Chapter 58

Oppa, How Do You Like It Here?

“Rokan, are you saying you’re going to create a guild yourself?”

His bombshell declaration snapped Minjun fully awake.

He had been debating whether he should join a guild, but Rokan creating one himself? That option had never once crossed his mind.

Minjun did not know much about this field, but creating and running a guild had to come with an enormous number of things to manage. If he were in Rokan’s position, he did not think he would go so far as to make a guild just for this.

But as though he had expected Minjun’s reaction, Rokan explained why he had decided to do it.

“First of all, I’ve thought before that it might be interesting to try running a guild myself at least once. I enjoyed many kinds of amusement before coming to this world, but I’ve never lived the life of a manager.”

Dragons naturally enjoyed experiencing different lives through their amusements. Something that made a human wonder, ‘Why bother?’ could therefore look like an interesting form of entertainment to a dragon.

When Minjun still did not seem to understand, Rokan added, “Don’t you humans have management simulation games?”

Hearing that made Minjun realize that, from Rokan’s perspective, he really might see it that way. It was simply a simulation game on a slightly larger scale.

“I’d only vaguely thought I might try it someday. What made me decide to actually do it was what you told me.”

Seeing Minjun struggle with whether to join a guild had reminded him of that old idea.

“In your case, following the training Shasha and I design for you is the most efficient approach. But as I’ve said before, that doesn’t mean you can neglect real combat experience.”

Simply training over and over would not be as efficient as honing his dragon power while continuing to experience real battles. The problem was that the stronger Minjun became, the harder it would be to find gates he could raid without belonging to a guild.

He was caught between two incompatible needs.

“So I thought this might be a good opportunity to create a guild. If I do, you won’t need to worry about that problem anymore.”

Rokan was completely right about the situation. If Minjun joined a guild he created himself, Rokan could give him enough flexibility to participate in gate raids according to his training schedule. Depending on the circumstances, with Rokan’s support Minjun might even be able to enter A-rank gates rather than limiting himself to B-rank ones and gain more experience.

“That’s true. Thank you… truly, thank you.”

“Didn’t I just tell you? Even before meeting you, I had wanted to try managing a guild one day. I’m doing this partly for myself, so there is no need to thank me separately.”

Rokan smiled warmly as though it were nothing. Then a thought occurred to Minjun.

“Rokan, about your plan to create a guild. Have you told Sia yet?”

“No. I haven’t mentioned it to her.”

“Then…”

Minjun suddenly remembered the last time Sia and he had spoken. She had wanted to tell him herself that she participated in the dungeon remodeling, and she had also wanted to be the one to reveal that the work was finished instead of Rokan. When Minjun told her Rokan had already given him the news, her disappointment had been obvious.

“No, I haven’t told Shasha yet.”

“Then could you tell her to give me the news? I’ll pretend I never heard it from you.”

“You have a surprisingly romantic side, don’t you?”

Rokan did not know the exact story behind what had happened between Sia and Minjun, but apparently he understood his intention well enough and nodded.

“Very well. You must be tired, so go home and get some rest.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Rokan saw Minjun all the way home.

Minjun did not even have the energy to shower and immediately sprawled out on the floor. He could have sworn they had left around lunchtime, but when he checked the clock, it was already well past nine at night.

He was hungry but did not even have enough energy to eat, which showed just how brutally hard today’s training had been. This would probably happen every time he trained from now on.

He wanted to simply fall asleep where he was, but he at least needed to wash off the sweat, so he took a quick shower and lay down in bed.

As he was lying there before going to sleep, an idea suddenly came to him: maybe their next date should be at the place where he had trained today.

If Sia had personally helped design the space that way, it had to hold special meaning for her. Besides, Minjun wanted to hear more of her stories. We had talked about many things since reuniting, but he realized he had not actually heard much detail about the life she had lived as the dragon ‘Shasha.’

He decided to call her before bed and ask whether she wanted to change their plans for the week. It was not even ten yet, so she probably was not asleep.

The moment he called, Sia answered.

[Oppa! You trained with Grandfather today, right? How was it?]

Apparently, she had already heard from Rokan, because that was the first thing she asked.

“It made me realize what hell must be like.”

With a deliberately exaggerated complaint, Minjun told her about what happened during training.

“But the scenery was way too beautiful to call it hell. What kind of hell looks like that? I barely got to rest and spent the whole time training in such a nice place, so that was a little disappointing.”

[Hmm, I see. Did Grandfather tell you what the scenery was modeled after?]

“No. He didn’t. Where is it from?”

Rokan had actually told him the moment they arrived. But Minjun wanted to see Sia excitedly explain it herself, so he decided to lie. He should probably ask Rokan to play along after this call.

[Oh, he didn’t tell you. Oppa, want to guess?]

Once he said he did not know, Sia turned it into a quiz, apparently hoping he would figure it out.

“Hmm, let’s see. I think there are mountains in China that look a little similar. Was it inspired by somewhere like that? Or maybe… was it where you used to live?”

[That’s right! How did you know?]

Sia clapped in surprise, and without even wetting his lips, Minjun shamelessly lied.

