You Have to Live

In the span of a few blinks, Han Gyeol was already above the monster's head, drawing the sword from his hip.

Tzt-tzt-tzt! No blade showed above the hilt. A beat later, lightning tore up from the grip—and that lightning was the sword.

He swung it as it was, a terrible, thrashing bolt.

The blast landed with a roar that split the air. Heat slammed outward. Wind. Smoke.

Clean hit. Anything that takes a strike like that, ordinarily...

What came next made me doubt my eyes.

Chee-ik. Chee-eek. Bweee—!

The unpleasant music that had stalled picked up a faster tempo, and the monster shoved through the black smoke and showed itself. My heart dropped straight through the floor.

"Oh, shit."

Kk-kk-kik. The chains pinning the thing groaned under the strain, then—tang! tang!—snapped.

The crystals clustered along the chandelier monster's underside began to spin at vicious speed, and soon they were chewing the surroundings apart like a drill. Then it came for me.

"Block it!"

At Gyeol's order, the team's attacks poured in—wind like blades, flashing bursts of light, flame—and behind them, the supporters holding the line.

My body lifted with a rush of air, and Gyeol's face filled my view. He'd caught me with a movement skill. That brat. Son of the Clouds really was absurdly fast. I was jealous. Why didn't I have a single mobility skill like that...

KUUUNG!!

As if our teammates' attacks weren't landing at all, the monster drove straight through and obliterated the spot where I'd been standing a moment before. If it hadn't been Han Gyeol, I would have been ground into paste.

"Damn it! Team Leader! Nothing's landing!! Blazing Flame Whip!!"

Yeom Tae-gyu roared, blasting a dragon-fierce gout of fire from his hands.

I have to read its attack pattern. Same as always. Figure it out first, and put a strategy on the table. I can do this.

Still held aloft in Gyeol's arms, I locked my eyes on the monster taking our team's hits and picked its form and pattern apart, relentless.

D-rank or not, there was one thing I did better than anyone. Pattern analysis. Finding the weak point. Steering a fight onto the most efficient path.

They could treat me like luggage. They could sneer that I only stood here on an S-rank Hunter's connections. This was why I could stand beside Han Gyeol without shame.

"Gyeol, it's got tentacles. The pattern isn't locked in yet, but we should drag this out with ranged attacks as much as we can."

Through the barrage I caught tentacles writhing inside the chandelier and laid it out for him at once.

"Things like that are dangerous just by having you inside tentacle range. Let's run the Type B play we use on tentacled types. And from what I'm seeing, it flinches a lot harder when we hit the center of the tentacle roots. Good odds that's the weak point."

"R-9! Fall back!!"

Han Gyeol barked the order to the team without missing a beat.

He was team leader, but in the two of us I was usually the one driving, and Gyeol never brushed off my read.

"I'll use Eye of Insight. Confirm the weak point at range, land a debuff with Ominous Premonition, then hit it again the moment it—"

I never finished. A chill crawled up my spine, and my ears twitched on instinct. For a heartbeat it felt like slow motion in a film. It wasn't. It happened in a flash.

The huge monster that had been far off was suddenly pressed right up behind us.

Teleportation? That massive thing, through the air.

My thoughts raced. This distance was fatal. It was aimed dead at us, and the tentacles that had been squirming beneath the crystals burst outward like an explosion.

The attack itself looked simple. It was just too fast. A strike driving straight into Han Gyeol's back—and I was watching it head-on over his shoulder.

The trajectory drew itself in an instant.

This one was going to land clean.

I couldn't hesitate. I think I moved on instinct.

The best choice I had, wrung out of my soul.

I shoved Han Gyeol in midair and cast Oppressive Chains, hauling him down to the floor.

It lasted only a moment, but my reaction had been faster than an S-rank Hunter's. I'd probably be bragging about that for the rest of my life.

"Ha-jun...!!"

Shwaaak!

I saw the shock on his face, and then a sharp sensation punched through my whole body.

I had no skill that could hold me in the air, and yet I hung there. I dropped my gaze and found something black run clean through my stomach.

It was thicker than a man's forearm. The unreality of it tugged at the corner of my mouth. I'd known it would go like this.

Puchaaak! In the next instant the black thorn ripped back out of me, and I fell with nothing to catch me.

That's wrong. Teleportation? A skill like that, out of nowhere? Then again, we'd never seen this monster before. And in this miserable dungeon, too many things already spit on the laws of physics. You can't predict an attack like that. Fighting something like this with no warning... Still, the tentacle strike itself is simple. Watch for the teleport and we're fine. Have Damage Team Two cover the rear, and then—

Thud. Something caught me, soft and sure. Han Gyeol, most likely.

We were still linked by Soulmate, and that familiar warmth settled over me like a comfort.

"Eun Ha-jun!!"

Beee—.

A ringing filled my ears, and hideous pain shut my thoughts down. Something felt different from usual. Ominous.

My vision blurred all at once.

"Eun Ha-jun!!"

"Khk—!"

When his voice dragged my eyes open again, I hoped we were in a hospital room.

All of it over. Thank God. You did well. That kind of talk, passing back and forth.

Did I black out for a second?

