TDGHR 36

Chapter 36

I Have Been Waiting for You

An unknown amount of time passed before Minjun finally began to stir.

“Ugh…”

As he slowly regained consciousness, he clutched his head and opened his eyes.

‘I was definitely inside the imperial tomb before I blacked out.’

Then where exactly was he now?

Strange patterns covered the stone floor around him, while weeds grew thickly beyond the paved area.

He had been deep underground inside the tomb before losing consciousness, yet when he looked up now, a clear blue sky stretched overhead.

Something even stranger became apparent as he looked farther out: an open space this vast should have extended far into the distance, but at a certain point the world simply ended.

It looked almost like a boundary dividing one dimension from another.

Beyond that boundary was nothing but pitch-black darkness, an endless void that stirred instinctive fear.

There was one more abnormality as well.

Minjun couldn’t identify exactly what it was, but the entire place was saturated with an energy that somehow felt both familiar and foreign.

“What is this…?”

Everything about the situation was confusing.

Before Minjun could properly assess his surroundings, the ground suddenly began to tremble.

Startled, he tried to move away from what seemed to be the epicenter, but the vibration stopped almost immediately.

Then a figure began rising out of the earth.

When Minjun recognized the person, his eyes widened.

“…The emperor?”

Dark brown hair and eyes of the same color, a masculine face, and a tall, powerful build that suited it perfectly.

It was the emperor as he’d appeared in his youth within the record magic.

“You look upon His Imperial Majesty and call him merely ‘the emperor’? You have no manners.”

Minjun had never heard the language before, yet he understood every word.

It was the same unfamiliar language he’d somehow begun comprehending while watching the record magic.

Minjun swallowed nervously and studied the emperor’s reaction.

His words had accused Minjun of being rude, but he didn’t actually look angry.

If anything, he was examining Minjun with intense curiosity.

There was no immediate hostility in his gaze.

‘I still can’t let my guard down.’

That was only an impression, not something Minjun could know for certain.

“Then should I… call you Your Majesty?”

“Forget it. I’m already dead, so there’s no need for titles. Just call me by my name. I am Minos.”

As though he had no interest in empty formalities, the emperor immediately continued.

“I’ll dispense with unnecessary talk and get straight to the point. There is only one reason you were brought here.”

Minos pointed toward Minjun’s Dragon Bone Sword lying nearby.

“You are a wielder of a Dragon Bone Sword, just as I was. Anyone who does not possess such a sword cannot reach this place.”

Minos’s words confirmed part of what Minjun had suspected all along.

‘Right. There’s no way all of this was coincidence…’

Then why had this place been designed that way?

Before Minjun could ask, Minos began explaining slowly, as though he already knew what question was on his mind.

“You saw through the record magic that I used the dragon power contained in my sword to change not only my own fate, but the fate of my homeland as well.”

The record Minjun had seen had been created by royal mages on Minos’s orders for whoever eventually found the tomb.

Its purpose was to reveal who rested here and what kind of life that person had lived.

“I was the person farthest from the line of succession, yet I became king. Then I transformed a weak peripheral kingdom into a vast unified empire.”

For Minos, those events belonged to a past so distant it was impossible to measure now, but the memories remained vivid.

He still remembered the day that mysterious visitor first placed the Dragon Bone Sword in his hands.

The stranger had never revealed his identity, but Minos had known instinctively that the man was probably one of the dragons he’d only heard about in stories.

As time passed, that instinct became certainty.

Absolute confidence that he could overwhelm anyone, backed by enough power to prove that confidence was no bluff.

Only a dragon could possess both qualities so completely.

‘You possess a talent others do not. Let that talent bloom.’

The mysterious man had turned away after telling Minos not to disappoint him.

Watching him leave, Minos had become completely fascinated by the existence of dragons.

‘If only I were a dragon.’

The stranger’s words about talent barely reached his ears.

His entire attention had been captured by the idea of dragons.

‘If only I’d been born a dragon instead of a weak human.’

Then his brothers and the retainers would never have humiliated him this way.

If he’d been born as a flawless existence from the beginning, he never would have suffered experiences so shameful and humiliating that he wanted to erase them from memory.

From that day on, Minos began secretly dreaming of becoming a dragon.

Defeating the brothers who had mocked his martial ability and taking the throne meant little to him.

Ascending that throne and transforming a small border kingdom into an enormous unified empire meant little as well.

Those achievements had simply been things he acquired naturally while pursuing his true goal.

Until the day he died, Minos carried only one genuine dream in his heart.

He wanted to become a dragon, a supposedly flawless being.

He wanted a body as powerful as theirs, talent in every field, and a lifespan measured in thousands or even nearly ten thousand years. That was the dream that drove every step he took.

