Black Badger

It was the appearance of the YouTuber DK I had briefly seen before.

Unlike when I saw him in Antarctica, his hair wasn’t a bright sky blue. The Ice Dragon’s hair was black with a bluish sheen.

Instead, his eyes were an extremely vivid sky blue.

The hairstyle was the same. It was neatly grown to his shoulders, and even though he was in the form of an adult man, his features were clean and well-defined, not overwhelming.

“I should have contacted you sooner and come to see you. I apologize.”

“You were asleep.”

Jaeyeon had left.

He said he didn’t want to stay in the same place as such an overwhelming being. Apparently, he didn’t want to stay with me either, someone who seemed to have awakened as a masochist after enduring countless pains.

“You didn’t even sleep that long.”

“I’ll bring tea.”

“Thank you.”

The Ice Dragon sat gracefully at the table.

His presence was heavy, yet strangely, there was almost no sense of him as a living creature.

Even after learning aura, I still couldn’t feel any possibility of winning against him.

“You’ve learned aura.”

The Ice Dragon smiled faintly as he looked at me.

I returned the smile while serving tea.

“And since I ended up lying down for so long again, it feels a bit embarrassing to say I’ve learned it.”

“The flow of mana is different between one who has succeeded in handling an aura blade and one who has not.”

The dragon said something cryptic.

He elegantly brought the teacup to his lips and lowered his gaze.

“Even if your body is damaged, you are still an aura blader. Congratulations. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one.”

“Do you need a mana circuit to use aura?”

Surprised by his words, I sat down across from him.

The Ice Dragon set down his teacup.

“No. But it likely became just a little easier for you to pierce through the mana channels.”

I see.

I didn’t fully understand, but I quietly rejoiced at the fact that my abilities hadn’t completely vanished.

Kairos must have sensed the dragon’s presence too.

But since he wasn’t coming out of his own residence, it seemed he was respecting the time between me and the Ice Dragon.

I studied the Ice Dragon’s expression as he leisurely enjoyed his tea.

“There’s something I should tell you in advance.”

As I spoke cautiously, the Ice Dragon looked at me with his bright blue eyes.

“To be honest, I’m not very good at taking photos.”

“I’ll be holding the phone, so it doesn’t matter.”

The dragon pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“It’s been fun returning to the mortal world after so long.”

Then he showed me his account.

“I’m going to upload it here.”

“Ah, yes. That’s fine.”

“That fountain pen advertisement was impressive.”

Caught off guard by the praise, my ears grew slightly warm.

“Thank you. I’m not exactly in a very presentable state right now, but if you’d like, I can quickly—”

“No, it’s fine. Natural is better.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s just for a light record. And you’ve got good features, so you’re fine as you are.”

The dragon switched his phone to selfie mode and gestured for me to come closer.

I smiled faintly and leaned my upper body toward him.

And just like that, we finally took the photo.

I quietly watched as the Ice Dragon uploaded the photo to SNS. I didn’t check my own phone. Not long after he said he had uploaded it, my phone began buzzing with incoming messages, but I ignored the notifications and set it to silent.

“Your Excellency....”

“Just call me by name.”

The moment I spoke carefully, the Ice Dragon replied lightly.

I blinked.

“By your name?”

“The name I’m using now is Diego. Call me that comfortably.”

“...Diego.”

I carefully spoke his name.

Thinking that the D in DK must stand for Diego.

“Is it because of the hole in your heart?”

But just as I was about to continue after his name, the Ice Dragon put his phone away and looked straight at me.

I flinched.

“You can sense it?”

“That’s actually one of the reasons I came.”

The Ice Dragon looked at my chest with interest.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a scar like this.”

I closed my mouth and waited for what would come next.

There were no mages left on Earth.

Among those who remained, there might be some born with sufficient mana, but magic wasn’t something achieved by talent alone. It required strict apprenticeship.

But now, there was no one on Earth capable of providing that kind of training.

That meant the only one I could seek advice from regarding my strange situation with Kyle was the Ice Dragon.

Maybe I could even learn something about that strange humanoid silhouette.

The Ice Dragon, whom I had only met after coming to Earth, was a benevolent being.

But I wasn’t foolish enough to test that benevolence.

After observing me for a moment, the dragon spoke.

“Your auras are intertwined.”

I blinked blankly.

“Because of the transfer?”

The dragon with refined features nodded.

“That, and the position. Mana and aura circulate centered around the heart, like blood.”

“Can they become mixed like that through a transfer?”

“A transfer conveys many things to the other party. Even to us, the World Tree’s blessing is truly astonishing.”

For a moment, a distant longing washed over me.

But I quickly pulled myself out of it.

First, I had to ask the most important question.

“Then if the wound in my heart heals, will the connection between me and Kyle be severed?”

“You can see that knight, then.”

The Ice Dragon asked back in an unremarkable tone.

I quietly nodded.

The Ice Dragon smiled sadly.

“So you haven’t been able to let go of your attachment.”

“Yes.”

I smiled bitterly.

“Foolishly, I haven’t.”

“When the wounds in both your hearts fully heal, the connection will be severed.”

Something inside me sank coldly.

At the Ice Dragon’s firm tone, my smile vanished, and I froze stiff, forgetting even to react.

The one sitting across from me simply drank his tea as he watched.

“Reopening the wound won’t help. If your wound heals, only the black-haired knight will occasionally appear here. Conversely, if the knight on the other side heals, only you will occasionally cross over there.”

“And if both sides heal, it will close completely.”

“It’s not a normal situation.”

The clear sound of the teacup being set down rang out.

I stared at the faint steam rising from the tea.

