It was on a winter holiday, a few days after they started living together again.
Yu Jitae’s relationship with the kids changed but their life together wasn’t all that different.
This year too had snow falling on the floating island, Haytling. The island was floating in the stratosphere and was above most of the clouds so sometimes, there could be a heavy snowfall on earth with not a single sign of snow in Lair.
In those cases, the mages of Haytling sometimes created artificial snow to scatter from above, in order to create an environment similar to the ground.
“Oi. Who’s the one in charge of snow today! Who’s the one that sprinkled it!”
“Aht…”
“What’s wrong with you huh? Why did you pour so much?”
“Sorry sir! It was an accident…!”
Since it was people that were doing it, there were occasional mistakes and that was the reason behind the heavy snowfall of that day.
“Uwah…”
Kaeul walked out to the terrace with the baby chicken in her arms.
“That’s a looooot of snow.”
As the snow piled up and covered the colours of the world, everything outside the window appeared white and clean. Kaeul and Gyeoul blankly gazed outside.
What was snow to the little kids?
“Hmm! That’s going to be a big mess in a few days…!”
“…Messy.”
“Let’s stay home for today Gyeoul…”
“…Nn nn.”
They in fact didn’t find it that significant because it was already their third time seeing heavy snow.
Thus, the kids gathered at the living room that day and played a board game. Travelling across the world, they bought lands and raised buildings; or pulled the bricks of a fine tower to make an unstable stack on top of the building; or earned an ‘identity’ each and deceived others about their identities through lies while figuring out other’s identities and attacking them for money.
Most of the board games were competitive, and they naturally tended to create a scapegoat at the end.
And the scapegoat of Unit 301 was…
“I attack ahjussi with assassin!”
“…”
“Kyah! Ahjussi you lost a life!”
“Oh yeah? Then I’ll steal Yu Jitae’s money with the pirate captain. Give me 2 coins.”
“…”
“Easy~. Now you’re poor as heck. Haha!”
“…Uhm, me too. Captain Hook.”
“What now.”
“…Give me, money.”
“This is everything I have.”
“…Give me, everything.”
In an instant, all his lives except for one in addition to all his money was taken away as Yu Jitae squinted his eyes.
At last it was Bom’s turn. Yeorum grinned and glared at Bom wondering whether she would cover for him or not.
Bom, who had a faint smile or an indifferent look on her face throughout the games, gave a slightly brighter smile the moment her eyes met with Yu Jitae’s. Her eyes curved and the ends of her red lips curled up.
She covered her mouth diagonally so that only Yu Jitae could see it, but her voice was loud and clear for everyone else to hear.
“It was nice playing with you.”
Oi.
Once again, the kids bursted into laughter.
Meanwhile, Bom brought her lips together and gave a little blow kiss which only Yu Jitae could see due to the covering hand.
Unable to resist their joint attack, Yu Jitae had to leave the board. While the kids were chuckling from behind, the one that dropped out even before him welcomed him.
“Welcome sir. Let me guide you to your seat.”
“What’s with that. Are you a guide or what.”
“I am a punching bag.”
Yu Jitae sat next to the protector.
The two of them who were always the first to be bombarded by kids had no choice but to watch over them. The protector at least had something to do, as he repeatedly pulled the baby chicken away by its leg whenever it tried to stealthily deliver a coin to Kaeul.
Chirp chirp chirp!
Should the baby chicken resist, he would grab its beak and cuddle it with his arms and legs. The baby chicken had to spend time in the jail cell that is the full-plated armour.
While they were gathered in one place enjoying themselves, a mysterious post was sent to their door.
[To. Yu Kaeul]
It’s the leaf you were looking for. There was nothing on the market and barely got it after a few days. Only sending one ‘cuz why not. Too annoying and won’t do it a second time.
[From. TB]
A leaf?
Yu Jitae called Kaeul and told her that she had gotten a post from Tyr Brzenk.
Her reaction however, was strange.
“Hukk! Is that finally here?!”
She soon began ripping the post box apart. It was Yu Jitae’s first time seeing the child looking forward to a gift this much ever since the chocolate macaron.
