The S-Classes That I Raised

wouldn’t be impossible.”

Yoohyun said, opening an alcohol bottle.

“Since there are windows.
If they searched one by one with teleportation, they would eventually find it.”

They didn’t seem to have a personality that would do something troublesome like that.
To avoid the Dokkaebi, did you need to have a darkroom in a shrewdly[9] hidden location, on top of portal travel?

“You don’t have to worry about the Dokkaebi.
Even just for their own safety, they’ll definitely keep your secrets.
If you just forget their unpleasant points, then they really are useful.”

“Like when you contact them secretly?”

“There’s that too, but when you make an appointment with someone you don’t trust and who doesn’t trust you back, if you go through the Dokkaebi, they also check the safety for you.
Thanks to that, it’s to the extent that they’re necessary for Unawakaened high-ranking officials.”

So they did that kind of service too.
Whether it was for the Dokkaebi or for me, as expected, it would be better to keep our contract a secret.
Even if you said there was a clause in the contract that we wouldn’t tell others’ secrets, people high up would definitely feel uneasy.

“But speaking of the Dokkaebi, don’t they seem young when you see them?”

“Hm? Well they do have an unusual personality.
Still, they handle their work accurately and meticulously.
Rather than young, wouldn’t it be more of a concept? There are a few Hunters who make a character based on their abilities and act it out.”

Was it like that? Then again, even when we were filling out the contract, rather than being like a young kid, they were really thorough in figuring out various conditions.

They were probably deep into the character of the Dokkaebi instead of being young, like Yoohyun said.
The way they acted was exactly like a dokkaebi from a traditional fairy tale.
Liking pranks, trying to scare people, and being versatile while also having a simple side.

If I lent them money, would they keep paying me back everyday?

I soothingly petted Peace, who wanted to try playing with the sparkling glass bottles, and raised the glass of alcohol that my dongsaeng had poured out for me.
Hm… Was it about 20 mL? Look here, dongsaeng-nim.
The alcohol was only wetting the bottom of the glass.

“This is a little too harsh.
It wouldn’t even be one sip.”

“I said it was strong.
Just drink one sip at a time.”

And then he filled his glass halfway.

“I’m not that weak to alcohol, okay?”

I had been drinking five years, no ten years, longer than you.
Complaining, I emptied the glass and grabbed the alcohol bottle.
What, punk, so what if you scowl at me.
Are you going to snatch it away?

“It only says its strong, I can’t even feel it at all.”

I really couldn’t feel it.
Just the smell was nice and pungent; I could only tell that it was pretty good to drink.
Maybe it was like that because it was expensive, but even without the drunk feeling, it was fine.

“Don’t look so sullen, and you take a glass too.
It’s the first.”

After hesitating for a bit, Yoohyun emptied his glass in one go and held it out.
Seeing that, I felt a little strange.

Before the regression, I didn’t even think of doing something like exchanging drinks.
No, until the world changed, I thought there would be a day when I would drink with my dongsaeng.

I had once thought that it would be obvious I would teach my dongsaeng how to drink, pouring him a glass like this, though of course a cheap one, after he finished the CSAT.

“You were a good dongsaeng.”

There were so many things I was lacking in, but he didn’t even complain, unlike a young kid.

“Of course, you’re still a good dongsaeng.”

I smiled, completely filling up the empty glass for him.
He acted a little annoying but that was because of the skill.
Even if it wasn’t the skill, it was because he was worrying about me.

“…You’re saying I was a good dongsaeng.”

Yoohyun muttered, bitterly.
It was true you were good.
And you were a model student.
That guy’s expression was so sour that I was about to ask if there maybe was a time when he made trouble without me knowing, when Yoohyun spoke first.

“What was it you wanted to say?”

“Oh yeah, that.”

I continued speaking while petting Peace, who was purring on my lap.

“It’s because of the skill at 10 levels.”

“Skill? Then again, you were nearby when I was exterminating the boss monster, so you must have gotten some experience.
Since it was at the level of about an A-Rank dungeon, there was probably more than just the level up.
What kind of skill was it?”

“Magic beast trainer.”

Since, rather than monsters, it seemed like there were more magic beasts.

