The S-Classes That I Raised

Chapter 734: Our Home…? (2)

– I-I thought they’d be good at protecting the house! That’s why!

After hearing the explanation, Gyeol got embarrassed that I’d seen the two gatekeepers. But there was one thing that hadn’t changed, in dreams or in reality.

– Daddy needs to rest.

That said, I still felt like locking me up was a bit much.

– For illusion-types, the boundary between dreams and reality is thin. That’s why Gyeol can pull Daddy’s memories into reality and make them stronger.

“So the Gyeol here is basically the same as the real one?”

– Not exactly the same, but! This world itself has powers similar to Gyeol’s. The power to make dreams real. Gyeol’s just stronger at it than other people.

“So that’s why you could make a candy castle this vivid—”

– Because I thought Byeol would like it!

Gyeol shook his head hard from side to side. It was such obvious excuse-making that I let it slide. There was nothing wrong with a kid dreaming up a candy castle. Anyway, no one else had managed to make something this large and this solid.

– Anyway, when Gyeol dreams, it’s basically the same as being awake. So if I really wanted deep sleep, I used to just not dream at all. But then this world appeared, so I think I ended up sleeping here. Gyeol still doesn’t really understand it either.

His little wings fluttered as he toddled over to Seol and Byeol, who were still asleep. With his pink forepaws, he tried to lift Byeol, but the chinchilla-like baby monster slipped right through his grip and flopped onto the floor. Still half-asleep, Seol groped around until he found Byeol and gathered her close.

– The little ones here aren’t Gyeol’s dream. I think they fell asleep with Gyeol and got pulled in too.

“The real Seol and Byeol?”

– Yeah. I think they just fell into a deep sleep without dreaming.

So my kids had been sleeping soundly together. I carefully picked Seol and Byeol up in my arms. Byeol squirmed, stuffed one forepaw into her mouth, and started chewing on it. No, no, that’s not food.

– Kkuiu

“That’s your paw, Byeol. You can’t eat that.”

– Daddy, here!

Gyeol hurried over with a giant strawberry. I let Byeol bite into it, and she stopped fussing and started munching obediently.

Then—

– Pyuik!

Her eyes popped open.

Actually, not woke up so much as started dreaming, maybe.

Seol cracked his sleepy eyes open a second later too.

– What’s wrong with my little sister?

– Piik?!

With the rest of the strawberry shoved into her mouth, Byeol grabbed onto my clothes and climbed up until she was perched on my shoulder. Seeing that, Seol spread his wings, flew up, and shifted into his child form.

“Where are we?”

“We’re dreaming, apparently. So, Byeol. Did you miss Daddy?”

– Yeah!

“Our little girl talks so well~.”

We really needed to get back home soon. Still, even seeing them like this made me happy. Gyeol proudly made a chair appear for me, along with a table loaded down with food. Byeol launched herself out of my arms toward the table, missed, and started to drop, so Seol quickly caught her and set her down beside a cake.

“Can you make anything you want? I thought nobody could use skills right now.”

– In Gyeol’s castle, at home… um, up to S-rank, maybe? It’s a power that doesn’t depend on mana or magic.

Then as long as everyone could make it here, they should be safe. It bothered me a little to drag Gyeol into this, but if things got dangerous, we could always wake him up from the dream.

…Assuming he listened.

I could already picture him digging in his heels and insisting he wanted to stay with Daddy.

“Everyone’s probably coming by helicopter. Can you make a landing pad?”

– Yeah! Let’s go up together, Daddy. Seol and Byeol, stay here and play.

Making another basket of snacks like the eldest sibling in charge, Gyeol had an elevator appear in the wall and took me up to the roof. It was this high, and nobody outside could see it? The roof, which had looked like a giant swirl of soft serve ice cream, flattened out and widened, turning into solid concrete.

“Let’s see. Yerim said they had to make a brief landing because of range, but they’ll be in Seoul soon. I’m not sure about Yuhyun, though. Seong Hyunjae will probably manage on his own.”

Chief Song Taewon was probably the one suffering for it. Using the telescope Gyeol had made, I scanned the sky. It wasn’t long before a helicopter appeared. The racket of its blades growing louder felt unbelievably reassuring.

“Over here! Here!”

The Breeding Facility had gotten a lot more colorful, sure, but yes, this was our home. Yerim leaned her head out the helicopter window, only to have the wind slam into her face so hard she recoiled with a grimace and ducked back inside. Yerim, your stats are lowered right now. Be careful.

“Mister!”

The helicopter touched down on the roof, and Yerim was the first one out.

“Gyeol’s here too! Is that really Gyeol?”

– Yeah, Auntie. It’s Gyeol.

“Mon chat!”

“Hello. It’s good to see you.”

