The sense of urgency that had been suddenly soaring inside him quickly settled back down.
Drawing the boundaries with those words helped him organise his mind.
The baby dragons are in danger?
So? What about it? It had nothing to do with him anymore.
He knew himself that cleaning the house of their belongings was nothing but an act of formality. Now, it was time to really throw the kids out.
There was affection and a deepened bond. That was an undeniable fact.
However, that too was just a shackle stopping him from reaching freedom.
Was everything an accessory if there was a flower imprinted on it? Was the thing entangling one’s hand a bracelet as long as it was made of gold? No. Whatever it was, anything that restricted the hands and feet from moving freely was a shackle.
That was why the baby dragons were a different type of shackle to him.
It was none of his business.
Let’s not involve myself in their matters. Let’s live for myself. In any case, they were now beyond the dimensional boundaries of Earth and whatever happened there had nothing to do with Earth.
Earth that had been constantly swayed around from uncertainties for a thousand years at last gained its freedom.
Why would I ruin this valuable opportunity with my own hands?
Would I bother running away from the freedom that had finally come near me, and lock myself in time again?
No.
That would not happen.
I am not that stupid.
<The Authority, [Key (EX)] states there is a relatively high chance that the [Dimensional Cruise] would be at risk.>
“Stop growling. Before I crush your damn mouth.”
After forcing the cat to shut up, he turned his feet back home.
The Elven Bringer of Apocalypse was a lot stronger than most sovereigns, and he had never pushed himself to such limits before while fighting someone in the 7th iteration.
There were still traces of [Eradication] left behind all over his body which he had to heal.
His feet were in a hurry as he returned to Unit 301.
Why was it here out of every possible location?
He didn’t know why himself, and could only guess that it must be something like a homing instinct.
Reaching out, he grabbed onto the knob but he turned it excessively and the knob ended up falling apart.
Stopping his feet, he slowly closed his eyes. After closing his eyes, he controlled his hasty emotions.
What a fiesta.
What kind of childish thing was this?
He had been living far too long without bothering to control his emotions, and controlling his emotions that began threatening to jump out was therefore not an easy feat.
What he hoped for was a complete death from Providence. Although striking his neck with a guillotine might seem simple, it was in fact a very delicate task. He had to get rid of the remaining slivers of [Eradication] from his wounds to make sure unnecessary attributes of mana won’t be added to the guillotine.
Going into the house, he flicked the switch but the light wasn’t turned on. It was because he turned the breaker down on the day he cleaned up the rooms of the children.
Yu Jitae heaved a deep sigh. He thought his internal turmoil was somewhat controllable now, but a strange feeling struck him the moment he thought that.
His eyes were on the refrigerator.
To be exact, his eyes were on the yellow post-it note stuck on the fridge…
[Must open ♥]
The world turned hazy.
Was that note always there?
He couldn’t remember it that well, and he therefore hesitated. Soon, he decided to open the fridge and was met with an unpleasantly lukewarm gush of wind.
At the same time, his nose picked up an odour that used to be very hard to smell at Unit 301. It was the smell that something had gone wrong, as if something was rotting away…
That musty smell made him frown.
Yu Jitae closed his eyes with the scowl still on his face. He thought cleaning up the rooms of the baby dragons would be enough. That was why he had cleaned up every single thing and yet there was a leftover trace at an extremely unexpected location.
He nonetheless continued opening the door.
Inside were containers of side dishes that appeared to have been made by Bom. One of the containers had a note attached on top.
[Made personally by Kaeul! ♥]
[The chicken soup ahjussi made before!!!]
That was the ‘Offering of Eternal Peace’.
The world started to wobble.
Since there was no way the world would wobble, it must have been his eyes that were quivering.
Slowly, he took out several containers including Kaeul’s soup.
3 weeks was a long time. He opened the lids and most of them had already gone off. The ‘Offering of Eternal Peace’ was in an especially worse state and had blue moulds all around.
He turned the note and looked at the back page.
[Thank you for giving us delicious food all the time.]
