Chapter 65
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: 63. Fragment of the Martial God
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A familiar ceiling came into view.
I woke up in my bedroom.
Or more precisely, this was my room but not quite my room. In other words, it was the room prepared inside my mental world for the hikikomori lifestyle of the author Yoo Eun-ha.
She was sitting in a chair, legs crossed seductively, staring at me coldly. Had I done something wrong?
"Just what is it about that damn woman that makes you go so far? I mean, sure, her body's female, but do you like women that much?"
The fact that her body is female doesn't mean Joo-ji gets turned on by it. No matter how many times I reincarnate, it's always beauties that get me going.
"Then you should've turned this body of mine into a man's. It's only natural that a man in spirit wants to do it with a woman, right?"
"So if a woman turns into a man, she'd do it with a man?"
"From the person's perspective, it seems theoretically sound."
At least in theory, it holds up. Tastes should be respected. I wouldn't judge a woman who turns tsundere and dives headfirst into BL pursuits.
It'd really just depend on whether the target accepts being the BL goal.
"No, that's not the point. Even back in your days terrorizing as the Evil Dragon, you liked women. Azidahaka. Gender doesn't even mean anything to you from the start."
Well, yeah—woman to man, man back to woman. Of course gender loses meaning.
"You just wanted to see me do it with a guy?"
Female corruption is something I can't stand.
"No, what I'm saying is, after screwing around exclusively with women to the point of nausea, who'd hole up in that archive for a hundred years just to save one? That's what baffles me."
Yeah, I get that. But still.
"Mother-daughter rice bowl—isn't that everyone's dream?"
"Sigh, even if it's everyone's dream, this is a bit extreme. Wait, does everyone really dream of mother-daughter rice bowl?"
Sure, if it were some repulsive middle-aged auntie, I'd pass without a second thought. But Rachel looks like she's in her twenties. A mother and daughter both in their twenties. Who could resist?
Plus, excluding the chest, they're spitting images—blood-related beauties duplicated.
Can't hold back. No way.
"Could be. Is that any reason to torment me over it?"
"No, you're not even human. Still, a hundred years? It's given me a massive headache."
Who's the one spending those hundred years? Don't tell me she sees everything I see and feel here as a dream or something.
"No, you just had to endure a hundred years."
"Azidahaka. Don't forget you're me too. In short, it'd be an insanely boring time human-wise. And I can't intervene directly without restrictions."
Even if she did intervene, I wouldn't accept it. Skipping through a hundred years in a snap would make it hard to raise Rachel's affection.
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Maybe the straight path isn't necessary. Fine. Do one errand for me, and I'll shorten it a bit. Here."
The author Yoo Eun-ha muttered to herself and tossed me a book.
[Hero and Demon King]
Hero and Demon King? What is this book?
"Finish writing this book's story. As a reward, it'll have a spell that makes time fly by. It'll help win Rachel's heart too, no problem."
Leave it to an author. When bored, self-entertain—instead, she makes me do it.
I sighed and opened the book.
After spending a hundred years in the archive, I finally returned to the original world.
Once the errand was done, the so-called reward was a bizarre spell that made ten years feel like a single day.
I don't know what trickery she pulled, but ten years passed—yet to me, it felt like just 24 hours.
Did that spell only apply to me? Because Rachel seemed to have spent the actual hundred years with me.
Of course. If it'd only been ten days, she wouldn't be holding my hand and gazing at me so lovingly right now.
On top of that, unbeknownst to me, the fruit of our love had been created.
Ten days later, I finally brought Rachel to the Songdo penthouse.
"Let me introduce her. This is Rachel Silverluk, Reina's mother."
Everyone was lounging in the lounge when I proudly introduced Rachel, now fully my woman.
"““......””"
Everyone froze in shock. Reina's expression was especially inscrutable.
Embarrassment, confusion, joy, longing—her face cycled through emotions so vividly it was almost funny.
"No, I don't get it. You went somewhere for a sec, and not even five minutes later, what the hell?"
Apparently, less than five minutes had passed outside.
Considering the time to connect the gate and re-enter the archive, I'd barely spent any time here.
I'd slaved away on that errand until I was drained—yet only five minutes outside?
No, I like it this way. If a hundred years had passed here, Reina the monster or Si-woo the lustful might still be alive, but Earth would've perished.
"M-Mother!"
"My daughter......"
Rachel and Reina embraced. A truly tear-jerking, heartwarming family reunion.
Especially for Reina, who'd been swept here through a gate as a child. Despite generous government support leading to her current status, the loneliness of lost family must've lingered.
Now she could live happily with her mother.
And I got my mother-daughter rice bowl.
"Uh, so what's that?"
"Kkiruk!"
Lee Yoo-jeong eyed the little dragon floating by my side.
A white dragon with shimmering scales.
A dragon that adored me. And Rachel's child too.
Yeah, no need to say more. This was the fruit of our love.
"This is, uh, well. Our mana, me and Rachel's."
"The crystallization of our love."
Rachel chimed in, cupping her cheeks as she blushed.
