Chapter 159
Chapter 159
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 159
Chapter Title: 53. Just a Pity (1)
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“Ah...”
Bom bolted upright in bed and touched her cheek with her hand.
She then touched the corner of her eye, then her ear. Everything felt vividly real. The fine hairs rising over the imitation human skin, her eyebrows, the soft earlobe. Yet, precisely because everything felt so strangely real, it created an odd disconnect in Bom’s mind, something profoundly unreal.
“......”
It had already been several days.
Bom could no longer see providence.
“......”
Even when she tried to peer into it, she saw nothing. Things that had appeared unbidden before were now gone as well.
Her ‘Eye of Providence’ was clouded.
As if some massive, pitch-black something had plugged the entrance of a telescope. Even in situations where providence should have been visible, something was blocking the third eye of the Green Dragon as she tried to gaze into the distance.
Bom bit her lower lip.
This was the first time providence had been invisible since she’d experienced the dimensional twist.
At first, worry took precedence.
Was something dangerous coming?
Something that hated Yoo Ji-tae, like before?
But as two days passed, then several more, Bom realized she wasn’t in a position to worry about others.
Bom opened her [Ajusshi Observation Diary].
[?. Question: Am I turning Ajusshi into something?]
┖[53. This hypothesis seems correct.]
A question she’d written before and after Yoo Ji-tae’s birthday party in the past.
The answer had come when Yoo Ji-tae promised to help her find her dream. Thanks to that, she had found it.
Bom had.
Bom was turning Yoo Ji-tae into something.
To Bom, Yoo Ji-tae was a work of art.
A canvas she filled bit by bit with her own colors.
His heart’s door was shattered and locked, yet he had the pure, clumsy innocence of a child just learning emotions.
In metaphor, he was like a pitch-black canvas. Surprisingly plain black, so when adorned with white stars, it became a night sky.
‘Isn’t filling it my pastime?’ Bom had thought that once, on a fine spring day, lying in her favorite spot on his sofa.
Something intruding on a precious work-in-progress and smearing other colors might be unpleasant. Yet Bom didn’t feel bad even if someone interfered with her work. Or, to explain that feeling more clearly,
Bom could endure not feeling bad.
In the grand flow anyway, she alone was the one completing Yoo Ji-tae into ‘something’. It was within the worldline’s ‘providence’, something that could never be interfered with. In other words, the outcome was already set.
So even when Yeoreum excitedly hugged Yoo Ji-tae, or he stroked Gaeul’s head as she lay down, or Winter clung to him rubbing her head against him at every chance, Bom could endure not feeling bad.
Even that day in the cafe when he absentmindedly said he was thinking of a woman who resembled her, Bom could endure.
The result was already set.
What intrigued her was only the process toward that destined end. To the Green Dragon, ‘relationships’ had such a crude aspect.
“......”
Bom knew she was a young, immature dragon lacking experience.
Nevertheless, she acted nonchalant in front of Yoo Ji-tae and guided him as she wished because she peered into providence ahead.
Not just one or two, but dozens, hundreds of providences.
With that level of ‘mental preparation’, Bom could layer her paints over the dry man’s values and thoughts, shake him without being shaken herself.
In other words, everything stemmed from providence.
Now that providence was invisible.
Bom could do nothing.
“......”
At first, she thought it was fine. In Bom’s view, ‘relationships’ could take various forms, and the relationships between Yeoreum, Gaeul, Winter, and Yoo Ji-tae differed in form from hers and his.
So wouldn’t it be okay? They’d managed fine so far. The result was set anyway. Even if the answer sheet was ink-blotched, she’d already seen the answers. Wouldn’t it be fine if they just kept going?
She’d managed daily life somehow with those thoughts.
But yesterday of all days, she’d seen Yoo Ji-tae embracing Gaeul’s waist from behind.
With providence invisible, no mental preparation at all.
“......”
The black sky she’d embroidered with her own stars so far should have only her stars and the ones she’d anticipated and permitted.
Because it was a sky for Yoo Ji-tae, not for herself.
Yet just yesterday, the impulse hit her that an unexpected star might twinkle.
And replaying those moments vividly in indelible memory like this...
...Bom grew a little afraid.
She let out a deep sigh and buried her face in her hands.
Always living with mental preparation, when exposed unprepared, Bom’s fear was a bit greater than others’.
Bom was a flower in a greenhouse. And now the greenhouse protecting her was gone.
With trembling hands, Bom gripped her pen.
[61. I made a mistake]
The drooping ink made even the letters look depressed.
[61. I made a mistake. I didn’t intend to force time alone together.]
Too emotional. Impulsive. Rash.
[...Right now is when I should be caring for Winter. This isn’t what I wanted.]
Bom turned her eyes to the blue-haired child lying beside her.
