Not Something Just Anyone Could Do
Butler Ju had suffered serious injuries after unleashing the overwhelming technique known as Pokroipasung while already battered from facing the Celestials. Jeong-Hoon, who had forcibly drawn upon the power of the seal while enduring the violent backlash of mana, had collapsed unconscious.
With the family forced into a hasty withdrawal, Si-Eun became the one credited with the public achievement of destroying Hwanung's Floating Garden—the family's own contribution to the incident. That was how she found herself standing on the press conference platform set up at Bucheon Station, the temporary response headquarters.
The collapse of a conquered dungeon was shocking enough on its own. The unprecedented appearance of a massive castle in the sky demanded some kind of official explanation no matter what.
Si-Eun had been asked for her cooperation from the beginning precisely to handle this part of the aftermath, so she stood there and took the full weight of every camera and stare focused on her.
"…That concludes what occurred inside the so-called Hwanung's Floating Garden."
They had approached by helicopter, found nowhere to land, rappelled down on ladders, investigated the interior, and touched the three jewels they discovered—after which the castle had collapsed. She had jumped, deployed a parachute, and landed safely.
Si-Eun finished the unnecessarily detailed, long-winded version of that story and let out a long breath.
Even in the chaos of the Gaju and the head butler's absence, the family had managed to prepare a plausible script in time and deliver it to her. The announcement of the incident outline itself had gone without a hitch.
The real problem was the reporters who still had bright, eager eyes at past four in the morning, waiting for their chance to fire questions.
"I have a question. Park Seong-chung from Cheollian Daily."
Si-Eun had not even opened the floor for questions. The moment she finished speaking, one reporter shot his hand straight up.
She almost sighed at the behavior, but they had planned a Q&A session from the start, so she simply nodded.
"It is being said that Han Si-Eun, the youngest SS-class hunter, handled the aftermath of the collapse of a dungeon whose development rights are held by the Aurora Group. Why is that?"
"I will not take questions unrelated to the incident."
It was an obvious attempt to dig for dirt, so Si-Eun shook her head and tried to draw a clear line. Park Seong-chung, however, kept his hand raised and fixed her with a sharp glare.
"It is related. It is well known that Hunter Han Si-Eun has a personal friendship with Chairman Lee Jeong-Hoon of the Aurora Group. Did you not handle the cleanup after being promised compensation on the basis of that friendship?"
Park Seong-chung kept repeating the name Aurora with deliberate bluntness. Si-Eun shook her head.
She had heard that someone had been hired to pick fights with Lumen. Looking at him now, Park Seong-chung seemed exactly like that kind of person.
Cheollian Daily and the Shintong Group were not fools; they had no reason to make an enemy of Aurora, a conglomerate that could crush them with money whenever it chose.
A single reporter acting this way could only mean he was trying to find dirt on the Aurora Group—currently plastered all over the news as a walking scoop factory—so he could write an article and farm clicks.
"I was deployed at the request of the government. The Aurora Group feels a sense of responsibility for the accident that occurred in a dungeon that came under their control. They have promised fair compensation not only to me but to every hunter who responded and to every civilian whose daily life was disrupted. That has already been publicly announced. I would appreciate it if you stopped making baseless accusations over a personal friendship."
Si-Eun locked eyes with Park Seong-chung and fired the words straight at him. He flinched for a moment.
If she had not already exhausted her own mana pouring it into Jeong-Hoon inside the floating garden, she might have lost her temper and drawn it up out of pure anger.
She knew reporters like this existed, but thinking about how Jeong-Hoon and the family were sacrificing themselves for the world only made the anger keep rising.
"Then how do you view the fact that the Aurora Group took the lead on a matter that should have been led by the government?"
Faced with Si-Eun's murderous glare, Park Seong-chung actually smiled.
He raised the intensity of his questions, certain that just a little more pressure would give him the scene he wanted.
"…I am standing here as a hunter who investigated the floating garden, reporting the course of events and offering an opportunity for questions. I am not standing here as a politician."
She considered just flipping the whole thing over and losing her temper, but that was exactly what the other side wanted. So Si-Eun kept the icy expression and spoke in a hard, flat voice.
"If you continue with questions like that, I will end this conference right here, and as a hunter who was deployed at the government's request, I will file a formal protest with the Shintong Group."
The usually mild-mannered Si-Eun, famous for being good-natured, issued a threat she would never normally make and fixed him with a razor-sharp look. Park Seong-chung flinched again.
Even though she was the youngest SS-class, he had not found her frightening at all.
