The S-Classes That I Raised – Chapter 855

Chapter 855: To Han Yujin (2)

It felt like an old dream.

The kind of dream bleached white by time, distant and achingly missed.

The flowering branches swayed in the wind with the soft rustle of blankets fluffed beneath the sun. Falling blossoms brushed gently over the backs of my hands, my shoulders, my cheeks and forehead.

I couldn’t run to him.

I stood frozen beneath the rain of flowers. My eyes blinked slowly, taking in the figure beyond the fluttering petals. Whenever the blossoms came pouring down in a sudden cascade, his form blurred into white, then emerged clear again.

Black hair.

Black eyes.

A faint smile resting on his lips.

He held a branch of white blossoms in one hand. Over the hand larger than mine, I saw another layered like a memory – the tiny hand that had once been smaller than mine.

The child’s hand I had never been able to let go.

“…Yuhyun.”

It took me a long time to force the name past my lips.

“Han Yuhyun!”

I moved the feet that had seemed rooted to the ground.

Once I took that first step, there was no hesitation left in me. No more faltering.

I stepped on the petals piled where snow had once lain and kicked hard against the ground. The force of it swept the fallen flowers upward, sending them whirling into the air once more.

I ran toward the impossibly distant white tree, toward the place where the scent of plum blossoms hung thick in the air.

The gaze fixed unwaveringly on me drew closer and closer.

I let out a long breath. My running steps slowed. Soon I was almost walking.

One step.

Then another.

And then I stopped.

“Hyung.”

Just as he had once before, Yuhyun held out a branch of white blossoms.

I accepted the plum branch with trembling fingertips.

“Welcome back.”

Yuhyun spoke with quiet warmth, as though he had always known I would come looking for him. As though I had merely left home that morning and returned at sunset.

There were so many things I wanted to say that I couldn’t say any of them.

I looked down at the plum blossoms in full bloom in my hand. Not a single snowflake rested upon them. They were simply warm and gentle.

This place stood at the heart of spring.

“…Yeah.”

I smiled.

“Thank you.”

I lifted my eyes from the flowering branch and looked at my brother.

Yuhyun smiled back.

It felt as though I could stand there gazing at him forever and never grow bored. As though simply looking at each other would be enough to make me happy for as long as time continued.

But there were things I needed to understand.

I needed to know what all of this meant.

“The Snowfall Tree… The Origin.”

A being of unimaginable power, yet one with whom communication had been impossible.

And yet, in the distant future, it had possessed the mind and form of a sentient being.

“It was a child that hadn’t been born yet.”

Yuhyun gave a small nod.

“That’s right. An egg that hadn’t hatched. An immature fetus that had never opened its eyes.”

Of course we hadn’t been able to speak to it.

It hadn’t even been born.

The little white bird pattered across the bed of petals. He selected the loveliest blossom he could find, took it in his beak, then fluttered into the air.

– We Origins possessed only the instinct to grow so that we could be born. Each Origin’s world was like an enormous egg. We absorbed the nourishment inside that egg so that we could eventually hatch.

“And that nourishment was the worlds we lived in. It was us.”

– Yes. We had no mature beings to provide nourishment for us. So we created it ourselves. Countless worlds inside the egg, and the sentient beings that flourished within them. No one taught us how to do it. The worlds came into existence through the natural instinct to survive.

The Origins had borne us no malice.

It was similar to the way we raised plants and animals for food.

And by the same token, there was nothing wrong with us resisting.

Neither side had been evil.

Both had simply been trying to live.

“We called ourselves Filial Duty Addicts and Unfilial Children. Turns out we’d gone and made a baby that hadn’t even been born yet into our parent.”

Though it was true that the Origin was our creator.

Chirp landed on top of my head and tucked the blossom he had been carrying into my hair.

– I’m a birthday present too, Dad.

“Thank you, Chirp.”

Apparently deciding one flower wasn’t enough, he flew off again. He caught one of the blossoms spiraling through the air, returned, and burrowed into my hair to shove that one in as well.

That was plenty, really.

“Then… if we stopped the destruction caused by the Origins, you would have starved. And the number of worlds the Origins created gradually decreased because you weren’t getting enough to… eat.”

– Yes. But the greatest reason the Origins grew weak was Crescent Moon’s Cradles.

“Crescent Moon’s Cradles?”

“Transcendents who were born by devouring their own worlds, instead of accumulating effort, experience, and time for themselves,” Yuhyun explained.