What was it?
What Kaeul took out of the post box was a small flower – a black flower that didn’t look that pretty. It resembled a rose and had multiple leaves stacked on top.
He immediately knew what that was.
It was a unique plant called a Wyvernip.
Wyverns were one of the most troublesome monsters to fight against in dungeons because they were fast, shot magic spells and flew around. And yet none of their parts were expensive so it was nothing but a bothersome monster to a raid group.
That flower was a miraculous drug against those wyverns.
Wyverns tended to lose their will to fight and turn extremely docile the moment they took a breath of that scent, so raid groups sometimes crushed the flower to apply it over their bodies like a perfume. Even the wyverns that came to attack humans would become gentle from the pleasing scent and refrain from fighting.
He also heard of how they would sometimes trail from behind like puppies.
But of course, wyverns themselves were quite rare so there wasn’t much demand for Wyvernips. Besides, they only grew in unique environments so there was only a small supply from fissures outside of Earth.
There was only a few in both supply and demand.
That was why the flower was only popular to aficionados and the rich but…
That was when Kaeul, after placing the flowerpot on the ground of the front entrance, blankly gazed at it as if she was staring at a bright gem. She then carefully brought her nose to have a smell of the flower.
She then tightened her fists and bit her lower lips.
“Muuuunng…”
Kaeul melted on the ground like a liquid and giggled.
It was intriguing to find that Wyvernips which were known to only have an effect on wyverns also had an effect on dragons.
“Woah. This really smells too good.”
After coming back to herself, Kaeul was about to carry the Wyvernip into the living room.
“Unni unni! Gyeoul!”
Apart from its intriguing aspect, it wasn’t a welcome sight for Yu Jitae to see Kaeul melting like that because there was a not-so-pleasant memory similar to it.
Thus, he called her.
“Yes?” she replied.
“That thing. Give it to me for a second.”
“Okayy.”
Kaeul obediently handed the Wyvernip to Yu Jitae.
This was used like an anti-anxiety pill to wyverns but they were different from dragons. If this had some kind of sedative or stimulating effect to dragons, he had to discard it immediately.
Yu Jitae tried smelling it. It didn’t feel like anything to a human like him but when he used the pulsations of a red dragon’s heart, his physical body momentarily became like a red dragon’s body.
Thump– After the red-coloured heart thumped once, he closed his eyes and smelled the flower.
It felt as if there were fluffy clouds spreading across his emotions. There wasn’t any sense of pleasure and it wasn’t that potent nor did it have any addictiveness to it either. It simply invigorated the parasympathetic nervous system by a little.
This was no different from having something sweet when hungry, and wanting to take a nap on a warm day.
“Why why why? Is it bad?”
“No. It should be fine. But where did you suddenly get this from,”
“It was inside Ling Ling’s necklace, but it had such a nice smell to it you see? So I asked for one!”
“Is that so?”
“He could have bought more though. It’s only one flower… He’s tall but he’s very small-minded!”
In the past, Bom had described Kaeul’s face when grumbling as (-3-) over the messenger, and that was exactly what her current expression was like.
In any case, something that had no harm to the body and no addictiveness was nothing but a fun toy to the children. Yu Jitae gave the permission and Kaeul immediately brought the Wyvernip to the other kids.
“What’s that?” Yeorum asked.
“Unni unni. Try smelling this…!”
“What is that jet black shit. Go away.”
“No no no. This is really insane…!”
“Like I said, go away.”
‘Hupp’, Kaeul ran up but had to retreat after having both of her nostrils be poked by her fingers. During that process, the flower touched Yeorum’s nose as the frown on her face immediately vanished.
“Hoh…”
“How is it, how is it? Cool right?”
“What is this?”
Yeorum sniffed the Wyvernip with a much more relaxed expression.
“Amazing yeah? It’s super relaxing right?”
“Mhmm. Not bad.”
Seeing Yeorum blink her eyes and stay still, Kaeul’s expression turned brighter as she then went for Bom.
