Chapter 242 : Chapter 242
Side Story 1. Kalia
Rosie’s hand movements were soft and fluid.
Following the flow of mana, a whirlwind rose in the air, and her red hair began fluttering in the wind.
Then dozens of small spheres formed above Rosie’s palm.
They were colorless shapes invisible to the eye, but I could immediately tell they were masses of highly concentrated mana.
‘Wind Bullets.’
Rosie fired the attack without hesitation.
WHIZZ!
WHIZZ!
At her gesture, the bullets began flying toward me.
Two bullets approached right before my eyes in the blink of an eye.
Their fearsome speed and power made all the senses in my body sharpen on their own.
I quickly bloomed flames in the air and blocked the path of the incoming bullets.
BANG!
BANG!
The two flames and two winds collided, causing explosions one after another.
Beyond the mana haze rising in the air, Rosie’s frowning face appeared.
It seemed she had not expected me to defend against them so easily.
Soon, she fired all the remaining bullets as well.
RATATATAT!
The bullets she fired numbered seventeen in total.
Wind Bullets with different trajectories, speeds, and destructive force began flying in from every direction.
The number of flames I had to create was also seventeen.
Of course, calculating all the variables at once was by no means an easy task.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Wind and flame.
As the two kinds of mana clashed in the air, thunderous sounds burst sporadically, like fireworks going off.
BANG!
A total of sixteen explosions occurred like that.
And then.
SLASH!
In the end, the final bullet grazed my shoulder.
I felt a stinging pain, and a faint laugh escaped me on its own.
“Not bad, Rosie. A Dragon is still a Dragon after all.”
At my words, Rosie flew over to me with a sullen expression.
“You are teasing me, are you not?”
“Of course not. That last one really hurt.”
“You blocked nearly all my attacks using only magic! After doing that, you tell me I am impressive, and you expect me to believe you are not teasing me?”
“You were not doing your best either, Rosie. If you had used a greater attack instead of Wind Bullets, I would not have been able to stop it with magic alone.”
“Hmph!”
Even those words seemed not to comfort Rosie, and she stuck out her lips. I stroked her head.
“I will be counting on you for my magic lessons from now on too, Rosie.”
Only then did she withdraw her pouting lips.
“But Unit Leader Ji-han, do you really need to learn magic? I am teaching you because you asked me to, but I have always wondered about this.”
She was asking rather late.
“Let us say it is similar to how you enjoy Hatchling’s Amusement on Earth.”
Rosie nodded immediately, as if she understood.
“So you really are learning it just for fun.”
It had already been seven years since I took revenge on the Red Dragon.
My days had been peaceful, but after achieving my goal, I felt as though the milestone of my life had disappeared.
I needed a new stimulus.
That was why I had started magic.
I had learned simple things from Rosie before, but this time, my attitude toward magic was somewhat different.
It would be difficult to see the ultimate depths of magic the way I had with swordsmanship, but I intended to reach a certain level.
“But for someone learning it just for fun, you are already quite skilled, Unit Leader Ji-han. Even if you went to the Abyss right now, it would work to some extent.”
“The Abyss……”
The Abyss.
It was a place I had completely stopped visiting for seven years.
Because if I went there again, I felt I would begin to feel lingering attachment to my homeland, Kalia.
For that reason, I had not taken the portal map leading to Kalia out of my Inventory even once.
Of course, that did not mean I could bring myself to get rid of the map either.
“You are someone with so many secrets, Unit Leader Ji-han, so I do not know everything. But there is some story behind it, is there not? The reason you have not gone to the Abyss.”
“Just understand it that way.”
As always, Rosie did not pry.
But today, she brought up something meaningful.
“By the way, Unit Leader Ji-han.”
“Yes.”
“Seven years ago, you killed the Red Dragon, did you not?”
“That is unexpected. I thought you would never ask for the rest of your life.”
In truth, not mentioning what had happened seven years ago was an unspoken promise between the two of us.
Rosie was the only being who knew that I had gone to the Red Dragon’s Nest.
She could likely guess well enough what had happened there.
Even so, she had never asked me about it even once.
For seven whole years, she had treated me as she always had, as if nothing had happened, and I had not brought it up either.
Rosie had broken that long-standing unspoken rule at a very sudden moment.
It was probably not something she had said without a reason.
“Yes. I killed him.”
I answered honestly.
It was something we both knew even without saying it aloud.
“So Unit Leader Ji-han really did kill one of my kin.”
“Do Dragons perhaps have some rule that says they must take revenge?”
Rosie had remained silent for seven years, but I had thought several times that such a thing might be the case.
“Not necessarily.”
“So they usually do.”
“That is not it either. It is extremely rare for a Dragon to be killed by another being.”
“True.”
Even Rosie, who was only a Hatchling, had no equal on Earth.
Let alone an adult Dragon. Taking one down alone was almost impossible. Even if the scale of the raid party reached the level of a nation, it would by no means be easy.
“But long before I was born, so more than a thousand years ago, I heard that a Silver Dragon was killed on one continent. By the Dark Elves.”
“And?”
“They say the enraged Silver Dragons annihilated the Dark Elves. Even Dark Elves from other worlds who had nothing to do with it.”
