TDGHR 12

Chapter 12

Oppa, Can You Really Do It?

Minjun and Sia couldn’t accept Rokan’s words.

They had only just managed to reunite, yet now they were being told they weren’t allowed to stay close to each other.

It made no sense. What could possibly make him go so far as to declare that meeting each other would cause Minjun to die?

Could he be saying all this on purpose simply to separate Sia from him?

Even if he was a dragon, and even if he was Sia’s grandfather, Minjun believed some things still had to be said.

“Sir. I simply don’t understand. If you dislike me, then please just tell me what you dislike about me. If you do that, I’ll either accept it, change it, or do whatever I can to fix the problem.”

Sia didn’t try to stop Minjun either. Instead, she glared resentfully at her grandfather, because she couldn’t understand what he was saying any more than Minjun could.

“Grandpa, don’t say something so ridiculous! Let’s go, Oppa. I’ll talk to Grandpa later.”

Sia sharply turned around, took Minjun’s hand, and tried to leave the lair.

“You’ll regret it.”

Even after hearing that, Sia merely glanced back at her grandfather with an angry expression before turning away again and tightening her grip on Minjun’s hand.

Whether or not he understood how she felt, Rokan calmly continued speaking.

“If you leave like this, your mate will collapse again before long. I may be able to do something the first one or two times, but after that, his condition will deteriorate beyond the point where anything can be done.”

Sia flinched slightly at the warning that Minjun’s condition would eventually become too severe to treat.

‘No. That can’t be true.’

She repeated those words to herself and tried to continue out of the lair, but Rokan did not stop.

“And when your lover’s life is finally in danger, when even his survival can no longer be guaranteed… Shasha, you’ll come looking for me again with your limp lover on your back. Is that really the future you want?”

His words were so cruel that they sounded less like advice and more like a curse.

They were certainly not the sort of thing a grandfather should ever say to his granddaughter and her lover.

However, Rokan’s expression was entirely serious. He had absolutely no desire to curse his beloved granddaughter or the man she loved.

He was merely using a little shock therapy in the hope that she would listen more carefully to his warning.

Fortunately, it seemed to work, because Sia stopped walking after hearing those chilling words.

With reddened eyes, she looked back at her grandfather.

“Grandpa, tell me the truth. You don’t like Minjun oppa, do you? That’s why… that’s why you’re saying this, right?”

Unable to accept reality, her hands trembled uncontrollably.

She desperately wanted Rokan’s words to be motivated by nothing more than personal feelings.

If that were the problem, she was confident she could do anything necessary to change her grandfather’s mind.

But if what her grandfather was saying was true, then she couldn’t even imagine what would happen next.

‘What… are we supposed to do then?’

She didn’t want to imagine it at all.

Rokan slowly continued after seeing the desperate look in his granddaughter’s eyes, a sight that made his chest ache just to behold.

“Shasha, your grandfather will always be on your side no matter who you love. You remember that, don’t you? But…”

Rokan paused to steady his breathing before explaining in a calm voice.

“Your energies are incompatible.”

“…Our energies are incompatible?”

As though something had occurred to her, Sia’s pupils trembled faintly, and an ominous premonition sent a chill up her spine.

“It’s difficult to explain everything in detail here, so I’ll give you the simple version for now. Shasha, as you well know, the energy you possess is more special and more intense than what other dragons possess. You know that too, don’t you?”

“D-Does that cause a problem? Why?”

Rather than answering immediately, Rokan silently took Sia’s hand with a sympathetic expression.

Yet she couldn’t understand how that could possibly be a problem. Other dragons had always envied the energy she possessed and called it a blessing.

They had told her that because of that special energy, she would one day engrave her name into the history of dragonkind.

They had even said that, like her grandfather, she might someday enjoy the honor of ascending to the position of Dragon Lord.

Everyone had said the same thing, so she had always believed it was a blessing bestowed by the heavens.

Then why did it have to become a problem now, of all times?

“How does that… No, wait. Are you saying that energy just happens to be incompatible with Minjun oppa? Why…?”

Her eyes wandered without focus, and her voice trembled.

“Then because of that energy… if Minjun oppa and I stay together, Minjun oppa will die…?”

Sia bit her lip. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs that it wasn’t true, that there was no way it could be true.

Rokan gently held Sia’s hand between both of his own.

“You don’t want to understand it, and you probably can’t accept it either. But it can’t be helped.”

He knew how difficult reality would be for her to accept, and Rokan shook his head with an equally heavy expression.

“…Is there a way? Isn’t there any way? Whether it’s learning to control my energy better or anything else! A way for me to keep seeing Oppa!”

