Ch 11
It was intense.
The gaze of my older sister, sitting on the bed and looking at me, and the hundreds of gazes from outside looking at me as well.
“It feels like they’re going to pierce right through me.”
For a moment, I looked at my sister. She was like the sister I remembered, but slightly different.
I guess she’s had a hard life. She smiled softly.
“Why have you become so suspicious since we last saw each other?”
I slowly stood up.
As I moved, I looked around the room. I casually wiped my hand over the desk. Not a speck of dust appeared.
“Looks like you’ve been cleaning constantly. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
I moved again. The window was very small. A shabby room that didn’t quite match this large house. And the small window. The details were very precise. This was proof that my sister remembered those times so vividly.
“I guess you didn’t trust the guy pretending to be me, the 200th Apostle, huh?”
“I trusted him. But as time went on, something felt off.”
“What felt off?”
“His actions, things like that.”
I stared silently at my sister.
Seeing my gaze encouraging her to speak more, she continued.
“It felt like he was acting.”
“Acting?”
“Like the younger sibling of the greatest awakener in South Korea, Jin Song, but someone who was a non-awakened and wrote poorly-received novels… something like that. All the little details in the process seemed a little off. Changes in expressions with emotional shifts, and actions that seemed unnatural for a regular person when something happened.”
I listened to my sister without speaking.
“People don’t change that easily. The ‘you’ I knew in the past wasn’t like this. You were free-spirited and full of responsibility.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. At least that’s how I saw you. You had a clear line between things you absolutely had to do, things you could leave, and things you should never do, and you stuck to that. Looking back, I guess you grew up way too fast. And…”
“And?”
“August 16, 2024, right? You were supposed to go to the Cheongju Outlet, I still remember that. You say you went missing that day, but in my memory, you were taken away by ambulance. They said you fainted at the crosswalk.”
It seems that was when I changed. Now, in this conversation, my sister asks me:
“Are you really Siho?”
“I’ve told you so many times. Yes, I am.”
“…Where have you been? And what is this power? Honestly, I really don’t understand. It’s so confusing.”
I leaned back against the wall.
“It’s a long story. Want to hear it?”
My sister nodded. I started speaking in a quiet voice, telling her about the kind people who treated me to meals after I was summoned to another world, where no one understood me, and the numerous monsters that appeared there.
Then I talked about the 200 people who fell with me to Titan and what we went through, and how they died.
I summarized it as best I could. If I went into more detail, it would never end, so it was best to keep it short.
At first, my sister seemed doubtful, but as she listened, she became engrossed in my story, eventually nodding.
I couldn’t express any emotion seeing her like that.
“So it’s really you, my little brother.”
I couldn’t show any expression.
“Siho, you’ve been through a lot. Really… you’ve been through so much.”
Saying that, my sister pulled me into a hug. Her hand gently stroked my back.
I kept my face expressionless while watching the whole process.
I knew that my sister wasn’t being sincere.
I couldn’t say anything.
I pushed my sister away and sighed.
I wasn’t someone who was good at persuading others. I usually solved things with my fists.
That’s how I lived. And in a situation like this, it was truly, incredibly difficult.
“Siho, what’s wrong?”
I stayed silent at her question.
To be honest, I had kind of hoped for a situation where she would immediately recognize me as her little brother and burst into tears. But this world doesn’t work the way you want it to.
Not only does the world not work the way you want, but people’s hearts are even harder to understand.
I asked her:
“What did you feel earlier?”
“Earlier? Which time are you talking about?”
“Before I passed out.”
“I thought I was going to die.”
My sister’s feeling was right. If I hadn’t stopped my punch back then, my sister would have inevitably died. This means one thing: the gap between my sister and me in terms of power was beyond imagination.
And right now, my sister was ‘acting.’
“Are you worried?”
“Worried about what?”
“About the people outside. Are you worried that I might kill them all, and even kill you? You’re pretending, aren’t you? Even though deep down you’re not sure if I’m really your little brother, you’re still acting.”
My sister remained silent.
“Maybe it was my mistake. I was trying to control it, but it seems I overdid it a bit.”
This is the reality. My long-lost little brother has returned after ten years and is showing powers that are almost inhuman. How could she believe that?
In the end, the problem was the power.
This gap-crossing power became the obstacle.
While thinking that, I couldn’t deny that this was the reality. My sister was reacting in the most realistic way.
“I guess today is not the right time.”
When you miss someone so much, you end up like my sister. If I were in her place, I probably would have acted like her too.
I reached out into the air.
The space crackled, and my hand entered it. Slowly, I pulled my hand out, and there was a book in my hand.
“If you ever find a translation spell, you should learn it. This book contains most of what I experienced during my ten years in Titan. If you learn the translation spell, you’ll be able to read it.”
