* * *
Yoon Seungryong had borrowed Lee Hyunmook’s clothes.
He was fairly muscular himself, but Hyunmook’s build was so large that the clothes hung a bit loose on him. Yohan, who had been absentmindedly staring at Seungryong in the borrowed outfit, realized something a moment later.
“It’s not Addas, it’s Adios?”
“Huh? Oh, you’re right. Is it a knock-off? Or... contaminated?”
The altered logo of a famous brand left it unclear whether it was genuine but contaminated, or simply a fake from the start. As they exchanged idle chatter, Yohan found himself marveling. It had already been strange enough meeting Hyunmook in the Abyss, but seeing Yoon Seungryong standing right there in front of him made it all feel surreal.
Yoon Seungryong, twenty-five years old this year. A mid-tier Awakener with poison as his primary ability and spatial arts as his secondary. Like most damage dealers, he fought using a spear, but he also used his spatial arts to throw hidden weapons at vital points. Relieved, Yohan remarked,
“Still, I’m glad. Yesterday, when you fought Mr. Lee Hyunmook, you didn’t use, um, your spatial arts.”
“Hmm? I don’t really remember, but I think I did.”
“...What?”
Yohan looked at Hyunmook in surprise. During yesterday’s fight, he hadn’t felt as if he’d been caught in Seungryong’s spatial arts at all — and even now, Hyunmook seemed perfectly fine.
“It’s just that the team leader’s too much of a monster for it to work. Even poison doesn’t affect him... Well, maybe «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» because he’s more toxic than poison? Acidic venom, sure, but he doesn’t even blink at other toxins.”
So, yesterday’s battle must have been fiercer and more brutal than Yohan had realized, his view having been obscured by the poisonous mist. No wonder Hyunmook had been sleeping earlier — it was clearly the toll from yesterday. Yohan glanced at him with a worried expression, wondering if he didn’t need purification, but Seungryong, perhaps because Yohan had given him something tasty, approached with an almost overly friendly air.
“Hyung, want me to make you some budae-jjigae later? I heard you talking about some fruit earlier — if there’s an orchard nearby, I could grab a few for you.”
Seungryong was about the same age as Yang Yosep, but treated Yohan even better than his own brother. His goodwill was so deep it was almost embarrassing. Practically bouncing with excitement, Seungryong grinned like he might pick Yohan up and cuddle him.
“There’s a ruined city nearby. Want me to go clear it out for loot? With a purifier here, we can eat anything.”
“Ah, we can’t go into the ruined city. There’s an overflow there...”
“...Overflow already?”
Seungryong looked puzzled and turned to Hyunmook. Hyunmook, wiping the soot from his spear, met his gaze silently. After a brief pause — almost as if they’d communicated without words — Seungryong scratched his head and dropped the topic.
Yohan, still a bit wary, cautiously asked,
“By the way, where’s your weapon? If you left it in the swamp yesterday, shouldn’t we go get it?”
“Of course I brought it. Here.”
Seungryong rummaged at his waist and pulled out a long spear. Yohan’s eyes widened — he had clearly been wearing only a short-sleeved shirt and nothing else, yet suddenly a spear had appeared. Unlike Hyunmook’s spear, which seemed made for thrusting and often used as a lightning rod, Seungryong’s had a long, bladed head like a guandao. Bewildered, Yohan asked,
“M-magic?”
It was strange enough that he’d been hiding it all this time. The moment the spear emerged, sticky mud dropped in clumps, releasing a foul stench — how could he have hidden that smell? Seungryong, oblivious to the filth, grinned broadly.
“No, spatial arts.”
“But... your spatial arts weren’t like this, were they?”
There was a large gap between a main ability and a secondary one. While Seungryong’s main ability could deliver deadly, devastating attacks, his secondary ability had been limited to moving a dagger a few times a day — at best. Yet just now, he had pulled his weapon out of empty air as if using a game inventory.
“Since I got here, I’ve gotten insanely strong. So, so, so strong... Strong enough that even I can’t keep my head straight...”
Seeing the glint in his eyes turn predatory, Yohan hurriedly flooded him with purification. The revoltingly colored mud shifted to an ordinary brown, and the stench vanished. Seungryong, dazed, shook his head like a wet dog as he came back to himself. Yohan, who had been on the verge of tears, exhaled in relief — and then—
“Uwah!”
