His fingers didn’t move. Looking once again at the drop of blood on Gyeoul’s neck, he controlled the explosive tension thumping in his heart before turning towards her.
For some reason, she did not shoot Gyeoul.
She simply continued expressionlessly staring at him, and although it was painful for Yu Jitae to meet her gaze, he had to.
“So calm down for the time being.”
And even though his heart had already been shattered, he needed to maintain his rationality. Although a tremendous sense of betrayal was strangling him by the neck and he was feeling like dying right now…
He still wanted to live, and still wanted all the baby dragons to survive.
It was funny how even at this point, he was finding Bom pretty.
“Please lower the ballista for now. Let us have a conversation.”
“Why should I?”
“There were a lot of times where you and I, and the kids each hoped for something else. In times like that, you taught me how to talk it out. I learned how to converse from you, and that’s what we need.”
“No. There is nothing you can change with just a few words.”
Buzz—. When the mana residing in the ballista increased even more in size, he felt his heart skip a beat.
However, she still did not shoot.
She had a story that was too stubborn to change with his superficial logic but he had to persuade her.
“Listen to me a bit more. You won’t be suffering any loss. Wasn’t your intention to make me suffer as much as possible? Weren’t you hoping for my bigger despair? So give me a chance. You can watch me struggle for a way out a little more.”
“What do you think you can do? What can you even do by adding a few more words.”
“I will now persuade you so that you don’t kill the kids, and ask for your forgiveness. If I haven’t persuaded you by the end and if you still can’t forgive me, then you can do whatever you want. I will regret more the longer I’ve been talking for and you will achieve a greater revenge, will you not?”
She still had an indifferent look on her face.
The one holding the gun was her. If she didn’t even allow him to do this, then everything was over.
“Okay.”
Saying that, she lowered the ballista but that was nothing but an act of formality because the blade of the tentacle could still tear through the baby dragons at any moment.
However, Yu Jitae felt like he had found a strand of solace from the pit of despair.
“But in return, I will ask you three questions before you persuade me.”
“Three questions?”
“Yes. They are things I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
Until the very end, the meticulous avenger did not let him control the pace of the conversation.
“…Alright.”
“You are used to lying. I’m the same, and your life was also full of deceit but you better be honest for these questions.”
“Alright. I get it…”
He nodded with a desperate heart.
Leisurely, she raised her body and walked on the surface of the cold water of the hot spring to slowly approach him.
“First question.”
Crossing her arms, she asked.
“Do you ever feel guilty?”
Once, there was a time in the past when he thought this guy called god of fate was standing before his eyes choking his neck, asking him: Are you still not going to give up? Do you still wish to be happy?
Even though he was still feeling the same thing, this time, the guy was saying something slightly different in his head.
This was what the god of fate was saying.
‘Did you think you could turn away from it forever?’
Putting it that way, he started to consider everything surrounding him in a different light.
He killed people.
Brutally, and repeatedly.
Abduction and imprisonment was his habit.
Let alone the baby dragons, he had also abducted other people whenever necessary to imprison them near his eyes.
That wasn’t the end. He instigated people with deceit, acted for profit, impulsively destroyed things when he got angry and pushed others to the brink of despair because of revenge.
Due to his lengthened life, he had more sins than others. Existing in his memories was a thousand-year’s worth of sin.
“Do you ever feel guilty?”
There was a triangle in his heart – its name was conscience. Looking back, the tips of the triangle were probably sharper than that of other people.
Back when the tips were still there, he had to argue for his actions whenever the triangle rolled around prickling his heart. He gave excuses for his actions.
This is unfair. It couldn’t be helped. I’m not wrong. Who’s the one that drove me into this pit? Do you think I wanted this myself?
By constantly reminding himself of his position, he escaped from responsibility. It was a fairly decent method. Blaming other people allowed him to stay reasonable.
However, when the tips weathered away, he gave up on coming up with excuses. If he was a wiser and a more virtuous person, things might have been different. He would have gained a lot of things without stealing from others and would have become stronger without killing people. In the end, it was because he, the subject of the regression, was such a miserable and lacking person that he had to rely on such a method.
After admitting that fact, there was no longer a need to be conscious of it. Sin later became a convenient tool for him.
Lastly, when the points were completely worn out into a round circle, he gave up on thinking about it. He turned away from it.
