Me?

He had heard from the guys he ran into before coming here that Baekdu’s chairman had arrived, but he had never expected to see him here.
And to think he’d be sitting in Jiri Academy’s chairman’s office without its owner around, like it was his own office.

‘So the chairman’s secretary was acting strange because of that dragon?’

Once Ro-un calmed down from the surprise appearance, the dragon spoke as if he had been waiting.

“Don’t just stand there. Come sit.”
“Excuse me.”

At the sight of Yong Chang-jin speaking like he was the owner of the place, Ro-un thought he suited the seat far better than Jiri’s pig of a chairman and sat down.
Ro-un sat diagonally across from Baekdu’s chairman.
On the table were premium tea and refreshments, apparently prepared by the secretary.

“Have a cup. I brought this tea with me on the way here. I hope it suits your taste, student Lee Ro-un.”
“Thank you.”

So it wasn’t the secretary. Baekdu’s chairman brought it himself.

Wow. I’d only ever watched other people drink this. Never thought I’d get to drink it myself.
Feeling the clean taste spread through his mouth, Ro-un set down the cup.
Now that his throat was wet, it was time to hear why that dragon was here.

“I’m sure my sudden visit came as quite a surprise.”
“I heard you don’t usually leave the academy grounds, Chairman. Did you have business with our chairman?”
“No. The one I have business with is you, student Lee Ro-un.”
“With me?”

Yong Chang-jin nodded.
“I’ll get straight to the point. You—”

Bang!
Dododododo!
Grab!

Something burst through the door and promptly stuck itself to Ro-un’s leg.
Baekdu’s chairman, Yong Chang-jin, squeezed his eyes shut at the sight of the one who had barged into the conversation.

“?”

What?
Ro-un reflexively looked down, and a white blur entered his sight.
It was someone with white hair and a body small enough to rival In-woo, the Tiger Clan’s youngest princess.

“Hey, who are you? How did you get in here?”

Putting on the gentle smile he used to wear before the regression, Ro-un softly asked the child.
Eyes with black irises and somehow slightly pointed pupils looked up at Ro-un.
As Ro-un searched his memory at the strangely familiar eyes, the white-haired child smiled brightly and answered,

“Hi!”
“Hi… what’s your name?”

Ro-un spoke in a slightly dazed voice.
What kind of kid is this pretty?
The Tiger Clan’s youngest princess had been small and cute too, but this child was pretty like a princess.

‘So pretty he doesn’t even look hum—’

Ro-un froze mid-thought.
White hair rare outside of awakening or age, pupils narrower than normal, looks more striking than an ordinary human’s.
…The child was not human.

“You…?”
“Hi!”
“Uh. Wait. So you’re—”
“Hi!”
“Is ‘hi’ the only words you know in our language?”
“Hi!”

As if he had learned no word other than ‘hi,’ the pretty white-haired boy pressed himself against Ro-un.
Forgetting even that he was with an unfamiliar dragon, Ro-un gathered the clinging child into his arms and soothed him.

“Did you come here alone? Where are your parents?”
“Hi!”
“Right. What’s your name? Hold still a second, let me check.”

As Ro-un reached for the child’s pockets to look for an ID necklace or bracelet, the child was suddenly lifted into the air.

“He came with his parent. Right here.”
“Huh…?”
“He answered that he did not come alone, but with his parent.”
“???”

What is all this supposed to mean?
At the dragon’s words in human form, Ro-un blanked out for a second, then pulled himself together.

‘So if I organize this…’

The child is not human.
The child came with his parent.
The child’s parent is in this room.
I am not the child’s parent.
=The child’s parent is Baekdu’s chairman.

‘Then this kid is Baekdu’s chairman’s child?!’

After sorting through the flood of information, Ro-un swallowed his shock.
Baekdu’s chairman is a dad?!

‘Baekdu’s chairman had a child?’

As apparent as it was with the Tiger Clan’s youngest princess, nonhuman beings did not bring their still-young children outside their territories.
They treasured their young too much to take them out of safe places.

‘And he has a kid?’

As Ro-un reeled from what he had just understood, the child struggled in Yong Chang-jin’s arms and reached toward Ro-un.

“Hiii!”
“Didn’t I bring you here just like you wanted? Stay still.”
“Hnnng. Hi.”
“You haven’t forgotten your promise to behave if I brought you here, have you? If you keep moving, I’ll turn you back into your original form.”

At Yong Chang-jin’s scolding, the child stopped struggling with a face that looked ready to burst into tears.
No, how can you speak to a kid like that?

“It’s fine. You can put him down.”

At Ro-un’s words, the father and son’s expressions changed at once.
The child beamed as if clouds had parted, while Yong Chang-jin darkened like storm clouds.
Swallowing a sigh at his son’s face looking up as if begging to be put down already, Yong Chang-jin set him back on the floor.

Dodododo, grab!

Just like when he first came into the room, the white-haired child scampered over and threw himself at Ro-un.
Ro-un lifted the child and sat him on his lap.

