The Rune Clan
"See you later, noona."
"Yeah. Let's meet again soon."
"Of course. Text me when you get home safe, okay?"
"Hehe. I will."
I waved enthusiastically as I saw Su-rin noona off. Mun Su-rin gave me a bright, pleased smile in return.
She's seriously adorable.
Once she'd gone, I headed for the dorms. The streets were nearly empty — quiet even for lunchtime.
If I keep seeing her like this, we're going to end up as a couple.
How do I put it. There was this almost-dating energy between Su-rin noona and me. But if we actually started going out for real, managing a harem would become a nightmare.
"Hrm..."
What was I supposed to do about that.
My footsteps echoed down the empty street. I'd been walking for quite a while, lost in thought, and only then did I start to notice something was off.
It was a path I walked every day, and yet something felt wrong. A silence I couldn't quite put into words. And then I realized what was so unnatural about it.
"There's no one here..."
Not a single person. The moment I'd left the main road and turned onto this smaller street, every trace of human presence had vanished. And it wasn't just the lack of people. The distant chatter, the music spilling from shops, the rumble of passing cars — every natural sound of the city had gone completely still.
The instant I registered that strangeness, I felt something close around my body.
Mana?
It was a little different from ordinary mana, but mana it most certainly was. I immediately drew power into myself to counter the pressure of someone else's mana crushing down on me.
An ambush...? No. Combat Sense hasn't triggered.
Raising my mana eased the pressure bearing down from every direction, if only a little. But mana still lingered all around me.
"...I just got out of the hospital and it's already chaos."
I had no idea why I was this popular. I'd rather just be popular with the heroines.
I wrapped a Rune Barrier around myself, preparing for whoever was coming. The one silver lining was that Su-rin noona hadn't gotten caught up in this. And the moment I raised the barrier, I felt it.
"This is a Rune Barrier."
The mana wrapping around my body was a Rune Barrier. The arrangement was different from the way I used it, but the core formula was unmistakably the same. It was the exact sensation I'd felt during the Association banquet hall attack.
The Rune Clan...?
A core executive of Pandemic who wielded the Rune Barrier. I'd figured I'd run into them eventually — I just hadn't wanted it to be like this. Just the two of us, in a place like this.
Tense at the unexpected appearance of an enemy, I was scanning the area with mana detection when a voice cut through the silence.
"Haa. Finally we meet."
The click of heels on pavement. A red-haired woman appeared from nowhere and walked toward me.
The presence I felt was beyond even an S-class Demon. Rebecca — the Rune Clan mage who, even in the original story, couldn't be taken down until the late game. At my current level, she was a mage of a caliber I couldn't even approach.
A sharp crackle. A grinding crunch. The closer the crimson-haired woman came, the more my Rune Barrier crumbled. I couldn't put up even the slightest resistance. Like an ant crushed underfoot, my barrier was naturally, effortlessly swallowed by her mana.
What the hell...
If we're using the same magic, I never lose. That's how my mana control works with Mana Sensitivity. But that only applied when comparing myself to other humans.
Crack. Crackle. It didn't work against mages who were off the charts — people like Lim Sol or Rebecca.
She drew closer and closer. I swallowed, tense. But the more she approached, the more puzzled I became. Because my heart was still perfectly calm. My unique authority, Combat Sense, hadn't activated. Which meant Rebecca had no hostile intent.
"Sorry for showing up out of nowhere. Caught you off guard, huh?"
"...?"
Even if she didn't have hostile intent, it wasn't like we were on those kinds of terms. I frowned at Rebecca, who was speaking in a friendly tone with an apologetic look on her face.
"It's been hard until now, hasn't it? You don't have to hide anymore. I'm from the Rune Clan too."
"Excuse me?"
What kind of plot twist was this. I couldn't hide my bewilderment. A Pandemic executive had suddenly started talking complete nonsense at me. Me, a member of the Rune Clan?
"I've been searching for you this whole time. For the revival of the Rune Clan...!"
Rebecca swept her crimson hair back, her face overflowing with emotion.
"What the hell are you talking about..."
The Rebecca I remembered was not a woman who made faces like that. She was an incredibly annoying villain who showed up at every terrorist attack and used Rune Barriers to make it nearly impossible to save the heroines. So why was she looking at me like that?
"...Don't try to hide it. The blood flowing through your veins is the real thing."
The closer she came, the worse the pressure grew. The gap was too vast to overcome with mana control alone. I couldn't resist the mana slowly constricting my body.
"No — what the hell do you mean, the blood flowing through my veins?!"
Was this one of those common orphan-protagonist clichés?
...No. It's not.
Lee Ho-yeon was just an ordinary orphan. There was absolutely no hidden backstory.
Rebecca drew closer as I hung bound in ropes of mana.
"In ten years, we can get the numbers up to ten. In twenty years, twenty. In fifty years, restoring the old Rune village wouldn't even be a dream."
"Wait. Wait, wait. What is this. Why is this going this way?"
I kept thinking about how to get out of this situation. But Rebecca's next move left me with no choice but to panic — because she had started taking off my shirt.
Why the hell was she taking my clothes off? I couldn't make sense of this at all. This was way too sudden. Why was the original story's villain trying to jump me?