She might be exceptional as a hunter, but the FC Guild she belonged to was only considered mid-tier because of her presence—it was still a small guild.
The backing of the Aurora Group was intimidating, yet a conglomerate of that size was not so idle that it would bother responding to every single reporter.
That was why he had felt no fear. But the presence and the words Si-Eun was putting out right now reminded him uncomfortably of her friend Jeong-Hoon.
"Th-this is an important issue. Even if the Hunter Act amendment has been submitted to the National Assembly, the Aurora Group is going beyond that amendment and—"
Park Seong-chung could not back down if he wanted results, so he kept talking. Suddenly a middle-aged man came charging up the station stairs two at a time, grabbed the reporter by the collar without even pausing for breath, and roared.
"You little bastard, what the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"E-Editor-in-chief?!"
"The company is in chaos because of you right now—what are you doing?!"
The chairman of Shintong, who had been investigating the sudden reason for Aurora's acquisition of the group, had learned the truth and put Cheollian Daily on emergency footing. The editor-in-chief of Cheollian Daily had rushed over, seized Park Seong-chung by the collar, and began dragging him away.
"W-wait a second! The press conference is still going on! My question—!"
"Shut up! You're not even a reporter anymore! …I apologize for the disturbance."
As the editor hauled him off, his eyes met Si-Eun's. He bowed his head in apology. Si-Eun nodded.
She had been right on the verge of actually exploding, so the intervention had come at the perfect time.
So this isn't something just anyone can do either.
Watching the reporter get dragged away, Si-Eun shook her head slowly and felt a quiet sense of relief that she no longer needed to force herself to imitate Jeong-Hoon.
Jeong-Hoon, who had collapsed after forcibly using the power of the seal, opened his eyes to the tickling scent of flowers brushing his nose.
If it had been a pleasant fragrance he might have kept sleeping, but the scent was somehow nostalgic and yet alien—not the smell of real flowers. He had no choice but to open his eyes.
"…Where is this?"
He was certain he had lost consciousness inside the floating garden. He had expected to wake either in his own room or at Myeongil Hospital.
Instead, Jeong-Hoon found himself lying on the ground of a garden where flowers bloomed in lush clusters here and there and thick grass grew dense all around.
Feeling the soft grass and earth beneath him, he shook his head and raised a hand, snapping his fingers.
He had no idea why he had been left in a place like this, so he tried to summon the 12 Vassals.
"…Has the seal been broken? No, that is not it. Still, to dare snap your fingers and summon Us—impressive."
"…?"
What appeared at Jeong-Hoon's finger snap was not one of the 12 Vassals.
It was a young man wearing a long black coat draped like an emperor's dragon robe.
The youth who had suddenly materialized in midair descended lightly in front of Jeong-Hoon.
Jeong-Hoon stared hard at the young man and tilted his head. The youth let out a short laugh.
"Do you have something you wish to say, Lee Jeong-Hoon?"
"…Are you perhaps one of my ancestors? You look strangely like me."
It was not the atmosphere but the actual face that resembled his own, so Jeong-Hoon instinctively thought of the founding Gaju who had created the seal.
The black suit, coat, and shoes were thoroughly modern, but other than that nothing else came to mind.
The face looked like what his own might become if he grew a little older from his current age of twenty.
"That is rather unpleasant. Young self of Ours. Listen carefully. We are the 238th head of the family, Lee Jeong-Hoon. We are your future self."
"What…?"
The young man he had thought looked extremely like himself—no, his future self—revealed his identity, and Jeong-Hoon could only blurt out the question in shock.
The place where Jeong-Hoon now stood did not actually exist in reality.
It was his mental world, a crossroads where countless versions of Jeong-Hoon from past and future intersected.
That was why the flower scent felt real yet alien at the same time.
After hearing that explanation from his future self, Jeong-Hoon followed the guidance of "future him" and arrived at the Lumen that stood at the center of the mental world.
"Why is there a Lumen here?"
"Because countless versions of Us have acknowledged Lumen as home."
Even though the other was supposedly older as a future self, Jeong-Hoon spoke casually without hesitation. He nodded at the words.
It was true—he did acknowledge Lumen as home.
So he followed the guidance and stepped inside.
"Hey, Future Me. This was supposed to be Lumen, right?"
"What refinement do you expect from a mental world? The only thing that matters is that this is the place where we intersect."
Inside Lumen, none of the appearance Jeong-Hoon knew existed.
There was only a plain marble space lit by a massive chandelier, a huge round table in the center, and countless ornate chairs.