“Hi!”

Strength returned to the child’s voice.
Seeing his own child clearly preferring Ro-un over his parent, Yong Chang-jin spoke in a slightly sunken voice.

“He listens to you more than me.”
“…I have a lot of experience taking care of children.”
“I know about the orphanage volunteer work too.”
“Ah. There was that too.”

The orphanage volunteer work was something he got tagged in because he was forced to go along with the pigs’ public-relations activities.
And aside from the pigs’ schedule, whenever he had time, Ro-un used to stop by the orphanage and look after the children.

‘Even after hearing that the money I donated was going into the directors’ back pockets, even after hearing the children talking behind my back by accident, I stupidly kept supporting them.’

Even after hearing things like that he was fake, creepy, a sucker, or that they’d use Lee Ro-un to gain more followers, Ro-un did not cut off support until the children left the orphanage.
But now, is there any reason for me to keep showing them goodwill?

‘If it comes to that, I’d rather buy the items needed to stop the Calamities with that money.’

Ro-un buried his past regrets deep in the back of his mind.

Poke, poke!

“Hi?”
“Ah… it’s nothing. Want a cookie?”
“Hi!”

Meeting the child’s eyes looking up at him as if in concern, Ro-un came back to himself and held out a cookie.
When the child clutched the cookie Ro-un had given him in both hands and hugged it to himself without eating it, Ro-un picked up another cookie, held it to the child’s mouth, and pretended to take a bite.

“Nom nom. This cookie’s good. Want to eat together?”
“Nmm-ah.”

When Ro-un pretended to eat, the child obediently copied him.

Crunch!

At the scene, which looked like a pair of close brothers or perhaps father and son, someone watching grew jealous.
The white-haired boy’s actual father, one of the Korean Peninsula’s strongest species and the man who had insta-killed an S-rank passage boss with a single gesture, snapped a cookie cleanly in half as he spoke.

Crack!

“He listens to you better than he listens to me.”

For some reason, it feels like he can’t break me, so he’s taking it out on the cookie instead.
His expression and voice were unchanged, but the jealous presence around him made Ro-un lean away from the dragon.
As Ro-un edged away from the dragon crushing cookies with murderous force, Yong Chang-jin snapped every cookie in half and tossed them back onto the plate.

‘Treating food like that. What kind of dragon doesn’t know how to respect food!’

As Ro-un, who had rarely been able to eat properly while stopping one major incident after another, no, one Calamity after another, clicked his tongue inwardly at the cookies carelessly tossed onto the plate, Yong Chang-jin spoke.

“Transfer to Baekdu Academy.”
“Pardon…? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“Nmm-amm?”
“I’m merely saying what I failed to say earlier.”

What was he saying earlier again?
Ro-un searched his memory.

‘I’ll get straight to the point. You—’

Ah, right!
He got that far, and then the child barged in and cut the conversation off.
Remembering the front half of the interrupted sentence, Ro-un looked at Yong Chang-jin and said,

“Did you come here just to say that?”
“I did.”

Seriously?
That guy who’s normally glued to his seat had come all the way from Mount Baekdu to Mount Jiri just to say that?
Not because he had business with another chairman?

‘Well, now that I think about it, Baekdu’s chairman wouldn’t really have any reason to cooperate with our academy anyway.’

Oddly enough, Ro-un found Yong Chang-jin’s proposal believable.
Yong Chang-jin continued.

“You are an outstanding talent. A healer with an SSS-rank trait, one already assured of a future place as a Saint. A promising prodigy even the World Awakener Association has its eyes on. Baekdu Academy’s standing would rise from the mere fact that it taught such a prodigy. As chairman, is it not only natural that I recruit outstanding talent?”

It’s EX-rank now, actually.
Listening to Yong Chang-jin’s words, Ro-un only raised the corner of his mouth.
Unlike those pigs who had only used him, these were words that recognized his value. There was no way they would not please him.

‘And Baekdu’s chairman isn’t exactly in a position where he needs to flatter anyone.’

He had been thinking of dropping out and going to the World Awakener Association, which had supported him for years, but now he would have to consider the transfer too.
Certainly, considering the first Calamity and the fourth Calamity, the Big Wave, it was better not to leave Korea until the Calamities were over.

“Did you really come here just to recruit me? I heard Baekdu Academy already has plenty of outstanding talent.”
“I did. The place I oversee gathers better talent than anywhere else on the Korean Peninsula.”

It was an arrogant thing to say, but the dragon was right.
Baekdu Academy was the place that never dropped out of the top five in the world academy rankings.
That dragon’s backing must have had something to do with it.

‘Even so, saying it that openly.’

Compared to the White Tiger, who had cut off relations with human society, the dragon who served as chairman of a school attended by humans had even less humanity to him.
Dragons were a species far removed from humility.
He realized it anew.
As Ro-un was left momentarily speechless by Yong Chang-jin’s sheer confidence, the dragon added one more sentence.

