The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 649: I Only Regressed

Everyone turned to look at Shishio. Even under those burning gazes, he stood his ground. So he came without the fake beard today. Shishio took out his phone and pressed the call button.

[I’ve arrived safely. Your location? Oh, is that so.]

Peace sat up like he was asking what the heck that was. A few Hunters muttered something about Amaterasu this and that. So they weren’t totally unknown. Even before I regressed, they were famous enough that I remembered them, so they were fairly high–rank.

[I am Shishio, Guildmaster of Japan’s Amaterasu Guild, who has received command authority from Director Han Yujin.]

Ending the call, Shishio spoke. No, it’s not like I gave it to him because I wanted to… His cape fluttered as he thrust one arm forward. Is that cape some kind of item with an auto–flutter function? It was billowing nicely indoors where there wasn’t even any wind.

[Hunters, let us protect the world together with me, Shishio!]

“…You’re really into this–”

“I am not!”

Stop fanning the flames, Seong Hyunjae. The Hunters were all making faces like, what the hell is this nonsense out of nowhere. It wasn’t like what he said was wrong, but did he really have to say it that dramatically.

[What kind of random nonsense is this guy spouting out of nowhere.]

One Hunter voiced his doubts. It really was like getting clubbed out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Shishio folded his arms and swept a stern gaze around the room. …I didn’t want to think it, but that attitude actually suited him. If he’d been born in Europe about five hundred years ago, he probably would’ve made a name for himself.

[There are too many civilians here.]

Not that many, just a few staffers.

[This concerns security, so everyone below A–rank, please clear the room.]

Strictly speaking, Shishio was the outsider here, so he should’ve been the one to leave, but this was an S–rank Hunter’s request. Everyone below A–rank obediently stepped out. Only the A–rank and higher Hunters I’d called in remained, and Shishio opened his mouth again.

[High–rank Hunters, especially S–ranks, will have noticed the existence of something outside. The existence that created dungeons, items, and status windows.]

[I don’t believe in gods, but there has to be something at least on par with a god.]

[Status windows and rewards are extremely artificial after all.]

Your stats showed up directly as letters and numbers, and if you cleared a dungeon you got a finished item. There was no way to call that a natural phenomenon. But there was no way to figure out what it really was, and the power was so godlike that people in our world couldn’t even imagine confronting it, so most just shut their eyes and moved on.

Of course there were people shouting about gods or aliens, and there were even attempts to approach it scientifically. But no one ever went big and screamed, this is seriously suspicious! Maybe it was an instinctive fear of the unknown. Or maybe the Unfilial Children’s system was influencing things somehow. Maybe it was both.

‘An existence with a self and power we can’t handle.’

A sudden catastrophe, a world changing for no reason, or interference from a transcendent being with some kind of intent. Which of those is creepier? It’s like the difference between being swept onto a deserted island by the waves and being kidnapped and locked up on one.

[My memories from the party have gotten pretty fuzzy, but that Cha…tterbox! That guy was weird, right.]

[…He handled dungeons however he wanted.]

Of course there was no way no one found Chatterbox suspicious. No matter how many skills and items existed, people had to be thinking, what the hell is that bastard to be using every random ability under the sun.

[Let’s say there’s someone who made the dungeons. Then why? What’s the point?]

[World domination?]

[Maybe it’s actually environmental protection.]

[If you think about trash and energy, it kind of makes sense. If magic stones completely replace other energy sources like this, the air’s gonna get cleaner.]

[Deforestation’s gone down too. Dungeon lumber’s expensive, but the quality’s good.]

[I heard poachers are more into dungeon monsters now too.]

The room suddenly shifted to praising dungeons. Honestly, dungeons were pretty useful.

[And the population’s gone down too. When a dungeon explodes, the elderly and weak are the most at risk. Even if older people awaken, their stats tend to be low.]

[What are we, the Illuminati.]

[Then dungeon gates would be triangles.]

[There’s even a theory that the appearance of dungeons dramatically extended humanity’s survival time. S–ranks get cursed out if they say that carelessly though.]

[Facts are facts. It’s the emergence of a new, eco–friendly industry. If the monster damage hadn’t been so bad, people would’ve welcomed it as a blessing for humanity.]