"No, if it's a mental world shouldn't it be more detailed?"
"Not every Lumen across the many timelines is identical, so this is unavoidable. Our younger self is truly picky."
His future self ran a hand along the gray marble table while grumbling, then walked farther in and sat on a chair that looked for all the world like an emperor's throne.
It did not feel like he had chosen any random seat among the many chairs; it felt like he was taking a designated place.
"Why not sit as well, younger self of Ours?"
"Can I sit anywhere?"
When his future self offered a chair, Jeong-Hoon reached toward a nearby empty seat.
The chair simply slid away from his hand without letting him grasp it.
"Puhaha! That is not your chair. You must create your own."
"You could have said that earlier…"
Watching his future self burst into hearty laughter, Jeong-Hoon frowned and muttered.
For a future version of himself, the personality was pretty rotten. He found himself wondering what kind of life would turn even his own self into someone who enjoyed teasing himself.
"Something like this, I guess?"
Recalling the sofa he always half-reclined on while watching TV, Jeong-Hoon snapped his fingers. A single-seater version of that sofa—shrunk from the usual three-seater—appeared at the round table.
Even though the table was already packed with chairs, the sofa claimed a place as if an empty spot had always been waiting for it.
"This is kind of amazing."
"Oh? That chair certainly brings back memories."
The moment Jeong-Hoon sat on the sofa, the round table suddenly shrank.
What had been a massive table with countless chairs contracted to the size of a tea table, bringing the previously distant future self face-to-face with him.
"There is no need to be so surprised. This is how the structure works."
"So if people sit at the round table, only those who are sitting recognize one another?"
"As expected of Our younger self. Quick on the uptake."
Watching himself nod and smile, Jeong-Hoon shook his head.
He claimed to be a future version of him, and Jeong-Hoon could feel that it was true, yet something still felt off.
For one thing, the way he casually referred to himself as a king produced a strong sense of rejection.
"Are you really my future self?"
"There is no need for further explanation. The sense of dissonance you feel now exists because your future has not been fixed as Us."
Jeong-Hoon tilted his head with an expression that clearly said, You talked yourself up as my future self this whole time and now you're saying that? His future self simply snapped his fingers.
"Nothing explains better than seeing it for yourself."
"…This is another rude summoning, Overlord."
"Something interesting happened, so We called you, Hero."
When the future Jeong-Hoon snapped his fingers, another Jeong-Hoon who looked extremely similar appeared while addressing the first as Overlord.
This other Jeong-Hoon wore a recovery suit that looked like a formal suit layered over the combat suit Jeong-Hoon always wore in battle. He sat down in a chairman's chair of the type used during work and shook his head.
"I was already observing. I figured you would send him back on your own, so I stayed quiet. You didn't need to explain."
The one called Hero muttered complaints toward the Overlord and snapped his fingers. A teacup and a teapot full of tea appeared on the table.
"Well, I will admit it is an interesting situation. First, good to meet you, past me. I am the 238th head of the family, Lee Jeong-Hoon. We already greeted each other earlier, didn't we?"
At the words "already greeted," Jeong-Hoon tilted his head. Hero shook his head.
"Ah, so that's how it is? You have it rough too. Well—have you ever heard the words 'hang in there'?"
"Ah, so that was you?"
Those were the words he had heard when he blew away the seal of the floating garden. Jeong-Hoon nodded and let out a short sigh.
Hero had said he was observing—meaning that, in a sense, he had been watching Jeong-Hoon even earlier than the Overlord.
"But do you really have to keep saying '238th head of the family'? We're all the same 238th head anyway, right?"
"No, it matters. Being the 238th head of the family, Lee Jeong-Hoon, is not all that common even at this crossroads."
Jeong-Hoon tilted his head at Hero's explanation. That sounded strange.
"Simply put, among all these parallel worlds, Lee Jeong-Hoon who becomes the 238th head is rarer than you might think."
"Ah, okay. I get it. So there are times when I become a head who isn't the 238th?"
Perhaps because they were his future selves, Jeong-Hoon understood the explanation in one go and nodded. The two of them poured tea into their cups and gave short laughs.
"For now, the Overlord and I are currently one hundred twenty years old. In other words, we are one of the possibilities you may reach exactly one hundred years from now. Keep that in mind while we talk."
"…Huh?"
At Hero's sudden explanation, Jeong-Hoon's eyes went wide.
Judging by appearance he had assumed these were versions of himself maybe five years older. The sudden appearance of the words "one hundred years" sent his thoughts spinning into confusion.