“Ah, umm…, no. Just no.”
“What was that?”
“Our child, isn’t like that. He doesn’t have any problems…”
After finally coming back to her senses, Kaeul waved her hands.
“Ah. Yes. I get that, but please tell us where you obtained it.”
“I just, brought it in…”
“You brought it in? From a dungeon?”
“No, not a dungeon but…”
“Do you have a certificate or a serial number? If it’s not registered at Lair, is it registered in a different country?”
“Umm…”
She felt her lips going dry. The look on her face made it extremely evident that she was guilty of something. One of the staff sneered and shook his head.
“We must temporarily put them in quarantine for disinfecting purposes for unconfirmed spirit beasts. I ask for your cooperation.”
He then abruptly took a step forward. His hands reached forward at the baby chicken, Chirpy.
“Please wait!”
Surprised, Kaeul stopped his hands.
“Uhh, certificate…! We probably do have it! I don’t really know, but I can ask our ahjussi!”
“Alright. You can bring that to us later. You do not have to worry and we’re just separating them for the time being as a disinfecting measure. Once you find your registration certificate, you can come to our Spirit Beast Management Department.”
“You mean you’ll still take him now?”
“Yes. We do need to put them in quarantine for the time being.”
With that, the woman pointed at her own helmet which read [Urgent Quarantine Period] in red. Seeing Kaeul still stubbornly resisting them, the woman heaved a sigh.
“We’re not doing this because we want to either. Unregistered spirit beasts might have some sort of virus in them right? You can even come tomorrow with the certificate. Please understand that it’s for the safety of everyone.”
Her words were slightly gentler than before. But as she was listening to them, Kaeul could feel the baby chicken in her arms trembling.
Chirpy was frightened.
“S, sorry.”
Without even knowing what was going through her lips, Kaeul rambled.
She understood the necessity of the procedure,
But the child was scared right now.
“…I, I don’t think I can send him away.”
*
The beginning of their relationship was light.
She fed it and it ate well, and seeing it getting injured time after time made her pity the animal. Living together, she slowly became more attached and without even realising it, her feelings towards it changed from sympathy to affection.
Perhaps that originated not from her own affection for the baby chicken, but from the love shown by the baby chicken to herself. After all, this spirit beast tended to follow her everywhere she went.
Sometimes, Kaeul was unable to give it much love. Because of lectures and assignments; and because she had to play with her friends and unnis, she was occasionally inattentive and couldn’t do much for the baby chicken.
Even then, it always followed around her.
The first one to greet her when she returned from her lectures was the baby chicken. Before she could even place the bag down, the yellow guy would run up and rub its head on her shin. The soft yellow fur tickled her legs and she could feel the weight of its rub.
Kneeling down, she lifted it up and felt the warm temperature of the tiny body.
How would you live without me? She thought to herself.
And it was relatively recently that the baby chicken became more special to her.
It was when Yeorum achieved the top grade of the first quarter, and was being repeatedly called by the PR team.
They asked for an interview every single day and even after rejecting most of them, there were still a few that had to be taken. Yeorum began becoming more and more famous. More people recognised her and sometimes girls came to her when they were walking, and created a fuss calling themselves her fan.
Kaeul was jealous of Yeorum. She was jealous that she was going on interviews, and was also jealous of how she was annoyed by them.
To her, Yeorum being loved by others, appeared bright.
So on the day of her final interview, Kaeul who was left alone closed her eyes, and relived the moment she stood in front of a crowd.
It was only once, but countless people were watching her with undivided attention. Vividly reminiscing in those memories and emotions made her depression slightly dissipate. But the frustration that still remained made her blankly sit in the living room, when the baby chicken approached her and rubbed its fairy-floss-like fur.
As if it was telling her to give it her attention.
How did he know.
Or was it a mere coincidence.
In fact, that didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, it was giving Kaeul the entirety of its attention and asked for her own endlessly.
Like a child looking for its mother.
On that rather depressing day, Kaeul hugged the baby chicken tightly.
Chirpy cried zealously.
‘Did anything happen? My dear guardian deity.’
Despite not understanding what the baby chicken was saying, the yellow creature tilting its head and the black pair of eyes staring at only her, consoled Kaeul without her realising it.
After that, she became curious about everything related to the baby chicken and she asked Yu Jitae this and that. And during that, she heard another astonishing story from him.
“This child was confined in a small place like that for 20 years?!”
“It probably was.”
“Hul… he was older than me…! No, more importantly. Why? Why in the world would they do that?”
Why would they confine a spirit beast in a breeding centre and limit its growth.
Yu Jitae explained it by comparing it to how dolphins were in aquariums.
Simply put, it was a result caused by human greed. To make it easier for humans to grow, they used knives, and to make it better for humans to grow, they restricted its growth and kept it small.
However, the Regressor didn’t really think of that as a problem. Greed was always greater than reality, and always led to a destructive form in the end.
Other people being greedy or not had nothing to do with him, so he didn’t stand for anyone nor criticise them.
Kaeul couldn’t really understand everything he was saying, but realised that that was just how reality was like.
“That’s so sad…”
How frustrating would being confined in a small place like that have been? Kaeul didn’t want him to feel locked in, at least when they were at Unit 301.
Therefore, Kaeul thought to herself that she had to go outside with the baby chicken whenever it was time.
“Chirpy.”
What was the best and the most natural way to go outside?
“Let’s go on a walk! A walk!”
…In other words,
The risks that accompanied them going on a walk was her problem, and was an issue that had to be resolved with her hands.
