Bom recalled Yu Jitae’s last sentence.
– No.
He was saying he did not find her pretty.
It was a lie.
She could tell by looking at his eyes that he was still considering her pretty. Despite thinking that, he told a lie.
It felt as if some poisonous substance was bubbling inside. An ominous feeling struck her, making her think that something was going terribly wrong.
That was neither due to the Eye of Providence nor a green dragon’s ability to discern the situation. It was solely based on her instinct as an existence.
Bom called Jefferson and asked if something had happened at the Association.
– The thing is…
And she heard a shocking set of words. It was that Yu Jitae had massacred a group of soldiers from the Brzenk Family.
Unable to believe it, she personally returned to the Association and headed to the 8th floor. There, Bom came across corpses of the Brzenk Family soldiers that were yet to be removed.
It was horrendous.
Indescribably so…
This was not Yu Jitae’s way of doing things that Bom knew about.
Even though it might be possible if the opponents were demons, the Brzenk Family was undoubtedly an organisation protecting humanity. And yet he had killed them all, just because they were stopping him from reaching the 9th floor…
Immediately after that, Bom dashed to the command centre and looked for Zhuge Haiyan.
“Haiyan-unni, you know, don’t you?”
“…”
“You know where the Chief Advisor had been to.”
Zhuge Haiyan awkwardly shook her head in response to her question.
“That is restricted information.”
“Please tell me. It’s important.”
“My apologies, Miss. It is restricted personally by Chief Season.”
She should have asked.
Bom thought to herself – she should have asked when he was leaving. She should have asked a long time ago why and where he was going.
She did not ask because of her trust – it was a naive decision. After coming back, he looked even more rushed and cornered.
Although he was irritated at her, that did not hurt Bom as much. Getting angry was normal for anyone in a bad mood, and even she was the same.
That was not the important part.
Yu Jitae was the only one who had recently met Oscar Brzenk. It was when the Tower of Mages came crumbling down; back when the black dragon had attacked the entire world. They might have even met again after that.
Yu Jitae’s recent condition was far from good. His face, gesture and everything weren’t too different from before, but his manner of speech was oddly different and most importantly, he gave off a different ‘feeling’.
She could tell because of all the time they had spent together that something had happened to him.
In fact, when Yu Jitae returned after Oscar Brzenk’s attack at the Association and pushed Bom out of his personal boundary, she felt her head being smacked by a hammer.
She had experienced something similar before.
In the distant past,
Within the hazy final memories.
– I’m sorry, my dear girl.
It was when her father left her.
“…”
Her breath suddenly turned coarse. Pressing down on her heart, her breath abruptly left with a retch.
“H, Haru!”
Zhuge Haiyan and other attendants ran up to Bom in astonishment but she shook her hand and stopped them.
Bom remembered the day her father left.
The onion core was still being used fine by Yeorum.
And Yu Jitae was acting strange.
It was coming.
Something was flooding in.
Like a tsunami, it would sweep through her and shake her by the core, ignoring her retaliation and struggle.
The ominous feeling made her clench her lips, and the numbing coldness of her fingertips urged her to massage them.
Bom could not do anything when her father left. And on another day, even when her precious younger sister had suddenly disappeared, Bom only realised it belatedly after hearing the news.
Looking back, those days were filled with nothing but regret.
I should have persuaded mum back then.
I shouldn’t have said that to my sister.
I should have been on my father’s side a lot earlier.
Why was I standing doing nothing like a fool, instead of trying something?
Bom’s sin was that she was too small, young and ignorant, but she was now different.
After collecting her breath, Bom lifted her eyes and looked at Zhuge Haiyan.
“…You won’t tell me no matter what I say, is that correct?”
Though she was surprised by Bom’s gaze, Zhuge Haiyan did not forget her role as a soldier. ‘Sorry. I cannot…’ As soon as she said that, Bom turned her feet, ignoring the flustered voices behind her, ‘Haru!’ ‘Soothsayer…!’.
Wherever Bom went, she was met with nervous soldiers saluting her from the side. Seeing that, Bom would relax her stiffened expression and return their salutes with a smile.
She got used to it these past few days.
