Translator: Min999, Editor: Spade
Proofreader: Sapphire
(t/n: reminder, end of flashback, and we’re back to the confrontation in the apartment!! also cw: Sa Hyeon)
Ever since that day, Yisun hid in his home.
The Second Great Dungeon was the first ever linked dungeon to appear, with the appearance of a C-class dungeon instantly followed by a B-class dungeon, it had attracted everyone’s attention at the time. Most of the people pulled into the dungeon were ordinary people, and there were only seven Hunters, all of whom were either C-class or D-class.
When the Hunters’ Association realized what was happening, they quickly contacted the Gongdae Guild and tried to send a raid team in, however, the gate was blocked. This happened occasionally in A-class and S-class dungeons, and the gate would only reopen when the dungeon was cleared or when everyone inside was wiped out.
Since the Gongdae raid team couldn’t enter, people naturally assumed that everyone inside would be wiped out.
But Yisun was the only survivor.
It was a dark, rainy dawn when he came out. The area around the gate was deserted except for one Association staff. This was because everyone was certain about the deaths of the unfortunate people who had been swept into the dungeon, so no one else wanted to come near them. It was their own gesture of mourning for the tragedy, and the Association had warned not to write about the misfortune.
But then Yisun, who came out of the dungeon, told the shocked Association employee that he was the lone survivor and that his friends had died fighting the monster until they breathed their last.
Those were the last words the public would ever receive from him.
From the next day onward, Yisun completely disappeared: he never contacted anyone and never went outside. Many people were confused, and some even felt angry at him for not showing up the joint funeral for the victims of the Second Great Dungeon. Most the people criticizing him were relatives or acquaintances of the victims, saying that as the lone survivor, he had a responsibility to tell them what happened.
However, there were also many people who sympathized with Yisun. It was widely known that he was working for the Honshin Guild because of debts, and knowing that such a person lost all of his friends one day, just before they would finally escape from the guild, they felt sorry for him.
Amidst all the suspicion, accusations, and sympathy, Yisun hid himself.
For the first half of the year, he stayed home and lived like a dead man. It was only 6 months later that he finally came to his senses and started trying to figure out a way to get his friends back to normal.
He still spent the rest of the year in hiding, terrified at the mere thought of being judged for restoring them. Moreover, he hadn’t been able to use his powers ever since that day.
And so, he hid the existence of his friends, and lived among them just like he was dead.
“You- Are you crazy? Do you ever listen to what people are saying?”
Yisun couldn’t help but deny the reality of his situation. He was overwhelmed by the fear that the friends he’d been hiding had been found out and the anger at Sa Hyeon for prying and digging up his secret.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He grabbed his wrist and forcibly dragged him out of the apartment, shuddering at the mere idea of them and Sa Hyeon being in the same space. Sa Hyeon obediently followed him out and into the abandoned building behind the apartment.
After checking once to make sure no one else was around, Yisun was ready to unload all of his anger and frustration onto Sa Hyeon. He hadn’t been so angry in nearly a year, maybe even more, but at this moment his head felt like it was turning blank with rage. But just as he was about to open his mouth to yell at Sa Hyeon, the other party spoke first.
“I actually took a very simple approach, Yisun-ssi.”
“……what?”
“A year ago, after the Second Great Dungeon, not only did you completely disappear, you didn’t even show up at the joint funeral to grieve the loss of all of your friends in a single moment… so I thought there might have been something more to that story you told after you came out of the dungeon, when you said ‘My friends all died fighting monsters’.”
Sa Hyeon sauntered around the abandoned building as he talked. The dusty floor seemed so out of place in contrast to his elegant presence, yet the darkness of the abandoned building made for a natural stage for him.
“There was only one video of Yisun-ssi coming out of the gate at the time, and it was such a low quality, blurry video too… but I saw something strange: it was in the early hours of dawn and there was no way for shadows to form, yet as the rain fell down, behind Yisun-ssi, I definitely saw quite a few of them. I wasn’t quite sure, but I thought that maybe whatever beings behind you were fed an invisibility potion.”
Sa Hyeon smiled briefly as he spoke. Very few people had noticed the strange shadows in the video, but they jokingly brushed it off, wondering if it was maybe a ghost. Yisun couldn’t help but stare at him with a pale complexion.
