Early in the morning.
As the dry and refreshing winter breeze seeped through the window, Bom faintly opened her eyes and rubbed them open.
A sweet voice woke her up from her sleep.
Yu Jitae was talking by himself in the living room.
*
– Yes, Season. Zhuge Haiyan speaking.
“There is something I want to request.”
– Is this regarding the isolation chambers?
“Yeah. Can I get some time for it soon?”
– Ahh. Is that the thing about B-12 going outdoors that you’ve mentioned?
“Right. To let it have some fresh air. Can you get the word across beforehand, thanks.”
– Hmm… The matters related to the ‘immense risk factors’ leaving isolation rooms must be requested face-to-face due to security reasons. Is it urgent, by any chance?
“Why. Is there something on your hands right now?”
– I’ve actually taken the morning off for some personal reasons.
“You took the morning off?”
Zhuge Haiyan hesitated a little before adding more words.
– …I have an arranged marriage meeting today.
“You’re meeting a man?”
– Yes. First meeting.
“How rare. For you to see someone.”
It was more intriguing than rare.
Zhuge Haiyan had never married anyone in the past iterations. In other words, it meant that she had been single for hundreds of years.
– It’ll just be a short meeting in the morning so it won’t affect work. There’s not much time, you see.
“Who is it? For him to not have time to meet someone like you who only sleeps two hours a day.”
– Ah, I mean, I don’t have much time.
“….. I see. Then please do that for me as soon as you go to work.”
– Alright.
“Good luck on your appointment.”
Ending the call, Yu Jitae turned around. From behind the small gap behind the door of her room, Bom was peeking his way. Her emerald eyes blinked as soon as their eyes met.
“Good morning~”
She then suddenly walked out of her room with a big stretch.
“Did you have a good sleep?”
“Nn~ The weather looks amazing today.”
“What do you want for breakfast,”
“How about some fast food?”
“Sounds good.”
Bom naturally approached the sofa and laid herself down next to him while resting her head on his thigh. She then turned on the hologram display of the watch while humming, “What should we feed the kids today…”
Despite their kiss in the lounge room of the warp station, Bom still tended to lean on him like this quite often.
It was Yu Jitae who was the most troubled by this as he thought Bom was uncomfortable with sexual atmospheres and the likes because she had yet to experience such things.
“Oh yeah. By the way, who were you talking to on the line just then?”
“What. On the watch?”
“Yes.”
She sounded and appeared very casual so he replied in a similarly nonchalant manner.
“Zhuge Haiyan.”
***
<Head of Isolation Chambers. Thimithi: The isolation target B-12 has regained its consciousness. [13:52]>
That day, Yu Jitae headed to the Association.
He would now take Myu outside and take a short break. In the meantime, the agents of the [Immense Risk Isolation Rooms] will move everything to a bigger room and carry out the things she had proposed.
It wasn’t difficult for Yu Jitae to assume that today would be a rather uncomfortable day.
How?
“I wish you wouldn’t greet me with that disgusting mouth if you could.”
Because those words were the first things he heard the moment he opened the door.
“…”
He detested the black dragon and similarly, the black dragon also hated himself. Considering their relationship, it was obvious that having to stick to each other when going outside wasn’t very well-received by either of them.
“How’s your body.”
“…”
“Answer me.”
“…”
“Or there will be no going outside today.”
Myu didn’t move her lips. She looked up and threw him a short glance.
“It has gotten better.”
“Right. It shouldn’t be getting worse.”
Her dragon heart and the Origin Fragment had to recover a bit more before the next experiment.
“I’ve already applied for a leave on the way. We can go out whenever you want to but I’ll only allow up to half a day. Is there anywhere you want to go?”
“…”
Myu pondered.
Where would she try to go?
He could easily guess the location.
Hatchlings being similar to humans was because of the short span of experience and time they had built up. However, a one-time experience became an everlasting memory in the unforgetting memories of adult dragons.
Due to becoming numb to stimulation, what adult dragons wished for tended to be bigger sources of stimulation.
In other words, they were generally dirty and disgusting things.
“I’ve wandered through dimensions for a long time. Ever since I was very little.”
That was when Myu started talking about things he wasn’t even curious about.
“After coming to Earth… I found out that this mysterious world contained things that I had never seen or heard of.”
It was what everyone including Chaliovan who came from different dimensions always said about Earth. Her words were going in one of his ears, going out the other, but Myu continued rambling reminiscently while gazing off into a distance.