Ever since she prevented a large incident with her prediction, the gazes she received inside the Association changed dramatically.
Before, they would glance at her as if they were looking at a flower, or peek at her due to her relationship with Season. It wasn’t very pleasant. She was still a dragon, and yet everyone was treating her like some expensive piece of gem.
But now, it was different.
It was when Bom was going through a garden.
Someone in a wheelchair shouted out loud.
“Haru…! You are my hero!”
The people that were with him hastily gave her a respectful salute.
The man’s badge looked like a round dome – he belonged to the battalion operating the protective barrier. He was a soldier that came out alive from the sudden terrorist attack on the Association. He married last week or something and… without her prediction, he would have died for sure.
“You are everyone’s hero.”
“You saved everyone that would have died, and my family.”
Holding her hands, the man started to cry.
Bom consoled him, by saying it was fortunate that he wasn’t greatly injured, before carrying her feet again.
Her title as a soothsayer of the Association had proven its value and she now had some level of power as a result of that.
However, it was still far too insufficient. Bom was way too bare-handed.
She needed a tool.
Arriving in front of a large gate, Bom stopped her feet. She knocked on the door as a sluggish voice resonated from inside, “Come in.”
Bom entered the room as the Witch Valentine welcomed her in. Wearing the same revealing red gown, she smiled while smoking her cigar.
“It is you… So, for what have you come looking for me?”
“There is something I would like to ask you to do.”
“…Something you want me to do? Me?”
“Yes.”
“Have you not heard stories about me?”
“I’ve heard plenty.”
“Listen, girl. I’m not some old lady of the town that listens to a random child’s request.”
“I need to know the recent actions of the Chief Advisor, Prophet Season.”
With an indifferent expression, Bom started selfishly talking about her own needs.
Wearing a frown, and with a trail of smoke leaving her mouth, Valentine slowly licked her lower lips with her tongue.
Prophet Season, huh…
There was a message related to him that had come to her through the VVIP hotline a few minutes ago.
“I have also been reported about the thing that happened just then.”
“…”
“Girl. Don’t tell me you don’t know what it is, that you are asking me to do right now, yes?”
“I definitely do know what I’m saying.”
“If you do, then off you go. Stop bothering me.”
The door of the office opened by itself as soon as she said that. Despite the gesture telling her to leave, Bom started talking again with an apathetic expression.
“‘Something I want you to do’, is what I said. I’m not here to make a request. I’m here for a deal.”
“A deal?”
The witch smiled.
Letting out a deep fog from the cigar, she asked.
“Do you really wish to go to such lengths to betray him?”
“Unni. I don’t want you to have such a narrow-minded idea about my words.”
“What?”
“This is not a betrayal. It is all for him.”
“…Hmm.”
There seemed to be some kind of reason, thought the Witch.
But in any case, if the target that had to be deceived was that monstrous ‘Chief Advisor’, then even Valentine had to shoulder some risk.
Even though he normally pretended otherwise, he was definitely a dangerous existence. Valentine even thought that he might be a new type of demon.
What happened just then was something that could have simply happened at any time.
“A deal… a deal huh…”
She didn’t think the girl in front of her was just here for some romantic prank. The girl did not appear like the type to do such a thing.
A deal.
“However, I do not think you have anything with you that can satisfy me.”
“What do you want? A cute and healthy boy?”
“Seems like you know one thing or two. But I’m no longer interested in that. A living flower is so pretty that I only want to watch over it, so there is nothing I really want. Even if there was, I wonder will you have that thing which I do not even have?”
Bom, who had been quietly listening to the witch’s words, slowly opened her mouth. She knew why Valentine was called the ‘Witch’.
“My life.”
She knew that the Witch absorbed someone else’s life to keep her youth and prolong her life.
“……Hah.”
Valentine faintly gasped in response.
Bom and the Witch looked into each other’s eyes, identifying one another. It was dumbfounding, but the Witch apathetically continued breathing out smoke, as Bom lifted the Witch’s wine glass from the table and started twirling it.
“Unni. Do you still think I’m here to mess around?”
“I thought you were a quiet and gentle lady, but I guess it’s quite the opposite…”
“There is no other choice. People don’t understand if I beat around the bush; they can only understand what they see.”