He set up the thought that [In the end, I’ll die as well.] and that made it easier for him to look away from his sins.
Am I not afraid of punishment? Kill me then.
How can a person kill another person? What about it. I’ll be dying as well anyway.
The thing he considered a tool became his hand by the time he came to himself. Steal if I want something. Kill if they retaliate.
It was a simple principle.
Going back to the question of ‘Do you ever feel guilty.’
“I used to,” he replied.
The purple pair of eyes frowned in response.
“Did you feel any guilt when you were killing my mum?”
“…No. To be honest, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“For me back then, life was nothing but a struggle for improvement. I was buried in the real world to accomplish my dream; I became insensitive to the repeated misdeeds, and I had no leisure to feel any sense of guilt.”
“…”
In the middle of his response, she, after crossing the hot spring, walked all the way up to him. She raised her hand and rested it in the air like how one would ask for the paws of a puppy, and he replied by reaching his hand out. Her tiny hand grabbed onto the tip of his middle finger as his emotions and memories started being completely analysed by her.
“Was it not for revenge?”
“There was probably a bit of that too. Because I hated dragons.”
“And yet you still want to let the kids live?”
That paradox was what led to this situation. The baby dragons taught him how to love even the offspring of his enemies.
“…Yes.”
She silently stared into his eyes for a while. Her purple gaze did not quiver but the muscles underneath her eyes twitched.
“Second question. With what mindset can you possibly ask me for my forgiveness?”
“…”
“It’s very strange. I know you very well. Why don’t you do what you always do? Stop doing nonsense and get angry – get mad at me and break everything apart. A murderer that can explode at any time despite pretending to suppress your urge – isn’t that who you are?”
That indeed was Yu Jitae, and was only possible because his final destination had always been death.
But after retrieving the lost daily life, and as the premise of his death started to crumble, he began feeling guilty over the past moments.
Daily life had pushed seemingly insignificant things at his face, and the things he was feeling guilty for also originated from those tiny things. Even at this point, he was only regretting the portion of his sin that was related to what he had done to the baby dragons.
“No…”
For him, sin was but a tool – a tool that let him gain things outside of his ability.
“I’m just a person that can do anything to achieve what I want…”
“Even if that means killing someone?”
“Because I wanted to be happy.”
“How selfish.”
“I decided to become a selfish person to lay my lands on the unreachable happiness. But now, that is not the case.”
“…”
Rediscovering daily life and becoming a human was completely unexpected and thus, he also wasn’t expecting to retrieve the wickedness and selfishness of a human during that process. Laughably enough, he had even learned how to turn away from the small sin of lying to the baby dragons – he wasn’t honest and continued telling lies until the end.
“I will do anything if I can atone for what I did.”
However, her expression turned ferocious.
In the blink of an eye,
The mana gathered at the ballista. She pulled the trigger as the arrow flew towards his leg.
Along with a roaring thud, his thigh was destroyed. Seeing him still standing despite the flood of pain, she collected mana again before shooting it at his other leg.
Even though both of his thighs were almost fully crushed, he did not fall down. Without even avoiding or blocking her attack, he accepted her wrath.
She appeared a little shaken. ‘It’s too late…’ she muttered while breathing coarsely through her nose as her eyes twitched even more.
“Last question.”
Her voice was louder than before alongside her heated breath.
“You created innumerable hatred all because of your petty hope. You are the one that made me. Does someone like you have the right to praise life? Do you have any justification?”
And her question was also very emotional.
She was throwing at his face, everything, which he had been escaping and turning away from over the vastly long period of time.
She was Bom, and was the daughter of the black dragon that had been repeatedly killed by his hands. At the same time, she was the portion of sin that increased its size while he was disregarding it throughout his life.
While he was turning away from all of his sinful times by just labelling them as ‘unfortunate events’, the sin that had been gradually growing in size was now facing him like a colossal wave.
“Do you even have the right to live!!”
It struck him like a tornado. Standing on top of a tiny boat, he was gazing up at the indescribably immense sin.
Does a sinner have the right to live? Do they have the qualification to seek happiness?
In response to the question being thrown by the unfathomably enormous hostility, the sinner replied.
“What else can I do.”
“What?”
“When I still want to live on…”
An even greater sense of displeasure floated upon her face and her eyes quivered. What was the reply she was hoping for: did she want him to plead on his knees? Or be controlled by his fury and wreak havoc?
