24-Hour Friendly Market, Specializing in Dimensional Items - Chapter 182
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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24-Hour Friendly Market Specializing in Dimensional Items Episode 182
Episode 182. What’s This About Now? (2)
D-did what just came out of this Wyvern’s mouth…
‘Was that my brother’s name?’
Did this alien life form just clearly say ‘Lee Hae-on’?
Did I hear that correctly?
I stared at the fierce Wyvern’s face with my mouth agape, blinking my eyes.
No, I thought I’d grown enough to accept pretty much anything, but hearing my brother’s name from a Wyvern’s mouth is too shocking.
The Wyvern that had been looking down at me for a while slowly blinked as if demanding an answer.
I hurriedly replied.
“Uh, that’s, that’s my brother.”
“Lee Hae-on…?”
The Wyvern muttered as if repeating my answer.
Some complex emotion seemed to flash through those dark red eyes, but it passed so quickly I couldn’t tell exactly what it was.
But one thing was certain – this Wyvern knew my brother.
I decided to carefully try to understand the facts.
“How do you know my brother? Did you perhaps save him once…?”
“No.”
The firm tone that cut off my question made my mouth close automatically.
A brief silence passed.
The Wyvern slowly shook its head, then muttered in a sunken tone as if feeling complicated.
“However, I remember.”
“What?”
“I remember that human.”
The ‘human’ this Wyvern was recalling with a wistful expression was definitely Lee Hae-on.
I swallowed dryly.
Judging by how it cut off my question about saving him, it seems they never met inside a Gate.
‘Does that make sense?’
The memory I saw through the Gatekeeper’s Cry was inside the Gyeonghyeon-dong Gate.
But that was several years ago.
Unless that solemn Wyvern who seemed like it had never told a lie in its life was deceiving me, this was incomprehensible.
If this Wyvern remembered my brother, it should have been after the Gate incident.
‘Unless the scenario’s timeline isn’t fixed.’
No, do the scenario and Gate timelines even flow together in the first place?
What’s the relationship between scenarios and Gates anyway?
Once I started doubting one thing, everything became endlessly suspicious.
In any case, I had no idea when, where, or how the Bloody Wyvern met my brother.
I needed to get more specific answers.
“Did you meet him here? How did you come to meet my brother?”
Oh, I was trying to ask kindly but somehow ended up sounding a bit aggressive.
I looked up at the Wyvern while trying to make my expression look kind and gentle.
“It was long ago. When I hadn’t even fully grown yet…”
You saw him when you were young?
Then you never gave my brother a ride at all?
Just as I was getting a bit confused, the Wyvern continued.
“It was when I was growing up in Piper’s care.”
“Who’s Piper?”
“…A Bloody Wyvern who grew up with me.”
‘Sorry.’
At the Wyvern’s somewhat uncomfortable expression, I quickly put on an apologetic face.
The Wyvern carefully spread and folded its wings as if to change the mood, showing it didn’t mind.
“Back then I was a hatchling. Piper, who was an adult, raised me.”
“Where?”
“Here, in Seiporamonium.”
Having unexpectedly learned the dimension’s name, I stored it in my head.
But isn’t this dimension’s name too difficult?
‘What kind of seven-syllable name is that.’
While I grumbled internally, the Wyvern had already become wistfully lost in memories and began recounting them.
“I learned how to fly and hunt from Piper. Piper was a very grateful teacher who taught me everything until I became an adult.”
Right, well, I understand the beautiful times with this other Wyvern named Piper that I’ve never seen.
‘But what’s your name?’
At this point I realized I didn’t know this Wyvern’s name.
Self-introductions must not be a virtue in the Wyvern industry, huh?
But I hesitated to break the Wyvern’s moistened emotions, so instead I carefully used my Appraisal skill.
[Brutus (??)
Attribute: Bloody Wyvern
Affiliation: Dimension-Earth Ι Zone-South Korea Ι 67th Floor Performer]
‘How is a Wyvern’s name Brutus.’
Don’t tell me this one’s like an assassin dragon or something?
While I was caught up in subtle shock looking at that window, Brutus continued speaking.
“It was when I was almost fully grown. That’s when an intruder appeared.”
“An intruder?”
“It was a human. I don’t remember exactly what he looked like, but I remember his name and that horn flute.”
“Why? My brother doesn’t have a forgettable face wherever he goes.”
Are Wyverns’ standards of beauty quite different?
“Because that horn flute was no ordinary item.”
“…This?”
I muttered while looking down at the ivory-colored trumpet.
Just reading the description makes my heart feel grand somehow, but this is really such an extraordinary item?
“Yes, to us it feels like… it’s telling us to awaken our inner instincts.”
“Instincts? What kind of instincts?”
I was continuing to ask questions and gather information, but suddenly Brutus’s words cut off.
Then Brutus looked down at me and answered coldly with red eyes.
“‘Kill.'”
