Chapter 26
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: A Benefactor Once More
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At Cheon Doun's words, the bird-headed monster held its breath.
There's a saying that people are struck dumb when they're too surprised. The monster was experiencing that firsthand.
That reaction was an answer in itself, so Cheon Doun smiled.
“So it is you. It's been a while. I didn't think you'd be alive.”
“You...”
“Ah, wait. Let me take care of them first.”
Cheon Doun looked at the fallen Hunters. Their faces were filled with surprise and bewilderment.
Who on earth was this man, speaking so casually with a disaster-class monster?
‘No, is that even a monster in the first place? And what's this TDA Research Institute?’
They didn't know what was happening, but they understood that Cheon Doun had saved them.
“H-Hey!”
“Don't talk. I don't really want to hear it. And I have no intention of listening.”
Cheon Doun took a return stone from his pocket and broke it. After opening a Gate, he clapped his hands together.
*Clap.* With a light sound, a fine powder formed in his palms.
As if by magic, the powder pouring from his hands scattered in all directions.
“The wind's a bit weak. Hey, make some wind.”
At Cheon Doun's request, the avian monster flapped its wings. As its massive wings moved, the falling dust spread everywhere.
The Hunters who inhaled the powder went slack-jawed. Confirming this, Cheon Doun clapped once more.
*Clap.* As if that sound were a signal, the Hunters looked at Cheon Doun.
“Go through the Gate. Forget everything that happened here. You understand what I'm saying, right?”
The Hunters nodded with vacant expressions.
“Good. Now go.”
The Hunters staggered into the Gate, every one of them with a dazed look in their eyes.
Once the last Hunter had entered and the Gate closed, Cheon Doun dusted off his hands. The powder no longer formed in his palms.
“Powder of Oblivion?”
“That's right. Pollen from the white flowers that bloom in the cliff regions.”
Inhaling this powder would cause short-term memory loss in humans.
The lost memories would span at least three hours.
Accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations, no one would remember what had happened here.
“I had this plant's cells implanted, so my pollen allergy is gone. It's a lifesaver of an ability for me.”
Cheon Doun spoke playfully and looked back at his old acquaintance.
“I heard it doesn't work on avian-type monsters. Is that right?”
“That's right. I'm resistant to that powder, so it's no problem.”
Avian types that soared through the skies had a strong resistance to poisons spread by the wind.
“What was your name again? I remember you were called Number 33.”
“It's Yu Beom.”
“Right. I'm Cheon Doun.”
They looked at each other and laughed. The reunion, something they had never even imagined, was a pleasant surprise.
They hadn't been close, but it wasn't an unwelcome meeting. For Yu Beom especially, facing the person who had saved his life brought a fresh wave of emotion.
“I thought you were dead. You managed to survive.”
“Same to you.”
“How's your younger sister?”
When asked about his sister, Yu Beom fell silent. *Had she already died?* Just as Cheon Doun thought he'd asked the wrong thing, an answer came.
“My sister's safe too. Would you meet her? She often said she wanted to thank you.”
He said his sister was safe. But if she was fine, why did he hesitate to answer?
A slight doubt arose, but Cheon Doun nodded. There was no reason not to meet her, having come all this way.
“I have a companion with me. Is it okay if she comes along? I left her waiting in the jungle.”
“A companion? It'll be a problem if she's a Hunter. Are you working as a Chimera Hunter by any chance?”
“No, not that. The kid I'm bringing is also a Chimera who escaped the institute, just like you.”
Cheon Doun glanced toward the jungle where Kim Nari was.
“She's a kid trying to hide the fact that she's a Chimera. She does a lot of obvious things, though. Just pretend you don't notice.”
Leaving those words behind, Cheon Doun entered the jungle. Yu Beom quietly watched him go.
“I never thought I'd see him again before I die.”
Yu Beom smiled quietly. He and his sister didn't have much time left.
To be precise, they could no longer control the demonic energy raging inside their bodies.
His sister was already losing her human reason. Yu Beom himself knew he wouldn't last much longer.
Their bodies wouldn't stop breathing. Their minds would simply turn into those of monsters.