“You’re right. I was indeed looking down on you.”
Bom brought the alcohol to her lips.
It was a severely strong alcohol that burned her mouth as soon as she rolled it around with her tongue.
The taste, however, was not too bad.
Immediately, the bottle of alcohol floated up by itself and poured the liquid inside to fill the glass – it was the Witch’s spell. Bom raised the glass and twirled it to mix the air into the alcohol.
“Your life does sound quite tempting, since you have a ton of very unusually clear and mysterious mana within you.”
Swirl, swirl.
“How much of my life should I give for a help in return,”
Bom asked while twirling her glass.
“50 years,” said the Witch, putting a pause to the swirling liquid.
“I don’t want to die before 40 though…” In response to Bom’s words, the Witch lifted the corners of her red lips into a crescent.
“Don’t make me laugh, girl. A kid shouldn’t try to play with an adult.”
The tongue beneath her tall fangs lustfully scraped past her lower lips.
“I’ve long known that you’re not a human.”
“…”
“If you give 50 years of your remaining life to me, I will tell you everything you want. Otherwise, you can go away.”
Bom did not smile. It was within her expectations and still within her plan, but using only this much to control the Witch however she wanted would be a difficult feat.
“How about 100 years.”
Therefore, Bom decided to make it more certain while she was at it.
“…What?”
“I’ll give you 100 years of my life. But you need to help me twice.”
Valentine twitched her eyes. Hearing the sudden twofold jump in price, she started calculating the risk between helping once and helping twice.
Earning that unprecedentedly clean mana of Bom; 100 years of her life…
The Witch opened her closed eyes.
“…Okay.”
“Hmm… No, never mind.”
“What?”
“100 years is too little. Actually, there are quite a lot of things that I need. Of course, I also have a lot of things to give.”
“And that means?”
There was an increasing sense of doubt in the Witch’s mind. To that, Bom added the finishing touch.
“500 years.”
In that moment, the Witch despite having lived for a long time could not help but be baffled.
She suddenly wondered if this girl was out of her mind or something. There weren’t many races that could put 500 years of their life on the table for a negotiation. It was of absurd value even to the Witch, to the point that it gave rise to an intense amount of greed that she hadn’t felt for over hundreds of years.
In an instant, the hierarchy within the negotiation changed. The one with more things in their hands could shake them more, and it was always the more desperate one that was at the bottom.
Only then did a smile appear on Bom’s lips.
“Why, is it too much?”
“How impudent… Do you think you can stay alive after giving 500 years away?”
“Dying today with both hands full is a better life than living perpetually with empty hands. At least that’s what I think.”
“…”
Bom giggled.
“I’m kidding, I won’t die soon so it’s okay. I have a unique constitution, you see.”
There was no way she would lie about something that would be revealed in just a few more minutes.
“Interesting… is that something you can tell by seeing the future…?”
“That’s something you don’t need to know about.”
Valentine breathed out a mouthful of smoke alongside a deep sigh. She was pushing the greed away from her red eyes.
“The conditions are out of balance yet again. Girl, you already had this in mind when you came here, yes?”
“You can tell?”
500 years was definitely not a short period of time even for a dragon. However, Bom still decided to give 500 years away.
“It’s good that you’re honest. …Hmm, …your sweet life is on the line so I can’t refuse the deal either… Alright. So what do you want from me?”
Bom thought to herself in response.
There were a lot of things that she had glossed over simply because of her trust. There were a lot of things that she had looked away from just because of her love. However, it reached a point where she could no longer disregard it.
The child that was too young to do anything was no longer here – that child had died a long time ago.
The baby dragon that had to discard everything for that one ‘Grand Schema’; the child that therefore was too afraid of getting anything new, finally found something that she wanted to grasp after a long period of time.
“There are a lot of things that have to be unveiled. I want you to help me gather information and I know you are the best at it.”
“And what is it that you want to know?”
After whispering words of love to him at the end of the sweet vacation, Bom had always been telling herself something:
“Everything.”
That she won’t be as powerless anymore;
“Everything, I don’t know…”
That she won’t lose her precious one ever again.