The Siblings' Decision (2)

My little sister's childhood.

Unlike me, she had no drive for anything. It wasn't that she couldn't do whatever she was given — if anything, she was among the talented ones. She simply had no interest in any of it. Nothing could hold her attention.

While I gradually changed as I grew up, hunting for things that fascinated me, my sister wandered for quite a long stretch of her life, still searching for a path of her own.

But Mother and Father never pressured her. No pushing, no obsession, no pleading — they simply left the road open for her to walk it by her own choice.

We were two years apart in age. Even when my sister reached her third year of middle school, the age when she should have been heading into high school, she still hadn't found anything that truly called to her.

Worried, I laid my concerns honestly before our parents, and Father said this:

"Someday, our Seul will find something she wants to do. It may even look impossible — absurd, even. That doesn't matter."

"As long as we are her parents, as long as we stand behind her, there is nothing we may block when our child sets out to forge her own path."

Mother nodded along, echoing him.

"Your father is right. But remember — everyone must bear responsibility for what they choose to do."

"If you chase what you want and then shrug off the duties that come with it, that is something you must never, ever do."

True to my parents' teaching, my sister spent her days laughing and playing with her friends — and then, after entering high school, she found the first thing she had ever wanted for herself.

"Mom. I want to run in the student council election."

At her words, my parents stroked her hair, encouraging her — telling her she could do it, that she shouldn't live with regrets — and spared no effort in supporting her. Thanks to them, in her very first year of high school, Seul beat out the second- and third-years and became student council president.

What she hadn't counted on, however, was the difficulty of her coursework.

Neither of us was at the very top of the school, but we had both been students who made our teachers blink in surprise more than once. I carried my middle school grades straight up into high school without so much as a stumble.

My sister, on the other hand, plummeted.

In the end, unable to give the student council the attention it deserved, she threw herself into her studies — only to finish her first-semester finals even worse off than her midterms had gone.

She must have been crushed by her own performance, because the bright, sunny light in her began to dim. Looking back now, that was the single biggest root of the personality my sister carries today.

She endured stubbornly, refusing help from our parents and from me. And then everything fell apart.

By nature my sister was too kind to curse people out or treat anyone carelessly. But you find them everywhere, don't you? The kinds who can't stand to see someone else do well.

The moment my sister's mood sank and her energy drained away, she became their target.

She was bullied, slowly and steadily, and her temperament sharpened into something jagged, something dark and negative.

My parents sat the two of us down, trying to talk her through it as her personality shifted before their eyes, but she just shut her door on us, again and again.

They were not the kind of parents to give up there, though. They requested meetings with her homeroom teacher themselves. They reached out first, again ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and again, just to keep the line of communication open. They poured effort upon effort — and when I finally learned the truth of it, the first thing my parents chose was nothing like what I had expected.

It was their heartfelt advice. Not anger, not a lecture. Father simply told us — Seul and me — about times in his own life when he had faced the same kind of situation, and how he had come through it.

"I had a hard time too, Seul — a really hard time. My responsibilities kept piling up, but people only watched the road I walked, judging every step."

"And when that happened, do you know what I did? I went to the woman I was seeing back then — your mother — and asked her, honestly, for help. Swallowing my pride, I told her everything."

"What do you think she said to me?"

"Did she comfort me? Or did she toss me aside for being pathetic, for lowering myself like that?"

Father smiled and shook his head slowly before continuing.

"Your mother yelled at me."

"I remember it like it was yesterday. 'How can you be so stubborn? Why are you only now sharing a burden that heavy?' — that's what she said."

When Seul heard the story of Father's past, she grasped the heart of what he was telling her — and she wept, bitterly and openly.

"That's right. It's fine to struggle. People are always struggling; people can always break. But you've fallen once now — so the next time you fall, you'll be able to get up that much faster."

"The same goes for you, Hyun. When things get hard, never be ashamed to lean on the people around you. Never let your pride keep you from asking for help."

"You are a child of Rin and me. I believe you'll both do right. Understood?"

With those words, Father wrapped Seul tightly in his arms and soothed her until the storm inside her passed.

What came next, naturally, was disciplining the kids who had driven her to that point — and after that, everything moved like water down a straight channel. Thinking about it now, our parents had spent a long vacation on Earth; how could they not have connections with powerful people here? Of course those old, ironbound friendships were still alive.

