"Noah oppa, are you okay?"
Bak Yerim's voice rang out. Before he knew it, Noah had been moved beyond the hemispherical barrier. Down below, he could see Riette with her head tilted up toward him.
"I had a feeling, and sure enough, Noah oppa ran into Riette unnie."
"That Kim-seobang is vicious!"
Blinking, Noah looked at the two of them. Bak Yerim and the dokkaebi. It seemed the one who had just moved him was the dokkaebi.
"I'm… fine. Mr. Yujin, the others—are they safe?"
"Yes. We decided to head to the hotel first."
"The hotel?"
"Didn't you see the message window?"
"It did pop up, but..."
He had not gotten a proper look at it. Bak Yerim grumbled that Mr. Volleyball really could not get things done.
"We have to get to the hotel before sunset, and there's only about an hour left now. Good thing we found Noah oppa quickly."
"He was super loud, so we found him fast!"
"We still have to find Director Song too, but do you want to go to the hotel? Or come with us?"
Bak Yerim said it while looking at Noah—more precisely, at Noah's wings. Yoon Yoon, too, could not tear their eyes away from the golden feathered wings.
Noah did not answer at once. Instead, he lowered his gaze below again. Riette's eyes met his directly.
"Hunter Bak Yerim."
"I told you, you can just call me comfortably."
"I'm asking you as a fellow Hunter. Please help me so that I can face Noona."
"Huh?"
Bak Yerim's eyes rounded as she looked back and forth between Noah and Riette.
"Right now?"
"Yes. An hour is enough. No, thirty minutes will do."
"But Riette unnie's Rank must've gone up too, right? She'll probably be SS-rank. If we're going to fight her, wouldn't it be better to call the others too? I already had one huge fight, and I still can't use Shadowless Noon again yet."
"No. Hunter Bak Yerim will be enough."
Noah continued in a firm tone.
"Because I'm here."
Right now, it was possible. If the opponent was none other than Riette. When it came to Riette, and the way Riette fought, the person in the world who knew it best was Noah himself.
He had more than enough confidence.
"I know this is me being stubborn. I know I'm insisting on something unreasonable when there's a safer way. But that Noona down there knows only the dead me."
At Noah's words, Bak Yerim flinched in surprise. Noah still did not know it, but the people appearing here were beings from before the regression—beings who were both the future and, at the same time, a past that had actually happened. In other words, Noah really had died.
"Even if she isn't the real Noona, I still want to show her that I'm different. That Faible and Noah are different—and that they will keep becoming different."
"…Okay."
Bak Yerim nodded. She understood Noah's feelings well enough. Perhaps it was even more so because she too had gone through something similar in this dungeon.
"Yoon Yoon, can you go find Director Song?"
"Boss Kim-seobang told me to stick with you."
"Noah oppa is here, isn't he. And you have spatial movement, so you'll be safe even alone. Even if you can't find Director Song, you absolutely have to get back to the hotel before sunset!"
"Okay!"
"And don't get distracted!"
"I won't!"
As if the words had hit a sore spot, Yoon Yoon shouted back and vanished. Bak Yerim turned to Noah and drew her weapon.
"So what do we do now?"
Under Bak Yerim's gaze, Noah felt both a sense of pressure and a heat rising warmly inside his chest. A faint thrill stirred there as well. He drew a deep breath before speaking.
Riette carefully watched the ones with her younger brother. One of them was probably a dokkaebi. It was the first time she had seen one without a mask on, but aside from a dokkaebi, there was no Hunter who could use spatial movement. As for the other one, she had not the slightest idea.
'Who is that?'
Mid-teens, at most late teens. If there were a Hunter that strong at such a young age, there was no way she would not have heard of them.
A little later, the dokkaebi disappeared, and Noah, after saying something to the unfamiliar Hunter, flew back inside the barrier of his own accord.
"Noona!"
"Yes, Faible."
"Right now, you are SS-rank."
"Really? I was still S-rank."
Riette opened and closed her hand. Then she tilted her head.
"I guess I do feel stronger. Right, now that I think about it, those buildings broke way too easily. Usually I'd have to hit them a couple more times before they shattered that badly."
"And this Hunter Bak Yerim here is S-rank."
"Bak Yerim? Ah!"
She remembered. Riette lifted one hand and waved toward Bak Yerim.
"Hyuna said there was an A-rank Hunter with absurd talent, but, huh? The Rank and the age don't match."
"I'm still fifteen, and I Awakened as S-rank!"
At Bak Yerim's shout, Riette took a fresh look at Noah. She had thought he felt somewhat younger than the younger brother she knew. But because his appearance itself had changed so much, she had simply let it slide.
