By Zephyria 
“I’m telling you, it definitely came out with a specific date. It’s not like I can prove it to you.”
“As if I could actually trust you.”
The woman replied half-heartedly to the aggrieved man while rapidly typing on her laptop keyboard.
“I’m going to swap the CCTV footage later, so you have to successfully germinate it within five minutes.”
“I got it. How many times do you have to tell me?”
“But was it really you who germinated the one at the Management Center?”
The man shook his head, lightly tapping the special case holding the magical beast seed with his finger.
“The one who gives the quests did it personally. He said he’d show me how. Unlike me, he can actually adjust the timing of germination. I suppose the fact that I was entrusted with this quest means I’ve finally earned his trust.”
“Bullshit.”
Even while busy typing, the woman smacked the back of the man’s head. While his pretentious attitude was annoying, it was true that the quest the man had suddenly received one day was a huge help to them as demonic terrorists.
“Can’t the hacking go any faster?”
“Why don’t you try hacking it yourself with a piece-of-junk laptop, you prick?”
✽ ✽ ✽
The amusement park rides were something he rode out of a sense of obligation, but seeing the siblings beside him enjoying themselves kept it from being entirely boring. He had also been able to complete his quest quickly during the morning.
“Is there some kind of event here today? There are quite a few soldiers around.”
Pi Min-hyeong, who had lifted his son up to give him a piggyback ride on his shoulders, answered instead.
“Looking at the unit patches, it’s the anti-magical beast unit from the Capital Defense Command nearby; they must be out on patrol. Come to think of it, Ga-eun belonged to that unit too.”
“Right. I heard you served in the military for a long time.”
“I enlisted right after escaping Seoul and stayed for a few years. Since hunters get special promotions, I made it to First Lieutenant.”
“Seo-yeon said Aunt Ga-eun almost got into big trouble,” Pi Seo-yeon chattered, having grown close while riding the attractions together.
“She said since Aunt stopped being a soldier, she might have died if she had stayed.”
As Kim Si-baek tried to interpret the child’s vocabulary, Pi Min-hyeong provided a supplementary explanation.
“Ga-eun was planning to make a career out of the military, but shortly after she became a First Lieutenant, Tae got her to join his guild, so she discharged… Was it two or three months after she left? A massive earthquake hit the province where Ga-eun’s unit had gone for training. There were huge casualties.”
“Hunters are helpless too when the ground suddenly splits and sinks beneath their feet,” Tae-un murmured softly. Kim Si-baek also clicked his tongue in sympathy. It was truly a relief that Seo Gae-un had accepted Tae-un’s offer.
“Oh, speaking of which, I should take a photo and send it to Seo Gae-un. Brother-in-law, come over here too.”
In truth, Pi Min-hyeong was targeting Tae-un. His petty revenge was a two-birds-one-stone plan: to make up for the fact that Tae-un had interfered with his date, and to get back at him for the headache caused by mentions of sex.
However, he hadn’t expected the results to be this outstanding. Setting aside the fact that they couldn’t ride the rides together, Tae-un was simply watching with a blank expression, not taking a single photo.
Unlike Pi Min-hyeong, who lived by the creed that photos are the only thing left after a trip, Tae-un always flatly refused whenever he was asked to take a picture. Only when dragged by force would he barely take one with a scowl on his face.
‘But now, he has Brother-in-law.’
As Kim Si-baek was pulled along by his arm, Biyendwe also flew up and perched at an angle where its face was clearly visible. Then, as if drawn by a magnet, Tae-un slid over and stood close beside him. Just as expected.
“Alright, taking the photo now. Seo-jun, do you want to say it?”
“Kimchi!”
Click.
The shutter sound rang out along with the child’s joyful voice. This was the first time Kim Si-baek had taken a photo with someone other than Tae-un on Earth, and he reflexively tensed up, his face stiffening. He almost looked quite blunt, but since Pi Seo-yeon had her eyes closed, they took it again.
In the second photo, he succeeded in relaxing his facial muscles and looking natural. Pi Seo-yeon was satisfied.
“Un-ah, the photo came out well, right?”
Even in the photo, Tae-un looked cuter than the round-faced children, making Kim Si-baek feel like he had become a complete fool for love.
[Biyendwe scolds you, asking when Death and Beauty were ever not a fool for love.]
Despite Biyendwe’s nagging, he steadfastly pointed to the small, cute Tae-un in the photo. The pitch-black three-hundred eyes seemed unable to gauge where to look on the screen, moving instead along Kim Si-baek’s finger on the phone display rather than at his own face.
