By Zephyria 
The Eternal Stone, having received Yohan’s purification and taken on a transparent hue, slowly spread like ink, shedding the dirt clinging to the surrounding rocks. It looked as if they were awakening one by one, stimulated.
…I hope there won’t be any problems later…? Yohan, scratching his cheek, chose the flattest patch of ground and crouched down. And he gazed at the endlessly beautiful Eternal Stone cavern.
…If I could mine all of this, I’d be incredibly rich. How much was an Eternal Stone per carat on Earth? He calculated its worth, but he didn’t feel like taking anything.
Time flowed by once more. With nothing left to do, Yohan listlessly got up, looked at the Eternal Stones, played some games, and was spending his time in fear and boredom.
Rumble… A ominous vibration echoed from somewhere again. Yohan, who had been staring blankly at the Eternal Stones without playing games because he regretted the depleting battery that couldn’t be recharged, was terrified. It was when he instinctively hugged a large Eternal Stone nearby.
CRASH! With a deafening roar, a being shattered the ceiling and leaped into the cavern. Amidst the rising black dust, a man with a familiar face slowly looked around with a blank expression. A reddish glint flickered in his eyes, and the eerie shadow cast beneath him was pitch black, devoid of any light even in the brilliant crystal cavern. Yohan, who had been afraid,’s eyes and mouth flew open.
“Uh, uh!”
It was Lee Hyun-muk! The one he had been waiting for had finally found him. Yohan’s heart leaped with joy.
So overjoyed, Yohan couldn’t speak properly and rushed forward in a hurry. Lee Hyun-muk, smiling brightly, opened his arms and embraced the opponent who leaped into his arms as if snatching him. The large pupils, which had been flickering with a dark red glow, slowly returned to their place. The strangely long and deep shadow also gradually receded.
“My Lamb, were you scared? Did you cry your eyes out?”
Regardless of the other person’s mad ramblings, Yohan, immensely relieved, was busy crying his eyes out. As the light wafting above his head touched him, the blackness on Lee Hyun-muk’s body disappeared.
“Hyun-mook Hyung, really, sniff, I thought I was going to be trapped here alone, forever, sniff….”
As he poured out his sorrow with slurred pronunciation, Lee Hyun-muk tenderly licked Yohan’s cheek, whom he held tightly in his embrace. He licked and sucked until his salty tears no longer flowed and his cheeks turned red. Then he sucked on his sobbing lips. Yohan, startled, stopped crying. The moment he opened his mouth to say something, a warm, wet tongue pushed its way in.
“Huuuug, mmm, huuug…”
The intimate contact, the first in days, was so sweet that Yohan could do nothing. After sucking up all the clear saliva pooled in his mouth, Lee Hyun-muk, his red glow completely gone, spoke to the trembling Yohan with his eyes tightly shut.
“I told you, Yohan. I never give up…”
Yohan, his face flushed crimson, barely opened his eyes, and an aurora-colored light shimmered within them. As the last of the moisture spread, his eyes welled up. The conversation he had shared with Lee Hyun-muk, which he had desperately thought of dozens of times while trapped in Black Mountain, echoed in his mind again.
‘My Negative Reinforcement… is never giving up on anything.’
Never giving up on anything, Negative Reinforcement.
‘Saving my teammates, escaping from here. And now, keeping you by my side. I’ve never given up, and I never will.’
With those eyes, he was saying that no matter what happened to Yang Yohan, he would never give up, persistently protect, search, and search again. As tears trickled down, Yohan suddenly looked at Lee Hyun-muk’s hands and arms and gasped. His hands were completely tattered, their flesh worn away and gouged, with blood seeping out. Despite possessing such superior regenerative abilities, his wounds were this ragged.
Overcome with emotion, he hugged Lee Hyun-muk tightly again. Through the ear pressed to his chest, he heard the rapid thumping of his heart. The brilliant light flowing from Yohan’s body seeped into the other. Yohan rubbed his forehead against Lee Hyun-muk’s chest with a piteous gesture.
Never giving up on anything is Negative Reinforcement? How is that ‘Negative’ reinforcement? I want to call it the desperate will of someone pitiful and unfortunate…
But instead of voicing these inner thoughts, Yohan let out a trembling sigh. Since purification was the only way he could repay him, he poured all the brightest and warmest things he possessed onto the other and murmured,
“Thank you for not giving up…”
Lee Hyun-muk’s arms around Yohan tightened slightly. The act of searching for him, buried in Black Mountain, and enduring the arduous time with superhuman will after falling into the Abyss, all of it was simply cause for gratitude. He sighed again, and then something suddenly came to mind, and Yohan asked with a nasal voice,
“Did you… perhaps deliberately scatter the team members?”
