WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ My Girlfriend Returned as a Dragon ◈

Chapter 59: I Had to Tell Oppa Someday.

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Only the two of us were allowed in this space, a place of breathtaking scenery.

The view was beautiful beyond words, and a gentle breeze from nowhere in particular added to the atmosphere.

Sharing the food we had each prepared with the person we loved, talking quietly amid such romantic surroundings, gave rise to the sort of feelings one might see in a drama.

“Oppa, open wide.”

“Ah.”

Sia put a piece of the gimbap she had made into my mouth, and not to be outdone, I fed her some of the tteokbokki I had made.

Seeing each other enjoy the food we had prepared, smiles naturally spread across our faces.

“This place is really nice. We should come here for dates sometimes later, too.”

“Exactly! There isn't anyone else here besides us. I think that makes it even more atmospheric. It feels like we're the only two people left in this huge world.”

Sia confessed that she had wanted to go on a date like this at least once.

“Later, it might not be bad to buy a deserted island and date there. We could buy an island, build a vacation home just for us, and live there. What do you think, oppa? Sounds nice, right?”

“It sounds nice just imagining it.”

“We could fish there, catch blue crabs and clams, make seafood stew. At night, we could watch the stars together from the roof...”

It was the sort of dream that would normally remain only a fantasy, but Sia might actually turn it into reality.

As we let our imaginations run wild, something occurred to me.

“Sia, are there seasons here too?”

“Why?”

“It's the season for autumn leaves in Korea right now. I was just thinking it would be nice if we could see the mountainside below covered in red and yellow leaves.”

It was already beautiful enough, but since it was autumn, I could not help thinking of crimson foliage.

Still, there was no reason for the training ground to simulate all four seasons, so I was about to ask whether we should at least go see the autumn leaves soon when...

“Wait a moment, oppa.”

Sia rummaged through her subspace and pulled out a crystal ball.

It looked exactly like the one Rokan had taken out here last time.

When Sia poured mana into the crystal ball, the lush green leaves began turning red, changing into autumn foliage in an instant.

Every tree around us, and even the trees thickly covering the cliff below, changed color.

“How is it? Do you like it?”

“It's really beautiful...”

It had been beautiful before the leaves changed, but the autumn colors seemed to double that beauty.

Faced with a sight difficult to see anywhere else, I took out my phone and began taking pictures as if entranced.

Sia gestured at the air, and a maple leaf fluttered down slowly from a nearby tree, settling in her hand.

She lightly held the leaf and looked at it for a moment before handing it to me.

“Here, a gift. Laminate it and use it as a bookmark.”

“Thanks.”

That little act of thoughtfulness from Sia was unbearably cute.

I carefully put the maple leaf she gave me into my subspace.

Then, as thanks, I fed her another bite of tteokbokki.

Sia happily closed her eyes and savored it.

“Come to think of it, it's strange.”

“What is?”

Sia asked as she wiped the tteokbokki sauce from her mouth.

“The place where you lived was another dimension from Earth, right? But the maple leaves there seem similar to these ones.”

I suddenly became curious.

What had the autumn leaves in Sia's old world looked like?

Perhaps my question sounded a little random, but Sia smiled as she answered.

“They look surprisingly similar there, too. They're not exactly the same, but whenever the leaves changed color, I remembered when I went to see the autumn leaves with you, oppa.”

Since the conversation had gone this way, I decided to ask Sia, though it was a little sudden, what her life as a dragon had been like.

It was something I had wanted to ask someday.

“Sia, could you tell me more about it? About your hometown and the life you've lived.”

“...Hmm.”

Normally, Sia would have eagerly started talking, but judging by that reaction, she did not seem to want to discuss it much.

Why?

She had lived for over two thousand five hundred years, a span impossible for a human to imagine. It seemed like she would have plenty of interesting stories and stories she wanted to tell.

But thinking about it, Sia had hardly ever brought up that world or her life there.

Other than the first day we reunited, she had barely talked about it at all.

Seeing her reaction, I thought I should wait until she wanted to tell me herself.

“If you don't want to, you don't have to force yourself to tell me.”

I did not know whether I had unintentionally touched a sore spot, but seeing Sia's response, I thought I should change the subject.

But Sia shook her head, let out a deep sigh as if she had made up her mind, and slowly spoke.

“No. They're things I had to tell you someday anyway. And people who love each other shouldn't have so many secrets.”

Since things had come to this, Sia said she would tell me what she had been unable to talk about until now.

“I didn't tell you because they aren't exactly pleasant stories to tell.”

Sia calmly began speaking in detail about the life she had lived as a dragon.

* * *

When she first realized that she had been reincarnated as a dragon, the first emotion she felt was confusion.

For someone who had let their imagination soar while reading fantasy novels, being reincarnated as a dragon, the strongest being on earth, might have been an incredibly happy event. But she could not be simply happy about it.

Partly because Minjun was no longer beside her, but there was another reason as well.

It was the way dragons viewed humans.

After becoming an adult dragon, many dragons spent most of their time in human form. Yet paradoxically, most dragons regarded humans as insignificant, inferior creatures.

Like humans looking at baby monkeys.

And as she lived in dragon society, she came to understand something else.

What they thought about romantic relationships with humans.

Among dragons, the belief was widespread that developing romantic feelings for humans or even considering starting a family with one was impure. Humans were only partners for amusement.

Those values among dragons brought her an identity crisis.

You know how people born into multicultural families are said to struggle with questions of identity when they are young.

But in her case, it was far more severe.

She had to struggle with an identity crisis between not two countries, but two species.

