She remembered the illusion.
At a place that was dark all around, with white tiles covering the floor.
When she was crouching on the ground wearing Yu Jitae’s large business shirt above her naked body,
The chain looking like a dog leash had been reaching all the way into the darkness.
Someone pulled the other end of the chain and she collapsed on the ground. Taking hold of her startled heart, she glared into the distance. At last when someone started to appear from the deep darkness, her eyes widened into circles.
A black haired female adult, drenched in blood with countless stab wounds around her mouth.
Back then, she did not know who that woman was.
But now, she knew,
“…”
That it was her mother, Lugiathan.
Myriads of thoughts flashed past his head.
Several presumptions popped up in his mind before disappearing again. Because he wanted to keep considering the girl in front of him as Yu Bom, he had to force those thoughts away.
However, there definitely were numerous skeptical points he felt while living a daily life with the kids. He could finally understand those seemingly trivial things that he had missed back then.
– If your race enjoys creating things, how about becoming a novelist or a painter.
– …I don’t know.
Even though she was a green dragon, she had no talent at drawing or sculpting and did not feel any interest in it.
And as for novels? A certain professional novelist in the 6th iteration evaluated her text as this.
– She appears to be completely untalented.
– The characters are dead. The narration is weird and the main theme of the story is gloomy and without any message.
– Writers with a slightly strange mentality tend to write like this.
Looking back at how every individual entity showed the same characteristic depending on their heritage, that indeed was very abnormal. According to his knowledge, there was no green dragon that had no talent in performing arts.
That wasn’t the end.
– You know how I like travelling.
– In fact, the reason I continued travelling was because of that. I didn’t know what else to do.
Bom had been travelling ever since she left for her Amusement. Rather than how green dragons liked staying in their house, this was closer to black dragons who wandered across dimensions.
– Every female dragon is pretty and males are handsome. We change it like that because we know that appearance is a very strong authority in human society.
– If you give compliments for everything, what meaning would it have? The common ones become less expensive right? No-one wants things that anyone could have.
Her mentality was very distorted. It was warm yet sometimes it was shivering cold. She tried to analyse things by going into mysterious lengths for things which others would usually ignore.
Thinking back, he could come up with even more things.
The fact that only the protector of the green dragon was the one that survived the dimensional distortion,
The fact that her novel was about a ‘ghost carrying out revenge against a murderer’,
The fact that the fruit she got from the Spirit Tree was a rotten and moulding one,
And the unknown scribble at the end of her diary was another example.
What was shocking was that that was not even close to the end of it. As the shocking truth one by one came back up to the surface, the frown on Yu Jitae’s face turned increasingly more serious.
His instinct might have been warning him the whole time about the things that he had ignored due to looking from the perspective of a daily life,
That Yu Bom was the [Hostility].
An immense shock shuddered his mind.
The effect of [Defrost] that still had yet to be fully removed from Yu Jitae’s body rose back up and messed with his emotions. Meanwhile, Bom observed him as if she was savouring the sight before her eyes.
“You seem surprised. Did you remember something?”
No. Was she even Bom at this point?
Yu Jitae could no longer think of her as Bom.
“Let me finish what I was saying.”
While he was starting to be engulfed by the rising sense of fear, she continued talking about her past.
“The 8th entity was very lucky. She was very talented. She could manipulate mana the way she wanted to, to the point that it shocked her mother, who was the chief of the entire race, and unlike most half-bloods that lost the abilities of one side, the child could use the abilities of both the green and the black race. That was already amazing but there was more. You see, that entity,
“She was the only one that could travel in and out of the [Horizon of Providence].
“This was very significant, because it meant the existence of the child could be completely hidden from the eyes of the other dragons of Askalifa. The mother of all those children started treating the talent of the 8th entity as that of the [Ancient One]. Because only the Ancient One out of all the history of dragonkind was able to deviate from the Providence of Time.
“The Ancient One is classified as a [Mutant] by the other dragons.
“…So that makes me a mutant too.
“This must be what the mother was thinking.
“‘Ah, finally, the baby dragon that can become the Dragon Lord has been born from us… Our race will be able to have a house again like the past…’.”
Lowering her head, she buried her face in between her knees.
“She was very loved.
“Because the destiny of the black race was on her shoulders.
“The lessons were very hard. For years, the child… she really… had to try to the brink of death.”
She began massaging her tiny white hands that twitched unstably.
“Her small hands were shattered time after time; her body crumbled a few times and so did her heart… She even managed to survive through a surgery that could have killed her. Every day must have felt like hell to her. The child cried her eyes out and bled profusely but it still didn’t stop, because that was the burden on her shoulders.
“…But even then, you see?”
Lifting her head, she looked at Yu Jitae.
“The child was able to withstand it.
“After every lesson, her mother always came to her and gave her compliments…
“And when the child cried from pain, her mother was in even more pain…
“The child knew because of the mental connection, that her mother was treasuring her more than anyone else in the world. Despite that, the mother had to firmly raise her up.
“Even when her husband left after having too much of it.
“Even when the child cursed at her.
“As the chief of an entire race, that was better for her than the extinction of black dragons…
“But the child was too young. Because of her immature mind, she didn’t realise the feelings of her mother.
“It’s pathetic, but she really didn’t like that back then.
“She was too immature…”
An extremely melancholic look appeared on her face.
“I regretted it a lot afterwards.
“So I really wanted to ask you this as soon as I could.”
Hearing that far, Yu Jitae knew what her next words would be. By the time she belatedly realised that that had been love, her mother had probably left her already.
