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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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Chapter 24
Baekya changed his expression completely.
"That sounds perfect."
Ryu Haneul's eyes curved into crescents.
"I knew you'd like it. When do you want to go? Tomorrow? The day after?"
"I'll match your schedule. I'm unemployed, after all."
"I don't have any plans either. All my Tower raids have been canceled."
"What about Gate raids? You'll get sued if you don't go."
"Senior comes first."
"But I clearly taught you to prioritize the Gates. To soar, you need a solid foundation, and to conquer towering peaks, you need a secure base. This guild is our foundation, our base."
"We still have a 5-minute standby team. My turn is a long way off."
"Good."
Haneul raised an eyebrow and asked.
"Ah, you were curious about the Regressors, weren't you?"
"Didn't you say you didn't know anything?"
"I realized that you don't know anything right now, Senior. I'll tell you the general outline."
"Alright. Thanks."
"There are nine in total."
Baekya had two thoughts simultaneously.
'That's fewer than I expected. But I can't trust everything this guy says. Let's consider it a baseline for now.'
Ryu Haneul continued fluently.
"There are four hardliners, three moderates, and two gray areas."
"Siyeol must be a hardliner. And Jeongwon is a moderate. The hardliners want to kill me immediately, and the moderates want to give me a chance?"
"He's definitely a hardliner, but it's ambiguous with the moderates. Jeongwon was the most moderate among the moderates."
Baekya guessed that the other moderates either wanted to keep him barely alive or argued that there was no need to kill him immediately.
'Wait a minute.'
Thinking that way, he couldn't figure out which faction Ryu Haneul belonged to.
"Aren't you a moderate? You... don't seem to want to kill me."
Ryu Haneul looked at him, aghast, as if the answer was self-evident.
"I'm in the gray area! There are those who stand between the moderates and hardliners, and then there are people like me."
"What do you mean by 'people like you'?"
"Well, I was against killing you in the first place."
Baekya once again reminded himself that he couldn't trust the moderates either.
'The only difference was whether to kill me immediately or wait for me to show signs of danger.'
Ryu Haneul continued in a resolute tone, as if stating an eternal truth.
"I was just sad that I couldn't follow you, Senior. It's fine if you want to destroy the world. It's fine if you want to climb the Tower. It's fine if you want to live as a Dark Knight in the shadows, never revealing your identity. I only want one thing."
"What do you want?"
At Baekya's question, he answered as if he had been waiting for it.
Thump
His fist, placed on his chest, was firm and graceful.
"Whether you're happy or sad, victorious or defeated, a hero or a demon, I want to be your shadow, your junior, following you closely, never leaving your side."
Baekya thought that his future self must have taken in the wrong disciple.
The glint in Ryu Haneul's amethyst eyes was chilling.
But Baekya enjoyed the chill.
He declared just as resolutely as Ryu Haneul.
"I appreciate your kindness. But I think we need to remove a few things."
"Excuse me?"
"There's no way I could ever experience something like 'defeat'."
Even if he had lost tactically, he had won strategically.
Cheong Siyeol ultimately failed to kill him.
"It's a promise. No matter what happened before, things will be different now. I'm not interested in being a Dark Knight, a hypocrite, or a villain. I am Baekya. Once I'm strong enough, I'll proudly announce my return. And then I'll climb the Tower again and incinerate that damn clock or whatever the fuck with Law of Light."
[PR/N: Don’t ask wut the clock is I donno either.]
And right after his declaration, Baekya wondered what would happen to Ryu Haneul if the clock disappeared.
If the previous loop disappeared, it would be as if he had never taken him as a disciple in the first place.
He added a fitting remark.
"If your memories disappear as a result, I'll come find you again. I'll ask the constellation or find a memory restoration artifact."
Just as Ryu Haneul had helped him, it was his turn to help Ryu Haneul.
Ryu Haneul nodded without hesitation.
"Yes, it's okay. That's also me."
Relationships could be rebuilt.
It wouldn't be easy, but it was nothing compared to resurrection.
"Don't you feel wronged? Your memories might become jumbled because of me."
"On the contrary, that would make it the same as the previous loop. I would have Awakened at 20, and you would have climbed the Tower with me then. It's just that this twisted timeline will disappear."
Baekya and Ryu Haneul both looked out the window at the same time.
The tower, soaring high into the sky, was visible even from here.
The goal was the 99th floor.
It was the path they were going to take anyway.
The comrade who was supposed to join later had already been added.
"Alright. Then tell me about the hardliners. Anything you know is fine. You, having lived through the future, must have some insights into what's important."
"First, there's Cheong Siyeol and Joo Soohyuk, and then there's Ri Baejeong."
"Ri Baejeong? That name sounds familiar."
Baekya narrowed his eyes.
He was definitely an Awakened, but he couldn't remember which guild he belonged to.
"He's a high-ranking official at the Awakened Support Agency. I think he's the most dangerous enemy. Siyeol and Soohyuk are Rankers, but Ri Baejeong can utilize the national system."
* * *
"Please follow me."
"Where are we going?"
"It's lunchtime, let's have a meal."
Wolha inwardly prepared for death when the high-ranking Awakened from the Divine Guild invited him to eat.
He had hidden a self-defense spray and a knife in his bag, but his opponent was at least an A-Rank Hunter.
He was a powerful individual who could easily eliminate an F-Rank Hunter like Wolha without leaving a trace.
So even when he took him to a high-end steakhouse and grilled fresh beef for him, Wolha thought it was his last supper.
'My brother is probably dead already. Will I end up in the mountains? Or inside a dungeon?'
He couldn't tell if the meat was going down his throat or his nose.
But Wolha didn't blame Ilha.
Both him and Ilha had been swept along by fate their entire lives.