Liette blurted out something I didn’t understand, and Noah greeted me awkwardly. Right, the translation item. I asked Gyeol for one, and he made it for us.

“I’m so glad everyone’s okay!”

“Our Little Jin was really worried about me, huh~.”

“Why is that thing here? I thought you said you were dumping it into the West Sea.”

“Oops, I forgot!”

Yerim immediately chimed in, promising she wouldn’t forget next time. I explained the current situation to the four of them.

“Mana’s probably going to stabilize little by little. Or maybe we’ll just adapt first.”

“That must be why Sanho couldn’t talk and kept getting sleepy.”

“I definitely think my stats have gone up a little compared to before.”

Noah said that as he tested his arm. I didn’t feel any different. Then again, I hadn’t had much to lose in the first place.

“Huh? Noah!”

Liette suddenly shouted.

A Noah was taking off from the rooftop of the building across from us. Yerim’s eyes widened, and Noah himself looked startled. Guess they hadn’t seen any of that while flying in.

“There’s… another me.”

“Oh, those are dreams. Dreams people are having. Liette, stay put. Your stats are low right now. If you jump off, you’ll break a leg.”

“There’s another Noah oppa! Noah oppa!”

Yerim called out at the top of her lungs, but the Noahs on the building didn’t notice.

“The first floor of the building is packed with Myungwoos. Looks like Hunters are dreaming about getting gear from him.”

“Then there must be Misters too, right?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah.”

“I had a dream with you in it once too, Mister!”

“So did I.”

“I did too. Xiao Jin—”

I threw the telescope I was holding at Hwang Rim.

I was neither curious nor interested.

Trying to stop Yerim from going off to sightsee all the dream versions of me, I looked back up at the sky. Had Yuhyun managed to find a helicopter safely? Since Peace couldn’t turn incorporeal, he’d need a big one.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long before another helicopter appeared. Coming from the north, and larger than the others—it had to be Yuhyun and Peace. Then I caught sight of a dark object in the distance from the direction of Japan too. Everyone really was making it here safely.

“Yuhyun!”

I waved both arms high in the air. We’d done some light remodeling, but yes, this was still our house! The large helicopter sped closer and landed on the roof.

– Kyauung!

With a booming cry, Peace kicked the helicopter door open hard enough to nearly rip it off and leaped out. He must’ve been cramped in there, because the first thing he did was stretch. Yuhyun climbed out right after him.

“Hyung!”

“Yuhyun, Peace! Nothing happened to either of you, right?”

“Yeah. Peace was faster than the monsters, so we made it through without colliding with anything.”

– Krrrung

“You did great, Peace. Good job! Oh, you sweet thing!”

I scrubbed a hand roughly over the scruff of his neck. Peace rumbled and circled once, like he wanted to throw himself into my arms. Sorry, Peace. Adult form was a little too much. By then, I could also make out the helicopter that probably had Seong Hyunjae and Chief Song Taewon aboard.

Thank God everyone was safe—

Boom!

An explosion ripped through the air.

The tail of the helicopter approaching the Breeding Facility blew apart.

My whole body locked up.

What the hell—what just happened? Right now, nobody could even use skills—

“Looks like an anti-tank rocket launcher.”

That was Hwang Rim.

Modern weapons. Right. Weapons from our world could still be used. I’d rammed monsters with a truck to get here, and the others had flown in by helicopter. The helicopter spun wildly in the air. It hadn’t dropped straight down yet, but it could go down at any second.

“W-what do we do?!”

Yerim stamped her feet in panic. Damn it, who the hell— No, that didn’t matter right now.

“Gyeol!”

– Daddy, once you leave the castle, I can’t use it properly! It’d be better to take that helicopter!

“A megaphone!”

– A megaphone?

Trying to rescue people inside a helicopter with another helicopter wasn’t going to work. But there were people here who could fly.

Dream people, at that—ones who could take a hit without it mattering much.

Gyeol made me a megaphone. I grabbed it and shouted as hard as I could.

“Noah! Please rescue the Sesung Guildmaster and Chief Song Taewon from that helicopter!”

“…What? Mr. Yujin, I’m actually— Ah!”

My voice boomed across the area, reaching the Noahs on the building—and the people dreaming them. The Noahs took off without hesitation. If people cared enough about Noah to dream about him, then they probably also knew that Noah listened to me.

“There’s someone attacking the helicopter! Please protect them too!”

Among the Noahs spreading membrane wings and feathered wings, one dragon-transformed Noah joined the flight. Golden wings flashed toward the falling helicopter. Since they were just ordinary people’s dreams, they probably weren’t as strong as the real Noah. But carrying one person while flying should still be possible.

Then I turned back toward the building and shouted again.

