Suppressing the urge to kill him, Yeorum organised her mana.
During the 300 years of her oldest sister’s absence, Yeorum continued training by herself. She trained endlessly and even attended the war of green dragons to distinguish herself in the war.
When those achievements were heard by the red race, she thought her perception would increase by a little but no – there was still doubt within the race.
‘That’s unexpected,’ ‘That’s surprising.’ Although reactions like that were still looking down on her, those were still okay. They were at least positive.
However, most of the red dragons said stuff like, ‘How weak are green dragons’, ‘There’s no way that happened so she must have gone around giving them her body,’ and ‘That’s an exaggeration’. Despite not even bothering to look into it, they were especially more noisy.
Even in a situation like that, her parents did not stand on her side. Although her oldest unni was postponing the Selection Ceremony everyday, her parents were still on her side.
Yeorum understood it in her head. Because that bitch was a rising star and she was trash in their eyes.
All she had to do was prove herself through the Selection Ceremony.
It was when she was thinking along the lines of that.
“Kill yourself!”
“Kill yourself!”
“Kill yourself!”
A 1,200-year-old adult dragon was being very noisy. He was screaming while even using Dragon Fear, so the animals that were living near her nest either fainted or began running away.
She had become used to withstanding insults thanks to her training with Yu Jitae. There was no-one on her side so she shouldn’t make the matter worse – she had to first wait for someone to be on her side.
That was how she was suppressing her emotions.
“Go somewhere out of sight and kill yourself before your neck gets snapped and your dirty organs fall like the fifth of your family!
Yeorum stood up from her seat.
She questioned herself.
Was she being led around by her emotions?
No. She could sit back down if she wanted to.
Did she hear an unbearable insult?
Yes. Because ‘fifth’ was talking about the youngest unni who Yeorum treasured the most.
Was she allowed to kill him?
No.
Then?
Isn’t it fine as long as he doesn’t die?
That day, Yeorum left her nest and bashed the dragon up until he almost died. She crushed his legs and destroyed his guts. Using her tail, she hacked his body so that it would be hard to recover, plucked his eyeballs out and lastly destroyed his genitals with a sword and made it irrecoverable.
“Heal yourself and please come back again, okay~. Darling~~?”
Soaked in his blood, Yeorum growled.
“Because that will be your last day alive for sure.”
She then kicked him down the cliff.
Although it would have been a shocking event for other races, it was nothing much for the red dragons.
Besides, there were valid reasons and circumstances so she wasn’t scolded by the adults either. They enjoyed hearing the news even.
However, there was still no-one acknowledging Yeorum even after that event. ‘How weak is that guy to get bashed up by a bitch like that?’, ‘What a weak male.’ Saying that, they instead defamed the male that lost to Yeorum.
It was fine.
Yeorum was not upset by the reality.
Whenever her heart was in pain, she just had to recall the advice of her teacher as always.
– Feet on today,
– Eyes on tomorrow.
Looking ahead into the distance, what Yeorum had to do was not get angry at the ones that were making fun of her.
She simply had to train as always.
*
After another few years, her oldest unni, who had completely woken up from the long sleep, visited Yeorum’s nest with her parents.
“Hello?”
With a voice that was always coquettish and lustful, she said while looking into Yeorum’s eyes.
“You were alive. I thought you were dead during your sleep.”
Yeorum replied with a sharp voice, as her sister squinted her eyes in response as if she was finding her pathetic.
“I heard you hacked Fabio’s genitals?”
She walked up. Being slightly taller than Yeorum, she gazed down into her eyes.
“Nn. I did that.”
“Why did you do something useless? Even if you cut his limbs off, you should have let that be. My precious toy became unsightly because of you.”
Although her words sounded prankish, embedded inside was a clear killing intent. She was hoping to rip Yeorum to death.
Yeorum stared directly into her eyes. Unlike how she had to gasp for breath by simply meeting her gaze in the past, looking straight into her face was nothing difficult anymore.
“Unni. I’m really really sorryyy…”
That was why Yeorum returned with a coquettish voice.
“Little Yeowum did not know, okayy…?”
This time, her oldest unni frowned instead.
“What?”
“How could I ever expect my amazing unni, to go Angg♥ Anngg♥ under a weak-ass male like thatt? I thought it was just a rumourr…”
“…What are you trying to say?”
“There is no pretty dick anymore, but I’ll give you something else in return. Uuunn… How about this?”
“…”
Yeorum showed her her clenched arm.
“Instead, how about you jam this cutie Yeorum’s arm inside?”
‘Oops,’ Yeorum widened her eyes.
“Or is it too small for your bottom hole? Ah, right. I forgot; I was about to build my nest there last year! It was very wide and spacious…”
Her oldest unni twitched her eyes and grumbled, ‘This kid…’ Instead of being upset by Yeorum’s coarse words, she appeared dumbfounded by how someone so vastly inferior to her was acting up to her like this.
After walking to her side, she placed her hand on her head.
“You are now quite cocky aren’t you?”
Mischievousness disappeared from Yeorum’s eyes. Her unforgetting memories still remembered the words this bitch had blabbered while grabbing onto the chin of her small body.
– …Lucky aren’t you?
With the same face and same voice as back then, she opened her mouth.
“…You were so little back then.”
Lowering her head, she brought her mouth to Yeorum’s outstretched fist and slowly, she took her tongue out to lick it.
“Thanks for a new toy. Later I’ll cut it off and use it for myself.”
