TDGHR 44

Chapter 44

Oppa, All Women Are Wolves

Sia called at an exquisitely timed moment.

I was in the middle of eating, so it was hardly a good time to answer the phone, but even I could not guarantee what might happen if I ignored her call right now.

After excusing myself, I stepped away from the table for a moment to answer Sia. Just before picking up, I swallowed nervously, wondering what she was going to say.

“Yeah, Sia.”

[Oppa, what are you doing right now?]

“I was eating.”

[What have you been talking about with that unnie?]

“I haven’t been talking to Yuna noona alone. Given the kind of gathering this is, we’ve mostly been talking about the old days.”

I told Sia everything we had talked about so far without leaving anything out. I was not sure whether I should mention this part, but I even told her that Yuna noona and I used to eat jajangmyeon together after work when we were children.

I knew there was nothing to gain from telling her, but it would still be far better than keeping quiet now and having Sia hear about it later from someone else.

Fortunately, she did not seem as uncomfortable as I had expected.

As I was about to briefly explain the rest of what had happened, Sia apparently felt bad about calling in the middle of my meal and said,

[I called at a bad time while you were eating. Oppa, call me when the meeting is over.]

“Yeah, I will. Enjoy your lunch too.”

[But Oppa.]

I was just about to end the call with a sigh of relief when Sia asked one more question.

[What is that unnie wearing today? And how is her makeup?]

‘…Why is she suddenly asking that?’

I had absolutely no idea what the test maker intended with this question, but I decided to answer based on what I had noticed.

“She just looks dressed like she normally would. I think she put in a little more effort than when we saw her at the restaurant last time, but it doesn’t feel like she went all-out or anything.”

I knew absolutely nothing about the worlds of women’s makeup or fashion, but that was the impression I had gotten.

As I answered, I thought carefully about why Sia had asked. And as far as I could tell, she wanted to know whether noona had deliberately dressed up to seduce me.

If I had said, ‘She’s wearing full makeup and looks like she put a ton of effort into her clothes,’ maybe Sia would have raised her guard against Yuna noona even further.

But whatever else might be true, judging only by her clothes, I could not see that kind of intention at all.

Trying to ease Sia’s suspicions, I added, “From what I can tell, she really just came here to have a meal today.”

[No!]

Sia suddenly raised her voice, startling me.

[Girls who just turned twenty or beginners are the ones who use heavy colors and make it obvious they’re wearing full makeup. Women like that unnie are the dangerous ones. They use lighter colors so you can’t tell they’re fully made up… Haa.]

‘What? Is there some hidden world of women I know nothing about?’

I still did not really understand, but judging by Sia’s reaction, I felt like I had said the wrong thing.

[So Oppa, all women are wolves. Be careful.]

‘Isn’t it men who are supposed to be wolves?’

Before I could question her, Sia left me with one final sentence and ended the call.

[Now go eat for real. You must be hungry, Oppa.]

…I had no idea why I felt so uneasy.

When I returned to the table, the conversation had continued in my absence. As soon as I sat down, Mom asked, “Who was on the phone?”

“Sia.”

Yuna noona subtly joined in and asked, “Your girlfriend? I’d like to see her again sometime.”

I did not think Sia felt the same way at all.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? She seemed cute, pretty, and nice. I just want to get along with her.”

“Our Sia is all of those things.”

At the compliment toward her future daughter-in-law, Mom nodded with a motherly smile.

“Come visit my restaurant with your girlfriend sometime. Oh, and I think I said this before too. I’m retired now, but as your senior in the hunter world, I’ll help with anything I can. Want to spar sometime?”

“Spar?”

“Yeah. I was a fairly promising A-rank hunter back in the day. I’m sure it would help both you and your girlfriend a lot.”

‘A spar, huh?’

How dumbfounded would Sia be if she heard that?

From Yuna noona’s perspective, setting everything else aside, she was probably sincerely offering guidance to a junior hunter. But since I knew the truth, I could only laugh inwardly.

“Thanks for looking out for me.”

Still, I doubted either Sia or I would ever spar with noona.

And if something like that ever did happen, I would honestly be more worried about Yuna noona, who would be sparring against Sia.

