Episode 58: The Art of not getting hurt in a Conversation
The humiliation stopped her sobbing voice. Afterwards, the rabbit mask didn’t say anything and the rehearsal thus came to an end.
‘Some time or other’ became Kaeul’s song.
On the way home, the kids congratulated Kaeul and noisily praised her, or cursed the rabbit mask. Whenever Yeorum displayed her discontentment, Gyeoul showed her agreement while Kaeul smiled like a puppy.
However, she sometimes turned blank, seemingly worrying about something. It was probably related to Jung Yuran.
The Regressor pondered whether he should have a 1-on-1 chat with her or not. If he were to have a chat, it would be in a way that would change her life a little, so he had to be prudent.
In the dormitory, he continued thinking on the sofa when Bom walked up and sat next to him.
“What are you thinking about?”
“About Kaeul.”
“Ah…”
“Bom. Can I ask you something.”
“Yes.”
“Should I say it or not.”
Bom widened her eyes.
The question was way too out of context. It might be that Bom felt like an answer sheet for the Regressor.
“What kind of question is that?”
“What would you choose if you had to choose one.”
“You have to say it.”
“Why.”
“Because no-one will know if you don’t say anything.”
“It might be better for me to not say it though.”
“…”
Lifting her face up, she stared at the ceiling. It was unclear whether she was thinking about something or looking into Providence, but she remained silent for some time.
“Do you trust me?” Breaking through the silence, she asked.
“Of course.”
“Can you trust us?”
He needed to think about this question a bit, but after thinking about it, he realised that now he could.
“I can.”
“What if I’m wrong? I can’t always be correct either.”
“It’s fine if you’re wrong. I won’t be blaming anything on you.”
“So everything will be your responsibility, ahjussi?”
“Yes.”
“…”
Bom looked at him with a slight pout before opening her mouth with a sigh.
“I think, it’s better for you to say it.”
“Really?”
“Nn… if you’re worried, please console her. If she has to change, please help her and if you treasure her, please give her a quiet hug. That will be the best thing to do. I think.”
Apparently, some green dragons tended to live like a soothsayer in Askalifa. Perhaps that was why, but although the words were like a riddle, the Regressor felt slightly more certain.
“Thanks.”
***
“Hehe. Chirp chirp~”
Chirp chirp!
An afternoon walk with the baby chicken. When Kaeul and the baby chicken were leaving the house for a walk, he followed them outside.
Sitting on a bench, they stared at the setting sun painting the world in orange.
“Did something happen? Why did you want to come with us?”
When it was time to rest after walking for a long time, the blonde pair of eyes turned towards him.
“Because there was something I needed to tell you.”
“Nn? What is it?”
Looking back,
The Gold Dragon of the 4th iteration was also a child. A child that didn’t know anything, that debuted at the age of 18.
The show business in the US was rather rough. Interpersonal relationships there couldn’t even be compared to Lair. Before her name value increased in size, there were questions about a casting couch and after she became famous, people tried to bring her down.
Unlike hostile comments that were always shared through the media, interpersonal strifes tended to happen near her for a set period of time and the young 18-year old BY used to cry very often.
He could remember her sobbing, ‘I don’t understand why everyone is doing this to me,’ to the counsellor.
However, BY continued contemplating interpersonal relationships by herself. She pondered it and later fixed her words and her attitude. By the time she reached 25, she wasn’t easily hurt by others when dealing with other people.
She had grown after countless wounds, events and contemplations.
“Can you hold my hand.”
Yu Jitae reached out to the child. Holding hands was something a little bit more special to the dragons so a question mark appeared in her eyes.
“Your skin is too rough though…”
“Just hold it for a bit.”
“Okayy…!”
While carrying the baby chicken in one hand, she held his hand with the other hand. Slowly and naturally, the dragon’s mana started seeping into his body and he didn’t stop it.
“Are you worried?” he asked.
“About wat?”
“Her. Jung Yuran.”
“Ah…”
She nodded.
“Yes… a little bit.”
“Because of what she might say?”
“Yes. I didn’t do anything wrong… but… I, did trust her.”
