My Girlfriend Returned as a Dragon - Chapter 102

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ My Girlfriend Returned as a Dragon ◈

Chapter 102: You’re Nothing but a Fake.

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The acrid smoke stung their noses, accompanied by the uneasy murmurs of the Hunters.

“What is this smoke?”

“Could it be... a fire?”

Yes. At first, that was the mood.

“From what I can see, it doesn't seem to have spread very far yet.”

“Still, we should go check.”

Everything was unfolding exactly as it had a year ago.

Until then, none of the Hunters, Minjun included, had expected it to grow into a massive fire that would cover more than half the Gate.

They had carelessly assumed it was only a small blaze they could easily put out.

But.

The fire spread faster than anyone expected.

Little by little, Minjun's memories of that day became clearer.

Then.

His body swayed, and Minjun collapsed where he stood.

Horrific memories beyond his ability to endure had surged up all at once.

“Oppa? Oppa?”

The moment Minjun fell, Sia panicked and urgently shook him awake.

The other Hunters stood beside Sia, examining Minjun's condition with grave expressions.

But at that moment, both their voices and their figures seemed hazy to Minjun.

He had already been exhausted in body and mind from clearing an S-rank double dungeon that was difficult to tackle alone. Now, the most agonizing and terrible trauma of his twenty-five years of life was being recreated before his eyes. How could he possibly remain sane?

He had somehow endured until now, but he was reaching his limit.

Soon, enormous flames would sweep through this place and recreate that scene.

And he would see Sia again, her entire body on fire as she screamed in agony.

“Ah...”

He had been through many Gates, but this was the first one that had ever made him feel this awful.

A Gate that looked through challengers' memories and dragged out their most painful ones.

Disgust. Helplessness.

As every kind of negative emotion began to overwhelm Minjun, he felt like he was about to retch.

“Oppa. Oppa? Are you really okay?”

In the meantime, Sia took a potion from her subspace and put it in Minjun's mouth.

“Uh...”

It helped him regain some clarity, but ironically, that meant he now had to watch the tragedy ahead with a clear mind.

“Oppa. I know it's hard, but I think we need to go together. The fire...”

Before Sia could finish, massive flames began spreading out of control in an instant.

“Damn it.”

The fire that had seemed manageable just moments ago suddenly grew enormous.

“Ahhhhh!”

“W-Why is the fire spreading so fast?!”

Everyone began to panic as the flames rapidly swelled in size.

They took every artifact they had from their subspaces and used them, but it was useless.

Sia, a mage who was at least suited to extinguishing fires, and a Water Spirit Summoner tried to put the flames out, but they had no effect either.

They poured all their strength into it, but the most they could do was keep the flames from spreading any farther.

Someone might wonder why Minjun, an A-rank Hunter, could not deal with it.

But Minjun's subspace was currently sealed.

More importantly, as a swordsman, he had no ability that could directly extinguish the flames.

He could try using Sword Aura to create a firebreak, but that would not be a fundamental solution.

In the end, the only way Minjun could put out the fire was through Dragon Speech.

But Minjun was not currently in any condition to use Dragon Speech.

Until now, Minjun had used Dragon Speech only when his life was in danger or in equally urgent situations.

Yet the fierce will to survive that had let him speak Dragon Speech back then was now buried beneath overwhelming trauma.

His body and mind were exhausted, and he was facing his worst trauma head-on. It could not be helped.

Minjun focused on what he could do for now.

He swung his sword with all his might, creating a line to hold back the flames.

At the same time, he tried to use Dragon Speech to completely suppress the fire.

[Vanish!]

But no matter how many times he tried, Dragon Speech would not work.

Instead, the more he spoke it, the dizzier he became, and the more he felt like vomiting.

By then, Minjun could sense it.

He was not in a state to utter Dragon Speech.

Even so.

Despite his dazed state, Minjun did not give up and kept trying.

Partly because of the futile hope that if he kept trying, it might work at least once.

And partly because, even if this was an unchangeable past, he did not want to repeat the experience of losing Sia helplessly without doing anything.

But no miracle came.

Thanks to Minjun's struggle, the flames advanced a little more slowly than they had a year ago.

But it was not enough to make any decisive difference.

The flames grew fiercer and fiercer until they reached right before them.

“W-What do we do?”

“A stream! Is there a stream nearby?”

“Forget putting out the fire. We need to run first!”

The place had become complete chaos.

Putting out the fire was impossible, so he at least needed to grab Sia and escape.

But.

“Ah!”

“Sia!”

“Lady Sia!”

To make matters worse, Sia suffered mana exhaustion just as she had that day after consuming too much mana.

It had been exactly like this then.

Sia's mana exhaustion was so severe that the cheap potions carried by D-rank Hunters could not resolve it. No matter how many she drank, she could not recover.

As if that were not enough, Sia suffered severe burns, and the result had been... death.