“Yuna really does have a big-sister side to her. Look how well she takes care of her little brother.”

Mom watched us with a pleased expression.

From the outside, I supposed it could look that way. I wondered if she would still think the same if she knew everything hidden beneath the surface.

In any case, after talking at length for quite a while longer, we finished our meal and left the restaurant.

The moment we stepped outside, Yuna noona asked Mom, “Mother, have you heard of four-cut photos?”

“Oh, those photo booths young people like these days?”

“Yes. Since we’re meeting again after so long, should we take one together to remember it?”

She pointed to a photo booth across the street.

I rarely took those kinds of pictures except with Sia, but I knew people who liked them took them whenever they had the chance. So I understood that this was a perfectly natural suggestion.

At the same time, I also knew that if Sia saw this scene even by chance, she would probably shout, ‘How dare that fox bitch!’ while grabbing Yuna noona by the hair.

But did I have any excuse to say I did not want to take a picture? Not really.

“Sounds great! I was already thinking the four of us should take a picture together.”

“I’ve wanted to try one too. Let’s go.”

Mom and Yuna noona’s mother both loved the idea, and once again I ended up completely caught in noona’s plan.

Only after taking the pictures and then going to a café for even more conversation did the schedule finally seem close to ending.

“It’s been so long since we met. It feels like such a shame to part already.”

“I know. Unnie, I’m staying in Korea another month or two before going back, so call me later!”

Mom and Yuna noona’s mother said their goodbyes reluctantly. While they did, Yuna noona stepped closer to me.

“Come visit the restaurant with your girlfriend sometime. She seemed to like our food when I saw her last time.”

“…Uh, yeah.”

If noona were not the owner, Sia probably would have been the first one asking to go.

“Ah, Minjun. That business card I gave you last time… did you lose it?”

“Huh?”

“I told you to contact me, but you never did, so I wondered if you’d lost it.”

I could not exactly tell her I had given it to Sia, so I decided to lie.

“Ah, right. Now that I think about it, it must’ve fallen out of my pocket.”

At that answer, Yuna noona joked, “I was worried you didn’t call because you couldn’t stand the sight of me,” then held out her hand.

“Give me your phone. I’ll put my number in.”

Swept along by the flow of the moment, I handed her my phone. She entered her number and even pressed the call button before giving it back to me.

“I’ll contact you later. Let’s grab a meal sometime.”

The whole process had been so smooth and natural that I could only think, I got played.

Every part of the situation had been designed too naturally.

In the end, everyone except me sincerely promised to meet again, and the gathering finally came to a close.

I called Sia and reported absolutely everything that had happened that day.

Seriously, I had not done anything wrong, so why did I feel this nervous?

As soon as I finished talking, Sia proposed something in an extremely dry tone that gave away none of her emotions.

[Oppa. Let’s eat dinner together later over video call.]

Because of our circumstances, we rarely had the chance to meet in person for meals, so ever since our reunion we had occasionally eaten like this over video call to create the feeling of sharing a meal together.

“Sounds good.”

Yet Sia’s expression when she asked me to eat with her looked clearly different from usual. No matter how much I thought about it, I felt like something was going on.

I had spent a long time with Sia, but understanding a woman’s heart still seemed like an incredibly difficult task.

And that evening, by sheer coincidence, the menu Sia prepared for dinner was jajangmyeon.

Sia claimed it was only a coincidence, but I knew better.

There was absolutely no way it was.

* * *

The next day, after participating in an early-morning gate raid, I stopped by Rokan’s lair around evening.

Rokan had suggested that since I had used Dragon Tongue and received a new sword, we should spar once and see how things had changed.

After I arrived, we exchanged only a brief greeting before the spar began without giving me any time to rest.

“The method will be similar to last time. I will only defend, while you attack me with your sword. There is, however, one minor change.”

Rokan drew a sword from his subspace.

“This sword has changed.”

During our previous spar, he had used a wooden sword. This time, it looked as though he intended to use a real blade.

He declared that, just like before, he would not attack and would only defend. Still, it was a real sword rather than a wooden one, so I could not help feeling a little nervous.

As he had during our first spar, Rokan used Dragon Tongue to move us to an unknown field, and the match began.

