For dozens, or perhaps for hundreds of years, there had been nothing amusing for the Regressor.
He was in pain and what remained once pain dissipated was irritation. The only source of rare joy was the bizarre pleasure that came whenever he killed demons. It felt similar to the pleasure given by drugs paralysing the tongue with poison.
It was so disgustingly addictive that in some numberless iterations, he would completely forget about the dragons and seek pleasure alone.
Because of that, the Regressor liked this pure sense of amusement. That might perhaps be the reason he was overly excited.
Like a child enjoying a new toy.
“…”
The plea for her life stopped him for a bit.
They were indeed close. Her arms that were stopping Yu Jitae’s approach were half-bent already, and his chin was two palms away from her forehead.
When he stopped, Bom crawled on top of the bed on all fours and distanced herself. She seemed to have regained her composure after doing so, and heaved an extremely deep sigh.
“Firstly, please calm down.”
“You’re the one that should calm down. ‘Let me live’. Is someone trying to kill you?”
“Ahjussi is.”
“So what did you do wrong?”
“No?”
“You did do something wrong, didn’t you.”
“Who?”
Yu Jitae’s upper body closed in yet again.
“Hey.”
Despite the slight stop due to the fluster, she quickly came to herself. Perhaps realising that she couldn’t do this anymore, she covered her eyes with one hand and pushed her other hand in front of his face and opened it into a palm.
It was a small hand.
“Please wait. Pause…!”
Bom was trying to take things under control even in a situation like this.
Yu Jitae wanted to tease and see her being perplexed, but didn’t want to force anything onto her so he obediently paused.
When nothing happened for some time, Bom was about to pull down the hand that was covering her eyes but that was when something strange touched her outstretched hand.
Yu Jitae had placed his cheek onto her palm.
In a fright, she pulled her hand back.
The feeling of his coarse yet soft, human-like cheeks remained vividly on her palm. Covering that hand with her other hand, she asked.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})“…!?”
— She tried to ask but words didn’t come out and she could only close her mouth after opening it. Lowering her chin, she grudgingly glared at him.
“I gave you the signal to stop…”
“Yeah. You did give me the pause signal.”
“But there was a small crash.”
“I still stopped though.”
“…”
“Am I wrong?”
“You know, ahjussi…”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a bit different today.”
“How.”
“So cheeky…”
He was dumbfounded.
Yu Jitae thought for a bit. In order to do what he just did to Bom despite the sloppiness, he had to copy what she herself had said and done in the past. By thinking about how and what she had done, and by looking into her eyes, he used appropriate words to close the distance.
“I’m curious about how you’re feeling.”
“…”
“Do you want me to check your body for you?”
“No.”
“It’s not just today is it. You said it’s been a long time.”
“It should be better by tomorrow.”
“See. Your words are strange already.”
“Sorry?”
“Why can’t you be certain of anything today. Don’t you know when you will get better? That goes beyond feeling bad and it’s not something a green dragon would say.”
“…”
“Come here. Let me touch your head for a bit.”
Confusion appeared in her glaring eyes and she turned stiff like a statue with her knees on the bed. He slowly moved his hand forward, but Bom pulled her body back whenever his hand approached her head.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Hesitation wasn’t fun. The extremely rare sense of amusement made him itching for more.
Hurriedly and suddenly he closed in. An astonished pair of eyes gazed up at him. Right before he placed his hand on top of her head, she pushed her own arms forward and grabbed it.
“Why are you stopping me.”
“Do you, really have to do it…?””
“I’m planning to.”
Her right hand touching his thumb, and her left hand touching his ring finger trembled from nervousness.
“What if, I would rather die…?”
Bom, who was in an unusually bad mood, asked with a quivering voice. Yu Jitae wasn’t delicate enough to consider the reason behind her question but still replied honestly.
“I won’t do it then.”
“Then, I’ll be honest. Ahjussi. I’m about to die right now…”
“Alright then. I wasn’t trying to push you that hard.”
But he couldn’t pull his hand away. Her trembling hands were in fact stopping him for some reason.
What was this about.
The Regressor wondered what was wrong with her, but after revisiting the possible meanings behind ‘I’m about to die’, he came to an absurd proposition – an assumption that he hadn’t even imagined until then.
It was then.
Confusion and perplexity suddenly disappeared from her expression. Leisure soon returned to her eyes and she gently smiled like always.
“Ahjussi.”
This sudden turn of events caused Yu Jitae to stop his hands. It was an extremely familiar turn of events.
“Why do you have to touch my head?”
“It’s easier to tell what the problem is if I’m closer to the mana.”
It was but an excuse. An excuse to make her more perplexed.
“Then wouldn’t it be better if it was closer to the dragon heart?”
“It would be.”
“So the place you should touch won’t be my head, then…?”
Bom looked up at him with an anxious expression and bit her lower lips as if she was scared. Then, she slowly pulled his hand down. From the head to the chin, to the collarbone. And from there… to the especially bulging part of her body revealed by her tight-fitting shirt.
“Oi.”
“I’m fine…”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})A smile appeared in the midst of her anxiety.
It was that same smile.
The one that was full of leisure and playfulness – the smile that caused others to feel perplexed was hanging on her lips, as if everything so far had been a part of her plan.
But Yu Jitae wasn’t perplexed.
He stopped his hand.
“Why…?”
Even the whispers tickling his ears didn’t make him perplexed. The current Bom was somewhat sloppy. It was an instinctive feeling that couldn’t be expressed in words.
“Bom. What are you doing?”
When he drew the line, a crack appeared in her relaxed expression. She slowly let go of his hand and while sitting face-to-face with him, her eyes turned teary.