“Nn? What’s this… hmm…”
As expected, Bom melted in comfort after having a smell of the Wyvernip and Kaeul sniffed it again from the side. The two of them laying down in comfort like that made them look like avocado paste and mashed potatoes stacked on top of each other.
‘Ah, sex…’ Soon, tomato paste was added to the avocado paste and mashed potatoes.
But Gyeoul, who was in the middle of her unnis, shook her hand as if she wasn’t interested in the slightest even after sniffing the flower. She walked up to Yu Jitae and asked what was wrong with them.
There were occasionally a few wyverns that were tolerant to the smell and it seemed that Gyeoul was similar to them.
In any case, the Wyvernip was an alive flower and it withered that night due to being unable to adapt to the foreign environment. Due to the unique environment which the flower grew in, it was hard to keep it alive and Bom also couldn’t recreate it since it did not belong to either Askalifa or Earth.
In a sad mood, they all gazed at the withered flower as Kaeul then raised a question.
“Ahjussi. Can you please buy us another one?”
It had been a while since Kaeul asked him for a favour so Yu Jitae readily agreed to do so. Them being too attached to the flower wouldn’t be a welcome sight but buying it once shouldn’t matter that much.
Thus, on the next day at around lunch time, Yu Jitae headed to the one and only store on Earth that bought and sold Wyvernips.
Located in the southeastern region of USA, at the state that had divided out from Virginia in the past which then turned into a corporate town after the New Era, Kentucky, there was the world’s largest ‘unique monster consumable shop’.
There, the Regressor came across an unexpected person.
***
The monster consumable store was bustling from early morning.
Yu Jitae was about to take the pocket watch out to check the time but decided against it since the pocket watch was set to Haytling time zone.
Thus, he checked the current time with his watch.
It was currently 9 in the morning, and 11 would be when they receive goods from the raid groups working in the dimension, [Lamdiaran]. Although there were still two hours left until the delivery, there were quite a few people waiting in line. They were collectors who personally enjoyed gathering such goods even though it wasn’t a socially well-received hobby.
He guessed that a few of them were also here for a Wyvernip.
Wearing a coat, he stood in line waiting when something strange entered his sight.
“…”
There was a woman two seats away from him.
Black coat. Black heels. Purple earrings and a black cap on top. Even her hair was pure black and her eyes were purple like the colour of her earrings.
Yu Jitae frowned the moment he saw her face.
An idealistic beauty unimaginable from a human was hanging on her face, which was covered by a high-quality face mask.
It was by no coincidence that Yu Jitae’s eyes landed on her. He had a blessing that consistently sensed all the existences within a 1.5 kilometre radius and that woman was not caught in that radar.
Alongside her face, the woman was also hiding her presence at a similarly high level.
It was strange.
“…”
He looked at her with a somewhat skeptical gaze.
Kwanng–!
That was when a loud thud echoed from nearby.
“Hukk! What was that!?”
Growl!
A beast roared in anger.
A large white beast resembling a wolf kicked and jumped out of the cage. It had a height of 2.4 metres and a body length of 5.5 metres.
The large wolf that was as big as an elephant kicked the guard in front of it with its front paws and began wreaking havoc by either pushing or attempting to bite other people.
It immediately turned into chaos.
“Uaaaaak!”
“R, run away!!”
“Superhumans! Where the fuck are the superhumans!!”
“Kyaaaak!”
The frightened people shouted and made a fuss. While the crowd scattered like a bunch of ants, the black-haired woman stayed still, with her hazy pair of eyes still gazing at the ground.
After perhaps sensing something, the wolf dashed towards to her.
But at that moment,
As the wolf’s eyes met with the eyes of the woman, its large body froze on the spot. As if there was a bottomless cliff in front of it, the wolf hurriedly took several steps back before turning around and running away in fright.
It was drenched in fear.
The monster was immediately suppressed by the superhuman guards but that mattered not to Yu Jitae. He gazed at the black-haired woman even more attentively.
Slowly, her eyes turned towards him.
“…”
The purple pair of eyes gazed back at Yu Jitae.