HG Ch 35

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[SYSTEM] Armor made from the scales of the fallen Cheongryong. [SYSTEM] A special item that submits to its first wearer.

Maybe because Eunho was the main quest participant, the armor had dropped right in front of him, but picking it up as if he’d been waiting for it felt a bit awkward. This was the raid Yoon Iseo had grinded through, after all… and his own contribution was zero.

And no matter how he looked at it, this armor seemed like an item for a tank or an assassin. Its defense bonus was high, and its weight was heavy. After examining the item for a while, Eunho turned to Yoon Iseo.

“Would you like to have it? I think you’d be able to make much better use of it than I would, Hyung-nim.”

Honestly, the design looked really cool, so it felt like a waste, but what use was someone else’s class gear to him, no matter how good it was? Eunho decided to hand it over with style.

Ah, but the more he looked at it, the cooler it seemed. That sleek, black armor… Yoon Iseo, unaware of how much regret Eunho felt as he gave it up, joked.

“Ah… So this is your way of telling me to survive on my own from now on?”

“Come on, I’ll really work hard in the next raid, so please stop teasing me.”

“Really? I’m looking forward to it. Then I’ll wear this and tank properly next time, alright?”

The words that followed, spoken so calmly, sounded nice to Eunho’s ears.

“Oh.”

Well, with a ranged DPS and a melee DPS, it was only natural that the melee had to take the hits. Eunho was a fragile glass-cannon burst-DPS^[1] who hadn’t invested much into HP stats. Seeing Eunho look genuinely tempted, Yoon Iseo curled his lips.

“In the next raid, we’ll finally get to experience what a co-op game feels like.”

A co-op game, he said. Suddenly, Eunho felt a rush of emotion.

Come to think of it, the two of them had already run three dungeons and raids together, yet not once had they actually cooperated. That’s right. This was a co-op game, and they were partners (though the game tried to frame them as lovers, Eunho absolutely refused to accept that). But how could a two-person party be this out of sync…

“Since it was Cheongryong this time, the other Four Guardian Beasts should appear too, right? Jujak^[2], Baekho^[3], and so on…”

“Yeah, and once we purify all the Four Guardian Beasts, it’s the ending.”

Suddenly, Eunho’s chest swelled with excitement.

“Then we’ve finished one-fourth already!”

Finally, the end was in sight. If they just kept going step by step like this, they could get out. Eunho was overcome with emotion when—

“It’s not over yet.”

The moment Yoon Iseo spoke bitterly, the lush trees within the field began to wither rapidly. Startled, Eunho looked around. As if time had suddenly sped up only in that area, the bright green leaves turned crimson, then golden, before shriveling and crumbling away. Even the trunks of the trees were left gaunt and bare.

In an instant, the once life-filled field became desolate, its surroundings drained of color. A rancid stench settled thick in the air.

But the life energy hadn’t completely vanished. Tiny wildflowers no bigger than a thumbnail, even including their stems, had suddenly bloomed and begun to spread, dotting the ground.

“What is this?”

Only beneath the feet of Eunho and Yoon Iseo.

What kind of effect was this? When the flustered Eunho stepped around here and there, the little flowers withered rapidly again, only to bloom once more beneath his feet alone. The sight was so mysterious and amusing that Eunho began wandering about like a puppy in the snowfield.

Yoon Iseo watched him with sunken eyes. It was the gaze of someone who had already given up on something.

“…Alright, if you’re done being amazed, let’s go. We need to clear the quest properly.”

“Uh, where are we supposed to go, and what else do we have to do?”

“We have to go give birth and have a child.”

For a moment, Yoon Iseo’s voice was so calm that the insane content didn’t register properly. Eunho nearly answered, ‘Ah, I see. Now it’s time to have a child. Alright, let’s go,’ before snapping back to his senses in shock.

“What? A child? Why?”

Ding!

[SYSTEM] The chain quest, “The Birth of a New Cheongryong,” has begun. [SYSTEM] With Cheongryong gone, the life energy has also vanished, causing the land to wither rapidly. [SYSTEM] If the next generation’s Cheongryong does not appear, Tamna[4] will become a barren rock island without a trace of life. [SYSTEM] But there is a way. [SYSTEM] You and your lover have inherited Cheongryong’s final gift, the “Power of Life.” [SYSTEM] Spend a night together with your lover at a sacred place to welcome the next generation Cheongryong.

To an ordinary nineteen-year-old high schooler like Joo Eunho, this felt like a strangely indecent metaphor.

“What the hell is this? How are we supposed to have a child?! We can’t do that!”

But the system did not permit refusal.

Ding!

[SYSTEM] In 10 seconds, you will be automatically transported to the “Cheongryong Wondang (Shrine).”