"So it was the past. Fine, then are the two of you coming at me together? Since you're the younger brother Hyuna knows, I won't kill you either!"
"Thanks, Riette unnie! But we need to clear the dungeon. Mr. Volleyball!"
Bak Yerim shouted loudly into the air.
"Please give us service just one more time! Noah oppa's her little brother! Then Noah oppa will take Mr. Volleyball's side too, right? Right?"
"Huh? Ah, yes!"
Not really knowing what was going on, Noah nodded.
"Ajusshi already seems like he's got a lot on his mind as it is, so you can't make him worry about Noah oppa too! Just one clean round more, okay?"
[Final Special Raid Quest!???]
With a tearful insistence on final, the fair-and-square match quest appeared again. Riette peered at the message window with curious eyes, then accepted the quest.
"I'll count it as your win if you can just hold out for thirty minutes. What do you think, Faible?"
"I'll knock you down before that, Noona! And I'm Noah!"
Shouting at the top of his lungs, Noah used a skill.
Nest Where Light Falls (SSS). The wide-area support skill spread out broadly. Faint clusters of light spread and floated up like tens of thousands of fireflies. At the same time, a message appeared before Riette's eyes.
[You cannot use skills of SS-rank or lower! (Lasts 30 minutes)]
"…Huh? I can't use skills?"
Before the regression, the maximum Rank of Riette's skills had been SS-rank. In the end, every skill she used directly was sealed away, except for passives that were constantly active.
At the same time, a message window appeared for Bak Yerim as well.
[Your mana recovery speed increases! Your total defense increases! Your total speed increases! Every time you touch an orb of light, a random buff and recovery effect occurs!]
"What is this?!"
Bak Yerim shouted in shock. It was already astonishing enough that it blocked all enemy skills of SS-rank or lower, but the added buffs were not just one or two things. On top of that, all she had to do was touch the light clusters spread out endlessly around them, and she would get more buffs and recovery too.
"Noah oppa, this is incredible!"
"But I'm still unskilled, so it's limited to thirty minutes."
That was also because his two dragon-species titles were still in the middle of fusing. The duration was short, while the cooldown was long. Even so, once activated, it could easily crush even differences in Rank. Above all—
'If it were many against many.'
Right now, it was a situation close to one-on-one, but if multiple groups were clashing, then. It was a terrifying support skill, strong enough to casually trample most differences in combat power. But under the current dungeon raid system, how often would it ever be used like that?
Shaking off the useless thought, Noah spread his wings wide.
"Hunter Bak Yerim!"
"Yes!"
Bak Yerim's mana moved. She had accumulated quite a bit of fatigue from facing her future-and-past self, but Noah supported her with the Conductor of Mana skill. Under mana that moved far more smoothly and fluidly, water burst up here and there with boom, boooms.
"Good, come at me!"
Riette bared her teeth as she drew her longsword. Even with her skills sealed, her powerful body remained the same. Neither Noah nor Bak Yerim was strong in close combat. Their physical abilities lagged behind those of ordinary S-rank melee-types, so if either of them got caught properly even once, it was over.
Boom!
Riette's toes kicked off the ground. The asphalt road crumpled down with a crack as she rushed at the two of them at a speed too fast for the eye to follow. At the same time, Bak Yerim sharply froze the torrents of water she had drawn up. Dozens of ice spears were formed in an instant and shot toward Riette. Their speed and hardness were both much stronger and faster than usual.
As the ice spears came flying through the air, Riette did not dodge. She swung her sword. Even without using an attack skill, the moment an ice spear so much as grazed the blade, crack—it shattered. Smashing apart the ice spears flying straight at her, Riette leaped upward, stepping off the exploding ice fragments as she rose into the air.
"Ugh, Riette unnie, seriously!"
She was using Bak Yerim's own attacks as footholds. Completely ignoring their speed. Bak Yerim quickly scattered Mist of Sighs. The unavoidable fog spread, and Bak Yerim's mana reached Riette's body. Through the Conductor of Mana skill, Noah felt it too.
Using mana rather than sight to follow and pinpoint Riette's movements, Noah used Forced Blessing. Riette's speed abruptly increased—
"Uh!"
—and her foot skimmed past an ice spear and stepped into empty air. With her speed raised to a level that was impossible to control, she could no longer pull off something delicate enough to thread a needle.
In the end, Riette's body spun once in place before landing on the ground. Boom—through the burst of rising asphalt fragments, a freezing rain came pouring down. Before she even had time to dodge, Riette's body was soaked through. Immediately after, crackle-crackle-crackle, it began to freeze.
"More troublesome than I expected."
