The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 642: Practice Game (1)

I quickly hid behind Yuhyun. It wasn’t so much on purpose as a reflex. Clinging to my younger brother’s back, I stuck my head out just a little and snuck a glance at Myungwoo. Why the hell is he suddenly showing up here?

“Uh… are you okay? I heard you were hurt.”

From the outside he looked fine. Except for the glasses. Glasses out of nowhere, seriously, don’t tell me.

“Myungwoo, did something happen to your eyes?”

They didn’t look like a fashion statement. They could have been an item, but no matter how I looked, they just seemed like ordinary glasses. Wow, and he nagged me so much about taking care of my body.

“Your eyesight really got worse, right? You overdid it too! See, I told you not to just work all the ti–”

“Yujin.”

My body, which had halfway come out from behind Yuhyun’s back, ducked right back in.

“This time was really dangerous. You know that, right?”

“It’s not like I did it because I wanted to. Honestly, even if I’d stayed quietly in bed, that bastard Chatterbox would’ve just grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me out.”

It really wasn’t fair. I wanted to live quietly too.

“If the world would just stay peaceful, I could hole up at home twenty–four hours a day, looking after the kids and lazing around. I’m serious. I could stay at home without moving an inch.”

“You still have to exercise.”

“Right, and exercise sometimes.”

“Would you really just stay home, hyung?”

Yuhyun asked eagerly. Apparently, despite how I was now, I’d originally planned to just loaf around. Somehow that had escalated from simply wandering around outside to going on a world tour.

“Of course, if nothing happens, I’ll stay quietly at home!”

Once we stop the apocalypse, I’ll set up education facilities for the kids, sort out some of the legal issues around Awakened, pay attention to the Monster Mounts, and just a tiiiiny bit to the low–rank Hunters. Hm, why is there so much to do. Still, I’m only in my twenties, so I should be able to retire before forty. That’d be nice enough. As long as my lifespan is at least average.

“And I’m pretty healthy, you know. The Elder said so. Said I could live a long time. Myungwoo, what happened to your eyes, seriously. You need to take care of your health too!”

My lifespan got extended, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I stepped out proudly from behind Yuhyun. …Well, I did look a bit rough on the outside. I pointlessly slapped at my clothes to dust off the traces of having rolled around. Myungwoo stared straight at the mess that was me. Maybe I should hide again.

“Grace is totally fine. Seriously.”

– Beep!

Grace popped out and flapped their wings toward Myungwoo.

– Beep! Snake!

W–wh, Grace! Wait a sec!

– Bad snake! Poison!

“You know my poison resistance, right? I told you, there was no problem!”

“A snake, hyung.”

“The new Filial Duty Addict was a snake, and it sprayed a bit of poison, but it wasn’t a big deal. It was just poison.”

Even my L–rank poison resistance couldn’t completely block it, but since I’m fine now, that’s what matters! Grace, you’re a good kid, tattling is bad, okay. It was a million times a relief that Grace still couldn’t speak properly.

“S–so, about those glasses, Myungwoo!”

“They’re temporary.”

“So you did overdo it, I knew it! Are you okay? How did that even happen.”

“Because you gave me grief, Yujin.”

“…Huh?”

“Want to hear the details?”

Myungwoo smiled. His eyes were gentle, but for some reason a chill ran down my spine. Uh, well, anyway, it sounded like it was my fault. Yeah, thinking about it, why would he push himself if it wasn’t about me.

“O–of course I should listen. If it has to do with me.”

“Yujin, you really haven’t changed.”

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about. It’s still a little awkward, though.”

Fingering the frames of his glasses, Myungwoo looked over at Seong Hyunjae. Seong Hyunjae had curiosity in his eyes. Did he not have any memories about Myungwoo? It seemed he wasn’t completely ignorant of what had happened after the regression, but he also didn’t seem to have received detailed memories.

“We’ll begin a simple practice game to adapt to the system’s mana.”

At Myungwoo’s words, the distance between us and Seong Hyunjae’s side widened, and lines were drawn on the floor. It was shaped like a basketball court, though several times larger.

“Hold on, Myungwoo! You have to at least explain what’s going on!”

“You didn’t hear the explanation? To minimize Transcendent involvement, we decided to put Awakened forward as proxies.”

“I heard it roughly… but even putting me aside, you and the Seong Guild Leader got dragged into this too.”

“You were the Unfilial Children side’s candidate from the very beginning. But on the Filial Duty Addicts’ side, there wasn’t a suitable proxy. Even with the Transcendents assisting, with ordinary mana detection, it would be impossible to handle the system.”