And so, almost effortlessly, my parents made sure the children who had tormented Seul apologized to her face to face. And Seul, armed with Father's advice, began reaching out to our parents whenever something truly difficult came her way.

For the most part they granted her requests without hesitation — but if a request struck them as unreasonable, as an attempt to game the system, they rejected it without mercy. And that was exactly why Seul grew up straight and true, unwarped, thanks to everything they poured into her.

The story my sister had just told me was the story of that past.

"Dad and Mom said it, remember? If there's something you have to take responsibility for, then shoulder that duty properly — and if it's too heavy, don't hesitate to ask the people around you for help."

"So I'm going to do it. That's how they raised me. If I did what you said, how could I ever face them again?"

Why had I forgotten this? My sister had me at her side. Just as I had leaned on Ellie when my own strength ran out, it was my role now to support her — to watch over her so she could make the right choices. That was how Father and Mother had shielded the two of us. Now it was my turn to carry that role forward.

"Alright. Do what you want to do. But I'm not putting you in danger from the start. If a battle breaks out, I'll be the one standing on the line — so until you've mastered a weapon, you don't step onto a battlefield."

"Being a Successor is grueling, exhausting work, so brace yourself."

My sister nodded, accepting my words. She was about to be swept into a massive vortex now, but she would be all right.

Watching the two of us, Ellie and Kan smiled and threw their support behind our decision as well. Even without our parents, my sister had me, and Ellie, and Kan at her side — and if hardship ever found her, they would surely lend her the help I couldn't.

And so my sister began her training to follow in my footsteps and become the Eighth Azure Dragon's Successor.

She wouldn't be sent into combat just because she held the title. Unless the situation was truly trivial, she'd have no reason to fight at all — anything dangerous was mine to face, as it should be.

First things first: to make her adjustment easier, she needed to pick a weapon. At my suggestion, my sister began looking through all manner of armaments.

Faced with the sheer variety spread before her, her mouth hung open, and she shot me a look that plainly asked, is this for real?

I nodded.

"Don't give me that look... Yes, really. Not that I'm making you handle all of them — I just want you to find the weapon that fits your hand among these."

"Among all of these?"

She pointed at the table piled with an absurd quantity of weapons, looking utterly scandalized.

"Yup. Those."

"....."

Too bad for you. You're the one who chose the Successor's path — grit your teeth and bear it, the hard way if you have to.

Once my duties for the day were done, two new items had been added to my schedule. The first was training — Ellie and I would teach my sister ourselves. After work, Seul would come to the training grounds ahead of us, try out weapons, and swing them a few times.

Physical conditioning came free with the package, of course. She hadn't even settled on a main weapon yet, so the intensity of her conditioning would be decided by whatever she picked. If she chose a close-range weapon, she was going to be run absolutely ragged — whether by me or by Ellie, I couldn't say.

On day one of training, the weapon my sister reached for was the sword.

"Ugh — the weight's all wrong! I have to grip it tighter—"

"It's heavy!"

"It's made of steel. What did you expect?"

"Ugh... Ellie! Scold my brother for me!"

Good grief. Why call in a tiger instructor even scarier than me? For what, exactly?

Incidentally, after that day Ellie and my sister grew close at a startling speed, and the two of them were soon calling each other "big sis" and "little sis." My sister seemed to have taken a liking to Ellie — and Ellie, having let down the sturdy wall she'd always kept raised, was reaching out to her. Which was... a relief.

"No, Seul. You don't get to whine like that."

"Aaagh! You're just as bad as he is!!"

Was it a relief, though...?

Sighing, I walked over and plucked the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sword out of her hands.

"Guess the sword isn't for you."

If it had been, teaching her would have been simple — I had someone close to me who was brilliant with a blade. But there was nothing to be done about it, and I called an end to the day's training.

Day two: the spear. A shaft nearly as tall as she was.

Her stance with the spear looked noticeably better than it had with the sword.

"How does it feel?"

"Way better than the sword."

She swung it, thrust it, jabbed it into a wooden scarecrow target again and again. The only problem was that whenever the spearhead sank in too deep, she couldn't pull it back out.

I'd brought Kan along on a just-in-case basis, and watching my sister, he offered his own take.

