Where Is the Future of Dragon Palace Going?
A pufferfish, fattened to the point of absurdity, rolled helplessly on the ground with a rope binding its body. It was the fugitive physician—the black pufferfish doctor who had tried to run.
“Let me go! I said untie me at once!”
The physician had been bristling and shouting only a moment ago, but when he caught sight of Neoul, he froze and instantly shrank in on himself. Geomsa-bokjang tightened the rope without delay, cinching the man’s body even harder.
“Your Highness! Please, save me!”
The black pufferfish doctor flapped his short fins and pleaded.
“I did all I could! I swear it! The Dragon King’s collapse was not something within my power to prevent!”
“Enough.”
Neoul lifted one hand and stopped him. Then, in a voice soft enough to sound almost soothing, he said, “I did not have you dragged here to accuse you. Answer only what I ask. What symptoms did Father show before he lost consciousness?”
The doctor gave a shiver and bowed low.
“H-he suffered from chronic headaches… and recently he had been coughing more often. His body temperature rose, so he could not sleep at night, and even when he rested, it was no rest at all. He also lost his appetite.”
“Do you know what illness it is?”
“We… we cannot determine the cause at all….”
“Then what treatment had been given?”
“In addition to a decoction to ease the coughing, we prescribed painkillers made from sea snail venom to reduce the headaches.”
“And the effect? Did it help at all?”
“The decoction seemed effective at first, but its potency gradually weakened. The painkillers only eased the pain for a time; they were not a fundamental solution.”
“…How soon do you think Father, who has lost consciousness, might wake?”
“I- I am sorry. It is highly likely that the Dragon King will either not wake of his own accord, or if he does, he will remain in grave danger. You should prepare yourself….”
Silence fell over everything. The faces of the retainers, too, were heavy with grief. Neoul hesitated, then asked in a steady voice, “How long… can he endure? How much time is left?”
“At most two and a half years. At the least, one year.”
“One year.”
It was enough time to go to land and bring back rabbit liver. Neoul lowered his body and met the physician’s eyes head-on.
“Can you swear to it?”
The physician, who had shown nothing but uncertainty until now, suddenly raised his voice as if this one thing he could guarantee beyond doubt.
“Yes! I swear it with my life! Please believe me! He will not die before then, I assure you!”
Neoul stared into the doctor’s eyes as though trying to tell truth from lie. The physician looked terrified, yet his gaze did not waver.
Neoul straightened at last and asked one final question.
“Do you know anything of rabbit liver?”
“I have heard that, long ago, there was once a physician who prescribed such a cure, but I know little else.”
“I understand.”
With that, Neoul turned away without the slightest lingering regret.
“Your Highness. Please give judgment on the black pufferfish doctor.”
“Release him.”
“Pardon?”
“I will not say it twice. He has done his duty. Untie him.”
Losing all interest in the doctor, Neoul bid farewell to the gathered retainers at once. Their faces were so grim and funeral-like that he forced a smile and tried to comfort them with a bright voice.
“I will bring back rabbit liver.”
“Your Highness…!”
“For now, that is the only hope we have. It seems my older brothers and sisters became dragons after leaving for the human world long ago, so perhaps they may be able to help. Therefore, do not worry about me. Please take good care of Father and my younger brother. I’ll be back before long.”
“Will you leave without greeting the youngest prince?”
“I’ll greet him when I return. Tell him that if he doesn’t cry and eats his meals properly while he waits, I’ll bring him a gift.”
Neoul left behind a surprisingly dignified farewell and swam out of Dragon Palace.
The future of Dragon Palace rested on his shoulders.
The retainers watched the massive gates of Dragon Palace swing open and then shut again with a thud, and they dabbed at their tears.
How did our little, troublesome prince grow up enough to….
He was a little worrying, yes, but somehow the back of Prince Neoul’s head as it vanished beyond the gates felt dependable—reassuring, even.
Before, it had been the kind of back of the head one wanted to bop exactly once.
“Geomsa-bokjang. Assign an escort to the prince. Don’t interfere; just follow quietly, and step in if anything dangerous happens.”
“Yes, sir.”
Do-seungji, who had given the order to his son, turned away while swallowing the swelling knot of worry, anticipation, and pride in his chest.
