By Zephyria 
✽ ✽ ✽
Detective Park had tried to keep the human trafficking organization’s ledgers hidden. Would it have been different if he hadn’t seen them? Would he have lived a peaceful life, deceiving himself with the thin lie that his younger brother was doing well somewhere, turning a blind eye to the truth? Never knowing the reality.
The price of truth howled fiercely and tore him apart. He didn’t even remember how he had returned to his palm-sized rented room that day. Groans that could have been mistaken for those of a beast were constantly chewed between his teeth.
He hadn’t touched a drop of water, yet he felt neither the stomach pains of hunger nor thirst. All senses were erased, and nightmares occupied the void. Visions of his younger brother, blood-soaked and hacked to pieces, surged over him.
How terrified must he have been? How much must he have looked for his brother? The final image of his brother—rubbing his eyes as he woke from his blanket and calling out, “Brother,” while seeing him off to school—was stained with horror. Kim Si-baek clawed at his own throat, letting out a hoarse scream.
While he had enjoyed life, eating warm meals, sleeping soundly, and receiving pleasant training, his brother must have rotted away to the point where not even a corpse could be found. He felt nauseous. Only gastric juices rose from a stomach that hadn’t processed food for days, but he didn’t even feel the stinging revulsion. No tears flowed. He didn’t even have the right to cry.
What moved his curled-up limbs was a resolution reached at the end of despair. How could he continue to enjoy life when he had lived in peace alone, without knowing a single grain of the terror and fear his abandoned brother must have felt?
Kim Si-baek moved unsteadily. Passing by a dull kitchen knife, he grabbed a necktie. The thought that it was a police uniform tie didn’t even occur to him. Even if it had, nothing would have changed. He ended his life with the very uniform he had worn as a means to find his brother.
There was nothing on the ceiling capable of supporting his weight. He made his first attempt with the front door handle, but the old door couldn’t hold, and the handle rattled and came loose. Kim Si-baek mechanically scanned the narrow room. The window frame, fitted with security bars, caught his eye.
The second attempt was easy. The necktie tightened, constricting his throat. The agony of his windpipe tearing and his chest feeling as if it were burning was nothing compared to the pain his brother must have endured. Kim Si-baek plummeted into the darkness where nightmares lurked.
〈Brother! Si-baek Brother!〉
If it weren’t for that desperate, clinging voice, those nightmares would surely have claimed him. Air suddenly rushed into his constricted throat, and Kim Si-baek coughed violently for a long time. When he barely managed to lift his head, he saw the face of a crying child.
The child wept sorrowfully, his small hands bloodied from recklessly cutting the necktie with a kitchen knife, oblivious to the wounds on his own palms.
〈Brother, don’t be sick… I hate it when you’re sick… If you leave me like Mom and Dad did, I’ll kill myself too…〉
The shock of when his brother first spoke and called him “Brother” washed over him. That call, which had been like a binding spell, shackled him once more. As long as this child, who gave him the name of a brother, remembered and called for him, he could no longer die.
〈…I’m sorry, Un-ah.〉
The child shook his head and clung to his neck. Only then did he feel the physical sensation of sorrowful sobbing spreading and the nape of his neck becoming drenched with tears.
✽ ✽ ✽
Tae-un’s voice, calling him, always reaches through the most terrible nightmares. His brain, crushed by nightmares, awoke from the hazy dream. His vision, which had been a messy blur, barely cleared.
[Death and Beauty calls your name longingly.]
[Death and Beauty shouts that your god is here.]
[Death and Beauty…]
“Si-baek! Si-baek! Wake up!”
Biyendwe’s voice shouted desperately, heedless of the consumption of divine power and the divine utterances filling his vision. And there was a broad back blocking his path. The smell of blood slowly spread.
“Kh…”
Tae-un let out a low groan and reached forward. The moment his hand touched the face of the man who had stabbed him in the side with a dagger, he slammed him straight into the ground.
Boom! Simultaneously with the impact that shook the earth, the man—the man who had been wearing a vision of the younger brother like a skin—fainted without even being able to scream.
“Un-ah!”
The screams of people and the roars of magical beasts awakened familiar senses. As soon as his senses cleared, Kim Si-baek was able to grasp the surrounding situation instantly. Amidst the chaos of the sudden appearance of magical beasts, there had been an attack precisely targeting his weakness. And the person who took that attack instead was Tae-un.
He hurriedly pulled out the dagger and treated the wound with divine power, but just as he managed to stop the bleeding, Tae-un grabbed his wrist to stop him.
“I’m fine. Even if I’ve been replenished lately, there isn’t much, so you should save it.”
“I have to treat your wound properly first!”
“The bleeding stopped, so it’s fine. I’ll get treated after the fight.”
As he spoke, Tae-un gestured toward the magical beasts shaped like flames. Since Tae-un’s injury wasn’t critical and dealing with the magical beasts was urgent, it was a rational judgment. Though Kim Si-baek rarely followed rational reasoning when dealing with Tae-un.
However, whenever Tae-un was this stubborn, it was obvious he would slip away and avoid treatment, so Kim Si-baek swallowed a sigh and withdrew his hand.