I knew that the stage of my life had changed.

Someday, we would have to part.

But that resolve wasn’t easy.

Even after everything I had gone through, I still couldn’t properly imagine a permanent farewell with Kyle.

Of course, at that moment when I had reluctantly let go of Kyle’s hand, I thought I would never see him again.

Kyle must have thought the same.

That was why he left me those words.

I often thought about the last thing he said in the language of the Empire.

His farewell that no one but me had heard.

Perhaps it was because I had heard those words clearly that I found the courage to ask Kyle if I could stay with him.

If not for that, I would have done everything I could to disappear in front of him.

In any case, just because you’ve braced yourself once doesn’t mean it becomes easy to brace yourself for separation again.

“That wound doesn’t look like it will heal easily.”

At the Ice Dragon’s words, I returned from my thoughts.

His vivid blue eyes were studying my face.

“A wound like that can’t be healed through absorption either.”

It was a grotesque reaction, but I felt relieved.

“Thank you.”

I let out a heavy breath.

“That helped me greatly.”

“It’s nothing. Even for me, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen something so intricately intertwined.”

The Ice Dragon rolled his eyes upward as if trying to recall something.

I also sat in silence, lost in thought.

Even though Kyle had gotten angry, I should probably take less of the medicine.

It wasn’t like my condition immediately worsened if I didn’t take it.

Though if I performed missions while in poor condition, I might cause trouble for others, so I’d have to discuss returning to duty again with Yehyeon or Ju.

“Come to think of it, I don’t think I saw symptoms like this even back in Aquilos.”

“Pardon?”

I was pulled from my thoughts by the Ice Dragon’s sudden remark.

“During the time when the Kingdom of Aquilos was flourishing, absorption and transfer were common, so all sorts of incidents caused by transfer occurred. After its fall, incidents stemming from the World Tree’s blessing decreased significantly.”

“You mean that Kingdom of Aquilos?”

My eyes widened.

“You were around even back then?”

It was a kingdom that had been passed down more like legend than history even ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ when I was in the Empire.

The flourishing kingdom surrounding the World Tree had fallen for unknown reasons and turned into a natural fortress that blocked access to the tree.

The ruins of that kingdom were teeming with ferocious monsters and wraiths no longer found within the Empire.

That was why I had suffered immensely getting there with a body cursed by the sacred tree.

I only later learned that others formed guilds to push through it.

That was where I had first killed a dragon. I still couldn’t forget the sight of the old dragon, which I thought was a corpse, slowly opening its eyes.

When I first stepped onto the bridge leading to the fallen kingdom, a creature clinging beneath it had leapt out.

Back then, I wasn’t strong enough to defeat it.

So I had fled with everything I had.

If it had caught me, my life would have ended there.

I had suffered greatly in those ruins.

Back then, I had only resented the kingdom that surrounded the World Tree.

“I was young then as well. I took human form and lived in that kingdom for a while.”

“...What?”

“It was shortly after I gained the ability to polymorph. I was curious. In any case, back then, most of the nobles had yellow eyes.”

If Yoow were here listening to this story, he would have loved it.

I straightened up. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

“You mean most of the nobles were children of the World Tree?”

“That’s right. That was their privilege. Though unlike you, they did not live eternally.”

Good grief.

I was entranced by the story of a legendary kingdom I was only now hearing, after crossing into another world where barely anyone even spoke the Empire’s language anymore.

There were almost no records left that could reveal the daily life of the Kingdom of Aquilos.

People inferred their lives from what remained in the ruins. Even that wasn’t easy because of the monsters, curses, and wraiths left behind.

The important thing was that no one had ever predicted that children of the World Tree had once been so common.

“You look quite shocked.”

“Yes. I had no idea. In fact, in my time, the perception of the World Tree’s children wasn’t very good.”

“But the ability is quite useful.”

“That’s true.”

There had even been those who deliberately sought the sacred tree’s curse just to gain the ability.

Then again, if the World Tree had been nearby and the curse could be lifted immediately, perhaps everyone would have tried to receive it.

“Back then, ordinary people couldn’t even see the sacred tree. That was the nobles’ privilege.”

“They must have been extremely powerful.”

“Doesn’t the scale of the ruins give you a hint?”

“It was exhausting.”

I had wandered inside for a long time.

If not for the messages left behind by those who had passed through earlier, I might have starved to death inside.

“But why did such a prosperous kingdom fall?”

“Rampage.”

The answer was brief.

When I widened my eyes, the Ice Dragon smiled faintly.

“Didn’t I tell you before that even during the height of the Empire, we remember the names of those who were both children of the World Tree and swordmasters?”

“You did.”

“There’s a reason. The fall of the Kingdom of Aquilos was caused by the rampage of one who was both an aura blader and blessed by the World Tree.”

I stared blankly at the Ice Dragon.

Then came the shocking continuation.

“He was incredibly powerful, and they say the rampage continued for an entire month, like a wildfire spreading across a mountain... Around that time, I had already lost interest in human life and was no longer living in the kingdom. But I learned of it from those older than me.”

Maybe this was why Ami kept asking me to tell stories of the past.

I wanted to hear more. I wanted to ask more about the World Tree. When had its blessing begun?

And why did the blessing come the moment the sacred tree’s curse was lifted?

Could a single rampage truly destroy an entire kingdom?

But before I could carefully ask those questions, the Ice Dragon shifted the direction of the conversation.

Casually, he said,

“The mage from another world who awakened outside the Core is quite troublesome as well, so be careful.”

“A mage?”

I muttered hoarsely.

“That white silhouette... is a mage?”