Because of that, she said she had suffered deeply in silence, unable to share those concerns with the other dragons.

Especially before she revealed to her family there that she was reincarnated.

She had been loved by the other members of her clan as a dragon while possessing the soul of a human, an inferior species.

As time passed, guilt gradually began to grow in a corner of her heart.

And that was not all that troubled her.

There, Sia had been the pride of the Red Dragon clan.

As Rokan had said before, she had been born with a special aura that other dragons did not possess.

She possessed an overwhelming aura that could not be compared to dragons of a similar age.

That gave the other dragons more reason to cherish her.

Paradoxically, it also made her feel even more burdened by her life there.

She thought she was receiving more love than she deserved.

The casual contempt dragons held for humans, and the excessive attention and love she received there despite having once been human.

It was only natural that she would develop an illness of the heart.

And it was not only her emotional suffering that tormented her.

When she was around one hundred years old, which was only about four years old by human standards, the aura sleeping within her suddenly began to run wild.

As mentioned before, she had been born with an aura rare even in the long history of dragons, so no dragon knew what effect it might have on her in the future.

They had merely assumed that she would possess greater power than other dragons and someday become a Dragon Lord who led her clan, like her grandfather.

But perhaps that power had been too much for her human soul to contain.

One day, that aura consumed her.

The first time it happened, Sia and her family were terrified.

Even they had never seen such a phenomenon before.

Neither healing magic, medicinal elixirs, nor even Dragon Speech could stop her rampage.

The one fortunate thing was that no one was harmed by it, and the rampage subsided after only one day.

Such incidents continued to happen afterward. Fortunately, as time passed, they gradually became less frequent.

“I rambled too much. Anyway, that's what it was like. I do have a lot of good and happy memories, but when I think of that time, I also remember the bad things. It made me reluctant to recall it at all.”

“I see.”

“And I wanted to be human Jeong Sia in front of you, oppa, not Shasha the Red Dragon. That's another reason I deliberately didn't talk about it much. Still, I feel a little better after finally telling you everything.”

Sia held a faint smile as she met Minjun's eyes.

But for some reason, Minjun had the impression that this smile was subtly different from the ones she usually wore.

In truth, Minjun's intuition was somewhat correct.

Though she said she had gotten everything off her chest, there were still things she had not told Minjun.

For example, that dragons also existed in this world, and that when she met them, they too had reacted with disgust at the thought of holding genuine romantic feelings for a human.

No matter how much Sia wanted to pour everything out, she could not tell Minjun that.

Without realizing that Minjun had sensed something strange, Sia lay down on his lap and asked for a lap pillow.

“Oppa, can I stay like this for a little while?”

“Yeah.”

“It feels nice to have a lap pillow again. We used to do this often.”

The mood had become a little heavy after talking about her somewhat dark past, so Sia wanted to change the subject and return to their usual sweet atmosphere.

As she wondered how to do that, she suddenly remembered what her grandfather had told her yesterday.

That he was planning to create a guild for Minjun soon.

Rokan had said that he had not told Minjun about this yet, so it would be best for her to tell him. Sia had been waiting for the right moment to bring it up.

Of course, she had no idea that Minjun had already heard about it.

Wondering how Minjun would react, she brought it up while lying on his lap.

“Oppa. Want me to tell you some news that'll really surprise you?”

“Surprising news?”

At that, Minjun immediately realized what she was about to say.

But pretending not to know anything, Minjun met Sia's gaze with curious eyes.

“Yeah. News that'll really, really surprise you when you hear it. What do you think it is?”

“Hmm. What could it be...?”

Minjun pretended to think it over, deliberately drawing it out.

After wondering whether he should guess the answer, he decided not to this time.

“No matter how much I think about it, I have no idea. What's the answer?”

“My grandfather is going to create a guild himself for you, oppa!”

“Really?”

Minjun acted as though he were hearing it for the first time, and perhaps his acting was convincing enough, because Sia excitedly continued.

“He'd been thinking about creating a guild for a while, but he decided because of you. It would be awkward for you to join an ordinary guild, but it would also be awkward not to join one, so I guess he decided to make one while he had the chance.”

“Oh...”

It was exactly what Rokan had told him, but Minjun made an interested expression as if he were hearing it for the first time.

“Do you know your mouth is practically up to your ears right now?”

“Is it, really?”

“How happy are you? If I'd known, I would have asked Grandfather to make you a guild ages ago.”

Sia thought Minjun was smiling because he was happy about the guild being created, but that was not why he was smiling.

He could not help smiling because Sia looked so cute as she happily chattered away, thinking she had successfully surprised him.

“Now that this is happening, should I join Grandfather's guild too? It might be hard for us to work together, but still. Didn't we say something like that before we graduated from the Academy? That it would be nice if we both joined the same guild together.”

“We did. Back then, I thought it would be hard to make that dream come true because I was D-rank, but it came true like this.”

“Yeah! I should tell Grandfather. Later, we can go on dates in Gates together. We can fight together too, to bring back old memories.”

“That won't be difficult.”

Ah, this was the life.

Worried that Minjun's legs might be getting numb, Sia sat up and peeled the tangerines she had brought for dessert, feeding them to him.

The two of them enjoyed the quiet atmosphere as they admired the magnificent scenery.

They both hoped they could peacefully chat and take in the view like this until their date was over.

Even on their last date, a sudden Gate Break had ruined the mood halfway through.

Today, they hoped time would pass peacefully without anything like that happening.

But a little while later.

Sia unfortunately realized that small wish could not come true.

She could feel the signs of the aura's rampage she had just told Minjun about beginning again.

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