We're screwed. Reina was already glaring at me.
I'd planned to pass it off as just mana, but now she'd grab me by the hair?
While living in the archive with Rachel, we'd combined our mana to create something new.
It wasn't like I'd intended it—it just happened. With our mana mixed in, I couldn't discard it.
If I did, it'd be like birthing a child and abandoning it—making Rachel a deadbeat mom. So I brought it along.
"Her name's Ray. Not born like a real baby, but created from mana and the power of love?"
"Looks just like your kid, Eun-ha. You have that dragon's power, after all."
Yoo-jeong scooped up my child(?) into her arms.
Size-wise, still a bit bigger than a large guinea pig.
No idea how big it'll get, but I wondered if it had combat abilities.
"Kkyuruk!"
Yawning contentedly, it dozed off in Yoo-jeong's arms like a perfect pet.
Rachel gazed at her dragon child with maternal affection, while Reina—glaring at Ray like a rival sibling—soon turned her arrows on me.
"Still, that's too much. Going after my mom of all people!?"
"Don't be like that. There were reasons."
Rachel blocked Reina as she lunged at me.
No choice—I had to explain everything to Reina before her affection dropped.
About how I'd actually spent a hundred years in the archive.
At my explanation, not just Reina—even Yoo-jeong, holding Ray, gaped.
"For me? And the archive was a hundred years?"
"Yeah, if it were Han Su-ji or you, Senior Yoo-jeong, I'd have spent a hundred years with either the same way."
Managed my image nicely.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You would've said no, and Rachel would've stayed trapped."
Records can't ever leave.
Unless someone burned the books containing them, no record could exit the archive.
"Records can't leave, right? How?"
"Monsterized her."
"You turned my mom into a monster?"
"Well, Eun-ha reunites with me and suddenly shoves a core into my chest."
Had to, to save her. To revive a record into a living being, embed a core.
Not exactly the same as having a physical body, though.
The result? Her handling her own corpse in a bizarre scene.
–Ridiculous, me cleaning my own bones.
–But you're alive now. That's what matters.
–Still, these bones are me too—smashing them like that...
–What're you saying? To me, you're the only Rachel there is.
Even then, I'd tempted her with kisses.
The issue was, in becoming a monster, she gained odd abilities.
Turning her body into paper. Yeah, like that female character from a certain Japanese ninja manga. Precisely, she turns into the paper pages holding the archive's records. And gained teleportation between books.
In short, enter a book in the penthouse, emerge from author Yoo Eun-ha's books at home.
Pretty useful ability.
Mother-daughter rice bowl could wait. Duties first.
Above all, my head throbbed.
Come to think of it, where's Han Su-ji?
I pressed my temples and asked Yoo-jeong.
"Han Su-ji still hasn't come out?"
"Nope."
No way that blockhead Park Jun-hyuk handled an event Su-ji couldn't clear. Hers was stronger anyway.
Events don't report properly. Nothing I could help with.
"For now, you two have some mother-daughter time. I'm beat—gonna sleep."
Fatigue had piled up unexpectedly. Daily slug-love with Rachel in the archive? No sweat for an Evil Dragon.
The problem was overusing that damn Akashic Records.
Even I got headaches pulling info nonstop from Akashic Records. Just linking Elene Mamang's world and Rachel's to this one gave me migraines.
Rushing the errand worsened it—now the pain hit all at once upon return.
No clue how frantically I'd written to complete that story.
"Tired? That's new for you."
"A hundred years' fatigue crashing in at once."
Not academy day yet. Could rest a bit.
I left the heroines in the lounge and crashed onto the queen-size bed in the penthouse.
How long had I slept? My headache gnawed at my brain like a beast.
In that hazy border between sleep and wakefulness amid the onslaught, I frowned at the voice echoing in my mind.
How strange. To think even you have entered my fragment.
This was the Martial God's voice. No way?
"What the hell is going on?"
I sent the red-haired girl into my fragment to grant her power and experience, but it seems you've been drawn in as well, having once accepted me.
No way I have to deal with this hassle too.
"So I have to do this here together too?"
Indeed. You must escape this fragment alongside her. Accomplish what I could not. This is beyond my power.
"W-Wait. Aaaagh!"
Before I could finish, that damn Martial God dragged me into the fragment.
When I came to, I was in a tent straight out of a historical drama.
"? Where is this? Han Su-ji?"
Han Su-ji sat beside me, looking dumbfounded.
Her outfit was ridiculously revealing armor, like something female characters wear in Three Kingdoms games.
And mine was the same. Martial God, your tastes are unique.
"Eun-ha? Why are you here? This is the space the Martial God prepared for me."
"Looks like I got pulled in too. Probably because I have a connection with him."
Mid-conversation with Han Su-ji, an armored man burst into the tent from outside.
Who the hell's this guy?
He stared at us in bewilderment before speaking.
"Spear Sisters. What're you doing? Hurry up and go."
Go where?
"Didn't you say you'd seize the fortress?"
Fortress?
"You two alone, so do well."
What kind of crazy bullshit is this?