I still remembered the basic keywords, will and domination, but what came after that was now the problem.

Some time had passed since I first began handling dragon power, and I had even succeeded in using Dragon Tongue. A sense of pressure rose inside me, insisting that I needed to show something different from before.

Maybe Rokan had chosen a real sword because he had guessed that was how I felt.

“Then let us begin.”

Rokan, sword in hand, gestured for me to come at him. I steadied my breathing and began recalling the sensations from the moment I had used Dragon Tongue, focusing on one thing: the desperate determination to survive.

Perhaps the word “desperate” did not suit dragons very well. Dragons were revered from birth as the strongest beings on the surface, after all.

Until now, I had assumed the dragon will used for Dragon Tongue referred to a lofty concept like domination.

But when I thought back to the times I had properly manifested dragon power, that did not seem to be the whole story.

Every time I had momentarily amplified the dragon power dormant inside me, there had first been an absolute will to survive.

Did dragons ever use Dragon Tongue with such desperate determination simply to stay alive?

Even if they did, such cases had to be extraordinarily rare.

Perhaps understanding that difference was one of the walls I would have to overcome.

“You seem to have a great deal on your mind.”

Although the spar had already begun, I had not swung my sword and was still organizing my thoughts, prompting Rokan to speak.

“Whenever I think about a power I don’t understand, I can’t help it.”

Maybe exchanging a few strikes with Rokan would help me find at least part of the answer to those questions.

The instant I finished speaking, I kicked off the ground with all my strength and charged him.

It was faint enough that someone would miss it without looking closely, but ever since what had happened in the Garden of Dragon Swords, a slight light had begun to cling to my blade.

Of course, it was nowhere near the aurora-colored sword aura I had seen before. The glow was extremely faint and closer to pale gray.

Still, this was proof that I had grown.

Rokan lightly knocked aside my first strike and smiled in satisfaction.

“You have certainly improved.”

“I’d have no right to face you if I hadn’t.”

I twisted the direction of my sword and thrust quickly, hoping to surprise him, but once again Rokan cleanly parried it without moving from his spot.

After we exchanged several more blows, he nodded with a satisfied expression.

Of course, no absurd miracle occurred where my sword somehow reached one of Rokan’s vital points.

“You used to complain that you had no idea what dragon power even was, but now I can feel that you have begun to understand it, even if only vaguely.”

“You can feel even that…?”

I had not told Rokan yet, but during this latest gate raid, I had finally managed to sense at least a little of what this dragon power flowing through my body actually was.

It was a very strange sensation to describe.

Maybe it was like becoming faintly aware of the blood that flowed nonstop through my body. Feeling something that should normally be impossible to perceive was incredibly fresh and unfamiliar.

Before, I had not even known where to begin. Perhaps it was because I had experienced two major incidents since then.

Now I felt as though I was finally starting to grasp, however vaguely, what this “dragon power” really was.

Of course, whatever I had understood and experienced was probably no more than the tip of the iceberg.

Even so, during today’s gate raid, I had clearly felt that I had grown another step.

“Because I am a dragon.”

There was no arguing with that short answer.

Taking advantage of the opening, I suddenly swung my sword in a wide arc again, but naturally, Rokan’s blade blocked mine.

There was one difference from before, however. Instead of stopping my sword while remaining in place, Rokan had moved one step as he defended.

It might look like nothing to someone else, but I knew that forcing even that single step from him was an impressive achievement.

Rokan knew it too and smiled at me with obvious pride.

“One more hour.”

“Pardon?”

“Let us spar for one more hour. After that, I will give you some good news.”

“Good news…?”

‘Can’t you just tell me now?’

More importantly, he expected me to keep sparring like this for another hour?

I was moving nonstop in every direction while swinging my sword along different trajectories. Even a hunter would inevitably collapse from exhaustion after doing this continuously for an hour.

To put it another way, it would feel like playing an entire forty-minute basketball game and then continuing at full speed until a full hour had passed, without a single break.

I understood that our sparring needed to be intense, but I was just about to cautiously ask whether this had crossed into outright abuse when Rokan dropped a shocking statement.

“I intend to turn that dungeon you call the ‘Garden of Dragon Swords’ into your personal training ground.”

“…What?”