Chapter 50 - Oppa, What Do We Do Now...

Around the time gates began opening, monsters came pouring out, and awakened people appeared to fight them, people began to wonder: if monsters, artifacts, and magic were real, why couldn't dragons, creatures of legend, be real too? Some insisted dragons must exist somewhere, even if no one had found them yet. And they were right. Dragons did exist, and had quietly made their homes on Earth without anyone knowing.

People knew nothing of them because they had concealed their identities perfectly and blended into human society. A tiny minority, like Sia, had come to Earth with a clear purpose, using dimensional travel magic. Most had been drawn into a rift between dimensions, willingly or otherwise, and ended up here.

In any case, however they arrived, they did what dragons did and enjoyed playing at life on Earth. As students, ordinary office workers, politicians, famous entertainers, hunters, and more, they kept their identities hidden while immersing themselves in human society. It was a novel kind of amusement, one the dragons of their home dimensions had never experienced.

Even so, they sometimes felt the urge to meet others of their kind who had put down roots here. After being stranded in an unfamiliar dimension, how could they not be delighted to find fellow dragons and want to talk with them? Dragons could recognize one another, too, so making connections was easy. Drawn together by the presence they sensed in one another, they gathered the dragons who had settled into life on Earth and began holding regular social meetings. Today's gathering was also meant to welcome Sia, a recent arrival.

But with a newcomer to welcome, the mood should have been warm and friendly. For some reason, today's gathering felt different from the usual ones.

"Thank you all for taking the time to come, despite your busy schedules." Rokan, the group's chairman and the guest of honor's grandfather, opened the gathering with his customary greeting.

"Not at all. Of course we'd make time to get together like this."

"And when we heard the dragon we'd be welcoming was your granddaughter, we were too curious to stay away."

On the surface, the "problem" had yet to come up. Rokan greeted each guest at his granddaughter's lair, while Sia politely introduced herself to dragons she had never met.

"I can't tell you how happy I am to meet others of my kind so unexpectedly in an unfamiliar dimension."

"The pleasure is ours. Far from home, what could be happier than finding another of our kind who understands us?"

"Welcome, Shasha. Let's meet and talk like this often."

Everyone welcomed her warmly into their circle. Yet both Rokan and Sia sensed the strange undercurrent in the room.

Then Evan, a dragon who had been speaking with Rokan moments earlier, approached Sia. "How are you finding life here, Lady Shasha?"

"I was a little worried at first, but with Grandpa here, I've had no trouble settling in." She gave a stiff reply that left no opening for further conversation and tried to slip away. Evan had no intention of letting her go so easily.

"Why leave out your human boyfriend?"

The moment he mentioned Minjun, a chill settled over the lair.

More than half the dragons present already knew, but none had raised the subject for fear of spoiling the welcome. Despite the strange undercurrent, the gathering had kept up the formalities of a welcome ceremony until Evan mentioned Minjun. Now the mood had passed the point of no return. No one had wanted to bring it up first, but once someone had, the questions were bound to keep coming.

"A human boyfriend?" asked one of the few dragons who hadn't known about Minjun, looking startled. Evan answered her.

"Yes, she has one. There's nothing wrong with dating a human during a sojourn, of course. The problem lies elsewhere."

The dragons who had been enjoying the welcome without a care stopped chatting and turned toward him.

"You seem so utterly smitten that one might think you intend to enter the Pact of Eternity with a human rather than a dragon. Surely I'm mistaken, Lady Shasha?"

The Pact of Eternity. In human terms, it was something like marriage. Unlike human marriage, however, dragons could never break this pact once made, and had to spend the rest of their lives with the spouse they had pledged themselves to. Most importantly, only two dragons could enter the Pact of Eternity. Without it, even two dragons could not be recognized by their kind as lovers. In short, Minjun and Sia had no chance of being recognized as a couple in the first place.

Sia pressed her lips together, then spoke clearly. "... That's right. I intend to enter the Pact of Eternity with him."