“W, what insane thing are you talking about…”
“No. I’m serious. I don’t have the right nor the justification. But I still need to survive.”
“You are a cluster of sin that will continue creating more sins throughout your life. There will be more people shedding tears of blood like me. And yet are you saying you still need to live on? You still have to survive?”
“So what. How does that matter when I want to live. I want to live on now…”
“Crazy. I thought you became a little more human, but you were still out of your mind!”
Saying that, she reprimanded him as he listened with widened eyes.
There was nothing wrong with her words.
If a sinner did not have the right to live, he should die.
However, he will live on.
If a sinner shouldn’t become happy, then he should be left miserable,
But he will become happy.
For him, sin had always been a tool; a power that made the impossible possible. It was the paddle letting him proceed towards his dream, and was the whip moving him within the hopeless pit of despair.
His sin was connected to his struggle in life.
Now, he was just going to change the tool he was using a little bit.
Thinking about it like that suddenly reminded him of the last words of his precious friend.
“…I had a friend.”
“What?”
Her face crumpled unpleasantly. Taking a big step forward, Yu Jitae walked deeper into the room as she instinctively took a step back.
The air shifted – his heart that had been trembling in despair gained a strand of blooming courage.
“There was a friend who constantly told me about the future like you.”
“What are you doing? Don’t come any closer!”
Ignoring her cry, Yu Jitae approached her.
From the three questions, he realised that logically persuading her was impossible. Regardless, he was still going to live and was still going to save the baby dragons.
[You will. Definitely. Become happy.]
Even though it was a plan that will definitely fail from one flick of her fingers, he sincerely believed in that small possibility.
“My friend told me, that I’ll definitely become happy. I was hoping to die when I heard those words, so I thought those last words would be completed through my death.”
“I warned you. Don’t come here!”
She, who had been constantly stepping back, jumped across the dimension before reappearing behind Gyeoul. It was to threaten him a bit more.
The tentacles twitched and tensed up.
“However, I was not able to die and now I no longer view death as happiness. Then what does this mean? It means that the prediction is still valid!”
Walking forward with his two crumbling legs, Yu Jitae bore hope.
“What does that mean. Doesn’t that mean I will live on and definitely become happy in the end?”
Light bursted out from the dark hail covering him.
“So Bom. I will become happy through life!”
She shrieked with a piercing voice.
“Shut your nonsense—!”
Her hands, however, were trembling.
“No! Drop the ballista! Bom. You can’t shoot the baby dragons!”
“You think I can’t?”
“You should not!! You must become happy with me!”
“Do you still not understand after hearing everything I said? It was all fake. Your heart moving towards me, and me pretending to love you – they all began from my brainwashing of myself! Can you still not tell everything was fake?!”
“And what about that–!!”
He roared like a beast.
“So what if it was a fake relationship that began with an objective in mind! So what if it was a brainwashed love to make me want to live! Were all the meals we shared fake? Or the conversations we whispered? If all the countless concerns we shared while hoping for happiness were all fake, then we would have crumbled already at the face of all those problems! Tell me, which of those was fake!”
“…!”
“That changed who I am, and made me want to live and breathe! Your deceit led me to truth! You are the one that made me want to live–!!”
I was like that, so would you be any different?
That was what he wanted to believe in, at the very least.
Her eyes widened into circles as Yu Jitae shouted at her.
“I will keep my word. I will now give you anything you wish for to atone for what I did. If you need to become the Dragon Lord of Askalifa for the betterment of your race, then I will help you! If you can’t trust me, I will live forever in doubt! That is fine!”
He shouted to become happy. It was fine no matter what method he used. He had to persuade her, using the same method that persuaded him and turned him away from death.
“After you complete all those desires, and if I’ve managed to atone for my sins, if there is even a sliver of a possibility that you forgive me, then Bom! Let us live together. When that time comes…!”
There was a word at the tip of his tongue.
It was one he had never conveyed to her before, but was one that he had sincerely hoped for. Even though those moments of the past were before she recalled her actual memories, those shouldn’t have been fake – they must have been her true feelings.
If his existence was in a corner of her heart and if he could change her mind like how she did with his through all the time they spent together,
Then it didn’t matter even if this wasn’t the greatest time to do so. Yu Jitae ruthlessly used the word that was in his mind.
When that day comes–
“Please marry me.”