Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Part 2. Bom (3)
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After returning from her outing, Bom started bustling about in the kitchen. Before long, a salty smell spread through Yoo Ji-tae's officetel.
Watching her made him feel somehow off.
The last expression on her face from the previous regression still lingered in his mind.
"Hum hum~."
Bom was humming happily.
If it had been like this at their first meeting, maybe it would have seemed normal. He wondered.
Seems fine. No one in a bad mood would hum. But when he'd brought her here claiming he was kidnapping her, Bom's face had been stiff.
Something good must have happened. He just couldn't put his finger on what.
Still, the sight of Bom cooking suited her well.
In their six past encounters, she'd held jobs about four times. Twice as a painter, once as a sculptor, once as a novelist. The other two times, she hadn't been able to do anything because he'd confined her.
Either way, it meant she was the type who took interest in "creating" things.
He suddenly grew curious.
In this life, with its completely upended circumstances, what might she become?
It seemed like it would be fun to watch.
Anyway. It was about time.
Pushing aside his thoughts of Bom, he began searching for news articles from a distant foreign land.
Africa.
Incidents were erupting one after another on the continent across the sea.
Africa was in the thick of war. Not a war of guns and blades like in the old days, but a war of superhumans.
This protracted conflict would drag on until the apocalypse descended on Earth, claiming countless lives.
Truth be told, he didn't care much. Who died didn't matter to him.
But if the "Red Dragon" got caught up in it, that changed things.
The regression point was one year after the dragons emerged for their amusement.
The battle-loving Red Dragon had thrown herself into the fray there night and day for fun. Then, unluckily, she'd been struck by a world-rank superhuman and gravely wounded.
That injury hastened the end times.
So it would be wise to track her down and intervene before she went overboard and got hurt.
He gauged the time. Only a few days remained.
He'd have to move soon.
"Ajusshi."
Just then, Bom waved from the kitchen. The food appeared to be ready.
What was on the plate resembled fried rice. Its brownish tint suggested soy sauce or similar.
Gripping a spoon, he scooped up a bite and put it in his mouth.
"How is it?"
He chewed for a moment, then paused. Without a word, he took another spoonful.
"You're eating well."
The quiet meal continued.
After the final spoonful, Yoo Ji-tae finally set down his spoon. The bowl was scraped clean. Flowers bloomed on Bom's face.
This dish was... really...
"Delicious, right?"
It wasn't delicious.
He'd eaten every last bit hoping to find some tasty spot somewhere, but there was none.
Yet Bom seemed to take his silence as affirmation.
"Wow. Thanks, Ajusshi. Actually, this is my best dish."
"...What's it called?"
"Um, I haven't named it yet."
He'd had a feeling.
No dish this salty and bland could exist in the world.
He stared blankly at the empty bowl before lifting his head.
"I'll make it again next time."
And so, the bizarre cohabitation between the regressor and the dragon began.
Bom adapted to the house surprisingly quickly. She cooked meals and washed dishes. She watched TV or read books as if it were her own home, and one day she brought back a small flowerpot from somewhere.
It held no trace of life.
"What's this?"
"The whole place is so drab. I thought something like this was needed."
As Bom said, Yoo Ji-tae's home mirrored him—all achromatic tones. Dull-colored wallpaper and furniture. Strictly organized bookshelves. A floor without a speck of dust. It was a space that felt artificial to anyone who lingered.
"Want to see?"
Bom placed her hand on the soil in the pot and closed her eyes briefly. Then, carefully lifting her hand, a tiny cotyledon had sprouted.
A display befitting the dragon of great nature.
In any case, the two kept their distance and personal space as they spent several days together.
Yoo Ji-tae wasn't much of a talker to begin with, and Bom had a quiet personality too, so even sharing the same space, they didn't converse much.
"I'm home. My lord."
In the meantime, the clone repeated its commute, sharing the day's events with Yoo Ji-tae.
The clone and Yoo Ji-tae were linked by memory. He closed his eyes briefly, then nodded.
"Looks like everyone's struggling because of that Jo Ho-sik guy."
There were the vivid daily emotions felt by ordinary people.
The anxiety of maybe never catching the fugitive. The joy at finding a small clue. The junior's exhaustion and the team leader's consoling words.
These still unfamiliar daily feelings were steadily piling up in Yoo Ji-tae's mind.
"Should I step in to assist with the investigation?"
"No. Leave them be. If they can't find him by the deadline, help then."
"Understood."
Yoo Ji-tae briefly reviewed the clone's memories, then recalled a similar situation.
People living ordinary lives here would say this.
"...Good work."
It was what the team leader had said to the junior returning from an undercover op.
Praising someone.
It had been a long time since he'd last done it.
"Loyalty to my lord."
But as the clone bowed its head, it asked cautiously.
"That said, may I ask one thing?"
The clone was his, but it didn't know everything about him.
"What?"
"What meaning does this daily life hold?"
"What do you mean?"
