Igyeol slowly turned his head to look at Sung Yohan. He had to put strength in his jaw to keep his voice from trembling.
“……What did you say?”
Kang Yeongeum. There was no way he could forget that name.
“Kang Yeongwon is her younger brother. That’s why…… there’s no need for him to awaken. No, he must not.”
Sung Yohan continued speaking with his eyes lowered, unable to see Igyeol’s reaction.
“Her legacy and the enormous government support funds fall entirely into Kang Yeongwon’s hands, so why would he need to do dangerous hunter work? It was also her wish for him to live an ordinary life.”
“……Kang Yeongeum’s, younger brother?”
Igyeol asked in a trembling voice. Sung Yohan raised the corners of his mouth in a self-deprecating smile. He smiled but it didn’t look like a smile.
“Yes, he’s famous. Because he’s the hero’s only blood relative.”
Only then did Sung Yohan turn his head toward Igyeol.
“So there are many who target him. Hyenas swarm around that child, approaching or bullying him for the purpose of Kang Yeongeum’s legacy. You too…… aren’t you one of them?”
Sung Yohan’s eyes flashed with suspicion once again.
But Igyeol couldn’t retort. No, he couldn’t hear his words. Igyeol bit his lip tightly. Hard enough for blood to seep out.
‘Kang Yeongwon.’
‘Kang Yeongeum.’
Even though they shared the same surname Kang. Even though the character ‘Yeong’ was in the name, why hadn’t he even thought of it?
Nine years ago, beyond the hellish Gate of Reversed Heaven.
‘I have a younger sibling about your age too. That’s why I’m looking after you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Who’s your younger sibling!’
‘This guy is really acting up again!’
‘Let’s fight! Let’s fight!’
‘You’ll get knocked out with one hit!’
The woman who swept away the demons of the Demon Realm while wielding a massive battle axe as tall as herself. The hearty and rough woman whose occupation was healer but who was better at swinging an axe than healing.
Her face, smiling while covered in blood, flickered before his eyes. The person who bickered with him while guarding each other’s backs.
‘Live, Igyeol-ah. You must live.’
‘Noona, noona, you can’t.’
‘Live and……’
In the flames, in that dark Demon Realm where volcanoes erupted, she was looking at the ashen sky and crying. Not because of pain. Because she worried about Igyeol who would be left alone, and because she ached for the younger sibling she’d left behind.
Igyeol blankly looked down at the floor. Inside his hoodie, he felt the cold metallic touch of something hanging at his chest.
The name tags he’d collected one by one each time his comrades died. Their heavy weight felt like it was strangling Igyeol’s neck.
‘If you survive and meet my younger sibling, please tell them.’
Her last voice echoed in his ears like a hallucination.
‘That noona loved them very much.’
Igyeol lowered his head. An unspeakable pain seemed to rise from deep in his chest.
***
Sung Yohan quietly stared at the man walking beside him.
The man who until just moments ago had been annoying, bothersome, picking fights with his whole body, suddenly became quiet. Not just that he stopped talking, but the air itself had sunk heavily.
Drooping shoulders. Eyes fixed on the floor. And lips reddened from biting them so much.
‘Why is he suddenly like that?’
Sung Yohan felt puzzled. It had been right after he brought up Kang Yeongeum’s story. What he read in those wavering eyes wasn’t simple surprise. It was clear sorrow, and guilt.
Sung Yohan sneaked a glance at Igyeol’s profile and opened his mouth.
“What’s your name?”
“……What are you going to do knowing that?”
The answer that came back after a long while was still prickly, but lacked strength.
“I need to know so I can find you later. You’re of unknown identity.”
“Why would you come find me? Are you a stalker?”
“You’re an unregistered hunter, so I have to make you register. Talent management at the Association level is essential.”
“I said I’m a C-rank gathering hunter how many times. Are your ears blocked?”
“I know it’s all lies.”
Sung Yohan said firmly.
“My Ears of Truth have been ringing so noisily every time you open your mouth that I’m about to go deaf.”
“……What do you know to act like you know everything?”
Igyeol retorted irritably and turned his head away. Normally he would have snapped back saying ‘you got proof?’ but right now he didn’t even have the energy for that.
The two walked the long corridor in silence. The corridor with worn carpet was so long the end couldn’t be seen, and the candlesticks hanging on the walls were producing bizarrely flickering blue flames.
Igyeol was anxious.
‘How far inside did that bastard Kang Yeongwon go?’
While passing through the corridor, there wasn’t even a monster corpse, let alone any trace of a person. Then there was only one place left.
The boss room.