“…Magic beast, trainer?”

Yoohyun’s gaze went down toward Peace.
Feeling the gaze, Peace slightly bared his teeth as if he didn’t like it.
He was someone who would become your partner from now on, so don’t be like that.

“Yeah.
It seems like taking care of Peace affected even the skill.
The skill rank is S-Rank and-.”

“S-Rank?!”

My dongsaeng’s expression became severe.

“You’re stat F, but the skill is… and a special skill at that, is S……”

“Hey, don’t think something weird.”

I would leave the house if he talked about locking me up or whatever again.

“But hyung-.”

“But what[10], don’t say something useless and just listen.
The skill effect is, like the name, raising magic beasts, monsters.
Specifically, it’s causing them to grow.
They said Peace, the baby Horned Flame Lion, wouldn’t grow, right? Baby Horned Flame Lions originally can’t grow without an adult’s help.
But if I use my skill, the growth is possible.
With the taming in place.”

A tamed Horned Flame Lion adult.

More than anyone else, Han Yoohyun, that guy, would know the value of that.

A silence fell.
Peace wagged his tail.

After a long time, Yoohyun opened his mouth, with a complicated expression.

“But, then hyung would.”

“You’re saying ‘but’ again.
Just think.
How many S-Ranks are there who need high ranking familiars right now?”

“…All of them.
Since you can’t use mid- to low-rank familiars in S-Rank dungeons.
It would be burdensome even for the giant guilds to use them as single-use, so they’re at the level to taking along occasionally on a first attack.
The probability of a mid- to low-rank familiar surviving an S-Rank dungeon is extremely small.”

A slightly blank voice continued explaining.

“So, not from only S-Ranks, there is a demand from all team members.
Even if it wasn’t a highest rank, like a Horned Flame Lion, and was only at the level of being able to endure an S-Rank dungeon, not only from the country, but people from all over the world would come gather around.”

After finishing what he was saying, Yoohyun covered his face with his hand and gave a long sigh.
Looking at that, I smiled.

“If the demand is at that level, it wouldn’t be hard to mediate, right?”

“…For that, of course, really…… The advice during the day also was like that…”

Yoohyun lowered the hand covering his face.
The expression like his soul had slightly left was funny.
It was a little cute too.
I thought of when he was young.

“Hyung really is the best.”

Don’t mention it.

[1] where you read the first letter (syllable, in the case of krn, bc that’s how krn is written) of each sentence/line vertically to get a new different sentence/phrase

[2] ‘dan’, also used in these cases to mean ‘exception:’

[3] lit.
‘cross the jordan river’ again.
I thought this was a more similar phrase maybe than ‘go to heaven’.
If it comes up again, I’ll just do either of the two.

[4] common metaphorical way to say that they couldn’t find anything, similar to ‘couldn’t find a single hair’, etc.

[5] so the word I’ve been using for ‘trainer’ in this ch.
contains the word for ‘to rear, raise [animals]’ bc it’s 사육사 (사육 = to rear, -사 = someone w an expertise) but the word itself means ‘animal trainer, zookeeper, sb who raises and trains animals at a zoo’.
It would be better if I used the same root word for both, but I felt like it was truer to the text to keep it as ‘rear’ instead of ‘train’ but I wasn’t about to use ‘rearer’ or even worse ‘breeder’

[6] yh sent ‘ㅇㅇ’ which is text-speak shorthand for 응, or ‘yeah’ but I thought if I just used ‘y’ then it would seem like ‘why’

[7] it was lit.
‘1-person-use sofa’ so I’m assuming it was sth like an armchair

[8] ‘dog’ isn’t really quite to the point of being a swear but it’s loosely used as a bad thing.
It can work that way in eng too but I wasn’t sure if it made sense or not, hence the footnote.

[9] the word used is 교모하게 which might be a misspelling of 교묘하게? It’s not in the dict, neither the krn-eng one or the krn one.
I tl’ed it as 교묘하게 bc idk what 교모하게 means so this part might be wrong, sorry.

[10] he actually uses reduplication (ex: fancy schmancy) with the word ‘but’ but there’s no similar phrase in eng