“Even if an Origin is prevented from harvesting it, a world will eventually reach its end. The power that returns to the Origin is much smaller than what it would have gained from harvesting the world at the proper time, but some of it still goes back.”

“…But when Transcendents devour their worlds, they seize all that power for themselves.”

“That’s right. The earliest Transcendents didn’t devour their own worlds. That includes the ancient Transcendents you know – Young Chaos and the Mermaid Queen, of course, but also the King of Harmless and even Crescent Moon.”

– Crescent Moon wanted to increase the number of Transcendents quickly, so she persuaded those with potential to devour their own worlds.

Rookie had said as much.

– She also planted seeds that could eventually grow into Transcendents.

Park Hayul had been one such seed.

“Crescent Moon – the Wish Moon – had realized at least part of the truth. She might not have known that the Origins were unborn children, but she must have known they weakened whenever a Transcendent devoured a world.”

“…And since that helped her carry out her plan, she must have worked even harder to fill her Cradles.”

She could create Transcendents to assist her while simultaneously weakening the Origin she would one day need to eliminate.

Two birds with one stone.

“But if the Origins grew so weak that they died altogether, the worlds probably wouldn’t survive unscathed either… So that’s why she created a Pseudo–Origin. Seong Hyunjae.”

Chirp shoved what had to be his fifth or sixth blossom against my ear.

Please don’t put it inside my ear canal.

– The White Bird met the future version of me. That allowed her to establish a connection with me even before I was born. Even then, however, we couldn’t truly communicate. She merely gained the ability to handle a tiny fraction of my power – the Origin’s power.

“Were you together, but not truly together?”

– She circled the tree, longing for me and singing to me, but her voice could not reach me. The White Bird thought and thought, searching for a way an Origin could be born without devouring every world.

And the answer she found was…

“A nurturer.”

– A nurturer.

Yuhyun and Chirp spoke at the same time.

A being who helped those under their care grow.

– Within the system, the Nurturer title was limited to charges of S-Rank or below.

“…I was told that a nurturer for a natural-born S-Rank only appears in the Fifth Origin’s world.”

– Yes. A nurturer for an Origin cannot appear from the beginning. The Origin is the creator of all beings, after all. So the White Bird first arranged for nurturers to appear for the beings closest to the Origin – the Origin-Rooted Ones.

I swallowed reflexively.

A nurturer for a natural-born S-Rank.

That meant…

“Was I… never an ordinary person to begin with? Was I created to love you, Yuhyun? To love an Origin-Rooted One?”

“No.”

“But the fact that the Nurturer title doesn’t appear in the other Origins’ worlds means… it wasn’t something that occurred naturally.”

The end of my sentence trembled faintly.

Yuhyun shook his head again.

“No. A nurturer can’t be created by force. And no one should ever try. But that doesn’t mean the White Bird did nothing. She scattered one single thing across the world.”

“One thing?”

“When an Origin-Rooted One was born, one person among those closely connected to them would be given a heart that did not fear them. Nothing more.”

“So the fact that I wasn’t afraid of you…”

“It applied only to that one Origin-Rooted One. You were still affected normally by every other Origin-Rooted One. Even where the White Bird’s power touched you, Hyung, it didn’t change who you were.”

That was true.

I had clearly felt the overwhelming pressure of other S-Ranks.

I suddenly remembered my Fear Resistance skill. It had been included in the title I received after defeating Lautitars, but perhaps the White Bird’s power within me had also influenced my ability to obtain it.

Yuhyun moved his fingertips lightly.

An illusion appeared before him.

The figures looked humanoid, though their species seemed slightly different from ours. A crib stood inside a bedroom. One of the two adults twisted their face in disgust.

[That thing is a monster!]

The words came out like a scream.

[How can you hold something like that as though it were a normal baby? You’re revolting too!]

One of them ran out.

The other remained behind, weeping as they stared at the infant. After a long struggle, they too fled the bedroom as though escaping from something dreadful.

“Even if one person doesn’t fear an Origin-Rooted One, they’re still alone. No one around them understands. Just as no one understood you. Very few endure all of that and remain the Origin-Rooted One’s nurturer.”

The illusion changed.

Someone stared coldly down at a young child.

The child neither cried nor smiled. Forget displays of affection – the strange creature barely reacted to anything at all.

