Chapter 60 - Oppa, Run

She had experienced it so many times that she ought to have grown used to it by now, but the sensation still felt unfamiliar. A tingle ran through her entire body, and Sia’s heart began to beat erratically.

As the years passed, her episodes had dwindled to one every few decades, so she had stopped worrying much about them. Of all times for the warning signs to appear, why now?

‘The last time I lost control...’ Had it been sixty or seventy years ago? Come to think of it, another episode around now would not be strange. She had been far too complacent.

And that was not the only thing she had been complacent about. She should have told Minjun about these episodes long ago. At the very least, when she brought them up today, she should have explained the symptoms and what to do in detail. She had glossed over them because she was embarrassed to describe the symptoms to him herself. She should not have done that.

Once an episode began, she would fire off spells as though someone else were controlling her. A dragon losing control and unleashing magic at random—just hearing about it sounded like a disaster, and it truly was one.

The only reason no one had been harmed during her previous episodes was that other dragons had helped her each time. An ancient dragon around Rokan’s age could easily contain the spells she unleashed. Even during her last episode, three other adult dragons had worked together to keep her uncontrolled magic from spilling out of her lair, preventing any serious damage.

But what about now? If they had been outside the dungeon gate, she might have sent Rokan a telepathic message asking for help. Or she could have used the ring Minjun wore to evacuate him somewhere else. Perhaps the dragons who had settled on Earth would have sensed her unstable energy and come to help. But inside the gate, all three options were impossible. This place existed in a dimension separate from Earth.

She could not send a telepathic message across dimensions to Rokan, use a Teleport artifact to get out, or be detected by the other dragons. That left only one option: Minjun had to get through the portal before she lost control and tell Rokan what was happening.

It sounded simple enough. But Sia knew what was about to happen, and she knew it would be anything but easy.

“Oppa, run.”

“... Huh?”

Hadn’t they been enjoying a quiet conversation together just moments ago? Minjun could only be bewildered when Sia suddenly frowned and told him to run. But when she shouted again, straining her voice—

“Go get Grandpa!”

—he could no longer miss how serious the situation was.

A chill ran down his spine, and he sprinted toward the portal without a moment’s hesitation. One look told him this was beyond anything he could handle himself. But it was too late. She began to lose control almost as soon as she finished speaking.

CRACKLE, CRACKLE.

Mana began discharging from her body like sparks of electricity. Minjun hastily twisted away, but this was only the beginning.

“Please, Oppa, get away...”

Now that the episode had begun, even speaking was difficult. It took all her strength to force out a single syllable.

Minjun had rolled awkwardly while dodging and now clutched his knee as he looked toward the portal. But it was already too late. Most of the spells Sia was firing without control were landing in the portal’s direction.

Sia gritted her teeth and tried to hold on through sheer willpower, to bring her magic under control, but it would not obey her. Some of the spells flew toward Minjun. A relatively weak Magic Missile grazed his clothes.

“Urgh...!”

It had barely touched him, yet the pain was this bad.

As he was now, Minjun could not hope to restrain her. Even dodging every spell pouring out at random long enough to reach the portal would be difficult. Sia knew that terrible truth too. Tears streamed down her face as she watched him, thinking that today might be her last day with him. The dreadful possibility she had never imagined—no, had never wanted to imagine—rose in her mind.

“Op...pa...”

She still could not speak properly, and the pain throughout her body was worse than usual. All she could do was hold on to her senses and try to keep her spells from reaching the dungeon exit. Perhaps the extra pain was the price of desperately trying to direct them away.

But no matter how hard she tried, the situation would not bend to her will. It never had.

“Sia! Sia!”

Minjun called her name urgently, but shouting it would not bring her back to her senses now.

Minjun had only two choices: endure until her episode ended or flee as far as he could. Simply running away was not enough. Once the time they could safely spend together ran out, her energy might affect him and make him collapse unconscious, as it had before. They had been together for about three and a half hours, leaving him only a little over an hour. No, perhaps even less.

With Sia out of control, her distinctive energy was far more concentrated around her than usual. That could only shorten the time he could remain in the same space as her.