“…”
I didn’t know this horn flute was one that encouraged fighting…
Don’t tell me everyone’s hovering around like that to attack because I blew this thing?
I could just run away if necessary, but just imagining it made me automatically gulp.
I carefully hid the horn flute in my arms.
Brutus lightly flapped one wing as if to say not to worry and added.
“When I heard that sound just now, it felt like I was receiving orders to attack. If you had blown it one more time, I might have tried to tear you apart.”
“Huh…?”
That’s not something to say so calmly, is it?
“But strangely, when that human blew it, the feeling was different. Rather than ‘attack,’ it was closer to ‘survive.’ I actually became calmer.”
So this is originally a horn flute that awakens instincts, but when my brother blew it, it was different?
Only then did I remember the Hidden Ability attached to the Gatekeeper’s Cry.
‘Is that what the boundary between good and evil means?’
Since it was blown by Brother, who was always said to be a good person wherever he went, did it strangely stimulate instincts leaning toward good?
For monsters, it seems instincts like ‘kill’ and ‘survive’ occupy the largest part.
Well, anyway, the desire to survive is the instinct of all living beings.
…Then does that mean I’m evil or what?
Even if I can’t be called a good person anywhere I go, I shouldn’t be treated as an evil person to that extent.
Just as I was about to feel uncomfortable, as if I had suddenly undergone a character verification, Brutus opened his mouth again.
“Anyway, I haven’t seen the human called Lee Hae-on since then. I was a hatchling at the time, so it was Piper who dealt with humans.”
To summarize, he had seen Brother but never had a conversation with him.
Then if I ask Piper, it would be more accurate.
“Where did Piper go?”
I thought it was an easy question, but Brutus’s face noticeably darkened.
His expression was so dark that it felt like shadows were falling between his red scales, making me feel dejected too.
After hesitating for a long time, Brutus muttered quietly.
“He was shipped out.”
“Shipped out?”
I reflexively asked back at the ominous word.
Shipped out – it sounds like he was delivered somewhere.
“Piper left to perform his role.”
“Where to?”
“To another dimension. Everyone here does the same.”
The monsters of Seiporamonium are shipped out to other dimensions to perform some role.
Just as I was frowning with an uneasy premonition, Brutus calmly added.
“We will all eventually be shipped out to other dimensions to perform our respective roles. That is our fate.”
“…What kind of role?”
“To become symbols of terror, faithful to our instincts.”
At Brutus’s answer given without hesitation, I felt like bells were ringing in my head.
I hurriedly raised my head to look at the countless monster swarm quietly hovering behind Brutus.
Goosebumps spread from my toes to the top of my head.
It’s just speculation, but the circumstances are clear.
If the friendly Bloody Wyvern that Brother met at Gyeonghyeon-dong Gate was Piper.
And if the Bloody Wyvern that Nam Pu-reum defeated was Piper.
‘…Are the monsters here shipped out as field bosses for Gates?’
Pegasus, gargoyle, mantid, harpy, sphinx, and so on.
All these countless monsters, surely….
‘They were reserve boss monsters?’
That was the moment.
Wooong-
Another horn sound coming from somewhere.
I quickly raised my head at the majestic, low sound like beating a giant drum.
Brutus had already turned his gaze away from me and was staring at somewhere far in the sky.
“…An uninvited guest has come.”
Even before Brutus spoke, the other monsters hovering around Sisrik’s Island began flying to their respective territories.
Only after the monster swarm filling my view disappeared did I recognize the ‘uninvited guest’ Brutus mentioned.
Far away, a giant creature with gray feathers….
‘A griffin?’
The griffin I had been searching for so desperately was flying toward us.
My momentary joy at the griffin I’d been looking for appearing before my eyes of its own accord was brief.
The griffin wasn’t alone.
Behind the large wings of the griffin approaching us, someone was blowing a pure white horn.
Wooong-
At the closer horn sound, Brutus quickly muttered apologetically.
“I have to go.”
Before I could stop him, Brutus spread his large wings and flew up into the sky in one go.
Watching the red wings shining in sunlight quickly disappear, I blinked, unable to hide my bewilderment.
‘Where is everyone going?’
Even Sisrik, who had been quietly keeping his position behind me, had vanished without a trace.
Just who is the griffin, no, the being coming with the griffin?
In the brief moment I blinked, the swift griffin landed lightly in front of me.
“Whoa.”
Startled by the griffin’s landing so close, I stepped back.
As my eyes were drawn to its appearance, exactly the same as the griffin I’d seen in Brother’s memory, the griffin elegantly folded its wings.
And.
‘…A human?’
The person riding on the griffin was human.
But not an ordinary human.
It was a human with a pure white appearance, as if all pigment had drained from their hair, skin, clothes, and even lips.
Like a living white statue, perhaps.
The White Being stared straight at me and asked in a very sharp voice.
“Who are you to trespass into this livestock pen without permission?”
Livestock pen.
The moment I heard that word, all the puzzle pieces began to fit together.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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