Chapter 55

"..."

"Hm? What is it?"

"... You asshole brother of mine..."

"Yeah."

"What is that?"

At Cha A-ra's question, her older brother, Cha Eun-hyuk, tilted his head.

"... A jewel?"

"No, I can tell it's a jewel just by looking. I'm asking how you got it."

"Ah, that..."

"Oppa."

From the look of it, he was preparing some excuse, but long-winded talk was not to Cha A-ra's taste.

"Look at this."

"... That's a jewel."

"I got it as a gift from some humanoid monster."

"..."

The eldest son, Cha Eun-hyuk, silently pressed a hand to his forehead, and the youngest, Cha Yi-sol, dropped his spoon.

Cha Eun-hyuk let out a long, deep sigh and said,

"... I'm sorry I tried to brush this off with a lie, so let's talk this through step by step without bullshitting each other."

It happened two days before the youngest's induction ceremony.

* * *

"Ah, so..."

Cha Eun-hyuk, the eldest son of the Cha family, nodded.

"That was what you brought back, calling it insurance money or whatever."

"Yeah, it was money the Collector guild gave me as something like compensation for damages."

"Thanks to that, we can buy the youngest's priest robes, but why are you only telling us now?"

"No, fuck, because I wasn't planning to tell you..."

"Do you trust us that little?"

"What are you talking about, when you're ordinary people who'd bruise if I so much as tapped you?"

Cha A-ra grumbled sharply out of habit.

It was not that she was particularly angry or hurt; if anything, acting like a wary wildcat was simply one of Cha A-ra's habits.

She herself was not aware of it, though.

Since the other party was family, Cha A-ra continued with a somewhat softened expression.

"I originally wasn't going to tell you."

"The youngest's profession manifested, but we don't know when he'll be chosen, and he's, you know, a noncombatant... not field work, but office work... that kind of thing."

"And you're a complete civilian."

"That's true."

"The Collector guild seemed to want me not to tell anyone if possible, too."

"I may be blabbing without thinking right now, but honestly, it felt like some really important secret."

"For that, doesn't it seem like you didn't even sign a confidentiality agreement?"

"That part was kind of weird."

"It felt like, they'd rather I didn't say anything if possible, but since it's a story that's going to spread eventually anyway, if my mouth really itches that badly, I should go ahead and try telling someone... something like that?"

"Big corporations are run more slapdash than you'd think."

"What are you talking about?"

Cha Eun-hyuk pressed hard against his throbbing temple.

"And in the middle of all that, you told us because you saw me with that... that jewel?"

"They said there's only one jewel in the world with that kind of crystal structure."

"So what else would it mean?"

"It means you must have met that monster already, too."

"At that point, I wondered if there was any point in hiding it, so I came clean."

"The youngest is listening too."

"What, are we supposed to leave only him out?"

"Hey, why would you make him feel left out?"

"No, that isn't what I meant..."

Cha Eun-hyuk, who had been about to say something, soon nodded.

"Yi-sol."

"Yeah, hyung."

"You can't go around telling anyone about this, all right?"

"I'm good at that kind of thing."

"I'm not sure how to feel about you already being good at this kind of thing, but anyway, well done."

"If one wrong thing happens, I think your hyung and noona might get dragged off to some huge guild in Seoul and end up living as test subjects."

"Then I really won't tell!"

"Wow, you're amazing."

Watching the cheerful youngest bastard give a thumbs-up and the older brother bastard praise him for it, Cha A-ra briefly reflected on her life.

What karma had we committed in a past life to end up with nothing but these dumbasses gathered together?

'I have to protect them.'

Cha A-ra, who did not know that every member of the family saw the others as someone to protect, stirred her white rice and mumbled.

"Ah, this isn't the flavor..."

"You said you got dragged off by a monster and ate a seven-dish meal, and now only your palate's gotten picky."

"Look at our youngest, eating so well without being picky."

"How admirable."

"This is so fucking unfair."

"When was I ever picky?"

"And he's my youngest too, you know?"

"Why am I not admirable when I rolled all over the place and brought home insurance money?"

"It helped with the household, but you should've noticed that my sense of shame grew just as much."

"I'd rather live on weeds than eat off your insurance money."

"You damn pushover, are you going to let the youngest starve?"

"If you live that nice, does money fall from the sky?"

"Is our grandfather who went to the afterlife going to assign you the winning lottery numbers?"

"Like you're so great, running your mouth."

The Cha family had been pushovers for generations.

They were in no position to say one was better than another.

