Chapter 21:
“Ah, I’m not prejudiced. There’s no rule against men laying eggs.”
“That’s! Well, there are male monsters that lay eggs, but…”
“See? How do you know the dungeon master can’t lay eggs? Have you personally experimented?”
What experiment?!
The water lizard was horrified. He finally realized how dangerous this human was.
Why did Master share his power with this human? Why?!
“A-anyway, he’s not my mother. He’s not my father either! We’re not related by blood!”
Seo Jae-yi, who was about to ask if he was his father, pouted and closed her mouth.
“I’m a dragon who used to work for him.”
“A dragon? Not a lizard?”
“No! Dragons hate being compared to lizards, so please keep that in mind! Anyway, I made a slight mistake a few years ago, and Master sealed me in an egg.”
“Oh my. He seemed so kind, but that’s cruel! Abusing a young hatchling!”
“I’m not a hatchling! I’ve lived for hundreds of years! I only look like this because Master took away my power when he sealed me in the egg!”
“What? He even took away a baby’s power? I thought I should respect him because he’s my benefactor, but this is unacceptable. Don’t worry, I’ll scold him when I see him next time!”
“No! Listen to me!”
“You don’t have to be so grateful. Abusers deserve to be punished. I’ll teach him a lesson.”
The conversation was going nowhere. Defeated, the lizard asked the question that had been bothering him the most.
“Why did Master share his power with you? He’s not even your kind, and he’s not the type to do that for an Esper.”
“We made a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yeah. I tried to kill him at first. He’s a monster and a dungeon master. And I’m an Esper trained to kill monsters.”
The water lizard snorted at Seo Jae-yi’s words.
Kill Master? What an absurd notion.
He had protected the vast forest, teeming with monsters, for a long time. He wouldn’t be easily killed by a human who hadn’t even lived that long.
“But he proposed a deal. He said he would give me a way to suppress my overload and extend my lifespan if I spared his life.”
…That didn’t sound like him at all.
“…Master, begged for his life?”
“I was in the middle of an overload, burning down the entire forest. Ah, by the way, I’m a heat manipulator. I evaporated your water jets by controlling the heat.”
“…”
A heat-manipulating Esper experiencing overload. It was definitely a bad match for a forest dungeon.
The water lizard regained his composure and observed Seo Jae-yi more closely.
Black hair and black eyes, a mole on her cheek, and a not-so-innocent impression despite her youthful appearance.
A heat manipulator, the antithesis of the forest dungeon master, and a powerful Esper, strong enough to make the master bargain for his life?
His dragon instincts, honed over hundreds of years, kicked in.
He had a feeling. He had to stay by her side!
He could escape that grumpy Master if he stayed with her!
As a dragon who had lived for hundreds of years, his judgment and decision-making were swift. He quickly climbed onto her palm and clasped his tiny hands together.
“My name is Airok. I will serve you as my Master from now on, Seo Jae-yi!”
“Huh? What about your other Master?”
“The one who sealed me in an egg because I was annoying is terrifying! Please accept me!”
Water lizard Airok pleaded, his eyes glistening with tears. He looked incredibly pitiful in his baby lizard form.
Seo Jae-yi, still mistaking the dragon, Airok, for a hatchling, was completely swayed by his performance.
“Okay, let’s start anew! I’ll take good care of you, Logi!”
“I’m Airok…”
“My cute baby Logi! I’ll raise you into a magnificent lizard!”
“Airok… dragon…”
“Logi!”
“…”
After several attempts to correct her, Airok finally gave up, seeing that Seo Jae-yi had no intention of listening.
He hoped he hadn’t jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire…
He suddenly felt incredibly uneasy.
***
With the shop sign flipped to “Closed” – not that it mattered, since she rarely had customers anyway – Seo Jae-yi had a long conversation with Airok.
She learned a few things, including the reason why Airok, who had been sealed, was now free.
“The seal was broken because Master possesses the previous Master’s power. If it weren’t for you, I would have been trapped in that dreadful egg for another hundred years. He really has a terrible temper.”
Airok gleefully badmouthed the dungeon master, who wasn’t present.
It was said that even a king could be criticized in his absence. Seo Jae-yi willingly became his sounding board.
“I never imagined he would have such a bad temper. I had a good impression of him, so this is unexpected.”
“You?! You have a good impression of him after seeing him in person?!”
“Well, he saved my life. If he was truly evil, he wouldn’t have cared if I lived or died.”
“Uh… But didn’t you say he gave you his power in exchange for stopping the forest fire and sparing his life?”
“That’s right.”
That didn’t seem like a matter of good or evil. If the place she lived in was burning down, wouldn’t anyone beg her to leave, offering anything in return?