[Don’t forget to eat. I love you ♥♥]
He dipped his finger into the mouldy soup and brought it to his mouth. The soft and subtle scent of the soup was no longer there. From within the lukewarm and sticky texture of the liquid, he could feel the smell of soap which should not exist in a food.
Once again, he dipped his finger for another taste.
Both the taste and the smell were disgusting, and the sticky texture of the soup was even more disturbing.
“…”
Something was falling down from his head. Although he couldn’t see it with his eyes, it wetted his heart and continued flowing down. It made him lethargic and he became too powerless to think about anything.
A liquid that was darker and murkier than the quagmire in his head seeped into his body.
That was when the black cat appeared in front of his eyes again.
<The Authority, [Key (EX)] states there is a relatively high chance that the [Dimensional Cruise] would be at risk.>
He ignored it.
Rather, he decided to ignore it.
It was fine. There were still no problems.
The black cat stopped him in his tracks. Even though he wanted to kick it, it disappeared right before he could and reappeared one step further away.
<The Authority, [Key (EX)] states there is a relatively high chance that the [Dimensional Cruise] would be at risk.>
This damn wretched bastard of a bitch.
“…”
He closed his eyes. The road was in sight and the finish line was just around the corner. All he had to do was take one or two more steps.
Setting a clear objective allowed him to find the correct path amidst the confusion.
Where am I headed,
Where is it, that I am trying to go?
<The Authority, [Key (EX)] states there is a relatively high chance that the [Dimensional Cruise] would be at risk!>
“WHAT ABOUT IT—–!!”
He threw the soup container at the table. With a shatter, the plastic container bounced like a cannonball, broke through the large mirror and crashed into the wall.
“What! What do you want me to do? What has it got to do with me, whether those damn dragons get hurt or die!”
He roared at the black cat, but the transcendent authority refused to back down.
Moving in a flash, he gripped onto the cat’s neck and lifted it from the ground. Then, he pushed forward his finger that was dipped in soup in front of its eyes.
“Look. What does this look like to you.
“This is the true nature of dragons. They eat away at the world for selfish reasons. Using nonsense as their reason, they make a fine dimension rot inside out. They are the dimensional trash; they are germs! Do you think hatchlings are any different?
“Environmental variables could slow down the growth, but for how long do you think Yu Kaeul would continue acting nice? She is a dragon. She doesn’t forget. The threshold of every stimulation she feels throughout her life will continue going up and in the end, she will move seeking for a bigger stimulus to escape that numbness. Just like her mother and her father!
“A personal bond does not change the fact that they are dragons! They were expelled from the Earth, and I have achieved my objective! So do not say that same thing to me ever again!
“Do you understand—!!”
After escaping from his grip, the cat slowly started to dissipate, all the while glaring at him with its golden eyes.
Yu Jitae ran his trembling hand through his hair.
Hostility would be nearing the baby dragons even at this point in time, but he could still control his feelings.
I can achieve anything I want.
That had to be the case.
.
.
.
He pulled the curtains as if trying to rip them apart. It was snowing outside beneath the night sky.
Walking out onto the veranda, he looked out at the ground. He stared at the layer of snow to soothe his mind.
In general, humans felt peace by looking at nature because there was no objective in a natural circulation.
People tended to be more exhausted the more they desired something. However, nature did not wish for anything and they simply flowed by.
Before, he wanted to become an adult like that. In the past, he had no desire for improvement, and buying a burger set on his way back to his house after work used to make him feel happy.
He didn’t have a grandiose life plan or anything either. Living like others, having an average ability, meeting an average partner, giving birth to average children and living without harming other people. All he wished for was to rest peacefully without any disease.
Why was it that he had to live such a hurried life…
The usual scenery at Lair was filled with colours that couldn’t be found from nature. Orange roofs, blue ornaments, the brown clock tower and black cars. But with a snowfall, all those things were covered in white.
That scene and his life looked very much alike.
