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“What?”

“U, unni you’re a genius. You’re very good at magic right? I heard it at school. Aren’t your standards just too high? Who in the world learns magic like me… D, don’t get angry. It’s scary…”

Bom stayed silent for a while.

Her expression that had appeared indifferent throughout now contained a slightly sorrowful look. Whenever she was angry, she tended to run her fingers through her hair and that was what she was doing right now.

“My parents live separately.”

Bom’s voice that finally flowed out after the hesitation was heavy like wet cotton.

Kaeul widened her eyes.

“Parents living separately is like a divorced family for humans. It’s actually quite different but… anyways, I was in my mother’s lair when I was born and my mother told me that there was a ‘Grand Aspiration’ in plan for me.”

Unlike Kaeul who cried after her mommy regardless of the time, Bom had almost never talked about her family before. Kaeul carefully listened to the story but was a bit more scared at the same time.

Bom’s expression made her feel that way.

“I had to learn magic from the day I was born. All because of that Grand Aspiration. My mother was strict and had high standards so I was scolded a lot. Was it because I was worse off than others? No. I was on the gifted side in magic from the green dragons but she was never satisfied.

“In order for me to be used for the ‘Grand Aspiration’, I had to be a magician better than others. For almost the entirety of 20 years after opening my eyes; without resting a single day; without resting few minutes a day, I studied and researched magic.

“Even that wasn’t enough apparently. One day, she kidnapped 200 magicians from a nearby dimension. I was three years old back then, around the size of Gyeoul after shedding my skin but she said to me. If you don’t do it properly, I will grind these 200 people and give them to you for nutrition.

“The 200 of them were living and breathing humans and back then I was scared of killing an organism even if they were lowly humans. The life of a breathing thing ending was a very scary thing back then, so I wanted to match her standards and do it ‘properly’.

“Do you think I would have resented that reality and my mother?”

Bom asked with a hazy gaze but Kaeul couldn’t say anything in response.

“No. Logic-wise I understood everything. Hatchlings were different from adult dragons after all. If my mind was completely dusted after living a thousand years, and found the identity of our race to be more important than my individual thoughts and values, wouldn’t I do the same thing to my child?

“It was just that it happened to be my mother and me that it was very tiring. But thanks to that, I managed to be this good at magic.”

She slowly walked towards Kaeul. Then, she crouched in front of Kaeul who was blankly staring back with her knees on the ground and looked straight into her eyes.

“Kaeul. A ‘dragon’s amusement’ is a time given for them to find their identity, have fun and build happy memories that would remain forever.”

“…”

“We might have been forced to come on our Amusement because of the time, but this will be a precious time period that you will never find again once you return to your parents’ lair. This might be the first and the last. It’s precious and if you’ve found your identity, there’s no reason for you to sit down and rest when you should be running instead.”

“…”

“Get up.”

Kaeul dusted her legs and slowly got up. The child appeared fairly shocked from her words, despite it being an indirect experience.

“What about the 200 people?”

“…”

“What happened to the 200 magicians?”

Bom silently looked at her and shook her head.

“…”

Kaeul felt something crumbling from Bom. At the same time, she felt embarrassed.

The child was emotional and was easily carried by the flow. Swallowing the complex thoughts inside, she decided to give it another go.

*

The few days of training after that was even more hellish for Kaeul.

“Protecting is a very realistic problem.”

Bom flooded her with reproaches whenever Kaeul was about to collapse.

“Look straight. How many spells are flying towards you?

“There’s ten. Imagine one of them is an arrow flying towards Chirpy.

“If you don’t intercept them with ‘magic bullets’, they will go straight into Chirpy’s head.

“Look. You missed it again didn’t you? Chirpy’s now dead. Is it because someone shot you? No. It’s because you missed them. You’re the guardian. You killed him.

“Focus until the end. Focus properly on the direction until the mana gets formed and shot from your fingers.”

Bom’s words were like a blade sharp enough to wedge through a person’s heart. For several days, Kaeul couldn’t hold her tears in and cried constantly during the training.

Her confidence that was at the rock bottom was now about to go through to the basement.

But once she slowly got used to that, she stopped dropping to the ground even when crying. She stood still and kept on using magic, clenching her lips and dripping drops of tears.

It seemed that Bom was discontent with even that.

“Kaeul. Stop crying. Have you seen ahjussi cry? Guardians don’t cry. When you’re fighting someone, the target of your protection will be staring at you. What would happen if you cry because you’re scared or frightened? How horrified would that child, who’s only looking at you, be?”

She didn’t stop scolding her even when Kaeul succeeded in intercepting the attacks.

“So what if you succeed in intercepting the attacks? Shouldn’t you defeat the enemy with magic arrows?”

Even when Kaeul shot a far-off target.

“You have to be able to protect your target of protection from being swallowed by the aftermath.”

Even when she managed to safeguard an area with a barrier and simultaneously shoot the enemy’s attacks, Bom didn’t stop.

“Can something like that block an unstoppable strike? Say if Yeorum was determined to strike you with her fist, would you be able to save Chirpy with that barrier?”

Only when she was able to safeguard with barrier, attack the enemy and simultaneously use blink, did her reproaches come to an end.

It was an impressive feat that happened in just ten days.

“I, I did it……”

Kaeul laid on the ground after the training and started groaning and crying. Because her dragon heart was completely void of mana, a pain incomparable to before was lashing at her body. Feeling as if all the blood was sucked out of her body, she was unable to smile even after a success and continued crying.

That was when Bom turned around and walked towards him.

“Ahjussi…”

“Good work. Bom.”

“…”

She had to repeat words that attacked and oppressed Kaeul’s mind for several days. Her wild words were quite unexpected and he was surprised at the start but he understood parts of it after hearing the stories of her past.

