There Are No Bad Dragons in This World (2)
“By the way, why a bath all of a sudden? I mean, I’m not complaining—the intention’s nice—but this is pretty abrupt.”
I slipped into the tub and opened my mouth as I spoke.
I sounded a little sharp, but honestly, I didn’t dislike it.
Actually, this is nice….
Up until now, I’d been cleaning myself with magic whenever I needed to, but there was clearly no comparison between that and washing away your fatigue like this.
Sure, the private bath in my room worked well enough, but this place was built as a shared bath for the guild’s leadership, so maybe that was why it felt even more effective at loosening the body.
There had been an explanation during the remodeling proposal about some kind of water mineral composition, if I remembered right. Probably that was the reason.
Something about mineral spring water or whatever.
I wasn’t the only one in a good mood, either; everyone around me was wearing comfortable, pleased expressions.
In particular, Kim Hyunsung and An Gimo, who had come along on the expedition with us, were already beginning to look pleasantly drowsy.
Hyunsung being here is a little surprising.
Honestly, even the fact that our lovable regressor had agreed to join Park Deokgu’s plan without complaint had been unexpected.
Kim Hyunsung always struck me as the type who’d avoid this sort of gathering, for some reason or another, but apparently he didn’t mind it much at all.
That bastard… looks pretty confident.
In truth, if Kim Hyunsung hadn’t come, I probably wouldn’t have come either.
Skipping an event where the company president personally deigned to show up would have been completely unlike me.
While I was lost in thought after asking the question, Park Deokgu answered as if it were nothing at all.
“It’s just a chance for everyone to get closer, ain’t it? Ain’t some big fancy thing.”
“A chance to get closer?”
“Yeah, exactly. Just to bond. Ever since the newbies came in, we haven’t really spent any time together. At most we had one welcome dinner, and that was it. Us? We’ve been running around together since the tutorial, sleeping in the same places and all that, so we’re already close enough. But the newbies don’t have that at all, right? Same goes for our young Mr. Changryeol here!”
“That’s true.”
“I should’ve paid more attention to that… I guess it’s been bothering me that we dragged the newbies in and then headed straight out on expedition.”
Our pig really does have a good heart.
To be honest, it was something I’d overlooked.
Maybe because he’d once been close to getting left out himself, he was extra attentive to this sort of thing.
He must have been worrying about whether the newly arrived chicks would get left too far behind.
I always thought he lived without a care in the world….
It was certainly something to be grateful for, that he’d thought about it.
“So I talked it over with Jeongyeon. Ahem. Usually when something feels like a group event, it’s pretty hard for people to skip it, right? If we force ourselves to bump shoulders like this, everybody ends up getting close in no time.”
“…….”
“And since we’re on the subject… honestly, the men are fine, but the women don’t really feel close at all. Hayan noona and Heeyoung noona have been on expeditions together all this time, and they’re still so awkward… Just watching them makes me uncomfortable, honestly.”
“I can see that they don’t seem particularly close.”
“See? Even you feel that way, sir! And Vice Guild Master Cho Hyejin is the kind of person who only ever talks about rules and principles all day long, so she’s basically allergic to socializing, isn’t she? And that little Ye-ri kid never really answers properly in the first place. I know this sounds a bit harsh, but among the women in our guild, aside from Jeongyeon, their personalities are all a little too individualistic….”
“Ahhhhh….”
Come to think of it, he wasn’t wrong.
His careful attention to his fiancée was surprising, but I couldn’t think of a single argument against what he was saying.
Among the female members of Blue, the closest thing we had to a normal person was Hwang Jeongyeon.
“Ahem! With that kind of foundation in place… that Han Sora person practically trembles whenever she sees Hayan noona…. The smith our soul keeps telling us about is in a better situation, but Jeongyeon told me it was a total mess. And today, on the way back in the carriage, you didn’t ride the Black Swan carriage with Mr. Kiyoung and Mr. Hyunsung, did you?”
“What, did something happen?”
“It’d be better if something had happened, honestly. For all that time! They didn’t say a single word to each other.”
“Huh?”
“I was seriously getting self-conscious in that carriage! During that whole long journey… all Ye-ri and Vice Guild Master Hyejin did was exchange a few words, and whenever they did talk, it was always about work—there wasn’t a shred of normal conversation! That is definitely not normal! Right, Gimo hyung? An Gimo hyung!”
“Yes. If there had been a chance to escape, I would have.”
“Exactly!”
“It might have been better if a fight had broken out instead… I tried to loosen the atmosphere, but it probably would’ve been better if I hadn’t. I still can’t forget the look on their faces.”
I’d thought the carriage might have gone cold because Kim Hyunsung and I were riding in the Black Swan, but I didn’t bother saying that out loud.
