“Don’t worry too much. I was just teasing her a little. I had no intention of tormenting her. I plan to properly apologize and make it up to her.”
Yujin was sincere. It was a misunderstanding that wouldn’t last long anyway. After all, Yujin wasn’t actually a dark mage, nor did he know anything about them.
When the misunderstanding eventually cleared up, he planned to sincerely apologize to her and make proper amends. Of course, by then, she would surely harbor a deep grudge against him…
But so what?
Yujin had never been particularly close to others to begin with. A little resentment wouldn’t cause him any problems.
[Of course, I’m not scolding you. It’s not uncommon for dragons to indulge in amusements that affect mortals.]
“Is that so?”
[The very nature of the games dragons play is to seek new stimulation in their otherwise monotonous, transcendent lives. Influencing mortals or being influenced by them isn’t strange at all, is it? Countless mortals interact and influence each other as part of their lives, so there’s no rule saying we can’t do the same.]
“That’s true.”
[If this is your own kind of amusement, I won’t berate you for it. It’s not as though you’re causing any significant harm to the mortals. I was just a bit surprised. In some ways, you seem endlessly mature and detached…]
“Are you saying I’m malicious?”
Yujin spoke with a laugh. Tiamat responded with a peculiar expression.
[I’m just saying… your personality is a bit mean, that’s all.]
“Isn’t that the same thing? Well, I’ll admit it. I don’t think I have a particularly good personality either.”
Yujin said this with a light laugh.
“Now that I think about it, it reminds me of something from the past. It happened back on Earth. There were some kids who particularly disliked me.”
[Kids who disliked you?]
“It’s nothing serious. It must’ve been… around two years after my parents passed away.”
[……]
At the mention of his parents’ passing, Tiamat fell silent for a moment. It was only natural; the topic was inevitably a sad one.
After receiving her silence, Yujin continued speaking.
“Even back then, I was following my parents’ final words. ‘Yujin, don’t let others know what you’re thinking.’ ‘Always hide yourself and grow into an adult’. Things like that. They told me that revealing my true feelings in this society would be a fatal weakness, so I should never expose them to anyone carelessly…”
[……]
“When I became a middle school student, it was the same. I never revealed my true thoughts; I was always smiling and never showing my eyes. I made sure no one could figure out what I was thinking. Using formal speech also became a habit of mine around that time. But that was an extremely peculiar and unusual trait among kids back then. Many of them avoided me, saying I made them uncomfortable.”
Yujin continued speaking as if recounting an old story he no longer cared much about.
“By the way, did I mention that Earth started having gates and beings called Awakeners around that time?”
[You did. A world without mana or the four great powers… truly a fascinating world.]
“Not anymore, of course. Anyway, by the time I turned 14, it had become common practice to separate Awakened kids from non-Awakened ones for education. In short, I lived among Awakened kids. And, as you can imagine, when kids at that age suddenly gain superhuman powers, they naturally want to show off.”
[So, what you’re saying is…]
“Well, with no parents and already being avoided by other kids, I became an easy target. Of course, there were non-Awakened kids they could’ve picked on, but back then, if an Awakener used their powers on a non-Awakener, they’d be taken away without any excuse, even if they were underage. Naturally, the target shifted to someone like me who was considered easy to deal with as an Awakener and a mage.”
[……]
Tiamat’s expression stiffened at those words. Whether or not Yujin noticed her growingly cold demeanor, he continued.
“Haha, I still vividly remember being dragged off and beaten almost every day. It’s an old story now, though.”
[…And then?]
Tiamat’s voice had grown icy for some reason. Yujin who was a little puzzled carried on.
“Well, I couldn’t just keep letting them have their way, could I? So I came up with a rather… interesting idea.”
[An interesting idea?]
“Nothing too special. I simply introduced my friends, who were eager to show off their strength, to a suitable place for it.”
Yujin thought back to that time. Looking back, it had been a rather dangerous move.
“I took them all to a gate where monsters appeared. It was the perfect place to show off their powers, wasn’t it?”
[……]
“They were all strangely terrified, so I asked them why they were being so serious.”
Even now, Yujin vividly remembered their flustered faces as he laughed while recounting the memory.
“As a joke, I tripped the friends who tried to run away using telekinesis, and I coaxed them to fight while laughing … Thinking back on it now, it’s all just a fond memory. Haha.”
[……]
“Ever since that day, no one has dared to mess with me. But maybe because that memory was so fun, I started playing similar little ‘pranks’ on others from time to time. Eventually, the guild even created a dedicated board on VPN just for my incidents and accidents.”
Looking back, Yujin’s tendency to be subtly avoided within the guild might have been due, at least in part, to his mischievous pranks.
…In fact, more than 70% of the reasons he was avoided were directly tied to those “pranks”.
Not that he was aware of it himself.
Tiamat, who had been watching him in a daze for a moment, eventually let out a wry smile and said,
[I thought you were nothing but mature… but it turns out you have a more troublemaking side than I expected.]
“Haha, did I really seem that mature in your eyes, Tia?”
