The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 674: People of the Past (1)

Shards scattered like starlight. Then they rose again and became countless stars. Every time I blinked, the constellations shifted.

‘Chirp!’

What the hell is going on! I curled up, hugging Chirp tight to my chest. It felt like my body was falling without end and rising without end at the same time. What the hell happened. Did Rookie fail to take me with him? Because he got smacked by Chirp’s wing? But he’s a Transcendent, no way.

Maybe I was just on my way back to my original world in an over–the–top way. But if it wasn’t that… This place wasn’t the real world to begin with. It was a dungeon stitched together by dragging in traces of a vanished past.

‘…When I think about Dali and that guy, I can’t just call it fake.’

Where did the real end and the fake begin, exactly?

The stars began to move again. The Milky Way unfurled in a long band, then turned into a mass of red mist; a giant planet took its place, then went black. Was I moving through space, or was time flowing instead? If it was the latter, then ages long enough to rearrange the heavens were flashing past me.

The feeling of time and space tangling together grew heavier and heavier. I couldn’t look at it anymore and squeezed my eyes shut. I still couldn’t tell if my body was falling or rising. It also felt like I was bobbing in water. And then, with a jolt—

“…!”

Someone’s arms caught my body. My eyes flew open.

– Peep!

Chirp lifted one wing as if in greeting. Above me I saw a pair of eyes looking down at me—night–dark eyes holding a silver moon, and beyond them, a fall of tousled pink hair.

“It’s been a while.”

Crescent Moon smiled. As her gently curving eyes bent, the moon in them waned with them. It was the same face I’d seen just minutes ago—or maybe hours—with the same loving gaze pouring down on me like moonlight. There was no way my heart wasn’t going to pound under that look.

On a gentle night, just being wrapped in plain white moonlight is enough to make you feel fluttery for no reason—so if that light is loaded with affection directed at me, how am I supposed to withstand it? I found myself smiling back without realizing it. I felt like I was wrapped up in a big, warm nest. I just wanted to leave everything to her and fall asleep like this.

However, over the white crescent moon shining at me, the image of a dark blue waning moon was superimposed—a slender, tilting, icy flame.

“…Crescent Moon.”

Crescent Moon noticed my little squirm that meant put me down, and drew back her arms. At some point the sky had cleared to a bright blue, and young blades of grass were tickling my ankles.

“Do you remember me?”

“Always. I always do. I also remember the child who threw a rock at you. He became a Hunter, caught the fiercest beasts, and left for the city. He got married, raised three children, came back to his hometown, and passed away.”

The green haired boy. But I’d met Crescent Moon in a sort of virtual dungeon reconstructed from past memories. There was no way a severed piece of the past could extend into the future… Was this moment also just a restored memory of the past?

Just like when she and I first met, Crescent Moon twined a lock of her pink hair around a finger and showed it off.

“You’re the one who recommended this color. Everyone says it suits me.”

“Everyone?”

“The Transcendents.”

Her moonlit eyes curved in a delighted smile.

“Once, I was the oldest of them all, but here I’m still young.”

I drew in a short breath. This was not long after Crescent Moon had ascended to a Transcendent’s seat—the young, lovely Transcendent the Lighthouse Keeper remembered. Without thinking, I fiddled with Chirp. He fluttered his wings. I should’ve had Peace with me. Chirp was soft too, but he was way too small.

“What about your world, Crescent Moon? What happened to it?”

“Its time ran out. Even if it isn’t devoured by the Source, everything must have an end. This place is a shelter pieced together from the worn out fragments of the world I once lived in. Even a shard whose lifespan has ended can still be used to make a small resting place.”

I looked around. Crescent Moon’s shelter wasn’t that big. The end of the plain blurred faintly in the distance. Maybe about the size of a large park. On one side stood a two story wooden house. The space itself felt cozy, but for spending not just ten or twenty years, but far, far longer, it seemed way too small. An ordinary person wouldn’t last even a year before they started clawing at the walls from the claustrophobia.

“Do you have to stay here all the time?”

“This is the only space I have as a Transcendent. But I can visit other places. Or create spaces that aren’t real—virtual ones.”

Like dungeons, maybe. Crescent Moon’s brows drew together slightly.

“But you can’t help feeling a sense of wrongness in a false space. The young and weak can’t tell the difference. A Transcendent, though, will constantly feel repulsed by it. We can never settle there comfortably, so we end up needing a space of our own, born from fragments of a world the Source created.”

