But the Regressor quickly dropped the line of thought. What was the damn regret for. The memory of the previous iteration had already passed, and what had already gone past couldn’t be changed. Lingering on something that couldn’t be changed was a foolish thing to do.
Perhaps he was just dissatisfied with the emotion called regret since regret was something that went against his life.
He was a human that should never regret.
Was there meaning in apologising to a person after killing their family member? Was it justifiable by calling it a revenge? Does regretting murdering someone bring the dead back to life? To such questions, the Regressor could give a firm no as the answer.
Sin was in itself a sin in full. Anything that started with, ‘It’s because I…’ were all prefixes that tried to justify and decorate sin.
At least that was what he thought. There was no need to justify himself so he didn’t need to linger on the topic either.
And yet after everything he’s done, some meagre emotion was daring to rear its damn head and shake the history he built up from its core.
Regret was an incomplete emotion.
If he were to regret and linger on something, he shouldn’t have done such things from the start. And after doing it, regretting and asking for forgiveness were underhanded and pathetic.
The moment destiny called him and made him let go of the thought that it was unfair, he had become a sinner. He had to admit that sin was ugly and had to remain a sinner until the day his life came to an end.
Therefore, he stopped thinking about what couldn’t be changed and focused on what could be changed.
In front of him was Gyeoul in his arms.
And she was trying to calm down her tears in his arms.
Even if it was just a gesture originating from some hypocrisy, he wished for the child to not cry and to not be in pain. Remembering what he learned from Bom, he tapped Gyeoul on the back at a low and soft pace.
Tap… tap… tap…
Then slowly, the unstable heart of the child began settling itself. Although it wasn’t because of him tapping on her back, he somehow timed it perfectly.
Gyeoul lifted her head away from his shoulder and vacantly stared at his face like a child who saw magic for the first time in her life.
“Are you okay now?”
“…”
After giving a nod, the child suddenly spotted flushes on Yu Jitae’s face. Reddened cheeks were things that were normally impossible to see from him.
Only then did she realise that they were inside a cave of ice. Like a house built up from scraped frost, cold wind blew from all sides.
Despite dropping beads of sweat, Gyeoul placed her tiny hand on his cheek. His cheek which always stayed at room temperature was unfamiliarly cold, while the red areas were strangely warm.
Worry replaced the sorrow on the child’s face.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“…”
But his breath created a white mist visible to her eyes. Worried, Gyeoul carefully lifted her head and matched her cheek with his.
For him, the child’s cheek felt strange today.
The warmth being sent directly from the skin, felt strange.
*
He checked the time with the pocket watch. Around 2 hours after she stopped crying, the child appeared to have calmed down and was breathing stably.
“…It doesn’t hurt,” she said with a smile on her face. However, her eyes were in a frown and thus there was no persuasiveness behind her words.
Yu Jitae quietly sat down and waited for the time to come. The two of them remained silent for some time.
“…Uhh.”
Before long, the pain started again from the heart as she gave a frown.
Yu Jitae knew a lot about shedding skin after hearing the details from Bom. The pain Gyeoul was feeling right now was due to the dragon heart forcibly turning itself to increase in size.
This had to finish successfully, in order for her to finally start actually shedding skin.
“…”
Tears like marbles appeared in her eyes and continued dropping one by one.
He couldn’t empathise with her pain as he himself had never experienced such a thing, so although the head resting on his arm was trembling, he had no idea what to do.
That in turn created a strange sense of urgentness in his emotions. Something similar to irritation alongside a mysterious emotion suffocated him in a corner of his heart.
“…Uh.”
Her small hand twitched without a place to go. She seemed to be asking for something to grip so he gave her his finger and she grabbed it.
From time to time, her tiny hand tightened its grip and drops of tear dropped from her eyes every time that happened. With that, Yu Jitae was able to clearly know when the child was in pain.
The urgent and suffocating feeling slightly increased in magnitude.
The child was in more and more pain. At the start, she simply cried but later couldn’t stop herself from letting out groans. She vomited out half-groans that couldn’t even finish itself, and sometimes wept softly.
10 hours passed in pain.
Yu Jitae felt his fingers and toes freezing from the cold but those weren’t the things that were ringing his heart.
It would be better if he could do something but there was nothing he knew that could make a child feel less pain. The Regressor lacked wisdom that could help him look after someone.
Even then, he pondered and finally remembered Yeorum’s voice that forced out a joke whenever she was in pain.
But he didn’t know any jokes.
He didn’t know how to expand on enjoyable topics.
He felt more stifled at heart.
“Gyeoul.”
It was an impulse that caused him to open his mouth.
A teary pair of eyes gazed up at him.
“If, say, there is a joke you’d like, so, what I’m trying to say is…”
He had to say something without knowing what to say and his words were thus jumbled.
The joke was a failure. Right when he was about to stop his mouth from saying the rest of the words, he was met with an unexpected response.
She seemed to have enjoyed seeing Yu Jitae mumbling for words and smiled.
Her hand that was grabbing his finger loosened slightly. It might just be a coincidence but taking it in as a positive signal, Yu Jitae decided to speak to her a bit more.
“Gyeoul.”
“…Yes.”
“Let’s say you and I had to be far apart.”
“…?”
The hypothesis alone caused the child to feel uneasy.
“It’s just a what-if story. A what-if.”
“…Nn.”
“Then you’ll try to follow me, won’t you.”
“…”
“No?”
“…What about, ahjussi?”
“I’d like to go together as well. But if we do have to be far apart, why do you think you would try to follow me.”
What was the 6th iteration’s Gyeoul thinking when she wanted to follow him. Back then, his relationship with her wasn’t as good as now.
She shook her head. It was hard to tell whether she didn’t know or didn’t want to reply.