‘I need to think this through.’

Should he flee as far as possible, somehow push through the spells to reach the exit portal, or find another way out of the dungeon? None of the three seemed like a good answer. Even if he ran far away, there was no guarantee her energy would not reach him. With so many unknowns, it was hardly safe. The closest thing to an answer, as far as he could see, was to make it through the portal somehow.

Narrowly dodging the spells flying at him, Minjun opened his pocket dimension. He pulled out the Dragon Bone Sword first, then grabbed every artifact he could lay his hands on that might be of some use. Deflecting the spells that kept coming, he unleashed the artifacts’ effects at Sia without holding back: magic nullification, binding, cures for status ailments, even an artifact enchanted with Sleep.

But her condition barely improved. Then again, she was a dragon. He could use these things all day and still have little effect. Even if he charged toward the portal, there was no guarantee he would reach it safely. Getting hurt was a certainty; he might even die. Still, it was time to decide.

“Sia, trust me. I’ll figure something out.”

He had to escape by any means necessary and ask Rokan for help. For both their sakes.

Minjun reached toward his pocket dimension. If he took out every artifact he had and armed himself with them, perhaps he could make it through somehow. But...

“W-what? Why won’t it open?”

For some reason, the pocket dimension would not open. It was just like when he had encountered those villains and their artifact had prevented him from opening it.

Seeing his panic, Sia met his eyes and mouthed something. He could tell she was trying to speak, but the explosions from her spells drowned out her words.

‘Could it be...’

Had one of the spells she had fired at random blocked his pocket dimension from opening? He could not be sure. Right now, why it would not open mattered less than the fact that he could not open it at all. He would have to stake everything on one attempt.

“I’ll have to stop her myself.”

Instead of continuing to dodge and run, Minjun decided to use dragon speech to stop Sia, if only for a moment. This was where he had first succeeded in using it. The circumstances had been different, and the backlash had left him bedridden for days, but if he was in the same place, perhaps he could do it again.

His body was already battered by spells he had failed to dodge completely, and unlike last time, one wrong move could truly kill him. And the wyverns and soldiers he had faced then could not even be compared to Sia.

‘Still, I have to.’

However slim his chances, this was the only way.

He had to survive, fulfill his goal of becoming a dragon, and have the wedding he and Sia had dreamed of. His resolve burned more fiercely than ever as he bit down hard on his lip. Seek death and live; seek life and die. Ready to die here if that was what it took, Minjun attempted dragon speech.

[“Stop.”]

His sole aim was to stop Sia’s episode, even briefly, and ease her pain a little. To keep their miraculous reunion from ending in heartbreak.

As he tried to use dragon speech, alarm spread across Sia’s face. Minjun thought she was shocked that he would take such a gamble, but something else had frightened her. She sensed that her Polymorph was about to be forcibly undone, exposing her true form. She was embarrassed to show Minjun what she really looked like, but that was not the problem now.

If she returned to her true form, the spells and dragon speech she unleashed would become far more powerful. She was barely holding on through extraordinary willpower as it was. She had no confidence she could maintain enough control to avoid hurting Minjun once she changed back. And instinct told her she had very little time left in human form.

If Minjun’s dragon speech could work before then—if it could stop her episode for even a moment—

“Aaaaaagh!”

She screamed against the agony that consumed her entire body.

Red lights began gathering around her. It was a sign that she was about to lose what control she had left, her Polymorph would break, and her true form would appear.

[“Please, please stop!”]

His vision began to darken. Even so, Minjun shouted again and again until his voice went hoarse.

[“Stop! Stop! Stop!”]

Was he pushing his injured body too hard by trying to use dragon speech?

COUGH, COUGH.

Minjun began coughing up blood. But even as the mana throughout his body began to flow backward, he gripped the Dragon Bone Sword so tightly it cut into his flesh and roared out his dragon speech.

[“Please, enough! Stop, Siaaaa!”]

With those words, Minjun’s legs gave out and he sank to the ground. Then, as if by magic, the red light gathering around her scattered, and Sia went completely still.