Chapter 80. Brother and Sister.
Chapter 80. Brother and Sister.
The moment the siblings brought it up, I muttered to myself without thinking, "More dead weight...?" and my companions overheard.
Thankfully, the kids didn't catch it.
Ignoring the stares we were getting from the people around us, I pressed my fingers to my forehead and spoke.
"Let's not do this out here. Let's go inside and talk."
I asked what had changed for them to be waiting in a full-on dogeza(?) in front of our door until we arrived. No matter how well Jia had treated them, wouldn't this place — where they had people they knew and could talk to — be better?
"The truth is, we were the outcasts of our group..."
Yuna and Yuto said they were overseas-born Koreans. They said that kind of discrimination against overseas-born Koreans had naturally faded in recent years. They had been getting along decently with the people around them when the apocalypse struck, and after surviving as Awakened, they'd encountered this group.
In a group run by power players, having a different background makes you an easy target. They said they were endlessly gaslit, forced to constantly prove their usefulness, to make themselves helpful. They weren't fools—they knew they were being gaslit—but because of the younger sibling, they had no choice but to stay.
After enduring every kind of contempt and persecution, a recent beating became the breaking point, and they no longer wanted to stay.
"We thought this really was our last chance to break free..."
"So you want to come with us?"
"Yes..."
No matter how much I'm known to pick people up, it had been a while since someone had walked up so directly and asked to be picked up. I didn't know how to respond and stayed silent, which they took as a refusal. They grew desperate.
"If you take us with you, we'll do anything without complaint...!"
Does she not think that kind of talk makes me sound like complete scum...
At Yuna's words, Chaeyeon and Jia stared wide-eyed, their gazes flicking between me and her. Then Jia stepped over, stroked her hair, and spoke.
"Our oppa isn't that kind of person. There's no need to be so scared or worried."
Somewhat reassured, Yuna looked back and forth between me and Jia with pitiful eyes.
"You two really do seem like siblings who get along well, unnie..."
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"Heehee, not that. He's my boyfriend."
At that, she started looking back and forth between Chaeyeon and me instead. At that look, Jia answered again.
"That's right. That unnie is his girlfriend, too."
"???"
She stared at me intently, her eyes saying she was even more lost. I cut in because the conversation seemed to keep drifting off course.
"Anyway, bringing the two of you along is possible. What kind of work did you two do here?"
When the tone shifted to something serious, so starkly different from the mood up until now, she began to explain.
The older sister, Yuna, could heal people and said she'd learned a bit of archery back in school. Her younger brother, she said, had a slightly special ability—he could move at speeds other people couldn't even see.
"Hm... moving fast?"
I'd gotten my hopes up at the words "special ability," but at the simple mention of speed, Yuna apparently sensed my interest cooling and grew anxious.
"N-No, it's not just that..."
She gave her brother a nod, signaling him to show me. Catching his sister's meaning, he nodded back and rose from his seat.
Yuto pointed a hand at a ballpoint pen on the table, drawing everyone's attention.
Then he focused for a moment. In that instant, the flow of air slowed, and time began to accelerate. Then, at a speed most people could never even perceive, he moved to a table in the corner of the room. And picked up the pen lying on it.
When my companions blinked and realized the pen from the corner table was now in Yuto's hand, they were astonished. The Special Forces Commander was particularly shocked.
"At this level of speed, isn't that an ability heavily optimized for stealth and infiltration...? But then, why..."
He was asking why, with an ability like that, they'd silently endured persecution and contempt.
But after retrieving the pen, Yuto was pouring sweat like rain and starting to stagger. Yuna supported him and spoke for him.
"When he uses his ability like this... it's very hard on him..."
"Of course it is."
At my matter-of-fact reply, my companions and even the two siblings stared at me as if wondering what I knew.
"Sir, do you know the cause?"
"I watched every single step of Yuto moving and picking up the pen. He forces an overload onto an unstable body and moves at an absurdly high speed. Naturally, his energy and caloric expenditure in that process are beyond what he can handle."
"S-Sir... then what should I do?"
"First, build up your body. Enough to withstand the overload."
This isn't a technique that interferes with the flow of time to make it slow. Time remains the same; instead, it's a technique that accelerates his own body's passage. To begin with, time is something only a tiny handful of the great deities can handle.