"With him? Are the customs surrounding the Pact of Eternity different in your home dimension, Lady Shasha?"

He asked as though he genuinely didn't know, but everyone knew better. Dragons might come from different dimensions, but they shared certain customs. The Pact of Eternity was one of them.

"Evan, that is enough. Given the occasion, let us arrange another time to discuss this." Knowing how his granddaughter must feel, Rokan tried to end the uncomfortable exchange. Evan ignored him and challenged her instead.

"A dragon can never love anyone outside our own kind. If you believe what you feel is love, you must be mistaking pity or compassion for it."

"... Why are you doing this to me?"

Of course dragons wouldn't understand. Of course they wouldn't accept it. Sia had meant to tell them everything only after Minjun had become a full dragon. But why did this dragon named Evan insist on digging into someone else's private life? Why raise it here, in front of every dragon living on Earth? Couldn't he simply pretend he didn't know? She didn't want the others gossiping about her relationship with Minjun as though it were something shameful. The corners of her eyes trembled.

"Compared with our lives, your time with him will be no more than a fleeting encounter. And yet you would enter a pact of love with such an insignificant creature? Perhaps you should simply call it part of your sojourn."

A dragon marrying a human, Evan continued to imply, was no different from a human falling in love with a pet and marrying it.

"A human might play a dog in a play. But neither during the performance nor afterward would they develop genuine romantic feelings for a dog."

"Evan."

"I apologize for bringing this up on such a meaningful occasion, but matters that must be addressed cannot be ignored."

"Evaaan!"

Furious, Rokan growled with a trace of Dragon Fear in his voice. Evan did not so much as blink. If anything, his voice grew sharper as he continued to wound Sia.

"Lady Shasha, may I ask why you made such a choice?" His words were courteous; his manner was anything but. How was she supposed to answer that?

"..."

Her eyelids trembled violently as she glared at him in silence. Unmoved by her reaction, Evan kept pressing.

"Surely you know that even if you start a family, you cannot have a child together."

Everyone here looked perfectly human at the moment, but they were only imitating human form. Sia could not conceive Minjun's child; they belonged to different species.

"I know we have an unspoken rule against interfering with this world or one another's affairs except in extraordinary circumstances. But this is no ordinary matter."

Quite a few dragons nodded along and cast Sia disapproving looks. Not all of them viewed her with hostility, however.

"Evan, you've gone too far. I... I can understand how Lady Shasha feels. Comparing love between a dragon and a human to love between a human and a dog is absurd."

"Exactly. Frankly, I think we should do away with outdated customs like the Pact of Eternity altogether. Everyone treats it as sacred, but once two people's feelings have cooled, it traps them in a relationship they cannot leave. It's a curse disguised as a pact."

Several dragons began taking Sia's side, and Rokan again rebuked Evan, telling him to stop.

The welcome had become an uncomfortable gathering of raised voices and shouting. Sia's eyes reddened. For the sake of Grandpa and the dragons defending her—and for herself and Minjun, whose forbidden love had made him the subject of gossip through no fault of his own—what should she do? One possibility came to mind, but she feared it might make things worse. Still, she decided doing something was better than doing nothing.

"I..." She struggled to speak. "Oppa is even prepared to change his species for me."

Desperate to change the fraught atmosphere, Sia dropped a bombshell.

"Shasha, what did you just say?"

"A human is going to... change species?"

Her words shocked everyone, and murmurs spread through the gathering. Amid the confusion, Sia forced herself to continue.

"Oppa knows. He knows I'm a dragon, and he knows he has to become one if we're to be able to enter the pact of love. That's why he's giving everything he has to make our dream come true."

In truth, Minjun knew nothing about the pact of love or whether the dragons would accept them. But he did know that he had to become a dragon to marry Sia, so her words weren't entirely false.