His eyes had grown moist, but there was no time to sink into sentiment.
What he had to do now was trust Prince Neoul and protect the Dragon King and the young youngest prince until he returned.
With a face full of resolve, Do-seungji took a step forward.
Then, at that moment, the tightly shut gate opened again with a creaking sound. When he looked back, Neoul had poked his head through the gap and was wearing that trademark blank, mildly vacant expression.
“Your Highness. Why are you back so soon…?”
To the flustered retainers’ ears came the prince’s clear, hearty voice.
“Do-seungji! What does a rabbit look like?”
“…….”
The tears that had been about to fall were swallowed back up.
Can we really trust him?
Will the future of Dragon Palace be all right… will it really be all right?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Neoul got the information he needed about rabbits from Do-seungji and left Dragon Palace. Then he came back once more to ask which direction the nearest stretch of land lay in, and only then did he truly set out on his way.
The blue-ringed octopus, who had been hiding and following him, nearly got caught when the prince suddenly turned around.
She hurriedly changed color, disguising herself as a rock, and quietly trailed after him.
He had said not to interfere, not to escort him in secret. Still, she had misunderstood the order and moved in a furtive, stealthy way that practically amounted to shadowing him.
Unlike the inside of Dragon Palace, bright as a sunlit shallow sea, the world beyond its gates was a dim abyss so dark it was hard to tell direction from direction. Separated by only one door, the two places felt like entirely different worlds.
Bioluminescent creatures and all manner of sea life drifted slowly through the darkness, each glowing for reasons of its own.
Even Neoul’s tail gave off a light of blue and scattered white points like constellations.
It was a light invisible in brightness-filled places, but in the deep sea it stood out sharply.
Like a ripple, like his name, he swam forward, and a great white shark shot toward him in a flash.
In the darkness, the shark opened its mouth wide, flashing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
In an instant, Neoul’s right arm was swallowed into its jaws. The shark seemed to be considering whether to bite down, his arm still in its mouth.
The blue-ringed octopus jerked in alarm and was about to rush over.
But Neoul only looked calmly into the shark’s jet-black eyes.
The blue-ringed octopus crouched, uncertain whether to step in or stay back.
“Now, now, Sangsangi. I can’t play with you today.”
As Neoul soothed the shark and drew his arm back, then patted the gray body of the great white, the shark finally shut its mouth. When he pulled his arm free, it bore only a tiny scrape from the teeth—just enough to itch, nothing more.
The baby great white shark, little Sangsangi, who was only 1.6 meters long, whipped his tail from side to side and swam circles around Neoul.
Neoul had once found a newborn great white shark caught in a net after losing its mother and set it free. After that, the little shark had come down near Dragon Palace like this and trailed after him wherever he went.
It was a clever shark that would bump its own body against the gate as though knocking whenever Neoul refused to come out.
By the time Neoul grew attached, he had ended up naming the baby great white shark Sangsangi.
“I told you not to go wandering about alone because it’s dangerous. Where’s Byeoldtongi?”
No sooner had Neoul finished speaking than, from a little way off, a three-meter baby whale shark glided over on smooth, gentle strokes.
The whale shark rolled itself over and circled beside Neoul. Its fins fluttered as though returning a greeting.
“You were nearby, then. Byeoldtongi, you work hard taking care of Sangsangi.”
Neoul gave the whale shark’s back a few pats, then set off again with a busy little motion. The two sharks naturally followed behind him.
Even though Byeoldtongi hadn’t been rescued by Neoul or been given anything special, one day it had simply started following him for no apparent reason and had remained with Sangsangi ever since.
Neoul had named it Byeoldtongi because the white specks embroidered across its back looked like shooting stars fallen from the sky.
Though he couldn’t speak with them or sit down together for meals, they were precious companions, sea-roaming friends to Neoul, who had once had none.
Swimming briskly, Neoul told the two where he was headed.
“I’m going to land to meet a rabbit. I’ll go see the Sea Witch and ask her to make me legs.”
In an undersea cave near Dragon Palace lived a giant octopus that had lived for more than two thousand years.
Everyone called her the Sea Witch.
“The Sea Witch knows more about the human world than anyone in Dragon Palace. She said she goes there often whenever she’s bored, so she may know something about rabbits too.”