For some reason,

Bom looked like she was about to cry.

“Don’t you think I was being too harsh?”

Only then did Yu Jitae realise it.

There were people that found it difficult to say bad things – people that hated putting other people down from birth. It seemed that Bom was one of those people. It must have been hard for her to crush someone else’s confidence and mind.

He never noticed it because she acted normal over the past few days when they were on their way back to the dormitory, but there was no way that shouting at a person for more than ten hours a day would be easy on her mind.

“No. You did well.”

He consoled her.

Bom’s sorrowful expression strangely touched somewhere within his emotions. When she walked up and bumped her head into his chest, he unconsciously caressed the child on the back of her head.

“You did great. Go back first and rest.”

“Yes. Please look after her nicely…”

*

Yu Jitae sat next to Kaeul who was groaning due to mana exhaustion. Lying on the ground, she repeatedly wriggled and twisted her body while her eyes cried buckets out and her mouth gasped for breath.

‘Mana shock’. She was like this thanks to being a dragon and a normal human would have died a hundred times.

With her long blonde hair in a messy state, Kaeul laid down breathing in and out for almost 2 hours.

After settling her breath, she faintly opened her eyes and her mouth.

“Ahjussi…?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“I, I did it…”

“Well done. You did great.”

“Please hug me a bit…”

She was like a child looking for her mother.

That analogy was probably not wrong. In this place, Yu Jitae was like a mother to Kaeul. He raised her up in the blink of an eye and when the small child powerlessly leaned her body on his, he tapped her on the back.

“You really did well. Seriously.”

“Really…?”

“Yeah. You pulled it off.”

If Bom’s role was to push her self-esteem down and make her synchronise with her own state and force her to move, Yu Jitae’s role was to fill up her confidence that had dropped to the ground.

Why was it difficult to find a dream?

That was the topic that had been brought up during the meal of a certain day. Back then, Bom said the following, ‘Sometimes us throwing our body into a dream starts from a simple compliment.’

A cool elementary school teacher saying, ‘□□ you’re so good at maths,’ could make a girl who had no interest in her 80% score at maths to like it, and it could serve as a good memory that encourages her to grow up to be a maths teacher.

Yu Jitae was in the position of the maths teacher. He had naturally become one over the past few days, but it might be that Bom had induced the situation to be like that.

The arms wrapping around his neck were powerless, so he gave a tighter hug to make sure she didn’t fall. That was when Kaeul, who was heaving deep breaths, raised a question.

“But… I have a question…”

“What is it?”

“Even if I do all this, isn’t it meaningless without conviction?”

“What do you mean.”

“You said that both power and conviction were necessary to become a good guardian… with power that’s only half the requirements.”

That might be the case for the time being, but,

“That’s not it.”

“Sorry…?”

“When you do come up with a conviction, power is what lets you protect your conviction. Without power, the size of the conviction you can withhold decreases.”

“…”

“Thanks to all your hard work in building your strength, you will one day be able to create a big conviction and keep it. You will be able to protect even more things.”

“…”

She pondered and replied after a long time.

“Yes…”

On the way back, he carried the child who couldn’t walk properly on his back. He could feel the gazes of the cadets of the academy district, but he paid little regard to it.

After walking a little bit, Kaeul fell asleep behind his back. Something was wetting his neck. He hoped it wasn’t her saliva.

A thought that suddenly popped up in his mind was how cruel talent was.

He remembered how he couldn’t reach other superhumans including BM when he started his life for the 4th time. If he was as talented as BM in combat, the number of iterations he had gone through would be halved.

He didn’t care too much about it when it concerned only him, but when Kaeul was in the equation, it reminded him of how cruel talent was.

The ten days she spent training with Bom – as long as she continued training like that, Kaeul would become stronger than Yeorum in just three months. Naturally, she wouldn’t continue training like this but… the vessels they were born with were simply different.

Instead of Yeorum who desperately wanted to be stronger,

Kaeul who was suddenly dragged by someone else to become stronger having more talent.

It was a reality too brutal for Yeorum.

So that there would be no meaningless strife between the two, he had to draw plans for the future beforehand.

*

“…Good work unni.”

When they returned to the dormitory, Gyeoul ran up and gave a wide hug to Kaeul, burying her head into her chest.

“Thank you Gyeoul. But I’m very dirty right now…!”

“…Nnn.”

Parts of her t-shirt had dark stains here and there. They were all dried up blood that Kaeul coughed out from either her mouth or her nose.

Even though she was powerless, she smiled ‘hehe’ as she staggered her way into her room. Yu Jitae supported the child so that she didn’t fall and that was when Yeorum opened the door of her room to observe the living room.

His eyes met with her red eyes.

“…”

Yeorum glanced past him and gave a frown.

She had the same disgusted look on her face like before, and because of that he wasn’t able to teach her recently.

“Why.”

“…”

She didn’t even reply and turned around to return to her own room. Thus, he ignored the incident and brought Kaeul to her room so that she could rest. Then, he stayed there caressing her head and giving her compliments so that the child could sleep with ease.

*

After going back into her room, Yeorum laid down on the bed.

The manga was boring today for some reason so she threw it away.

She scratched her head and had trouble falling asleep. She became irritated for no reason when lying down on the bed.

Yeorum stood up and stealthily opened the door of her room. In the living room, the protector and Gyeoul were drying the likes of sweet potatoes on a tray. What were those idiots doing?

When she was turning her gaze away from the small gap, her eyes caught sight of the front entrance. She could see Yu Jitae’s brown shoes and Kaeul’s white sneakers with black stains of dried blood.

Yeorum stared at the shoes for a long time with a frown.