Over time, it would eventually end up melting away and a closer inspection would allow anyone to see the inner colours properly and yet the snow was desperately trying to cover and hide them. In that sense, it was similar to him.
“Uwah, it’s snowing so muchh!”
Kaeul said.
Turning towards her, he found Kaeul resting on the fence and blinking her eyes while looking outside.
“It wasn’t snowing this much last year…”
“Yeah. I guess the department was holding it back.”
“Whatt? No, that’s not it.”
“Then what.”
“I wasn’t at Lair back then. Hehe.”
“Is that so?”
His mind was hazy.
That might have been the case, but that might not have been the case either.
“Uum… that looks thick enough.”
Kaeul murmured while looking at the layer of snow that was deep enough to hide one’s ankles.
“Why. What’s wrong.”
“Oh right. Ahjussi, do you want to build a snowman together?”
“A snowman?”
“Un un! When it started snowing during the day, me and Gyeoul decided to go make one together.”
Finishing her words, Kaeul turned around with a flick as her golden hair fluttered behind her head. Inside the living room, Gyeoul was jamming her head into the screen door leading to the veranda. Her nose, lips, cheeks and her forehead were all rounded after being pushed into the glass door.
“Uhahah, what’s that. Gyeoul, you look so ugly…!”
Kyahaha, Gyeoul also chuckled from the other side of the door.
He walked outside with the two of them as a white world welcomed them the moment he left the building.
The snow had built up even more by then, and was reaching all the way to the shin. For Gyeoul who had short legs, it even touched her knees.
Gathering the snow into a ball, they started rolling it across. Kaeul rolled one herself while Gyeoul also started making her own. The fluffy ball of snow increased its size in an instant and quickly turned into a round shape.
“…Uh?”
That was when Gyeoul started gazing at him.
Wondering what it was about, he turned towards her as she gave him an awkward smile. The snow she had been rolling ended up looking like a tyre because she had only been pushing it forward.
“What’s wrong.”
“…It looks, strange.”
“Yeah.”
“…Should I, break it?”
“No. Just keep rolling.”
Nodding her head, Gyeoul started chuckling out loud as she continued rolling the strange cluster of snow until it was as tall as herself.
Now, it looked like a slice of a cylinder.
“Gyeoul. How are you going to make a snowman with that?”
“…Mhmm, …I don’t know.”
She smiled, ‘Hehe’, with her eyes on him.
“Should we roll it a bit more.”
“…More?”
“Yeah.”
Soon, the sliced cylinder tilted to the side after becoming too thick. Using that round plate as the stage, Yu Jitae placed two balls of snow on top of that to make a snowman.
“Ohhh!”
“…Ohh.”
They seemed to like it. He added the arms, the nose and the eyes with twigs. It looked slightly lacking, but that was when Gyeoul floated up and placed some pointy things on the snowman’s head. They looked like cat ears.
That was the end. The kids started taking photos while chuckling. Their lips and cheeks that were flushed from the wintery cold were embedded into the photos alongside a bright smile.
Suddenly, Kaeul’s watch began to ring.
“Un un! Uh?”
Kaeul gazed up at Unit 301 as Gyeoul and Yu Jitae similarly raised their eyes. Bom was standing on the veranda waving her hand with a wide smile. It must have been Bom calling her.
“Ohh…! Unni said she cooked some instant noodles!”
While talking about some trivial things, smiling to each other and blowing on their cold hands, they returned to Unit 301. Yeorum, who was lying down on the sofa playing a fighting game while munching through mandarins, also came to the kitchen.
Bom lifted the lid of a large pot. A salty and savoury bomb of aroma floated straight up as the warm soup revealed itself.
They ate noodles together.
The slurping noises,
Quietly,
Echoed across.
Feeling unusually peaceful, he felt like saying something different.
“Feels very comfortable and nice.”
Suddenly, the kids all turned towards him, and they then looked at each other.
Did he say something strange? While he was tilting his head, Kaeul opened her small mouth.
“Of course, right?”
Of course?
Kaeul continued with a bright smile.
“Because it’s a dream.”