Yu Jitae confessed a lot of things to the young Bom.
A devil would be breaking in very soon, and the devil’s ability is to rewind time.
“Impossible. There’s no way that’s possible.”
She had already received a general education about magic from her mother. She was diligently trying to refute his words using her knowledge as the basis so Yu Jitae opened the veil and showed her the proof.
Baby Bom was frozen stiff.
Dragons were in groups happily sharing glasses with each other.
The chaotic banquet hall was now nowhere in sight. The young Bom gazed at them with a stupefied look on her face before turning towards him.
“Then, you…?”
I came here to save you for a reason, and I need your help to deal with this situation. That was what he told her.
“Why?”
Her question was justified.
“…Why would you save me?”
In response, Yu Jitae almost spouted a lie due to his habit. However, he did not want to lie anymore.
“It is a bit tough to share the reason. Do you still want to know?”
“Please tell me.”
“It could be quite shocking to you. More so than what you can imagine.”
“But, I think you’re a good person…”
“Yeah. Right now, you are seeing me as a good person but when you see these memories, you might be greatly flustered and there’s the off chance you will hate me. Do you still want to see them?”
“…”
The young Bom closed her eyes in thought.
“You need my help, right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And there’s also a reason why you have to help us.”
“That is also correct.”
“The fact that you came here to save me, means nothing will change without you…”
“Yes.”
“It couldn’t be changed even with my ability to send memories right…?”
She realised the core point, that nothing would change without Yu Jitae. It was true because Bom could not change anything by herself despite 170 opportunities.
“Then it’s fine. I won’t look at it.”
“Good choice, but can you tell me why?”
“Everything would become a mess if I did start to hate you, right.”
It was a rational reply. It appeared that she has had this side to her ever since this point in time.
“But tell me one thing.”
“Which one.”
“If you really have to save me, then there are going to be emotions about me, yes?”
“…”
“Please send me those. So that I don’t doubt you.”
That was nothing difficult. He reached his hand out as the young Bom grasped his fingers.
Out of the emotions he felt for the adult Bom, Yu Jitae filtered those that were unsuitable for the young child.
Romantic feelings, passion and sorrow from her death… After excluding all of them, what remained was a pure sense of goodwill.
Their innocent yet deep connection that was powerful enough to distort his thousand-year-long dream of death travelled through his fingers into the young Bom.
“…”
Her eyes looking into his eyes widened into circles.
“Is that okay now?”
“…Nn.”
“Alright. That’s good. We don’t have time. Let’s chat later when everything’s over, and for now, let’s talk about what we have to do.”
Yu Jitae explained his plan.
“Firstly, the ‘devil’ looks very similar to me. But you’ll be able to tell who is who by looking at the expression.”
“Nn.”
“The devil’s target is your mother. It is to break the core in her fang and obtain her authority.”
“…”
“He has the power to reverse time. It is by suicide, and is possible because of a transcendent authority. So there’s no way for us to stop the regression itself.”
“Got it.”
“There is both an advantage and disadvantage for us. The advantage is that the devil doesn’t know about my existence, and the disadvantage like I said before is that he regresses without an end.”
“Why is that a disadvantage?”
“Through repetitive regressions, the devil learns about the situation. He gets rid of mistakes, takes control over variables and observes the enemy’s weak point. Based on that, in the next iteration he gets rid of his mistakes, avoids being pulled around by variables and attacks the weak point. So we cannot make even a single mistake. One mistake and that will forever be our weakness.”
“…That’s a scary ability.”
“Do you understand so far?”
“Nn. So, the mistake we can make against that devil, is letting him discover your existence right? Because he will start preparing against you next time.”
“That’s right. You’re very clever even though it’s a difficult concept.”
Yu Jitae thought of several images in his brain and sent them to Bom.
“Now, I want you to get permission from your mother and head to the treasury, and bring me [Nigh Perfect Truth].”
“You mean the one that changes your appearance? Is that to hide your identity from the devil?”
“Yeah. And we need to borrow one more treasure on the way. Is there a treasure in the treasury that coerces the movement of your race?”
“Coerces movement?”
“Yeah. Like how all the adults group up and attack when a baby dragon dies. Do you have something similar to that?”
“Hmm…”
Baby Bom replied while scratching her hair.
“…No.”
Is that so. Yu Jitae heaved a sigh.
This was quite unfortunate, because he wanted to send as many dragons out of the banquet hall as possible before killing ‘Yu Jitae of the 6th iteration’ at the hall.
Because otherwise, they would all be caught up in it.
It wasn’t like the dragons would listen to him telling them to leave. A fair amount of black dragons will die and although he might save Lugiathan and Myu, the countless deaths of her relatives would have a negative impact on the young Bom.
He was reluctantly heaving a sigh when she opened her mouth.
“Actually, there might be one.”
“What?”
“The method doesn’t matter right? In the end, we just have to make everyone move right?”
“Yeah.”
There was still a serious look on her face.
However, she had her head slightly lowered whereas her eyes were faintly gazing up at him. This was an expression Yu Jitae had seen multiple times before.
“…We have this big treasure, you see?”
It was when she was feeling mischievous.
*
According to her, there seemed to be a treasure among the black race that should never be broken. It was an artifact that would be used as the final key when accomplishing ‘Grand Schema’ in the distant future.
[Demonic Sword of Grief]
That was the most important item alongside the young Bom to the black dragon race.
“There is a spell cast on this one, and if it gets stolen, all the dragons have to chase after it.”