Thanks to my mana imprint and a magic–power rank that was far below it, at least my mana sensing ability was exceptional. It was a hypersensitivity that had been forced into me, and could easily end up tightening around my own neck.

“If someone were a natural S–class, they’d meet the conditions, but right now there’s no one who could have a fair match. Ah, I was on the candidate list too. I turned it down, though.”

“They’d be surprisingly fair about it, you know? Yuhyun alone would come at me seriously.”

“Even so, he’d ultimately try to take your side, and more than anything, he wouldn’t want to accept the contract. It’s the side trying to ruin the world. Of course they couldn’t trust someone without a contract.”

Well, yeah. A contract with the Filial Duty Addicts, just thinking about it made my skin crawl. Because of that damn contract… damn it, my teeth ground on their own.

“Even if you didn’t receive system administrator authority, you still had to be support staff, so the talk was that if worst came to worst, they’d raise the stats of one of Chatterbox’s contractors.”

Holy… so we almost ended up with Cho Hwawoon or some other prophet–type S–class becoming the equivalent of a natural S–class. They’re already using weird power as it is.

“That’s when the Seong Guild Leader restored his old contract with Diarma and became the proxy.”

So on the Filial Duty Addicts’ side, Seong Hyunjae was the best choice. Chief Song quietly looked over at Seong Hyunjae. There was no way they’d explained all that to him by message… right. Seong Hyunjae’s eyes curved gently as he smiled soundlessly.

“I confirmed that Hunter Han Yuhyun received your message. At almost the same time, I received a team–up message from Hunter Seong Hyunjae, and I thought that if we were going to split into two teams, it would be better for me to go to Hunter Seong Hyunjae’s side, but…”

“For thinking that, your reply was quite slow.”

Seong Hyunjae said with a hint of a smile. When the other party is him, it’s worth agonizing over. I’d understand even if there’d been no answer for a week. Chief Song faintly furrowed his eyes.

“Because the two of you are similarly… troublesome.”

“Come on, even so, I’m better than Seong Hyunjae!”

Chief Song looked at me. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes held all sorts of emotions. My conscience stung a little. Still, time–wise, it hadn’t even been a year for me yet, and Seong Hyunjae had been like that for years.

“I came here as a trainee system administrator, for education. The gap in level is too big for Transcendents to teach Awakened directly.”

“Trainee system administrator? Myungwoo, are you really going to go that route?”

“Probably. It’s still a ways off, but even before the whole ‘protecting the world’ thing, I’m personally interested.”

Keeping his eyes on the air, probably on a system window, Myungwoo continued.

“It’s the pinnacle of what you can call a creator. They say creating a world is only possible for the Origin, but creating a space of your own, a dungeon, is possible. It’s not so much that I want to manage the system as that I want to get my hands on its intricate, complex structure.”

“…Still, don’t become like a Transcendent. There are barely any decent human beings in that neighborhood.”

At my words, Myungwoo gave a small laugh. His expression was the same as always.

“I just purely like making things. I have no knack for looking after and leading people, and honestly I don’t enjoy it.”

Clatter– On each half of the divided court, five white square panels appeared.

“Those ten panels are the manifestation of the system’s mana.”

[System Link]

Along with the message, I could feel the mana of the five panels on my side. I spun one panel in a circle. It whirled quickly and over–rotated, slamming with a bang– into the panel beside it. This isn’t easy. Isn’t this way too advantageous for Seong Hyunjae? That guy handles flying chains on the regular.

‘Should I tell Chief Song now?’

About the fact that the current Seong Hyunjae isn’t the present Seong Hyunjae. Chief Song already seemed to feel that something was off. But since he’s a guy who’s weird every other minute anyway, he couldn’t be sure. If it were Ms. Soyeong or Ms. Evelyn, they’d probably just go, ‘Oh, he switched speech styles again,’ and let it slide.

‘I’ll at least finish the practice game first.’

The stronger the opponent, the faster I’d get used to the system. Next, wooden rods appeared in front of Yuhyun and Chief Song.

“Flight–type skills and similar skills are prohibited. If you step on the floor or on the opponent’s panels, or if the opponent’s rod hits your back, you lose.”

In other words, you move the panels so that…

“…we have to keep up with S–class speed?”

“Something like that.”

Oh, come on. Just not falling would be easy – even if I moved the panels clumsily with my feet, Yuhyun would adjust on his own – but the problem was that he’d be facing another S–class. I automatically swallowed dryly.