In the next instant, Yeorum unsheathed her sword. Her unni slightly pulled her body back but the sword was not directed at her.
Yeorum brought the sword to her hand that was licked and slowly sliced the skin away for her to see. Travelling down, the [Dream Eater] sliced off the skin on the back of her hand like sashimi.
Blood started to flow like crazy.
“Off you go, unni. Unless you want to die before the ceremony.”
Her unni took a step back with a faint smile.
“You’ll regret blabbering like that.”
Leaving those words behind, she turned around.
Her parents that came with her sister were still standing there so Yeorum turned her gaze towards them.
“Are the two of you not going to leave?”
“…”
The amount of time she had confronted her parents was probably less than 10 minutes throughout the period of 300 years ever since her return. For Yeorum, it was very uncomfortable to talk to her parents.
“Child.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you can beat your sister?”
Unexpectedly, his voice wasn’t that sharp. Yeorum was skeptical. Because of the total lack of communication, she didn’t even know what her parents were thinking about herself.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to.”
“What makes you think like that?”
“Because I’ve been preparing.”
“Preparing?”
“Ever since my first Amusement to this day, you two don’t know how I’ve been training and what I’ve gone through.”
Her father indifferently gave a nod, acknowledging that he had no idea.
“I knew I was ungifted and tried very hard. To be frank, I even almost died a few times.”
“So?”
“Let me apologise to you two beforehand. Sorry if you’ve become attached to that bitch, but she’ll die by my hands.”
“It’s fine. Whoever wins and whoever dies does not matter. Only the strong matter to us.”
Yeorum doubted her ears. Her father’s words were still relatively gentle.
How long had it been since she last talked to her parents like this? In fact, did that even happen ever in her life?
That might be why it was needlessly giving Yeorum a little sense of peace. It was because she had been too lonely for the last 300 years ever since her return to Askalifa.
“But unfortunately,”
However, the expectation that was born inside her from a few sentences,
“We don’t think you will beat her.”
Was crushed from one sentence.
Yeorum blinked her eyes.
She needed some time to take those words in.
“Wh… what?”
“We came with your sister because there was something to tell you.”
“…”
“Even an immature child like you should know how lofty the Selection Ceremony is for our race, yes? We still remember the disgrace you showed after the last ceremony.”
A cluster of thorny words came wreaking havoc in her heart.
“With your chin grabbed by your sister, you pissed yourself.”
“…”
“Being born late in the same generation and even pissing yourself in front of an opponent that you are supposed to kill.”
Yeorum’s old memories that she had been hiding because there was no reason to talk about them, were being trampled on.
“Do you know how much scorn our family had to suffer from others back then?”
Killing intent could be sensed from the voice of her father. To a red dragon who put emphasis on power and honour, that was an inerasable disgrace.
“If you are going to do the same this time, how about you give up on the Selection Ceremony. I’ll try not to kill you then. I will destroy your heart and have you discarded at a distant place for you.”
Yeorum felt her world turn dizzy. An unimaginable sense of betrayal was stabbing her head.
“I’m telling you I’ll win,” she said.
“Stop blabbering nonsense.”
“Didn’t you see me trash on Fabio that fucking bastard?”
“Who would have known he was so weak. He had an easy-going personality with little friction, and that must have been a mask the whole time. His family is being incredibly ridiculed right now anyway.”
“Did I ask you that?”
Yeorum slammed the ground with her foot as the mana reverberated with a loud thud.
“I, will, win.”
Yeorum shouted while emphasising each and every word..
“I’m going to win. Why do you look down on me so much without even verifying it?”
“…”
“Did I ask for love? Or did I ask for something? Did I complain about you not saying anything to me after I came back from my Amusement? Am I not your daughter? I’m still your offspring.”
“What are you trying to say.”
“I’m still your child. Can you not even trust me once?”
Her mother’s next words crushed her last bit of expectation to pieces.
“Unfortunately, child, we did not care about you in the slightest ever since you were born late.”
Her mouth slowly came to a close.
Yeorum had a stupefied look on her face.
“I’ll set the date of the Selection Ceremony, but no-one will be expecting anything from you.”
“Sure.”
“You can pee if you want to dishonour me. But your future–”
“Go away. I don’t want to hear it.”
Her parents left her nest without saying anything in return.
*
Left alone, Yeorum checked the barriers of her heart, whether they were still firmly closed or not. If those walls happened to crumble even once, Yeorum felt like she would fall to an unbearable depth.
“…”
Right.
This was her life.
A life that received no expectation and no trust. An exceptionally lucky entity who was living her life as a bonus even though she should have been dead already.
That was her life.
“…”
Yeorum took out a cigarette with her blood-stained hand.
Even though she intentionally tried not to think about anything negative, the few words of her parents were even sharper to her heart than the provoking words of her sister.
Couldn’t they just leave some words of expectation for the Selection Ceremony? Although we were a race that worshipped the strong, am I still not their blood-related daughter?
On a day like this, she couldn’t help but think of someone.
The person who never doubted her a single time,
Who always trusted her,
Encouraged her that she could do it,
And expected many things from her;
The face of her teacher appeared in her mind.
This was what Yu Jitae had always said to her.
– You can do it.
– Don’t think you can’t. Think positive and your attitude will continue to show it.
– And I also think you can do it.
Yeorum thought while sucking in a deep smoke.
Revenge. Survival.
Those two elements used to be the objective of her life,
But now, there was one more.
“…”
Yeorum had to prove it in this Selection Ceremony,
That Yu Jitae was not wrong for trusting her.