The Dragon King sometimes left Dragon Palace on distant trips to survey the far reaches of the sea.
Whenever he did, he always left young Neoul in the Sea Witch’s care.
The first day Neoul met her, she smiled broadly and said,
— Oh my, what a cute mermaid prince. Such a beautiful voice you’ve got. Don’t you want to sell it to me?
— You don’t want to? Saying it so firmly makes me want it even more. I think I’ll steal it while our prince is asleep!
After that, Neoul had to spend several nights anxiously afraid that the Sea Witch would steal his voice while he slept.
Even after the Dragon King scolded her for teasing the child, her attitude remained perfectly consistent.
— A long time ago, a mermaid with red hair came to me because she wanted to become human. That one had a lovely voice too. I said I’d make her human legs just as she wished, and all I wanted in return was her tongue as material and her voice as payment for my labor. She handed them over very happily.
— That mermaid’s story became quite popular with humans. Before long, they all started calling me the villain. What did I do, exactly? I didn’t scam anyone. I didn’t steal anything.
— Anyway, I’m still using that mermaid’s voice. But lately I’ve grown a bit tired of it. I like your voice better, Your Highness.
— If you ever need anything, just tell me. I’ll give you a generous price for your voice. I hope it’ll still be beautiful even after your voice changes. Take care of your throat, all right?
Haha.
After more than ten years of that sort of teasing, Neoul had reached the level of hearing most of her words in one ear and letting them fall out the other.
That old witch is at it again.
Honestly, I don’t know why she’s like that.
And yet, even while he let the teasing pass through him, he remembered one phrase with perfect clarity: that she had “made human legs.”
At the cave entrance, there was a heap of shell fragments the Sea Witch had eaten and tossed aside.
On closer inspection, the floor showed that the shells had been arranged into letters.
[Out.
Notin.
It meant not to come in because she wasn’t home.
“Sangsangi. Byeoldtongi. I’ll be out in a moment, so wait here for me.”
Neoul blithely ignored the shell-written warning and pushed aside the curtain woven from strands of seaweed, stepping inside.
The first thing that caught his eye was a shelf made of barnacles covering the cave wall. It was packed with all manner of unknown ingredients and medicines.
Until now, he had not paid much attention to whatever bizarre things the Sea Witch made. If he had known it would come to this, he would have looked more carefully beforehand.
He regretted it, but fortunately Neoul had a good memory.
— Your Highness. Do you know what this is? Frog venom. Want to try some?
— No, thank you.
— Why not? Aren’t you curious what would happen if you ate it?
— Yes. I am not curious.
— Hmm~ so firm.
Recalling the one-sided, trivial conversations he had had with the Sea Witch, Neoul swept his gaze across the shelves in search of the medicine he needed.
Among all those medicines, surely there had to be one that could turn a tail into legs.
Neoul could breathe at the surface too, like a whale, so if he only had legs, he would be able to roam the land freely.
As he searched with widening eyes, something unusual caught his attention.
[Human Language]
[Cat Language]
[Dog Language]
[Rabbit Language]
[Elephant Language]
In a basket tucked into the corner were little boxes, each labeled with a different word.
Neoul took out the box marked [Rabbit Language] and opened the lid. A tiny pill, wrapped in candy-like plastic, lay all by itself inside.
If I eat this, will I be able to understand rabbits?
That brought back a sudden question: how had Byeoljubu, who had supposedly brought back a rabbit in old stories, communicated with a rabbit at all, when rabbits were strange land animals?
Had Byeoljubu eaten this too?
“It looks useful. I should take it for now.”
Deeper inside the cave, dozens of sets of human clothing and a pile of odd objects whose purpose he couldn’t begin to guess were stacked together.
Neoul found a fairly sturdy-looking bag among them.
He put the [Rabbit Language] and [Human Language] pills inside first, then hesitated a moment before dumping in all the remaining small boxes with a clatter.
Who knows what else I might need.
But on the bottom of the basket, revealed after the boxes were emptied out, was a warning from the Sea Witch.
Put it back where you found it, you shameless prince.
“!”
Neoul’s eyes went wide as he looked around in alarm.
Was the Sea Witch watching me?
How did she know I’d clean out every last pill?
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