably find her in three or four days. There had to be at least one rat that remembered Mari’s face. Make your precious Geumdong earn his keep, Hamin.

A car rolled to a quiet stop, an older model kept clean enough to look like it had just come off the lot yesterday. Mari stepped out with a large bag in hand. She traveled all over Europe for work, so she maintained a home in each of the major countries. They were generally modest, quiet houses in the outskirts, neither too big nor too small.

“Welcome home.”

The steward, having heard the engine, came out to take Mari’s bag.

“There’s a guest waiting in the study.”

Mari only took her phone and wallet out of the bag and headed up to the study on the second floor. Outside the large window, leafless branches hung long and low. Little fluffy–feathered sparrows flitted through the branches. The person on the sofa rose when Mari entered. She returned the greeting with a nod, walked over to the desk, set down her phone and wallet, and sat. Her eyes moved from the sofa down to the floor beneath it.

“I don’t approve of coercive methods.”

Where her gaze landed, Samir lay collapsed. Unconscious, his arms were tied behind his back. The man who’d brought him here smiled gently.

“He won’t resist. There’s an even more exceptional kid, but that one’s trickier. And—”

“We can discuss the rest after my daughter’s wedding.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let him wake up on his own.”

The drawer slid open with a clatter and Mari picked up the unfinished knitting inside. The soft whisper of yarn unwinding flowed through the room, faint and steady.

“…I was going to take care of this alone.”

She let out a sigh. But at least this brought things to a close. Even if another fake appeared, people wouldn’t be shaken so easily once the same thing had happened over and over. At that point, it would be enough to say, “It seems there are a lot of people trying to disrupt the wedding.”

“It’s almost time now!”

Mari deliberately shouted the words as she walked. She’d been waiting a very long time for this wedding. With this marriage, her world would become perfect.

“…And they lived happily ever after.”

The last page of the world Mari lived in. A page she’d never managed to reach through that long, long time.

“It’s a bit different than I imagined, though. The prince is the problem. The prince.”

A glass ceiling overhead. A moon high in the sky. Countless flowers and a long veil brushing over her fingertips. And then the ending. The end.

“Even if I don’t like it, it doesn’t matter.”

Mari stomped her foot as she entered the garden. She discarded the thought that she should be stepping lightly and gracefully, just for a bit. A man dressed all in white came into view. In Mari’s eyes, the fine, tousled hair shimmered like pale blond. His eyes were literally golden, and the smooth line of his broad shoulders and straight back flowed into a perfectly tailored white suit with not a wrinkle in sight.

‘Honestly, it pisses me off!’

Mari’s hand clenched into a fist. Yes, the outside was perfect.

“Either way, the wedding is going to happen. Even if you refuse, there’s nothing you can do.”

“I’ve no intention of refusing.”

Even the slight curve to his eyes was unreal. As long as he kept his mouth shut and sat still, he was exactly the prince Mari wanted.

“I thought you didn’t like me?”

“I figured I should at least meet her once.”

Still looking up at the glass ceiling where daylight streamed in, Seong Hyunjae spoke. He hadn’t properly faced her even once. Or rather, he had, but he’d forgotten it all. Mari tilted her head at his incomprehensible answer.

“…Did you start liking me in the meantime?”

“Who knows. I’m not interested in the shell.”

“…Excuse me?”

“The one standing in front of me— whose will does he belong to?”

The golden eyes that had held the sunlight turned to Mari. She squinted slightly as if they were too bright.

“I’m—”

“What’s your ideal type, Miss Mari?”

“A prince, of course.”

“There are all kinds of princes. From external traits like hair color, eye color, skin tone, height and build, to internal traits like personality, hobbies, education, interests. The environment around them is also one of the important factors that make up a person.”

Out of all that, what did Miss Mari want? At his question, Mari’s brow wrinkled again. She’d never thought about it.

“Why should I think any harder? He’s already in front of me.”

“For the sake of making the wedding even a little more interesting, I suggest you think about it until the ceremony.”

His eyes were cold and emotionless, as if it wasn’t even worth finding boring. Mari ground her teeth. He was the perfect prince. But those eyes made her skin crawl. She spun on her heel. No matter what she did, Seong Hyunjae did not look at her.