“…”
“Even though now I know that she’s not my friend, there’s still the feeling of betrayal… instead of getting mad, I want to run away if possible.”
The ground hardens after the rain. Only after accepting countless roots that try to pierce into them can people turn strong enough and learn the art of not getting hurt in a conversation.
If she wanted to live on, she had to learn it. Without a doubt, she would cry a lot and feel very hurt like BY.
However, the Regressor didn’t want her to feel such things again. Therefore, he was planning on cheating a little.
“I’ll tell you a story about a girl I know.”
“A girl? Who is it?”
“No need to know. Anyway, she was a softhearted girl. She cried while talking to other people and couldn’t sleep at night after getting swore at.”
“Hehe. She had a weak mentality I guess.”
“She did.”
Yu Jitae brought back the memories of that time. Her conflict with the manager and the conflict with the company. Conflicts with fans that crossed the line and male singers that had vulgar thoughts. Conflicts with jealous older singers; conflicts with the song writer, choreographer, the vocal coach.
– Sit. I’m telling you to sit.
– Don’t you understand? What I, your employer, is saying?
– Or are you looking down on me as well?
As well as the conflict with him.
Although she did go astray a little in the end, BY was very good at forming relationships both on the stage and behind the curtains. Not a single blemish was found from her until her parrot made a mistake.
But that also meant that the media created false rumours and spread them to push a normal person down the drain.
“…”
With a vacant look on her face, Kaeul immersed herself into his story. Since she got absorbed in his memories and emotions, Kaeul was able to accept the story despite the Regressor’s words being all over the place.
When the story finally ended, Kaeul asked him with a blank-minded look on her face.
“Who is, that girl…?”
He let go of the child’s hand.
“Just someone I know. Why?”
“I feel so sorry for her…”
“Do you?”
“Yes. She’s pitiful and… it must have been rough…”
She patted the baby chicken that was dozing off. Her immersion was revealed behind her bright expression and Yu Jitae could see a reflection of the child from back then, which he had long forgotten.
In any case, he had to tie a firm knot right now.
“Can you promise me something?”
“Sorry?”
“What you’re feeling right now. Don’t bring it back lightheartedly.”
“Uhh… this is a very burdensome emotion so I don’t think I can do that anyway but… then when should I bring it back?”
“When someone is trying to hurt you, or when you have to sincerely say something to someone else. Otherwise, you shouldn’t reflect on what you’re feeling right now. Okay?”
In response to his words, Kaeul stared at him with a blank expression. She then slightly lowered her head diagonally.
A condescending gaze and a decadent smile appeared on her face.
Soon, she opened her mouth.
“…Why should I?”
***
“Ayat!”
After receiving a flick to her forehead, she chuckled out loud. “Was that obvious? It was a joke, a joke…! I’ll promise!” She said while lifting her pinky finger. Although he found such things meaningless, Yu Jitae still wrapped his little finger around her pinky.
Yu Jitae started paying more attention to Kauel after that, but she was the same as always and also regained her bright smile like before.
But that didn’t mean that she could avoid the inevitable event.
One day, there was a message from the society that wanted everyone to gather. Kaeul had to go to the club room and Yu Jitae decided to follow from a distance.
What was to come had come and Kaeul looked slightly anxious on the way there. After arriving at the club room, she was met with Jung Yuran who was chatting with other cadets.
He stood far off in the corridor and stared at the two of them.
He was slightly worried. The pressure felt from a conflict with another person. Being betrayed by a trusted friend, and being put in a situation where she might get hurt even more. Even if she immersed herself in BY, would she be able to properly deal with it?
Yu Jitae watched with the mindset that he would immediately leave with her if anything went wrong.
‘You’re right. It was me.’
However, the moment Kaeul opened her mouth and the confident expression from the past appeared on her face, his worry disappeared.
Jung Yuran’s expression turned sharp like a blade.
‘You… I didn’t know you were like that. I’m really disappointed, Yu Kaeul.’
She must have said something already to the other friends, and the other cadets also didn’t look very comfortable.