Riette gave her frozen arm a wide swing. Chunks of white ice dropped from her body one after another. But it did not end there.
Rooooar!
Water was steadily rising, drawn up from the plumbing system and even from underground water. Bak Yerim kept pulling the water higher while sweeping her body through the clustered orbs of light around her. Bursts of light popped in all directions, rapidly refilling her dwindling mana. The countless buffs were a bonus.
In an instant, the water rose to Riette's ankles—and froze solid. It was not ordinary ice. Bak Yerim was concentrating mana on the area around Riette alone, freezing a wide section all at once and adding weight, forming shackles that even SS-rank stats could not easily break free from.
At the same time, golden wings spread above Riette's head. Unlike their glittering appearance, what those wings poured out was a powerful poison. The current Riette did not have Poison Resistance. She might have poison-resistance equipment, but it would not reach S-rank.
On the other hand, Noah's poison had buffs layered onto it. The poison that slowly paralyzed the body crept in through Riette's breath. With a frown, Riette raised her sword high—
KWAANG!
—and brought it down. The frozen surface split apart and cracked. Then once more—her blade hammered the ice again until it finally shattered completely. Right after that, Riette's body sprang toward Noah.
"Ghk!"
Crunch—Riette's sword pierced through Noah's wing. Clenching his teeth, Noah let out a silent scream. Yet even with the pain transmitted doubly, Riette only frowned. Strength entered the sword as if she intended to cut Noah's wing apart then and there.
But.
"Huh? What's this?"
The sword did not move an inch. Noah's healing skill had activated, and at the same time he was taking the orbs of light into his whole body, continuously healing the wound. With the sword still lodged in place. The wound was healing faster than the blade could tear it open, so the enemy's weapon was held fast and would not let go.
Bak Yerim did not stand idly by during the instant Riette was thrown off. Using teleportation, she closed in and, bolstered by a melee-attack-type buff that had landed at exactly the right moment, thrust her spear with perfect accuracy into Riette's wrist.
Crack!
It was clearly bare skin and the spear tip colliding, and yet it sounded like scraping over hard armor. Still, a faint wound was made. Water dripped from the tip of Bak Yerim's spear and seeped into Riette's wound.
Freezing the water inside someone else's body was impossible, unless they were an unawakened person or a low-rank Awakened person. Because the other person's mana protected them. But if you inserted water already steeped in Bak Yerim's mana directly into the wound, interference was possible for a brief moment.
Part of Riette's wrist froze white. Her movement dulled and the strength left her hand. In the end, Riette let go of the sword and dropped straight downward. Splash—water flew high.
"You really are pretty good."
Beating his wings strongly, Noah pulled Riette's sword free. Blood sprayed, but even that was quickly healed away cleanly.
"Are you really okay?"
Bak Yerim asked anxiously. It had been part of the plan already, but seeing it happen right in front of her, she could not help but worry.
"Yes. Wings feel less pain than most places."
Riette's sword was in Noah's hand now, leveled toward Riette.
"Noona, there are still more than ten minutes left."
Only faint bloodstains remained; the golden wings were clean. Bathed in the sunset light spilling down behind him, they glimmered softly. His clothes were soaked, but even the hair and face that had been dusty before had been washed clean.
By contrast, Riette, who had fallen into muddy water, gave a small laugh and roughly wiped her face with the back of her hand.
"This is the first time someone's ever taken my weapon away."
"I never would've even dared."
Even if Noona's sword had been sitting quietly on a table, he would not have touched it. The Noah of the past, at least. Riette slowly rotated her wrist in a circle. Some of the ice had melted, but it was still dull. No, her whole body ached. Noah's poison was gradually taking effect more strongly.
Riette smiled again. Looking at her sparkling younger brother made her feel strangely good.
"Noah is strong."
"Yes."
"You're my little brother too, right?"
"Yes."
"Then that's enough. You probably won't die very easily."
"That was fun," Riette said, stretching herself broadly. A faint smile formed at the corners of Noah's mouth too, which had been stiff with a trace of tension.
"I think… this time, it was kind of fun for me too."
"Right? That's what I'm saying~"
"You're not planning to apologize to me, are you?"
"No."
At the half-hopeful question, Riette nodded.
"If you want one, I can give you one. But it'd just be words. Would you be satisfied with that?"
Noah slowly shook his head.
"Even if you meant it, I don't know. I don't think it'd be covered over that easily."
Maybe after things kept changing like this, and after much more time had passed. Riette gave an exaggerated shrug.
"Then, Noah, want to play for the remaining ten minutes too? Right now, I think your stats and mine might be pretty similar!"
"Yes, Noona!"
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Regripping the sword, and this time all by himself, Noah charged at Riette.