I Hope the Gift Is to Your Liking
Hack. Hack.
"Haa... haa... Damn it!"
Dan Miryong was down on all fours, vomiting blood. The room he had only just finished cleaning was a bloodbath all over again.
"Ghk—hrk!"
His stomach felt hot and swollen. He dug through the medicine chest at once, yanked out bandages, and in that brief span unwound the wrappings already soaked red before winding fresh cloth round and round his belly and chest.
He held on for a long time, chewing painkillers dry. At last the stabbing agony passed.
"Damn it..."
Having fought the pain and won, Dan Miryong slid down until his back met the wall.
"Heal. It won't heal..."
After the assault on Dan Chuyeon and Mi Soryeong, he had fled to the safehouse. As the dragon came undone and he turned human again, the pain that rushed in left him thrashing. Blood poured out of him until he was little more than a mummy, and his bones ground to powder and ran through his veins.
Without a dragon's vitality, he would never have lived.
But do rest easy—for a moment. By now his recovery had slowed so badly that he could not even leave the room.
"Fuck. I didn't think the side effects would be this bad..."
A complete dragon. The power he had gained was enormous, and the backlash was no smaller. Every scrap of strength he clawed back was sucked away at once, as if someone had jammed a straw into him and drawn on it, and each time the pain felt like his very soul being pulled out.
He had to recover if he was ever to shake the side effects off, and yet the side effects were precisely what kept him from recovering. The vicious cycle fed itself.
"Hurry. I have to take my revenge..."
Dan Miryong's eyes lost their focus. The pain had gone on so long that his mind was coming and going.
"Revenge..."
His eyes rolled white, and he blacked out.
A place he could not name. His mother had him by the shoulders.
Dan Miryong's mother still looked young, and yet that youth meant nothing. Her face was wounded and blackened all over. She stared at him, eyes blazing.
"Miryong, remember this well."
The voice that spilled out of her was scraped raw.
"Mom?"
"Everything that became of us is Dan Miryu's fault. That worthless wretch stole the rightful seat of head of the Dan Clan."
"Mom...?"
"Miryong. Remember. You are the true head of the Dan Clan. There is no one but you."
Dan Miryong could not understand any of it. Where had Father gone? Why had Mother turned so strange? Where were all the people who used to be glad to see him? His child's mind could not grasp a single piece of it.
Boom!
The unknowable space shook, hard and rough. Fear settled into her eyes, and she shoved Dan Miryong into the dark.
"He's here! Miryong, you have to stay hidden. He won't find you."
"Mom...!"
He reached after her as she ran toward the darkness.
Boom!
Another impact tore through, and the space shattered apart.
"Hah?!"
Dan Miryong lurched upright, cold sweat streaming off him.
"Damn it. Another dream."
A nightmare of that day's memories. He had already dreamed through the repertoire more than once, each time in a different shape.
"I'm sick of it."
When would he ever be free of this nightmare? When the revenge was finished, and he had at least offered rites for the dead?
"Huh?"
He realized he had woken in a bed. Before his memory cut out, he was certain he had collapsed on the floor.
"Awake, are you?"
"Wah?!"
A voice slipped in and bored secretly into his ear, and Dan Miryong jolted so hard he nearly left his skin.
"Was that truly worth such a fright? You're more of a coward than I expected."
"You..."
Dan Miryong turned his head toward the sound.
Another One sat in a chair, drinking tea.
"I happened to be out for a walk, so I stopped in. The safehouse was a wreck."
"...You cleaned all of this?"
The room, which had been soaked in blood and filth, was as clean as if it had been built that very day.
"Who else would have cleaned it, if not I? I treated you as well, while I was at it. Your body was a disaster."
"...Thank you."
"It was hardly a deed that called for thanks. Still, now that I have received it, I don't find it unpleasant."
"...Then why did you come?"
"As I said. I was walking, I grew bored, and I stopped by."
"Really?"
Dan Miryong studied him closely. Every time before, Another One's presence had been blurred and impossible to pin down. Now it caught, clear and sharp.
"For that to be all of it, something's off."
"...Hm. A dragon's instinct is keen. To think you could disregard, even in part, a gulf in strength so vast."
Another One set the teacup down. A faint crack ran through it—nothing he would have done on purpose. A small slip.
"Did you come here from a fight?"
Dan Miryong smelled violence on him, so thick it felt as if it might punch a hole straight through his brain.
"I merely spoke with someone I wished to meet. It grew a little more heated than I expected."
"Heated...?"
Dan Miryong was startled.
There's something out there that can fight this man?
Just how much of a monster is that thing?
