50. Call Me Big Sis
50. Call Me Big Sis
50. Call Me Big Sis
Episode 2.
Moonlight City.
A city where the same white moonlight hangs forever, never setting.
A gate where tricky conditions, not powerful Magic Beasts, are the main focus.
In V. AGE, this is called an 'Erosion-type Gate.'
If no one clears this gate, the white moonlight will gradually cover the city as time passes.
First, Jeonju.
Then Seoul.
The space the gate erodes will gradually pierce through dimensions, consuming South Korea.
And ultimately, the world.
Erosion-type Gates carry that kind of danger,
and because their clearing conditions are so demanding, they are typically classified as A-rank Gates.
A gate like that had appeared right in front of the Hero Academy students,
and the emergence of a demanding A-rank Gate was not a good situation for them.
I asked Lee Seol-ha if she could sense any clearing 'conditions' nearby.
"Lee Seol-ha. Do you pick up anything around here? Flowers, objects like that."
"...No. More importantly, do you really think there would be flowers in this city? Aren't you being stupid?"
"If there aren't any, just say so. Why are you picking a fight?"
Why is she so irritable?
Lee Seol-ha seemed deeply dissatisfied, snapping at me.
She looked anxious about having fallen into the gate,
and apparently wasn't pleased that the people with her were us.
I was disappointed that Lee Seol-ha couldn't pick up anything.
"So there are no flowers around here..."
Unfortunately, this area was a bust.
With Lee Seol-ha here, we could find the clearing condition flower without walking far.
However, in V. AGE Episode 2, even if you had a character who got a Hidden Piece early, clearing it wasn't easy without luck.
I hitched up my clothes, which kept slipping off, and walked through the shadows.
Yu Ha-yeon watched my actions intently, then said to me with certainty.
"Han Si-jun...! You're shrinking...! Wait. I think I'm shrinking too..."
Yu Ha-yeon said that and touched her chest.
The sight of her touching herself, firmly convinced she had gotten smaller.
Her eyes looked just a little pitiful.
'That was small to begin with, though.'
I almost burst out laughing, but after regaining my composure, I said as if making a guess.
"This is just my guess, but our bodies are growing younger. Especially when exposed to that moonlight."
"R-right! We're shrinking!"
Yu Ha-yeon reacted vehemently, shouting that we were definitely shrinking.
In contrast, Lee Seol-ha was checking her chest as if she wasn't quite sure.
Episode 2 is the Moonlight Curse.
In other words, it boasted a very challenging difficulty because of the de-aging curse.
If a person keeps being exposed to the moonlight, they gradually grow younger, reverting to a baby,
then to a fetus, and finally vanish without a trace.
The speed of de-aging varies according to mana capacity.
If you have little mana, you grow younger faster.
If you have a lot of mana, you grow younger more slowly.
Was I keeping the Blue Stone activated for nothing?
If I hadn't been supplied with Mana 3 from the Blue Stone, I would look like an elementary schooler by now.
Currently, my body is about that of a middle schooler.
The priority is to find the flower to clear the gate before I get any younger.
Clearing it before the other students fall victim to 'those things' is also something I have to think about.
But.
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Wh-when did I stare? Aren't you a little too self-conscious?"
Playing dumb, Lee Seol-ha insisted she hadn't been looking at me.
Her face was slightly flushed.
And unlike when she first saw me, the hostility in the eyes of the misandrist had faded.
In that situation, a slight unease flickered through my mind.
'No way, it's not what I'm thinking, is it...?'
As if nothing had happened, Lee Seol-ha cleared her throat and moved away.
If what I was thinking is correct, I wanted to withdraw any thought of seducing her.
"Don't tell me... it's that thing I'm thinking of..."
"What?"
"Never mind. Yu Ha-yeon... you don't need to know..."
Hearing my voice, which was cracking with puberty, Yu Ha-yeon burst out laughing, saying it reminded her of old times.
The party members seemed almost too relaxed.
'You guys are only relaxed for now...'
I recalled 'those things' that would appear later and shut my eyes tight.
Just thinking about them made me want to vomit.
I decided to erase their appearance from my mind.
'When are they going to show up... This dirty luck-based trash game.'
Inwardly cursing V. AGE's system.
Using Lee Seol-ha as our radar, we wandered Moonlight City.
***
As time passed, noticeable changes were also affecting Yu Ha-yeon's and Lee Seol-ha's bodies.
In the midst of that.
Yu Ha-yeon cried out as if in despair.
"Th-this has to be a dream..."
To my eyes, nothing had really changed, but Yu Ha-yeon looked sad.
She would probably make that expression if you took away her last dog treat.
However, the sadder one was me.
"We don't have time, guys."
I said to them in a voice that still hadn't broken.
No matter how much we searched, the Moonflower didn't register on Lee Seol-ha's radar.
That was the core that could clear this gate,
and the identity of the moonlight that was making us younger.
Yu Ha-yeon, having reverted to her middle school days, stroked my head.
"You little rascal...! You should call me big sister...!"
"I said we don't have time...! I'm going to turn into a baby at this rate...!"
"Aww, really?"
