Chapter 303
Chapter 303
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 303
Chapter Title: Episode 93. First Experience (4)
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Early morning.
Dry, cool winter morning air.
Bom, upon opening her eyes, rubbed her tousled eyes.
A sweet voice had woken her from sleep.
Yoo Ji-tae was talking to himself in the living room.
― Yes, Season. This is Jegal Ha-yeon from the Strategy Office.
“I have a favor to ask.”
― Is it about the isolation room?
“Yeah. Can you make some time soon?”
― Ah. Are you referring to letting the B-12 entity out, like you mentioned before?
“That's right. I want to let her get some fresh air. Contact them in advance for me.”
― Hmm... For anything related to transporting a ‘maximum risk factor’ out of isolation, procedures require an in-person security application. Is it urgent?
“Why? Is there a restriction?”
― I took the morning off because I have something going on.
“Morning off?”
Jegal Ha-yeon hesitated for a moment.
― ...I have a blind date today.
“You're meeting a guy?”
― Yes.
“Well, that's something. Actually going on a date.”
Rather than something unusual, it was intriguing.
In the previous regression cycle, Jegal Ha-yeon had never once married.
In other words, she had been single for hundreds of years.
― I'm only meeting him briefly in the morning, so don't worry. He's busy.
“Who is it? ‘Busy’ coming out of the mouth of someone who sleeps two hours a day.”
― Ah, I meant I'm busy.
“...I see. Then help me out as soon as you get to work.”
― Understood.
“Have a good date.”
After hanging up, Yoo Ji-tae turned his head.
Bom was peeking through the half-open bedroom door.
Blink. Teal eyes looked at Yoo Ji-tae.
“Good morning~”
Then Bom stretched languidly and came out of the room.
“Sleep well?”
“Yeah~ The weather's really nice.”
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“How about delivery?”
“Sounds good.”
Bom naturally approached the sofa, lay down beside him, and leaned against his thigh. She then activated a hologram with her watch and opened an app. ‘What should I feed the kids today...’ Ever since the day they kissed in the Warp Station lounge, Bom had casually been this physically close.
On the contrary, it was Yoo Ji-tae who found it awkward. He thought Bom disliked sexual atmospheres.
Because she had no such experience yet.
“Oh, by the way, who was that on the phone?”
“What? The call?”
“Yeah.”
Casual voice. Casual expression.
So he answered casually as well.
“Jegal Ha-yeon.”
That day, Yoo Ji-tae headed to the Federation.
He planned to take the now-awake Mu out for a short vacation.
In the meantime, the agents of the 「Dangerous Entity Isolation Room」 would move Mu to a larger isolation room and handle her requests.
For Yoo Ji-tae, it was easy to predict the uncomfortable situation that would unfold.
Why?
“If possible, I'd prefer you not ask about my well-being with that filthy mouth of yours.”
Because as soon as he opened the door and entered, he heard those words.
“......”
He loathed the Black Dragon.
At the same time, the Black Dragon hated him.
In such a relationship, it was no wonder they weren't thrilled to go out together.
“How's your body feeling?”
“......”
“Answer.”
“......”
“No answer, and the outing never happened.”
Mu's lower jaw didn't change.
However, her eyes flicked up to glare at Yoo Ji-tae.
“Better.”
“Good. You're not in a state to overdo it yet.”
For the next experiment, the Dragon Heart and Origin Fragment needed more recovery.
“I applied for the outing permit on the way here. If you want to go, we can leave right away. But I'm only allowing half a day. Anywhere you want to go?”
“......”
Mu seemed to be pondering.
Where would she want to go?
It wasn't hard to guess.
Hatchlings resembled humans because their experienced time span was narrow. But for an adult dragon with unforgetting memory, the time endured becomes eternal experience.
An adult dragon desensitized to stimuli likely craved even greater stimulation.
In short, universally filthy and dirty things.
“I've wandered dimensions for a long time. Since very early in my youth.”
It was then.
Mu started babbling about something he wasn't curious about.
“When I came to Earth... I found this unprecedented world utterly fascinating.”
It was what others from different dimensions, including past Kalliovan, always said.
