I Raised A Black Dragon

[Dragons cross the bridge through imprints with humans. You, the owner, must have a medium connecting this place and the place you originally lived.]

“There’s a medium… That crappy novel.”

[It must have had some magic in it. It’s a low probability, but it’s not impossible. The passage will open only when you find the door to your world that it connects to. The other doors won’t open.]

Noah looked around, her emotions rather obscure. Hundreds of million pathways in the deep space resembling white spheres floated before her. There, she could find the passage that would lead her to her world.

“Noah’s body. Noah’s body.”

Contrary to her, who was exhausted even before their search began, Muell was briskly running from place to place. One glowing sphere caught his foot, causing the young dragon to stagger. Muell then raised himself and returned to Noah’s side again. “Noah has to come with us!” He grasped the hem of Noah’s clothes tightly and tugged her. The fairies also pushed her back gently.

Just walk where your feet reach. The medium will pull you in. Noah reassured herself as Muell led her along the unfamiliar space teeming with doors to different worlds, which glistened like stars. The golden fairies hovered above her.

“I wonder about Noah’s world. I think it’s a place full of nice people like Noah.” The little troublemaker’s eyes were sparkling with curiosity as he spoke. But Noah corrected his innocent assumption. “There isn’t a world full of good people. What’s more, where I lived was a hopeless world full of all sorts of injustice.”

The boy tilted his head and looked up at her, “Noah must have hated it.”

“I didn’t like it. Well… I don’t think I’ve ever really hated it because I just lived my life as it goes.”

“…But that’s exactly what Noah’s expression looks like.”

“What look?”

“That annoyed look on your face.”

Noah burst into laughter at his words. Then, she pulled Muell into an embrace, answering him lightly. “I don’t know what you think of me, but I was an epitome of sincerity. When I was in high school, I completed my credits, when I was a college student, I achieved plenty of rewards. When I worked, my performance was outstanding. Throughout my life, I ran without a breath.”

“Um…”

“Don’t make such a face of disbelief. You’re gonna get hurt.”

Although Noah hadn’t lived long enough to realize the absolute truth of life, it was still her pride that she had lived her life in a way that fulfilled her expectations. She didn’t have an explicit goal, but she was the kind who ran forward. Park Noah despised being left behind; she loved to be recognized and adored. But it cost her to be mum and submissive, unable to express her sentiments and accept everything she didn’t have to. In other words, she was the paragon of a pushover.

In the end, as she looked down on her lifeless body sprawled on the floor of her shabby dorm room, she had regrets. Why would she live such a desperate life, constantly pleasing others, when not a single soul even searched for her amid the fire.

However, now, Noah was no longer thirsty for other people’s recognition, which ensnared her in the past. She couldn’t even afford to mull over her meaningless regrets.

She didn’t want to think about it. Park Noah’s childhood, school days, and workdays— none of it. It was not even her desire to return. The one she sought for is not the world she had lived in for, but her body. Only that.

She cleared her mind with unpleasant memories and changed the subject. “How about you, then? The world where your brothers are. Don’t you want to go back?”

“I don’t know what that place is like.” A cheerful answer fell from the child’s lips. He continued brightly, “The world I first opened my eyes to is where I just left. Where I first met Noah.”

“…You’ve been so blind to me that sometimes it’s strange. What did I do for you?”

Park Noah had never owned a pet, but it wasn’t because she didn’t want it. She was a lonely person since her young days. Although she learned to swallow loneliness as she grew older, sometimes she would be desperate for someone’s warmth.

Since she couldn’t afford to meet people, she thought about bringing in animals, but eventually, she gave up, thwarted by realistic problems. Owning a pet wouldn’t merely cost a penny or two cents. For poor Park Noah, Korea in the twenty-first century was a filthy world where only money could soothe loneliness.

But the dragon that happened to be raised in a different world…

“You don’t care what kind of person I am?”

“I don’t think so.”

The child’s words touched her heart.