Igyeol bit his lip tightly. The taste of blood spread bitterly. If he’s Kang Yeongeum’s younger brother, then he’s now someone Igyeol must look after too. It wasn’t just a passing connection. He was the only blood relative of a comrade who shared life and death at the Gate of Reversed Heaven.
And that kid was now alone in the middle of a dungeon swarming with demons.
‘Damn it, how did it get entangled like this….’
Igyeol roughly swept back his disheveled hair in frustration. It felt like his insides were burning up. If something happened to Yeongwon, how could he face Kang Yeongeum in the afterlife later?
“Why are you suddenly like this?”
Sung Yohan’s voice suddenly interjected.
“You don’t look well. Perhaps… you’re trembling at having to face the tragedy of fratricide?”
“……”
“It seems you’re feeling pangs of conscience about having to kill demons.”
“I told you to stop with the bullshit….”
Sung Yohan smirked. A laugh escaped unconsciously, and he tried to lower the rising corners of his mouth as he spoke.
“Ahem… we’ve ended up in front of the boss room. It’ll be serious if Yeongwon is inside.”
“It’ll be serious, damn… things got properly tangled.”
“If something happens to that child, I’ll hold you responsible too.”
Igyeol shouted as if it was unfair.
“Hey, what did I do that you’re pushing responsibility onto me? Did I push him, or did I open the dungeon door for him?”
“Are you proud of misleading a child? There’s responsibility as an adult for failing to stop him.”
“Who’s proud? My only crime is saving him.”
“You should have stopped him then.”
“Ha…… let’s stop talking.”
Igyeol shut his mouth. Sung Yohan’s words weren’t wrong. Igyeol was feeling guilty deep down. If only he’d noticed a bit faster, if only he’d known a bit sooner that he was Kang Yeongeum’s younger brother, he could have prevented this. He wouldn’t have just let him go from that alley in the first place.
“……We’ve arrived.”
Sung Yohan stopped walking.
At the end of the corridor, a massive door that seemed to reach the ceiling was looking down at them. On the blood-colored wooden door, the grotesque form of a demon was carved in relief.
Between the door cracks, pitch-black magical energy was seeping out slowly. Along with it, the terrible sulfur smell that stung the nose spread.
—Kik, kikikik…… kirik…
A scratching laugh could be heard from beyond the door.
“A terrible smell.”
Sung Yohan’s expression hardened coldly. He skillfully extended his hand into the air and summoned the Chains of Judgment. Chwararak, the sound of chains clashing cut through the silence.
“Prepare yourself. It might be B-rank, no, possibly higher.”
Igyeol frowned as he looked ahead.
Thanks to the dazzling Holy Power Sung Yohan was emitting, the evil Demonic Energy seeping through the door cracks was disappearing before it could reach Igyeol. Thanks to that his body was comfortable, but the ‘fragment’ embedded in his body was different.
Thump, thump, thump.
His heart beat roughly. What was inside wasn’t some trash mob. It was a real ‘demon.’
—Aaah…….
That’s when it happened. A sticky whisper reached Igyeol’s ears.
—This energy is….
Igyeol’s footsteps stopped abruptly. Sung Yohan seemed calm as if he hadn’t heard it, but to Igyeol it was a crystal-clear voice.
—Lord Beelzebub?
Creeeeak—
The massive door opened by itself. The rusty hinges screamed as they split left and right.
A white hand popped out from the darkness. Soon after, a boy in a school uniform began walking out slowly with staggering steps.
“Kang Yeongwon!”
Sung Yohan shouted urgently. But the boy didn’t answer.
Empty eyes. Pupils unfocused and blankly vacant. And a smile with only the corners of his mouth grotesquely raised.
Anyone could see he wasn’t in his right mind. He was thoroughly possessed by a demon.
—Kikik… kikikik…….
From Kang Yeongwon’s mouth came an unpleasant laugh that wasn’t the boy’s.
—Lord Beelzebub, you’ve brought very good prey. Is it a gift for me?
The demon’s voice was coming from behind Kang Yeongwon, from deep in the darkness.
Igyeol’s eyes narrowed.
‘Prey? Gift?’
The bastard was mistaken right now. It had clearly sensed the energy of Beelzebub emanating from Igyeol’s body and misunderstood him as its superior, namely the incarnation of ‘Demon King Beelzebub.’
Then what about Sung Yohan next to him?
‘…Maybe it’s so entranced by the fragment it can’t sense the Holy Power. Though it’s not Holy Power that can’t be sensed… well, works out well though.’
It seemed unable to sense the Holy Power. That’s why it was whispering about bringing prey.
Igyeol’s mind, having finished grasping the situation, worked quickly.
