By Zephyria 
“I can find out wherever you go, Hyung.”
“Did you put some kind of tracking magic on me?”
Tae-un glanced at the phone tucked in his pocket and gave a thin smile.
“Actually, I followed the scent of blood. Looking at the photo you sent, it seemed like a low-level field, so I looked around, and there was no place where the smell of blood was as thick as here. I figured you’re the only person with the skills to be loitering around a low-level field.”
The guild members were appalled that he had deduced the location from a single photo, but Kim Si-baek’s interest lay elsewhere.
“Ah, the one-horned rabbit photo? It was really cute, wasn’t it?”
“Like me?”
“As soon as I saw it, I thought of you.”
“I felt like I was looking in a mirror, not at a photo.”
The HG guild members finally realized who the ‘cute younger brother who looks like a one-horned rabbit’ was. Simultaneously, a conversation the Guild Master had recently heard from her boyfriend, who worked at the 7777 Guild, played back in her mind.
〈You know you bought shares in my company, right?〉
〈Yeah.〉
〈It might be better to sell them.〉
〈Did something happen at the Seven Guild?〉
〈This is a secret… but I think our Guild Master has some mental illness.〉
Her boyfriend had shown her the company’s anonymous bulletin board with a very serious expression. He had spoken passionately, claiming he had witnessed it at a cafe, but she had dismissed it as nonsense. It was common for people to spin exaggerated tales in internet communities.
‘No way. It can’t be true… aren’t they just close like brothers? If they’re that close… this could happen!’
The Guild Master, who had tried her best to think that way to protect her blue-chip stocks, came to regret her hasty judgment thirty minutes later.
“Hyung, Hyung. I’ll grill the meat.”
“Oh my. You know how to grill meat too?”
“Totally.”
“If you just grill it, when are we going to eat?”
“You can just feed me, Hyung.”
A lettuce wrap filled with perfectly cooked meat was popped into Tae-un’s open mouth with an “Ah.” Beside them, the guild members chewed their meat mechanically, not knowing if it was going into their mouths or their noses.
It had started with Kim Si-baek’s good-natured suggestion: “We all worked hard together today, shall we have dinner together?” Behind him, Tae-un had glared at them with a look that said I’ll kill you if you join in without reading the room, but the moment Kim Si-baek looked back, his expression shifted to a beaming smile in the blink of an eye. Faced with Kim Si-baek’s gentle smile, the guild members were unable to refuse and were essentially forced into the restaurant.
‘I’m betting all my coins on the truth that Tae-un is a magical beast wearing a human shell.’
‘This is miserable… I was just threatened with death for no reason…’
‘My Tae-un-nim isn’t like this!’
Amidst the internal screams, Kim Si-baek’s hand brushed against the back of Tae-un’s hand as he worked hard to grill the meat. Tae-un’s earlobes turned a faint red.
“Ah, Hyung. That’s my ge—”
“Un-ah, if you bring up that word again, I’m moving out of your house.”
“Yes.”
They were even living together. The Guild Master seriously fiddled with her phone.
‘…Should I liquidate my stocks before the rumors spread further?’
✽ ✽ ✽
There have been two instances where divine power, not of this earth, influenced District 0-C of the Daejeon barrier.
The first was immediately after Kim Si-baek returned, while he was hunting magical beasts.
And today.
The first surge of divine power had struck briefly and vanished, but the second was different. The apostle hunted magical beasts for half a day, and they were offered as sacrifices to the god. In a world where divinity barely existed, a grand current swirled briefly, even if only in a very small area.
It was a current sufficient to awaken a fragment that was antithetical to divine power.
A man of indeterminate age opened his eyes. As he slowly blinked and looked around, his gaze shifted from confusion to gradual surprise, and finally, to shock.
Eyes with pitch-black sclera mirrored a strange light in bewilderment.
“…Where is this?”
A bizarre world where almost no divinity could be felt unfolded before him.
✽ ✽ ✽
Kim Si-baek was an extremely rational man, but when it came to Tae-un, his brain was playing in a flower garden. This was because his instincts and soul constantly rejected the rational fact that Tae-un was a grown adult of thirty-five.
Even for him, a concern had developed at some point. Though he hadn’t shown it to Tae-un.
Since Tae-un had experienced the Great Cataclysm at fourteen, it was obvious that his puberty must have been tumultuous.
Passing through such a rough puberty, did my boy establish a proper concept of sexuality? What if he didn’t? Was that why he carelessly used words like slang or erogenous zones? In fact, hadn’t he suffered so much that he grew nearly fifty centimeters during puberty?
