The Dragon's Complex Feelings
Cheonmaryong… affectionately known as Yongyong-i, bared his teeth at the complicated expressions on the faces of Cheonma and Hoya as they stared at him. “Grrrl!” His master really had a knack for dragging home the strangest creatures. After spending the past few days living alongside his owner, Cheonmaryong had been deep in thought about how to solve these problems. Even now, the memory of the bizarre conversation he’d had with that strange soul lodged inside a human body made his reverse scale twitch uncomfortably.
“Dragon byproducts get used in all sorts of places, you know. Claws. Scales. Eyes. Bones. And so on. Kyaa~ I’m honestly jealous, dude.” The way that soul had looked at him like livestock! And the way his own master had seemed oddly intrigued by that reaction! “Kyaaao!!” What kind of being did they think he was?! He was the child of a father known as the King of Spiritual Beasts! Sure, he was still young and couldn’t speak properly yet, but he already possessed enough power to easily defeat most spiritual beasts. Just earlier, he had analyzed and recreated the power of that strange soul who treated him like livestock in order to block those two souls from approaching. Well… it had been broken through, though.
“…Cheonmaryong.”
“You really are pitiful.”
But why were these two looking at him with such pitying, sympathetic eyes? Wasn’t the name Cheonmaryong incredibly cool? “Maybe he’s being quiet because he can’t understand what we’re saying properly.” “You don’t have any thoughts about changing his name, do you?” “Of course not. Cheonmaryong. It sounds so cool and strong, doesn’t it?” “Grrrrl!” Exactly! What a magnificent name!
“Poor thing.” “We’ll take good care of you.” “Grrl?” Cheonmaryong still couldn’t understand why they were being so kind to him.
It had been a while since Cheonma and Hoya returned. Surprisingly, the two of them approached Yongyong-i with extreme friendliness. They were petting him and playing with him. Even now, Cheonma had the little dragon on her lap, gently stroking his body.
“By the way, he really has grown a lot.” Meanwhile, Hoya was examining my body. She was checking whether the Fiery Golden Eyes I received from Sun Wukong had any side effects or caused physical changes. The conclusion? No side effects. Everything came back with only positive results.
“It’s because I’ve been working hard lately.” “At this rate, he should be ready to learn other things as well.” “Ah, actually, I have something to say about that.” I explained my plan to Hoya.
“You want me to teach that spiritual beast?” “Yes! Yongyong-i has incredible talent, you know?!” “That reaction… I’ve seen it somewhere before.” Hoya muttered quietly as she looked at me. It reminded her of Cheonma, apparently. Just as I was bragging about Yongyong-i’s talent, it seemed Cheonma had done the same about mine to Hoya.
“Well, since he is a dragon, the range of things he can learn is quite broad.” Dragons tend to have their power heavily skewed toward one attribute depending on their type. Red dragons excel in fire, blue dragons in water, gold dragons in earth, and so on. But true dragons are different. They have no innate aptitude. That’s because they possess the Yeouiju, which makes anything possible.
“Dragons and similar beings usually awaken their power on their own. Even if I teach him, it probably won’t have much effect.” They don’t receive instruction from others. They learn by themselves and grow stronger by themselves. It’s as if they live in the world alone—they don’t even seek help from their parents.
But Yongyong-i is different. He wasn’t like the others. If left alone, he wouldn’t train at all—he’d just sleep like the lazy little sloth he was. But because of that, Yongyong-i didn’t put up much resistance to interference from others. The faster he grew stronger, the more he could sleep. That mindset hadn’t disappeared even after our contract, which gave Yongyong-i the special ability to easily accept power from others.
Why else would I have chosen Yongyong-i as my spiritual beast? It was precisely so he could learn skills from players, or even from other monsters and NPCs. And the power he received would evolve to become even more effective than the original. The Plague Scales I once possessed had been passed to him, and their performance had become far superior to when I held them. Of course, since players can’t transfer skills permanently, handing them over meant I’d have to relearn them later, which was a hassle.
“Goro-rong.” “This guy sure sleeps a lot.” While Yongyong-i had already fallen asleep on Cheonma’s lap, I explained his characteristics to Hoya in simpler terms so she could understand. After all, talking about players and skills would have been difficult for her to grasp. The traits of Yongyong-i that I conveyed to Hoya were as follows:
He could receive abilities possessed by others. And those powers would evolve into something even greater than the original.
Hoya looked down at Yongyong-i, who had rolled over onto his belly and was fast asleep, then spoke to me with a complicated expression.
“Master and disciple really are alike. And now even the spiritual beast. The three of you match so well. Seriously.” “Thank you for the compliment.” “Hmph. As if that wasn’t obvious.” “Koro-rong~.”