[Death and Beauty clings to you, almost crying.]
“I’m sorry.”
He stroked the small body of Biyendwe, who was fluttering its wings and clinging to the nape of his neck. He could immediately tell the identity of the man who had attacked him. It was Na Jeong-woo, a hunter from the 7777 Guild, whom he had sparred with a few days ago.
“…I saw a vision of my brother.”
“Ah…”
Tae-un nodded, dragging out the end of his words slowly.
“I thought it was strange that you were so out of it.”
“Does Hunter Na Jeong-woo have a related trait?”
“Hmm, as far as I know, he doesn’t.”
Kim Si-baek rubbed his face roughly with his palm. He couldn’t understand how Na Jeong-woo, who lacked any related trait, had discovered the exact weakness to deceive him so deeply. Or was he hiding a trait…?
His mind was cluttered with various thoughts, but he didn’t have the luxury to delve deep. He caught his breath and pulled his hand away.
〈Brother.〉
The unstable pounding of his heart, a lingering effect of the vision, calmed down upon confirming Tae-un’s presence beside him. He always strove to live a life without shame so that his meeting with Tae-un would not become a source of guilt for the latter. Therefore, as long as Tae-un called his name, Kim Si-baek had to keep his back straight and remain unwavering.
“You go on ahead, Brother. I’ll clean up here and follow.”
“Are you sure the wound is okay?”
“Do you want to try stabbing it?”
“…Are you going to make those weird noises again if I touch it?”
“You caught me.”
His three-hundred eyes curved elegantly, and he gave a bright, smiling look. It was a joke ill-suited for the situation, but because it was so characteristically Tae-un, Kim Si-baek let out a short laugh.
“You must tell me if the wound opens up.”
As soon as the back of the man who gave the final warning disappeared, Tae-un’s expression cooled instantly, as if switching masks. He pressed his fingers against the wound in his side so hard that his fingertips turned white.
Blocking it with his body; he had done something stupid. The moment he saw Na Jeong-woo attempting to attack a mindless Kim Si-baek, nothing else came to mind. Judging the situation objectively, using an ability to suppress the enemy would be far quicker and more efficient than rushing in personally. Yet, the moment Kim Si-baek became endangered, all rational judgment completely vanished from his mind.
Throughout his entire life, having passed through countless battles and deaths, he had never done something so stupid and strange, which left him quite bewildered.
Furthermore, the dagger had been coated in poison. Na Jeong-woo was someone who didn’t use poison, claiming it was only for those lacking in skill.
Everything was strange.
Tae-un slowly scanned Na Jeong-woo, who had fainted with his eyes rolled back.
Where did this suddenly come from? This was unplanned. In the past, this man had never acted out or awakened a rapid trait. Was this a butterfly effect caused by Kim Si-baek’s existence?
“…”
Tae-un contemplated whether to kill the uncertain element to remove it, but decided to keep him alive for now to dig into the situation. If so, where should he store him until the magical beasts were dealt with?
There was a possibility of escape upon regaining consciousness. Cutting off his limbs would perfectly prevent escape, but medical tools to treat the wounds were not secured. Instead, Tae-un compromised by severing the tendons in his legs.
He looked around for a storage location. Pi Min-hyeong must have given protective magical tools to his children. Without relying on sight to navigate the chaotic amusement park, he followed the flow of magical power. There it was. A magical tool infused with Pi Min-hyeong’s own magical power, not extracted from a magic stone.
Grabbing the nape of Na Jeong-woo, who had not regained consciousness even after his tendons were severed, he dragged him there in one go. The place where the children were hiding was behind a cafe. Since it was a large protective magical tool for ten people, others had also taken refuge there.
“Uncle!”
Pi Seo-yeon, who had been trembling while holding Pi Seo-jun’s hand tightly, brightened up. In her arms was a dinosaur headband that Pi Min-hyeong had bought her before lunch. The girl, looking as if she might burst into tears, bit her lip and wiped them away with the back of her hand.
Tae-un checked the magical power of the protective magical tool. Nine people, including the two children, were sheltering inside.
“There’s one spot left, so keep this person here too.”
“Is he a hunter who got hurt while fighting?”
“No, a bad person.”
At the words “bad person,” Tae-un felt the people inside the protective magical tool flinch, but he didn’t care and pushed Na Jeong-woo to the edge. Just as he was about to turn back, a small voice stopped him.
“Uncle, please don’t get hurt…”
“…”
Since the capacity was full, outsiders could not enter. Instead of putting his hand inside the protective magical tool to pat her head, Tae-un lightly tapped the transparent membrane above where Pi Seo-yeon was sitting. Only then did the child show a slight hint of a smile.
Pi Seo-yeon and Pi Seo-jun were merely ordinary children who hadn’t awakened, but they were the final supports preventing Pi Min-hyeong’s spirit from collapsing. They had to survive safely.
“…I’ll bring your dad back with his limbs attached, so don’t worry and stay here.”
Tae-un, not realizing that the phrase “with his limbs attached” might sound a bit scary to children, paused as he turned around. Covering his mouth with his hand, he let out a short cough that surged from deep within his internals. Dark red blood, permeated with toxic energy, stained his palm.