“I’ve found some worlds with technology where magic coexisted with cogs. But a world this advanced in technology was a first.”
“…”
“Even I, as a dragon, was seeing it for the first time, and yet the humans of this land lived without even appreciating it. I found that intriguing and judged that this world was one that was worth settling in to end my hundreds of years of travel. My plan was to quietly stay in a corner after making a nest and explore the new world.”
He was only half-listening but he could still guess what she was trying to say.
That long introduction was to put the blame on Yu Jitae who had ruined it.
“And what.”
“…”
“Just get to the main point. So where do you want to go.”
Myu was similar to 5,000 year-old adult dragons in terms of strength, but she said with her own mouth that she was between 500 to 1,000 years old.
It was obvious where dragons of that age would head to. With that in mind, the Regressor was thinking of all the dirty places that it could ask for.
But after some hesitation,
Myu talked about a completely unexpected location.
“……A museum.”
*
Myu wanted to have a look at the chronological development of Earth’s technology. That’s why she wanted to head to a museum but she didn’t know which museum to go to.
A museum…
The Regressor thought to himself. The ‘technology of other dimensions’ that she had seen were probably those worlds that developed cogs, weaved cotton with tools and had oil pressure at best.
In other words, they were around the 18th~19th Century on Earth, similar to the technological state during the Industrial Revolution.
Thus, Yu Jitae decided to show the technological and scientific development that happened during the 19th~20th Century. Fortunately, there happened to be a museum in Paris that had gathered evidence on the modern development history that went all the way until the 20th Century.
That should be enough.
And if she enjoyed it, it was easy to find what to do on her next leave. He just had to show the scientific skills developed in the 20th~21st Century.
Yu Jitae took Myu, who hid her appearance with a mask and a cap, and went to Paris. There were not many things that he had to do. The first thing he did was to hire a guide because he didn’t want to talk to her all day.
“What you see here is a replica of the tin foil phonograph that Thomas Edison had invented in 1877.”
He introduced her as a ‘girl from an uncivilised tribe who knew nothing about the world’ to the guide and because he didn’t want to walk next to her, he left a few steps between them and monitored her movement.
“A phonograph? What is that?”
Myu very much acted like a normal person, like the time she first met Yu Jitae.
“Firstly, let me show you how it works.”
The guide touched the replica on display and said while turning the handle, “Welcome to Paris full of wonders!”
In that instant, Myu’s heart reacted. She observed the machine with her acute senses but tilted her head, because she didn’t sense any mana from it.
– Welcome to Paris full of wonders!
“Ah.”
Myu appeared startled. It was an impressive fabrication which momentarily deceived even him.
“Were you surprised?”
“…”
“A phonograph is a device that saves sound. Do you see this needle here? Sound has a vibration and the vibration gets transmitted here to swing the needle. And the needle leaves the vibration as a record down on the spinning cylinder.”
“…”
“Then we get some dents on the cylinder depending on the vibration and when we retrace it back with the needle, it plays the recorded sound.”
“Uwah.”
Like Yeorum staring at a good weapon and Kaeul looking at new macarons, Myu’s eyes flickered with light.
“Is the recording function on the watch based on similar principles?” she asked.
“Sorry? Haha. No that’s not the case. That is an incomparably more developed technology because this here is almost 300 years old now.”
“300 years old…”
The guide continued with the explanations.
Starting from the wireless telegraph over the Atlantic (1901), controllable gliders (1902), penicillin (1929), magnetic tapes (1931) and jet engines (1940) to the first computer Colossus (1943).
All the way to the satellite Sputnik (1957), which humanity managed to send off through the atmosphere.
As if possessed, Myu followed the guide and listened to his explanations, seeming very satisfied.
She also bought a replica of a controllable glider as a toy/souvenir. Myu wanted to buy more but Yu Jitae stopped her.
“Why can I not get more?”
He was uncomfortable seeing Myu’s undisguised expressions of joy.
“There’s no money.”
“You are not a beggar or anything. Do you not have money for a single toy?”
“Of course I have money.”
“Then?”
“But I have none to use for you.”
“I wish you go kill yourself.”
Like a child, Yu Jitae’s emotions were unstable. Thinking back on black dragons disgusted him but the fact that she was a precious ‘experimentable subject’ that he had found after a long time made him think that it would be fine to do 1% of what he would do to the kids.
This too might be a thought that he earned during his daily lives.
Being uncertain of what to do like an average person.
Before leaving the museum, Yu Jitae bought a toy replica of the satellite Sputnik and gave it to Myu.
