Chapter 17 - What Will Happen to My Boyfriend...

Talented. A genius. Rokan went on and on praising me to Sia, even more effusively than he had to my face. A smile stayed on her lips the whole time she listened.

"Still, I want both of you to remember not to take this lightly. Minjun, however talented you are, this will certainly not be easy."

"Of course." We hadn't even started yet; it was too early to celebrate. I had no intention of letting my guard down.

"Anyway, I'll see to it that Minjun gets the help he needs, so don't worry too much, Shasha."

["Of course! I'm counting on you, Grandpa. Oh, right. Can you give Oppa what I left with you yesterday?"]

"I will."

Could it be a present? I didn't let it show, but I was curious.

"Then I'll be in touch again soon."

["Okay! Oppa, it won't be long before we can see each other again. See you then! Call me when you get home!"]

"Yeah. I will."

As soon as the call ended, I asked what she'd left for me. "Lord Rokan, what was it Sia gave you?"

"I'll give it to you now." He took the item out of his pocket dimension. To my surprise, it was a wearable camera.

"Wear it whenever you go into a gate. Shasha and I will review the footage to see what you did well and what needs work."

With an ordinary camera, there would have been limits to the feedback they could give. But Sia had modified this one to capture even subtle flows of mana.

When had she found time to think of making something like this? She was my girlfriend, but still—my Sia really was a genius.

"Thank you for looking after me in so many ways."

"Never mind that. Just train hard."

"I won't let you down, Lord Rokan." With everyone helping me this much, how could I not give it my all?

Which gave me an idea. "Lord Rokan, if you don't mind... could I stay and train here for a little while?"

There was nothing for me to do if I went home now, and nowhere suitable to train nearby. Besides Sia, Rokan was the only one who could advise me on dragon speech. If he'd allow it, I wanted to keep training here.

"Not just today. You may come whenever you like."

* * *

From the moment Rokan gave me permission to use his lair until late that night, I gritted my teeth and devoted myself to training.

What did it mean to put my will into something? What did using dragon speech even feel like? I felt as though I were rowing through empty air.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn't use dragon speech by the time I finished. Not that I'd expected to learn it overnight. Still, someday I'd be able to use it freely.

The next day, after a quick breakfast, I opened a hunter recruitment app and looked for gates to clear. Training was good, but nothing beat the real thing.

After searching for a suitable gate, I decided to join a raid party for a D-rank gate about an hour away by public transit.

'It feels lonely.' Before the accident, I'd cleared gates with Sia more than nine times out of ten. Finding a gate and joining a raid party on my own felt strange.

As soon as the party was formed, I called Sia. On video, of course. She picked up before the first ring had finished.

"Good morning."

["Morning, Oppa! Sleep well?"]

We started with the usual talk, checking in on how each other had slept. Then we moved on to yesterday.

["How was training, Oppa? Pretty tough, right?"]

"I wouldn't say it wasn't hard... but it wasn't so hard I thought I'd die."

["That's a relief, at least. Did you get a feel for it?"]

"No, not yet. I couldn't make heads or tails of this 'dragon's will' thing. Even with your grandfather helping me, I couldn't understand what he meant."

I vented to Sia about yesterday's training. I'd asked Lord Rokan exactly how to express my will, but his explanation was too abstract for me, even with a demonstration. Of course I hadn't understood.

["That's normal at this stage. Maybe I should watch you train next time."]

"We can only see each other once a week. How can you watch when we can't meet?"

["Over video! Oh, and I bought a screen so I can video-call you on it."]

... A screen? 'Like grandfather, like granddaughter.'

Sia switched cameras to show me her new purchase. A huge screen filled one wall, easily twice the size of the one I'd seen in Rokan's lair yesterday.

["I got it to watch you train, Oppa. If I can't see you in person, at least I can see you this way."]

"Ah..."

If we could see each other as often as an ordinary couple, Sia wouldn't have gone this far. My heart ached.

But wait. "You found a place already?"

I was living in what had originally been Sia's home. Since we couldn't live together, I couldn't help worrying about where she'd stay. Staying with her grandfather in his lair wasn't really an option for her, either. I was relieved she'd found a place of her own.