‘Then you must have been looking down on me a lot whenever I made you sing? Is that what you like doing? Making other people a fool?’
‘What are you saying. When did I do that?’
Perhaps because Kaeul’s expression was unusual and different, people watched with a questioning gaze.
‘I didn’t like you from the start. You should stop acting pretty and foolish. Did you think no-one knew how you were swinging your tail to the boys?’
Jung Yuran seemed to be thinking that it was the time to say everything and revealed everything that was on her mind. However, Kaeul was smiling – it was a scoff as if she knew it all along.
‘I knew it. I just found out how your mind was dirty, but I was a little bit surprised,’ said Kaeul.
‘What?’
It was very obvious now but Kaeul was strange. The cadets that were watching from the side with nervousness also widened their eyes. Her bright tone of voice was still there but that instead made it feel even more bizarre.
‘You didn’t like me from the start? Don’t you think it was you who had the victim mindset instead of me swinging my tail?’
‘Yu Kaeul. Stop saying nonsense. What do you even know?’
‘Ahh, I see, so that was why. You made me sing because you wanted to force me into something you were good at and look down on me? How sad…’
‘You.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s because I’m not good at reading the mood. If I was, I would have kept on pretending to be a bad singer for you.’
‘You–! Can you shut your mouth?’
‘Stop shouting. Or your mother in heaven might hear it.’
Kaeul’s sudden words that even cursed Jung Yuran’s mother caused the friends to cover their mouths in shock. ‘I think that’s going too far, Kaeul…’ said one of them.
‘Oh so you guys don’t know anything? About what happened between me and her at the PR department?’
‘Shut up. I told you to shut up!’
She shouted.
‘Listen guys. So what happened two days ago is…’
‘Yu Kaeul! Why are you doing this to me…! What, what did I do wrong!!’
It was unclear whether she was out of her mind or embarrassed, but Jung Yuran crouched and started weeping out loud.
Yu Jitae didn’t know why she was suddenly like that, but Kaeul knew instinctively after immersing herself deeply into someone else, that Jung Yuran was crying intentionally.
‘Kaeul. What happened to you today.’
‘Calm down first… Yuran’s crying…’
‘I think you are both getting too emotional.’
Suddenly, the atmosphere started making Kaeul the bad one. However, it was nothing more than a child’s play to BY who had to survive between the cracks of strong-willed women in the past.
Drop–!
Kaeul threw her drink over the crying girl’s head.
‘Can you guys please step aside? Unless you want to see me go crazy.’
The plastic bottle crumpled and the drink splattered. Six other girls that were inside the club room were flustered and didn’t know what to do.
Before they came to themselves, Kaeul approached the crying child and crouched near her. She then whispered into her ears.
‘Yuran. Should I tell you a secret?’
‘Back then, I was actually recording everything with my watch.’
‘Do you see my left wrist?’
A startled gaze suddenly turned towards Kaeul’s wrist through the gaps between the fingers that were covering her face. Her sobbing voice also came to a stop. The screen was dark but upon closer inspection, she realised that everything was being recorded even now.
The dumbfounded gaze looked up and met the gold pair of condescending eyes.
Kaeul stared at her with an indifferent expression before whispering into her ears yet again.
‘Half a year is not a short time right?’
‘Don’t you have a lot of friends that love to blabber. Like you.’
‘Then who do you think I should give the recording to?’
When Jung Yuran raised her head again, she found a pair of pitying eyes looking down at her.
‘Leave the club.’
‘And give up on the singing contest.’
‘Don’t come ever again, unless you want to become miserable.’
Jung Yuran lowered her hands and there was a look of stupefaction on her face. With an indecent smile, Kaeul placed her lips near her ears and gave her a kiss.
‘It was fun.’
*
“Uhh… I must have been crazy… Like, like…! I wasn’t thinking of saying such shocking things, you know?!”
On the way back, Kaeul jumped up and down.
“What should I do? Ahjussi, don’t you also think I was being too harsh…?!”
“No. You did well.”
“Whaat? I did well? I said super harsh things to her…!”