Perhaps my younger appearance was cuter to Yu Ha-yeon than this serious situation,
because she began fervently ruffling my hair.
In a situation where we didn't even know what had happened to the other students.
I still looked at Lee Seol-ha, who at least possessed the mindset of a hero.
'You, of all people, should be thinking about the others...'
...and you're not?
Lee Seol-ha was looking sidelong at me and Yu Ha-yeon,
biting her nails.
With a look of visible impatience.
Her gaze was focused on my head.
'This is a total mess.'
I spoke to Lee Seol-ha to snap her back to her senses.
"Lee Seol-ha! Aren't you sensing anything?"
"Uh... uhh...? I-I think there might be something..."
What did she mean, she thinks there might be?
I decided to ask exactly what her senses were picking up.
"Is it a flower, or a person?"
"B-both...? People are surrounding the flower. There's also something like a giant caterpillar."
The thing that was crawling around—it had a human shape, so it was indeed human.
'They're surrounding and guarding the flower, huh...'
In any case, it meant we had to encounter those disgusting things.
Since I can't even use a gun in my current state, Yu Ha-yeon would protect me.
"More importantly, can you stop hugging me...? Who knows when enemies might appear."
"It's fine. I'm here, after all~"
Whether it was because she believed in her own skill, Yu Ha-yeon kept me in her arms, my smaller self, and slowly walked forward.
Why was Lee Seol-ha looking at that scene as if envious?
Maybe a child doesn't count as a man to her?
I couldn't understand her tastes, which hadn't been revealed in V. AGE.
In that situation.
I followed Lee Seol-ha with my shortened legs, walking toward the direction where the flower was said to be.
Lee Seol-ha, who kept sneaking glances, was very frightening in my eyes.
Passing through the shadows between collapsed buildings,
a wide-open space spread out before us.
It was a place with nothing to block the moonlight,
and there, human-like shapes guarding the flower stood motionless.
Yu Ha-yeon asked in a slightly younger voice, filled with curiosity.
"What are those...?"
"They're not... people."
They weren't people, but existences that had once been people.
Gates serve to connect dimensions to dimensions.
Those dimensions are worlds that have almost perished, or reached the stage just before perishing.
It's said that gates are created because those worlds have lost their own life and seek to obtain life from other worlds.
That was the theory about gates in V. AGE.
I said to them in a serious tone.
"From what I can tell, it seems like destroying that flower bathed in moonlight will clear the gate."
"How do you know that?"
"It looks important, even at a glance."
"Aha..."
Yu Ha-yeon let out an exclamation of understanding and stroked my head.
She kept doing the thing I told her to stop.
A flower directly receiving the moonlight, and the human-like beings guarding it.
That was sufficient grounds for me to explain it as the clearing core.
I looked at those things that seemed like people, protecting the white flower.
'Honestly, by Yu Ha-yeon's standards, those guys are weak...'
Not by my standards, but by Yu Ha-yeon's, they would be easily handled.
Yu Ha-yeon, after all, possessed the talent to become S-rank.
If I asked her, she would easily take care of those four people-ish things guarding the flower and come back.
This is what they looked like.
Small, human-like shapes about my current height.
One of them was crawling around there.
But they could hardly be called human, with no pupils in their eyes,
and their backs hunched over like hunchbacks.
They were the last remaining people of this world.
No.
They were beings who had once been people,
who ate people to avoid growing younger.
To them, the people who fell into the gate were nothing less than a feast.
Other beings who weren't guarding the flower were surely threatening the students.
I decided to ask Yu Ha-yeon.
"Yu Ha-yeon. Can you deal with those things and destroy the flower too?"
"Mmm...? Si-jun asked me~ Your big sister can handle that much for you~"
Yu Ha-yeon giggled happily, as if pleased.
Why exactly did she think she was a big sister?
The incomprehensible Yu Ha-yeon rushed out to face them.
"Ker-Ruk...! Keu-rruk...!!"
Having forgotten language, they growled upon seeing Yu Ha-yeon.
Yu Ha-yeon would certainly deal with them easily,
so I told her not to get too much moonlight, and I relaxed.
'At this rate, it feels like it might be a little late...'
As long as you don't revert to the point of vanishing, de-aged people usually return to normal after a few days.
I, too, look a little young right now,
but after time passes, I'll return to my original appearance.
'I just hope no one died.'
It was a moment of praying that no one had been killed by those cannibal species' attacks.
"E-excuse me."
Lee Seol-ha.
With a flushed face, she leaned in close to me.
A beauty with navy hair and a cool appearance.
Her clothes had become too big, so from my seated perspective, the fabric gaped, and I could catch faint glimpses of her underwear through the opening.
With a sense of unease, I asked her.
"Wh-what is it...?"
Clearly, the current Lee Seol-ha was not her usual self.
Normally, she wouldn't have spoken to me first, and would have looked at me with disgust.
But the Lee Seol-ha right now seemed to not know what to do with herself.
Perhaps having forgotten my original appearance, she looked at me with dangerous eyes and asked.
"C-call me big sister."
At Lee Seol-ha's words, I couldn't hide my shock.