Chapter 37: I Want to Get Stronger!
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 37: I Want to Get Stronger!
Yuseoha might have been the first to snag a number for the "Jeong Yong-hwan Usage Ticket," but right now, I didn't have time for such girly—no, boyish—hobbies.
What I needed right now was power. The power to defeat Im Su-yeon. I didn't need any of that "common sense" talk about how men can't beat women.
The way she looked down at me, that fishy smirk, and the way she approached me as if granting mercy to a loser, telling me I "worked hard"—every single thing she did made my blood boil.
I could tolerate someone insulting my father by calling him a whore, but I could not stand an insult directed at me.
I felt pity for my future self, imagining a life where I’d continue to be trampled by Im Su-yeon next year. Yuseoha had whined with petty comments like, "But you promised...", but to me, the upcoming battle with Im Su-yeon was far more important than some promise to a Pink Bitch.
"Son... Aunt Hindel is terrifying when she’s teaching. Are you sure you’re okay with this? Do you really have to beat that girl, Im Su-yeon? Mommy would rather you didn't go."
"Mom, you’re a dummy! A moron! Your boobs are just big for nothing! You’ve had three kids, but your nipples are still pink! You’re mean!"
"Yong-hwan, you shouldn't say things like that to your mother."
"Ame isn't my mom! Ame is just a big sister! I’m not gonna marry Ame! Ame’s nipples are huge, too! And no milk even comes out! Ame is mean!"
This was my grand declaration of war. Leaving my mother slumped on the floor, I marched out the front door.
I heard Mom spent about a day in a deep depression, covering her face with both hands because of my "verbal abuse," but that wasn't my concern.
I strode out of the apartment and took the hand of Hindel, who was waiting in front of the entrance.
"It would have been nice if Iris could have joined us. A shame."
"Hindel Mama! I’m in your care!"
Hindel gave a very gentle smile and nodded.
According to the original plan, I was supposed to train under Yonggary along with my sister, but since she had gotten into a fight with some delinquent older girls with only two days of the holiday left, she was currently grounded.
If it were me, I would have taken a daughter who won a 1-on-12 fight out for a nice dinner, praised her to high heaven, and then gone to the parents of the girls who lost just to teabag them. Mom was being pathetically weak by grounding her.
Ah, the reason for the fight was nothing special. It all started when some middle school girls—now technically adults in this world—heard Iris bragging about her brother and said they wanted to see me.
Iris tried to ignore them and walk away, but then they expressed some "perfectly normal sexual desires" for their age, saying things like, "Little brothers are just useful dildos, so he must've lost his virginity already. Let us have a turn with him."
It was an unfair 1-on-12 fight, but unlike a normal world where physical size is everything, this was a fantasy world, and Iris knew how to handle mana.
And she was exceptionally good at it—so good that even Hindel called her talented.
Add to that the fact that Iris was a borderline human weapon—a culmination of killing techniques, various martial arts, and close-quarters combat skills learned from a Red Dragon who was either a mafia boss, a thug, or a yakuza—and the result was an inevitable victory for Iris.
Mom, being the type to think "kids will be kids," might have let it slide with a light scolding, even though Iris had displayed the artistry of cleanly and elegantly shattering at least one limb on each of the twelve girls within a single minute.
The real problem was that Iris, thinking she’d really crossed a line, contacted Hindel.
Naturally, to a dragon who holds immense power in the underworld and thinks nothing of her disciple breaking a few human limbs, Hindel just laughed and praised her. She tried to bury the incident, which was on the verge of being classified as a mass brawl, as if it never happened.
The complication arose because the father of one of the victims was a high-ranking police official.
Actually, whether he was a police official or not didn't really matter.
To Hindel, who was spreading like a cancer cell throughout the Empire, the United Kingdom, and various colonies, a mere police executive (Superintendent) of a single nation in the United Kingdom wasn't much of a threat. The situation should have been handled easily.
The real issue was Ame Cal Degrain. While she was in the breakroom gathering information from her subordinates and superiors about raising a boy, she overheard that Hindel had gotten involved in some noisy kids' fight and became interested.