“Attack skills may be used, but you cannot cause damage to your opponent. The temporary system administrator may only use support skills and partially share senses with their team members.”

“W–wait! Seong Hyunjae has combat precognition!”

“That’s why he was so easily accepted as a proxy even though he has a connection to you, Yujin.”

…He’s really capable, sure. Even I’d want to snag him if I could.

“Additionally, the contract with Diarma was transferred to the King of Predation, so even with your power, Yujin, absolution is impossible.”

“What? There’s seriously no countermeasure?!”

He might not be that Seong Hyunjae, but I snapped without thinking. Diarma was Venom and Curse Dragonkin, so with the title buff, absolution was possible. But the King of Predation is a snake. What the hell is that damn bastard planning, doing that! Sure, it’s himself, but it’s also someone else’s body, so he’s just using it recklessly, is that it. ‘I’ve already lost an arm and an eye anyway,’ is that what he’s thinking? Huh? When I glared at him, that bastard Seong Hyunjae smiled.

“Still adorable.”

“Cut the crap!”

I should’ve grabbed him by the collar properly at least once. Since it’s Seong Hyunjae, he has to have some kind of plan… What if he doesn’t. No, he has to. There’s no way he decided to live with a snake instead of Crescent Moon, right. Even then, it’s impossible to unravel the layers and layers of contracts binding him to Crescent Moon. …Or maybe since he’s already caught by Crescent Moon, he just went and signed contracts however he wanted? Either way, it just turned my stomach.

When I really get Seong Hyunjae back to normal and free him from Crescent Moon, I’m throwing him away immediately. No lingering affection, I’m going to wrap him up tight, ship him over the Pacific by international express, and file to have him banned from entering Korea. As I ground my teeth, Yuhyun tilted his head.

“Something’s a bit off.”

At last, it seemed Yuhyun had noticed that that guy was different.

“The Seong Guild Leader’s attitude toward you feels like it went back to how it used to be, hyung.”

“Huh, really?”

It was still only when it came to things related to me, though. Yuhyun bent close and whispered quietly to me.

“Be careful, hyung. He might try to use you however he wants again.”

There was wariness in Yuhyun’s voice. Come to think of it, right after the regression, he used to be very wary of Seong Hyunjae. It seemed to have eased after Seong Hyunjae started treating me like a person. Maybe because he thought that a hyung who was an item could be taken away at any time, but a hyung who was a person would never leave his little brother.

“Is there anything for winning, Teacher.”

I raised my hand and asked Myungwoo.

“Since it’s a practice game, there are no rewards, but you can exchange things personally.”

“Then I want to grab Seong Hyunjae by the collar!”

Even if it didn’t deal any damage, I wanted to seize him and shake him hard. At my words, that bastard Seong Hyunjae tilted his head slightly.

“And what could you give me, Mr. Han Yujin.”

Seong Hyunjae spoke in a tone completely devoid of expectation, as if it were obvious that I had nothing to offer him. Wow, the old Seong Hyunjae was that insufferable, huh. How could someone be that rude and look like the most superior person in the world at the same time. Yeah, good for you.

“I’ll spare you the sight of getting grabbed by the collar by an F–class. Even if you don’t accept the terms, I’m going to grab you and shake you anyway. And everyone here is on my side.”

Chief Song, don’t avert your eyes. I believe you’ll help me. That bastard Seong Hyunjae laughed and nodded.

Myungwoo stepped back, and even though he hadn’t used his Teacher skill, Yuhyun’s vision was shared with me. Yuhyun flinched and shivered.

“Hyung, you’re really sensitive.”

“What? You mean the mana imprint?”

“Yeah. It feels like your magic power and mana sense have gotten at least a third stronger. And my sensing ability is pretty good too.”

“My stats are low, remember. In reality, there’s probably not much difference between you and me.”

The senses being shared seemed to be sight, hearing, smell, mana sensing, movement, and communication. Aside from the clearer communication added to the mana–sensing, it was similar to the Teacher skill.

I floated the five panels in the air like steps. Since touching the floor meant defeat, it was advantageous to get as high as possible.

Tap–

Yuhyun stepped onto the first panel and lightly shot upward. As he landed in one leap on the highest panel, I hastily floated a new one even higher. Song Taewon also stepped on his panels and rose upward. The two of them stopped at a height of nearly a hundred meters beneath the distant ceiling.

“Begin.”

At Myungwoo’s light signal, Yuhyun and Song Taewon kicked off their panels at the same time.