I couldn’t bring myself to jump in too quickly, and I swallowed hard.
“J has never, not even once, talked about his family in all the time I’ve known him. If they existed but were dead, he would’ve mentioned them at least once as a memory. The fact that he never did means they didn’t exist in the first place. The younger brother you’re looking for isn’t J.”
“...Shut up.”
Yoon Jeha shot to his feet.
Killing intent burst out, sharp enough to sting the skin. I reflexively grabbed Cha Sahyeon’s arm and pulled him back, and Kwon Taehyuk and Kwon Seoyul—who rose right after—blocked the front.
“Calm down, Hunter Yoon Jeha.”
“Ha. I knew this would happen.”
Kwon Taehyuk’s tense warning overlapped with Kwon Seoyul’s voice, dripping with interest.
Yoon Jeha spoke low, forcing his boiling emotions down.
“Move.”
“Withdraw your killing intent first. Until then, we can’t move.”
“If I cut something off or break something, he’ll calm down on his own.”
At Kwon Seoyul’s shameless remark, Kwon Taehyuk shot him a glare.
A sigh escaped me on its own. If Ryu Sunghyun had been here instead of Kwon Seoyul, I would’ve felt a lot more secure.
Either way, letting this standoff drag on wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Bringing up his missing younger brother couldn’t have been an easy choice for Yoon Jeha, either.
And more than anything, Cha Sahyeon had already mentioned the human experimentation from the past... so hiding it any longer was going to be difficult.
“Hunter Yoon Jeha. I’ll share what I know. So calm down.”
Yoon Jeha drew a short breath, hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly withdrew his killing intent.
Desperation surfaced on his pale face.
“...Fine. I’ll calm down. That’s what you want, right?”
Yoon Jeha sat back down on the sofa.
Only then did Kwon Taehyuk, who hadn’t relaxed his guard until the very end, let out a breath of relief and step back.
“Ah, what a waste. No fun.”
I grabbed Kwon Seoyul’s arm—still whining without reading the room—and pulled him back down, then met Yoon Jeha’s eyes.
The vicious emotion in those blood-red eyes was something I knew all too well.
Wanting something so badly you’d risk your life for it. A desire that was almost obsession. A hope you couldn’t let go of.
'Was that what I’d felt when I first met Yoon Jeha... that sense of kinship?'
The “Ryu Sunghyun” I’d met in the Unidentified Rift came to mind, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
I tore my gaze away from Yoon Jeha and looked at Cha Sahyeon. His profile was still calm, but somehow, he looked lonely.
On purpose, I spoke while holding his shoulder like I was pulling him into an embrace.
“What my younger brother, Cha Sahyeon, said is true. Those cult bastards have been conducting human experiments for a very long time. And my younger brother is one of the victims.”
“Human experiments.”
Yoon Jeha’s face twisted.
“I knew those bastards were kidnapping people and doing dogshit things to them. Back when the country was in chaos with dungeon breaks and rifts, they operated in Korea, and once Korea stabilized, they went to places like China or the US. Probably because it’s easier over there to kidnap people and dump bodies. But... to think they took kids and... experimented on them.”
Yoon Jeha squeezed his eyes shut tight and dragged a hand down across his mouth.
“You said it earlier. Your brother said they only kidnapped orphans, or kids whose families were dead. Obviously they’d have to do that to avoid leaving a trail, but the fact that Cha Sahyeon brought it up specifically is because...”
I couldn’t finish the explanation and met Cha Sahyeon’s gaze.
The clear green eyes looking up at me shone softly. Those eyes held nothing but affection and trust.
That look was basically permission. Permission to tell Yoon Jeha about him.
Instead of saying thank you, I lightly patted the kid’s back and continued.
“Because he was experimented on together with J. That’s why Cha Sahyeon knows J very well.”
I only revealed enough information for Yoon Jeha to understand.
That Cha Sahyeon looked like a child because he wore a choker, but he was actually an adult over twenty. That he’d been trapped and experimented on alongside J since childhood.
“The reason the J you saw looks about high school age is a side effect of the experiments. In reality, he’s probably older.”
“......”
“So think again. Are you sure J is really your younger brother?”
Yoon Jeha’s eyes crumpled.
“He’s my brother... He has to be. There’s no way he isn’t.”
“Why are you so certain? Because he looks like him? But if you separated when he was young, relying on looks alone is a bit shaky, isn’t it?”
Yoon Jeha bit his lip and lowered his head. A rigid silence settled over the reception room.
After a brief silence, Yoon Jeha raised his head again.
