WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ My Girlfriend Returned as a Dragon ◈

Chapter 103: Remember, But Don’t Be Consumed.

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As Minjun gradually lost his grip on reason and his mind grew hazy.

[A fake, of all things.]

The moment his mouth began moving on its own, Minjun jolted fully awake.

‘I didn’t say that.’

What was more, the voice from moments ago had been lower than Minjun’s usual voice, and unfamiliar.

A sudden fear washed over him that he might lose control of his body like this.

Fortunately, no such disaster occurred.

After only a few seconds, Minjun regained control of his body.

His blurred mind gradually cleared, and his paralyzed reason began to return as well.

However.

Even though it was clearly his own body, he strongly felt a strange sense of alienation, as though he had entered someone else’s body.

My body, but not my body.

But he had no time to worry about that now.

Dealing with the monster that had dishonored Sia came first.

“Sia would never say something like that.”

Minjun’s own voice once again came from his throat.

At the same time, the color of his eyes changed as though something had possessed him.

They were no longer ordinary pitch black, but a mysterious color that seemed to hold starlight.

* * *

The nameless monster that lived in this dungeon, imitating Sia’s appearance.

[A fake, of all things.]

The instant it heard those words, it sensed that Minjun’s entire demeanor had changed completely.

It had worn down his stamina and mental strength as planned, making him vulnerable to every stimulus.

It had properly prodded Minjun’s trauma, and everything had been going smoothly.

Yet an unexpected variable had suddenly appeared.

The grief-stricken gaze from moments earlier was gone.

Instead, Minjun was looking at it with a fierce gaze that even the monster, despite its long life, had never seen before.

It did not know how to define that look.

‘It’s like... a dragon’s gaze.’

That murderous gaze, as though it would dominate and devour everything, filled it with such intense fear that its fur stood on end.

It could not help it.

The moment Minjun’s demeanor changed, he began giving off Dragon Fear several times denser than usual.

Its legs trembled under the overwhelming Dragon Fear.

The monster wearing Sia’s form staggered where it stood.

Little by little, the tide was turning.

Minjun was gradually regaining his reason, while the monster had fallen into sudden, intense fear and lost its composure.

The situation was completely different from before.

‘To turn this situation back around...’

It simply needed to use the exact opposite strategy from its failed plan.

Instead of awkwardly acting as a corrupted Sia like before, it would pretend to be Sia from a parallel world, the one who had ultimately returned alive from that Gate, and keep Minjun here.

If it offered him an escape more comforting than reality, where he would never have to wake from a dream he did not want to leave, it could ensnare him again.

Then it could wait for another chance to slowly strike at him.

After all, it had plenty of time.

So, it planned to act as though it had been possessed by an evil spirit, only to be freed from it.

It might seem a little unconvincing, but Minjun had not fully regained his reason yet. There was still a chance.

As soon as it revised its plan, it tried to read Minjun’s memories in order to deceive him properly.

Just as it had when Minjun first stepped into this tower.

However.

‘...Why can’t I read them?’

For some reason, Minjun’s memories, which it had been able to read clearly only moments ago, could no longer be read.

It was as though a thick fog had suddenly descended upon a clear sky. It could see nothing.

The reason it had been able to toy with the tower challengers who passed through here was because of its ability to read their memories and vividly recreate them.

‘Was he hiding some kind of power?’

Goosebumps rose over the monster’s body once more.

When it first saw Minjun, it had thought he was one of countless ordinary prey.

Had it been mistaken?

No matter what strategy it used now, the situation did not seem easy.

Seeing no hope, it finally decided to run.

But.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Minjun had no intention of letting it go so easily.

* * *

The unknown sense of alienation coursing through his entire body paradoxically allowed Minjun to recover his reason completely.

It felt as though his hazy, clouded mind had cleared.

Because of that, Minjun could clearly recognize that the being before him was a monster wearing Sia’s appearance.

The moment he realized it, uncontrollable anger toward the monster that had dishonored both him and Sia surged within him.

He did not know what the monster was, but it had completely toyed with him all this time.

The monster, whose wrist Minjun had tightly gripped, tried to shake his hand off. Yet for some reason, it could not escape his grasp.

The monster quickly changed tactics and began acting like Sia, who had lost her memories.

“Oppa... Wh, why are you doing this? N, no. What was I doing just now...?”

[Shut up.]

Its clumsy act only made Minjun angrier.

With his other hand, Minjun tightly gripped the monster’s throat.

Even if it was fake, he did not feel good about laying a hand on something wearing Sia’s face. But considering what it had done, even this was not enough.

Minjun tightened his grip even further.

It was enough force to have killed an ordinary person, or Sia before her reincarnation, long ago.

