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[Translator - Pot ]
[Proofreader - Kawaii ]
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Chapter 4: Return
The biggest problem on Earth was that while the number of monsters was increasing wildly, the number of Combat-class Hunters remained drastically low.
Honestly, Yeonwoo couldn’t easily imagine what condition Earth would be in when he returned.
Even if Combat Hunters came with various perks, it was ultimately a job where one risked their life.
Naturally, there were those who tried to avoid it.
There were clear limits to the state-sponsored incentives.
In the end, wasn’t the only thing left after slaying monsters just those strange orbs of unknown origin?
Thinking back now, maybe there was more to those orbs.
But at the time, they were just pretty trinkets with no value.
Over ten years had passed, so it was hard to predict how things might have changed.
Maybe the number of Hunters had increased.
Maybe they had developed powerful weapons to fight monsters.
Or maybe things got worse, the monsters kept getting stronger and eventually overwhelmed everything.
Yeonwoo preferred to believe in the first possibility.
It was the only way he could accomplish his goal swiftly and effectively.
He told Artenis only that he wanted to find his younger sister.
It wasn't a lie.
His sister was part of his objective.
However,
The sister he claimed to be searching for no longer existed in this world.
During the First Hellgate, when monsters first appeared, she was six years old.
Despite Yeonwoo’s protection, she was killed in a large-scale monster breakout when she was eight.
If she were alive today, she would have been around twenty-two.
Though they had a big age gap, she was the kind of sister he'd raise without complaint, even without their parents.
But the world had been cruel.
At the time, Yeonwoo had been inside a fog-type field due to a critical mission.
He learned of her death too late and screamed in anguish.
He couldn’t even avenge her.
By the time he returned, the monster that had killed her had already been butchered by other Hunters.
So that couldn't be the real reason he left Artenis behind with a nail in her heart.
He wasn’t so immature as to abandon everything just to chase after the ghost of someone who had already died.
‘I should visit Siyoun’s grave. There probably hasn’t been anyone to visit. And the bastards who set that trap... they need to die too. But I wouldn't be stupid enough to come all this way just to face people who might already be dead.’
Yeonwoo murmured calmly.
There were no clues.
He didn’t even know if they survived that dark era.
No, they probably did.
If his suspicions about the culprits were right.
Still, revenge was a secondary concern.
There was something far more important infact, the most important thing in his life right now.
He was full of worry for Artenis, who would be left alone and suffer in sorrow every minute of every day after he vanished.
As a first-generation Dragon Lord, she was bound by dimensional laws.
Except for Yeonwoo, a being from another world, she wasn’t allowed to get close to anyone else.
Trapped behind invisible iron bars, even leaving her lair wasn’t easy.
To save her, Yeonwoo lied about his sister being alive.
Right now, she was happy just being with him.
But what about in a few years? What about after he died?
He didn’t even want to imagine the pain she would go through, cast aside and left alone again.
Even as a half-dragon, her lifespan was vastly longer than his.
Staying in the Rune Continent together would only prolong the inevitable.
If he ascended past the level of a transcendent being, perhaps even lifespan would become meaningless.
But Yeonwoo didn’t think he could reach that level.
She was undoubtedly in pain now.
But a moment of suffering could not compare to an eternity of loneliness.
His clenched fist trembled with suppressed strength.
If the position of a Dragon Lord meant being bound by the world’s laws and remaining isolated forever, then he would carve out a place on Earth and bring her there.
Since he was from another world, he could bypass her constraints and enter her sanctuary.
And Earth, being from a different dimension, would not restrict her in the same way.
That was the best plan he could come up with.
The dimensional travel problem was already solved.
Through contracts with the Spirit Kings, and by gathering a massive amount of Spirit Stones, he had made an equivalent exchange contract that would allow her to cross over.
Spirit Kings can only travel dimensions once after awakening, so Yeonwoo had first used Artenis’s power to cross over himself.
Later, with the help of the Spirit King and the Spirit Stones he gathered on Earth, he would summon her and solve everything.
"It's a secret from sis, though..."
He kept everything hidden to avoid making her worry.
Playing the role of the clumsy younger brother, he avoided discussing anything related to her being alone after his death.
She also avoided those topics too.
Not because she didn’t care, but because she didn’t want to see Yeonwoo suffer over it.
Wearing a resolute expression, Yeonwoo threw himself into the massive curtain of light that loomed ahead.
At the same time, behind the blinding veil, the familiar scenery of Earth, the world he had lived in before arriving in the Rune Continent, began to appear.
It had been a painfully long time since he last saw it.
***
Flap! Flap!
Yeonwoo’s body was hurled out of the massive rift and rolled across the ground like a ragdoll.
Knocked unconscious by the curtain of light, he groaned faintly as his vision slowly refocused and light filled his eyes.
"Ugh..."
His body felt unusually heavy, probably from the aftereffects of dimensional travel.
He looked up at the quiet sky and slowly raised his upper body.
A strange itch around his eyes made him rub his head.
And his fingers got caught in something coarse.
"Huh?"
His usually stoic face cracked for a moment.
"What the... Mirror!"
Yeonwoo shouted into the air in disbelief, and a small mirror formed in front of him as mana stirred faintly.
They were beginner-level spells, but after becoming a half-dragon, he could use a few basic ones.
Bleeding-stanch spells, shock, mirror, and wind, for example.
As a Spirit Master who had already become a transcendent, these spells were mostly unnecessary.
He only kept a few around for convenience.
"Hah..."
Yeonwoo let out a baffled breath as he looked at the magic mirror.
The man reflected back and looked like a total wild man.
He wasn’t aged or young, but the long, unkempt hair covering his face and the scraggly beard made him look like some recluse who had lived in the mountains.
With his original good looks, this was just too much.
This was way over the line.
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[Translator - Pot ]
[Proofreader - Kawaii ]
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