[Land prices in my neighborhood shot up after they got rid of the garbage landfill. They’re shoving all the trash into a dungeon and redeveloping the area.]

[Honestly, if we’re being real, dungeons blowing up in big cities put the construction industry into a boom. The insurance industry’s doing surprisingly well too.]

[Monster damage compensation isn’t in the policy, and there’s no precedent, so they just keep insisting they can’t pay and roll out new products instead. Demons, the lot of them. Dungeon Break riders are expensive as hell.]

[You seen the premiums for low–rank Hunters? My friend’s low–rank, and his premiums are higher than a high–rank’s.]

Well, low–rank Hunters had higher injury and death rates. High–rank Hunters, on the other hand, didn’t usually die easily, and their guilds had healers, so insurance companies didn’t shoulder much burden. That was only for injury and death, of course; when it came to liability, high–rank Hunters were top–tier undesirables, to the point there were barely any companies willing to take them.

[There aren’t many sectors that aren’t booming, right. The medical industry wobbled for a bit, but healers and potions are mostly for Hunters, and pharma is all, front–facing we oppose potions becoming everyday products, then behind the scenes they’re pouring investment into developing new drugs with potions and dungeon materials.]

[Heard the arms industry’s making bank too. We burned through a lot stopping the early Dungeon Breaks with regular military forces. Even now, we’re still using modern weapons for support.]

[People said the emergence of high–rank Hunters would change the face of war, but there just aren’t enough of them.]

[I saw an ad after they started blowing up S–Fs saying they’d make bombs with dungeon materials you can use inside dungeons.]

[Could be decent as support gear.]

They’d even approached Myungwoo about technical cooperation. He’d turned them down, of course.

[The only field that completely tanked is professional sports.]

[Ah…]

[You mean that crazy thing where ten Chelsea players awakened mid to high–rank all at once…]

One Hunter groaned, covering his face with his hand.

[And United got cut in half the same day, remember?]

Somewhere, there was a bang as a table broke. Sighs popped up all over the place. Lots of folks here liked watching sports, huh. It had literally turned into a wake. Amateur sports had actually flourished instead, though.

Thud!

Another loud crash rang out. It was Shishio. He stomped his foot hard to draw the Hunters’ attention and spoke.

[The existences that created the dungeons have made contact with Director Han Yujin.]

…Is it really okay to just blurt that out? I looked over at the Mermaid Queen. She gave a small nod.

“They should at least know the general idea. I passed it on roughly to that awakened one.”

Mr. Shishio usually kept his mouth pretty shut, though. Was this really okay.

[Chatterbox is also one of them, and Director Han Yujin, the final winner of the party, has become the representative of Earth’s Hunters.]

Put like that, it sounded like I was sitting in some incredible position. I suddenly felt a ton of pressure. My face heated up for no reason. Representative? I’d like to resign on the spot, thanks.

[I’ve seen that a lot in manga.]

[Monsters were only in comics too, once upon a time.]

They didn’t look like they were buying it easily, but they weren’t dismissing it as a complete lie either. After all, this was already a world with dungeons, monsters, and Hunters.

[Our enemies are an anti–Hunter group trying to destroy Earth, a bunch of terrorists!]

Oh, come on. I turned to Seong Hyunjae and said,

“Boss of the terrorist group, how about letting Director Song go already. What did Director Song ever do wrong.”

“As a villain, it’s model behavior.”

“Dragging a righteous civil servant into the darkness, I’ll give you 9 out of 10. When you get stabbed in the back soon, I’ll add the last point.”

Talk about cliché. But seriously, how did he convince him. Did he coax him with something like, if you want to flip things at the last moment, you’ll have to be by my side.

[Hunter Shishio, even if what you say is true, how are we supposed to believe it. It’s not like Director Han Yujin came here himself and said so.]

[Why did he hand command over to the Amaterasu Guildmaster in the first place. There are plenty of Korean Hunters. His younger brother’s an S–rank too.]

…Because it’s not like I wanted to do that. And Yuhyun… the kid does behave politely in official settings. It’s because he’s fire. Fire burns you if you approach it carelessly. If he’s bad at socializing, that’s just a natural law.

[I understand if you can’t trust me.]

Shishio spoke with a grave expression. A shadow fell over his sharply defined features.