I looked out over the plain again, toward its edge. I’d heard that among Transcendents, fragments of worlds were incredibly valuable. Seeing Crescent Moon’s shelter, I could see why. How were you supposed to live hundreds, thousands of years, or more, in a place this cramped? Of course you’d want to expand it however you could.

‘Still, no way we’re giving them land from our world.’

Why don’t the land owning Transcendents just stick their plots together and widen things out. Then again, thinking about S ranks by birth, that sounds impossible. Even the Source Vessels reject each other; at the Transcendent level, living together would be hard unless you’re really close.

“Han Yujin.”

Crescent Moon called me gently. My heart thumped again. In the far future we’re technically enemies, so maybe don’t treat me quite this affectionately.

“How are you here?”

“It’s a little hard to explain… And ‘Han’ is my family name, my given name is ‘Yujin.’ Han, Yujin. I don’t think people in your world had separate family names, though.”

“All right, Yujin.”

Don’t smile like that. I’ll get attached.

“There were clans with family names in my world as well. Longer than yours, though. More importantly, what should we do about you?”

Crescent Moon peered at me.

“With your original body, you shouldn’t have been able to come here or stay here. I’m still not used to the world outside.”

“Uh… if you just leave me alone, I think I’ll end up going back on my own.”

Watching Crescent Moon look troubled felt strange. The her I knew seemed like she could do anything without breaking a sweat. She’d literally told me she’d grant whatever I wanted.

“Is that so. Even without asking the other Transcendents for help–”

“No! I don’t think I can go back!”

I yelled in a hurry. Let me meet them! On top of that, at this point in time the system administrators should still be awake. The system itself might not even have been completed yet.

“The truth is, I’m a huge fan of Transcendents!”

“Hm?”

“I’ve admired you all since way back. You too, Crescent Moon!”

Starting from a few tens of millions of years from now. It was the future, not the past, but from my point of view that still counts as ‘way back,’ so close enough. And it was less ‘admiration’ and more ‘I want to grab you by the hair,’ but we can gloss over that too.

Crescent Moon reached out and patted my head like she was telling me to calm down. She was treating me like a kid, but I didn’t really mind.

“You must be careful. Yujin, you’ve hardly changed at all since the last time I saw you. It’s as if time stopped for you. On top of that, you’re an ordinary human who’s somehow reached this place—there will be many who are curious about you.”

“Ah, right.”

There might even be Transcendents like the King of Harmless around here. Was Ru Ga Pheya the same generation as Crescent Moon? She’d helped me a ton and we’d parted on good terms, but I really didn’t want to run into her here. She’d definitely be poking at me with her tentacles.

“Fortunately, you carry my energy. Let’s say you’re one of my kin.”

Crescent Moon held out her hand. When I laid mine on top of it, the scenery around us warped. In the darkness, her voice reached me.

“As it happens, this is a peaceful era. Even the Transcendents who have fought for so long to create the system have declared a temporary truce. Even the most violent sword has been sheathed.”

The most violent sword… someone sprang to mind. At this point he probably wasn’t the oldest at all. He might actually be on the younger side.

“What exactly is the system?”

“I don’t know the details either. It’s a set of laws that has only just begun to take shape, meant to protect the world from the Source—or so I’ve heard. As a young Transcendent, I’m still in the process of learning those laws, so I can’t become one of its creators.”

“Do you want to be one of the system’s creators?”

“To give everyone a fair chance.”

Crescent Moon’s lips curved in a soft line.

“That’s what it means to become part of it. To hold all the lovely beings in your arms and embrace and shelter them.”

…Then why. Saying things like that—why did she end up swallowing worlds to churn out Transcendents and dragging a single human around on a leash? I wanted to demand an answer. But this Crescent Moon was different from her. She wouldn’t even understand those actions yet, so she couldn’t answer for them.

“Nooo!!!”

A scream–like shout rang out from somewhere. The dim surroundings flashed bright.

“The mana circuit has to go like this here! It needs to seep in in reverse! It has to generate resistance at this point so it amplifies, and then you repeat that amplification over and over to produce the necessary energy!”

Mm, sounded like someone was explaining something.

“It’s simple! This is really basic! Even regular mage brats who aren’t Transcendents manage it just fine!”