“I just know you that well.”

[They say lovers can understand each other without words. Maybe that’s why you knew right away. How was it there, Oppa? Tell me more.]

She eagerly pressed him for a more detailed opinion of the scenery, so Minjun told her exactly how he had felt.

“…That’s why I thought I’d like to go there with you at least once. Rather than training in such a beautiful place, I wondered what it’d be like to have a date there.”

[Why didn’t I think of that? Oppa, should we have our date there this week?]

That had been what Minjun planned to suggest, but Sia liked the idea so much that she brought it up first.

“What about the date we already planned for this week?”

[We can go there later. If you’re okay with it, we can just postpone it. Or we could keep this week’s plan and have a picnic there next week instead.]

Sia said either option was fine and that she would respect his decision.

The route they had already planned was not bad, but there was also nothing wrong with following the feeling while it was fresh.

“Then let’s do the picnic this week. We’ll go to the place we originally planned some other time.”

[Mm-hm! I’ll pack gimbap and sandwiches so it really feels like a picnic.]

“Then I’ll bring the picnic mat and fruit.”

[Oh, Oppa. Make tteokbokki too!]

“No problem.”

Seeing how excited Sia was made Minjun glad he had brought up the idea. He was already looking forward to the date.

✦ ✦ ✦

At last, the long-awaited day of their date arrived.

At the appointed time, Minjun entered the training ground modeled after Sia’s homeland. Calling it a training ground felt almost wrong when the scenery was this beautiful. Knowing it was a virtual space connected to a royal tomb was slightly eerie, but even seeing it again, the place was breathtaking.

It was beautiful enough to make him completely forget what this place had originally been.

He found himself wondering whether, if it was possible, he might someday visit the world where Sia had been born and raised as a dragon. Not right now, of course. Maybe after he had learned to fully wield the dragon power inside him.

From the perspective of Sia’s parents in this life, if their precious daughter traveled to another dimension and eventually brought back a plain human saying, ‘This is the man I want to marry,’ it might feel a little strange. It would probably be better to mention the idea to Sia only after he had become dragon-like enough to be accepted by other dragons.

Of course, Minjun did not even know whether crossing into that world was possible for him in the first place. Even if Sia knew dimensional travel magic, traveling dimensions alone and bringing another person with her could be completely different matters.

In any case, after slowly taking in the scenery, Minjun spread out a picnic mat in a spot with a good view before Sia arrived. He was putting the tteokbokki he had brought into a nice serving dish when he heard her voice.

“Oppa! I’m here!”

Sia appeared wearing a beige sweater and ivory pants. The outfit itself was simple, but perhaps because Sia made anything look good, it suited her beautifully.

As always, the moment she saw him, she ran straight over and threw herself into his arms. Minjun hugged her tightly and gently patted her back.

“I missed you.”

“Me too. I don’t know why one week felt so long.”

“I know. This week was so chaotic that I think I missed you even more, Oppa.”

She was right about how chaotic it had been. So many things had happened since their reunion that both Sia and Minjun had barely had a chance to catch their breath.

“And you were probably exhausted helping Grandfather remodel this place.”

“Yeah. We even checked everything one last time to make sure there weren’t any problems. Once the inspection was finished and I looked around the whole place, it really was beautiful.”

“I know. I think I said this before, but it’s genuinely gorgeous. Knowing you grew up looking at scenery like this in that other world makes me happy too.”

How many places on Earth could boast a view like this?

“You know, when I first saw it, I reacted just like you did. The first time I left the lair, I never imagined even the front yard could be this beautiful. My jaw actually dropped.”

Remembering something from long ago, Sia’s gaze became distant.

“Do you know what I thought the first time I saw that view?”

“What?”

“I thought I wanted to show this beautiful scenery to you too, Oppa.”

Sia looked out at the landscape with a calm expression. This was not the actual front yard of her old lair, but standing beside Minjun in a place that resembled it so closely seemed to stir a lot of memories.

With one arm wrapped around his shoulder, Sia gazed at the scenery for a little while. Then she seemed to finish sorting through her thoughts and pulled a picnic basket from subspace.

“I guess half of that dream came true. I never imagined I’d be able to come on a picnic with you and look at scenery like this together.”

Sia began taking out the food she had made one item at a time. Then Minjun noticed something he had not expected.

He had said he would bring the fruit, but Sia pulled tangerines out of her basket.

“Tangerines?”

“Yeah. My lair is on Jeju Island, right? And when you think of Jeju, you think of tangerines. So I bought some. Take whatever’s left home with you.”

She had not even lived on Jeju that long, yet she had already become a complete local.

Minjun also pulled the things he had prepared out of subspace. There was fruit, drinks for them to share, and of course the tteokbokki Sia had requested.

Once everything was laid out, it truly felt like a picnic.

“It’s been a really long time since we had a picnic like this, hasn’t it?”

“When was the last one? That picnic by the Han River. That was really nice.”

Remembering the old days, they began eating the food they had brought together in a warm, comfortable atmosphere.

Neither of them had any idea what was waiting for them ahead.