“Besides, the day you bought the cake also coincided with one of your friends’ birthday, Kan Youngjoon. It was weird for you, who lived alone, to bring a cake into the apartment, so I just found out who Kang Youngjoon’s relatives were, and asked them for a favor.”
Sa Hyeon looked at Yisun with a calm face, as if asking him if there was anything wrong with that. Yisun glowered at him and spoke, voice fraught with anger: “Just what is it you’re going to such lengths for? That has you sneakily prying behind my back in such a shady way, why is it you have to come all the way here and rummage through my apartment…!”
Yisun ‘s voice quivered, and Sa Hyeon looked surprised, not at the fact that he got angry, but at the fact that he was asking such a question when he already made it clear several times. Sa Hyeon hummed, lengthening the first part of his sentence, then spoke softly, as if to remind him.
“Hmm… I’m here to scout Yisun-ssi.”
“If this is your crappy definition of scouting, then it’s obviously never going to work… Even though you don’t know dogshit about me or what I’ve been through… Why are you doing this!”
The angry Yisun uttered harsh words for the first time, but Sa Hyeon didn’t seem to mind at all, he just smirked, as if he was slightly amused by this reaction.
“Let’s make a contract, shall we?”
“I’m not interested in contracts or anything, so please, just stop following me around. Now, just…”
“I’ll kill them for you.”
“What?”
A pair of clear eyes looked straight at him, black eyes that sent a chill down his spine even though they were clearly smiling. Taking a step towards the frozen Yisun, Sa Hyeon leaned in and whispered in a soft tone that could not have been kinder and more affectionate.
“Those bodies that are you are carrying around, I’ll kill them for you.”
For a moment, Yisun’s breath caught in his throat. Even though those words were so unrealistic that he should have reacted by telling him to stop spouting bullshit, he could barely breathe at the way Hyeon’s eyes were fixed on his, and then the next moment, his words made him feel as if any amount of air he had left was being squeezed out of his lungs by the disgust. He loathed himself for even entertaining the idea of kill his friends who had already been killed so many times by monsters.
Biting down hard on his lower lip, he struggled to breathe.
“Is making empty promises to strangers a habit of yours?”
Yisun’s voice was sharp, he spoke in a sarcastic tone meant to make the other man feel bad, but Sa Hyeon didn’t react to it, merely observing him curiously before speaking in a low tone.
“Shall I make a guess? Those corpses, ah… Those friends of yours….. they must have died so many times in the dungeon. It’s not surprising since it was a B-class dungeon break, and there were only four C-class Hunters and two D-class Hunters. So clearing it was only possible because they were immortal corpses immune to damage.”
“…….”
“If they were in a state where they could die naturally, they would have been either buried inside the dungeon or taken outside to be cremated, but Yisun-ssi actually brought them out and they’ve been living with you ever since…”
Sa Hyeon, who was stretching languidly, looked at Yisun and speculated.
“The reason those corpses are moving, is because they’re still under the effect of Yisun-ssi’s restoration ability.”
“That’s something I already know…!”
“And… my hidden ability is ‘Nullification’.”
Yisun’s words were caught in his throat. For a moment, he just looked at Sa Hyeon blankly, as if all thought and motion had stopped together, and Sa Hyeon smiled, his eyes twinkling with amusement at the reaction.
“Every S-class has a hidden ability,” he said, “Yisun-ssi can temporarily restore a collapsed building even if there are no rubble or debris as long as you have materials and a restoration map at hand, although it only lasts as long as you are within the area of the building.”
Sa Hyeon was right, all S-classes had a hidden ability. Normally, Restorers could reverse a building’s time only within as many as three days of its collapse, or as little as a few hours, and the ability would only work under the condition that the building’s rubble must still be around. Yisun’s normal restoration ability was similar, but for a slightly longer period of time, and went so far as to smooth out the joints between materials, even if they weren’t seamless.
But Yisun’s hidden ability went completely beyond that. Even if the building in question had burned down hundreds of years ago, if there were the necessary materials around the ruins, and if Yisun remembered it perfectly, he could reconstruct the building exactly as it was. It might as well be called a creative ability. However, this ability only lasted as long as he was within the vicinity of the building or in physical contact with it, and if he moved even a centimeter away from it, it would disappear like a mirage.
When he first discovered this hidden ability, he was immediately called in by the Cultural Heritage Administration, it was then that he realized how powerful the penalty for this hidden ability. It took him around a week to recover, during which his ability had dropped below 50%.