Cha Eun-hyuk and Cha A-ra worried that the youngest, Cha Yi-sol, might get scammed somewhere, but Cha A-ra was only a little better than that, and Cha Eun-hyuk was only slightly better than her, so it was all splitting hairs.

"I heard you gave the scarf the youngest knitted you last time to a complete stranger."

"Ah, fuck, what, was I supposed to just watch when they looked like they were about to freeze to death?!"

"Are you a fucking psychopath?!"

"Then why didn't you go huddle like penguins without spending money, Hunter Cha A-ra!"

"That would've been way more economical!"

"Why the hell would I do something as gross as huddling with a total stranger? Stop saying dogshit!"

"Yeah, and you gave that total stranger the scarf the youngest knitted, didn't you?!"

As he watched his two family members, the youngest, Cha Yi-sol, simply kept shoveling in the white rice he had not eaten in a long time.

"This is really good."

"Hyung made that."

"I simmered the vegetable broth."

"Yeah, it's good!"

"Amazing!"

At the pure sight of the youngest giving them a double thumbs-up, the two breadwinners gained strength and were able to stop their meaningless fight.

"When our youngest enters the dormitory, will we not get to see his face?"

"It'll be hard."

"Cha Yi-sol, don't you miss your noona's face already?"

"I'm looking at you right now, noona."

"Fuck, I can't get through to him."

Cha Eun-hyuk scolded his sister.

"Don't swear at the youngest."

"When the youngest enters the dormitory, I'll be the youngest."

"Did meeting a monster put a hole in your head?"

"The second child is the second child for life, and the youngest is the youngest for life..."

"Let's fight."

In the chaos that washed over them, the youngest, Cha Yi-sol, simply ate his rice.

"Hehe."

The white rice he had not eaten in so long was very delicious.

It seemed the monster his noona had met was a very kind monster.

* * *

"..."

Cha Eun-hyuk, who had stepped outside for a moment, sank into thought.

'The person I saw that day was a monster?'

It had been strange from the start.

'I mean, when I met him at dawn, I also thought he was... some kind of monster.'

In the dark dawn when no one was around.

The man who appeared with a pitch-black cloak wrapped around his entire body did not look human at all.

'He had an atmosphere similar to those specter-like things only I can see, so I guessed he was one of their kind.'

But he was visible not only to Cha Eun-hyuk, but to other people as well.

He was excessively blunt, but that was a personal trait, and Cha Eun-hyuk had thought the sense of otherness he felt was simply the holy power of a devout believer.

"..."

But what if he had simply been a humanoid monster?

"... Still, doesn't that not make sense?"

Something was strange.

'I've seen monsters too.'

In this world, there were not only monsters one could see only by entering dungeons, but also monsters one could encounter simply by staying still on Earth.

Even if they were monsters weak enough to be caught by ordinary people, their ferocity did not change.

Cha Eun-hyuk was not a Hunter but an ordinary person, yet he had hunted monsters before, and because of that, he could tell that the energy he felt from them and the energy of Black Cloak were different.

'That wasn't a monster's energy.'

Sitting in the yard, Cha Eun-hyuk looked up at the dim sky.

"..."

He saw something like a huge, pitch-black snake writhing past beyond the dark clouds.

It had human hands and feet, and it was slow and enormous.

"... He was definitely one of those things."

He could not figure out Black Cloak's identity.

'If I look at the situation objectively, it's definitely right to see him as a humanoid monster.'

'They said that person has his own personal dungeon, too.'

'But the energy itself is strange, and... for that kind of creature... he's too...'

He acted like a person.

"It's like he's a messy mix of all sorts of things."

He seemed like a monster, seemed like one of the creatures only Cha Eun-hyuk could see, and seemed a little human too.

Because so many traits could be felt together, it actually felt more natural.

It felt as if that Black Cloak were the Root of everything.

"... What nonsense..."

If he was the Root that gave rise to monsters, those creatures, and humans, then he was no different from a god.

'No, even a god would have a hard time doing something like that.'

It was a fanciful thought.

'When I looked into all kinds of things because of the youngest, I found that the lot called gods aren't as omnipotent as people think...'

Cha Eun-hyuk thought inwardly.

'In that sense, should I say the Black Cloak Cha A-ra and I saw is a being of a higher rank than the gods served by priests?'

But.

"..."

When he thought of it that way.

"Hmm..."

The holy power he had felt last time bothered him.

Even if he was an ordinary person, Cha Eun-hyuk had all sorts of experience, so there was no way he could not distinguish a god's holy power.

That had definitely been a god's energy.

It was something different from the energy Cha Eun-hyuk had felt from Black Cloak.

"... Considering how warm it was, it was definitely related to the sun or fire..."