Airok felt a twinge of gratitude that he had been sealed when Seo Jae-yi was burning down the forest. Otherwise, the dungeon master would have likely thrown him into the flames, yelling, “Put out the fire!”
“Speaking of fire, Master.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Please don’t shoot fire at the egg anymore… It’s only because it was me inside, and you possess Master’s power, that I survived. Normally, it would be fatal…”
Seo Jae-yi was shocked by Airok’s serious tone.
“B-but eggs need to be warm to hatch, right? I regulated the heat. Was it too hot?”
“Hatchlings inside eggs are incredibly fragile! I was only okay because of Master’s power. You absolutely cannot do that again.”
Seo Jae-yi dejectedly nodded at Airok’s scolding. She rarely felt this downcast.
“And… Huh? Master, isn’t this a flower that blooms in the dungeon?”
Airok, who had been passionately lecturing her about the fragility of eggs and hatchlings, suddenly turned his head. Next to where his egg had been buried was the red, heat-absorbing flower Seo Jae-yi had brought from the forest dungeon.
“That’s right. I brought it with your egg and planted it. Fortunately, it’s thriving.”
“What?”
Airok, surprised, examined the red flower. It was indeed alive and well, even taking root.
“This is impossible…”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you think they’re called ‘dungeon plants’? The nutrients and elements they need are completely different from those on Earth. This flower, especially, is picky and doesn’t grow just anywhere.”
“Ah. An Esper with the life force ability infused the flowerbed with his power. Could it be because of that?”
“I thought this soil felt different from ordinary soil. It’s infused with an Esper’s energy. But that’s not enough.”
After a moment of silence, Airok looked at Seo Jae-yi, who was crouching beside him. There was only one other possibility.
“It’s probably reacting to Master’s power within your body.”
Seo Jae-yi reflexively touched her stomach.
“It’s in an unfamiliar land, but it instinctively sensed the familiar energy flowing from the one caring for it. And you roasted the soil where I was buried with fire, right? It probably reacted more strongly because it was nearby.”
Seo Jae-yi looked at her hand with a strange expression after Airok finished speaking.
“I see. I thought it was because of the Guild Master, but it was because I was close by.”
The very hand that everyone worried would burn down the shop with the flowers had actually been the key to keeping the dungeon flower alive.
A smile crept onto her face, feeling a sense of pride.
“But why did you bring this flower of all the flowers? It’s very difficult to grow.”
“Ah, it holds some good memories for me. The dungeon master told me about the properties of its fruit and gave me some to eat.”
“What? He told you about its properties? He can be that kind…?”
It seemed like Seo Jae-yi and Airok had very different impressions of the dungeon master.
“Then why has he never shown me such kindness? He sealed me in an egg for decades! It’s outrageous!”
“You have to understand, Logi. It was because I couldn’t control the heat in my body and kept burning everything around me.”
“…”
Airok, who had been sitting there dejectedly, wiping away tears, looked at Seo Jae-yi with a blank expression.
Right. It wasn’t because the dungeon master was inherently kind and favored Seo Jae-yi; he had simply been desperate to survive.
“Hmm, anyway, since you possess his power, you can probably grow other dungeon flowers as well. You’re running a flower shop, so why not try it if you’re bored? There are many safe flowers that can be sold on Earth.”
“…Huh?”
Seo Jae-yi felt like she had been struck on the head with a hammer.
That’s right. If the dungeon flower was thriving because of Kim Yoo-sung’s life force, she wouldn’t have dared to grow more out of guilt. But the flower needed the dungeon master’s power, which she possessed.
This meant she could grow dungeon flowers, something no other Esper could do!
“And this dungeon flower is resistant to fire, right? It’s much more durable than Earth flowers, which burn to a crisp in an instant.”
“That’s right.”
“Then, I wonder if I could grow other plants besides flowers?”
“Other plants? Like what? Edible plants?”
“Edible plants aren’t bad. But I’m thinking of something else. Like carnivorous plants with aggressive tendencies.”
Airok jumped up in surprise at her unexpected words.
“Master! Isn’t that too much? And aggressive ones, at that! This greenhouse will collapse!”
“Logi.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Logi.”
“…Why?!”
“Think about it. Do you think they would dare to go wild with me, an S-rank Esper possessing the dungeon master’s power, and you, a baby dragon who has lived for hundreds of years, right here?”
“What’s with this ‘baby dragon who has lived for hundreds of years’…? Hmm, that would be difficult.”
Unlike flowers, carnivorous plants from dungeons were closer to monsters. While they lacked intelligence, they possessed a degree of sentience. They wouldn’t dare to go on a rampage with powerful beings capable of destroying them present.
“But aren’t flowers enough? Why do you want to sell those monstrous plants?”
“I just thought they might be useful for dungeon raids.”
Airok’s eyes widened.