Episode 95: Lifetime Luck wasted on Gacha (5)
Yu Jitae continued teaching Yeorum on how to make the best use of a core, and how to safely handle the increased output.
It was always the three of them whenever they were training thanks to the addition of Bom. Her spells were very handy because most of the training required specific set-ups so he involved her in the process.
But on the other hand, he found it strange.
Bom had been busy going around meeting her acquaintances at the Association but these days, she was following him so often that she had stopped attending those meetings.
“Ah, I told them I’ll be busy for a while.”
Why was she suddenly following him around? He asked her in case she was being jealous of Yeorum but she did not say anything meaningful in return.
“There is nothing for you to worry about…”
And she always did the same thing. Crouching in a corner of the training room, Bom always quietly watched them train as if she wasn’t there and stayed there until the end unless he called her.
“You’re really great at this. Yeorum.”
“Huh? Oh, really?”
Yeorum became less concerned by it after having it happen over and over again but Yu Jitae thought otherwise while looking at Bom.
As always,
Bom never did anything unnecessary.
So then, why was she following them around?
“Can I go with you today as well?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Even though he didn’t know the reason, he supposed this at least wouldn’t be that big of a problem. The only reason he could guess was that she was being jealous of the relationship between Yeorum and himself but that was highly unlikely.
Even if the unlikely cause behind her bizarre actions really was jealousy, that wasn’t anything to be greatly concerned by. Bom had always been quite sensitive about the approach of opposite genders and plus, he always drew a clear line and Yeorum too was being considerate of Bom and drawing a boundary herself.
“…”
That was why he let her be but she did other strange things on top. Floating a flower above her hand with magic, she glared at it with an anxious look on her face.
It was a flower he knew about.
[Stardrop]
This was used as a substitute for a torch by spirits living inside dark caves because plucking a petal of the flower resulted in a fluorescent light. The spirits tended to use that to light the path in front of them.
In addition, the spirits plucked the petals in times of difficulty to guess their future, since every flower had a different number of petals.
It will be a problem. It won’t be a problem. Will be. Won’t be…
Bom mumbled while plucking the petals one by one with a worried expression. After removing all the petals, her eyebrows turned crooked, making her look even more depressed.
“What are you doing, Bom. Why are you pulling the flower apart all of a sudden.”
“Hmm…”
“Is there something you’re worried about?”
“Nnnn…”
Would this be how a puppy would look when it was itching to take a dump only to find out there was no toilet nearby?
With such an expression on her face, Bom shook her head and floated another flower. She took a deep breath in before plucking the petals again.
He couldn’t understand the reason behind her actions. Her eccentric actions continued without an end and lasted almost three months.
For those three months, he continued teaching Yeorum.
“Don’t be in too much of a rush when you’re increasing your output.”
“Yah. Understood.”
While teaching Yeorum,
“I want a dog. A large one with jet-black fur.”
He met Myu to conduct an experiment. He successfully analysed which parts of the Origin Fragment corresponded to which [Authority].
Myu began to act like a queen after moving to a wider isolation room. The director of the isolation chambers, Thimithi, expressed her concerns but Yu Jitae permitted it. Not because Myu was pretty but because the black race had a tendency to attach more meaning to their own territories and it could therefore be used as a good carrot. He would immediately move her out if she became disobedient.
“Hello, dear Association.
“You have all become old. 10 years have done much to your appearances.”
The Witch left the deep depths of the dungeon and revealed herself at the Association as Clone 2 escorted her with a flushed face.
“Uun? When did you comee?”
And Kaeul, who sometimes left the house without saying anything, was found crouching at a park near the residential area. It was the place where they had first fed the baby chicken.
“He should be healthy right?
“He sometimes comes out in my dreams, and there, he was living happily…
“…Can you please pat my head.”
Time passed.
Yeorum planned for another duel with Rank 29 of the Association and demonstrated a natural manipulation over the output to finally succeed in defeating him. He used to be an unsurpassable wall a few months ago and it was thanks to her gaining immaculate control over the 6-unsealed core.
“Yesss! Die, die–!”
She was about to step on the head of the guy that was still on the ground so he had to stop her.
“My onion core really is the best—!
“Bom-unni, I love you ♥”
Bom congratulated her with a bright smile but could not control her eyes from twitching outside her vision.
Yu Jitae realised that she was feeling extremely agitated.
***
It was immediately after her victory against Rank 29 of the Association.
Yeorum was overage already. She wanted to drink after winning the duel so Yu Jitae took her alongside Bom to a bar that had a decent ambience.
“Cheers, for I, Yu Yeorum!”
“Cheers…!”
Bom raised her voice and clinked her bottle with hers. The kids cancelled the detoxification blessing in their bodies and poured alcohol into their mouths to get drunk as Yeorum began listing her heroic stories.
But right when their tipsiness was about to hit the limit, Bom suddenly grabbed a spirit with 50% alcohol and chugged the bottle.
“Huhh? You’re drinking the whole thing?”
Yeorum giggled and followed suit but felt a sudden nausea hitting her head so she had to stealthily use mana to push the intoxication away. It was quite an embarrassing thing to do, so she did so while giving out empty coughs.
However, on the other hand, Bom continued chugging the spirit without forcing the intoxication out with mana, as Yeorum asked in a fluster.
“Unni. Calm down. Why are you drinking so much?”
“It’s finee…”
“You’re pretty much gone already. What do you mean fine?”
“I just feel like getting drunk todayy…”
“Take it slow. Or sober up a little at least. Your whole face is red right now, you know that. And plus your eyes don’t look sane.”
