*
The fallen log at the foot of the ridge overlooking the farm made a perfect bench.
Gru and Siwon sat side by side, gazing toward the farm, while Serhi leaned against the log beside them with his arms folded.
Siwon blushed and smiled shyly.
“Master Uncle showed us his embarrassing side.”
“Don’t cry, Master Uncle.”
“Did being tied together as a family make you feel so awful you had to cry?”
“Of course not! Not at all!”
When Siwon sprang to his feet, the startled Serhi jerked his shoulders.
“Uh… I understand.”
“Actually, I liked it.”
Siwon lowered his eyes and gave a small laugh.
“I don’t have a family, you see.”
“Master Uncle doesn’t have a family either?”
At Gru’s question, Siwon fixed his gaze on the distance.
“Hmm. My parents died when I was young. I had younger siblings, but my little brother died in an accident at the orphanage…”
Siwon’s voice trailed off, and he stared quietly at Serhi as if remembering something.
“Zhenya!”
The voice of his little sibling toddling toward him echoed in his ears.
“Zhenya. Eat this potato. I saved it for you.”
Whenever he returned after finishing a hard day’s labor, his little sibling would be waiting at the doorway beneath the setting sun.
The child would carefully save the food from his ration and secretly give it to him.
When Yevgeny hugged his little sibling tightly and rose to his feet, his younger sister Irina would stand not far away with her hands clasped behind her back, watching him and their sibling.
“Ira. Have you eaten anything?”
“I don’t like you working until so late.”
“There you go again. Come here. I’ll give you a hug.”
Whenever he opened his arms, Irina would come running into them.
His younger siblings, small enough to fit in his arms together, were Yevgeny’s beloved burden and a responsibility that brought him joy.
After their parents died, the orphanage that took in the three siblings was not a good place.
A poor country, a poor city. The government ran the nation haphazardly, and the country only grew weaker, while the number of orphans continued to rise.
In such a country, the orphanage director’s emotionless gaze—at an institution operated recklessly under the government’s tacit approval—always filled the children with fear.
Within the orphanage, the rumor that “the children will be sold anywhere if someone offers enough money” was accepted as truth.
It was a time when the only salvation in that unstable environment was the comfort of having one another.
During the day, they went outside and did whatever odd jobs they could find. At night, they studied.
Yevgeny Markov was so diligent that everyone praised him.
The reason he could become that way was so he could get his sister and little brother out of that place. His family was the only thing he wanted to protect.
Then his little brother slipped and fell by the river, suffering an accident. It happened not long after the Cataclysm.
Because it was such a chaotic time, they could not even find the body.
He had no choice but to somehow overcome the crushing grief of that loss. He still had Irina.
Even afterward, the number of children in the orphanage continued to grow, and just as he was becoming familiar with their faces, they would disappear somewhere.
He only learned what had become of those children after becoming an intelligence operative with the Intelligence Bureau.
That was also when he learned the truth about the accident that had befallen his younger brother.
Suddenly, Serhi asked,
“What about your other sibling?”
“Ah, my sister…”
Siwon continued in a low voice.
“How should I put it? I suppose you could say we weren’t on good terms.”
He was not sure whether it was right to describe their relationship with such a mild expression as “not being on good terms.”
“Zhenya, if you truly want to protect this country, this is your only chance.”
Yevgeny Markov would regret for the rest of his life that he had been unable to kill his sister that day.
“Shoot me and prove it, Zhenya. If you think this place is worth protecting, even if it means killing your only family, then show me. Will you?”
Even now, perhaps he was living in fear every day because he could not kill her, because, just as back then, he might be unable to protect anything.
Yevgeny could not shoot Irina.
Because of that failure, Irina started a civil war, and countless people killed one another.
A woman crying as she held a child, the sound of military boots, the sound of bullets, the sound of sirens.
Some moments are etched so deeply into the mind that they can never be forgotten.
“Please… save me, sir.”
Whenever he remembered the hand of the child who had crawled toward him, begging for mercy, Yevgeny felt as if he would suffocate beneath the guilt that he was the one who had brought about that nightmare.
Ironically, it was the dungeon that Irina opened artificially that brought the horrific civil war to an end.
Almost everyone who had started the civil war died in the Dungeon Break.
The small country where he had lived was destroyed by the civil war and the Dungeon Break.
Siwon began hunting Gnosis and pursuing them all as an act of atonement.
At the very moment he vowed to kill every Gnosis in the world, the system seemed to answer him by granting him the skill ‘Barrett’s Whisper.’
Thus, Siwon hunted and killed countless Gnosis, following Irina’s trail all the way to Korea, where he sought asylum.
He had entered this dungeon for the same reason: to follow the trail of a Gnosis.
‘I never expected the skill to be restricted, though.’
‘Barrett’s Whisper’ did not work here. By sheer luck, he had found and killed all the mannequin troops that the Gnosis had hidden away, but he did not know how long his luck would last.
He was not afraid of death, but he was afraid of failing to fulfill his duty.
Because this time, he had to kill Irina.
She had once been the meaning of his life, but now she remained only as a heavy, terrifying burden.
Siwon took a piece of candy from his pocket. It was something the merchant had given him as a bonus.
“Gru, do you want some candy?”
The child’s eyes shone like stars as he nodded.
“What about Serhi?”
“No, thanks.”
Serhi replied curtly and turned his head away.
“It looks like it tastes bad.”
Siwon gave a small laugh as he looked at the two of them, who were so different.
It was true that he was glad the beastfolk had tied them together as a family.
Before he knew it, he had begun secretly enjoying this bizarre arrangement of living together.
Until then, he had led a joyless life hunting Gnosis.
‘Barrett’s Whisper’ was both a blessing and a curse. Reading the information of countless people without end left him unable to relax for even a moment.
That was why this instant felt even sweeter.
Wasn’t it all right to enjoy this sort of feeling—a prickly yet adorable younger sibling and a lovely, precious daughter?
Thinking of the time he had spent with his younger siblings, now so distant that it felt like a dream, when they had still been small enough to fit in his arms, Siwon held out a piece of unwrapped candy.
“Ah—”
“Ahh—”
Gru clamped his mouth around the carrot candy Siwon had unwrapped for him.
‘It really does taste awful!’
Perhaps he had read Gru’s expression when the child opened his mouth with a grimace, because Serhi gave a sidelong snort of laughter.
Siwon tried a piece of the candy himself, then soon smiled pleasantly and said,
“This is delicious.”
“…?”
“…?”
Serhi and Gru both turned their heads toward Siwon.
‘So that’s why he carries red ginseng candy around…’
Gru rolled the candy from one cheek to the other before suddenly speaking.
“But we’re all different. How can you think of us as family?”
Their species were different, their ages and genders did not match, and they even had different tastes in candy.
“Because I’m fucking free of prejudice?”
When Siwon smiled at Serhi once more with a face straight out of a thriller, Serhi averted his gaze and fell silent.
“There are many different forms of family.”
“The guild master said it was forced for herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs to become family.”
“Did she?”
Siwon gave a small laugh when Gru said that he had suddenly gotten sulky while being read a picture book.
“Why did she get so grouchy?”
“Dunno.”
Siwon thoughtfully stroked his chin.
Come to think of it, judging by what Gru had said, On Jurim did not seem to know that Gru had entered the dungeon on his own, either.
“Didn’t you say you went to Onion Market to find your mother and father?”
“Yeees.”
“Because you wanted to see your biological parents?”
“Yes! I’m gonna tell Mom and Dad to live together with me.”
“I see. Then does Guild Master On know about that?”