Chapter 61

Oppa… Are You Okay?

Her rampage—during which she had lost control of herself and poured out magic like a tsunami—finally came to a halt. When the rampage she had thought would continue until its time limit expired stopped in an instant, surprise quickly filled her eyes.

‘How…?’

How had Minjun managed to stop the rampage with Dragon Tongue, when he still could not even use it properly? But this was not the time to worry about that.

‘What happened to Oppa?’

Sia looked around to check Minjun’s condition, but the thick fog created by the aftermath of the uncontrolled magic that had been pouring out until moments ago blocked her vision. On top of that, the backlash from the rampage had left her unable to use even simple magic.

There was nothing she could do except call Minjun’s name at the top of her lungs and search for him until the fog cleared.

“O… ppa…”

However, her voice was already so drained of strength that it could barely carry.

‘I need to… say something.’

Without even hearing Minjun’s voice, Sia lost consciousness where she stood.

✦ ✦ ✦

Right after Sia passed out, the fog slowly began to clear, allowing Minjun to spot her collapsed on the ground.

“Cough, S-Sia!”

He desperately wanted to run to her and check whether she was all right, but just before her rampage began, Sia had clearly told him not to worry about her, to get out of this place first, and to tell Rokan about her condition.

Leaving an unconscious Sia behind by herself weighed heavily on him, but there had to be a reason she had gone so far as to tell him that. Swallowing his tears, Minjun ran toward the portal with all his strength despite limping badly.

Every step sent sharp pain through his body, and he coughed up blood several times along the way, but he kept running with everything he had. After finally escaping the dungeon, Minjun immediately contacted Rokan, and the moment the connection went through, he shouted before he could even hear Rokan’s voice.

“Sia, she’s rampaging—”

[I’m coming! Right now!]

Fortunately, the instant the word “rampage” left Minjun’s mouth, Rokan teleported straight to him.

“Shasha! Where is Shasha?!”

It was the first time Minjun had ever seen Rokan, who was always kind and composed, look so disheveled and shout with such urgency.

“Training… ground…”

Even forcing out a single syllable was difficult. Minjun pointed toward the dungeon entrance and barely managed to say the words “training ground.” Realizing that Minjun’s condition was serious as well, Rokan hurriedly pulled an Elixir from his spatial storage and poured it into Minjun’s mouth.

It should at least serve as emergency treatment. Just in case, Rokan left several bottles of Elixir and the spirit Undine beside Minjun.

“Just a little longer. Minjun, hold on just a little longer. I’m truly sorry.”

Even after taking those precautions, Rokan clearly hated leaving an injured person behind, because he continued apologizing until the very moment he entered the dungeon. But as worried as he was about Minjun, the thing that had shaken Rokan so badly was, naturally, the condition of his granddaughter Sia.

‘I hope Shasha is holding on.’

From the moment he heard that his granddaughter had entered a rampage, Rokan had been unable to maintain his usual composure. He had watched over her ever since the first time she experienced one, so he knew very well that a rampage itself did not normally put her life in danger.

If anything, the ones truly at risk of losing their lives were the people near Sia while she was rampaging, not Sia herself. Still, merely because it was not fatal did not mean it was harmless. Once a rampage began, she suffered pain so terrible that it made her want to die, and knowing that, Rokan rushed toward her with an aching heart.

Watching his precious granddaughter, whom he cherished more than anything, writhe and scream in agony was unbearably painful for him.

‘My Shasha.’

Of all places, her rampage had happened inside an enclosed space with no other dragon around to help her, and with only Minjun beside her. How frightened and anxious must she have been? He had to reach her as quickly as possible and ease even a little of the pain she was enduring.

“Shasha!”

With that desperate shout, Rokan immediately searched for Sia. Yet after hearing the news from Minjun, he had naturally expected to find her unable to control her magic and writhing in agony.

Instead, the interior of the dungeon was deathly silent, with only the eerie rustling of leaves breaking the stillness. A chill ran down Rokan’s back, because the silence itself felt like an even worse omen.

There was no way her rampage would have stopped for no reason. Once one began, it normally lasted an entire day. If nothing at all was happening now, perhaps something terrible had happened to Sia—perhaps her life was in grave danger.

“No. No…”

Rokan took another deep breath and shook his head. If that were truly the case, there was no way he would have failed to sense it.

He quickly cast a detection spell and soon found his granddaughter collapsed on the far side of the area. Faint as it was, her body was unmistakably moving.

“Grand… pa…”

The voice was so quiet that an ordinary human could never have heard it, but it was enough to reach Rokan.

“Shasha!”

The instant he heard her voice, Rokan ran toward his granddaughter so fast that he did not even notice one of his shoes coming off, then swept her into his arms.

Her recovery had to come first. Rokan used Dragon Tongue to restore her stamina while simultaneously pulling pain-relief potions from his spatial storage and making her drink them.

Fortunately, they were not entirely ineffective. Sia coughed as though she had recovered at least a little of her strength.

“Cough, cough.”

“Shasha, are you all right? Can you move?”

“No…”

Her voice was still utterly exhausted, but even so, it was a relief amid the disaster. This much was within the normal range. After a rampage, these kinds of aftereffects were common.

