Kidnapped Dragons

“Hah.”

In the inner room of the underground labyrinth, BM let out an empty laugh.

“What’s this…”

Sitting in front of computers, huge people were typing on the keyboard. Their expressions were all serene as if they had won the lottery last night.

Currently they were going around websites, leaving only positive comments. It was none other than the ‘Claws of the Association’ – the 30-man Special Forces that were doing this, so how unnatural was it?

‘To think I would see something like this…’

While BM was dumbfounded, one of the agents shouted.

“One instant noodles please!”

“Got it.”

Clink.

The protector added hot water to a cup noodle and carried it over to the agent. BM felt like he had seen something similar when he was very young.

“…Is it an internet cafe or what.”

<Comments of hatred being poured onto a future youtuber. But why?>

It was a column written by a reporter about the reason for a continuation of such malicious comments on an accidentally uploaded video. Beneath were dozens of comments.

– Read the first two lines and scrolled down lmao. I can see you’re spouting out nonsense but don’t say shit without knowing anything about it.

– Yu Kaeul can’t read the atmosphere and has no manners lol. My friend was at the audition and she swore at Gong Juhee and talked behind her back lolol. And when she was caught she was like what did I do wrong.ᄂWow really?ᄂYeah. That’s what my friend said.

Even a small news report would get dozens of comments at the very least, once they were targeted by the WDT.

(Comments: 54)

This place was the same.

Hatred existed solely for the production of more hatred. Even towards the end of the investigations after Wei Yan was identified as a demon, they brazenly remained without disappearing.

But in that place, completely different comments suddenly began being added one by one.

ᄂCadet Kaeul is a nice person ^^ Her smile’s very beautiful.ᄂLet’s all have a look at a picture of Miss Kaeul~~ haha how could she be so small, precious and cute.

After the storm, only garbage remained on the ground but beautiful petals of flowers were falling on top.

– What merit is there to be gained in denouncing others ^^,,, if you denounce others’ pride to be above them for a split second, can that life truly be considered to be on top?ᄂOh my ^^ Such beautiful words.ᄂHohoh, hope you have a wonderful day today.

– Let’s not waste our precious muscle energy in writing bad words hohoho~~~

For an unknown reason, there were lots of flower petals.

(Comments: 884)

“…What?”

The columnist doubted his eyes. Hundreds of comments swept past the article in the short span of 5 minutes.

‘Are they just going around writing good comments?’

Although it was strange, he found himself being at ease as he quietly read through the comments. The world was still a liveable place.

After they were done with their task, the squad would move over to another site before going to another one as the bizarre good-comment-movement spreaded fast.

Old news reports, videos and forum posts that were seeing less frequent views were suddenly filled with comments that complimented and cheered for Kaeul.

This sort of commenting maneuver wasn’t anything rare and similar to how the crowd hadn’t been too interested about the WDT sabotaging at the start, the media and the general populace didn’t take this to heart.

However, there was a group who had been bothered by it: the WDT.

– Guys who the fuck are these? There are weird people in Yu Kaeul’s community right now?

– You guys have a look as well. Here’s the link.

The ‘Yu Kaeul Community’ was a place that had originally seen a flash of popularity during the entrance ceremony, with not as much liveliness now. The site which no-one looked for had become the greatest target of the WDT community due to the aftermath of an accidental upload.

Due to all sorts of malicious comments and forum posts, the manager of the community had given up on controlling it and was in the middle of considering whether he should close the website or not.

– Cheering for Miss Kaeul ^^

– Precious Cadet Kaeul,,,~~~ huhu, I don’t know much about her but I do know that she is a gentle and a kind-hearted cadet.

– I hope you don’t take this to heart, and hope everything goes well with you in the future ^^,,, I don’t know why, but I always tear up when I see a picture of Miss Kaeul…

But now, there was a storm of complimentary comments – hundreds had been posted within several minutes.

Naturally, the WDT members weren’t kind enough to watch that happen.

– Yu Kaeul the retard.

– Is there no-one else to bias? Hope you all get eaten by monsters~

Logic or rationality was no longer important. They had gathered here as fans of Wei Yan, but the moment they revealed their identities, they would become targets of justified criticism. Thus they hid their weak points while only conveying their anger.