"What are you—"

She wasn't sure she should reveal it now, but they would find out sooner or later. Somehow they had learned she was dating Minjun; eventually, they would learn he was practicing dragon speech to become a dragon, too. The murmuring grew louder. Sia looked at Rokan, her eyes glistening as though tears might spill at any moment. It was as if she were asking whether she had done the right thing. Instead of answering, Rokan took his granddaughter's hand gently, his expression troubled.

Unfortunately, things did not go as she had hoped.

"Does that human think it's possible? The idea is absurd."

"Absurd, yes, but I do admire his courage. There was a human like that where I lived. He failed in the end, though."

"Admire him? The fool doesn't know his place!"

"Exactly! That's not courage. It's reckless arrogance!"

The dragons split once more into those who viewed Minjun's resolve favorably and those who did not, and another argument broke out. The latter far outnumbered the former. How dare a mere human, a lowly creature, aspire to the standing of dragons, the race closest to gods? The very notion offended many of them, and even if Minjun succeeded, their resentment would not disappear.

And there was another problem.

"There's something we're overlooking. That human knows we exist. And the reason he knows is clearly..."

The dragon speaking turned to Sia. "You, Lady Shasha."

Since settling on Earth, they had kept their identities carefully hidden. Letting humans learn of their existence would only bring trouble, so no dragon wanted to reveal what they were. Yet for the sake of a romance with a mere human, the existence of dragons in this world had been disclosed.

"Lady Shasha." Evan, who had driven the confrontation this far, spoke in an even colder voice. "Do you understand what you've done?"

She wanted to argue, but she couldn't. Feeling as if everyone there had become her enemy, she shrank into herself and managed to speak.

"... Still, my Oppa doesn't know there are other dragons besides me and Grandpa. I would never cause any trouble for the rest of you—"

"You keep calling him 'Oppa.' I understand you're about two thousand five hundred years old, Lady Shasha. Not twenty-five."

Through various channels, Evan had learned that she was romantically involved with a human man and that the man was trying to wield dragon power. Yet one thing had eluded him: why Sia called that human "Oppa."

"Who exactly is this human? And Shasha, why insist on entering the Pact of Eternity with him, of all people?"

"Indeed. That bothered me from the start, too."

"Rokan, you know something about this, don't you? As our leader, our elder, and the wisest among us, surely you understand how unnatural all this is. Explain what your young granddaughter has done, or guide her onto the right path, late though it may be. Do your duty."

Rokan was the only ancient dragon among them and had once been a Dragon Lord. Since forming the group, the others had trusted and followed him as their new Dragon Lord. But they held him responsible for his own granddaughter's actions, and wanted him to resolve the matter as their leader.

Sia squeezed her eyes shut, and Rokan let out a low groan. Despite the wisdom he had accumulated over thousands of years, even he could not tell what the right decision was. After a long silence, he met Sia's eyes. The truth would have to come out someday. She read his intentions in his troubled gaze, drew a deep breath, and finally found the courage to face them again.

"... In my previous life, I was human."

* * *

'No matter how I think about it, something feels off.'

That night, after his rank reassessment, Minjun couldn't stop worrying. Ordinarily, Sia would have contacted him by now. The fact that she still hadn't meant something must have happened. She was a dragon, so she was unlikely to be in danger. Then what was it? He couldn't get the sound of her voice out of his head from when she'd said she had something to do and ended their call. He had wanted to celebrate such a good day with her, but the way things were going left him unsettled. Unable to reach her, he decided to sleep and call again in the morning. He lay down in bed with a heavy heart.

Just then, his phone gave a short buzz. Hoping it was her, Minjun checked it.

[Oppa.]

A brief KakaoTalk message, just two characters in Korean. The moment he read it, he hurriedly started a video call with Sia. For some reason, she declined it and called him back by voice instead.

"Sia. Sia? Are you okay?"

["... Oppa."]

Her voice was hoarse, as though she had cried for a long time and only just managed to calm down.

"What happened? Tell me, okay? Take your time."

Fighting back tears, Sia struggled to get the words out one by one.

["What... are we going to do now...?"]