"Well. Enough about me. What do you say, Dan Miryong—can you move?"
"Yeah. More or less."
He rolled his shoulders in a circle. Astonishingly, nothing was wrong. No grinding in the joints, no shards of bone.
"How did you treat me?"
"I used Hua Tuo's power. Ordinarily I would have used Asclepius, but..."
Another One gave a short, regretful click of the tongue.
Hua Tuo? Asclepius? What are those?
"At any rate, you are fully recovered. A matter worth congratulating."
"...So what's the real point."
He had been talking in circles from the start, and it made Dan Miryong uneasy. What was he working up to, that he had to draw it out like this?
Another One spoke while his fingers groped through empty air.
"Nothing of consequence. I came to lend a hand with your revenge."
"What...?"
Dan Miryong's eyes flew wide.
"Didn't you say you wouldn't interfere?"
"I did. But circumstances have changed."
For an instant, Another One's face crackled with static.
"...Huh?"
"As you can see, I should like to return a blow to the one who left me like this."
The fingers searching the air stopped dead.
"This ought to do."
Another One made a grasping motion at nothing, then thrust his arm straight out.
And then—
Shing!
A sword drew itself out of empty air. The grip was wrapped in rough leather, and the blade ran out long and beautiful. Along the steel a black wave had been etched as if it were flowing, and near the base of the edge a dragon had been drawn. Even Dan Miryong, a layman where swords were concerned, could have fallen for a treasure blade like this.
So why was he shaking so hard?
"Haa. Haa."
His breath grew ragged. Simply sharing a room with the sword made him want to run, this instant.
"Why—why is this happening?"
It was only a sword.
He could not hide the tremor. Like a coward, Dan Miryong drew his legs in close.
Another One produced a scabbard and slid the sword away. The shaking eased a little.
"Th-that sword. What is it?"
"A sword that has cut down a dragon."
"A dragon?"
"Yes. A sword that took the head of a true evil dragon—one on an entirely different order from you."
King of Castle Xanten in the Netherlands. Husband of Kriemhild, and dragon-slayer.
The sword with which the hero Sigurd beheaded the evil dragon Fafnir.
"That's a dragon-slaying sword?"
Impossible. A sword out of legend had actually existed?
"You don't believe it?"
"Of course I don't. A legend is just a legend."
"And yet you were afraid the moment you saw the sword."
"That was..."
Dan Miryong shut his mouth. The reaction of a moment ago was genuinely hard to put into words.
"You trembled in fear because, by instinct, you knew this sword would kill you. What prey fails to shake when its natural enemy stands before its eyes?"
Another One drew the blade a fraction. Dan Miryong's eyes turned draconic.
"Krrrk!"
"Forgive me. I carried the joke too far."
"...So why did you show me that?"
Dan Miryong asked it only after he had gathered body and mind back together.
"It's impressive that the treasure sword is real, but it's useless to me. I'm too scared to even hold it."
"Of course I am not telling you to fight with it in hand."
Another One flung the sword.
"Ugh!"
Dan Miryong scrambled back toward the wall as if dodging filth, then glared at him.
"Draw the sword, and pierce your heart."
"What?! Are you kidding me?!"
"I am quite serious."
"You're telling me to kill myself?!"
"No."
Another One pointed at the sword.
"When Balmung cut Fafnir, it drank the dragon's blood. An evil dragon's hatred is not a thing that fades with ease. The traces of that dragon still lie thick upon this blade."
The black fluid running along the steel, and the picture of the dragon—those were the evil dragon's hatred, and its curse.
And its blood.
"The evil dragon desires life once more. Should it find a rightful body, it may yet rise again."
Dan Miryong swallowed, hard.
"...You're telling me to become that evil dragon?"
"If you overcome it, then yes."
"...And if I overcome it, what happens?"
"Who can say..."
Another One turned and took hold of the door.
"At the very least, I don't imagine you would lose to Dan Miryu."
The door burst open.
"I wish you fortune in the fight."
Another One was gone.
Dan Miryong closed a trembling hand around the hilt.
"..."
The dream he had just had rose up again.
Steel whispered free. Forcing down the nausea and the fear that surged in him, he reversed his grip on the hilt.
"Huff! Huff!"
I'm dead! I'm dead! I'm dead!
"If I don't die, I can't win...!"
Dan Miryong pulled his arm in toward himself.
And then—
"So you've resolved yourself."
Another One cut off every trace of power that tried to spill out past the door. On the other side, a vicious, clinging presence was raging.
Wrapped with the utmost courtesy. Take it with you.
That day, deep in the mountains, the screams that could not get out went on and on.