“How do I look?”
Kim Si-baek cleared his throat and whispered in his ear so the children wouldn’t hear.
“You’re cuter than Seo-yeon and Seo-jun.”
A clear image formed in the pupils that had been wandering minutely, unable to fixate on the photo on the screen. Tae-un finally looked at Kim Si-baek.
“Then that’s enough.”
Tae-un felt relieved, knowing that he still looked human in the other’s eyes.
Once Pi Min-hyeong took the children to the restroom, leaving only the two of them on the bench, Tae-un leaned against him weakly as if he had been waiting for this moment. Kim Si-baek patted his head.
“Childhood friends often drift apart as they grow, so I’m glad you and Min-hyeong are still close. I never imagined you’d grow taller than Min-hyeong when you were little, right?”
“If I had been bigger than Pi Min-hyeong back then, he probably would have dragged me into more gang fights.”
“You’re stronger and better at fighting than Min-hyeong now, aren’t you?”
“Well, that’s—no, no. How could I win? I’ve never beaten Min-hyeong in a fight since I was a kid. With one punch from him, I’d probably flutter away like a fragile leaf and get torn apart.”
His face looked quite pitiful as he lowered his eyelids, trembling slightly as if afraid.
Tae-un had been the only fighting opponent that the troublemaker Pi Min-hyeong had ever acknowledged, and though he had grown up to have thicker, sturdier forearms and thighs than Pi Min-hyeong, if he said he lost, then he lost.
[If Death and Beauty’s fist-fighting were…]
Kim Si-baek quickly continued speaking before Biyendwe could nag him again with a divine utterance. Biyendwe, whose grumpiness was ignored, plucked out one of his hairs.
“But Un-ah, are you not feeling well today?”
“No? I’m fine.”
“I noticed you pressing your forehead occasionally today.”
Kim Si-baek lightly tapped Tae-un’s left temple with his finger. Tae-un gave a bitter smile and pressed his palm over it.
“Was it that obvious?”
“Not really, but it was clear to me. Is it a headache?”
As he asked repeatedly with concern, unaware that his answer was coloring Tae-un’s cheeks a lovely hue, Tae-un hesitated before pointing to the scar on his face.
“Since I got hurt here, I occasionally get migraines on the left side of my head. Still, it’s much better than before since you treated it last time.”
“Hmm, maybe some residue remained because healing wounds isn’t my specialty? Which magical beast hurt you?”
“An S-class magical beast called Sang-ryu, whose habitat was the waters off Busan.”
“Sang-ryu?”
“It had nine heads, was related to water, and breathed poison. I heard there’s a similar monster in legends, so it was named Sang-ryu after that monster.”
“People here don’t seem to know the origin of chaos or magical beasts, but they named it accurately.”
The identity of the chaos that shaped magical beasts is an existence that cannot be defined by a single definition. It was a divinity that had lost the war of the gods, and it was also a monster that had been defeated by humans. It was the dregs of everything and the source at the same time.
Thus, the more powerful a magical beast—the bastard child of chaos—became, the closer it resembled the legends of ancient monsters that had been hidden in human shadows or defeated. If Sang-ryu had appeared in a region influenced by Greek culture, people would have likely named it Hydra.
“What kind of poison was it?”
“Since it had nine heads, there were nine types of poison, so I don’t remember them all… there was ordinary poisoning, poison that corroded like hydrochloric acid, poison that caused decay or oxidation… well, various kinds.”
It was obvious that a mixed poison was more dangerous than a single type. Had he not been able to purify it all? A subtle sense of déjà vu, which he had dismissed as insignificant at the time, resurfaced and weighed on his mind.
As he moved his hand toward the scar as if to heal him again, Tae-un’s shoulder flinched, and the corners of his mouth curled up deeply.
“It’s been two weeks, but what if I get sensitive again and kiss you?”
Kim Si-baek nodded honestly.
“I’m worried about that too, but how could I ignore the fact that you’re in pain?”
“That means it’s okay to kiss.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
While blocking Tae-un’s lips with his other hand, he channeled divine power. More carefully and cautiously than when he had treated him before. Maintaining a sensation as if groping through a darkness where not a single inch was visible, Kim Si-baek chased the déjà vu he had felt.
‘I’m sure I’ve sensed a similar feeling before…’
However, his speculation didn’t last even a minute. Tae-un’s cheeks, receiving the divine power, gradually turned flush, and soon something soft and moist gently licked his finger. Specifically, the finger that was blocking Tae-un’s mouth.