The dungeon around us hadn't changed much. It was still a killing ground.

Only the monster behind Gyeol had changed. It lay collapsed, venting black steam—half driven into the earth, half broken in two. Maybe both.

"...Whoa. You actually finished it. Man, our team leader really is something else. That was cool."

"Why did you do that! Why!!"

"Aigoo... why are you yelling? We got it, didn't we?"

His shout left my ears ringing.

God. He really was incredible.

Right. Gyeol must have used Excessive Avenger.

A skill that paid back damage taken several times over. Linked to me through Soulmate, it would have converted the damage I'd taken into counter-damage as well, and that counter was calculated as a percentage of the victim. Because I'd been hit hard enough to die, the return blow would have swollen into something monstrous...

He'd almost never been able to use it before.

He hated building damage that way. He'd always thrown himself in front of anything coming for me, no matter what.

Fair enough. More than ten years as a Hunter, and I was still basically made of paper. Standing next to an S-rank like Han Gyeol, my life had always hung by a thread. He had to watch me constantly. In every sense of the word...

Even so, this time the skill must have done real work against that terrifying new monster. Finally.

Good.

I'd been useful.

"Ha-jun... Eun Ha-jun! Don't die. You can't die. I already radioed, and a healer will be here any—"

He called a healer? We had a healer on the team.

Why radio out separately? And now that I looked—not a single teammate had gathered around us. If the team leader's mind was this far gone, somebody should have been looking after him.

"Gyeol... where is our team?"

"Like I give a damn."

"...You kidding me? You're the team leader."

I wanted to flick him on the forehead for that shameless answer, but my body wouldn't move at all.

Worse, whatever was spilling out of the radio in his hand didn't sound hopeful. Static and screams kept breaking through, one after another. A healer. A rescue. Neither of those was coming, was it?

The hands holding me up were shaking hard. He couldn't grip me properly and couldn't let go, fidgeting, lost. If he kept that up, I was going to get scared too.

Was I dying?

"Why did you... why would you do that... why..."

Yeah. Why had I? Me, without a single proper defensive skill. Why.

Why had I done it? Hadn't there been a better way?

If I'd noticed a little sooner, if I'd cast a little faster, could I have kept from shoving him and still gotten both of us clear? I'd lost too much blood. The numbers wouldn't come together.

Had there been a way for us to win this together?

I only blinked, stupidly.

"Why instead of me..."

"...You're my family. The only family I've got."

I fumbled the words out. However far gone I was, that wasn't nonsense. In this world, Han Gyeol was the only family I had. And Han Gyeol was—

The pitch-black eyes on mine crumpled all at once.

"Even so, we're strangers."

Thud. My heart felt like it dropped, and his words rang through my skull like an echo.

"We don't even share blood, so why throw your life away! Why die in my place!"

I didn't think I'd seen him this angry in a long time.

He wasn't wrong, of course. By DNA, we were complete strangers. But even without blood, couldn't people still be family?

Hearing him call us strangers hurt.

I was dying, and that was what stung.

"What does a little blood matter between us... khlk!"

I coughed, and blood poured out. At the same moment Han Gyeol's face went deathly white. I was the one actually dying.

Ah. So this really was it. It didn't even hurt anymore. I was just unbearably cold. And a lot more scared than I'd expected.

"Koff— khk!"

"Hah— Ha-jun. Stop. Stop talking. No, wait, if you talk, maybe you won't pass out? What do I do? What am I supposed to do? I don't know, Ha-jun. You can't die. Please... you have to tell me..."

Aigoo. An S-rank Awakener, a Hunter, leader of a whole team, and his nerves were shredded to bits.

What was he planning to do like that? He really did know how to make a person anxious, in his own quiet way. Yeah. Han Gyeol got like this sometimes. Always strong, always steady—and then this. I tried to squeeze out something that might settle him. Nothing useful came. Only foolish murmuring.

"Yeah... it's all right, Gyeol..."

"Why did this happen... why..."

"Yeah. It's okay..."

My eyes closed, and my mind drifted far away. Han Gyeol kept asking why, over and over, like a chant.

Why, he said. Why...

Because when my life was at its darkest, he had been my light, and my pillar.

Because when I was coldest and loneliest, he had always stayed.

Because he was my dearest friend, the one I would never have again, and the last family I had left.

Because he had always saved me.

Because, just once, I had wanted to save him.

I wanted to say all of that, but my mouth truly would not open anymore.

Still... I wanted to see you get married. See you have a kid.

A system window flickered in front of my eyes. This was bad. I'd filled a lot of it, but the rate still wasn't enough. I had no idea what was coming next. And I couldn't analyze any of it for Gyeol anymore.

Could Han Gyeol manage on his own without me?

Yeah. Of course he could. He probably would.

He was strong. He had to be.

Han Gyeol... you have to live. You have to survive.

And like that, I died.

"Hey, Eun Ha-jun!"

"...Yeah?"

I barely got my eyes open against a blinding glare. No—I couldn't open them. It was so bright I thought my eyeballs would burst. Was this heaven?

And then I heard something that nearly made them pop out of my head.

"What are you doing? You've got work."

"...What?"