He looked at the red-haired child.
Her eyes couldn’t hide the tremor within. With crooked eyebrows and a powerless gaze, her small body was curled up.
The hair drenched in sweat reminded one of a puppy out in the rain. Her hunched shoulders and knees seemed to be shouting that she was hurt and anxious.
Had she been unhappy today?
Thus, he decided to stay with her tonight.
Sitting on a chair, the Regressor stared at the dragon who was unable to fall asleep even at night. Her delicate and unstable breaths that could cease at any moment trembled while her hands and feet squirmed around.
After listening to her groan for a long time, he opened his mouth.
“How about you sleep comfortably at least. You look like you need a medic.”
For a long time, she didn’t say anything in response, but soon, her head turned towards him beneath the blanket.
“…me ‘dic’?”
“…”
“P, penis…”
She then tried to laugh. But due to the severe pain, she couldn’t even laugh properly as her eyes formed a crooked smile.
“Nothing but talk nonsense.”
“…The mouth has to be light. Then, it would float and save our life even when we’re dumped in the water.”
If you say so.
“How does it feel. Can you handle it?”
Yeorum looked back at him. Moonlight sneaked past the curtains and lit up her face. Her eyebrows slightly eased despite the irritation on her face.
“I’m fine. How many times do I have to say it? I’m, okay…”
Although she was pronouncing every single word accurately, she couldn’t hide the shivering of her lips. The moon was too bright.
“…Stop, asking me the same thing.”
Looking back, Yeorum’s Amusement was different from others’. The other dragons left for their Amusements in order to enjoy their life; to forever etch those good memories into their heads. To prove that, they didn’t show any particular habit or regular actions when they were shoved into the underground labyrinth in front of the Fragment of Paradise. It was because they had already found their happiness.
However, the Red Dragon alone was different. It continued training endlessly without a stop. The Regressor thought that it was because the dragon had a strong desire for improvement in its heart.
From what he saw, it was fundamentally different from how the 30-man Special Forces were dying to exercise. Their training session was an inertial continuation of their habits, while the Red Dragon’s training was a manifestation of her desire for improvement.
In that case, why did the Red Dragon seek strength so badly? Was it simply because she was from the red race?
It could be said that receiving the acknowledgement of the race was important, but the Regressor still found it difficult to understand it completely.
For him to just assume that to be the case,
“…”
The tremor and shivering behind her face appeared overly precarious.
However, the only thing he could do right now was to remain sitting there with her. The Regressor watched over her.
In the cold pale light of dawn, she fell asleep amidst her unstable breaths.
She had kicked the blanket away due to the fire in her heart, so he carefully placed it back on top. He then stared deeply at her face and those tissues stuffed into her nose, before standing up in order to leave the room.
But then, Yeorum woke up.
“…”
Her half-opened eyes looked directly into his eyes.
“…”
Thinking that she was becoming anxious again, he gave a light shake of his head.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“…”
“I’m not going. Relax and sleep.”
A response didn’t come back. The only thing that came back was her gaze, with her head poking out above the blanket.
He sat back down and started at her as the silence continued for several minutes.
“You know…”
That was when she opened her mouth with a very soft voice.
“Yeah.”
“This, r, restricting thing… You said it was in your body as well right.”
“It is.”
“It, doesn’t hurt?”
He was about to reply, ‘No’, but then hesitated. Thinking back, he had read from an education-related book that he had to empathise with them and share the pain.
Empathise, empathise… it was a foreign word prickling his tongue.
How should he say this.
“In the past, it did for me as well.”
“In the past?”
“Yeah. It was painful when I put it on for the first time.”
“Why did you w, wear it?”
“To become stronger.”
It was in the sixth iteration, before he crossed the dimensional gap in order to conquer the demon world. Later, its purpose was changed to restricting his power, but he had worn it at the start in order to become stronger.
“My heart didn’t beat properly. It was hard to speak, and hard to walk.”
“…”
“I wanted to breathe but my lungs didn’t listen to me. And my heart ached like it was being torn apart.”
“Did you like, c, cry and stuff?”
“I didn’t cry. I did vomit a lot though.”
“Going like, u, uweek?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s fucking… funny. Going uwek with that face. Lol…”
She laughed under her unstable breaths.
“W, why did you do that?”
“What do you mean why. I vomited because I didn’t feel good.”
“No, not that. Why d, did you want to become stronger.”
It was an unexpected question.
The Regressor was about to reply instinctively but stopped his tongue. He thought power would be able to solve everything back then but it wasn’t a good topic to discuss with Yeorum.
When he went silent, she opened her mouth.
“See that? L, look at you going silent again.”
“…”
“Silence is your f, forte ey? Whenever you talk a little bit about yourself… you just s, shut your mouth.”
“…Right.”
“‘Righttt~’ m, my ass. F, fuck.”
Her mana fluctuated alongside her unstable emotions. When the pain flared up inside her heart, Yeorum stopped her complaint and groaned to resist the pain.
The Regressor, who wasn’t good with words, merely watched on.
After the pain dispersed and her breaths returned, she opened her mouth with a sigh.
“……I’m the y, youngest daughter.”
“Youngest daughter?”
“I had unnis. Seven.”
It was the first time he was hearing this.
“Red dragons always give birth to a lot of children. It, it’s different from other dragons who always keep their numbers between one to three… They give birth, as much as possible when they can and send everyone on their Amusement. All the unnis from 20 to 100 years old already had their first Amusements.”