Since the Temple of the Sun was nearby, he had thought he must be a devotee of the sun.

Since there was no way someone with the profession of trainer could also have a second profession as a priest, he had assumed that perhaps he had gained holy power because he was a devout believer.

But if the other party was not a believer, nor a human, then what on earth had that energy been?

"A god's energy..."

There was no way a mere monster could contain it, was there?

"..."

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like this was not a topic Cha Eun-hyuk himself should be worrying over.

"... For now, it's certain he's not just a simple monster."

"A-ra said the Collector only gave a definite answer that he wasn't human, too."

A monster that could handle a god's energy could no longer be called a monster.

'If I had to choose the most convincing option, is it those creatures I've usually seen?'

While he knew quite a lot about monsters and humans within the bounds of common sense, he knew little about those "creatures."

Perhaps there was a creature among them capable of using a god's energy.

'Though I've never once seen one until now.'

A creature equipped with such gentlemanly manners.

Even if he was not that, but a humanoid monster, he had personally picked up Cha Eun-hyuk's lost and abandoned sister, fed her, and sent her home, so he was an extraordinarily well-disposed party.

'But if I think of it this way, he might be a higher being than the gods of Earth.'

'The Black Cloak I saw that day contained a god's energy, but a god could not contain Black Cloak's energy...'

The thought he had been following came to an abrupt stop.

He did not want to drain himself for nothing.

"... There's nothing I can learn by thinking any more about his identity."

Cha Eun-hyuk simply thought about the future from now on.

"Cha A-ra said she had even been to that person's dungeon."

Cha A-ra was openly treating the man in the black cloak as a monster, but for some reason, Cha Eun-hyuk was referring to him as a "person."

Cha Eun-hyuk himself was not aware of that.

"Then does that mean we might run into each other again someday?"

For now, Cha Eun-hyuk had also invited him to the induction ceremony.

Now that the youngest's induction ceremony had been decided, there was a high chance they would meet again.

'He seemed fairly interested, so I don't think he won't come.'

The misunderstanding that he was a follower of the Sun God was gone now, but either way, he was a person who handled holy power close to the sun.

They would definitely meet at the induction ceremony.

"... I hope I haven't invited someone too dangerous..."

After a night spent only worrying like that, the next morning.

"..."

"..."

Cha Eun-hyuk's mind went dizzy for a moment.

"... Hello."

"Yes, hello."

The Cha family, who had come up to Seoul all together for the first time in their lives, ran into none other than Jio.

The strange man in the pitch-black cloak.

"It has been a while."

It was a calm greeting.

'I did think there was a high possibility, but I didn't think we'd meet again this quickly.'

Black Cloak, whom he had met again, still wore that strange atmosphere around him.

There was a reason Cha Eun-hyuk had thought, "This isn't human," from their very first meeting.

Meanwhile, the white-haired man beside Black Cloak also greeted them.

"Nice to see you again."

"Looks like your whole family came up together?"

"What, Mr. Yu Seongun, you and my oppa knew each other?"

"We've met from time to time when I bought fish-shaped bread."

"Ah, fish-shaped bread..."

Cha A-ra nodded, then looked at Black Cloak with a subtle gaze.

"..."

"Is there a problem?"

"... I'll buy you fish-shaped bread later too."

Cha Eun-hyuk finally wondered if our Flower Pig had lost her mind.

To openly say she would gift fish-shaped bread to such an intimidating party.

Of course, Black Cloak had personally bought fish-shaped bread from Cha Eun-hyuk before, but that must have been part of experiencing society...

Unexpectedly, however, Black Cloak accepted it without objection.

"I do not quite know the reason, but thank you."

"Um... yes."

Does he like fish-shaped bread?

'... Is he more down-to-earth than I thought?'

With that kind of atmosphere?

'He has the air of someone about to put a sinner on the gallows and judge them.'

Black Cloak was a being wrapped in an unmistakable aura.

Perhaps because of the pitch-black cloak, he seemed like an evil spirit or a grim reaper.

For that reason, he resembled a ghost more than a human, giving off something ominous, cold, and empty, and while he looked beautiful like an exquisitely crafted ornament, at the same time he gave off an uncanny repulsiveness.

Cha Eun-hyuk was not the only one who felt that way.

"..."

Looking around, he saw the gazes of people heading to work occasionally fixing on Black Cloak.

"Don't pay too much attention to it."

"... Ah, yes."

"He always has that kind of atmosphere."

"I see."

At Yu Seongun's words, Cha Eun-hyuk felt a strange unease.

'It's the youngest's induction ceremony.'

Will this really end well...?