At that moment, my phone suddenly vibrated, signaling an incoming call.
“Hello?”
[Zeon, did you check the team members for tomorrow’s class?]
“Ah…?” Right. I was supposed to check that. Tomorrow’s class was gate exploration, so I needed to confirm the team. From the other end of the line, I heard a sigh as if she had expected this.
[Haa… I knew it.] “I can check right now.” I immediately used my watch to look up the teams. There were eight teams from our class in total, and I was the leader of team three. The members were all just ordinary students.
“Wow, Mir’s team is insane, huh?” [Don’t say things you don’t mean.] She saw right through me.
“Oh my, a boy and a girl talking so sweetly on the phone at this hour…” “Indeed… so this is what a man in his prime looks like.” “And that voice must belong to the girl named Mir.” “Cough, cough.” “Wow, he’s even snoring.” It seemed Hoya and Cheonma were thinking something strange, but I needed to finish the call with Mir first.
“Thanks for letting me know, but you didn’t call just for this, right?” [Of course not. I was curious how far you’ve gotten.] She was asking about the simulation stages. Well, the reason Mir had told me about it was to help me grow, so it made sense that she’d want to know my progress.
“Stage 31.” […Are you insane?] “Why are you cursing?” [You’re really on stage 31? You defeated an Imugi?!]
“Grrl?” At the word Imugi, Yongyong-i woke up from his sleep and looked at me. Since an Imugi becomes a dragon once it meets the right conditions, it seemed even Yongyong-i—who was born a dragon—took interest.
“Yeah.” [Then what about the reward?!] “A Yeouiju.” To be precise, it was a fragment of a shattered Yeouiju.
◈ Magic Stat +30
◈ Skill: Dragon Scales Acquired
At first glance, it seemed more suited for Yongyong-i than me, so I immediately had him absorb it into his own Yeouiju. Thanks to that, his Yeouiju grew about 1.5 times larger than before, and the total amount of power he could handle increased significantly.
[Th-that’s amazing.] “How far did you get?” [Ah, I have something I need to do right now. Let’s talk tomorrow.] Click.
This girl. “She’s lower than me.” What kind of acting was that? I turned my head, wondering how I should tease Mir tomorrow. During the call with Mir, Hoya had been wearing a sly smile as if thinking about something mischievous, while Cheonma’s face looked somewhat cold. I had a feeling I’d need to explain myself.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s not that.” “Heee~ You two were practically dripping with honey while on the phone. Did something happen between you while we were gone?” “I understand. But if a relationship with the opposite sex interferes with training, as your master I may have to say something.” “It’s not like that.” Dripping with honey? How was I supposed to clear up this misunderstanding? Looking at her face, it seemed Hoya was just messing with me on purpose, and only Cheonma was the one actually misunderstanding.
“Master. I currently have no interest in dating the opposite sex.” “A man in his prime? Unless you’re… imp…” “I’m not.” “Then perhaps you’re interested in the same sex instead…” “……” “Just kidding.” “……” “No, why are you reacting like that now!”
It took quite a while to clear up Cheonma’s misunderstanding. After that, we held a short meeting about tomorrow’s gate exploration.
“Is there really anything to worry about? If the difficulty is appropriate for the students’ level, there’s no need to be concerned.” “I agree with that statement.” Well, it might seem that way. But because I knew there was a problem with this particular exploration, I kept my mouth shut.
In the Academy, gate explorations always came with certain recurring issues. A villain would appear, the gate’s rank would suddenly increase, or both would happen at once. ‘And what the main scenario tells us is that the gate’s rank will rise.’ The gate that was originally meant for students would suddenly jump several ranks in difficulty. Still, there was hope. A gate whose rank had been raised had far fewer monsters than a normal gate. If you properly understood and cleared the gate’s special conditions, it was possible to complete it without encountering any monsters at all.
At first, that’s how it will look.
However, if you re-entered the gate after clearing it, there was a hidden item you could obtain. And in the latter half of the story, you would learn one hidden piece of information: that the mastermind behind raising the gate’s rank had been hiding nearby the entire time, gathering information on us.
They said it was because it was inside the Academy that they hid their appearance.
It was probably the judgment of a high-ranking member of Chaos—the representative evil organization that appeared in the main scenario—that killing students and escaping from inside the Academy would be too difficult.
What should I do?
At my current level, I could easily kill them. But the one problem was that I was worried about the other students assigned to the same team as me. ‘Even if I minimize the damage, at least one will die.’ If luck was bad, even more could die. Especially since the enemy this time specialized in stealth and assassination.
Should I kill him tomorrow right away? Or should I let him go this time and look for another opportunity later?
I couldn’t come to a decision on which choice to make until the next day, right before entering the gate.