– Lol hey, I just spitted on Yu Kaeul’s picture and ripped it apart kekek. Angry right? Lol. It turned into powder when I tried ripping it.

There had been no images and the person hadn’t ripped anything apart either. It was just a hate comment that was meant to drive them mad.

Immediately afterwards, a comment appeared underneath the post.

– From what I know, a picture of Cadet Yu Kaeul publicly taken was only once during the entrance ceremony’s declaration, on the day she was the brightest. I am jealous of you for having held onto the image of Cadet Kaeul on her brightest day even for a slight moment.ᄂNo you fucking idiot, I spitted on it and ripped it apart wtf.ᄂWe live in this moment, and let the present flow to become the past. In order to hold onto a moment for eternity we tend to leave it as photos. Some might criticise you as a bad person, but I also know that your bad feelings will also only be lasting for a moment. That would soon become the past and when time comes where your beauty blooms in full, please call me. I will take a picture of your beautiful moment and keep it forever as a picture.

“No, what in the fuck is this…”

A member of the WDT who had been reading the comment in a corner of her room, twitched her fingers.

“Is this person crazy or what…”

She swore but it resonated in vain. For some reason, her rage died down and the member soon halted her hands. Then, she read through the comment one more time.

‘…’

In one of the posts, there was a picture of a yellow doll torn apart with a knife which was one of the common pictures cursing Yu Kaeul. That post also had a picture of a male with a chiseled body along with a message.

– Yu Kaeul, you see my arms? I will go look for you in your house and tear you to pieces with a knife…

Since there were several female members in the WDT, he had uploaded it to both swear at Yu Kaeul and to boast about his body. A comment was soon added to his post

ᄂLooking at your arms, I think you’ll need a little bit more exercise in order to do so ^^. After all, Cadet Kaeul is also a superb superhuman of Lair. First off, the shoulder seems to be the biggest problem so for your routine, I would recommend adding military press and an overhead dumbbell press…(etc)

“What the fuck is this? Is this guy crazy or what?”

ᄂWho the fuck are you? I do SBD 1500 lol. What a joke kekekek.ᄂEguguh,,,~~ It’s just that your strength is a little bit lacking compared to your mass…ᄂWhat about you? It’s always people like this that are all for talk lololol.ᄂI do around SBD 6250… haha, it’s still very lacking. I’m sorry if you found it uncomfortable,,~~~ᄂ6250????? Bullshit lol wtf. You think you’re a local superhuman ranker or something. Where’s the proof.

Proof?

Joshua, a black agent of the 30-man Special Forces, was flustered.

“Haigo, I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have…”

“What’s wrong, Joshua?”

“Look at this. He’s telling me to prove my weight training.”

“Oh no. Proving it? That’s a bit… hahat…”

“Right? It’s not that great so it’s a bit embarrassing though… haha…”

With a height of 2.4m, shoulder width of 94cm, and a weight of 269kg, he had a SBD record of 6250.

Wearing an embarrassed smile, Joshua turned on his device’s camera. That was when the leader of the Special Forces, Bell Baryon, shouted.

“Oi Joshua! You know you can’t show your tattoos, your face and the large crystal right?”

“Of course boss. I’m just going to show a tiny bit of my arm!”

An arm resembling that of a large monster wriggled and raised a car-sized barbell. It easily travelled up and down several times.

Only after receiving a check from the leader, was he able to upload the simple exercise video on the site.

5 minutes later, an apology was posted.

– I’m the person that had been acting extremely rude. I am very sorry. I will delete the slanderous words I posted and will go exercise following the routine you provided. Once again, I’m deeply sorry…

Like that, the Happy Happy Comment Squad travelled around all sorts of websites and buried the dirty comments down deep, while writing down cheerful words for Kaeul, advice regarding exercises, and positive comments that made everyone happy.

The WDT members that had been proactively commenting lost their vigour when the news revealed more treacherous deeds of Wei Yan.

– Best wishes to our precious Cadet Kaeul,,,^^

– I love you, Yu Kaeul~~!!

– Let’s exercise today as well, with the picture of Cadet Kaeul hohohoho~~~

…

After the storm, countless petals of flowers were endlessly built on top.