“Aaahhh! No, I don’t want this!”

Yoon Iseo, on the other hand, seemed to have already accepted the situation. He closed his eyes as if enduring an ordeal, like a practitioner bracing himself under a waterfall, and simply waited for the automatic teleportation. Even Eunho, who had been about to accuse him with thoughts like, Did this old man already know about this and secretly look forward to it? found himself subdued and solemn in front of that figure.

The field distorted. In an instant, the two of them stood side by side in front of a bedroom, where a pair of mandarin-duck-patterned pillows lay neatly and crimson silk bedding was spread out.

Ding!

[Main Quest: The Birth of a New Cheongryong (In Progress)] [SYSTEM] Time of Prayer (23:59:59)

“……”

“……”

“……”

“……”

Locked inside a silence so unbearably awkward, the first to surrender once again was Eunho. Overwhelmed by extreme stress, he paced back and forth in the narrow room like a caged wild animal, repeating a fixed behavior, then shouted loudly.

“Let’s draw a line between us!”

“…Really? You seriously want us to act out some outdated cliché straight out of an old romance story? If your goal was to make the atmosphere even more awkward, then great idea.”

Yoon Iseo pressed hard against the corners of his eyes as he spoke. No, rather than speaking, it was more accurate to call it verbal punches.

Eunho grimaced from being beaten down by words.

“But, Hyung-nim, you have a record.”

“A record? Ah… You mean when I kissed you?”

Even though he had been the one to bring it up, Eunho shrieked instead.

“Don’t call it a kiss!”

“Fine, then. That thing I tried, aiming for ■ to happen to you.”

That damn filtering. Eunho frowned and pulled up the “Vow of a Hundred Years” list to check Yoon Iseo’s affection level again.

[Vow of a Hundred Years: d20524] [SYSTEM] Status Message: Status cannot be viewed due to insufficient affection level. [SYSTEM] Affection level: F*cking 18

The affection level seemed to exist for no other reason than to show Yoon Iseo’s shitty mood, nothing more and nothing less. It never changed by even a little. While staring at that curse, the turbulence in Eunho’s heart calmed somewhat.   

“Since we have this time to spend together, let’s actually talk things out. Clear up some misunderstandings we’ve built up, huh? That way, we can trust each other until the ending.”

“Your babbling is getting worse…”

“You think I want to do this? There’s no window in here, I’m going crazy from the discomfort.”

Eunho was the type who got even more talkative when trapped in a small space with someone else. He would drag out every bit of extroversion he might use in the future to act lively, and then not leave the house for the next six months.

“Anything important we say will get filtered anyway. So what, you’re suggesting we just exchange jokes? Or maybe you’ll stubbornly try to beat the filtering, push too hard, and blow your head apart?”

Yoon Iseo, on the other hand, was the type who said what he had to say regardless of whether others were dying of discomfort, and if he had nothing to say, he simply kept silent. Their temperaments could not have clashed more.

After Eunho finished speaking, Yoon Iseo walked over wearily and sat down on the mandarin-duck-patterned bedding. The sight of him sitting there was so much like a groom awaiting his wedding night that Eunho shuddered and pressed himself flat against the farthest corner of the room.

“Then at least let’s sort out what we can handle. Look. That time, the mouth… that was…”

“I was trying to escape quickly.”

“But you failed.”

“Yeah.”

“And when you drove me to the brink of death, that was also you trying something and failing…”

“Why did you suddenly stop?”

‘Because I got pissed all of a sudden, you bastard. You fail at everything. Just stop doing anything at all…’ Eunho couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, so he took a deep breath and continued.

“Forget it, next issue. When you look at me, does your heart race, or do you ever think you want to be with me forever…?”

“……”

“…What? What is it?”

“Sometimes when you say things like that so confidently, it pisses me off so much my heart does race. If it gets worse, I might mistake it for love, so do something about that mouth of yours.”

“Don’t say things like that so carelessly! Words have power!”

“Yeah, and every time you act like this, my heart races.”

“Fine, fine, I won’t do it anymore.”

Then suddenly, Eunho narrowed his eyes and began staring at Yoon Iseo.

“What now?”

Yoon Iseo asked, looking half resigned.

Eunho carefully began to speak.

“…This is kind of a sensitive issue, but if I don’t ask now, I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance. And if I keep doubting, it might become the cause of a big conflict later.”

Growing impatient at Eunho’s excessive caution, Yoon Iseo cut him off.

“Just get to the point. Okay?”

“Hyung-nim…”

And then Eunho, like a protagonist who had finally uncovered a hidden truth, asked, “You’re not… something like the ‘system’ of this game, are you?”