After Story 3: After Story: Happily Ever After (3)

“Uwah. Seriously, Gyeoul is super tiny… so adorable…”

Baby Gyeoul heaved a deep sigh as she constantly ran her minute fingers through her water-coloured hair. 

‘Oh no oh no. She looks mad.’ They said as if they were watching a monkey at the zoo.

“Guys. Don’t be too mean to Gyeoul. I’m sure she’s very stressed out from turning smaller,” said Bom.

Gyeoul’s eyes turned into a glare after hearing those words. Who’s fault was it that she was in this state, hnn?

As expected, Bom was also grinning, and it was obvious that she was teasing her.

“Do you see this? This kid’s so short-tempered.”

Please, I hope you just go away…

Instead of saying that, all she could manage out of her mouth were a few mumbles, and the kids bursted into laughter as if it was funny.

What. What do you want? I’m in a super bad mood, okay?

She tried to protest, but her mouth could only form incomplete sounds. It was only adding fuel to their laughter. 

It was still too hard to control her body. She couldn’t speak properly, and couldn’t make delicate movements either. Even though she wanted to write letters, they were always crooked.

“Come here. Let’s go to sleep.”

Mumble…

Gyeoul opened her mouth in reflex but Yu Jitae tilted his head so she gave up on speaking. She instead decided to express it with her body.

“Uunn~. I see, I see. Are you hungry, little Gyeoul?”

Kaeul said as if she would give her food, so baby Gyeoul placed one of her hands on her hip and shook her other hand to shoo her away.

“What. Say it properly if you want something.”

Gyeoul drew a line across her neck with her thumb while looking at Yeorum who was trying to pick a fight. She was telling her she would kill her one day.

“…”

In the end, she decided to show off her mature side. At night, she sat on a chair to read a book and had some warm black tea on the side.

However, what Gyeoul didn’t know was how she would appear to the others when toddling to the kettle, carefully pouring hot water, flipping the pages of the book with her tiny hands while looking at the words with her circular eyes…

‘Uhhghhh… Gyeoul is soooooo cutee.’

‘Ah, she’s being so damn cute. If only I could bite and swallow her whole.’

That was why her suffering knew no end.

“My lil’ sister! I got something for you!”

One day, Yeorum brought diapers, toys and nursery mobiles and handed them over to Gyeoul with a wide smile hanging on her lips.

“…”

Gyeoul looked at her as if she was staring at trash before chucking her gift on the ground. ‘Dude! How can you do that to my gift!’ Yeorum protested.

But that wasn’t the end.

“Gyeoul~. I bought some too…!”

This time, Kaeul came up while showing her a teddy bear and a pacifier.

What. What do you want?

Gyeoul asked with her gaze but the look on Kaeul’s face was clearly not normal either. Until now, she had been simply enjoying herself, but there were now small fumes leaving her nostrils.

“Can you please put this in your mouth? Uun?”

While pushing forward the pacifier in her hand, Kaeul turned on the camera of her watch with her other hand. 

Wow. These guys. They must be seriously crazy…

Thinking that, Gyeoul quickly turned around and began running away but Yeorum and Kaeul both chased after her.

“Kyahahaha! Ahnnnngg! Please, let’s just take one photo…! You look way too cute right now!”

No!

“Oi oi! Yu Gyeoul. If you don’t want that, how about my titties?”

Hell no! What type of nonsense is that?

“What’s going on? What is all this ruckus for?”

That was when Yu Jitae left his room to ask the kids. Kaeul hid her hands behind her back and smiled ‘Hehe,’ while Yeorum also took her hands away from her breasts and gave an awkward smile. It was because he told them before not to overdo their teasing.

Meanwhile, Gyeoul gazed up at Yu Jitae as if she had come across her saviour.

They are like, teasing me…!

She mumbled while looking up at Yu Jitae, who replied to her with a faint smile.

“Do you want milk?”

Yeorum and Kaeul almost rolled on the floor laughing,

While Gyeoul felt betrayed by Yu Jitae for the first time.

***

Thus, he had to soothe the child later.

“……♫♥”

With one hour of Doonga Doonga.

***

At the start, they were trying to imitate how they used to act in the past, but they were back to their past selves by the time they realised it. They were all quite surprised because of how their minds and attitudes changed because of the environment.

However, they weren’t exactly the same as before. 1,000 years for a dragon was similar to 10 years for a human, and because that was when they were acknowledged as adult dragons, they were pretty much like 20-year-old humans in terms of their role in the society.

Even the small Gyeoul was a full-fledged adult inside.

Thus, the usual topics of their conversations were also slightly different.

During mealtime, they consistently talked about their plans for the distant future as well as the past. One of the things the kids were the most concerned about was ‘how we were supposed to live from now on’.

“Before coming back in time…”

Bom calmly opened her mouth.

“There were people I lost in my past connections.”

She remembered how Li Hwa left one day after bidding her farewell. That Taiwanese old lady found a trace of Ysayle Khalifa who killed her husband decades ago and left for her final revenge.

And there, she died with Ysayle Khalifa.

“Granny wouldn’t have died if I helped her back then…”

It was a memory she had pushed to a corner because of the myriad of thoughts in her mind back then. 

Bom was a little regretful after recovering her mind, because she had lent an ear to her stories and supported her when she was tired.

“But this time, I can help her.”

Kaeul nodded in response to her words.

“I also have to take Chirpy back,” she said.

“Right?”

