BCGWR Chapter 36 Part 1

Sweet Dream 7

Just as he had done when he faced his mother, father, grandfather, and then his grandmother moments before, Ji Seok-min put on a relaxed expression. This time, however, his fingertips trembled, and he clenched his fist tightly.

The boss monster, having seemingly absorbed enough memories flowing from Ji Seok-min’s mind, now wore a relaxed smile, unlike before, and spoke.

“Hyung. You’re here?”

“…”

“Are you on vacation every day now? Mom gave me her card and told me to order something to eat with you when you came.”

“…”

“Hyung, let’s go to the game room! I ranked up in Rule Tier this time.”

Kim Hyun-ah watched the monster, then turned her gaze to Ji Seok-min. Ji Seok-min looked at his younger brother, lost during the Cataclysm—no, at the boss monster—and offered a bitter smile. He then put his hands on his hips, raised his head, and sighed, “Hoo…”

“Why? Don’t you want to go to the game room? Ah, let’s go~ We can just tell Mom we ordered something to eat, okay?”

“…Should we?”

“Yeah! I want to go there and get Jjapaghetti and cup-tteokbokki. That game room’s cup-tteokbokki is really good.”

“Really? Then let’s go there. Hyung will buy you a lot.”

Kim Hyun-ah only rolled her eyes, alternating her gaze between the boss monster and Ji Seok-min.

It was clear that Ji Seok-min, with his high mental resistance skill, had not been brainwashed this time either, as proven by the preceding tests. But perhaps wanting to savor the situation a little, he offered a bitter smile and reached out to roughly stroke the boss monster’s head.

The image of the mischievous boy, shrugging his shoulders as if happy to see his brother after a long time, saying “Ah, stop it~” and swatting his hand away, was too real to dismiss as fake.

Unlike succubi that merely take on human-like forms and give blurry impressions, this infamous monster, skilled at transforming into a perfect human likeness, was named Reminiscence.

It was a name given to mean evoking nostalgia, but Kim Hyun-ah didn’t like it.

‘Since it was first discovered in England and named there, it can’t be helped…’

Dungeons and their monsters were named by the country that first discovered them. In this monster’s case, it was first found in England, so it was unavoidable, yet Kim Hyun-ah truly disliked the name.

‘Every time I hear it, I think of my brother Hyun-seo…’

In her childhood, the title of the music Kim Hyun-ah’s older brother often listened to while studying was Reminiscence.

It was such a masterpiece that it was still widely loved, and for Kim Hyun-ah, it was like a lullaby from her childhood. It was thoroughly unpleasant that the title of a song that left her with such precious memories shared the same name as a monster.

Especially since this monster imitated the deceased.

‘Ji Seok-min Esper has been thoroughly checked.’

Just as Kim Hyun-ah was thinking, ‘Should I start testing myself now…?’ and began to approach, Ji Seok-min turned his head towards her.

Seeing his hesitant expression, Kim Hyun-ah couldn’t shake the feeling that things had become awkward. Even with mental resistance skills, few people could remain calm in such a situation.

Especially…

“Kim Hyun-ah Esper.”

“…Yes.”

“I put in quite a bit of effort to arrange this meeting today; could you spare me just five minutes? Exactly five minutes will do.”

“…”

Especially when the person standing fully before you is someone you can no longer meet or touch by any means in this world.

When Kim Hyun-ah gazed intently at Ji Seok-min instead of answering, he offered his characteristic pleasant smile and spoke genially.

“Honestly, if anyone from the Conquest Team waiting at the entrance reports that only the two of us cleared this dungeon, I’ll be disciplined. You know that, right?”

“I said I’d help ensure that doesn’t happen, but yes. It could.”

“Of course, everyone’s a fan of Kim Hyun-ah Esper, so if you go out and take a selfie with each of them, they’ll obviously keep quiet.”

“Hahahaha.”

Kim Hyun-ah had, for her own purposes, joined this dungeon, which the Awakened Association had successfully bid on, under the pretext of ‘collecting vegetation samples.’

She had received permission from the higher-ups at the Awakened Association on the condition that she would only collect a few species of plants inhabiting the dungeon and absolutely not interfere with its conquest. However, currently, the other Conquest Team was camping at the dungeon entrance, so Ji Seok-min and Kim Hyun-ah proceeded with the internal conquest alone.

Kim Hyun-ah was well aware that all of this was possible because the leader of the Conquest Team dispatched by the Awakened Association to Daegu was Ji Seok-min, with whom she had a friendly relationship.

“The experiments are all done now, right?”

“One is still remaining, but I plan to conduct it myself. So, five minutes should be fine.”

Having answered thus, Kim Hyun-ah climbed onto a half-broken rock and sat down.

Ji Seok-min thanked her with a nod, then led his plump younger brother towards a fallen tree on the opposite side.

Although the distance increased slightly, Kim Hyun-ah, as an SS-rank Esper, could hear their conversation. Since it was a boss monster, she had kept her hearing open as a precaution. Ji Seok-min was smiling as he listened to his younger brother talk about what they would do together in the future.

The brothers continued their casual conversation as if it were an ordinary day before the Cataclysm. While Reminiscence chattered incessantly, Ji Seok-min constantly stroked his younger brother’s head, hugged his shoulders tightly, and patted his back.

Perhaps it was a habit of his younger brother from before he died, still ingrained in Ji Seok-min’s memory; whenever his head was touched, he would recoil with a distinct “Ah, come on~” and swat his brother’s hand away. Ji Seok-min smiled with a happy face every time he saw that reaction.

However, as was well-known about Reminiscence, this happiness didn’t last long. As the four-minute mark passed, the monster, in the form of his younger brother, became convinced that it had properly influenced its target and slowly began to spout nonsense.

“But, Hyung.”

“Yes.”

“That day… you said you were on vacation and wouldn’t come straight home, but would drink at a friend’s house and stay over…”

“Yes. Hyung did say that.”

“If you had just come straight home that day… if Hyung had awakened at home, I might not have died… right?”

“…”

“That day, I was so scared and it really, really hurt… A monster that looked like a praying mantis kept chewing on my arms and legs, it was so scary and painful, Hyung…”