The dragon heart’s pulsation, more pronounced in sleep, trembled unstably on the verge of some turning point, so the child couldn’t sleep comfortably and was sweating coldly.
Bom was turning him into something. To do that, ‘his daily life’ was needed.
And in his daily life, Winter had to shed her skin steadily.
“I know.”
Yet now, out of fear, she’d negatively influenced his daily life.
This was a clear mistake.
“Sorry, Winter...”
Bom wiped the child’s sweat and kissed her forehead.
Still, it would be fine. Nothing major.
It would be okay...
Bedtime again. Bom closed the diary, then belatedly realized it was the Ajusshi Observation Log, not just a diary, and crossed out 61 with her pen.
“......”
Lying down under the covers, unease stirred again.
In this situation, was going alone with him on dispatch okay?
Even wanting it, Bom lacked confidence.
The day of dispatch dawned.
That morning, Bom checked her pre-packed dispatch items several times. A bit scattered, like the excitement right before a trip.
But this wasn’t a trip. The guardian decided to drive the point home.
“Bom. Are you really going on this dispatch because you want to?”
“Yes. Of course?”
“There’ll be monsters and infected. Even if we’re not threatened, we might have to kill something to eradicate the plague’s source. It might not even be a monster.”
“I’m a dragon. I eat people when hungry...”
She joked, but Yoo Ji-tae nailed it again.
“I’m asking if you really want to go.”
“I said yes.”
“Yeah. But it’s odd. If it’s for the dispatch’s purpose, you’d be going to experience becoming a soldier. You never cared about that.”
“Um... I do want to go.”
“For real?”
With an inscrutable expression, Bom nodded.
Thus, Yoo Ji-tae could no longer dissuade her.
The two headed to Hate Ling’s warp station.
*
North Africa. Mediterranean coast.
In a desert where the horizon stretched endlessly at its edge. A small warp station operated 24 hours.
Once the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. People think Africa means endless desert roads, but advanced, stylish high-tech cities once lined this coast.
Now, only the environment matching human prejudice remained.
The nation was gone. No nation, no citizens.
But people were there, so it was called lawless land.
From the warp station, they went to the nearby dispatch site. In a large tent. A life-weary superhuman sat at a cramped table. A soldier from the North African Union (NAN).
Like anyone, the superhuman startled at Bom, then consciously fixed his gaze on Yoo Ji-tae.
Field superhumans were like bandits or brigands. Especially in lawless lands. So a superhuman without ties was loot.
But not riffraff. Facing a Lair cadet, who knew what connections? Best to keep distance.
In short, Bom and Yoo Ji-tae were bombs here.
“This is the combat log, mission brief, map.”
So the soldier’s response was perfunctory.
He handed over the log with no further explanation.
Yoo Ji-tae asked.
“What’s with the attitude? You need to tell us what to do.”
“It’s in the brief. Just follow it.”
Glancing at the rude soldier, Yoo Ji-tae handed the brief to Bom.
“Figure it out yourself.”
The mission was individual. Yoo Ji-tae was Bom’s assistant.
Protect Bom. Help her complete the mission. That was dispatch’s purpose. And Bom had volunteered.
So now Bom was in charge.
“Um...”
Bom read the brief carefully, comparing it to the map.
‘Warp Station’ the company was literally ‘Warp Station’. In an era without humanists, it was a league-subsidiary monopoly as a category brand. So even with nations collapsed, many couldn’t leave without money.
They gathered in ‘villages’ under sandstorms, living communally.
The mission was simple.
Villages reported survival to NAN monthly.
Reports were in person. Post-Great War, filthy mana swept North Africa’s vicinity, embedded in sand grains. Mana long-range transmission was hard. No base stations, no radio.
“We’re short-staffed. Can’t go ourselves.”
In that context, the ‘Kahum’ village southwest went silent two weeks ago. Scout it, find why contact cut off, what problem.
“Probably all dead anyway...”
The soldier said nonchalantly.
“If not monster attack but plague, need post-plague cleanup.”
“Post-plague cleanup?”
Bom asked, and the superhuman shrugged.
Handling ancient plague Ef-014 was simple.
“Burn it. Village, infected, corpses. All.”
“Um...”
“That’s why many fire-type superhumans here. Hassle. Only process after outbreak.”
Prevent people, prevent plague. Miraculous logic.
Bom reread the brief silently.
Yoo Ji-tae remained indifferent. Bom could see without looking anyway. Figure out unknowns. She was smart. Reliable type.
Plus a dragon. Though this environment was worst for mana-communing lifeforms like dragons...
Still. A dragon.
She’d handle it fine left alone.
But as the mission started, he heard the unthinkable. “I don’t know.” Bom muttered looking at the map.
“What?”
“Huh?”
“No, what did you just say?”
Bom looked at him and smiled awkwardly.
“I don’t know where to go...”