“And even aside from that, there is another reason I want to bring you in.”
“What other reason?”

Could this dragon be planning to use Ro-un too, like all the other humans?
Looking at the dragon who had blended into human society, Ro-un raised his guard.

“To repay a debt.”
“…To repay a debt?”

The tension stretched tight inside him suddenly slackened.
Right. It’s not like a dragon would go out of his way over a single healer.
Even without a healer, there had to be plenty of rare treasures in a dragon’s domain.

“To repay a debt? There’s no debt you owe me, Chairman Baekdu.”
“You saved my child. Is that not reason enough to invite you into my domain?”
“Me?”

When?
As Ro-un blinked, the child beamed and reached out to grab Ro-un’s white eyelashes.
Since he might accidentally poke him in the eye, Ro-un caught the child’s hand and tickled his side instead.

“Kyaahaha!”

Oops. I moved on reflex, like I was dealing with the children at the orphanage again.
As Ro-un faltered at the clear voice cutting through his thoughts, Yong Chang-jin pointed at the child and continued.

“You saved that child after he fell into the spring, did you not?”
“Me?”

It’s not like I dropped an axe into a spring, so when did I pick up a baby…?!
Ro-un’s head snapped around at that thought.

“You, that snaaake, no! You’re the baby imugi?”
“Hi!”

Now that Ro-un had finally recognized him, the child beamed and threw himself at him.
Catching the child, who had flung himself hard enough to topple them both, with his whole body, Ro-un turned to Yong Chang-jin with a dumbfounded expression.

“No, Chairman Baekdu. Isn’t there some misunderstanding here? There’s no way your son would be on Mount Jiri. And besides, the one I saved was the child of a black imugi.”
“Then I came to the right person after all. The child you saved was indeed the child of an imugi.”
“Yes, that’s right. The child I saved was the child of an imugi. Which means there’s no reason for you to repay any debt to me, Chairman Baekdu. I think you may have come to the wrong person.”
“It is neither a misunderstanding nor a case of finding the wrong person.”

At Yong Chang-jin’s firm answer, Ro-un felt a little stifled.
Being owed a favor by a dragon was not a bad thing, but he couldn’t accept repayment for saving a dragon’s child without even knowing why.
If something was wrong, he could end up taking credit for kindness meant for someone else and draw a dragon’s wrath.

‘To Divine Beasts, a debt of gratitude is something precious enough to wager their lives on. If they learned some other human had carelessly taken what was meant for another, I might end up suffering retaliation for nothing.’

Hadn’t stories from many regions long told of people suffering divine punishment after stealing credit for another’s deed?
When Ro-un glanced once at the child in his arms and was about to argue again, Yong Chang-jin beat him to it.

“Mugi is my wife.”
“…Huh?”
“The black imugi you saw was my wife. Her name is Mugi. An imugi with black and beautiful scales. She had even made a Cintamani, but she had postponed her ascension because of the child. This time, after entrusting the child, she is now ascending into a dragon. Once the ascension is complete, she will come to my dwelling and live with me. I wanted to give her my surname, but she had asked me to wait until she became a dragon, so I put it off. Now I finally can. Thank you, student Lee Ro-un. It is thanks to you.”

Ro-un stared open-mouthed at Yong Chang-jin, who showed regret, gratitude, and affection for his mate all at once.

‘No… I really didn’t need to know all that.’

So the chairman of Baekdu, one of the Korean Peninsula’s strongest dragons, not only had a child, but had an imugi for a wife?
And the child I saved was the child they had together?

‘No, then before the regression, one of our academy idiots killed a dragon’s child?!’

The back of his neck went stiff.
At an incident that could have ranked among the absolute worst of all the trouble they had caused, Ro-un wanted to go strangle that delinquent right now.

‘What kind of lunatic messes with a dragon’s child! Those idiots! Just how huge a disaster did they almost bring down because of that! …No, but that dragon was fine even after losing his mate and child? Aren’t dragons supposed to be able to sense their child’s death even from far away?’

Something about it did not sit right.
Even after , Yong Chang-jin had never once stopped acting as “Baekdu’s chairman.”
A dragon who wants to bring me into his domain because I saved his child, a dragon who regrets not being able to give his wife his surname, just stayed quiet before the regression?

‘It happened before the regression, so I can’t exactly ask about it directly.’

Just as the Tiger Clan’s youngest princess had been struck by someone’s curse, could this too have had someone else’s hand behind it?
Suspicion kept bubbling up, but there was nothing he could know for certain.
Unaware of the complicated thoughts running through Ro-un’s head, Yong Chang-jin continued explaining his intent to recruit him.

“…In any case, I came to take you with me. I heard you were planning to drop out of this place. Koreans place a great deal of value on academic background, so for your future, transferring to our academy would not be a bad—”

Bang!

Cutting off Yong Chang-jin’s words, the chairman’s office door flew open once again with a loud bang.

“By whose permission!”