“Why are you telling me this story now?”
“Because I think the Red Dragons are about to draw the blade of vengeance this time.”
“Do you have grounds for that?”
“Yes. The movements of the Red Dragons seem unusual. Dragons can vaguely sense such things among themselves.”
As expected.
Rosie had not brought up the story from seven years ago for no reason.
“But now, after all this time?”
“To a Dragon, seven years is only an instant.”
True. Since they were beings with lifespans more than a hundred times longer than humans, their sense of time was bound to be different.
“Then are you saying the Red Dragons are coming to Earth?”
“No. The killer of their kin has not even been identified yet. However……”
“However?”
“They will likely go first to the place where Red Dragon Devrias left his final trace.”
I had no choice but to ask quickly.
“Are you certain about what you are saying?”
“I cannot say it is absolutely certain, but I think the possibility is quite high. Well, at least it is not Earth, so that is a relief, is it not?”
“……”
“Still, I thought Unit Leader Ji-han should know. Because a harmless world might be destroyed because of the Red Dragons’ misunderstanding.”
The problem was that the misunderstanding had arisen because of me.
And there was one even greater problem.
The place where Red Dragon Devrias had left his final trace.
It was none other than my homeland, Kalia.
‘So I have to go there at least once after all?’
I felt something like the pull of fate.
***
Over the past seven years, several changes had taken place in the Haewon Sword Family.
One of them was that after I completely removed myself from the affairs of the Sword Family, the succession structure of the Haewon Sword Family narrowed into a competition between the eldest son and the second son.
Father still seemed unable to abandon his lingering attachment to me, but my will was firm.
I had decided to remain only as the shadow of the Haewon Sword Family, assisting from behind.
In truth, I thought this was right.
From Earth’s perspective, the existence called Johan Raven, who had come from another world, was an invasive species.
Most of all, now that I had regained all of my former power, it was even less acceptable for me to personally step to the forefront.
‘Well, I have already had a great deal of influence.’
The representative example was Chamryongdan.
This, too, was one of the greatest changes that had happened in the Haewon Sword Family.
Chamryongdan had already gone beyond the Haewon Sword Family and become the finest sword unit in South Korea.
Even after I stepped down as Unit Leader, Chamryongdan’s prestige did not decline.
In terms of numbers, Chamryongdan was no longer at the level of a mere sword unit, and in quality, every member was evaluated as an elite.
The current Unit Leader of Chamryongdan was Choi Ho-joong.
He, too, had now become a fairly important figure.
I heard that in terms of protocol, he was treated on equal footing with the Family Head of most Sword Families.
“Ho-joong!”
“Yes, Unit Leader!”
Of course, when it was just the two of us, he was still simply Ho-joong to me.
He still called me Unit Leader, and I had no particular aversion to that.
After all, it was far better than being called young master.
“Has it already been four years since you married Ah-yeon?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And yet it seems you still have no plans for children.”
“Th-that is……”
“Surely the problem is not with you, is it?”
“Of course not! Absolutely not!”
Denying it so fiercely only made him look more suspicious.
“Then what is the problem?”
“Ah-yeon still has a strong desire to improve her swordsmanship.”
“……So that was it?”
I also knew that the gap in skill between the two of them had widened after their marriage.
Before being husband and wife, the two had long been rivals.
Even before that, they had gone back and forth, taking turns pulling ahead and falling behind, but the gap had rarely widened by much, and even when it did, the period had not lasted long.
However, after their marriage, that balance had broken.
It was not that Shin Ah-yeon was lacking. Rather, it felt as though Choi Ho-joong had sprouted wings. And once his momentum came alive, there was no stopping it.
“I should set aside a day sometime and personally look over Ah-yeon’s swordsmanship.”
“To tell the truth, I wanted to ask you that long ago.”
“Why did you not?”
“Because I did not know what Ah-yeon would think. She might feel that her pride had been wounded……”
As he said that, Ho-joong scratched his head.
“What is this? You have been married for four years, and you still cannot read your wife’s mind?”
“That is a problem that would not be solved even after forty years, let alone four. Then again, you have never been married, Unit Leader, so you would not know.”
“What?”
“And you likely do not know much about women either.”
This fellow was trying to cross the line right in front of me.
“You think I do not know women?”
“You have not had any woman you were particularly involved with even after passing thirty, have you?”
“How would you know that?”
“Am I not your eternal right-hand man, Unit Leader? I know everything about you.”
He was wrong.
It was true that I had walked a single path devoted to swordsmanship my entire life, but even I had loved once.
It was a very old memory, far beyond the edge of recollection.
“In any case, after I return from a trip, I should meet Ah-yeon.”
“Huh? You are going on a trip? I do not think you mentioned anything like that.”
“I am not in a position where I have to report everything to you one by one.”
“Th-that is true, but still! Where are you going? Overseas? Or somewhere domestic?”
“Neither.”
At my answer, Choi Ho-joong looked puzzled.
“There is something I forgot.”
“S-surely!”
Only then did he seem to understand.
“I am going to visit the Abyss.”
“Are you serious?”
“I may be gone for a while.”
A trip to the Abyss for the first time in seven years.
A soft excitement was blooming inside me, as if I were about to go on a picnic.