Kidnapped Dragons

“How was writing.”

Bom replied without hesitation to his question.

“I’ll try a bit more.”

Unlike drawing and sculpting, she appeared to be slightly interested in novels. Maybe she had found the thing that suited her the best in the sixth iteration and maybe she was working earnestly and enjoying herself until Yu Jitae suddenly kidnapped her.

“By the way.”

“Yeah.”

“…Would you be able to help me every now and then?”

Her voice was soft. Thinking that she was quite scared before, he worriedly asked her if she was okay and Bom casually returned a nod.

Later when he tried looking into it, he realised that there were also literary competitions for cadets. The writing segment mainly consisted of pure literature and poem competitions but there was one horror competition each year, with the deadline being in July.

“Really?”

Yu Jitae and Bom opened the outline of the competition. The only requisite was that the composition had less than 300 pages and considering that there was still about half a year left, writing one or two pages a day would be more than enough.

“I’ll try preparing for it. Also, did you want to have a look at what I wrote yesterday?”

“You wrote after that yesterday?”

“Yes.”

She handed him the manuscript and Yu Jitae quietly sat down on the spot and began reading the text. Meanwhile, Bom leaned on his back with her two arms resting on his shoulders, and read through the manuscript with him.

“…?”

Seeing her unni do that, Gyeoul tilted her head.

With a pink flower-shaped hair pin on her hair, Bom was resting on Yu Jitae’s back. Since he was sitting down, Yu Jitae’s body was curled forward while Bom’s upper body remained straight.

She remembered seeing something similar…

After contemplating deeply, Gyeoul realised something and turned her head to stare at the painting hanging on the wall – the painting of a gray, withered flower and a pink flower sticking next to it.

She turned her head back to the front.

The painting resembled Yu Jitae and Bom.

Episode 37: Mental Preparation

Bom’s deviation from the norm came to an end after that. She went back to wearing cadet uniforms like usual and wore a flower-shaped hair pin on her hair, while diligently attending class.

Thinking that she might finally be able to find her dream in the seventh iteration, Yu Jitae decided to watch her future unfold.

On a side note, before they left for the academy district that morning, Unit 301 was a little rowdy.

“…”

“…”

The protector and the baby chicken were glaring at one another. Tension was mixed within the atmosphere.

‘I thought feeding it more was all I had to do,’ thought the protector.

Recently the baby chicken, Chirpy, was gorging through half the sack of feed every day. Since it ate everything that was being given, things had turned into a mess.

In fact, just eating more was not that big of a problem. Money was never a problem and buying more wasn’t an issue either, while seeing the baby chicken grow fatter and fatter made the protector feel good.

How happy would Kaeul be if she received a massive chicken…?

Just thinking about that put the protector in a good mood.

However… the problem was the thing the chicken did to the toilet.

‘I didn’t even think about it.’

Nothing came out of the dragons no matter how much they ate. It was because their digestive system was able to change almost 100% of the things that entered their body to energy.

However, spirit beasts weren’t dragons. The more they ate, the more they would give away.

This hadn’t happened before when the chicken only ate a bit, since it tended to go outside and take care of itself outside. But now, it was different. Being a spirit beast with a high intellect, it did go to the bathroom but didn’t finish everything inside the flush.

It was then the protector’s job to clean it all up. Because of that, the protector heaved out a sigh every time it saw the damned chicken leave the bathroom.

“I’ve had enough. You need to be trained from today onwards.”

“Chirp? (What does thou mean by ‘train’?)”

“You need to be toilet trained.”

“Chirp? (What toilet train?)”

“You don’t understand what I’m saying?”

“Chirp? Chirp chirp. (No, but, I am asking what toilet training means).”

Although it didn’t understand what the baby chicken was saying, the protector could still tell that it was curious about what was being said.

Hmm. So human words do not go through, huh. The red glittering dots behind the helmet flickered.

Then what about this.

“Chirp.”

“Chi… (What the…)”

“Chirp. Chirp.”

“…? (??)”

The protector cried out ‘Chirp,’ with the voice of a screeching metal while the baby chicken became afraid of what this crazy armour was trying to do.

“So now you understand what I’m saying. Chirp. Chirp.”