I placed the book on the desk.
If I were to get emotional, it would be as if the time in this room had started flowing again.
“This is a rare book. Really rare. I hope you don’t damage or lose it. And I don’t want anyone else to touch it.”
I walked out. I turned my head when I reached the entrance.
“I’ll come back when you’ve made up your mind.”
I left the house.
The night air was refreshing. At the same time, hundreds of gazes were pouring in on me. I couldn’t help but smile.
And in front of me stood Secretary Yoon Young-Soo.
I walked toward him.
“I think my sister told you to withdraw, but you didn’t, did you?”
“…What did you do to the Master?”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Yoon Young-Soo gripped the sword in his hand tightly.
“I’ll attack you. I’ll risk my life and attack you no matter what.”
I had seen it correctly. This man was a loyal subject. Someone willing to throw his life away for his loyalty. People like him have absolute faith in their own judgment and a mindset that doesn’t doubt it.
I smiled softly.
“There’s nothing wrong. Nothing at all. And…”
“…”
“I like you. You do your job well, and you seem quick on the uptake. But most of all, I can tell that your feelings toward my sister are genuine.”
I reached out and placed my hand on Yoon Young-Soo’s shoulder. He flinched, as if trying to pull away from my hand. But it’s not that easy. No one can avoid my hand.
“Please take good care of my sister. If anything happens that you can’t handle, or if something major happens to her, call me. I’ll come running immediately.”
After hearing that, Yoon Young-Soo asked the one necessary question.
“If you don’t have a phone number, where should I call you?”
“That’s true. Hmm… I do have someone I owe a favor to. Do you know Jeong Bin from the Cheongju Gate Safety Management Team?”
“…I don’t know him.”
“Can you figure it out in a day?”
“It won’t even take a day. Five minutes is enough.”
“I’ll be there, so contact me separately.”
Without saying another word, I turned around and started walking.
The night air was cold.
Although not everything had gone as planned, I was still satisfied. After all, time would solve everything, and I also needed time to adapt to this place on Earth.
There were eyes meeting mine here and there, but I didn’t care.
I just gave a soft smile. The people who saw my smile flinched. They probably thought, *What’s wrong with him? He seems different somehow.*
They had that expression, but I just let it be.
It had been a long day.
* * *
“Our secretary, you’re really not listening to me.”
At the voice coming from behind, Yoon Youngsoo turned his head. There stood Jin Songyi, awkwardly smiling. It seemed there was no problem inside after all.
Yoon Youngsoo reflexively responded.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I understand how you feel, so I can’t say much more.”
Jin Songyi looked over Yoon Youngsoo’s shoulder at Jin Siho, who was walking away.
“I’ve always dreamed of my younger sibling coming back, always waiting for them, but it’s strange, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. Anyone would act like a master.”
Jin Songyi shook her head.
“How should I put this? I’m still confused. The 200th Apostle. That was my younger sibling pretending to be him.”
“I’m also surprised. Honestly, unlike the master, I didn’t feel any sense of discomfort.”
Of course, Yoon Youngsoo didn’t know what Jin Siho was like when he was a child. He had never seen him. The discomfort he was talking about referred to *that power.*
It wasn’t Jin Siho, but the 200th Apostle who had been pretending to be him.
From Yoon Youngsoo’s perspective, who had watched him from beginning to end, that power was almost on par with the current Jin Songyi. Perhaps even stronger.
To have hidden such power and lived as an ordinary person for ten years?
Although Yoon Youngsoo’s expression remained calm on the outside, his mind was a mess.
He had lived thinking of the Gate as his enemy, but to find that something worse than the Gate existed was confusing.
Jin Songyi continued speaking.
“Ten years… It’s a long time. Looking back now, I’ve thought many times that something was off about my sibling. I wondered if this person was really my sibling. I secretly did blood tests and several other tests. But everything matched.”
Yoon Youngsoo silently looked at Jin Songyi.
“But when the results kept saying that this person was my sibling, my instinct kept screaming at me. It said this wasn’t right, something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell anyone. The results were clearly accurate, but doubting them made me look like a crazy woman. But it turns out my instinct was right.”
Once again, Yoon Youngsoo quietly listened to Jin Songyi’s words. There were other Awakened nearby, but they hadn’t come over to this area.
For now, it was just the two of them talking.
“Secretary,” she said.
“Yes, master,” Yoon Youngsoo replied.
“That man… is really my sibling. His eyes, actions, the way he carries himself—everything about him is my younger sibling. The Sihoon who was there for me when I was young. It’s just that.”
Jin Songyi gave another awkward smile.
“He just came back a lot stronger.”