S-class Awakeners have their own hidden abilities, but most didn’t reveal them unless it was too obvious and, ironically, couldn’t be hidden. Revealing a hidden ability, the use of which entails a severe penalty, would be putting all your cards on the table and revealing your weakness. However, Sa Hyeon took the initiative to reveal his own hidden ability in front of Yisun.
“Maybe because “darkness go hand in hand, my hidden ability is Nullification. Once I touch something or someone, whatever ability they had or was cast on them disappears for five minutes.”
“…And after the five minutes?”
“The ability comes back, but that only applies to the living, and Yisun-ssi’s friends are dead, so unless you use your powers to restore them again, they won’t become zombies. And they’ve been dead for a year, so it’s impossible to restore them at this point anyway.”
Yisun glared at him, still apprehensive, and Sa Hyeon spoke in an exasperated tone.
“This is a quite a big favor, Yisun-ssi. After all, the penalty is quite severe: I can’t use my Awakener abilities for 24 hours, and then they’re reduced by 50% for the following 24 hours.”
“…That’s a huge weakness, what makes you think you can trust me enough to tell me about it, when I could hold it as blackmail material against you?”
“That’s because I want to sign a contract with you.”
“…….”
“.. If I said that, the wary Yisun-ssi won’t believe me, so I’ll be a little more honest…”
Sa Hyeon smirked.
“What do you think would be faster? You revealing my ability, or me stopping you from doing so? “
“……”
“And it wouldn’t really affect me even if you revealed it. Hunters are all secretive about their hidden abilities just in case a fight breaks out between them, and I, can deal with them without using Nullification, so I would never need to go through the 24 hours penalty.”
The matter-of-fact tone in which Sa Hyeon spoke left Yisun speechless. He pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. If he could really do what he said, use his Nullification on his friends and remove his restoration ability, if they could close their eyes as normal people, as human beings, how great would that be… But he still felt extremely apprehensive towards Sa Hyeon’s goodwill.
After kindly granting him such a large favor, would it be difficult for Hyeon to make him do anything under the guise of a ‘contract’? He offered the use of his own hidden ability in exchange for Yisun’s, but were things really that simple and easy? Can he really trust that he hadn’t lied about his hidden ability?
As if he could read his mind, Sa Hyeon leaned over, their faces were only a breath apart. Yisun reflexively flinched at the warm air brushing his face.
“Jung Yisun-ssi. I remember you said last time that I wasn’t making a proposal but was actually coercing and threatening you?”
Sa Hyeon locked eyes with Yisun, who didn’t answer. In the darkness of the abandoned building, the only light illuminating them was the faint moonlight streaming in through the aged windows, even so, it only served to obscure the contours of the other man’s face, Jung Yisun could peer into the depths of Sa Hyeon’s obsidian eyes.
Those midnight eyes gazing back at him had a chilling coldness to them.
“If you still refuse to sign a contract with me, I’ll report the bodies you’re hiding to the Hunters’ Association and reveal the truth about the Second Great Dungeon, which was already dubiously shrouded in mystery… This, is coercion.”
“…….”
“If you ever avoid or ignore me and walk away again, I will steal those precious friends of yours and make them exist with their limbs separated from their bodies, or I will experiment on them and find out just how much they can take without dying… And this is threatening.”
Sa Hyeon’s eyes curved as he smiled (t/n:…I really can’t keep defending you), watching Yisun’s face drain of all blood and turn pale. The eyes that crinkled at the edges in amusement gave off the same exact feeling Yisun had felt when he had first seen him. They looked like a bottomless pit from which he could never escape.
“And if you choose to take my hand now, and work together in Chord from now on… I’ll make sure you see your friends off in peace, one by one.”
Sa Hyeon held out his hand and smiled.
“This is my proposal to you, Yisun-ssi.”
What should he do? Yisun didn’t immediately respond to Hyeon’s words. He just stared blankly into his ink black pupils, and Sa Hyeon leisurely waited for his answer. Like a predator who has successfully cornered its prey, his eyes were lazy and relaxed, and his gaze was benevolent.
Until now, Yisun had always thought that he was slowly and steadily sinking into a black ocean, in a way that could not be simply described as a mere pit of despair or a filthy mire, a place beyond mere melancholy or wretchedness. He never expected to find a beacon of hope in his life after that day, and he never imagined it would be an encounter with darkness cloaked in the guise of light.