After years of relentless training, Minos achieved something extraordinary at the young age of thirty: he manifested Dragon Tongue with a human body.

“But I could never say that I manifested it perfectly.”

Everyone around him believed he’d mastered Dragon Tongue, but Minos knew the truth.

What he used was only half-complete, perhaps so incomplete that even calling it half-complete was overly generous.

The record magic Minjun had seen preserved that obsession vividly.

‘I want to use perfect Dragon Tongue. Not this incomplete imitation, but true Dragon Tongue identical to what dragons themselves use!’

Unlike Minjun, Minos had never had anyone who could offer him kind, knowledgeable guidance.

Even so, he’d understood something instinctively.

In Minos’s mind, the most important prerequisite for becoming a dragon was achieving perfect Dragon Tongue.

So he refused to be satisfied with what he’d accomplished and trained without rest, pushing himself mercilessly.

He continued until mana backlash began destroying his body.

‘Damn it…!’

At some point, using his imperfect Dragon Tongue—or even drawing out the smallest amount of dragon power from the sword—caused violent mana backlash that made him cough blood.

At first, the backlash occurred only when he used that power.

Over time, however, it grew progressively worse until eventually mana backlash struck him even during ordinary daily life.

By then, Minos’s body had weakened beyond recovery.

His dream of becoming a dragon seemed destined to remain impossible within his lifetime.

Even so, Minos never abandoned the dream he’d first embraced as a thirteen-year-old boy.

The imperial tomb itself was proof of that obsession, designed so that no one without a Dragon Bone Sword could ever reach its lowest floor.

The more Minjun listened, however, the more Minos reminded him of Icarus from ancient Greek mythology.

Icarus hadn’t been satisfied merely to fly. He had climbed higher and higher toward the sun until the wax in his wings melted and he fell.

A quiet fear took hold of Minjun that perhaps he too could end up like Icarus, or like Minos standing before him now.

“You look troubled.”

“…How could I not be?”

Minos seemed to understand at least vaguely what Minjun was feeling.

“That brings me to the reason I waited.”

Minos began speaking slowly, “I have spent an immeasurable length of time here waiting for someone who could fulfill my dream in my place.”

Although he’d died long ago, the intensity of his desire had left behind a lingering remnant of will, allowing Minos to exist before Minjun now.

Some people might have considered his obsession with becoming a dragon far too extreme.

Using Dragon Tongue at all was already close to impossible for a human, and Minos had managed to use it at least imperfectly.

But his blind admiration for dragons had become pathological obsession, and that obsession eventually twisted his dream into something else.

Even if he himself had failed, he wanted to witness another human shatter their innate limits and become a dragon with his own eyes.

So Minos had remained here as a remnant of will, waiting for someone who could accomplish the dream he’d been unable to fulfill.

That person might own an artifact containing dragon power like a Dragon Bone Sword, or perhaps possess the same potential even without such an artifact.

The wait had lasted for a span of time difficult for any ordinary human to imagine.

At the end of that immense wait, Minjun had finally arrived.

“That is why I want you to show me Dragon Tongue.”

“…I’m sorry, but it hasn’t even been a month since I seriously began learning to use this sword. I’d like to show you Dragon Tongue right now too, but realistically, at the moment…”

Minos had carried this unfulfilled desire for an unimaginable amount of time.

Now that Minjun understood the circumstances, he wished he could resolve that lingering regret for him.

It was frustrating to know that he simply couldn’t do so yet.

“So you’re saying you cannot use Dragon Tongue?”

“Yes. I’m truly sorry. But if I ever reach the point where it becomes possible, I’ll come back and show you.”

“No. There will be no need for that.”

A chilling smile spread across Minos’s face as he closed the distance between them.

“I will make you capable of using Dragon Tongue myself.”

“…?”

Minjun stared at him in confusion.

Minos himself had failed to master perfect Dragon Tongue.

How could someone who had failed teach another person to accomplish what he couldn’t?

Then Minos spoke the words that made Minjun’s blood run cold.

“From this moment onward, you will not be able to leave this place until you use complete Dragon Tongue. There is only one way out.”

Whether he used his sword, borrowed the power of another artifact, or relied on any other method didn’t matter.

He had to manifest complete Dragon Tongue and use it to destroy the false world Minos had created.

“Until then, not only will you be unable to leave this place by your own will, you will not even be allowed to die.”

The instant he finished speaking, Minos created a blood-red sword from empty air and drove it into the ground.

A notification appeared in front of Minjun once more.

[Rank: EX

Clear Condition: Reach the lowest floor of Minos’s Tomb and manifest Dragon Tongue (0/1)]