“There is. But you’d have to consider it nearly impossible.”

“Even so, please tell me.”

Rokan hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to tell his granddaughter the method.

“Your lover must learn to wield the power of a dragon in its entirety.”

“…?”

“…What?”

Minjun and Sia’s eyes widened, and Rokan gave them a bitter smile.

“For now, that’s the only method.”

Even Sia, who had personally experienced the miracle of reincarnation, thought this wasn’t merely ‘nearly impossible.’ It was outright impossible.

Judging from the fact that Minjun had drawn out the power of the Dragon Bone Sword, he might eventually reach a level where he could wield a certain amount of dragon power.

But that would only ever mean ‘a certain amount.’ In the entire history of the continent, there had never been a single human who could fully wield the power of a dragon.

‘I need to find another way.’

She didn’t know what that other way might be, but whatever it was, surely it would be more realistic than this.

Sia resolved to find such a method by any means necessary.

When she had first declared that she would complete Dimensional Travel Magic, everyone had pointed at her and called it impossible.

Yet in the end, hadn’t she succeeded right in front of them?

There had to be a way this time too.

‘No. There has to be.’

Her eyes trembled faintly as that determination took hold.

Meanwhile, Minjun watched Sia agonize alone with a pained expression.

She hadn’t said anything directly, but from the anxiety filling her eyes, he could tell what she was thinking.

‘She’s trying to solve it alone.’

The chance of success looked so low that she had probably decided it would be better to handle the problem herself.

But the moment Minjun understood what she was thinking, something hot seemed to surge up inside him.

‘Why?’

Why was she trying to go that far again?

Sia had already shouldered far too much. For his sake, knowing he would be grieving, she had sacrificed twenty-five hundred years just to come back and meet him.

He had thought that from now on, he should be the one to give her a happy life without any worries or burdens.

Yet contrary to everything Minjun wanted and had promised himself, Sia was once again trying to sacrifice herself for him.

‘I can’t bear to watch Sia suffer.’

The moment he admitted that to himself, his heart throbbed painfully.

He didn’t care if the road ahead was covered in thorns. If happiness for Sia and himself waited at the end of that road, then Minjun was willing to walk it without hesitation.

“Sir, earlier you said it was ‘nearly’ impossible.”

If reincarnation existed and Dimensional Travel Magic was real, then perhaps even the limits of one’s species weren’t completely immutable.

At first, Minjun had needed some time to understand because he’d misinterpreted Rokan’s words.

But after thinking carefully about what Rokan had actually said, Minjun concluded that fully wielding a dragon’s power wasn’t literally impossible.

Rokan had said it was ‘nearly impossible,’ not that it was ‘impossible.’

Just as Sia had once researched Dimensional Travel Magic, if even the slightest possibility existed, Minjun believed it was worth attempting.

Sia had already thrown everything away and sacrificed herself for him once.

So this time, it was Minjun’s turn to show her how he felt.

“If this isn’t complete nonsense and it’s simply so difficult that it’s nearly impossible… then please tell me how.”

Firm resolve filled Minjun’s voice as he made his choice.

But Sia grabbed his hand and pleaded with him instead.

“Oppa. This… isn’t right. Anyone can see that it’s impossible. Just let me find another way, so—”

She wanted to tell him that she had already walked down a thorny road once and would do it again, while all he needed to do was stay beside her and watch over her.

However, Minjun didn’t even let her finish.

“Sia.”

He abruptly pulled her into his arms.

“You told me, remember? You spent two thousand years researching a way to meet me. So leave it to me now. I’ll find a way.”

Perhaps Minjun’s sincerity reached her, because tears began pooling in Sia’s eyes again.

Rokan, who had silently watched the two of them, closed his eyes for a moment and sank into thought.

“…Very well. If your resolve is truly that firm, I’ll tell you the method soon.”

Rokan took a ring from inside his clothes and handed it to Minjun.

“This ring is engraved with Teleport magic and contains the coordinates of this place. Return here three days from now. We’ll continue the discussion then.”

“Thank you.”

Minjun didn’t know what he would hear three days from now, but even a thread of hope was better than nothing.

As Minjun slipped on the ring Rokan had given him, Sia alternated between looking at Minjun and the ring, apparently conflicted about something.

“Grandpa. Give me a ring too. One exactly like that.”

“Giving you one isn’t difficult, Shasha, but you don’t need it, do you?”

A ring engraved with Teleport magic might be an immensely valuable artifact by ordinary human standards, but to a dragon, it was little more than junk.

Rokan had no difficulty giving her an identical one, but he at least wanted to know why she wanted it.