Seeing that, Yu Jitae felt a slightly bigger sense of amusement than before come crashing in.
Just then, she was acting like she was normal.
“Bom.”
“No…”
“What did you do just then.”
“N, no.”
“You did something. Right?”
“No…! I didn’t do anything, okay…? Ahhh…!”
With her ears flushed red, she hurriedly dived into the blanket and buried her body inside. “Please don’t talk to me. I want to die…” she murmured before pressing the pillow down over her head.
Even then, Yu Jitae talked to her amusedly.
“Were you acting just then? Acting how you’re normally like?”
– ……
“Are my senses telling me the truth right now?”
– ……
Twitch twitch. The pillow wriggled as she protested with her whole body. When he tried to lift both the pillow and the blanket, Bom resisted with all her power. Even then, the blanket was about to be lifted up, so she even flapped her legs in resistance.
– Please don’t tease me…
She sounded like she would cry any time soon and was desperate, so he had no choice but to stop.
He turned the light off.
*
He spent the night with open eyes. At night, he would merely wait for time to pass by without doing or thinking about anything, but a strand of thought barged in through the gap today.
What was causing Bom to feel perplexed. Yu Jitae continued dwelling on that sudden topic.
– Ahjussi.
Bom opened her mouth again after a long time. She was still buried inside the blanket and the pillow, and he looked at the bulge under the blanket.
“Why.”
– There’s a problem.
“What is it.”
– I can’t see Providence.
Yu Jitae, who was blankly staring at the ceiling of the tent, raised his body.
“What?”
– The Eye of Providence was blocked. I can’t see Providence right now.
Only then did he realise what Bom meant by feeling under the weather. This definitely wasn’t a trivial problem.
“Why are you saying that now.”
– …
“Since when was it. And what’s the reason.”
– It’s been a few days. I don’t know the reason either.
“What about your family? Has there been any green dragon like that in your family?”
The pillow twitched. She shook her head.
This was an element that could deviate from daily lives and was something he had never seen before in the previous iterations. After contemplating the situation, Yu Jitae frowned.
He opened his mouth with a lower voice.
“Bom.”
– Yes.
“I don’t really understand. If it’s already been a few days since you weren’t able to see Providence, that’s before you even mentioned the dispatch.”
– Yes.
He scolded her.
“Why would you insist on a dispatch when you’re in that kind of situation. Even if I suggested it, you should’ve stopped me.”
– Yes…
“You should know how to choose the time and place. What in the world were you thinking.”
– …
Her voice became smaller and smaller and soon she turned silent.
More and more words muddled with irritation and worry reared their heads. The Regressor found his own words to be strange, and it took some time for him to realise that he was preaching to someone.
However, his words weren’t over the top considering the things that were on the line.
– Are you angry?
“No. Whatever.”
– You are not angry?
“I’m not. Stop talking nonsense and sleep. We’ll go back as soon as the sun rises tomorrow.”
– Yes.
“And if something like that happens again, you have to tell me straight away. Got it?”
Bom stayed silent for a bit before opening her mouth.
– …The reason I stayed silent.
– Is because I was embarrassed.
“What?”
– Without the Eye of Providence, I’m not a green dragon – I’m just a lizard. We have the same colour as well…
– It was too embarrassing to say that to someone else…
– The other kids don’t know either.
Bom calmly began talking about her inner thoughts. Perhaps it was because she was hiding under the blanket, that her hidden thoughts were being revealed.
– And besides, nothing would have changed even if I told you. The Eye of Providence is unique to our green race and it’s not something others can help with or anything…
She concluded with a powerless voice.
– That’s, just how it is…
His eyes twitched.
“Who said that.”
– Sorry?
“Who said the power to look at Providence was unique to the green dragons.”
– …My father.
To dragons, it was common sense. Bom knew that Yu Jitae was a dangerous being with a high level of status as an existence, but she also knew that being a high-level existence had nothing to do with seeing Providence.
So when she heard Yu Jitae mumble something, she was extremely surprised.
“That must be how it is in your world then.”
In surprise, she stealthily lowered the pillow and lifted her head above the blanket. Her hidden head popped out from the blanket mountain.
“What did you say just then?”
The Regressor refrained from giving explanations. In order to explain it, he had to explain his past and everything he tried for in the previous iterations in search of strength. Such things weren’t the greatest stories to share with Bom.
“Come here. Get up.”
Bom hesitated before standing up from the bed.
Yu Jitae reached out.
“Hold my hand.”
“Why…?”
“Let’s find out together what blocked the Eye of Providence.”
Bom blinked her eyes before carefully holding his pinky by the end.
“How? What’s the principle behind it?”
Dragons synchronised themselves with others’ memories and emotions. The closer the medium to their mana, the faster and deeper will be that connection.
“Don’t try to know too much, and the things that will happen from now on could be a little bit dangerous. Even if you’re scared, trust me and don’t ever let go of my hand.”
“Ah, okay.”
“And don’t say anything to the kids either. Got that?”
“Yes…”
“Alright. I trust you.”
Yu Jitae delicately controlled the mana and made them into walls that surrounded all six sides like a cubical alternate dimension.
Mana started blooming with the beating of his heart. It was extremely immense. Feeling as if an unrealistically enormous statue was closing in, Bom felt her senses being suppressed. Her body flinched unconsciously but she didn’t let go of his hand.
He started using the authority which he had never used completely ever since the start of the 7th iteration.
It was the power to interfere with the world’s Providence. The one which had countlessly flipped the flow of the world that was following the given Providence into the apocalypse.
The one and only authority that allowed his memories and existence to continue.
[Vintage Clock (EX)]
The world started turning upside down with Yu Jitae at the centre.