Mom thought it might be one of Hindel’s usual eccentricities or a problem with the little thugs she raised, but when she caught a glimpse and saw Iris’s school name, her intuition flared.
Knowing that asking Iris or Hindel would lead to evidence being destroyed, she poked around the involved police officers and victims. Once she uncovered the ugly truth, her rage soared high enough to punch a dragon in the jaw. That was the summary of the situation.
And so, Iris was grounded for a month.
Even though two of those weeks were holidays and scheduled breaks!
Anyway, to avoid being crushed by Mom’s intimidation, I needed to engage in a battle of wills myself. My earlier declaration was part of that, so I felt no guilt.
More importantly, this incident confirmed that I should never mess with Iris. Sadly, it also meant I had to spend a cozy two weeks with a Dragon Lord who desperately wanted me as her son.
Oh, and what happened to those older girls from the fight?
My mother seemed to have lost interest entirely after receiving apologies from the victims' (?) parents and deciding not to make a big deal out of a "kids' quarrel."
However, unlike Mom, the "Aunts"—who loved Iris dearly and loved me even more—had no intention of letting it end so simply. Their petty streak requires a bit of explanation.
Mom told the Aunts they could do whatever they wanted as long as she didn't find out. I wasn't sure if she’d truly lost interest or was giving indirect permission, but since my mom is a righteous and cool police officer, I interpreted it as her saying "Don't do it."
Contrary to my interpretation, the Aunts (the "Aunties"), having found some fun new toys, set to work. Their schemes involved such complex dynamics, connections, and trickery that even I couldn't fully grasp how it all went down.
But I can give you the gist of the results:
I managed to squeeze this information out of Morian by poking her in the ribs. It was incredibly dirty and petty.
I thought it was a bit much for adults to be so spiteful over a kids' fight, so I tried to stop them, but they were all so furious that they wouldn't listen. In the end, I just washed my hands of it.
I was grateful for how much they loved Iris, but watching powerful women use their influence to torment people wasn't exactly pleasant, so I decided to just pretend I didn't know!
"Didn't you say you wanted to go to an amusement park? Shall we stop by on the way?"
"No."
I came here to train, not to play.
"How about going camping with Mama?"
"No."
The dragon was starting her nonsense.
"Then how about we play house..."
"If you don't train me, Hindel isn't Mama anymore! You're just Aunt Hindel! You're disqualified as a dragon!"
The Dragon Lord kept trying to take me somewhere to play, but that was an insult to my declaration of war.
"...Then, if I train you, will you play house with me at night?"
"Yeah, Mama! No, Hindel! I'll pat your chest and tummy and tell you you're a good girl! A very good girl!"
The Dragon Lord nodded as if she finally understood.
And so, my grueling reinforcement training began.
Or so I thought.
***
Wake up at dawn for a jog, morning training, lunch, afternoon training, dinner, playing house, sleep.
That was the two-week schedule I had envisioned.
However, my body was still that of a little brat, and a human body simply couldn't handle such an absurd schedule.
"A boy must not treat his body so roughly."
My plan was shattered by the schemes of a dragon who had already received a day's worth of "playing house" in advance.
If she was going to treat a pure-hearted man like me this way, I had no choice but to become a thug. If she kept this up, there would be no playing house, no chest-patting, no womb-massaging, and no "good girl" praises.
"...Instead, I will let you feel mana before you go back."
It was a tempting offer. We reached a compromise: I would press down on the Dragon Lord's lower abdomen and say things like "Good job," "You're cool," "You're the best," and "I love you"—a mix of playing house and a massage.
By the third day, my actual training time was only about two hours in the morning, one hour at lunch, and two hours in the evening.
Even then, the evening session was cut in half because the Dragon Lord spent the last hour touching my body all over, claiming it was necessary for me to "feel mana." It felt more like she was just satisfying her own desires!
Still, having a very beautiful red-haired, red-eyed lady touch me here and there to "relax my muscles" and "stimulate my pressure points" wasn't a bad experience, so I was halfway satisfied.
Despite the rumors of her being a cruel dragon who taught Iris so harshly that she needed healing magic every time, Hindel was incredibly sweet to me because she wanted to earn "Mama Coins." Thanks to that, I didn't really feel like I was struggling at all.