“And you hadn’t gone for yours yet?”
“Yeah. I was born really really late… Breaking out of the eggs that were laid at the same time, is also a talent and I wasn’t talented.”
She blankly stared off into the distance, thinking about something.
“For some reason, I, I was really late compared to other unnis. The other unnis didn’t really care about me who was still a baby, and I was bashed whenever we were eating… but then my youngest unni took care of me. S, so we became really close.”
“…”
“If we go out together and play, we will bring a carriage full of good men. W, we talked about things like that everyday. I was three years old back then, but it sounded really fun. I wanted to go out on my Amusement asap…”
“…”
“So when my youngest unni left for her Amusement, I was really jealous and sad. She protected me whenever I was getting hit by other unnis so when she went off on herself, it, it was shit.”
After forcibly settling her breath, she heaved out a sigh before pulling the tissues out of her nose.
“Haa, fuck… That’s a bit better.”
“…”
“Anyways, on the day that youngest unni came back from her Amusement, she called me just by myself and suddenly threatened me.”
She extended her arm out, and mimicked what happened back then.
“She then said this. If the adults ask if you want to go for the Amusement, refuse and say you’re too young and scared. So I got angry. ‘Are you the only one going? I’ll go as well.’ You know what happened? When I said that, she suddenly pointed a sword at me. She said, do you think a child like you could even dream of going for the Amusement; do you know how cruel the world is; and that she would kill me if I didn’t listen to her words.”
“…”
“And, fuck, because her eyes were crazy scary, I felt betrayed and scared but still li, listened to her words… The adults really didn’t like it, but I s, stood firm. At least it would be better than being k, killed by my youngest unni…”
Then, Yeorum suddenly chuckled out loud.
“And after a few days, I discovered the truth. In a large mountain full of lava, a, all the dotards of our race gathered and my family was all there as well. It was like t, twenty dragons in total…”
She then bit her lips.
“Suddenly, my oldest unni bit my youngest unni’s neck…”
The Regressor gave a frown. He instinctively understood what had happened. It was a possible story for the red race which worshipped the strong.
“I found out later on. T, the reason the red race lays a lot of eggs, is to find one or t, two excellent children.”
It was obvious what would happen to the non-excellent ones.
“When they all finish their first Amusements, our race forces the kids to fight against each other. One remaining dragon per generation will be monopolising the blessings… W, we call this the ‘Selection Ceremony’.”
Her breaths quickened.
“There, all the other unnis died, and th, the oldest unni was the only survivor.”
Yeorum closed her eyes.
Her unforgetting memories brought her back to the unforgettable scenery. The volcano erupted as rocks and dust scattered like clouds above the sky. Embers of fire danced.
Large dragons of the race spread their wings far apart and bellowed towards the heavens. There, the bloodstained hatchling looked down on its youngest sister.
“F, fuck… Do you know what that bitch, said to me?”
“…”
Yeorum looked back at Yu Jitae. Soon, she stood up from her bed and stumbled her way across to him. The Regressor was sitting down so Yeorum gazed down at him from higher up.
She grabbed him by the chin.
“Lucky aren’t you?”
Then, she imitated someone else’s bewitching voice.
“T, that’s what she said. Fucking seriously. That fucking slut, that disgusting bitch…”
Lucky.
It was a sarcastic comment on how Yeorum was born extremely late compared to the other unnis of the generation. If she had been born slightly earlier, around the time her youngest unni had been born, Yeorum wouldn’t be standing here.
“But, it was very scary back then.”
Yeorum clutched her heart and held her breath in pain, which had surged back up from speaking too much. She struggled but collapsed so the Regressor hurriedly supported her.
Haa, haa… her pained groans continued endlessly.
When he laid her back down on the bed, she held tightly onto her chest and curled her body. She then shivered for a long time in pain and it took a long time for her to settle back down.
He didn’t know what to do. The Regressor carefully pulled several tissues out and wiped off the beads of sweat forming on her forehead and her face. She slowly opened her eyes from the flood of pain.
“What happens when you go back.”
She didn’t reply.
But, her red eyes reflecting the moonlight blankly stared into Yu Jitae’s eyes.
“…”
Through the repetitive regressions, he had encountered her countless times but had been unaware, of the reason why the Red Dragon had to become strong.
“For the first time, I pushed my pride down against you…”
But now, he could understand – the reason why she would always head to the training room, even when Kaeul and Gyeoul were playing around, and when Bom was leisurely reading a book; the meaning behind the drops of sweat that fell on the floor of the underground labyrinth as she blank-mindedly trained in martial art.
For her, this was not an Amusement.
Losing in a fight against someone would remind her of the impending death once more.
The fact that she couldn’t get stronger despite working hard, would mean that it wasn’t good enough despite her life being on the line.
Everything he had seen so far – her expressions and her words came to him with a different resonance.
She gazed up at him, and asked.
“But I’m… doing a good job right?”
Her voice overlapped with the question she asked several days ago.
Despite being in so much pain, she didn’t give up. She knew that relying on someone would make her comfortable but didn’t.
As Yeorum’s guardian, he was now in the position of a teacher although still imperfect. Her happiness rested on his shoulders.
He was certain, and thus was able to give her a share of his certainty.
“Yes.”
Only then did Yeorum give a nod in relief. Then, she slowly went back to sleep with her unstable breaths.
Until the break of dawn, the Regressor remained by her side.