As Yoo Ji-tae let it go in one ear and out the other, she gazed into the distance, reminiscing.
“Among them, there were worlds where technology advanced with gears and magic coexisting. But a world where technology had developed to this degree was a first.”
“......”
“Even I, a dragon, was seeing things for the first time, yet the humans here lived with it casually. It was so amazing. I judged it a place worth settling after hundreds of years. I planned to make a lair, hole up quietly, and enjoy exploring this new world.”
He could tell one thing just from listening roughly.
This long preamble was a kind of resentment that he had ruined it all.
“So what?”
“......”
“Get to the point. So where do you want to go?”
In terms of age by force, Mu was like a 5,000-year-old adult, but she claimed around 500 to 1,000 years old.
The places a dragon of that age would go were obvious.
As he recalled the filthy places a regressor knew well.
After hesitating.
Mu uttered an unexpected place.
“......Museum.”
Mu wanted to see the sequential development of Earth's technology.
That's why she wanted to go to a museum.
But she didn't know which one.
Museum...
The regressor thought. The ‘other-dimensional science’ she had seen was likely worlds where the most advanced had developed gears, woven cloth, and barely used hydraulic engines.
In short, around the 18th-19th century by Earth's standards.
Similar to the Industrial Revolution's tech level.
So Yoo Ji-tae planned to show her 19th-20th century scientific and technological progress. Conveniently, Paris, France had a museum compiling modern 20th-century science and tech history.
That should entertain her moderately.
If she enjoyed it, he could roughly cover the next outing too.
Next would be 20th-21st century tech.
So Yoo Ji-tae took Mu, her face covered with a hat and mask, to Paris, France.
There, he had nothing to do.
First, not wanting to talk to her, he hired a guide.
“What you're seeing is a model of the ‘Tin Foil’ phonograph invented by Thomas Edison in 1877.”
He introduced Mu to the guide as ‘an ignorant primitive tribe maiden who knows nothing’. Also, not wanting to walk together, he followed a few steps behind, watching like surveillance.
“Phonograph? What's that?”
At this moment, Mu acted like an ordinary person.
Just like when they first met.
“I'll demonstrate first.”
The guide leaned toward the display model. Turning the handle, he said, ‘To Paris full of wonders!’
At that instant, Mu's heart reacted. Her sensitive senses scanned the machine, tilting her head because there was no mana response.
― To Paris full of wonders!
“Ah.”
Mu looked surprised.
Even he had almost been fooled by the act.
“Surprised?”
“......”
“A phonograph is a machine that records sound. See this needle here? Sound has vibrations, which are transmitted here and shake this needle. The needle etches the vibrations onto the rotating cylinder.”
“......”
“Then, tracing the groove with the needle again reproduces the recorded sound.”
“Wow.”
Mu's eyes sparkled like Yeoreum seeing a good weapon or Gaeul eyeing new macarons.
“Is the function on the watch based on a similar principle?”
“Pardon? Haha, no. That's incomparably advanced tech. This is nearly 300 years old.”
“300 years ago......”
Explanations continued afterward.
Transatlantic wireless telegraph (1901), powered airplane (1902), penicillin (1929), magnetic tape (1931), jet engine (1940), first practical computer Colossus (1943).
Up to the moment humanity launched Sputnik (1957), the first artificial satellite beyond the atmosphere.
Mu followed the guide like she was entranced, absorbing the explanations, and seemed very satisfied.
And somehow bought a powered airplane model as a souvenir toy.
Mu wanted more, but Yoo Ji-tae stopped her.
“Why not?”
He felt uncomfortable seeing her genuinely happy without pretense.
“No money.”
“Not a beggar. Can't even afford one toy?”
“I have money.”
“Then?”
“Not money to spend on you.”
“I hope you drop dead.”
In truth, at that moment, Yoo Ji-tae was moody like a child.
Thinking of the Black Dragon brought disgust.
But recalling she was a precious ‘test subject’ found after long ages, he thought maybe give her 1% like for kids.
Perhaps a thought gained from daily life.
Even he was wavering like an ordinary human.
So before leaving the museum, Yoo Ji-tae bought a Sputnik satellite model toy and handed it to Mu.
A whim.
“......What the hell?”