A fluffy little ball of fur bounced up and down. It was a sky blue puff with no eyes, nose, mouth, or limbs, like a snowman made of fuzz. Probably its “head” had a pair of long, gauzy antennae trailing from it like veils. In front of it sat a familiar face, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“You’re loud, furball.”

It was Young Chaos. With none of his current restraints, he wore an adult form now, his brows drawn together.

“You can live just fine without knowing that.”

“How long are you going to freeload in other people’s houses? Maybe stop breaking their doors down and barging in before you say stuff like that!”

“I have several spaces of my own.”

“You beat people up and stole those, and then you couldn’t even manage them and handed them all off!”

“Which is exactly why you should shut up and let me crash here a while.”

I mean, he wasn’t wrong. The furball let out an “aaagh!”

“What kind of Transcendent are you! You can’t even fight and steal anything until the system’s finished anyway!”

“We’ll see.”

Chaos’s mouth twisted in a feral grin.

“It’s quiet now, sure. But how long will that last. Soon enough, the ones who rebel against the system itself are going to start pouring out.”

The furball stiffened with a choked sound. Its antennae—easily over ten meters long—waved through the air like they were swimming. Chaos’s red eyes narrowed to razor slits.

“You’d be better off hammering away at your sword instead of wasting time like this.”

“…We’re going to go to sleep.”

“I’ll be there first.”

He said it lightly. Young Chaos had killed countless Transcendents. He’d fought until constraints covered his whole body. When the system’s creators were trying to complete it, there was no way there weren’t people trying to stop them.

He defended it, and then.

‘Did he leave when the system started to warp?’

Alone in the Source’s first world.

“What’s this.”

“Urk!”

Suddenly my body was hoisted up. At some point, Chaos had appeared right in front of me and was lifting me, looking me over from every angle.

“You’re making me dizzy!”

“This kid kept looking at me funny. Very young. But the body’s awfully worn out. Looks fine on the outside, but it’s rotten inside.”

“He’s human, human. Like you. I don’t think he’s even a hundred years old yet.”

The furball circled around us, twitching its antennae.

“Where’d you pick up such a small, cute thing, little Crescent Moon. I can feel your energy on him.”

Excuse you, you’re smaller than me. Antennae excluded. Elder, please stop shaking me.

“You’ve even got a baby bird. If he’s similar to me, I guess he’s roughly full grown? Looks small, though.”

“He is full grown and that’s average height where we live! Put me down!”

– Peep!

Chirp hopped up onto Young Chaos’s head. Chirp!

“I’d like to send you back to the world your kind lives in, but I still can’t do that.”

“You’re still an excellent student, though. About five million times better than him!”

An antenna smacked against Chaos’s leg with a slap. His big hand ruffled my hair roughly. So this is you after you’ve mellowed out with age, Elder. Your touch is way rougher now.

“I’m bored with nothing to do. Maybe I should raise him.”

“What do you mean, nothing to do! You need to learn at least a little of how to operate the system before we go to sleep!”

“You’d have better luck hauling in a boulder and teaching that~”

Another voice cut in. It was the Lighthouse Keeper.

“Hi, Crescent Moon~ If he’s a species similar to yours, it’s fine to keep him around. He looks like a very fragile sprout, and in that body he’ll have trouble making it back safely.”

The Lighthouse Keeper hummed and leaned in to study me carefully in Chaos’s grip.

“Born like a grass seed, but with an oddly large presence. Then again, with limitless potential, even a grass seed can grow into a thousand–year–old tree. Like that violent weed over there.”

The furball cackled about him being a stubbornly persistent weed. Young Chaos kicked it. Crescent Moon watched them with warm eyes. The Transcendents were objects of affection to her as well.

“You’ve got that ticklish look on your face again.”

The Lighthouse Keeper clicked his tongue at Crescent Moon as he said it. His words aside, there wasn’t a hint of dislike on his face. The more I watched sights like this, the weirder I felt. Up to this point, they really weren’t… all that different from us.

‘…The Lighthouse Keeper sleeping inside the system was the same as ever.’

Sloth too, and Young Chaos, who left on his own. Only Crescent Moon, and the administrators who stayed behind, had changed.

“The young one keeps making a strange face.”

Chaos said to me. On top of his head, Chirp fluttered his wings. I had no idea when Rookie would come looking for me again. I had to set my feelings aside for now and learn as much as I could before then.

“There’s something I want to ask.”

I looked at the Lighthouse Keeper and the furball. Here, those two probably knew the most—about the system, about contracts, about everything.