“Supporter Cha Seohu.”
Those red eyes aimed at me no longer wavered. Instead, they shone with firm conviction mixed with desperate longing.
“Yeah. Like you said, he might not be my brother. But... all this time, aside from that man named ‘J,’ I’ve never met anyone who looks like my younger brother. He’s the only one.”
His voice, which had been trembling slightly, grew solid and clear.
“So... just one more time. Just once. Let me meet him one more time. Then I’ll do anything. I’ll cooperate with you, and I’ll take on the dangerous stuff instead. If you just let me meet him, I can—really—I can do everything.”
“......”
“Please. I’ve been looking for him for so long. He’s my only family.”
When he finished, a quiet silence followed.
I let out a sigh with a tangled heart.
Normally, I would’ve refused.
We hadn’t been out of that Unidentified Rift—an obvious trap made by the cult—very long, and J wasn’t someone I could summon whenever I felt like it.
If I moved wrong, I could draw the cult’s attention again. Worse than that would be putting J in danger if his spying got exposed.
Rationally, it wasn’t a request I could accept lightly.
But....
[It’s good to see you again, Seohu.]
A gentle voice. Kind eyes.
[Right? It really was a miracle of a time.......]
Because there was someone I wanted to meet again, no matter what.
Because there was someone I wanted to protect so badly I’d beg even a stranger.
'Haah.'
What a shitty timing.
Right after coming back from the Unidentified Rift... right after meeting “Ryu Sunghyun,” I couldn’t bring myself to say no.
In the end, I had no choice but to nod.
“Alright.”
Yoon Jeha—who had been chewing at his lip anxiously through my silence—snapped his head up.
Confusion and surprise flashed across his pale face, then he asked like he couldn’t believe it.
“Really? You’ll really let me meet him? No, why?”
“Are you going to complain even when I’m granting your request?”
“No, it’s not that, but it’s weird. You mean it? Wh-when are you going to let me meet him?”
Instead of answering, I turned to Cha Sahyeon.
“Kid.”
Cha Sahyeon understood what I meant right away and nodded obediently.
“Okay, hyung.”
Cha Sahyeon quietly closed his eyes. He shut them as if measuring something, focusing—and before even a minute passed, he frowned.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Hyung, there’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
“The shadow skill J uses is under my management. That’s why I could always track his location easily, whenever I wanted, but......”
Cha Sahyeon narrowed his eyes, looking bothered.
“There’s interference in that connection.”
“You can’t find him?”
“Not with just energy.”
Cha Sahyeon made a short gesture with his hand, and a black shape surged up from the shadow on the floor.
A shadow bird appeared, flapping its wings as it landed on Cha Sahyeon’s arm. Kkiiik. The bird blinked its green eyes and cried softly.
After briefly meeting Cha Sahyeon’s gaze, it passed through the window and flew outside.
“If it finds J, it’ll come back to me.”
“How long?”
“If nothing else goes wrong, within six hours.”
Which meant if there was something wrong, it would take longer.
The very fact that there was interference didn’t sit right with me. Don’t tell me something happened to J?
We hadn’t contacted each other since the hotel incident, so I didn’t know anything.
'Could it be... that ‘Cult Leader’ did something to him.......'
With that ominous feeling creeping up, I was about to ask Cha Sahyeon about the relationship between J and the Cult Leader—
Ding!
A familiar notification sound rang out. At the same time, a System window appeared in front of my eyes.
《A Main Quest has arrived!》
《Main Quest: Save the protagonist’s life. (S-rank) (Time remaining: 2 hours 59 minutes)》
What the hell is this?
'A quest out of nowhere? Save the protagonist?'
We weren’t inside a dungeon, and it wasn’t like a rift had opened here, so why was a quest dropping on me?
As I froze, more windows appeared.
[Main Quest: Save the protagonist’s life.]
You must save a dying protagonist.
*Warning! If the protagonist dies, the quest will automatically be marked as failed.
《For this Main Quest only, ‘Protagonist Status Guide’ has been activated.》
[Protagonist Status Guide]
A support window that allows you to check the condition of a person registered as a protagonist in real time.
If the status displays “Dead,” the Main Quest will automatically be marked as failed, so be careful.
“.......”
With a trembling hand, I touched the status window.
To everyone else, it probably looked extremely unnatural, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to care about that.
《The number of protagonists you can check is one.》
《Protagonist: Eun Woojeong》
My blood went cold.
[Protagonist Status Guide]
<Eun Woojeong>
Status: Critical (consciousness fading)
Thought: ......Cha Seohu.

Comments

Loading...