"Among those who wielded me, none sought to observe daily life. They all desired to use me for more meaningful pursuits. To slay those who needed slaying, or to send me where influence must be shown, for instance."
Here, "me" referred not to Yoo Ji-tae's clone, but to the Archduke's Shadow (SS) skill itself.
A skill that had transcended limits and gained a personality of its own.
"So?"
"Yet my lord seeks to experience daily life. It's hard for one as deficient as I to comprehend."
Yoo Ji-tae shut his mouth at the clone's words. He seemed lost in thought as he gazed far out the window.
"...If that was insolent, I apologize."
"It's fine. Dismissed."
"Yes."
Even after sending the clone away, Yoo Ji-tae stared out the window for a long while.
Why must I seek out daily life?
He recalled the final regression.
That day, thunder roared madly amid pouring rain. In the sky, centered on some boundary line, a colossal rift 200 km in diameter had torn open.
The mud-caked Green Dragon sat on the bare ground, looking up at Yoo Ji-tae.
"Did you want an ending like this?"
It was a chilling voice.
He gave no reply.
The "6th round" had been the most grueling among the over 100 years he'd repeated.
To grow stronger, Yoo Ji-tae had torn open a rift in space to the demon realm and waged war there for over a decade.
And whenever he returned to Earth, he'd hunted down every organization and individual that had threatened the dragons in his previous life, slaughtering them all.
Endless days of battle. All that toil solely to break this cursed loop of regression.
But...
"Did you want this child to end up like this? Is this the future you claimed to prepare?"
The Green Dragon glared at him through tears of hatred. She placed a hand on the forehead of the girl leaning against her knee. The girl's skin had gone cold.
He'd thought that if he just hid them well enough...
One dragon had taken her own life.
And the "Dragon's Memory" upon death transmitted across dimensions to her kin.
The moment all his efforts turned to bubbles.
Yoo Ji-tae could take no action before that conclusion.
He'd frozen in place like a statue.
"You don't know why this child took her own life, do you?"
"......"
"Of course not. You never will, forever. Because you've never once thought of us as living beings."
"......"
"So let me tell you. What 'amusement' means to us."
Words he'd never heard in all his repeated lives began to spill from the Green Dragon's lips.
"We dragons live for thousands of years. And we don't forget. Over those long ages, we experience everything existence can offer. By the time we reach adulthood after a millennium, there's nothing new left. We lose stimulation and gradually shed our emotions."
"Yet we keep living. Feeling nothing. Enduring emotionless millennia. As adjusters of causality. That's our existence. A terribly boring life, isn't it? But do you know? Even we have one source of joy."
"It's the experiences from our amusement. Back when we were still hatchlings. When the whole world was novel and strange, frightening even—learning one thing brought joy, we could empathize with someone's sorrow, rage at injustice, feel true happiness when effort bore fruit. Those moments. Those memories. Unlike humans, we can't forget them. No oblivion."
"Adult dragons relive those childhood memories and emotions in full. Endlessly. Right up to the moment of death. To us, amusement—and a first one like this—holds that meaning."
"But you ruined it all."
The Green Dragon wept endlessly yet never averted her gaze from the regressor.
Yoo Ji-tae exhaled a cold breath. A storm of emotions raged within him unchecked.
For the first time in ages, he wanted to make an excuse.
But he couldn't.
He didn't.
"I won't forget this day. Ever."
With that, the Green Dragon buried her face in her dead kin's chest and sobbed.
A regressor who'd repeated countless lives, yet then—for the first time in ages—something stirred deep in his chest. It spread like a drop of poison through his veins. Overwhelmed by emotions that threatened to crumble him, he turned and walked aimlessly.
He kept going without stopping for a long time.
"Ajusshi."
That was when a voice snapped him from his reverie.
It was Bom.
"Were you sleeping?"
Yoo Ji-tae slowly opened his eyes.
There stood the Green Dragon who'd just cursed him in his mind, beaming brightly at him.
"Sorry if you were."
"Wasn't sleeping. What?"
"This. Bought it 'cause it looked fun, but I don't know how to solve it. Help?"
She held out a jumbled Rubik's cube.
"Where'd you get this?"
"There's this place called Lair, so I checked it out. Oh, you work nearby, right?"
"Yeah."
"Picked it up while hanging out there. They said it was a souvenir."
As she said, the center of the cube bore the Lair logo.
I don't know how to solve it either.
He was about to say that but stopped.
In the clone's memories. There was something a senior had said to a junior saddled with an impossible task.
Half in doubt, Yoo Ji-tae decided to mimic the senior from the memory.
"...Let's figure it out together."
"Really?"
"Why."
"Just... wasn't expecting that."
And so Yoo Ji-tae spent ages pondering with Bom, solving the cube together.
Finally, after several hours.
-Click!
"It's done."
Bom glanced back and forth between the cube and Yoo Ji-tae, her eyes round and wide.
In the century he'd known the Green Dragon, he'd never once seen that expression.
"That happy?"
Bom's eyes curved into joyful arches.
"Yes."