Mu scowled.
No words to say.
As he held back his response, Mu snatched the toy he bought and smashed it on the ground.
Smash! Clang!
The toy shattered in its packaging, scattering everywhere.
He approached, grabbed her hair in impulse to do the same, but held back.
His fault for the whim.
“Let's go.”
The way back became thorns for each other.
They exchanged not a single word.
However, buying two gifts on a whim was the problem. Trying to hand them sequentially left one in Yoo Ji-tae's hand.
Sitting in the Warp Station lounge, Yoo Ji-tae pondered briefly and offered the gift to her again.
A small phonograph toy.
Not a real functioning phonograph, more like a toy recorder.
“If you don't like this one, toss it.”
“......”
Mu, sitting one seat apart, didn't take the small gift. So he roughly placed it in the middle and completely ignored it. Whether she took it or not, he no longer cared.
Yoo Ji-tae read the news on his watch, then boarded the Warp Station as his turn came, heading to the Federation.
“For my first date with a male in my life, it was a total disaster.”
Upon arriving at the Federation.
Mu suddenly rated it.
Of course, Yoo Ji-tae wasn't curious.
“So what? Huh?”
“...Forget it. What's the point of saying it. Go.”
Mu flicked her hand dismissively.
“Stay holed up obediently until next time.”
“Screw you.”
“Make trouble and I'll put a hole in your head.”
Leaving Mu, who flipped him off, in the new isolation room.
Yoo Ji-tae turned away.
The first outing without a bothersome companion awkwardly ended.
Meanwhile, left alone, Mu pulled the phonograph from her pocket and looked at it. She stared at it blankly.
The Black Dragon clan valued new experiences highly.
For her, a ‘machine’ without magical devices was like seeing ‘magic’ in a world without magic.
“......”
This tiny thing imitates sound without magic?
Mu cautiously pressed the record button.
Ding―
He had finished his business.
Stopping by the Strategy Director's private office to give instructions, Yoo Ji-tae witnessed a strange sight.
In Jegal Ha-yeon's office. Bom was doing something to Jegal Ha-yeon right in front of her.
“Ah, come in, Chief Season.”
Startled by the prophet's sudden appearance, Jegal Ha-yeon stood and saluted. After returning the salute, he looked at Bom's hand.
Applying something to the eye corner with a thin brush-like tool.
In other words, Bom was doing Jegal Ha-yeon's makeup.
“Come in, Season.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Yeah. Helping Ha-yeon unni with her makeup.”
“Makeup?”
......Ha-yeon unni?
Jegal Ha-yeon gave an awkward smile under Yoo Ji-tae's gaze.
“It's nothing much. Around lunchtime, I ran into Prophet-nim at a restaurant by chance. We talked, and surprisingly, our personalities clicked so well? We were going to have some tea... and somehow it led to talking about the blind date I mentioned earlier......”
“Unni said it went really well today.”
Bom giggled. Jegal Ha-yeon looked at Bom shyly. A subtle gaze conveyed intimacy.
Yoo Ji-tae found it odd in many ways.
In 90 years at the Federation, he had never been that close to Jegal Ha-yeon. Not once.
So seeing the human computer-like Jegal Ha-yeon act this way was novel.
And he wondered how Bom got so close to her.
“Oh, and tonight at the Federation dinner party, they secretly planned to meet up alone.”
“That was a secret.”
“Ah, sorry....”
Then Bom and Jegal Ha-yeon looked at each other and giggled again. They seemed to get along great.
On the other hand, whenever Bom's gaze turned to him, the intimacy in Jegal Ha-yeon's eyes was mirrored in Bom's.
The time with Mu.
The gazes he often exchanged with her.
It had been quite thorny for him.
Seeing Bom's gaze so relaxed now.
“So, about that, Season.”
“Yes. Speak.”
“If you're free tonight......”
Before speaking, Bom moistened her lower lip briefly.
She probably didn't realize it, but after years together, Yoo Ji-tae knew it was Bom's habit.
Her demeanor was relaxed. Gaze leisurely. Voice normal.
But when that small tongue licked her lips like a cat...
“Want to join the executive dinner party together?”
It was when Bom was tense.