Her mother was forced to leave.
“Why did you do that?”
The girl asked with her gaze on Yu Jitae. The faint smile on her lips and her fang that remained crushed behind those lips started vividly bringing back a memory he had forgotten over the long prison of time.
“……Why, did you kill her?”
He was lost as to what to say. Vacantly, he stood there with his mouth closed, unable to say anything in return.
Yu Jitae killed Lugiathan in order to copy and steal her authorities. That was how he had earned [Conceptualisation (SS)]. He had never considered that process wrong before and that was still his standpoint even now, but his mind was nonetheless shaken.
Impossible.
He thought something was strange. Something had to be strange.
“Nonsense.”
Yu Jitae uttered with a clenched chin.
“I can only think of that as pure nonsense. Nothing makes sense from the start to the end. There are logical blanks in your story.”
“Like?”
“A hatchling’s Amusement–”
Unknowingly he raised his voice.
“It can only begin when permitted by the present Dragon Lord with the [Origin Fragment] attached in your heart. Do you mean you somehow mixed yourself into the kids and came out on an Amusement with your black hair?”
“…”
“I know Askalifa has been in chaos recently because of the war. Is that what you are going to use as an excuse?”
She indifferently shook her head. The apathetic expression that he had once considered a cute pout was now evidently holding a deep sense of hatred which was more than what a scowl or a frown would contain.
“Did I not tell you? I’m a mixed-blood, and a mutant. I can fully disguise my colour.”
“Even against a Dragon Lord you mean?”
“I’m special exactly because I can do that. That is why my mother chose me.”
“Shut your nonsense!”
His voice turned louder as he hurriedly looked for words.
Bom shook her head in response.
“Weren’t you also deceived yourself?”
“No! No! Damn it. That can’t be how it is! The fundamental premise is wrong in the first place!”
Blood vessels protruded out near his eyes.
“It doesn’t even make sense that you’re a mixed blood! Black dragons were expelled and were ignored by the other races! You were discarded from Providence! How could your mother have received the seed of a green race!”
“You said my body looked pretty.”
“What?”
“Who do you think I took after…?”
It was a suggestive reply. Yu Jitae scowled and showed a ferocious look on his face, but she softly continued.
“Did you forget what I said? It took my mother 3,000 years to give birth to 31 entities. It probably wasn’t easy but it’s nothing impossible when the fate of the whole race is on her. As long as you don’t care about the method, it is definitely possible.
“It’s not just the green race. My mother took in the seeds of every race, and it’s just that the lucky child happened to be from the green race.”
Calmly, she refuted his logic but he still could not comprehend her words.
How could such a thing be possible? How could reality be so horrendous and garbage!
“Anything else?”
Her words sounded like she was both arrogant and bored. It felt like he would receive appropriate rebuttals whatever he asked and made him feel extremely shit, because that was in turn telling him that all of this was true.
However, he still had to refute it somehow.
“Timeline. How are you going to explain this stupid timeline.”
“What?”
“You were with the baby dragons from the start in every iteration. Why did I kill your mother? It was because of you, dragons! You have never done something like this to me in those previous iterations!”
“Probably.”
“If you were outside the Horizon of Providence, you wouldn’t know what happened on the other side, and if you were inside, you would have been involved in the regression of Time Providence! The world returns to its original point in time the moment I die – this is a part of Providence that no-one can avoid!”
“…”
She closed her mouth as her expression turned notably dark from its initial look of indifference. Yu Jitae growled even louder.
“Memories go back to the past and the dead are raised back to life. Most of the stolen items go back and all the painful memories get washed off. That is the unchanging fact! It has never been broken before—!!
“Has your mother died? She must be alive again. Go back and have a look! Without playing with the lives of the kids here!
“Or–
“Or do you want me to go with you? I know the coordinates of the outer dimension Lugiathan was residing in. You are being deceived right now, so please calm down. Let’s go face the truth together. Okay?”
Her expression turned darker the longer he continued speaking.
Was it because her logic was broken?
Yes… That had to be the case…
The wicked trickery of black dragons must have bewitched Yu Bom the green dragon. Although he had never heard of such a thing being possible, he wasn’t omniscient. There were countless variables he did not know of and learning one more thing was nothing significant.
That must have been what happened.
It had to be the case – it fucking had to be how it is!
However, her words in response dug through his ears like a bullet.
“If only that really was the case…”
He felt blood seeping out of his brain. Her expression that had been turning increasingly darker over time, was now holding signs of tears.
“The black dragon race makes it their life’s purpose to convey memories of the past to the future. My mother placed me inside the Non-Providential World, [Primal Time], to completely fool the eyes of other dragons. That world travels parallel to Providence and…
“Like I said before, I’m a mutant. I can exist in the Non-Providential World and at the same time gaze at the Providence of Time. Using the same [Conceptualisation] as my mother.
“There is one thing you misunderstood – my Amusement has nothing to do with my revenge. This was just the first step of my destined journey of becoming the Dragon Lord. The reason I was pretending to be a hatchling was also because you have to be a child of the green race to leave for the Amusement. Besides I was young, and it was true that I learned nothing apart from magic.
“If you didn’t kill my mother in the 6th iteration, this would have never happened.”
Raising her squinted eyes, she looked into his eyes.
“But, now that is no longer the case…”
The silence continued for a long time between the two of them as the air heavily sank to the ground.
He felt his vision shake tremendously without a stop – it was probably not only because of the [Alteration] formula surrounding the area.
While being made to face his sin in a world dizzying his sight,
She opened her mouth.