“Chirp! Chirp! (No, I do not! Speak normally like a human!)”

“Huhuhu. Chirp chirp.”

“Chirp? Chirp! (Have thou gone mad? What art thou trying to do!)”

“Chirp.”

“Chirp. (This is driving me crazy.)”

Regardless of its thoughts, the protector took the baby chicken around and taught it how to use the toilet. Although it could understand the words of a human, the chicken couldn’t understand the ‘Chirps’ of the protector and was thus frustrated for the whole morning.

Looking on from the side, Yu Jitae was slightly dumbfounded but couldn’t find the reason to bother straightening things out for them, so he stopped caring about them.

“Uaaaah…!”

Meanwhile, after changing into her cadet clothes, Kaeul had her hands on her head as she wandered around the corridor. She looked at least 3 times unstabler than usual.

“What’s wrong, Kaeul?”

“W, w, w, what should I do unni? What should I do!”

“What’s wrong with her,” asked Yeorum from the side.

“Today’s the presentation day for my group assignment…! I wasn’t able to help much in gathering information and became the presenter… But this is my first time presenting!!”

“Just do it then.”

“But, I’m, I’m nervous!”

She went up and bothered Bom, before irritating Yeorum and even complained to Gyeoul, before dashing towards Yu Jitae.

“Ahjussiii!”

“…”

“What should I do!? I didn’t even prepare much! I have to stand in front of the class! They’ll all be looking at me…!”

After saying that, she murmured, “Huh? That’s not that bad…” and turned quiet. Of course that didn’t last any more than a few seconds as she resumed noisily pressuring him.

“Don’t you have any friends that did group tasks, ahjussi!?”

She apparently wanted him to share his memories and emotions like he had during the declaration ceremony but he shook his head since he hadn’t done group tasks before. Kaeul became teary-eyed and looked at Yeorum.

“Yeorum-unni!”

“Ahh, why, you pig. So freakin’ noisy.”

“How come you never get nervous? You looked very natural even during interviews!!”

Yeorum scoffed.

“Do you get nervous when ants look at you?”

“…?!”

The perspective and values of the red and the gold race were this far apart. But calling them ants… whispered Kaeul before asking Bom.

“What about you, unni? Hn? How come you don’t get nervous?”

“Me?”

“Nn! You usually don’t get nervous either right!”

“Umm, I guess?”

Bom thought for a bit before opening her mouth.

“You just have to mentally prepare yourself.”

“But how do you mentally prepare yourself?”

“Before a startling event or happening comes to you, think about it beforehand. Think of the things that could happen in that situation.”

“For example?”

“So… when you present, some people will ask you right.”

“Nn!”

“Think about what sort of questions will be asked, and some unexpected situations and plan how you should handle it ahead of time.”

“Ohh…! And how many situations do I have to think of?”

Kaeul looked at Bom with hopeful eyes.

“Around 200 to 500?”

Her hope was crushed into pieces. Something like that was only possible to green dragons, since thinking of 200 unexpected situations would be impossible for others in the first place.

But planning ahead of time would be better than not doing anything. Kaeul started whispering to herself while going through the group assignment on her watch. Then, something struck her so she turned back to Bom and asked.

“Ah, unni unni! But when I thought about it, I almost never saw you get flustered though?”

“Really?”

“Do you get flustered and stuff as well if you’re not mentally prepared?”

Bom stole a glance at Yu Jitae, who was on the other side of the corridor.

“Nn. I didn’t know, but I do too…”

Meanwhile, Gyeoul stretched her two arms forward at Yu Jitae, asking for a hug.

“…!”

When he raised her up, her small and soft cheek touched him by his neck. She used her hands to lift his collar to the side to check that he was wearing the necklace. Since he had never taken the necklace off, Gyeoul gave a satisfied nod today as well.

Now, she looked around 6 to 7 years old, no longer looking like a toddling baby. Thinking back to the previous iterations, she usually shed her skin around this point in time.

[Shedding skin] referred to how growing dragons literally shed their old skins as their bodies grew in size. Dragons went through 2 or 3 processes of skin-shedding when they’re babies without a very delicate control over mana. During that process, the dragons tended to turn weak.