Something soft brushed his cheek, making him yelp. Hyunmook’s face was suddenly so close that their lips had lightly touched. Assuming he’d gone mad again, Yohan poured purification into him, but Hyunmook spoke softly at his ear.
“You’ve got to watch out for poison.”
Only then did Yohan realize Hyunmook had stopped a lump of acidic, poisonous mud from sliding down Seungryong’s spear shaft toward his thigh. Hyunmook’s hand was covered in the stuff.
“Are you okay?!”
Panicked, Yohan purified the remaining mud and checked Hyunmook’s hand. Thankfully, as befitted a high-tier Awakener and damage dealer, the wound was already half healed. Flustered, Seungryong set his now-clean spear aside.
“Ah, damn, sorry Yohan. I... kinda forgot.”
“It’s fine, but... shouldn’t you be apologizing to him? He’s the one who got hurt.”
At Yohan’s logical point, Seungryong looked straight at Hyunmook. Hyunmook gave a halfhearted apology.
“So, the team leader who bent my back in half, sliced me up, and burned me to a crisp without a single apology — I accidentally burned his hand. But is it a mistake to put my hand out to help? Maybe I’m, like, a tiny bit sorry? Kinda? Maybe?”
It didn’t sound like an apology no matter how you took it. But from the way it sounded, Yohan suspected Hyunmook had done far worse to Seungryong, so he couldn’t say much. Seungryong shrugged and rose to his feet.
“I’m gonna go empty some trash from my pocket. On the way back, hyung’ll hunt you some fruit.”
Yohan tilted his head. Trash from his pocket? The only pockets in Seungryong’s outfit were in the pants Yohan had given him earlier.
Ah — maybe he means the space where he keeps his weapons. Like a game inventory...?
Spatial arts were rare even among Awakeners, and they almost always appeared only as a secondary ability with strict limits. If that secondary ability had grown this much in the Abyss... how much stronger had his main ability become? And if Lee Hyunmook, a high-tier Awakener with all his power concentrated in one ability, had grown too...
What came to mind was the acid cave Seungryong had created — its walls eaten through into yawning voids. Yohan couldn’t even begin to guess at the level of strength involved. When he glanced at Hyunmook, the man responded warmly.
“What is it, Yohan?”
Suddenly, Yohan felt a little embarrassed to be receiving so much goodwill from such famous, powerful people just for being a purifier.
“I feel like I’m just... being carried along without doing much...”
“You think you haven’t done much?”
Hyunmook frowned, as if he’d heard something incomprehensible.
“No, I don’t mean my purification’s nothing special. Just... while you’ve been going through so much, I’ve been hiding in safe spots, just watching. I feel bad about it...”
“Yohan.”
Hyunmook cut him off, speaking firmly.
“When I was on the verge of dying, the one who ran in and saved me was you. You stayed by my side in that deadly situation instead of running — and that’s the only reason I’m even here at all. You hadn’t even Awakened yet, but you’d already saved me. I’m sure Seungryong feels the same.”
Saved him... The word was far heavier than Yohan had expected, and his face flushed red. Hyunmook smiled faintly.
“Honestly, that day, I felt like kissing your feet a hundred times over.”
“No! Don’t you ever do something like that!”
“Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t like it, so I didn’t.”
Then he ruffled Yohan’s hair, his palm brushing his ear in an intimate gesture. Yohan, awkward in the silence that followed, stammered as he tried to change the subject.
“Ah, um... should I start calling you ‘team leader’? I mean, I’m not technically part of the Sunrise team, but...”
Looking back, it seemed like calling him “Mr. Lee Hyunmook” all this time might have been a bit rude. But to Yohan’s surprise, Hyunmook’s brow furrowed slightly for the first time.
“I’d be hurt.”
“...Hurt? Why? What’s wrong?”
Hurt? From him? Yohan’s heart sank, and he clenched his fists.
“Seungryong and I are about the same age difference from you — so why am I ‘team leader’?”
“...Huh?”
Yohan was two years younger than Seungryong but ten years younger than Hyunmook — how was that the same? Still, ten years wasn’t that far off for calling someone “hyung.” After a moment’s hesitation, Yohan finally spoke.
“Then... Hyun... mook-hyung...?”