Losing their parents, Awakening, becoming an F-Rank porter, his illness – none of it was their choice.
But everything that had happened since his brother changed recently was their choice.
Deciding to become a civil servant, deciding to leave the mining company that day.
The consequence was that they had offended a high-ranking Hunter from the Sun and Moon Divine Guild and were about to die.
He wasn't regretful, even if it was unfair.
Even if he could go back to that day, Wolha would still tell him to quit Woori Mining and demand the contract.
It wasn't like they were the ones who started the trouble with the high-ranking Hunter's brother.
So there was no need to blame himself for not backing down.
Just because someone was too powerful to reach didn't justify their actions.
Wolha thought.
'He's probably just a B-Rank at best. If he were Ranker-level, he would have set up a mining company for his brother instead of just getting him a job there.'
Even the Hunter who was trampling on him and his brother was just a bug in front of the true powerhouses.
Thinking that way made him feel a little less resentful.
Ding
Just then, the restaurant door opened, and two people entered.
"Already eating?"
Wolha couldn't believe his eyes.
"Brother?"
Ilha was alive.
Behind him, a top-tier Hunter with a purple halo, a combination of a circle and a square, entered.
Mana, characteristic of a high-ranking Awakened, overflowed from his entire body.
The entire restaurant seemed to be filled with the light emanating from his halo.
The high-ranking Hunter asked Ilha.
"Brother?"
Ilha introduced him.
"This is 'my' younger brother, Hong Wolha. Wolha, say hello. This is the Vice Guildmaster of Sun and Moon Divine. His surname is Ryu, and his name is Haneul. We had a good talk."
Ryu Haneul looked back and forth between them, then smiled.
"Nice to meet you. I had a good talk with your brother."
He placed both hands on Ilha's shoulders.
Wolha couldn't understand why such a formidable Hunter would act that way towards someone like Ilha, but it seemed like he was showing off his closeness to him.
"It's not exactly joining the guild, but we'll be spending some time together. We might see each other often, so please remember me."
Just then, another staff member rushed in and handed Ryu Haneul a necklace-type ID card.
Ryu Haneul took it and stood on his tiptoes behind Ilha.
He wrapped his arms around Ilha's neck as if hugging him and put the ID card necklace around his neck.
Ryu Haneul looked at Wolha with a triumphant expression.
'Senior, I'll be more useful to you. Get rid of that F-Rank brother of yours quickly and come to our Guild.'
Wolha couldn't understand why he was making such an expression.
'Why is he acting like that?'
What was even more puzzling was that he felt strangely annoyed.
'…….'
Yes, it was really strange.
* * *
That evening, Wolha and Ilha returned home and slumped across from each other at the dining table in the living room.
They had a lot to talk about, but they were too exhausted to even open their mouths.
It had been a day filled with too many events.
Only after they hurriedly ate dinner and devoured a generous amount of fruits for dessert did they finally find the energy to start talking.
Wolha was curious about what had happened that day, and Baekya was contemplating how to explain that he would be going to the Tower from tomorrow onwards.
"Brother."
"Wolha."
"You go first."
"No, you go first."
The heartwarming scene of siblings politely offering each other the first turn to speak was short-lived.
Wolha returned to his role as the head of the household.
"How much compensation did you get?"
Baekya glanced at the apple box in the corner of the room and held out the paper bag.
"The reward and compensation combined came to 2 billion won. 1.5 billion in cash, and 500 million deposited into the bank account."
"Stop talking nonsense."
Wolha didn't believe him.
He got up from her seat, opened the apple box, and...
"Oh my god."
He collapsed right back into his chair.
Bundles of 50,000 won bills filled the box.
"No way. How could they give us this much money for just a bit of compensation?"
It wasn't something someone who had a sword held to their throat should be saying.
But Wolha was a young adult, thoroughly jaded by the harsh reality.
He couldn't believe that a proper, or rather, generous compensation had actually happened in Korea.
Baekya spoke slowly and carefully.
It was the eloquence of the Rank 1 Hunter, who could speak for dozens of minutes in front of hundreds of reporters with just a few lines of script.
"I didn't receive it just for that."
He spoke slowly, as if hesitant.
Making him want to ask more.
"Then?"
"It's because of 'this,' you know."
He subtly gestured above his head, emphasizing the word 'this.'
Wolha's breath hitched as he saw his finger pointing towards his halo.
'A Black Hole contract!?'
His voice trembled involuntarily.
"...Oh."
From that tremble, Baekya was certain that the person who had been asking questions about Black Hole contracts on 'Chatter of the Stars' recently was Wolha.
'Our IPs were the same. So that's what you were worried about. Well, I'm grateful that you're making that assumption on your own.'
"Apparently, there are quite a few Awakened in the Divine Guild who have contracts with those constellations. Their name itself is like a sect from a martial arts novel."
"That's true."
"So they said they would teach me how to control this."
"Then... it's like a contract fee?"
"Essentially, yes. And a threat at the same time."
Wolha let out a deep sigh.
"They caught you."
"They recognized it right away. I think they had a hunch since the Gate incident. The reward was also bait."
"...I did some research too."
He had also looked up a lot of information after suspecting that his brother might have made a Black Hole contract.
"Since it's a contract with inherently evil transcendent beings, it's basically a serious crime, right?"
"That's right."
"But it rarely works out that way in reality."
Every country wanted Awakened as part of their power, so the rules were often overlooked.
If they went berserk, they would be killed, but as long as they controlled themselves, they were often tolerated.
"I think this could be a good opportunity. I'll study hard, so you definitely have to become a Hunter, brother."
Joo Soohyuk, one of the top ten high-rankers in South Korea, was openly known as the 'Fist Demon,' and it was public knowledge that the constellation he had contracted with was 'Asura.'
"When are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow."
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Hestia
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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