“Being free of fear doesn’t erase the common sense that tells someone an Origin-Rooted One is abnormal. Origin-Rooted Ones who are especially far removed from humanity, like me, were never accepted.”

Yuhyun’s gaze settled on me.

“Not until you.”

“I was… just a kid. I didn’t really understand.”

Perhaps things would have been different if I had been Yuhyun’s parent instead of his brother.

I might not have been able to find him unconditionally adorable.

“The circumstances and environment happened to align. If even one thing had gone differently, you might not have been able to accept me.”

The illusions showing the nurturers of the past faded away.

Yuhyun looked directly into my eyes.

“But loving me and choosing to embrace me were entirely your decisions. You worried. You hesitated. You were afraid you would be abandoned. And after all of that, you made your choice.”

“…Right. I was… just me.”

The more I learned about the Transcendents and nurturers, the harder it had become to avoid doubt and fear.

Had I really loved Yuhyun as myself?

Or had someone created me for a specific purpose and compelled me to raise him?

What if Han Yujin himself had been born as nothing more than a nurturer?

“I could’ve continued to resent you. I could’ve lost interest when you never reacted to me. I could’ve simply gotten tired of looking after my little brother. I could’ve given up on you because I wanted Mom and Dad to love me.”

And those choices hadn’t existed only when we were children.

Again and again, throughout the years, I had been given the chance to choose something else.

A relieved smile spread across my face.

“At every one of those moments, I chose you of my own free will. Though even if the whole thing had been planned and arranged from the beginning, I’d still believe that my love for you was real.”

Even so, I was glad that, from beginning to end, Han Yujin had simply been Han Yujin.

– For the sake of what we hoped to achieve, Dad had to be ordinary. An F-Rank, a being whose level of existence was no different from an unawakened person. If someone like that could become the perfect nurturer of a natural-born S-Rank, then it might not be impossible for an Origin’s nurturer to appear.

“An Origin-Rooted One cannot become the nurturer of another Origin-Rooted One. In fact, anyone who possesses even the potential to awaken at mid-rank cannot become one. Origin-Rooted Ones are independent beings who do not share their domains, while anyone of mid-rank or above instinctively understands that they cannot withstand an Origin-Rooted One. Even if their fear is removed, they still can’t accept one.”

It had been possible because I was an F-Rank.

– Dad became the nurturer of fire. And fire made Dad his world.

“Was the A World of One title something the White Bird created too?”

– Yes. The White Bird scattered the power necessary for a nurturer of an Origin-Rooted One to appear, and in time she discovered the possibility that was Dad. Even then, the chance that Dad would become the Origin’s nurturer remained vanishingly small. So as a precaution, the White Bird gave a portion of her power to Gardener and had him create Lunar Eclipse, which would stop the Pseudo–Origin.

So that even if everything failed, the Origin itself could survive.

The little bird took flight and circled Yuhyun.

– No matter which future she observed, Han Yuhyun met an early death. The White Bird decided to place Han Yuhyun within the Origin in my stead.

“…That was possible? I mean, obviously it must have been, since you’re standing here now, but even if Yuhyun is an Origin-Rooted One close to pure fire, he’s still only the tiniest fragment compared to an Origin.”

– That is why a title was necessary. More precisely, it required a charge so completely devoted to their nurturer that such a title would manifest.

“I look only at you, Hyung. I belong to you alone. No one and nothing else can affect me. Only through you can I experience emotions, sensations – everything.”

– Han Yuhyun’s entire world is Dad. And Dad influences every part of Han Yuhyun.

White wings spread wide.

– And Dad is my nurturer.

Chirp.

The White Bird and the Snowfall Tree.

“I was… the nurturer of a being who had once been the Origin.”

– The White Bird pulled the future into the present. She drew in the future where Dad found a little bird, brought him home, and raised him. In exchange for all the time she had accumulated, she superimposed the future of Dad as my nurturer upon the moment when I was still the Origin.

“Because the future and present overlapped, you became the Snowfall Tree’s nurturer – the Origin’s nurturer – for a brief instant. At the same time, because my existence was completely influenced by yours, I gained the qualification to take the Origin’s place.”

That was how the White Bird had finally joined the Snowfall Tree.

She had sacrificed all the time she had accumulated, become a young chick, and come to me.

“Then… had you already become the Origin before Chirp came to me?”

“No. I only gained the qualification to act as a replacement for a brief moment. I was far too small and incomplete to establish myself as the Origin. At first, I merely occupied the empty position. I wasn’t even conscious. Had things remained that way, I wouldn’t have lasted long before disappearing.”