“Do I really have to… say it myself?”

For some reason, Sia’s face had turned bright red.

“Th-The, the…”

She agonized over whether she should say it at all, then lowered her head in embarrassment and answered in a voice barely loud enough to hear.

“…A couple ring.”

“What was that?”

“A couple ring! A couple ring! Grandpa, don’t you know what a couple ring is? We’re a couple, so it’d look weird if Oppa was the only one wearing a ring! If Oppa wears one, then I want to wear the exact same one too! Okay?”

Her embarrassment finally exploded, and she spoke while covering her thoroughly reddened face with both hands.

Sia turned her back on her grandfather as if to complain that he had really made her explain all of that aloud.

“I hate you, Grandpa. You knew all along.”

Her voice was filled with wounded resentment.

“I truly didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Rokan pulled an identical ring from his subspace and handed it to his granddaughter.

Although he apologized aloud, inwardly he had to struggle to keep himself from laughing at this unexpected side of his granddaughter.

In any case, the instant Sia received the ring, she slipped it onto her ring finger.

Afterward, she stared at the ring on her finger with a deeply satisfied expression.

“Oppa. Aren’t you going to put yours on?”

“Oh, right.”

Everything had been happening so quickly that even after receiving the ring, Minjun hadn’t thought to actually wear it.

He hurriedly slipped the ring onto his finger.

“Never take that off, Oppa. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll never take mine off either. Promise?”

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t take it off even if you told me to.”

Satisfied by the answer she wanted, Sia hugged Minjun, but her expression soon turned gloomy again.

“When will we be able to see each other again?”

“Good question. From what your grandfather said, it sounds like we still have some time we can spend together, but I don’t know how much.”

Some time had passed, yet Minjun hadn’t suddenly lost consciousness again like before.

“I’ve taken temporary measures with magic, so let’s see… You have exactly six hours left.”

It was by no means a generous amount of time.

Minjun set a timer so he wouldn’t waste even a single minute of the time he had left with Sia.

“Grandpa, then after those six hours… does that mean we can never see each other again until we solve this problem?”

Sia asked her grandfather with a gloomy expression.

After everything they had gone through to reunite, nothing could have felt more unfair than being given only six hours together.

“It seems I gave you room to misunderstand.”

At the word ‘misunderstand,’ color gradually returned to both their faces.

“It’s not that you can’t meet at all. If my assumptions are correct, you should still be able to meet for about three hours a week.”

“!!!”

They had assumed they wouldn’t be allowed to meet at all until the problem was solved, but that wasn’t the case.

Three hours a week was painfully short, but it was still far better than nothing.

“Grandpa, then…”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“How could I not? Why do you think I called what I did a temporary measure? Even for me, this spell consumes a great deal of power. You were probably thinking I could keep extending your time together this way, but unfortunately, I can’t.”

Even her grandfather, an ancient dragon and former Dragon Lord who could be said to have reached the pinnacle of magic, claimed the spell took enormous effort.

Sia’s shoulders sagged again as she lowered her head.

Today would be the only day the two of them were permitted such a long stretch of six uninterrupted hours together.

“Depending on how hard you work, that time may increase. And as I said before, if you’re willing to work hard enough to risk your life, perhaps there will eventually be no restrictions on your meetings at all.”

Rokan met Minjun’s gaze and stared into his eyes.

A mere human freely wielding the power of a dragon, a species incomparably greater than humanity—what kind of resolve would someone need to pursue such a nearly impossible goal?

Minjun’s eyes were filled with determination.

“I’ll work as though my life depends on it.”

“Good. That resolve is enough.”

Rokan nodded in satisfaction at Minjun’s answer.

“We’ll save the rest of the discussion for next time.”

Right now, every minute and every second was precious to the two of them.

Explaining their circumstances and the solution in greater detail would take several more hours, so Rokan decided to end the complicated discussion there for the time being.

He wanted to give this devoted couple—who had crossed dimensions and even one lifetime to reunite—some time alone together.

For the two of them, every second truly was precious now.

“I’ll leave you two alone. Shasha, come to Grandpa once your allotted time is over.”

“Yes!”

After leaving those final words behind, Rokan cast Teleport and disappeared.

Only Sia and Minjun remained in the vast lair.

They both had many things they wanted to say about how they would overcome this new crisis and what kind of future they could still promise each other.

If they tried to discuss every long and serious matter on their minds, even several days might not be enough, let alone six hours.

But neither of them intended to have that conversation immediately.

“Oppa. Is there anywhere you want to go?”

For the remaining six hours, they planned to spend their time on a date like an ordinary couple.