[Death and Beauty narrows its eyes, wondering what the hardships of puberty and growing taller have to do with each other.]
How much must he have suffered for his height to increase that much?
[Death and Beauty repeatedly points out that there is no causal relationship between the two.]
Anyway, he suffered.
Feeling deeply sorry, Kim Si-baek patted the cheek of Tae-un, who must have experienced the storm and stress of puberty several times over. Far from being surprised by the sudden skinship, Tae-un smiled softly and rubbed his cheek against the hand.
“Eat plenty. Oh, do you have a computer at home?”
“What for?”
“I need it to study the world. There’s a limit to learning only through the TV.”
“Isn’t it more convenient to search on a phone?”
Kim Si-baek, who had used the excuse of studying to hide his true intentions, wore an awkward expression.
“My typing is too slow…”
“Did you forget how to use a keyboard?”
“Couldn’t I manage it if I use the rabbit typing method?”
“It’s called eagle typing, not rabbit.”
“Ah, right.”
Tae-un, having finished his meal, put down his spoon and chuckled.
“There’s a laptop in the study, so take it and use it. There’s no password.”
“You didn’t save any porn on the laptop, did you?”
It was a calculated joke, intended to appropriately counter the inappropriate lines Tae-un occasionally chattered. However…
“Even if I watch it, I don’t get hard.”
“Uh…”
Kim Si-baek, failing to get the upper hand, felt a slight pang of regret. He chewed on his chopsticks, frowning, and asked cautiously.
“I mean, it’s not like you have… absolutely no reaction, right?”
In a way, this was as big a problem as the slang. If the boy he had raised so carefully had a sexual dysfunction and couldn’t date women properly, resolving his sexual desire through his mouth… his thoughts quickly spiraled toward the profound need to correct a distorted sexual concept.
Tae-un leaned forward, resting both arms on the table. His slanted gaze met Kim Si-baek’s as he chewed his last bite of food, and his eyes narrowed slyly. A subtle whisper flowed out.
“Do you want to check and teach me, Hyung?”
Kim Si-baek’s expression hardened seriously. As expected, there was clearly a profound problem with his sexual concepts.
After swallowing his food and rinsing his mouth with water, he interlaced his fingers.
“You couldn’t get a proper education at school because of the magical beasts, right? Even so, I think it would have been difficult for the priests or nuns to tell you.”
“Eh?”
“It’s late, but Hyung will teach you. You mentioned nocturnal emissions last time, and seeing as you used the word ‘hard,’ you at least know how the male organ reacts in certain situations, right?”
“Yeees…”
And so, a one-on-one sex education lecture for a thirty-five-year-old man began at the breakfast table.
“Why did Un-i run away…?”
[Death and Beauty makes a pathetic face, wondering if he really doesn’t know why.]
“…?”
[Death and Beauty shakes its head.]
Sex education is important… It’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. He’ll just have to continue next time. Before that, he felt he should take him to a urologist, so he’d have to persuade him that it’s nothing to be ashamed of or hide.
While deep in serious thought, he struggled to type on the laptop keyboard using the eagle method. 7777… Guild… Mas… ter… Tae… un… girl… frien… d… does… he… have… one…
Search results popped up in a stream. Compared to his vague memories of the past, portal sites had become complicated in many ways. In fact, he hadn’t even known which icon to click to open the internet browser, so Biyendwe had searched on the phone and told him.
He diligently scanned through categories like blogs, news, shopping, and cafes.
‘Tae-un lookalike? Boyfriend pic? What does this mean?’
Since unrelated content appeared indiscriminately as long as the words were associated, Kim Si-baek wandered for twenty minutes before finally giving up.
[Death and Beauty scolds him, asking why he doesn’t just ask directly.]
“I wouldn’t know how to comfort him if he confessed that he was dumped by his girlfriend because he couldn’t get hard…”
[Death and Beauty suffers, reminding him that the man is thirty-five, not five.]
Even when hit with a fact, Kim Si-baek remained unfazed. As expected, it was impossible to find out about Tae-un’s relationship problems caused by an inappropriately formed sexual concept through an internet search.
‘He must have had a girlfriend, right?’
There was no way an adult like Tae-un would still harbor the raw emotions of a fourteen-year-old. Kim Si-baek looked down at his hand, which Tae-un still frequently clung to and touched.
He could still feel the touch of a child. Kim Si-baek clenched his hand as if to gather that sensation.