There were still many things Rokan did not understand and therefore many things he wanted to ask, but he decided to leave those questions for later. Recovery was the priority.

Carrying Sia on his back, Rokan hurried out of the dungeon. As soon as he emerged, he found Minjun right in front of the entrance, breathing heavily.

The moment Minjun saw Rokan, he searched for Sia and spotted her on Rokan’s back. At first she was completely still, making him fear that perhaps she had died, but when he saw her body twitch ever so slightly, he let out a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Rokan looked back and forth between the gasping Minjun and Sia on his back. Taking them both to his lair and treating them together would have been best, but the problem was that Sia’s energy was incompatible with Minjun.

As if he understood what Rokan was worrying about just from his expression, Minjun noticed it first and said with a smile, “I’m fine. Please take care of Sia first.”

Since her rampage only occurred once every few decades, Sia’s condition was probably far more serious. Minjun waved his hand dismissively, saying he would remain here a little longer and hold out with the Elixir.

At that, Sia, still on Rokan’s back, struggled to turn her head toward Minjun.

“Oppa…”

Guilt, apology, gratitude, and sorrow all mingled in her gaze as she called to him with tears pooling in her eyes. From where she stood, Minjun looked as though he desperately needed help too, and on top of that, he had only been injured because of her rampage in the first place.

“Don’t worry. Thanks to the Elixir, I’m not as bad as I look. So go get treated first.”

“But…”

“Shasha, don’t worry. I left Undine with Minjun, and he’s already past the dangerous point, so he should be fine. I’ll send him home first.”

After teleporting Minjun back to his apartment, Rokan took Sia to his lair. Once there, he laid her down and carefully examined her condition.

‘Strange.’

Considering she had just gone through a rampage, she was in unusually good condition. Normally by this point she should have been so weak that merely breathing was difficult, but that was not the case.

Objectively speaking, she was certainly not in good health, but considering that her rampage had ended only recently, she looked better than she ever had after one before. Yet that was not the only thing Rokan found strange.

‘How did Minjun forcibly stop Shasha’s rampage?’

Rokan had watched her rampage countless times over the years, but nothing like this had ever happened. Whenever Sia lost control, all the other dragons could do was prevent the magic she fired indiscriminately from escaping beyond her lair.

Ever since Sia had been a hatchling, countless dragons, including Rokan himself, had tried to bring her rampage completely under control. They had attempted everything from Dragon Tongue to high-level magic and even artifacts designed specifically to suppress her rampages, yet every method had failed.

So how had Minjun managed to completely stop a rampage that normally continued for almost twenty-four hours without rest in less than a single hour?

“This is only making my head more complicated.”

How had a human accomplished something even dragons could not? Rokan suspected it was connected to some secret within Minjun, one that even Minjun himself did not know about.

“What is?”

“Nothing. Don’t overexert yourself. Just get some proper rest for now.”

Rokan gently pushed Sia back down after she tried to sit up and pulled the blanket over her. From Sia’s perspective, however, her heart was too unsettled for sleep to come easily.

“Oppa… he’s going to be okay, right?”

“Don’t worry. I’m watching his condition through Undine right now, and thankfully, he’s stable.”

Even that did not seem enough to reassure her, because worry still filled Sia’s face.

‘Of course it does.’

Rokan understood her feelings perfectly well.

“Once you fall asleep, I plan to go over to Minjun.”

“He’s really okay, right?”

“You saw him yourself. He’s injured, but if he rests and receives proper care, he’ll recover fully within a few days. If you’re still worried, I can make a video call to Minjun for you.”

Rokan thought that seeing Minjun conscious and alert would reassure her, but for some reason, Sia shook her head from side to side. He had expected her to beg to see Minjun, so the unexpected response surprised him instead.

“If I see Oppa… I think I’ll start crying.”

It was because of her guilt. A few hours earlier, while she was rampaging, her consciousness had gradually begun to fade, but the sight of her uncontrolled magic striking Minjun had become a deep trauma for her.

Minjun’s agonized screams, and the desperate look in his eyes as he tried to save her as though he did not care that one mistake could cost him his life, remained painfully vivid.

She wished she could simply forget that desperate gaze and those cries, but as a dragon who had never been blessed with oblivion, she was forced to relive those moments in perfect detail again and again no matter how much she wished otherwise.

Tears began to well up in Sia’s eyes.

“…I understand.”

Rokan held her hand for a long while as he watched over her condition, and after Sia finally fell asleep, he quietly moved to Minjun’s home.

After Rokan left, Sia eventually woke again because of the pain that had not yet fully faded. She sat up to drink the painkiller potion left beside her bed.

Normally, before falling asleep again, she would have looked at the photos of Minjun saved on her phone until she drifted off. Now, however, the more she thought about Minjun, the heavier her chest felt.

“How am I supposed to look Oppa in the face the next time we meet?”

She was unbearably sorry, and deeply grateful. She knew she needed to fall asleep again, but the images of Minjun she had seen all day kept returning to her mind, and despite her exhaustion, sleep refused to come easily.

Perhaps tonight, she would have a terrible nightmare.