Thinking about it, even High-level Awakeners were becoming Madmen due to Corruption. If all his teammates were corrupted and severely lost their minds, even Lee Hyun-muk would have had no choice. Lee Hyun-muk slowly nodded.
“I couldn’t let them devour or kill each other. From some point on, they wouldn’t listen even when subdued, so I had no choice. They’re quite strong, so I didn’t think they’d die easily even if scattered… And perhaps, one day, I might do the worst thing myself when I go mad.”
Though he said it nonchalantly, Yohan knew it was Lee Hyun-muk’s best at the time. Corruption was truly the worst entity, draining human reason and driving them mad. Yoon Seung-ryong, who had been living in the swamp, wasn’t even in a proper human form and couldn’t communicate properly.
It was then that a presence was detected. Yoon Seung-ryong crawled in through the hole Lee Hyun-muk had made and fell to the floor with a splat. His body looked strangely boneless and soft, so Yohan quickly rubbed his eyes. Looking again, Yoon Seung-ryong was groaning in his usual appearance. He quickly ran over, helped Yoon Seung-ryong up, and purified him first.
“Seung-ryong Hyung, are you okay?”
“Yohan-ah…”
Yoon Seung-ryong, with a deathly pale complexion, barely lifted his head and apologized dejectedly.
“I’m so sorry… I was close by, but I couldn’t protect you properly.”
“No! It was such an unpredictable situation, right?”
He looked at Lee Hyun-muk, seeking agreement. Lee Hyun-muk, his wounds instantly healed thanks to Yohan’s purification, nodded.
“That’s true. Black Mountain has never actively tried to kidnap something like this before.”
Is that so? It was a kidnapping… Yohan now felt he understood that Black Mountain had some kind of ‘ritual’. Just like the Flood, the existence of creatures made of countless Eternal Stones was possible, a story he would never have believed before.
“Wow! What is all this? Did Yohan-ssi, no, Yohan Hyung do this?”
Hearing a voice of admiration, he turned around to see Joo Ho-young lightly leaping down from the hole in the ceiling. White coldness emanated from his entire body, flowing downwards. Furthermore, his skin was a pale blue, as if he had frostbite. His speech was strange, and he was grinning, so Yohan quickly ran over and showered him with light, causing Joo Ho-young to melt and collapse onto the floor.
“Our Yohan Hyung suddenly disappeared, and I really wanted to cry.”
He stretched out the end of his words and held Yohan’s feet preciously. While flustered, Yoon Seung-ryong also crawled over slowly and hugged one of his legs tightly. Even more flustered, Yohan looked at Lee Hyun-muk, seeking help.
“Hyun-mook Hyung…”
Lee Hyun-muk strode over, reached out his arm, and hugged Yohan from behind.
“Yohan-ssi must be tired too, shall we sit and rest for a bit?”
Then, tucking him into his embrace, Lee Hyun-muk plopped down on the ground. With his head buried in Yohan’s neck, only Yohan’s face turned bright red. Paradoxically, since Black Mountain was a place free of Corruption, even after being separated for a few days, the contamination levels of the three did not seem to have reached a severe stage.
“By the way, this is really amazing. Can such a place exist even in the Abyss?”
Yoon Seung-ryong, who seemed to have calmed down after absorbing Yohan’s purification, let out a long sigh and muttered. Joo Ho-young was also marveling at the scene, which resembled a brilliantly shimmering crystal cave. Only Lee Hyun-muk, holding Yohan tightly, fiddled with him as he pleased without even looking properly. Yohan, his ears also turning red, tried to act nonchalant and replied,
“These are all Eternal Stones.”
“Huh?”
“Huh? These are all Eternal Stones?”
Yoon Seung-ryong blinked, then quickly popped a small Eternal Stone next to him into his mouth and bit down. Joo Ho-young also swiftly scanned the cavern and exclaimed stiffly,
“Black Mountain is all Eternal Stones?!”
“Wow, fuck. That’s the scariest story I’ve ever heard.”
Yoon Seung-ryong spat out the Eternal Stone from his mouth and cursed. The two then shuddered as if they had witnessed a horrific sight. They seemed to have grasped how many creatures this Abyss had consumed, just like Yohan. Forgetting their admiration for the beautiful scenery, they quickly approached Lee Hyun-muk and pleaded.
“Team leader, let’s get out of here quickly.”
“Yeah. It feels like being in a giant graveyard that’s about a million years old.”
Lee Hyun-muk paid them no mind, merely yawning slowly against Yohan’s neck. Yohan, getting goosebumps from the languid breath, twisted his body slightly and said,
“Hyun-mook Hyung, I want to leave quickly too.”
“You’re calling me Hyung now?”