Of course, Park Deokgu must have taken this silence as his cue to keep going, because he started rambling even more enthusiastically.
“Changryeol too, say something!”
“I still don’t know the others well enough to comment.”
“Right, right! Then what about the relationship between A-Young and Sora? Can you tell me anything about that?”
“There isn’t really enough of a connection to define. To borrow the phrase you used earlier, I’d say ‘awkward’ fits.”
“Ahem… See this? See that? This is the real state of Blue’s female members!”
It was starting to sound kind of convincing. No, I was already being convinced.
“Well, really, that’s about all I can do, and… honestly, I think we need something more fundamental here. This is the part where you guys should step in and make things happen, you know? Maybe we should throw some kind of unity event? I’m obviously in favor of it. Everybody, what do you—”
Park Deokgu’s booming voice gradually shrank to a murmur.
“Wow…. A-Young, you’re really big. How do you get that big?”
Huh?
Hwang Jeongyeon’s voice had started coming from beyond the wall.
Up until now I’d been too focused on the conversation in front of me to hear it.
It was so faint that I probably should’ve strained to catch it, but for some reason it hit my ears like someone had smacked them directly.
Looks like the construction was a total joke… this is bad.
We had paid good money to a reasonably reputable contractor, and somehow the building had still been thrown together like a shack.
I decided that had to be dealt with. I wasn’t sure whether voices carried over to the other side, but in any case, the speaking continued from the far side of the wall.
Even when I tried not to listen, magic kept somehow slipping into my ears.
“I, I’m not really sure. It just… happened somehow….”
“Come on. It’s just a lump of fat.”
“Oh, no. That’s not true, Ye-ri. She’s so pretty….”
“Still no. People said being too big isn’t very good. Yeah. They definitely said it isn’t very good.”
“If we’re talking about an appropriate size, then Hayan or Heeyoung would be….”
“No. In Hayan’s case, she’s obviously above average no matter how you look at it… and actually, Heeyoung too…. I think Sora’s size is probably the most appropriate. By the way, Hayan’s body is surprisingly beautiful. I don’t think she has a single stray downy hair on her.”
“N-now, stop looking. It’s embarrassing….”
“Ah, sorry.”
It was only natural that I bolted from the bath before the conversation could grow even more detailed.
The Blue men were startled too, and all of them scrambled out of the water in a panic.
“I guess we misunderstood. They… seem pretty close, don’t they?”
An Gimo’s quiet voice fell into the silence hanging over the bathhouse.
Even Park Deokgu, who loved insisting on his own version of things, had no rebuttal and lowered his head.
I felt a little unsatisfied that we hadn’t wrapped things up properly, but the bath itself had been pleasant enough, of course.
While I was at it, the newest member of the guild looked pitiful standing there by himself, straining to dry his hair, so I gave his head a brisk shake with a towel.
-Th-thank you.
“No need to thank me. Want something to drink? Or, well, can you even drink?”
-Yes. I don’t really need to take in nutrients by normal means, but now that I’m outside the museum, I do feel like drinking something.
“Here, have some milk.”
-Thank you.
“Tsk. Is the place you got hit earlier okay?”
-Yes… yes. It aches a little, but I’m fine.
“You’ll be okay as my older sister, no, I mean, as a dragon. Mr. Mak-Sa-Won.”
-Ah….
His worried expression was somehow a little funny.
“Starting tomorrow, be ready to move around a lot.”
-Yes!
“You’ll be going to school too… and we need to move the research along quickly. You understand what I’m saying, right?”
-Ah… yes. Understood, Mr. President.
Come to think of it, I still hadn’t assigned him a room.
After bowing my head to Kim Hyunsung to signal that I was taking my leave, I led Mak-Sa-Won out, only to find Dialugia waiting outside unexpectedly.
Why the hell is this woman here?
Before I could even greet her, she hurriedly started speaking to me.
She looked incredibly embarrassed.
Even as she forced the words out, she kept sneaking glances at my face as if checking my reaction.
What now?
There was only one reason she’d be standing here instead of staying in her nest.
It was only natural to worry that the little one had caused trouble again.
I opened my mouth right away, but the answer I got was nothing like what I’d expected.
“I….”
“What is it? Did Toltol-i do something again…?”
“Ah! N-no, nothing like that. It’s not that, but….”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if maybe we could forgive Dialuria just this once….”
“Pardon?”
“Our D-Dialuria seems so pitiful… I think she’s already been punished enough.”
“What did you say?”
“She… seems to have been really looking forward to going out together, so I think she’s reflected a lot on what she did. So… um….”
It had barely been three hours since the Toltol-i body-slamming incident.
Of course, I knew I hadn’t exactly done a stellar job at this whole parenting thing either, but…
I couldn’t help realizing just how disastrously that child was growing up.
“I think it would be better to… forgive her this time.”