S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 23

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 23. Testing the Testers (1)
After settling lunch and dinner, I gathered my family and everyone else in one place.
Since my mother and the group were meeting for the first time, I had them introduce themselves first.
Once the awkward greetings ended, I got straight to the point.
“This entire building belongs to our parents, and from the 2nd Floor up it’s studio apartments. For now, you’ll stay there.”
Since this hadn’t been agreed upon beforehand, both my parents and the kids wore question marks above their heads.
Thinking it easier to ask forgiveness than permission, I explained the full situation to my mother.
That everyone I’d brought had nowhere to go and were living in poor conditions, that as Certified Hunters they’d pay rent reliably every month.
“As long as the rent comes in on time, you’re welcome here.”
“Surely you two don’t actually think that basement room was comfortable, do you?”
The siblings shook their heads vigorously. Lee Minji didn’t even need convincing.
“Why aren’t you asking me?”
“Okay then. You’re not moving in with them.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
And so the three people I’d brought ended up living in a studio apartment managed by my parents.
“Mom, could you show the kids to their empty rooms? You all look around the place and rest. I’ll come get you soon.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, but Kim Gyeoul looked troubled.
“Gyeoul, don’t worry about getting cold. We can just turn the boiler up high.”
“That’s not it. I get anxious being alone…”
“Then share a room with Yeoul. It’s a studio, but it’s ten pyeong, so you’ll be fine living there. Anyone else have a problem? Everyone except Minji.”
“Come on! Why are you ignoring me like that!”
“So you do have a problem?”
“…No.”
My mother took the kids upstairs to the 2nd Floor. My father tapped my shoulder.
“You know, I understand there’s a reason behind this, but you haven’t forgotten our family motto, have you?”
“Each person should live their own life well. I know. But it seems I can’t do that anymore now.”
“Have you caused trouble?”
“Not yet.”
“How big are you planning to make it?”
“In a year, there won’t be a single person who doesn’t know my name.”
“In this country?”
“In the world.”
My father stared at my eyes for a moment, then clicked his tongue.
“You haven’t even been drinking, but your eyes are wild.”
“You’ll help me, won’t you?”
“Good grief, here I was hoping to take it easy in my later years. My own son is working me to death.”
“If you won’t, I’ll find someone else.”
“Who said I won’t? But I do need to ask you one thing.”
My father’s eyes, usually laid-back and indifferent, sharpened.
“Are you prepared not to regret this?”
In my past life, I would have said ‘yes’ immediately. But from my experience in a previous lifetime, I’d learned that was arrogance.
“No matter how hard I try, I think I’ll regret it.”
“……”
“But I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Mujin, Chae Mujin.”
“Yes.”
“If you’ve decided on the path you must walk, you need to know where that path ends. Do you know where you’re going?”
I think back at my father’s words.
Start a Hunter Management company. Raise S-Rank hunters and feed off their power.
With the strength I gain that way, defeat a Keter-Class, and does the story end like a fairy tale with everyone living happily ever after?
“I’m not entirely sure. Whether people will praise me as a hero or point at me as a monster. But you know how it is. The Chae Clan―”
“Won’t do anything by force even if it kills us, and will do anything we want to do even if it kills us.”
“That’s how it’s become.”
“Good! But if you’re going to do it, do it right. The cleanup afterward is for me to… no, your mother will handle it.”
Just then, my mother shouted.
“Oh for heaven’s sake!”
“How long have you been there?”
“Since you mentioned the family motto.”
“You never even left in the first place, did you.”
“Why would I go? You just tell me what room number, and the kids can find it themselves.”
Feeling a bit embarrassed, I scratched the back of my head.
“Well, since you heard it anyway, you understand, right?”
“Understand? What understanding! You’re putting us in danger, and your brother and sister get put in danger too! I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you’d better fix it right now!”
When my mother used her Busan accent, it meant she was truly angry.
“Ha ha, I can’t do that.”
“Want me to have you struck from the family register?”
“Oh, there’s a way to do that? Would that make things safer?”
“Does it look like I’m joking right now?”
“I’m not joking either.”
My mother’s nickname as the Haeundae Blood Sea wasn’t for nothing—I could feel the killing intent in her gaze.
I suddenly wondered what kind of eyes I had right now. Eyes of concern, or eyes of confidence?
“…Will you see this through to the very end?”
“Yes.”
“Even if your father and I die, will you never give up and see it through to the end?”
“I’ll avenge you while crying, but I won’t stop.”
“Then that’s settled.”
Thunk.
She set something on the table. A credit card.
“You know the password?”
“You never told me, so how would I know?”
“1125.”
“That’s my birthday.”
“Someone’s getting ahead of themselves. It’s just my favorite day.”
“I’ll think of it that way.”
But I didn’t take the card and handed it back.
“Why?”
“I do need money, but I need you and Dad to spend it for me.”
“Shameless brat. You’re planning to work me hard, aren’t you?”
“That’s actually what I wanted to ask…”
In front of my mother and father, I explained my business plan. That I’d be running a Hunter Management company, and that I’d even recruited Kim Yeoul and Lee Minji for it.
Honestly, I thought they might not understand since they’re older and not hunters, but they grasped it surprisingly well.
“You want us to set up an office and hire all the necessary staff, is that it?”
“Yes. If you need someone’s name during the process, use Cheon Mujong. That name will suffice.”
“The Association Chairman’s name?”
“You know he’s the chairman?”
“He’s on TV all the time.”
Really? I don’t watch TV, so I wouldn’t know.
“Don’t you have any other questions? Like, why you want to run a Hunter Management company?”
“Knowing would only make things more exhausting, so I’d rather not ask.”