Bom did not stop. Only when she was so drunk that the entire world was revolving in her vision did she finally release her glass.
Then, she opened her mouth with a very slow tone of voice.
“Uhh, I have something to say…”
She began talking about the reason behind her anxiety over the past three months.
“I have been unlucky ever since I was very young.”
Her luck had constantly been put to the test at home and she had always been unlucky, to the point that she even wondered whether the world itself hated her or not.
That was why she wasn’t as flustered as the other kids even when they had met the dimensional disjoint on their first Amusement.
“Ah, is that why you suddenly said sorry to us on that day when our Amusements were fucked?”
“Nn… because it was probably my fault…”
“I was wondering what the heck you were suddenly about. Isn’t that all just a myth?”
“…”
But, although very rare, there were times when she was absurdly lucky and an example was her recent 6 consecutive successes with Yeorum’s core. The problem was that those lucky times were always followed by a ‘reaction’.
“What kind of reaction.”
“A separation…”
“Separation?”
“The first time I became lucky, my father left after a few days. It wasn’t ‘luck’ at all…”
Bom refrained from sharing the details.
“What about the second time?”
“I had a younger sister,” said Bom while grabbing the bottle with both of her hands. Her voice was very serene.
“A sister? You never mentioned that before, did you…?”
“She’s dead.”
“……What?”
A father and a sister. They were the beings the young baby Bom had treasured the most in the world.
Memories of the time were too wretched and unfortunate that they could have negatively affected the entire childhood of the young hatchling, so her mother touched her memories to make them hazy. She then told Bom, “It’s not your fault,” so Bom in fact could not remember the exact details.
However, that could not completely erase the memory, so Bom was about to go crazy from anxiety.
Yeorum continued bothering her, asking whether it was true after she was done with her words. It was because Bom appeared so composed despite sharing such a serious past.
Because of that, Bom shared her memories and emotions with her. Yeorum, who had been asking things, widened her eyes in utter shock after receiving her emotions.
“Wait, fuck…”
And could not say anything else.
“But, it’s alright. My memories are hazy thanks to my mother’s help. It feels like it never even happened and like the plot of a drama, it’s not that painful. But…”
Her father who had been the most precious person in the world.
And her younger sister, who helped her endure after the departure of her father through the hard times when she was learning magic from her mother.
She had already become distant from the two most precious people, and yet now, Bom had one more person that was precious to her.
Bom looked into Yu Jitae’s eyes.
Soon, tears budded underneath her eyes. Rather than tears of sorrow, they instead resembled the tears of a drunkard.
Yu Jitae nodded after realising the situation.
“Ahjussiii…”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re not going to die right…?”
“I won’t. Who in the world would possibly kill me.”
His words were mysteriously persuasive. It was indeed hard to imagine anyone killing Yu Jitae and Bom nodded despite being massively drunk.
“But, you won’t like, leave us without saying anything, before the end of the Amusement right…?”
“Of course I won’t. I was the one that forced you guys to come here so why would I leave.”
She didn’t seem convinced and shed drops of tears with an indifferent look on her face.
“I’ll die if you disappear without saying anything.”
“You don’t have to worry about it.”
Bom was still skeptical so Yu Jitae reached his hand out and shared a portion of his thoughts and emotions. He will not leave the dragons until the end of the Amusement – only after sensing those sincere thoughts and feelings did Bom heave a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, the atmosphere wasn’t too serene despite the conversation topic due to their intoxication.
But on the other hand, Bom crying with a runny nose was a very amusing sight. She pretended to be normal but her nose was bigger than before. Right when she became relieved, Yeorum giggled and started taking photos of her face.
“Stooopp…”
Bom retaliated and tried to snatch the watch, but the struggles of a person too drunk to even properly move their limbs was in vain.
“Heyy. Stop taking picturess…”
“So ugly lol…”
“Still prettier than you okay…?”
“Let’s see if you can say that after seeing your photo…”
At this point, even Yeorum was quite drunk and was out of her mind. They were stumbling, blabbering about deleting the photos and whatnot when Bom placed a ball of cheese on top of Yeorum’s head.
“What is thiss…”
“Emergency provisions… Eat it if you’re hungry at home…”
“Ohh, thanks. You really are very organised…”
Yeorum picked up another cheese ball and suddenly pulled Bom’s t-shirt before placing the cheese inside her underwear.
“Why did you put it here…?”
“You have three boobs now… Easy triplets…”
“Good… but why triplets? And not twins…?”
“Ehng? What do you mean…? You have three boobs now, you fool…”
Hehe~ Kekek~ They laughed.
None of them were in their right minds.
But fortunately, it seemed that Bom had her fun from it,
Judging from how she tended to drink more often after that.
***
After coming to the Association for the first time in a while, Bom was meeting people and during her coincidental physical contact with Zhuge Haiyan, had a look at a portion of her memories.
Bom’s conversation topic had always been about Prophet Season and they were having a similar chat that day.
From her touch, she realised that Yu Jitae had been frequenting the underground hazard isolation rooms lately.
“By the way, what’s inside the underground isolation chamber?”
“Oh? Did you not hear from the Prophet, Miss?”
But upon realising that, Zhuge Haiyan refused to talk about it and Bom had to call Yu Jitae on the way back home, asking about the thing inside the isolation room.
Yu Jitae casually returned a reply.
– Just a black dragon.
Bom felt a piece of lead dropping inside her head. Was he talking about the black dragon from before? That monster that was powerful enough to drop the Tower of Mages was still alive?
For a long time, she had trouble voicing out more words and after a few seconds, she finally managed to ask a question.
“…Is it a female?”