But.

‘It isn't over yet.’

If things continued according to Minjun's memories, heavy rain would start pouring from the sky an hour from now, finally putting out the flames.

That meant if they could just hold on for one hour, they could prevent that tragedy from repeating.

“Sia, get on my back.”

“I'm okay, oppa. I can still move.”

Even opening her mouth seemed difficult because of the mana exhaustion, but Sia refused Minjun's hand.

That was a lie.

A white lie meant to keep Minjun from worrying.

He had believed that lie a year ago, and Sia had suffered because of it.

“I said get on!”

Sia waved him away, saying she was fine as though she did not want to burden him, but Minjun knew the future and held out his hand again.

He was in terrible condition, but he still had enough strength left to carry one person and run.

If he put Sia on his back and ran from here at full speed...

They could avoid the same tragedy.

Sia soon entrusted herself to him. With her on his back, Minjun began running, squeezing out every bit of strength he had.

He was gasping for air.

Climbing this dungeon had exhausted him physically and mentally, and the horrible trauma he never wanted to experience again was being recreated before his eyes. His mind was half gone.

‘What am I even doing?’

Minjun knew in his head that the Sia on his back was not the Sia he knew.

But even as he staggered, he desperately tried to escape with Sia on his back.

At first, he moved fairly quickly. But as his stamina dwindled, the flames closed in right behind him.

His breath came in gasps, and behind him, he could hear Sia's ragged, labored breathing.

Minjun knew the real Sia was waiting outside the Gate.

But what if this Sia was real too?

Maybe she was another real Sia, living in one of countless parallel worlds.

His mind was too clouded to properly tell what was right and wrong, what was real and what was fake.

“Sia, just hold on a little longer.”

His heart felt like it would burst.

Come to think of it, he had been through worse. Even his recent training with Rokan had been so exhausting that it made him want to vomit every time.

He could endure.

No, he had to endure.

But not everything could be solved through willpower alone.

As Minjun gritted his teeth and ran at full speed, his foot caught on a stone. He lost his balance and fell.

“Argh!”

Minjun rolled across the ground.

But Sia's condition mattered more to him than his own body.

Realizing he had let go of Sia when he fell, Minjun frantically looked around for her.

And when he finally found her, Sia...

Had already been engulfed by the flames.

Just like that day.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

Sia let out a scream that seemed to tear her apart.

Minjun dragged his injured leg toward Sia, but there was nothing he could do.

Even when he coughed up blood and screamed Dragon Speech over and over, the fire clinging to Sia's body would not go out.

His subspace was sealed, there was no water, and he had no way to extinguish the flames.

In the end, nothing had changed from a year ago.

“O...ppa...”

Though her entire body was burning and she was in agony, Sia forced out her voice and reached for Minjun.

It felt as though his heart were being torn apart.

But Minjun shook his head hard.

What was happening before him was not real.

It was only, only a nightmare that was suspiciously vivid.

But this was not the end. It was the beginning.

From here on, things began unfolding completely differently from Minjun's memories.

“This is all... because of you, oppa...”

Words Sia would never say began spilling from her mouth.

Sia was not normally someone who blamed others. She had never been that way in front of Minjun, especially not.

“Today is my birthday, my birthday! Why did you ask me to go into a Gate on that day, of all days?”

“Sia...”

“If you'd picked another day, this never would have happened!”

Minjun, his reason paralyzed, stared blankly at Sia.

Even as her body was engulfed in flames, even as he could see her arms and legs rapidly blackening.

For some reason, he could clearly see the tears gathered in Sia's resentful eyes.

“Why? Why do I have to die because of you, oppa?!”

Sia's voice cracked, and her appearance began changing into something more grotesque.

Even as she lost her original form, the resentment in her eyes did not change.

“I can't die alone. Even if I die, I'll die with you, oppa. Otherwise, I can't live with how unfair it is.”

The monster that had been imitating Sia finally began to reveal its true form.

* * *

An unnamed monster dwelled on the top floor of this tower.

Its specialty was reading the memories of challengers who climbed the tower, identifying their trauma, and recreating the scene to break them psychologically.

And it did not stop there. It would subtly twist the scene and thoroughly torment its challengers.

Just as it was doing to Minjun now.

‘Sia.’

When people had nightmares, they could not tell whether they were dreaming or awake.

Minjun had already forgotten that this was part of a double dungeon.

The words spilling from the fake Sia's mouth hurt him as if he were being stabbed by an awl.

“Why are you so weak, oppa? If you had just been a little stronger, none of this would have happened!”

Meanwhile, the fake Sia's form grew even more grotesque.

Its voice was similar, but its manner of speaking was noticeably changing.

“...”

Every word from the creature borrowing Sia's voice began to tear open Minjun's barely healed wound in the most miserable way.

“Answer me! I said answer me!”