"Not bad for a first time with a spear... but I think you should look at the next weapon too. There's every chance she handles something else even better."

It was a fair point, so the spear went on hold.

And so, two weeks after the battle in the Elion Forest ended, my sister's main weapon turned out to be — of all things — the bow.

Twiing..! Thunk!Thwack!

"Insane."

How did every single shot land dead center?

It hadn't started as an attempt to make the bow her main weapon at all. After the Elion Forest battle, Ellie had come to appreciate how vital archery was and begun drilling herself in it — and on a whim, she'd invited Seul, who'd tagged along to the training, to fire a single shot.

Seul didn't even argue. The moment her hands closed around Ellie's bow, my sister squared it as naturally as if she'd been holding one her whole life. She nocked an arrow, drew, released — and with terrifying precision, dead center.

They say even the archer-knights struggle to hit the bullseye proper. And a girl firing a bow for the very first time had split it?

Sensing something was off, Ellie had her keep shooting. By the end of that day, nine of ten arrows had struck dead center — and the tenth had split the shaft of a dead-center arrow on its way into the target.

You can imagine how hard I jumped when I heard that.

As it turned out, there was a very good reason my sister shot like that.

The first trait had been so flashy that I'd simply failed to look closely. My mistake. Of course she shot well with a trait like that...

And with my sister finding her main weapon, my own swordsmanship had grown by leaps and bounds as well. Clearing the main quest meant I could now raise Sword Flame without leaning on my authority at all — in all but name, I had stepped into the ranks of the Sword Master.

Having chosen the bow, my sister started training to build strength in her arms alongside a conditioning regimen far harsher than before. She protested, naturally — and I brushed every complaint aside without a shred of mercy, until she was running her ten laps around the training grounds, sniffling and grumbling the whole way.

Sometime soon, I'd have to pay a visit to the Ignait family — the most renowned house of archery among the Four Great Families. After all, Raere's main weapon had never been the iron fan, but the bow. Someone like her would look after my sister better than anyone.

Once my sister's training was seen to and I had washed up, the place I headed was Yeon-ee's sickroom.

Yeon-ee had taken wounds that grave, and only the Azure Dragon's grace had bought her life back — but she still had not woken. A wound that ran clean through the abdomen was a serious one; I couldn't blame her body for refusing to rise. Even so, the bitterness never quite left, which was why I stopped by this room for an hour every single day.

I poured the Authority of Life into Yeon-ee, then opened my Status Window right away to claim my main quest reward.

Huh?

There was such a thing as an excess completion reward...?

Hold on. Why is my "reward" the deletion of skills?

Both of them, no less — my bread-and-butter skills...

Just as the curse crawling up my throat was about to burst out —

I'd gained a skill like this, and I wasn't even happy about it. If anything, it felt like exactly what I deserved.

This was the price of the lives I'd taken — two higher-ranked demons and one mid-ranked, on top of everything else. Even Descent of the Thunder God, the skill I'd once thought outright broken, hadn't been able to lay a finger on Asmodeus, and my lightning blades had scattered and failed every single time I tried to strike with them.

There was no way around it. Even a skill this impressive was leagues short of what it would take against the Four Perils or the Seven Deadly Sins.

At the very least, to face them, I had to become stronger than I was now.

If only so that no one would ever end up as a case like Yeon-ee's again.

I closed the Status Window and turned my gaze back to Yeon-ee — and then I saw it.

The fingers of the hand lying before me twitched. Slightly, but they moved.

"Huh?"

I hadn't been this shocked even when my skills vanished. And as if to prove I hadn't imagined it, her fingers kept moving — then, little by little, strength began to flow into the hand I was holding.

The red-haired woman was opening her eyes. Slowly, so very slowly, but she was opening them.

At last, when the color of her irises came into view, Yeon-ee spoke in a voice drained of all its strength.

"...Hey there. Our Successor...?"

Roughly two weeks since the battle had ended. Yeon-ee pushed herself up, still frail, and looked at me with those crimson eyes — smiling, absolutely certain of her smile.

"Looking at you up close like this... you've gotten even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more handsome. I suppose a man really does look better after he's cried."

Her sheer audacity wrung a helpless laugh out of me — and still, I held her hand tight, and did not let go.