“All Hunters here to meet Hunter Yu Myungwoo! There’s an intruder! Protect the Sesung Guildmaster and Chief Song Taewon and cooperate immediately! If you catch the person who attacked the helicopter, I, Han Yujin, Director of Dodam Breeding Facility, will personally commission Hunter Yu Myungwoo to forge you a weapon!”

Hunters were more likely than ordinary civilians to show strength even here.

Boom!

Another explosion thundered out.

Who the hell was doing this? Judging by how the other dreams were reacting, this wasn’t some random sleeper. Had the transcendents already started interfering? Even if they couldn’t step in directly…

‘They might still be able to send dreams down here.’

Which would explain why they were using regular weapons instead of skills or items. One of the Noahs vanished in a burst of flames, but I caught a glimpse of someone being pulled out of the helicopter.

“Yerim, stay here.”

“Mister!”

“We can’t leave this all to dreams. They might be hurt. We need to go get them ourselves. It’d be nice if we had weapons—”

“Little Jin, catch!”

Hwang Rim pulled a rifle out of the helicopter and tossed it to me. Liette and Noah also took out guns of their own.

What the hell?

“The place we borrowed the helicopter from was a military facility~ We couldn’t bring much.”

“Nice work! Yuhyun, you learned how to shoot before, right?”

“Yeah. I kept practicing afterward, just in case.”

“Good. Yerim, Gyeol. Do not come out. Under any circumstances.”

Yerim and Gyeol both made unhappy faces at the same time.

“But Mister!”

– But Daddy!

“If this place stays safe, then we’ll have somewhere to come back to. Protect the house. Hwang Rim, you stay too.”

“Huh? Me too?”

“You’re good with weapons, right? You were military.”

Hwang Rim shrugged. He’d looked sloppy ever since the first time I met him, but he still had the experience.

“Explain weapon types to Gyeol so he can make them. Long-range sniper weapons. And avoid hurting ordinary people if you can.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Sniping? Me too! I’m ranged by default!”

“Stay here and watch the kids. Peace… do you want to stay too?”

– Keung!

Peace nudged me with his head like he wanted to come along, and I worried. The other side had guns too, and with his size, he’d have a hard time hiding. But he was also faster than anyone else.

“Peace. Stay here. And if Daddy or anybody else is in danger, come get us fast and bring us back, okay? I’m counting on you.”

– Kkuuung

“Little Jin, the helicopter’s going down!”

Craaaash—

There was no time.

Praying those two had escaped safely, I turned.

– Daddy, I made a slide that connects to the building side!

“Thanks! Hwang Rim, protect the house!”

Gyeol and Peace were both stronger here anyway, so it should be fine. And honestly, I didn’t feel great dragging that guy around with us either. Slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I climbed into the sled waiting at the top of the slide. Yuhyun, Noah, and Liette followed right behind me. The sled shot downward in an instant and plunged straight into the Dodam building.

Screeeech—

The bottom of the sled scraped across the lobby floor before spinning to a stop. Maybe my shouting had worked, because most of the Hunters who’d been in the lobby had already gone outside.

“Huh? Director Han Yujin!”

Apparently a few had decided to stay behind and guard the building because of the intruder warning. They already had their weapons out and were standing protectively in front of the various Myungwoos.

Good kids.

“Thanks. I’m counting on you.”

After telling them to stop anyone suspicious, I headed outside.

And the second I stepped out—

“…Hyung?”

Han Yujins were everywhere, glancing toward the source of the explosion and murmuring among themselves. Yuhyun looked flustered, and Liette said something I couldn’t understand.

“Those hyungs… they’re dreams, right?”

“Yeah. Turns out a lot more people dream about me than I expected… haha.”

I told him not to think about it and started moving toward the smoke.

Then—

“Yuhyun?”

“Yuhyun!”

“My little brother!”

The Yujins spotted him.

Oh, hell no.

Don’t come any closer. It was like seeing a zombie swarm.

Back off. Back off!

“There are two Yuhyuns!”

“What’s that one supposed to be, Han Yujin? A fake?”

“Yuhyun, did you come to see your hyung?”

“The Haeyeon Guildmaster is seriously so handsome!”

The Han Yujins blocked our way. They were blurry, sure, but they still looked like me, and actual dreamers were mixed in with them, so I couldn’t just shove through them carelessly.

Wait—that’s—

Screeech!

“Mr. Yujin! Get in!”

A familiar car came to a stop, and Noah opened the door.

Noah!

I’d wondered where he’d gone. So he’d gone to get the car. Of course—his room would’ve had the keys!

“Nice one, Noah! Yuhyun, Liette!”

We jumped in and sped off toward the smoke.

Mr. Seong Hyunjae, Chief Song Taewon—please be safe.