["Yeah! Grandpa and I looked around, and this place seemed the best."]

"You went looking with your grandfather... Does that mean you built a lair?"

["Yep. I built it myself."]

So that was how dragons became homeowners. Then again, with a lair, there was no need to find a house.

["Come visit my lair soon, Oppa!"]

"Definitely. Want to have our next date there?"

I could see her new place and we could have a cozy date in. I was curious how she'd decorated it, too.

["Ooh, yes! I'd love that."]

"So where is it? I can come to you if it's not too far."

["Uh... it's a bit far. Getting here would be really hard. I'll come pick you up."]

"Where is it?"

Since I lived alone in Seoul, I'd assumed she'd build it nearby. Apparently not. Her grandfather was in Gangwon Province; maybe she'd built her lair around there?

["Near Hallasan Mountain."]

"... Oh."

Well, if nothing else, I'd get to eat all the tangerines I wanted.

We kept talking about little things until Sia said her battery was dying and she'd call again soon. We'd been on the phone a while, so I checked the call duration.

<Call Duration: 03:53:12>

We'd talked for over an hour plenty of times before, but I thought this was the longest call we'd ever had. It probably wouldn't be the last.

Now, let's see. The time was...

"... There's hardly any time left."

I was supposed to meet the raid party at one in the afternoon, and it was already 11:50. The trip would take about an hour by public transit. Even if I got dressed and left right now, I'd be cutting it very close.

"Uuugh." If only I could use Teleport as freely as Sia.

* * *

After spending nearly four hours on the phone with Minjun, Sia visited her grandfather's lair. It was lunchtime, and she thought they could eat together.

"Grandpa!"

"Welcome, my Shasha. Have you eaten?"

A visit from his granddaughter was always a pleasure, and Rokan greeted her warmly.

"No. I came to eat with you."

"Good timing. I was just about to eat."

Before long, Rokan brought out a generous spread, and they began their meal amid cheerful conversation.

"Grandpa, how did Oppa's training go yesterday?"

She had already heard about it from Minjun during their nearly three-hour conversation, but she wanted her grandfather's account too. After all, they'd have different perspectives.

"It's only been a day, but I can already tell how hard he's working."

She'd heard something similar yesterday, but she never tired of hearing Minjun praised.

"Your boyfriend will likely improve faster than you expected. He might even learn to use dragon speech before long. But that gives me cause for concern, too."

"Concern?"

Sia's eyes wavered for an instant.

"Once he can use dragon speech, the others of our kind will be able to sense his energy, however faintly."

Few people knew it, but Sia and Rokan were not the only dragons on Earth. The dragons were already aware of one another: their distinctive energy let them sense each other's presence anywhere in the world.

'Until now, we've all tacitly kept our identities hidden, but...' The problem was that once Minjun could use dragon speech, even imperfectly, the other dragons on Earth would be able to sense his energy.

"I... suppose that could be a problem." Sia put a hand to her chest in relief, apparently thinking it wasn't as serious as she'd feared.

Rokan saw it differently. "Shasha. This is far more serious than you think."

He knew not every dragon here would be well disposed toward Minjun. Some might be intrigued by a human using dragon speech for the first time, even if they didn't exactly like him. But others, Rokan knew, would resent a mere human wielding the power of the great dragons: dragon speech.

"I... see." Accepting his point, Sia nodded weakly. She wanted to deny it, didn't want to hear it, but she couldn't deny the reality.

"Is there... anything I can do for Oppa?" she asked in a voice unusually drained of energy.

"Unfortunately, not right now. And I say this out of concern: don't tell Minjun yet. No good will come of him knowing now."

"All right..."

But there was one thing Rokan couldn't bring himself to tell even Sia.

Some ancient dragons like him awakened a third eye capable of reading traces left not on the body, but on the soul. It let them distinguish a good soul from an evil one and even see into the soul's very nature.

'There don't seem to be any other dragons here who've awakened it yet.' As far as he knew, almost none of the dragons who had settled on Earth were ancient dragons as old as he was.

But if another of his kind were to awaken that eye as he had, and read the records accumulated in Minjun's soul, that dragon would feel far more than mere displeasure.