It was on a whim.
“……What is this about?”
But Myu looked at him with an indifferent look on her face and he had nothing to say in return.
When he didn’t say anything, Myu raised the toy Yu Jitae bought and chucked it down on the ground.
Clank!
It shattered into pieces and scattered.
Yu Jitae endured the impulse to run up and grab her by the hair to similarly chuck her down towards the ground.
It was his fault for acting on a whim.
“Let’s go.”
The way back was uncomfortable for both of them and they said nothing to each other.
But the problem was that he had bought two presents on a whim. He was going to hand them out one by one and there was now one still remaining in his hand.
Sitting in the lounge of the warp station, Yu Jitae contemplated before giving it to her once again.
It was a small phonograph toy. It didn’t actually operate like a phonograph and was just a toy that recorded sound like a recorder that looked like one.
“Throw this too if you don’t like it.”
“…”
Myu, who was sitting a seat away from him, did not receive the small gift. Therefore, he placed it on the empty seat between them and completely shut his mind off it. He was no longer curious whether she even received it or not.
Yu Jitae read the newspaper with his watch and waited for their turn at the warp station before heading to the Association.
“For my first ever date with a male, it was a mess.”
And when they arrived back at the Association, Myu suddenly gave him a grade which Yu Jitae was naturally not even interested in.
“And what about that. Huh?”
“…Never mind. Why would I bother. Leave.”
Myu said while shaking her fingers.
“Obediently stay here till I come back.”
“Hope you eat shit.”
“Unless you want a hole in your head.”
Leaving behind Myu who was raising her middle finger in the new isolation room, Yu Jitae turned around. Their first leave that was as uncomfortable as it could have been, thus came to an end.
*
Left alone inside the room, Myu took the phonograph out of her pocket and quietly stared at it.
Black dragons placed a lot of importance on new experiences.
Seeing a ‘machine’ that operated without a single movement in mana was similar to seeing magic in a world without magic.
“…”
So this little thing here, copies sound without using any mana?
Thinking that, Myu carefully pressed on the record button.
Ding–
***
He was done with most of the work.
Because there was something he had to convey to Zhuge Haiyan, he looked for her at her personal office and saw something bizarre.
Inside Zhuge Haiyan’s office, Bom was doing something with Zhuge Haiyan in front of her.
“Ah, welcome. Chief Season.”
Startled by the sudden visit of the Prophet, Zhuge Haiyan stood up and saluted him. He saluted back before turning towards what Bom was carrying in her hands.
She was holding a thin brush, which had been used to draw near the eyes. In other words, it seemed that Bom had been doing make-up for Zhuge Haiyan.
“Hello, Season.”
“What has brought you here.”
“Nn. I was helping Haiyan-unni with some make-up.”
“Make-up?”
…Haiyan-unni?
Zhuge Haiyan awkwardly let out a smile after sensing his gaze.
“It’s nothing much but I coincidentally came across Miss Soothsayer at the cafeteria around lunch time. After some conversation, we realised our personalities matched mysteriously well. So we thought of having tea and… I even talked about the marriage meeting that I told you about in the morning.”
“Apparently, things have gone very well for unni today.”
Bom said with a chuckle. Zhuge Haiyan turned towards her with an embarrassed smile with intimacy oozing out of her gaze.
Yu Jitae was sceptical due to various reasons. In his 90 years of service at the Association, Yu Jitae had never gotten that close to Zhuge Haiyan; not a single time. He had always been thinking of her as a human computer so seeing something like that out of her was mysterious and the process of Bom getting that close to her was also something he became curious about.
“Ahh. And apparently they are going to meet in secret during the Association’s dinner event tonight.”
“That was meant to be a secret.”
“Aht, sorry…”
Bom and Zhuge Haiyan looked at each other before giggling out loud. They looked very close and intimate.
When Bom turned her eyes back towards him, he sensed the same intimacy that was in Zhuge Haiyan’s gaze from her eyes.
The time he had spent with Myu, and the gaze he felt from her at times, must have really been uncomfortable, judging from how it was so relaxing to receive her gaze.
“And, by the way, Season.”
“Yes. What is it.”
“If you have time tonight…”
Before continuing with her words, Bom wetted her lips a little. She appeared to have no idea about it but it was a habit he noticed after spending years together.
She seemed relaxed. Her eyes were calm and her voice was the same as usual.
But when she does that and uses her small tongue to lick her lips like a cat…
“Would you like to come with me to the command centre’s dinner event today?”
That was when she was nervous.