“You’ll figure it out as we go.”
That was so like our parents.
“I’ll head upstairs now. Take it easy on the drinking.”
Leaving my mother and father behind, I stepped into the back corridor. My fists clenched unconsciously.
I’d dragged my entire family into my fate. But it wasn’t just because I lacked money and manpower. I was certain this way was safer.
Even if it becomes a choice I might regret, I’ve already made peace with that possibility.
Looking at my reflection in the window, I see a serious expression.
“Relax your face, Mujin. You look better when you smile.”
After that self-encouragement, I climbed to the 2nd Floor where the kids were waiting.
* * *
Room 201, where the siblings had just moved in, felt bustling with activity.
“Let’s get a lofted bed.”
“Oppa, would it be okay if I sleep on the upper level?”
“Won’t it get hot up there?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s closer to the sun.”
“Wow! You’re really smart!”
Chae Mujin, who’d unintentionally overheard, let out an awkward cough.
“Ahem, hey you two. Do you like the place?”
The moment the siblings sensed Chae Mujin’s presence, their voices dropped by half.
“Yes…!”
“We love it so much.”
Their eyes sparkled. The siblings were already excited and anticipating how they’d decorate this ten-pyeong studio.
“Let’s go to the next room. There’s something I need to discuss with you, Minji.”
I took the siblings to Room 202 next door. Lee Minji was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling.
She just waved her hand in greeting when she heard us arrive.
“Welcome.”
“Were you about to sleep?”
“No, I was just looking at the wave pattern on the ceiling.”
“Sit up. We’re starting the consultation.”
With a powerful core rotation, Minji sat up, her eyes gleaming.
“First, Kim Yeoul. You became a Certified Hunter to pay for your sister’s treatment. Now that your sister is fully recovered, do you want to become a regular person again, or do you want to live as a hunter?”
If Kim Yeoul hesitated here, my training plan for them would get complicated.
But Kim Yeoul answered without hesitating even a second.
“I want to live as a hunter.”
“Why?”
“To protect myself and my sister, I need strength. I want to have the kind of strength that no one can ever hurt us with.”
People living at the very bottom of society all dream of becoming rich and strong.
But they know it’s a dream that will never come true.
Yet Kim Yeoul no longer thought of this longing as a dream.
It was a future she could create herself, and for the sake of obtaining that future, she could do anything.
Chae Mujin, satisfied, shifted his gaze to Lee Minji.
“Lee Minji. That determination to catch Bahamut—does it still hold?”
“No. It grows stronger every day, every hour, every minute, every second.”
“I understand the conviction of both of you. But words alone won’t suffice, will they? Without proof through action and results, effort has no meaning.”
“If I can just grow stronger, I could even jump into lava. So hurry and tell me what I need to do.”
“…Wouldn’t you die if you fell into lava?”
Kim Yeoul spoke cautiously, and Lee Minji looked at her with pity.
Chae Mujin snapped his fingers to refocus both of them.
“Tomorrow, you’ll get a call from the Hunter Association. They’ll say you need to undergo Lodging Basic Training. It’s a seven-day, eight-night program. I’ll test your determination based on what you accomplish there.”
During the Certified Hunter exam, Chae Mujin didn’t explain things at length when giving advice or instructions.
He spoke only the essentials, kept it short. That made it easier to remember and more intuitive.
But once a proper consultation started, details came in, and with details came more than an hour of talking.
“……”
The two who’d been focused and listening at first began to glaze over after thirty minutes had passed, and after it was all done, their eyes darted around.
“Tell me what I asked you to do, from start to finish. Lee Minji, you go first.”
“When the opening ceremony ends, they’ll have me choose an instructor, but instead of choosing, I’m supposed to wait and…”
Lee Minji remembered the first part well enough, but from the middle onward, she’d forgotten everything.
It was here that I discovered an unexpected talent in Kim Yeoul: her memory.
Kim Yeoul remembered and recited every word Chae Mujin had said, without a single mistake.
The problem was that she understood none of it—she was merely memorizing.
“Forget everything else, but remember this one thing: find a drunk instructor. After that, my words will come back to you whether you like it or not.”
“Rest thoroughly today and tomorrow. Unlike other hunters, you two aren’t going on a leisure trip.”
The long consultation was over. Even though all they did was listen, Kim Yeoul and Lee Minji felt exhausted—not physically, but mentally.
“And I have something to tell only Gyeoul, so the two of you need to leave.”
After sending Yeoul and Minji out, Chae Mujin spoke to Kim Gyeoul, looking into her eyes.
“From now on, everything I say is a secret between you and me alone. Even if it’s Yeoul, and even if it’s our family, you can’t tell anyone. Can you promise?”
“…Yes!”
“Pinky promise. And seal it with a thumbprint.”
Though it seemed like a childish promise, Kim Gyeoul was serious.
And Chae Mujin was too.
What he was about to do would cause a stir if certain people found out.
“The way to control Eternal Winter is through learning an Inner Energy Technique.”
“Inner Energy… Technique?”
Kim Gyeoul, with zero prior knowledge of hunters, naturally didn’t know what inner energy or a technique meant.
She also didn’t know how difficult it was to learn, how precious it was.
But Chae Mujin knew. He knew the secrets of South Korea’s most precious technique.
“Starting today, you’re going to learn the Myeonggyeong Jisui.”
The illegal sharing of Myeonggyeong Jisui, an S-Rank technique passed down through a single lineage, had begun.
Of course, if Cheon Ihwa or Daehan Jeil Geom found out, they’d lose their minds―
‘Once Gyeoul can properly control her power, even the two of them won’t be able to do anything about it.’
Forgiveness had always been easier than permission, regardless of time or place.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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