The Regressor patted her gold hair. Meanwhile, the baby chicken kept babbling on and on and repeatedly asked if it was okay or not, and he kept telling her that it was fine.
He was completely uninterested in whether others got hurt or not.
He wanted Kaeul to be unhurt,
And today, she didn’t get hurt.
“Next time, give them a slap as well.”
The Regressor was therefore satisfied.
Wow the character development was worthy enough to lift Thor’s hammer.
this is a year later but this comment is insane
As much as possible the MC wants her to remain as her innocent self and not her jaded future self. How cute.
Unless she is a complete idiot, Kaeul should be able to tell that it was a story about her alternative self.
Well, I suppose that the MC doesn’t have any big reason for hiding his past from them. He just doesn’t talk about it because it’s there’s no point in talking about it and it’s also unpleasant.
No i think that if they knew that mc gathered them and became their protector (i forgot the term) only to stop the world’s destruction they won’t have this happy smile anymore so he decided to keep it a secret…. Plus imagine if the one who’s responsible for you and the only thing you can rely on is a cold blooded murderer who abused you for hundreds (if not thousands) of years only to complete a research(i mean the chimera research here and not to mention his genocide rampages)
Yeah, like I said, “it’s also unpleasant”.
Also, rather than being upset at him, they’ll probably feel bad for him. And maybe even guilty.
The MC was forced to spend hundreds (if not thousands) of years inside an inescapable time loop. Because the dragons arrived on Earth.
I can see why kaeul still doesnt understand who does she immerse herself into though, because up until now the dragons always trusted MC whatever the circumstances.
Nope, our mc didn’t really change, from the start until this moment, the only motivation of our mc is to stop the apocalypse, he did cruel research to them because he’s out of options in stopping the world destruction. If the dragons knew the truth, they would simply feel responsible and think its their fault for making the mc suffer.
If the dragons knew the truth they would see Jitae as an absolute monster. He confined and tortured them to death an uncountable number of times trying to solve his problem. This is the first iteration of him trying this Ordinary Life approach. The dragons know nothing about Jitae’s past and he needs them to know nothing about the regressions because that would only get in his way.
Heck, the dragons mostly don’t know about all the anti-demon stuff Jitae did because it would get in the way of the Ordinary Life plan. And if the plan doesn’t work this time? More restarts and more attempts. If the author wants to keep the story going, all he has to do is make the plan fail in such a way that it doesn’t seem like a fundamentally wrong approach. Like by having the enemy from beyond kill or infect a dragon.
1)
The dragons are eventually going to learn about what happened in the previous iterations. It doesn’t make sense from a story perspective for them to reject him when they do.
2)
The MC has never pretended to be a good person. It has always been obvious that he is a bad person doing good things. So they aren’t going to feel betrayed that he was deceiving them or something, that is normally what upsets people the most.
3)
Even when the MC doesn’t get involved, their lives on Earth is pretty miserable. The life they are living right now is incredibly blessed and they are aware it is due to the MC.
Plus, their past selves aren’t them. So they would put greater weight on how the MC is treating them.
In fact, while the past might be real to the MC, you could say it’s not real to anyone else on Earth since everything was reset. So the only one suffering is the MC.
4)
In general, each of the dragon’s attitudes towards the MC being a bad person has already been explored.
Bom doesn’t really care about whether the MC is a good person, as long as he is “good to her”.
Yeourm would actually prefer that he wasn’t acting like such a nice guy.
Kaeul is the type of person that emphasises with everyone, even people that hate her.
Gyeol recently said that she “wants the MC to be a good person”. So she understands he’s not a good person but wants to change him into one.
5)
You mentioned that he “confined and tortured them to death an uncountable number of times trying to solve his problem” but it’s not his problem is it? He is trying to (a) stop all the dragons from dying and (b) save the Earth. It’s everyone’s problem, they just don’t realize it.
And he doesn’t even have a choice, if he could he would probably have chosen death a long time ago.
I can’t see this story wrapping up without the dragons learning about Jitae’s past, and given that we’re playing catchup to the original, how they react is probably already a matter of canon. I will say that the dragons are very different though so I don’t imagine (which is meaningless ’cause it’s probably already settled) that the four of them would react in a unified manner to anything.