Yu Jitae gave a hazy smile.
“That is a great idea. But you see.”
“Nn?”
If there was such a convenient method, there was no way he wouldn’t have used it.
He could say with certainty that he knew nothing about such an item existing despite 170 attacks on Lugiathan, which in turn meant it was an extraordinary treasure.
How would baby Bom be able to take out something so incredible?
“Ah. I have the key.”
“What?”
She said while taking a key out of a dimensional storage.
This too was beyond his comprehension. Why was Bom holding the key to such an important treasury?
“This is not the treasury key. This is for my mum’s room.”
“Where did you get that from.”
“She gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“She told me to come to her room anytime, if I feel like dying from the lesson.”
Bom said with a calm voice. Adult dragons sometimes fell into a deep slumber and that seemed to be why she was given the key.
It was when he was quietly keeping words to himself from how pitiful she was.
“Then? What do we do after that?” she asked.
“Right. Let me finish the explanation. If we label what we just went through as the 1st iteration, then the devil will appear in the 2nd iteration. Because he learned how to come inside.”
“Ah…”
“When the devil shows up in the 2nd iteration, I will go up and act like a fairly strong guy to make myself his target.”
“Target? Why? Won’t he discover your identity then?”
“I can hide that by changing the basic mana attributes with [Nigh Perfect Truth]. I will buy some time and later, your mother will retaliate by attacking him back, and he will give up when all the dragons run up to him.”
“Will he die if we all attack him?”
“He will die, but that will be by killing himself. Even though he can run away.”
A death like that was not much different from a suicide, and would not let them fully kill ‘him’. In order to completely get rid of him, they had to put a complete stop to the regression.
“It’s too hard.”
“Think simple. We just have to make him act the way we want to.”
“How?”
“By using a very sweet bait.”
“Is that you? What are you going to do?”
“That’s for me to take care of, and you don’t need to worry about it. What’s important is your role.”
“Okay.”
Baby Bom quickly understood his words. Her malleable state and easy acceptance of information was probably another important element of her growth for the Grand Schema.
Soon, their strategy meeting came to an end, and the young Bom understood exactly what she had to do.
There were now three and a half hours left. Outside, the Protector was reporting to Lugiathan that Bom had disappeared.
“It’s about time you went out.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
.
.
.
Bom did just as he expected,
In fact, she performed even better than his expectations.
“It’s here. This is [Nigh Perfect Truth].”
“Thanks.”
Yu Jitae took the mask from the young Bom, placed it over his face and edited a part of his appearance as well as the mana structure.
“What about [Demonic Sword of Grief]?”
“You said we will use it in the 3rd iteration right? I checked how to take it without being found out. Ah, and this…”
“What’s this.”
She handed him a necklace. In the middle was a small jar instead of jewellery, inside of which was a dry flower petal.
“It’s a petal of the ever-fragrant flower. It will smell a lot when you open the jar.”
“What’s this for.”
“I thought about it on the way to the treasury, and I thought it would be better for you to be more eye-catching to the devil to be a sweet bait.”
“You mean, I should engrave the scent into his brain.”
“Nn.”
He recalled the words Bom had told him in the past.
It was that when giving compliments to a young child, he should compliment the result by lowering the threshold of a compliment.
But there was no need to even lower the threshold for this.
“That is a great idea.”
She nodded back.
“If you have that smell, the devil will keep targeting you.”
There was faint concern in her eyes.
“You don’t need to worry. Because I won’t die.”
“Nn.”
Even so, she still looked uneasy.
“You saw me right? I’m quite strong.” He reassured her.
“Yeah. I didn’t even know that and…”
She appeared embarrassed by the fact she said something like how she would throw him away if he was useless.
“What should I do now?”
“You can go take your sister and other hatchlings outside. They don’t have to participate in the banquet anyway.”
“Okay. And then?”
“And then…”
It might be somewhat cruel, but he had to say it.
“You need to mentally prepare yourself. Some will get hurt and some might die. A lot more than before.”
However, the young Bom bravely returned a nod as if there was nothing scary for her.
“Don’t worry.”
***
It came.
In the previous iteration, he had sent fallen angels into the initial gap that appeared in the Great Barrier the moment it was bombarded by the missile.
That was to scout the area.
But this time it was different. Immediately after a large explosion, fallen angels appeared at the banquet hall, and while the black dragons were having a messy fight with the fallen angels, Lugiathan shouted with her Dragon Voice.
[Be careful–!]
Her shout shook the entirety of the banquet hall. In that instant, the fallen angels stopped fighting and distanced themselves, as the black dragons also turned their gazes to one place.
Like an infection, it made everyone look outside the window.
Something was coming. The air was pressing down on them like heavy lead.
Those sensing that presence were appalled as the unending flow of killing intent suffocated their lungs and suppressed their pulses.
Soon, the figure of a man appeared behind the window that was broken from the missile. Slowly, he showed himself.
A tall height, wide shoulders, an indifferent expression and an even more apathetic gaze.
Wearing a large coat over his shoulders, ‘Yu Jitae’ at last showed himself.
In that split moment, ‘his’ pupils moved. The gaze like that of a beast or a monster scrutinised the banquet hall.
Was this how it felt for others to meet his gaze till now? Thinking that, Yu Jitae squinted his eyes.
Even though it was his first time seeing his other self of a parallel timeline, his sharp instincts were violently ringing alarms in his head.
Telling him, that ‘he’ was dangerous.