"It's okay. You don't have to do anything."
"Wait. No — wait a second. Ah, fuck, seriously..."
At least explain yourself first. The moment I couldn't hold back and swore at her, Rebecca finally met my eyes properly. She must have read the bewilderment and irritation there, because her expression turned apologetic.
"Right... Sorry. I was too hasty. I should explain this to you first."
I waited for her next words. Genuinely, this time.
"Lee Ho-yeon, last survivor of the Rune Clan. I've been searching for you this whole time."
"...Excuse me?"
"You probably think the entire Rune Clan was wiped out in that mysterious attack, but I was secretly on a mission outside at the time. That's how I was lucky enough to survive."
"I'm telling you, I'm not from the Rune Clan."
"The barrier you use... the Rune Barrier is a secret art that only the Rune Clan can use."
"Well, that's true, but..."
"To revive the Rune Clan, I've been tracking the two boys who were the only ones to escape the day the clan was destroyed."
Listening to her continue, I learned a backstory that had never appeared in the original. I'd assumed Rebecca was under Maestro's mental domination like everyone else, but apparently that wasn't the case. She had her own reasons.
"So you need to have a child with me."
"How did you arrive at that conclusion..."
"Because we have to revive the Rune Clan. The Rune Clan has to be of pure blood...!"
Haa. She'd come after me so soon after I got out of the hospital. She'd clearly been watching, waiting for her chance. If I'd known about this backstory, I wouldn't have been throwing Rune Barriers around so freely.
Anyway, the fact that she bothered to explain herself suggested Rebecca didn't have purely malicious intentions.
"By any chance — during the Association banquet hall attack, the one who approached the Saint and said something about a clan from the past. Was that you, Rebecca?"
"Yeah, that was me. You were unconscious at the time."
So the one who'd talked about a clan from the past was Rebecca. When she'd said "clan," the Rune Clan had crossed my mind, but without knowing she was searching for them, I couldn't have connected the two.
Haa. What else could I do. I should just be honest.
"Um, Rebecca. I'm really sorry, but... I'm not from the Rune Clan."
She seemed to be trying to treat me more respectfully now, so I spoke politely in return. I needed to come clean about what I could.
"Don't lie to me. You're still maintaining a Rune Barrier right now. The Rune Barrier is a magic that can't be cast unless Rune Clan blood flows through your veins."
"No — haa..."
How the hell was I supposed to explain this.
I found a Rune Clan secret manual in the academy warehouse, and my talent is so ridiculous I lucked into being able to use it.
Who would believe that. In the first place, the Rune Barrier was a secret art only the Rune Clan could use, and the talent I had was one no ordinary person could possess. It was literally a unique authority — a realm beyond mere talent. And that was how this misunderstanding had happened.
It wasn't like I'd never thought about what I'd do if I ran into the Rune Clan someday. But I'd only imagined a You're using MY Rune Barrier?! Impossible! Aaaaagh! kind of scenario. I'd never imagined this.
I'm the normal one here. Coming at me like this is what's abnormal, right?
If you thought about it logically...
To revive the Rune Clan, the two of us remaining clan members need to have a child.
How was I supposed to see that coming.
"It's okay... I figured you'd be like this, so I tied you up in advance. Men can come even if they don't want to, right?"
She was being considerate of me, in her own way, but reviving the Rune Clan was clearly her top priority. My tightly bound body was proof enough of that. Persuasion wasn't going to work.
How do I get out of this?
I assessed the situation as calmly as I could. Rebecca, searching for a Rune Clan survivor. Me, needing to escape. The best solution would be to find her an actual survivor... but it wasn't like I'd have any hints lying around.
Rebecca gently stroked my hair.
"Black hair suits you better than red. And your face is my type, too..."
"...Are people from the Rune Clan originally redheads?"
"Don't play dumb. You can dye your hair, you know."
Another hint. I had three now. Red hair. A boy. And the Rune Barrier. Too few. There was no way I could identify a survivor with just this—
Wait.
I quickly scanned through my memories and found one kid who matched those conditions. Sunlight Orphanage, where I'd done volunteer work with Baek A-young. The boy who'd noticed my Rune Barrier when I was secretly having sex with her in the bathroom there.
At the time I'd just thought, wow, his mana sensitivity is good — but thinking about it properly, that didn't make sense. The Rune Barrier isn't something you can detect just because you have good mana sensitivity. And coincidentally, that kid's hair was a vivid red.
"What, did you suddenly feel like taking the lead? If so, I can allow that. We're both of the Rune Clan..."
"I'll say it one more time... I'm not the heir of the Rune Clan. But I think I know who the real survivor is."
"I'm telling you, you're the survivor?"
"...No, I'm not the survivor. Haa. Just untie me for a second."
"Do I have to?"
"Let's just go meet one person first. You can do this after that — it's not like you'll miss your chance. ...You could catch me anytime you wanted anyway."
"Hrm. That's true. Alright, shall we go meet them first?"
Rebecca considered it, then dissolved the mana binding my body.
I'm right about this. I have to be.
It wasn't a hundred percent. But I was probably right.