@Potatoes
Apologies but thats bollocks and BS. Change is something that is not limited to aspirations and goals alone. The MC does has changes even if they’re small.
The Old him would never think twice or thrice in whatever he will say. He would never go and have inconviniencs just to attempt to do things nicely. He would never try and listen to the apologies of other people. He would never feel regret even subconsciously. He would never think twice on killing annoying flies.
To say that the MC has not changed even now is an act that invalidates every single event that the MC had in growth.
No, it’s entirely reasonable to not guess it’s a version of herself… Damn, Bom might have an idea by now, but the dragons don’t actually know about the time shenanigans you know?
I mean she prob wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s her previous self considering Kaeul is a bit airheaded, but the person who might be able to tell is probably bom considering she has powers in regard to the eye of providence.
There’s no way she thinks he’s talking about an alternative version of herself. At most she’ll probably think that he’s talking about someone he met a long time ago and that he’s much older than he says he is but it’s unlikely that her mind will jump to “He’s talking about me from another timeline” or “he’s talking about me from another dimension.”
“Unless she is a complete idiot, Kaeul should be able to tell that it was a story about her alternative self.”
uh no coz no one who’s not high af would ever think about regression, coming back to the past, alternate reality etc. because just the concept of that is so far removed from reality even in a magical fantasy world unless like I said, they’re high af. Or that they already have prior information about the necessary subject which in this case, they don’t. A reader’s perspective is totally different from the perspective of a character in a story.
Thanks for the chapter … remember when the regressor tells yeorum to kill when there are no people looking? now he tells kaeul to
slap people xd
“Next time, give them a slap as well.”
Yes kaeul as the representative of kidnapped dragons(idk how i became the representative) i encourage you to slap them so hard that their cheeks swell
Kidnapped dragons readers*…
I desperately need an edit button xD
Wow! I’m very pleasant seeing how all of this worked out. Such a good story and character development. Thank you for the chapter!
*pleased
Oops I used the wrong word
Thx for the chapter
Thanks for the chapter!
His teachings are working I guess haha. Thanks for the chapter
Interesting, so kaeul really has that dark side. I always knew she was a little twisted, but I wanted to know how far will kaeul become?
Now, i’m not gonna lie I’m rooting for harem on this one. Would be interesting if each of the dragons show some type of obsession to Jitae in the future, I can see that happening to bom, kaeul, and gyeoul but not with yeorum though.
Trash
I usually like harem in novels usually… Except this one. Yeorum, Gyeul and Kaeul give off that familial vibe that it would be really wierd for itnto start having romance vibes in them. Bom on the other hand had that romantic vibe ever since at the start.
that was fun Haha
thanks for the chapter!
Aww, the comment section is such a disaster now. It would seems porting to disqus is a good choice Mr. Rain
Interesting discussion xd and honestly I love it. I did think about changing to disqus before but around half of the readers disagreed because it could slow down the website.
very nice chapter and good development. I’m curious how they would react if they learned the truth of his past? Even with all the horrible things he’d done to them, I don’t think they’ll hate him but it’s hard to say.
Art of not getting hurt in a conversation: Be a bigger bitch than the other side.
probly why i didnt vote for kaeul.. she’s the most troublesome out of the 4 lizards
Holy crap, step on me please! (When she turns 18 of course)
thanks for chap
lol lol BY is scary , probably as scary as her mom.Heck i thought i was reading some cultivation novel rn.
and to guys above saying stuff about mc and dragons all i can say is:
1) if they just know the past iterations without experinceing it,they’ll just be confused,distance a bit from him for a short time and finally blame themselves for his suffering.
2) If they experience it ,they’ll def hate him ,no excuses or ‘Ifs’ there.Bom will silently stay away, gyeoul will have to be near him due to her mission ,yeorum will try to attack him and kaeul will be disgusted.
Ahhh, that sweet moment of hope of Jung Yuran, crushed effortlessly.
“Next time, give them a slap as well”
Lmao xD
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