Yu Beom accepted that as death.
If all your memories, reason, and sense of self as a human disappeared, what else could it be but death?
‘I never expected to meet him like this. I'm glad I can say my final goodbyes.’
*Let's send him off with a full stomach of our specialty, grilled clams. I hope my body holds out until Cheon Doun leaves.* Yu Beom thought quietly.
***
Coming out of the jungle with Cheon Doun, Kim Nari's eyes widened.
A pure white sandy beach and a vast sea. She was surprised by the ocean, which she was seeing for the first time, but she was even more surprised by the person in front of her.
“H-His head is a bird! An eagle's head!”
She was so shocked she pointed and shouted.
“He has wings on his back, too! Pterosaur wings!”
Hiding behind Cheon Doun, Kim Nari peeked out and yelled.
It felt as if her thoughts were bypassing her brain and coming straight out of her mouth.
‘Cognitive dissonance.’
Yu Beom immediately recognized the side effect Kim Nari was suffering from.
“This is Kim Nari. Say hello. That's Uncle Yu Beom. We lived in the same place when we were young... uh, he's a friend.”
“Ooh. Mister's friend.”
Kim Nari looked back and forth between Cheon Doun and Yu Beom.
“But why does that uncle have a bird head?”
“He's from the Sparrow Tribe.”
“Th-The Sparrow Tribe? Is that what the Sparrow Tribe normally looks like?”
“Yep. That's how they are.”
Kim Nari's eyes wavered. Yu Beom's eyes wavered too. *Was I a sparrow?* While he was having an identity crisis, Kim Nari approached.
Thinking of him as a sparrow made his sharp eyes seem cute.
“I heard the Sparrow Tribe is in an alliance with your Coconut Family. Right?”
“A-An alliance...! That's right. I-I forgot. We are in an alliance.”
Kim Nari nodded, her eyes shaking as if in an earthquake. Watching her, Yu Beom's eyes also wavered.
‘Sparrows and coconuts... What in the world is he talking about? Was he always like this?’
Yu Beom glanced at Cheon Doun, trying to recall what he was like as a child.
A spoon and an eyeball, three syringe needles. The novel kindness of giving hemorrhoids regenerative abilities.
‘Right. He was always like this.’
Understanding came in an instant. You weren't supposed to try and understand that guy. The thought brought him peace of mind.
“If everyone's here, follow me. I'll guide you to my home.”
Yu Beom led the way. The massive, pterosaur-like wings crumpled and retracted into his back.
That was the only change. His head remained that of a bird.
“Can't you change your head back to normal?”
“I can. But I've never done it. I don't really want to, either. I'm more comfortable like this now.”
“You're comfortable like this?”
When Cheon Doun asked in surprise, Yu Beom laughed.
“It might sound strange, but that's how it is. It took a very long time to regain a human form. Maybe it's because I've lived like this for over forty years... I'm more comfortable this way now.”
To Cheon Doun, his words sounded bizarre.
He too had lived for decades with his entire body transformed into a monster due to side effects. But unlike Yu Beom, he had never once felt comfortable in that form.
‘Is it the difference between being conscious and not?’
If there was a difference between Yu Beom and Cheon Doun, it was whether their minds were intact when their bodies changed.
Cheon Doun's memories of when he turned into a monster were hazy, as the side effects had damaged his mind.
In contrast, Yu Beom had lived in his current form with his mind fully intact. And all this while in the Demon World, an environment teeming with monsters.
That difference also affected their consciousness. Yu Beom no longer considered himself human.
“And I think my sister feels more at ease when I look like this. There's a sense of kinship.”
*Is his sister's transformation more severe than Yu Beom's?* Watching him, Cheon Doun tilted his head, feeling a strange sense of dissonance.
He could sense demonic energy seething within him like lava. It felt like an active volcano being forcibly plugged to prevent an eruption.
*Is it just agitated mana from the fight with the Hunters that hasn't settled down?* The thought crossed his mind for a moment, but he quickly realized that wasn't it.
‘He's losing control.’