Was it about time?

After thinking back on the sixth iteration for a bit, he asked.

“Gyeoul.”

“…?”

“Do you feel like your body feels ticklish here and there?”

Shake shake.

“Tell me straight away if you think your body feels a bit weird. Okay?”

She obediently nodded her head.

After a nod, Gyeoul hugged Yu Jitae’s neck with all her strength. It was one of those hugs that had no reasoning behind it.

He was thinking that she had gotten over it but here she was, doing it again after a long time. Her water-coloured hair tickled his chin.

“Chirrrp!”

That was when the baby chicken screamed from a distance. Listening to it speak, it seemed that the middle portion of its legs had been… attacked by the protector’s wet tissue. Gyeoul appeared to be curious about the scream as she went down from Yu Jitae and ran towards them.

The baby chicken was drenched in water. Startled, Gyeoul hurriedly took the baby chicken into her arms and reproachfully stared at the protector.

“Aht. Young lady.”

“…What are you doing?”

“I was undertaking a toilet training session.”

“…Why, bully?”

“B, bully?! No. This is just one of the necessary educations!”

“…Devil.”

Devil.

Devil…

Devil……

The protector was shocked by Gyeoul’s clear enunciation.

At the same time, the baby chicken began swearing at the protector and leaned onto Gyeoul as if it had found its saviour. But that was when the situation immediately turned for the worse. From the baby chicken’s fur, something dirty(?) that hadn’t been fully wiped off, ended up getting on her arm.

“…?”

What’s this?

Kng kng.

After smelling it, Gyeoul’s expression turned serious.

“…”

“Do you see that, young lady. Something like that is happening because it isn’t trained at all.”

The protector persuaded Gyeoul after realising that it was a great opportunity. Gyeoul cleaned her arm with the magic, [Cleanse (B-)] before looking at the baby chicken.

“Chirp chirp!”

It cried out loud and explained after seeing that it was the mistake of its lifetime. However, Gyeoul merely returned a faint smile while patting the baby chicken on the head.

“…Let’s, learn.”

The baby chicken felt the world crumbling before its eyes. ‘That can’t be! Do not give up on me!’ shouted the baby chicken as it was being handed over by Gyeoul to the protector. Although it tried to escape with fluttering wings, it was caught on the foot by the protector and dragged all the way back to the bathtub.

Gyeoul closed the door as she left the bathroom.

– Chiiirr…!

A hollow scream of a baby chicken echoed across Unit 301.

*

That day, Yu Jitae accompanied Yeorum and around the time they arrived at the class,

A status message floated up.

<The Authority, [Vintage Clock (EX)] alerts of the current time, [8:59 am].>

It seemed that it hated losing to the pocket watch.

After a minute, Yu Jitae checked the refreshed list of performance assignments. A dungeon clear of a low-ranked dungeon was 15 points. An assignment of a specific professor was 15 points and taming a spirit beast was 7 points…

All of them had low points as usual and right when he was about to think to himself that there wasn’t anything useful today either,

There was one assignment that attracted his attention.

+++

– 87. B+ ranked Underground Fissure Raid (100 People)

A 4-man party at least is required / Once completed by the cadets without any intervention from the guardians, 20 points will be given as the basic reward / In addition, further points will be given according to contribution points.

(However, it will be considered a fail for the party once the guardian intervenes)

+++

20 points as a normal reward and further points depending on the contribution. This meant that one assignment would be giving at least 30 to around 100 points at max.

The underground fissure was a place where monsters came flooding out without a stop. Although dangerous, it had the highest reward among the assignments that had been provided thus far.

To prove that, the capacity of 100 people was completely filled up 3 seconds after Yu Jitae accepted the assignment. If he missed out on it, Yeorum would have been quite sad.

“Ohh, that’s not bad.”

Just like what he thought, Yeorum couldn’t hide her excitement after checking the assignment.

“Then am I going to fight some monsters underground to death?”

“Yeah.”

“While the one with the most number of kills gets all the points?”

“Right.”

“Ah fuck, I love it.”

That was when another status window floated up.

<[Vintage Clock (EX)]: ٩(︡• ᴗ•︠)۶>

Right. Good job.