“Before that, there is something I have to do.”
Clink. The young Bom moved her hands as the chains swayed with each of her movements. Crawling on all fours across the bed, the little child headed to the drawer and took out a thick chisel. The sharp tip was forking off like thorns and looked like it would be met with a fair bit of resistance when used.
“Pretend you didn’t see anything.”
What?
He was curiously looking at her when the little Bom raised the chisel and scraped her hand. Clink. She twitched her hand from pain which was followed by the screeching noise of chains.
Yu Jitae frowned wondering what this kid was doing. However, the young Bom did not stop – she stabbed the chisel through her thigh and pierced near her wrist to let it bleed.
She was harming herself.
It didn’t seem like she was immune to pain either. Whenever the tip of the sharp chisel cut through her skin to pour out blood, she squinted her eyes and let out a faint groan.
Despite that, the child continued creating wounds here and there before at last raising the chisel and bringing it to her eyes.
“Girl. Hold on. What is all this about?”
“It’s something that has to be done.”
Don’t tell me she was going to stab her own eye with that thing?
It was when he was staring at the young Bom with a frown. Bom stabbed her eye with the chisel.
This time, she was in especially more pain. Her body convulsed as her fingers curled in. The chains shrieked out loud with each shake of her body and the young Bom released the chisel to surround her eye with her two hands.
Blood dripped down her cheeks.
Fortunately, a dragon was still a dragon in the interpreted world. Before long, Bom turned towards him with a deeply flushed eye that was somewhat healed.
“What are you doing?”
“…Why did you clean up the blood.”
“What?”
“I have to go to the hall. I shouldn’t look like I’m in a good state.”
Yu Jitae couldn’t readily understand her words and guessed her intention.
“Why; does your education become more difficult if you have no injuries?”
Baby Bom shook her head.
“The intensity is always the same. It’s not that. It’s because the adults of our race have expectations of me that shouldn’t be betrayed.”
“Expectations?”
“I’m a very important hatchling. They’re all waiting for me to become the hero.”
Finally, Yu Jitae realised what the young Bom was saying. An existence that had expectations of everyone else had to be careful for even small actions that may seem trivial at a glance.
A little bit of a difference and the ones seeing her would either see hope or despair on their own accord.
“I need to train hard to become a hero. There has to be evidence of my injury if I train hard, so it’s better for me if I have bloodstains.
“They will be doubtful if I’m too clean…”
He once again realised what kind of existence the young Bom was to the black race. Placing the chisel back into the drawer, she asked.
“So, are you a mage?”
“For now.”
“You don’t look that strong though.”
Yu Jitae shrugged his shoulders.
“I do have the right to teach you.”
“Is there a lot to teach?”
“Of course.”
The young Bom gazed at him before tucking her hair behind her ears.
“I usually don’t talk with my tutors.”
“Why is that.”
“Usually, you talk to become closer, right. But I’m a very fast learner. I learn quickly and graduate very fast. The tutor gets replaced by another one when I have nothing more to learn.”
Yu Jitae gave a nod.
“There were a lot before you too. And none of them were able to go over 2 or 3 months.”
“You must be very talented.”
“You have to teach me properly. I’ll chase you out immediately if you’re useless. Don’t be nervous though. And don’t be stingy with teaching because of that.”
“Yeah.”
After saying all that, baby Bom closed her mouth. Then, she pondered for a bit before hugging her knees.
“But, you are a bit different.”
She muttered.
“…I want you to teach me for a long time.”
‘Of course,’ he said with a nod. Afterwards, he shared some idle banter with the young Bom.
“By the way, why don’t you wear a hood? The other tutors were all wearing one.
“Are you perhaps learning something like a ‘spell that lets you befriend dragons’?
“How old are you? Maybe you’re younger than me?”
The young Bom appeared to have a lot of questions.
After starting to talk once, she continued throwing him questions so the conversation was very one-sided. Bom asked, and he replied. Bom would think of the following questions while calmly listening to his response.
Although he was still not a master of daily life, he was used to dealing with a child’s mood. It was an ability he gained by aligning himself to the emotions of four very different children for 5 years.
Therefore, baby Bom felt very comfortable during her conversation with him.
“It’s interesting. I wonder how it would feel, to be free?”