[However, Director Han Yujin is!]

His eyes looked like he’d made some huge decision… Wait.

“Hey! What are you about to do!”

No way, no way, right. My hand clawed at empty air trying to grab the screen.

[I, Shishio’s–!]

“Hold it, stop! Spatial movement, how do I move my body there? Shishio!”

No way! Send me over there! I have to shut his mouth! Seong Hyunjae looked at me with interest as Shishio solemnly shouted,

[He is my mother’s reincarnation!]

“…What?”

“Was it like that.”

“No, it was not. I mean, what even…”

If you pointed at a perfectly sane guy in his twenties and yelled, Mother! you’d think someone had finally lost it completely, but saying reincarnation made it sound a tiny bit less insane. But reincarnation all of a sudden, seriously.

[…Reincarnation?]

[You know, like the Dalai Lama.]

[How does it make sense for your own mother to reincarnate as an S–F.]

[Regression’s weirder to me. If time can be rewound, reincarnation’s possible too.]

…That was true. If regression was happening, reincarnation wasn’t impossible either, but still. As people murmured, Shishio took something long and white out of his inventory. No, it was a rolled–up screen.

He tossed it toward the wall, and the screen’s mounting pins hit perfectly and spread out white. Then a portable projector switched on.

[February 7th!]

My birthday and another date appeared on the screen.

[Director Han Yujin was born exactly 49 days after my mother passed away.]

…What? For real? When someone asked what the significance of forty–nine days was, a Hunter explained that in East Asian Buddhism, they say you reincarnate after forty–nine days. Still, she’d died earlier than I expected. And yet he’d always considered her his caregiver, so she must’ve been a good mother. Or maybe losing her early just left a deeper impression.

[Same blood type, favorite color pink!]

“It’s not! I don’t like pink!”

[Likes animals and is popular with animals!]

A picture of Peace and me showed up on the screen. There was even my part–time job at an animal clinic. When did he investigate all this…

[Based on a photo of my mother in life, we scientifically predicted her appearance if her sex were changed!]

A face that looked a lot like mine appeared on the screen. Okay, it did resemble me quite a bit.

[Many of their other tastes and habits are similar as well! My mother also disliked bitter coffee.]

…Doesn’t everyone normally dislike bitter stuff. With the so–called evidence piling up, the mood in the room was shifting toward, huh, maybe. Shishio continued, eyes filled with melancholy.

[Of course, at first I did not suspect a thing. But the moment Director Han Yujin worried over me and scolded me, the feeling struck me like a bolt of lightning.]

…He means when I used the keyword, I guess. I don’t think I was all that worried about him though.

[That feeling when a young man from another country feels like your mother. I began investigating that strange hunch, and this is what I found.]

The keyword’s effect had already worn off, and I hadn’t really paid him much attention, but Shishio had kept treating me strangely warmly. So he really had found the keyword suspicious. Suspicious enough to investigate… and the result he landed on was reincarnation. Who the hell did he get to do this research.

“We’ve learned something new about you, Mr. Han Yujin.”

“Wrong! It doesn’t even make sense if you think about the length of a pregnancy! They say babies remember things from when they were in the womb!”

“If you were doing it properly, you’d have to add forty–nine days and ten months! There are even eight–month preemies, you know!”

[Of course, with reincarnation, once someone’s born anew, you have to say they’re a completely different person.]

Exactly, that’s right! Different person, totally different.

[But I, Shishio!]

Shishio drew the sword at his waist high, spun it around, and thud! Drove it into the floor.

[Swear to lay down this life for Director Han Yujin, who has protected and watched over me despite being a completely different person!]

A short silence fell. Clack, clack, clack, someone started clapping. Who’s the jerk whistling. No, don’t clap! Protect me, my ass! Just because I told Yuhyun not to kill him? Whoever just yelled that was cool, have you lost your eyesight!

“You raised your son–”

“Stop saying that!”

He was making me want to grab him by the collar again.

“So that human is your son.”

Even the snake was spouting nonsense. I might’ve regressed, but I have zero memory of reincarnating! I was at the point of clutching the back of my neck and collapsing, but the mood on the screen was actually pretty good. No, better than I’d expected. Shishio’s ridiculous speech had turned out to be unexpectedly effective.