He was a balloon inflated to its limit. Yu Beom's mana hole looked like a precarious bomb that could explode at any moment.
“A month, at most.”
“What is?”
“Your lifespan. At this rate, you'll be dead within a month. You know that, right?”
The two of them stopped walking. Cheon Doun calmly pronounced his terminal diagnosis.
“If things go badly, maybe a week.”
“...Is that so.”
Yu Beom gave a bitter smile. *The siblings you helped are living well thanks to you.* He had wanted to be remembered that way, but he had failed before he even started.
“You really are a psycho. Most people wouldn't say something like that to someone's face.”
“Really? Don't you need to talk about it to come up with a solution?”
“If there was a solution, I would've found it long ago.”
He had suppressed the demonic energy trying to explode inside him for fifty years. Enduring, and enduring again. If he had been alone, he would have given up long ago.
The reason he couldn't give up was the existence of his kin.
He had his sister. His sister had Yu Beom.
The fact that if he died, his sister would be left alone in this hellish Gate—and if she died, her brother would be.
That fact filled the siblings with a fierce will to live. They gritted their teeth and endured for each other's sake. For some fifty years.
But now, they had truly reached their limit.
“How's your sister?”
“She's worse off than me. Lately, she's been deliberately eating fruit with sleeping poison just to stay asleep.”
It started when she failed to recognize her own brother and raised her claws against him. His sister despaired when she couldn't even remember doing it.
*It's better to sleep most of the day than to show myself turning into a monster.* That was the decision his sister had made.
“So she's just going to sleep until she dies?”
“...It was her own decision. Her mana hole is already tangled to its limit.”
“Then untangle it.”
“Ha, how? I've already tried everything. I even tried absorbing her demonic energy myself.”
“You've tried every crazy thing in the book. Now I see why both your bodies started breaking down at the same time after living well for over fifty years.”
Cheon Doun said, scanning Yu Beom's body.
Absorbing the mana of someone who's started to run rampant is the same as a suicide pact. It meant they were desperate enough to try it even knowing that.
That's why Cheon Doun was puzzled. Why were they resorting to such madness when there was an easy way out?
“Why don't you use a Mandragora?”
“What?”
“A Mandragora. It's the miracle cure for a tangled mana hole.”
It wasn't an expensive medicinal herb for nothing. There was a reason herbalists searched for it with fire in their eyes.
Someone like Yu Beom could easily travel to the high mountain regions. As a flying monster, searching for Mandragora habitats would have been simple.
“A single rootlet would have you up and running. Is there a reason you haven't used one?”
“Uh... a Mandragora? A rootlet?”
Yu Beom looked bewildered. The confusion was clear from his open beak and dilated pupils.
Only after seeing that expression did Cheon Doun realize something.
“Right. We learned about medicinal herbs after we turned fifteen.”
Yu Beom had left the institute before the lessons on medicinal herbs began. He knew nothing about the effects of a Mandragora.
“With a Mandragora, you can live. Both you and your sister.”
“What... Is that true?”
"Yeah."
Yu Beom's expression was dazed. He couldn't process the sudden flood of joy. What followed was a wave of anxiety.
If it was such a precious herb, it must be hard to find. What if other Hunters had already picked them all, wiping them out?
He imagined the worst-case scenario and asked a trembling question.
“That Mandragora thing... where can I find one?”
“My house.”
At the calmly spoken words, Yu Beom momentarily doubted his hearing. When he remained speechless, Cheon Doun spoke again.
“It's in my garden patch. They're gentle ones, so I think they'll give you a rootlet if you ask.”
Yu Beom's eyes widened. No sound escaped his open beak.
The rare medicinal herb that could untangle a mana hole was apparently growing in a simple home garden patch.
‘Did I mishear something?’
He even had that doubt, but Cheon Doun's nonchalant expression told him it was all true.
Yu Beom looked at him, then laughed. It was a laugh of disbelief, but also one of joy. All the suffering he'd endured flashed through his mind.
Could there be another connection like this?
The benefactor who had saved their lives decades ago. And in that benefactor's garden patch, the siblings' very lives were growing.