“Cadet!”
“No?! Don’t come closer.”
“Cadet. Please cooperate. This isn’t even that big of a problem.”
“No. He doesn’t have anything. I’ll give you that, document or whatever tomorrow, so can you please just go back for today?”
Seemingly irritated, the female staff grabbed her forehead.
“Haa… do you think we’re doing this because we want to? If you’re like this, we have no choice but to do it by force. Mister Hyungtae.”
The man came closer.
“Sorry.”
His words were polite, and his hands were cautious. Regardless, it was clear that those hands were trying to grab the baby chicken.
She took him in to protect, and had to protect him.
She wished to stay together, so she had to be responsible.
Since it was the first time ever that a life was dependent on her hands, Kaeul was feeling pressured. That apparently made the staff members also irritated, as another man began walking up with a loud voice.
“Just give that to us because it’s dangerous! Okay?”
“Oi oi, Pilson.”
“Dude, step out. Why are you so slow?!”
The man reached forward. A strong male adult, who was also a superhuman, forcibly grabbed the baby chicken by its wing.
She could feel the baby chicken wriggling and squirming with its two legs and wings.
It was then.
“…!”
A golden spark of lightning flickered in Kaeul’s eyes.
She unknowingly reached her hands forward.
The mana of a dragon flourished through her chest and a spell which she had never used since birth – the authority of the gold race – shot forth like a bullet.
[Forked Lightning (A)]
Taang—!
Fragments of lightning tore through the air. It was clearly enough to kill a person.
If someone hadn’t suddenly appeared to hold her wrist, that destructive force would have definitely emerged out, completely burning everyone present into ashes.
“Ah…”
The moment she looked into his eyes, the tension of a tight balloon exploded in an instant. She finally came to her senses. Yu Jitae was grabbing her wrist.
“Ah, ahjussi…!”
Thinking that she had made a great mistake, Kaeul lowered her head in fright.
The baby chicken was trembling and so was Kaeul.
However, Yu Jitae didn’t say anything in particular to her and turned around.
Startled by the sudden outburst of magic, they were on their bums. Despite being high-end superhumans, the use of mana just then was at a shocking speed.
Even the Regressor couldn’t tell how anxious they were, but there were signs that were revealed from agitated reactions.
Just then, he was training Yeorum. From realising that there was a problem to getting here, it took exactly 15 seconds.
The things that had happened in that short period of time were quite extreme.
Kaeul was a lot more impatient than he expected.
“I’m the guardian.”
He raised his name badge.
“What, what was that just then? Did she just attack us with her ability?”
Things had happened all too suddenly, and they shouted in surprise after calming themselves down.
The Spirit Beast Management Department was an extremely trivial post, separated from other departments. There were some that knew of the name, Yu Jitae, while some didn’t.
After some contemplation, Yu Jitae replied.
“Let me apologise. Our child made a mistake.”
“Like, is that everything? Someone almost freakin’ died just then…!”
Someone shouted abruptly, while another finally came to their senses. The name on the guardian name badge read Yu Jitae.
Yu Jitae?
“Pilson. Is that person, like… umm…”
“What! Just stay back, Hyungtae.”
He was extremely agitated. The one that somewhat recognised his name was half in doubt, while the one that didn’t recognise him decided to violently put Yu Jitae on the spot.
“I’ll apologise, and resolve what happened just then to a satisfactory level.”
“What does that even mean. Right now, it’s an incident of ‘an unauthorised use of ability of a cadet’! Stay right there! I’m going to call the sentries!”
While the staff temperamentally called the sentries, Yu Jitae looked back at Kaeul. He then placed his hand on top of the golden hair of Kaeul, who still didn’t know what to do.
“Are you okay.”
“Ah, ye, yes…”
“Good. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“…”
It seemed that she needed a conversation.
After a few minutes, someone from the sentries arrived.
The management staff appeared to be someone that stayed angry for a long time. He shouted loudly about how they were so late but suddenly turned frighteningly polite once the sentry did arrive.
The sentry that arrived after hearing the name, Yu Jitae, was none other than Sillardo Leo.
“…”
With a large build that exceeded 3 metres in height, and wearing sparkling metal plates of armour, the man raised his war hammer and scratched his hair with his hand.
“W, what brings you here personally, sir…”
Pushing the bewildered management staff to the side, Sillardo walked up to Yu Jitae. He then gave an awkward smile.
“It’s you again?”
“For some reason, yes. How is your body.”
“Do you think it’ll be back to normal already after being smacked like that?”
His voice had a hint of remaining grudge. The giant had a small heart, it seemed.
The management staff were in shock. One of the staff members that finally became certain of who he was, whispered it into the ears of his comrades, which caused their shock to escalate even further.
After the giant heard everything about the situation, he realised what was happening and ended the whole ordeal with one sentence.
“Ayish, you people. It’s not even something important…”
Since things had turned out like this, spirit beast registration and whatnot were no longer important, because the sentries will take care of it. Thus, there was no longer any reason to shift the blame to other people.
“Management team, make a proper announcement about the disinfection period please.”
The giant settled the situation with that and turned around.
*
“Are you okay?”
On the way back, he asked Kaeul who was blank.
“Ah, yes. I’m fine. Sorry. Thank you. I made a mistake. I wasn’t trying to do that. I’m really, sorry…”
She murmured with a blank expression.
It seemed that she was fairly shocked. The mana just then was extremely sharp. She almost attacked people and almost killed them.
“I’m fine…”
She looked like she needed a conversation.