An abrupt question from her made Yu Jitae realise that the young Bom had a yearning despair for freedom. At the same time, he realised that this was a small opportunity.
“That thing on your wrist.”
“This?”
Clank– Bom shook her wrists.
“Isn’t it uncomfortable?”
“Hmm, well…”
According to the young Bom, it seemed that those chains connected to the far dimensions through the fissures were there to bind her so that she wouldn’t be able to escape from the tremendously painful lessons. ‘I’m not even going to run away though…’ she grumbled.
This too was a device that displayed the extent of her curriculum.
“I’m sick of it. They go super long. I have to be chained wherever I go, and they never come off.”
Although the ends of the chains looked like they were connected to the wall, it was a dimensional fissure that they were each connected to. Because of that, baby Bom always had to be accompanied by those chains and those fissures wherever she went, in addition to being restricted from going too far.
“Can I have a look.”
“Why?”
He laid his hand on the [Chains of Hell] that were connected to the handcuff locking her hands. Since he had been using Chains of Hell for dozens of years, he was able to untangle and reattach them without leaving any trace behind.
“No-one got rid of these for you before, have they?”
“Nn. My mum’s the one who arranged it so who would dare do that?”
Chains that had never been untied ever since her birth, that would stay that way for a long time.
When Yu Jitae touched it, a miracle started to happen. The chains were slowly loosened and the handcuff linked to the end of the black chains were separated from her thin wrists.
“…Huh?”
Her eyes widened in real time as her body straightened back up. The change in her expression was even more apparent because of the previous exhausted look on her face.
Uncontrollable curiosity was in the eyes of the young Bom.
“H, h, how did you do that…?”
“It’s a secret.”
“…”
Baby Bom touched her wrists and rubbed the skin which was reddened due to the chains.
She then slowly moved her hands up and down. As if she was intrigued by the non-existent chains that should have been swaying, she looked at her light wrists with wide eyes.
The young Bom stole a glance at Yu Jitae. She looked at her own ankles before turning her gaze back to him.
He knew what that expression was.
It was the same look Gyeoul had when requesting gummies.
“It seems those are quite bothersome as well.”
“I’ve… never been to a place I want to go.”
“Come here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But we can’t get caught so just for a while.”
“I know that.”
She pushed her feet at Yu Jitae. As expected, because of the shackles that were constantly holding onto her ankles, her skin was always chafed red and was unable to be fully recovered.
His hand slowly headed to the ankles of the child as her eyes slowly widened in hope.
In her life ever since her birth, she had never been to a place she wanted to go. The restrictions that had been confining her were about to be released by Yu Jitae’s fingers but it was then.
– Young Miss. It is time to go to the banquet hall.
“Ah, n, nn!”
A voice echoed from outside. With a flinch, Bom shouted while glancing at the door.
Then, she pushed her wrists forward at him as the voice echoed again from outside, ‘Young Miss!’. Bom hurriedly replied, ‘I, I know! I’m going soon!’ before whispering to him.
‘Hurry up and tie me again. Please…’
It was a short escape from reality but that short amount of time was enough to frighten the young Bom. Even though he found her pitiful, he still applied the chains back on her wrists.
Now, it was time for that incident to occur.
***
Beneath the dark sky, the land was achromatic despite the shed of light.
A man stepped foot on the distorted desert path with deviated time and no sign of life. He had been wandering for a while and at last came across a meaningful building at the end of the desert.
Standing quietly, the man indifferently gazed at the building, the [Palace].
It was definitely this smell.
It was there.
***
Power had an endogenous origin and in a world interpreted into a concept, that inner origin of power was intensified even more. So although he could sense that someone was nearing the palace, Yu Jitae could not find any evidence to support his claim.
But occasionally looking outside the banquet hall, he felt a peculiar sense of deja vu.
There were relatively large stars embroidered on the jet-black night sky.
Even before the interpretation, the background was probably as dark as this when he was destroying this palace.
“Say hello. This is my new tutor.”
In the banquet hall filled with groups of black dragons, Bom took Yu Jitae and introduced him to her relatives.
“Ahh. Yeah.”
“Hmm. So you’re the new tutor.”
“More importantly…”
The black dragons disregarded Yu Jitae. Even though baby Bom was emphasising the introduction as much as possible, they were uninterested because in the eyes of dragons, he was nothing but a petty human.