But an S-rank Gate monster would not go down so easily.

It wheezed, unable to breathe, but it was not dead yet.

Even so, it endured while maintaining Sia’s appearance.

“O, oppa, w, wait...!”

The thing inside was a monster, but the outside was still Sia. Unable to bear the sight, Minjun could hardly bring himself to look.

More than a year had passed, yet seeing Sia’s suffering face and hearing her suffering voice brought that old trauma back to the surface.

His breathing became increasingly unsteady, and his head began to spin.

Memories he wanted to forget kept tearing through his mind, draining all strength from his body.

However.

‘I can’t get drawn in.’

Just because he could not forget the memories he wanted to erase, just because the trauma from the past still tormented him.

He could not show such weakness because of it.

After all, had Sia not endured trauma far more terrible and painful than his?

Even though she had not been able to forget what happened for two thousand five hundred long years, she had lived while pretending to be fine.

‘I...’

It was not strange that he could not forget the terrible memory of having no choice but to watch the person he loved die.

At times, those memories might return and hurt him briefly.

But that trauma...

“...I have no intention of being completely consumed by it!”

An unfamiliar yet familiar power began boiling over within Minjun’s body.

It was certainly similar to the dragon power he had cultivated so far.

However.

That familiar power contained an aura he had never felt before.

Perhaps because of that, the power bubbled incompletely throughout Minjun’s body, as though it would lose control and burst out at any moment.

Whatever that power was, there was no reason to control it right now.

Minjun entrusted his entire body to that unknown power.

Then a gray aura began to softly cover his body.

It was strange.

Minjun was not holding the Dragon Bone Sword.

All he held now was a crude sword that had broken while he fled from the raging fire.

‘This...’

It looked different from the aura Minjun had originally drawn from his sword.

It was also his first time producing such aura without the Dragon Bone Sword’s assistance.

But this was not the time to think about such things.

The aura showed no sign of fading. Instead, it spread faster and faster.

The boiling aura, beyond Minjun’s control, immediately began to engulf the monster.

“Aaaaaah!”

At first, Sia’s suffering scream echoed out. Soon, however, the monster’s power to imitate Sia seemed to run out. It returned to its original form, and its voice changed back to its own.

Screeech, screeeech!

A terrible shriek, like nails repeatedly scraping against metal.

It was so horrible that it made him squint and cover his ears, but even that was less terrible to Minjun than Sia’s screams.

“You really thought you could do something like this.”

Glaring at the hideous monster, now completely stripped of Sia’s appearance, Minjun poured out the energy boiling inside him without restraint.

At first, he could not control it, and the energy scattered in every direction.

But as he gradually grew accustomed to handling it, the scattered energy concentrated into a single point.

And the instant it did.

Screeech!

With that final cry, its terrible screams stopped.

As the screaming ceased, the choking smoke began to clear as though there had never been a fire.

The grassland and forest that had burned moments before both scattered into red light.

* * *

The top floor of the dungeon held rare treasures and an exit leading to the outside world.

Anyone else would have gathered as many treasures as they could and left through the exit long ago, but Rokan could not do that.

Having already cleared this tower, Rokan was trying every possible method to rescue Minjun from this place.

However.

Even after using Dragon Speech and every spatial magic he knew, he still could not save Minjun.

“Minjun. Hold on just a little longer. I’ll find a way somehow.”

Fortunately, it was not completely hopeless.

Judging from the progress, Rokan thought that with about one more day, he could open a passage to where Minjun was.

But.

How could Minjun, an A-rank Hunter, survive alone in an S-rank dungeon for more than a day?

Putting aside clearing it, the odds that he could last a day were slim.

Rokan estimated that someone like Minjun could hold out for about half a day.

And that was not the time needed to clear it, but the time he could survive inside.

“Please, please...!”

He had lost count of how many times he had muttered that word.

Sweat had beaded across his hair before he knew it.

How long had it been since he had focused this intensely and poured out so much mana?

It was probably the first time since he had used every possible means to stop Sia’s rampage.

Perhaps thanks to Rokan’s efforts, cracks began to form in the sturdy-looking rift between dimensions.

“I did it!”

If he widened that rift now, he could open a passage connected to where Minjun was.

However, Rokan was mistaken about one thing.

Rokan had not opened that rift. Minjun, having cleared the dungeon, had created it.

The suddenly formed rift gradually grew larger.

At last, it changed in size and shape into a door large enough for one person to pass through.

When the door opened, Minjun began walking out from inside.

“Minjun, how did you...?!”

It was astonishing enough that an A-rank Hunter had cleared an S-rank dungeon alone.

But there was something that shocked Rokan just as much, if not more.

Translucent horns had grown from Minjun’s head.

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