***

He could close his eyes and rather vividly remember what had happened back then.

Fourth iteration.

The top pop singer of the era with no questions asked, the goddess of billboard with 24 songs that had reached the first place who was chosen as the greatest singer of all time by the International Pop Song Authority – Baby Yellow.

When there were talks about her attempted suicide, Yu Jitae hid his identity and acted as her bodyguard. It was because he had realised that it was the Gold Dragon who had brought the Apocalypse in the first and the third iterations.

With the relationship of a top bodyguard and a celebrity without crossing the line, Yu Jitae spent every day with Kaeul and protected her.

On the top floor of an elegant hotel, when Baby Yellow was lying down on the bathtub cutting her own wrist with a sharp dagger,

From the ominous feeling, Yu Jitae broke the door of the bathroom and dashed inside.

The Gold Dragon was crying under its breath.

Inside the bathtub painted with blood, the Gold Dragon was crying while its blonde hair refused to be tainted in blood. It all felt unrealistic for a second.

Urgently, Yu Jitae pulled her out and tried to stop her blood. Meanwhile, he shouted as his rage filled him up to the brim of his head.

“Why did you do this. You were fine until just then. We laughed and chatted together, so why…!”

It was a fact he hadn’t known until the third iteration where he didn’t even have the right to get close to a dragon. There was an antecedent to the Gold Dragon’s change.

The dragon hid its emotions.

The tendency to be immersed deeply and empathise as a gold race was instead drowning it into a quagmire. The dragon would hide its emotions over and over again. It was so young and fragile that it didn’t know how to reveal its wounded self and because of that, the shadow formed inside it would gradually rot and crumble.

Perhaps due to that, she always had an uncontrollable urge that erupted out in a self-destructive form.

Why had he ignored such signs?

…Now this was the result.

Cutting the wrist was nothing but a symbolic action. The dragon heart was slowly coming to a stop whilst Yu Jitae persuaded her to his best ability. It was because back then, he didn’t know why she was like that nor where the problem had begun.

The Gold Dragon cut off the Regressor’s words with a nonchalant voice.

“Look, you think I’m the problem as well right? Everyone else was saying that so I thought about it, and I think they’re right. My existence itself was the problem. That’s why I’m regretting it. If I knew I was a bitch like this, I shouldn’t have been loved in the first place.”

Hearing that, Yu Jitae finally realised that the ‘start’ itself was the problem.

All these things should never have occurred in the first place. Slowly, the faint heartbeat distanced away from his ears.

“But you’re no good either. If you wanted to persuade a problem child like me…”

She cried yet again with a frown.

“…You should’ve brought something sweet.”

Then, her heart stopped.

*

Regardless, that was all in the past.

That was why he thought locking them up would solve everything but a problem occurred elsewhere in the fifth and the sixth iterations. In any case, those were also in the past.

“Huung? Whyy? Why why?”

Yu Jitae, who had been blankly indulged in his thoughts, returned to reality. He had just called Kaeul over to the terrace.

“Why are you giving me this?”

Seeing the candy in Yu Jitae’s hand, Kaeul widened her eyes. It was a lollipop with a mix of blue and pink.

“…Eat it.”

“Is it a present? It’s so pretty! How can I eat something so pretty?”

Crunch, munch munch!

Despite saying that, her mouth was honest.

After biting once into the candy, she laughed, “Hihi” from the sweetness. Meanwhile, Yu Jitae carefully talked about what had happened in the past three days and although she was surprised, she calmly nodded her head.

“Kaeul. If there’s something on your mind, no matter what it is and what kind of feeling it is, just say it.”

“Yes.”

“You have to say it to me, okay?”

“Yes yes.”

He laid his hand on top of her head as she slurped on the candy. Her blonde hair that hadn’t been wetted in blood gently tickled his fingers.

“I’ll always be on your side.”

Hearing the echoing heartbeat, Yu Jitae was relieved.

In the end, the past iterations had already gone past, but he had to refrain from making the same mistakes in the upcoming periods of time including right now.

That was when Kaeul murmured while crunching on the candy.

“This is how Bom-unni felt like before, huh…”

What?

“Nn? It’s nothing!”