When Yujin said that, Tiamat gave another wry smile and looked at him.
She had discovered an unexpected side of him, but her gaze toward Yujin still carried the same warmth as always.
She spoke.
[Still, you did well. You can’t just sit back and take it forever. Teaching them a lesson in return is pretty satisfying.]
“I did get scolded by my teacher for recklessly entering the gate, though.”
Yujin spent some time chatting warmly with Tiamat and sharing stories.
They laughed and talked until the sun rose the next day. Their faces were bright with smiles.
***
Meanwhile, Reina was currently…
I was wrong! He really is a dark mage!
Looking back, the fact that he had sealed not just anything, but the demonic power of a demon, should have raised suspicions. She should have questioned how something like that was even possible.
But thinking that the princess’s condition had improved, she had brushed it off too lightly. That was a mistake.
But could it really be true? That the demonic power festers and rots like pus?
She didn’t know. Completely sealing a foreign energy residing in someone else’s body wasn’t something she’d ever heard of before. Even as a professor of magic studies, Reina couldn’t be sure whether suppressed demonic power would behave like pus forming in a wound.
Still, it didn’t seem entirely impossible. If the energy hadn’t been extracted from the body but was instead forcibly suppressed and sealed within, no one could predict the side effects of that suppression.
It might ultimately run wild inside the host’s body, or it could cause other harmful effects.
One thing was clear: as long as that dark mage was targeting the princess, the seal was unlikely to have any positive effects.
She needed to report this to the Headmistress immediately. And she had to detain Yujin to find a solution to the problem.
Reina, with that thought in mind, made her way quickly to the Headmistress’s office.
Bang!
“Headmistress!”
“Professor Reina?”
Reina threw open the door to the office and called out to Ines, who had been inside. Startled, Ines turned to face her in confusion.
“What’s going on all of a sudden? Why are you in such a rush?”
“Headmistress! We need to apprehend Han Yujin immediately!”
Reina’s urgent words, spoken without any preamble, left the Headmistress stunned.
Apprehend? Who? …A dragon?
…Did she eat something strange?
“Headmistress!”
“My hearing is fine, so calm down and explain. Did you just say we need to apprehend Professor Yujin?”
With a slightly stiff expression, the Headmistress looked at Reina and asked. Seeing her reaction, Reina couldn’t help but feel a little taken aback.
The Headmistress is looking at me with that kind of expression?
Reina Sahart was the Headmistress’s closest confidant. The Headmistress trusted her deeply, and Reina was equally loyal to the Headmistress.
Of course, bursting into the office unannounced, flinging the door open, and blurting out such an outrageous statement was indeed rude. However, under normal circumstances, the Headmistress would have first asked for an explanation before reacting.
But the current Headmistress seemed to show faint traces of displeasure at Reina’s claim that Yujin needed to be apprehended.
Sensing this, Reina felt a strange and chilling sense of foreboding creep up her spine. With a desperate look on her face, she spoke.
“Headmistress, you must listen to me. Han Yujin is a dark mage!”
“I thought we had already put that matter to rest. Why are you bringing it up again all of a sudden…?”
“He revealed his true nature right in front of me! The fact that he sealed the princess’s demonic power wasn’t to help suppress it; it was to let it fester and cause even greater harm later on!”
“What? What are you talking about…?”
The Headmistress was so taken aback that she couldn’t even finish her sentence.
Of course, the Headmistress knew that Yujin wasn’t a dark mage. After all, wasn’t he a supreme transcendent being, a dragon, far beyond comparison to something as insignificant as cockroach-like dark mages?
And yet, Professor Reina who was standing before her now didn’t seem to be lying. Reina wasn’t someone who would lie to her in the first place, and above all, there was no reason for her to suddenly burst in and spout something like this.
The Headmistress paused to think. What exactly was going on in this situation?
…Come to think of it, Sir Yujin does appear in the form of a human.
Dragons, the magnificent transcendent beings.
Having lived through eons, they sometimes disguised themselves as mortals and mingled among them in search of new experiences to break up the monotony of their endless lives.
A sort of amusement.
Perhaps this situation was also part of such an amusement. Maybe Yujin had staged it, pretending to be a dark mage in front of Reina just to deceive her…
If that were the case, then this situation made sense. Accepting this conclusion, the Headmistress nodded her head slightly and spoke.
“…Alright, I understand. I’ll look into it myself, so for now, step back.”
“Headmistress! We need to apprehend him right now…”
“How do you expect me to apprehend him without any evidence? Calm yourself for now. This behavior isn’t like you.”
“……”
At those words, Reina froze and hesitated for a moment before stepping back.
“Take a moment to calm down and leave this to me. I’ll handle the rest.”
“…Understood.”
With that, Reina left the Headmistress’s office.
Ines who was now alone in the office let out a deep sigh.
“A dark mage, huh… Sir Yujin, you’ve chosen quite a troublesome form of amusement this time…”
She sighed heavily and decided to contact Yujin first.
Leave a Reply