"Or else, how about learning dagger throwing or archery?"
"All of a sudden...?"
"If you apply acceleration only at the instant you throw a dagger or release an arrow, it reduces the burden on your body, but the destructive power would become far stronger."
He stared at me with a surprised look, having thought only about exploiting the simple advantage of speed, never imagining this kind of application.
"S-Sir, you seem incredible..."
"It's something you naturally pick up once you've built up some experience."
"But will I really be able to learn it...?"
"That'll depend on you..."
Yuna, who had been watching anxiously at his side, answered with a bright smile.
"Then is it really all right if we follow you, sir...!?"
"Do as you like. But if you become a hindrance in the slightest, I'm leaving you behind."
My companions also seemed quite receptive, so I decided to take them along. With an ability like that, once it's been honed a bit, it'll probably be useful.
"And don't call me 'boss.' Call me 'Representative.'"
"Yes, thank you!!!"
"We'll do our best...!"
I decided we'd assess the siblings' skills at the power plant. I would teach him some basic dagger throwing, and Jia would teach Yuna how to handle a bow.
As I gave them some instruction, my impression was that Yuna absorbed archery smoothly and well. Yuto, however, had never received systematic training, and his training progressed quite slowly.
"Hm... Is it that throwing daggers is hard, or is close-quarters combat the problem?"
"Throwing daggers is okay... but when I have to face someone in front of me, it isn't easy..."
'Does the thought of fighting a person frighten him?'
After giving him some modest feedback, we finished all our preparations to head to the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant.
Then, the day before our departure, the Minister came to find us.
"Thank you for everything up until now. I won't make the excuse that I knew what they were doing and was powerless to stop it. In the end, I submitted, too."
He looked at me with eyes that had found their resolve.
"I will make certain nothing like this ever happens again. I express my gratitude once more."
"Sure. We came out of it with plenty to gain ourselves."
"And I entrust those two children to your care... They are kids who haven't known a single moment of peace."
We exchanged a few more words, and as the night grew deep, the Minister left the room.
As morning dawned, we were doing maintenance in front of the helicopter. The difference from before was that new companions had joined us.
"Hello! I'm Yuto! I'll be in your care."
"I'm Yuna. I'll work hard and not be a burden!"
Both of them bowed their heads deeply, greeting us with voices full of spirit. Right before we boarded the helicopter after finishing our checks, I looked back.
As I'd expected, the Minister wasn't there. He'd already said everything he felt unburdened to say yesterday and laid his resolve bare before me.
And so, the helicopter's massive rotors began to spin, and we gradually lifted off, heading for the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant.
The people who normally only ever exchanged important operational details or a few words of small talk before a mission were now kindly attending to the siblings as they chattered on about this and that. Their presence had, in its own way, softened the bleak atmosphere.
In fact, these two were the youngest here, and everyone seemed to treat them as if they were their own sons or daughters, or as little siblings, doting on them.
"Representative, what are we going to do when we get there!?"
Yuna, the older sister, asked me, speaking with careful enunciation while standing stiffly at attention. She smiled and treated everyone else warmly, but she still seemed a little intimidated by me.
The Special Forces Commander answered, stroking her hair as if looking at his own daughter.
"We're going there to collect nuclear material."
"...Nuclear?"
"Simply put, all energy needs fuel, and we're going because we're short on it."
'Nuclear material' was a heavy term to hear in everyday conversation; I could hear her swallow hard at the thought that we were going to retrieve it.
"Haha, don't worry. If things go wrong, the Representative will handle it all."
Yuna glanced at me, hesitating, as if there was something she wanted to ask. Watching her, I could tell she could never pull one over on anyone. Her face would give her away before she even tried.
"If you have something you want to ask, go ahead and ask."
"Representative, how did you become so strong?"
"Hm..."
To explain why I'm strong and how I became strong, I'd have to explain every single detail from start to finish.
"What makes you curious about that?"
"If you're that strong, isn't saving people easy?"
That's my least favorite thing to hear. And everyone here, aside from the siblings, knows it. I was about to shut down the conversation, my face hardening, but I stopped myself.
Without a trace of anger, driven purely by curiosity about Yuna's question, I gently asked back.
"Yuna, just because someone has power, are they obligated to save everyone?"