However, the thing called magic became like an archipelago of different cultures across all the dimensions, so they were simply assuming that he must have researched some unique magic.
“Was our princess working hard today as well?”
“Yes.”
“Look at all this blood. How arduous must it have been.”
Around that point in time, Yu Jitae’s attention had been shifted away from them.
He carefully observed the [Palace] interpreted by Conceptualisation.
In the past, there was a building in Myu’s inner world and there was also one in Vintage Clock’s conceptual world. Except for the clock tower, all of them were sloppy and weak buildings. And as for the ground, it used to be as soft and crumbly as cream.
The world analysed by Conceptualisation was quite feeble in general.
However, this place was different.
Yu Jitae tried knocking on the pillar with his fist.
Kung kung–
It was tough.
Let alone the pillars, the ground and the ceiling were all the same. As if the entire building was made of actual cement, it was very tough.
Why is this the case…
– You don’t remember anything, do you…?
– That’s always how it is for the assailant.
Bom was right. Since he didn’t assign much importance to his crimes, he had easily forgotten about those trivial matters. In truth, he couldn’t remember anything on whether this [Palace] had a unique power or not.
Kung kung–
In any case, this building was very tough.
It was to the point that if a black dragon was to ram its head into the pillar, it would be the head of the dragon that breaks instead of this building.
Even though it was obvious in the real world that the head would be the one breaking when driven into a rocky wall, it was not obvious in the slightest in a world interpreted by Conceptualisation.
Raising his head, he looked at the vast interior of the palace and came to a conclusion.
This [Palace] was one huge weapon…
“Say hi. He’s my new tutor.”
That was when Bom introduced Yu Jitae to a group of kids. Unlike the adult dragons, the baby dragons waved their hands at him with a smile.
“Is he a human?”
One of them asked.
“Yeah. He’s a human.”
“Interesting… He looks super weak.”
“…”
“But it’s okay. You’ll be safe with us.”
“Right, my mum is super strong you know?”
“Hehe.”
They chuckled out loud but on the other hand, there was someone who frowned from the introduction.
“Say hi. She’s my little sister, and he’s my tutor.”
“What happened? You’re introducing someone that’s going to disappear soon,” Myu jeered.
“He’s probably going to last longer.”
“How funny. Weren’t you always hiding the other tutors from me because you didn’t want to show them to me?”
“Well that’s because you keep on…”
“Whatever. So noisy.”
Myu showed her tongue before turning around with a flick.
Bom pouted a little.
“You know what. Ignore her when she talks to you.”
“Why.”
“She keeps on going up to my tutors and acts cute with them, telling them to play with her instead…”
Back when he didn’t know Bom was a black dragon, she told him that ‘she had a doll stolen by her younger sister’.
The young Bom glared at Myu. However, it didn’t seem too serious or anything, and looked like a small strife between kids.
Their eyes met when Myu turned around, but Myu flicked her head away with a ‘Hmph.’ In response, Bom also scoffed and grumbled in a voice loud enough to reach her.
“I don’t like her.”
“Why. You should be nice to your sister.”
“She’s very weird. I don’t like her. So don’t be too close to her, okay?”
Yu Jitae nodded back.
“Sure.”
*
Until then, the banquet hall looked very peaceful.
The ones drinking alcohol in their own groups were peacefully chatting to each other, while the kids were constantly running around everywhere under the pleasant music of the musicians.
Their conversations were generally on the continuance and peace of the black dragon race.
That was what everyone here was hoping for. They hoped for a ray of light to shed their nests that were unfortunately buried in the shadow, and their return to a hopeful life.
Meanwhile, Yu Jitae slowly stood up in nervousness while observing the surroundings.
It was about time.
“Her Majesty is coming in.”
Before long, Lugiathan came into the banquet hall.
“Though I may die, I long for our children to be happy at their new shelter.”
She shared her blessings and raised the glass of alcohol in her hand.
““Cheers–““
When the black dragons followed suit by raising their glasses into the air, an odd sound started to reverberate outside the window.
Sheeeekk—
It was the sound of something striking through the air. The moment he heard the noise, Yu Jitae confirmed the direction of the sound, the angle, and the time, before embracing baby Bom and throwing his body under the table.
Immediately after that,
Kwaaaaannggg—!!
A tremendous explosion came to the banquet hall.