But in the midst of his indescribable hopelessness, Yisun still ended up finding a fleeting, shallow hope. It came as a relief; it was also a form of selfish joy. The moment he acknowledged it, he felt very bitterly disgusted with himself, and at the same time he couldn’t help feeling elated, and so, in the end…
“I’ll be looking forward to your cooperation, Yisun-ssi.”
He took Sa Hyeon’s hand. For a moment, he felt miserable at the warmth of his hand, but he still didn’t let go in the end. As he listened to the laughter ringing in his ears, Yisun wondered where he would fall now.
The night passed without a single word from Yisun.
Min: And with this we wrap up volume 1 out of the 7 novel volumes… oof, so I was planning to post 0.5 and 1.4 next week, but my compulsion to post the entirety of vol 1 asap got the better me.
As always, thank you for reading~<3!!
Take care~ and thanks for the chapters~
Thank you for reading ~ <3
Thanks for the chapters 😄
Thank you for reading ~~💞
Love the notes! Keep notating! Did notice you slipped and used “I” instead of “he” in second to last paragraph. Thanks for translating this story 🤣❤️
Thanks for reading~~<3, and pointing that out i completely missed it while proofreading 🤕
Ahh the translation is so greatt!! Thank you for your hard work! I really enjoy the story (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)
(*´∀｀)ﾉ Thank youu, makes me happy to know you enjoyed it!!
Rest well! And thank you for the uploads <3
Thank you for reading ~~
Translator~~
I’m so glad I found this translation it’s already my new favorite 😭😭❤️
Omg that’s such high praise, i’m honored?🥺 💞
So glad to have read that one after the other really set the story. And amazing translation thank you 😊
Thank you so much !! I’m happy to know you enjoyed ~~<3
Ahem ahem… (¯∇¯٥) a few chapters back Sa Hyeon said he was good at taking care of people. Feels like he had other meanings than what was first implied.
I really hope there is a chapter where Yisun’s indifference to Sahyeon makes him scared. I really want to see him Sahyeon panic, though it’s just wishful thinking.
I don’t want to spoil this for you so i’ll just say one thing: As their relationship grows slowly and considering Yisun’s mental state, what you want isn’t just wishful thinking … 😶
Yessss
I want ML to feel pain………is that bad?
Sa Hyeon is so vile 💀 this is what happens when you make your kids feel like their super special
LMAOSFGDS plss you raise good points… I mean he is a manipulative asshole and control freak… But i don’t think it has much to do with his parents spoiling him… Hmm maybe cause he awakened as an S-class way too early and was overly praised by both the media and the public from a young age? Also his bitter older brother maybe hmm
Definitely the attention he got from awakening at a young age
He needs to learn that it’s not everything you can get by threatening someone
Thanks for the chapter ^^
I personally don’t mind tn, love them actually, but if you want to have more immersion, you can “hide” the tn.
If someone wants to know, they’ll click on the underlined word/phrase. ^^
Tho I don’t know how, better ask in the Discord around ^^`
Pls ignore this, if you already know XD
Neeeeever mind XD
Thank you for reading~<3
( I also realized that afterwards aqhsahsaj)
took me a while to get around to start reading this (I read the webtoon and gawd I just was pained at the thought of reliving Yisun’s pain) but I am now finished with volume 1!!! thank you so so much for this translation 💜
Yisun and Hyeon’s initial start is so interesting… I especially love (though it was evil af) the way Hyeon was like “this would be coercion, and this would be a threat 🙂” like damn Hyeon… he gets it.
so excited to continue reading this novel, and thank you again for your hard work!
Frrr if evil, why give me butterflies, huh >~<??
And although everything about Sa Hyeon screams ‘poisonous, don’t eat’, he ends up doing more good than bad to Yisun’s mental health ;-;
also omg we share the same usrname 🐰
Thank you for reading~ 🌸
I’ve just started this novel. I have to say the translations are excellent. I’ve MTL’d novels on my own and it is a lot of work. I enjoy having the translation notes as well. Makes me feel like we’re all reading this together. Thanks, Min!
Oh my god, Kaijuu, it makes me extremely happy to hear(read?) that💞!!!!!
Thank you for reading, and for your kind words(and for your support on Ko-fi!) 💕🌸