My heart plummeted at the word disappearing.

Chirp had once helped me come to this place before. At the time, however, only Yuhyun’s body had lain sleeping here. The tree hadn’t responded to me at all.

I lifted my head and looked at the white tree, now overflowing with blossoms.

“But now, you’re here like this.”

“It was you, Hyung.”

Yuhyun continued in a voice as gentle as a whisper.

“I was being swept away by the incomprehensible power of the Origin, and what held me together was your love for me. The power of a nurturer protecting his charge.”

“I… protected you.”

“When you learned of the existence of the twenty-five-year-old Han Yuhyun, I regained consciousness.”

When Rookie told me about the regression, I learned that I had left my brother behind.

When I fought Diarma, I learned that Yuhyun’s body remained there alone.

“When you came here looking for me, I was finally able to see you. I became capable of feeling and recognizing my own existence.”

So you had seen me through all that white snow.

“I was still Han Yuhyun, so I remained connected to the twenty-year-old Han Yuhyun as well. When you looked upon Han Yuhyun’s true nature and accepted it, I was accepted too. From that moment onward, I began to establish myself as the Origin.”

A hint of mischief entered Yuhyun’s smile.

“Do you remember the Nightmare Before Christmas dungeon?”

“Of course I… Wait. Don’t tell me that was you.”

The twenty-nine-year-old me and the twenty-four-year-old Yuhyun.

The two people who had remained behind inside the dungeon.

“You turned that dungeon into a world. That was you.”

“That’s right. Because you wanted it. At the time, I was still an immature and incomplete Origin, so I couldn’t do anything else. But creating worlds is an Origin’s instinctive life process. That was why I could at least transform a small dungeon into a world.”

The King of Harmless had said it then.

Only an Origin could turn a dungeon into a world.

So that was what had happened.

Because the Origin was Yuhyun, he had helped me.

He had helped the version of me trapped inside the dungeon.

My brother had never stopped…

“Each time you refused to forget me, each time you tried to find me again, I became more firmly established – both as myself and as the Origin.”

“…How could I ever forget you? Of course I kept looking. There was nothing remarkable about that.”

“And then you began to look inward.”

His eyes rested on me with boundless warmth.

“You accepted yourself. You forgave yourself. Then you went one step further and allowed everyone else to recognize you as well.”

“That was…”

“You never gave up. You kept walking forward. Every step you took continued to affect me. You began as the nurturer of a single natural-born S-Rank, but you met more people. You watched them, experienced life alongside them, and continued to move forward until…”

I remembered the people I had met.

One person.

Then two.

Then three.

More and more of them, until, at the end…

“You came to embrace your entire world. In time, you were accepted as the nurturer of a Pseudo–Origin – a being who possessed power equivalent to that of an Origin.”

Seong Hyunjae.

I had struggled to earn his acknowledgment. I had come to stand beside him as an equal, and then I had reached a point where I no longer required his approval.

We had both changed until we could call each other nurturers.

“Then I…”

“Became the nurturer of the Origin.”

The instant I became Seong Hyunjae’s nurturer – the nurturer of the Pseudo–Origin – I climbed one final step that had already been prepared for me.

A step toward the brother who had taken his place as the Origin and waited for me.

Normally, someone was recognized as a nurturer only after successfully raising another being.

To become the Origin’s nurturer, one would first have to raise the Origin. But it was impossible for a created being to raise its creator.

And so the White Bird had replaced the Origin with a charge who had made his nurturer his entire world.

Of course, Yuhyun could not truly become the Origin.

He had barely managed to occupy its place.

And I had not been the Origin’s nurturer.

Even the role of nurturer to a natural-born S-Rank had once been too much for me.

We had both been incomplete.

And so we had grown together.

We had continued forward, each toward the other, until the moment we finally touched.

Yuhyun raised his hand and pointed lightly toward his own chest.

He smiled.

“You completed me, Hyung.”

“…Yuhyun.”

“I wanted to keep telling you.”

The falling petals seemed whiter than before.

Brighter.

“All the years you lived protected me. They wrapped around me and helped me grow. Hyung, you never let go of my hand. Not once. From the very beginning until this moment, not even once.”

…

“You were holding on to me the entire time.”

He was right.

In the end, I had never lost my brother.

I had held him in my arms until the very last moment.

–TL Notes–
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