“Uun. Chirpy would die without me so…”

That was what Yeorum, who had to defeat her oldest unni again, and Gyeoul, who had given happiness and vitality to the boys at a certain dimension, all agreed with.

Lastly, Yu Jitae was also going to form a good bond with BM and Myung Yongha.

“That sounds good. We will also have regular things to work on, then.”

Let’s live a normal life and within the small gaps of everyday life, let us take in everything close to us that we were able to take care of in the past. That was the conclusion they came up with.

They were all confident. It was something they had done already, and it definitely wouldn’t be too difficult.

After concluding that topic, the four pairs of eyes naturally gathered at Yu Jitae.

How were we supposed to live now…?

An Amusement was just a brief passing moment in the life of a dragon. That in turn showed how deep and intense the memories they had created with Yu Jitae were, despite how short it was. 

Their souls, memories and the power of their ‘wills’ were all still here after the accumulation of 1,000 years, but their bodies were still that of a baby dragon, and the formula of [Emergency Summon] and [Long-distance Dimensional Intersection] would definitely be automatically activated by the [Origin Fragment].

In other words, their Amusement would still come to an end in another 20 years. It meant they had to part ways with Yu Jitae once again.

“What’s wrong with all of you? I’m planning on following you guys to Askalifa.”

However, Yu Jitae dismissed their concerns with a few sentences.

“There is no reason for me to stay here.”

Only then did the kids show bright smiles.

***

A lot of time went by after that.

This time, unlike the previous iteration, they did not enter Lair because none of them were that keen on the life of a cadet anymore. However, they did sometimes sneak in to use the facilities as they wanted.

Clank! Clank!

After some time, the dimensions cracked open as protectors crowded in. Bom stopped three of them, turned them off and kept them locked inside an alternate dimension and only brought back the protector of the green dragons.

Next was up to Yu Jitae. Even though he had lost his accumulated killing intent, he still had authorities of the Demon Archduke. Taking care of the protector was nothing difficult.

When everything was over, Yeorum returned to the house which was slightly messy from the uproar.

“Are you done cleaning?”

“Kuruk?”

She kicked a rubbish bin, as all the other dragons giggled with her. The Protector had a puzzled look on its face.

“???”

But after that, Yeorum started picking up the rubbish with it so the protector’s doubt deepened even more. The protector thought that they all had a screw loose or something.

After a few more months, Kaeul brought Chirpy.

Chirp, chirp! 

The palm-sized baby chicken finally appeared at their house and Kaeul vowed to take good care of the chicken until he had to leave. 

“Me me me. I can do it very well this time!”

The number of spirit beasts she had raised for centuries while looking after the gnome village was at least several hundred, and Kaeul’s method of caring for Chirpy the spirit beast was therefore on a completely different level.

She healed the baby chicken who was injured and hurt, washed him clean, took a refreshing walk everyday and gave him delicious food to healthily raise him up.

“Wow. Kaeul, that’s really amazing!”

“Rightt?”

Even though she said that, Bom tilted her head.

That yellow furry ball… why was it so big?

More and more question marks appeared above her head as time went by. And in the blink of an eye, Chirpy was as big as an average large dog.

“Huh? Hnn? Wait a minute.”

Before long, her concerns were realised.

“Hmm? Kaeul. Don’t you think he’s a bit too big…?”

After another 2 years, Chirpy was tall enough to reach Kaeul’s chest.

Juurrrrrbb—

He let out a low and heavy growl as Kaeul awkwardly scratched her head.

“…H, he’s still smaller than me though!?”

“Isn’t it strange to compare the size of a baby chicken to you?”

“……Is, is it? Then… a horse! You can think of him as a horse…!”

“What?”

Bom tilted her head, wondering what nonsense this was about, but Kaeul was unexpectedly very optimistic about it. After that, she started riding Chirpy.

A baby chicken as large as a bear raced through the vast wasteland.

“Kyaaa—”

Vuuuunnn~

The world’s biggest baby chicken was fluffy.

It was a very comfortable ride.

***

In between his everyday life, Yu Jitae tried his hardest to regain his lost power whenever he had the time. 

Honestly, there wouldn’t be too big of a problem in the world for the time being even if he wasn’t there. The Association was a lot more powerful than demons and monsters combined.

However, there were still times when he had to step up, and he thus needed to regain his strength.

Yu Jitae scrutinised his body.

His entire body was lethargic; mana had been paved away alongside his soul; the manipulation of mana was also affected because of his will being shaken due to staying lethargic for too long and his killing intent was pretty much all gone… There were several complex reasons why Yu Jitae was weakened.

Even though some of them were being naturally recovered over time, it was far from enough. He had to personally move his body or meditate in order to raise his strength back up.

It wasn’t anything difficult.

He had been doing it for at least several centuries, and he had already once become the strongest human in existence with effort alone.

“What? You want to train together?”

On the morning of a certain refreshing day, Yu Jitae asked Yeorum to go training together. She, who was wearing leggings and a crop top, tilted her head with a frown.

“What’s going on? Weren’t you the one who always turned me down?”

“I don’t like having someone next to me while I train.”

“Far out… Let me just ask while we’re at it. You weren’t like, hiding all the good stuff from me or anything, right?”

Yu Jitae shook his head.

To be frank, Yeorum wouldn’t be able to copy him even if she saw what he was doing, because Yu Jitae was using an extremely inhumane, horrendous and self-destructive method to train himself.

‘So, what are we going to do?’ In response to Yeorum’s question, Yu Jitae gave his reply.

“Let’s have a spar, like an actual fight.”

Yeorum squinted her eyes.