“…Is ahjussi, a good person?” She suddenly asked and he shook his head. “…That’s, not good,” she added.
“Why.”
“…It would be good, if you were a good person.”
“I see.”
When he stopped his words, she asked.
“…Can you be, a good person?”
“Who knows.”
“…Even if, I ask you to?”
“What kind of person is a good person,” he asked.
“…Someone, that picks up rubbish?”
“I could do that much then.”
“…Someone that feeds cats?”
“I can do that too. And what else.”
“…Someone, that doesn’t get angry?”
“Dunno. You have to get angry when you’re upset.”
“…”
“Or else, people won’t know that you’re angry.”
“…Still.”
“Still?”
“…Someone, that gets less angry.”
For some reason, her eyes turned into a slight glare after saying that. The Regressor didn’t know why she was saying this, but it felt like he had to say yes in return.
“Alright. I got it.”
“…And,”
“There’s more?”
“…Someone, that plays with me.”
He understood what this was. She was stealthily adding her own wants.
“Doesn’t that already make me a good person then?” he asked.
“…Nn?”
“I play with you already.”
“…A lot… Someone that plays with me a lot.”
“Alright. Got it.”
Gyeoul’s hand was quite loose now and fortunately, it seemed that the conversation did make her a lot better. In that case, he had to say something again to sustain the conversation.
“Did you.”
Random words left his mouth.
“…Nn.”
“Did you want to be an adult?”
“…Nnnn.”
She shook her head.
“Why.”
“…Because, I’m scared.”
“Why. Do you think it’s tiring for your unnis to go to school in the morning?”
Gyeoul shook her head in response, saying that that wasn’t what she was concerned about. A different concern and worry irrelevant to the pain was hanging in her eyes.
What was she scared of then. Yu Jitae stopped his words and waited for the child to continue.
“…If, I change,”
She opened her mouth after deep contemplation.
“Yeah.”
“…Ahjussi,”
“Yeah.”
“…You won’t, hate me, right.”
The blue gaze that was staring at only him until then, slowly avoided his eyes.
“…If you, hate me because I’m bigger…”
“No.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah. That won’t happen.”
“…”
“You just have to be healthy.”
The uneasiness finally disappeared from her eyes.
“So stop worrying about something unnecessary and focus on yourself now.”
“…Okay.”
“Good girl.”
After saying that, he realised that his sentence was something that put a stop to a conversation. But since that was how he always conversed, he wasn’t good at having long conversations with the kids.
“…Good girl.”
So when Gyeoul copied his words for no reason, he thought about how he could sustain the conversation and came up with a solution.
“Ladybug*.”
Her eyes that were about to close themselves, opened back up.
“…?”
“…”
“…Nn?”
“Good girl. Ends with L… so, Ladybug.”
Gyeoul finally understood what Yu Jitae was saying and smiled exhaustedly.
“…Gorilla.”
“Anaconda.”
“…Anaconda.”
“I already did it. Anaconda.”
“…Anaconda.”
“…”
“…Hihi.”
“Asteroid.”
“…Doonga Doonga.”
“Antelope.”
“…What’s, dat?”
“Animals. They’re like deer.”
“…What sound, do they make?”
“I don’t know. Probably like, bleat bleat.”
Gyeoul giggled.
“…Echidna.”
“What? Ah, aerosol.”
“….What’s, dat?”
“Who knows.”
“…Ladybug.”
“Gorilla.”
They once again returned to anaconda, doonga doonga and the likes. While Gyeoul was thinking of a word that started with ‘g’, she suddenly gave a bright smile.
“…Gummies.”
And just like that, Yu Jitae and the child’s purposeless ‘shiritori’ continued without an end, and Gyeoul often giggled and laughed for no reason.
It seemed quite decent. Although she often felt the pain flooding in again, Gyeoul would be thinking of the word to say and didn’t cry any longer.
The thought that it would’ve been better if he knew this beforehand sparked in his head before quickly vanishing again.
Finally, the heart slowly stopped its expansion and the dragon heart slowly entered a hibernation state.
Soon, Gyeoul lost consciousness as blue mana wrapped around her body and made it increase in size.
The polymorph was undone.
In the large underground cave that reached 10 metres in height, the blue hatchling revealed itself. A small horn. A reptile’s head. Blue scales and a comparatively white stomach. Large wings and a tail.
It was Gyeoul’s true form, which he was seeing for the first time.
Before long, mana started flourishing out in all four directions and created moisture around her body before freezing itself into a solid state.
She looked like a large crystal.
The blue dragon that was 6-metres tall was put inside the transparent crystal of ice. And inside, the dragon’s scales started being lifted up. The skin was slightly uplifted, as a faint bit of blood oozed out and painted a small portion of the water inside the ice in red. The uplifted scales scattered into pieces and turned into mana.
It was finally time for her to truly shed her skin.
“…”
He blankly went and stood in front of the ice crystal.
Dragons never died or became crippled while shedding skin, so Bom mentioned that everything would be fine as long as she entered this process.
However, he was still sensitive.
Gyeoul crying in pain was still vivid before his eyes. Forgetting the fact that his fingertips were freezing and turning black due to a severe frostbite, he sat down in front of the large crystal and watched the process.
Seeing the blood leave her body made him even more sensitive.
It would never happen but if something went wrong in the slightest during the process of her shedding skin,
He felt like he would be extremely irritated.
*
The unregulated mana of a blue dragon travelled on its own accord and scattered above the icy mountains.
Mana was a manifestation of will. Like the scent of a toothless tiger’s blood, Gyeoul’s mana stimulated the predators nearby.
Something wriggled beneath the surface of the water as several heads soon popped out from underwater.
Towards the sweet scent which they had never smelled before in their lives, they began moving their feet.