IPDT 50

While my fingers only twitched and trembled, Yul slipped his hand into the gap of my clothes. A large, hot hand groped its way up my waist.

A ticklish—no, a more stimulating sensation than that was felt. It was hard to keep my body still. I shifted my body, which was quivering. My bottom, touching Yul’s thigh, fidgeted.

“Hut, ugh.”

As I shifted, Yul cupped the back of my head as if to hold me in place. My heart pounded as his delicate fingers delved through the strands of my hair.

I squeezed my eyes shut without realizing it. Even so, the sound of my heart grew more intense, and I worried that it might burst. I couldn’t even tell if this thumping that deafened my ears was Yul’s or mine.

Hot tongues tangled wetly. It felt like a fire was being kindled inside me every time the roof of my mouth was scraped and my tongue was sucked. My eyelids trembled.

I had definitely lived longer, but Yul knew how to kiss more skillfully than I did. Of course, since I wasn’t a dragon who went around playing loosely with my tongue, I might be a little lacking. Still, being swayed so helplessly was unfamiliar. Feeling this kind of sensation was also…

“Hut, haah.”

For a moment, our lips parted. I caught my breath and opened my eyes. And I stopped breathing at the scene unfolding before me.

“…”

“…”

Yul was disheveled. The lips that let out ragged breaths were red, and Yul’s face, illuminated by the campfire, looked flushed. Do I have a face like this too?

Yul silently caressed my cheek. At some point, our lips met again.

“Mmm, ugh.”

Unlike the first kiss, which had been impatient and rough, the second was gentle. Yul’s large hand traveling up my waist was also more leisurely than before. The dry desert air touched the skin exposed beneath my clothes. My breathing quickened again. I closed my eyes and responded to Yul’s kiss.

“No.”

At that moment, Jibril’s voice cut through the wet sound of our lips rubbing together.

I snapped back to my senses. I grabbed Yul’s hand, which had come up to just below my chest, stopping it, and quickly pulled my lips away. My pupils trembled with panic. I hastily looked behind me, and Jibril was still lying down, holding the child.

“Mine…”

Jibril, smacking his lips, began to snore softly again. It seemed he had been talking in his sleep. Seeing that made relief and irritation well up at the same time.

Why talk in his sleep all of a sudden! If I had my way, I would have woken Jibril up and given him a piece of my mind. But before I could do anything, something touched my shoulder with a thump.

“Yul?”

Yul had rested his head on the nape of my neck. His hot breath touched my nape and dispersed. It was clearly a simple expression of affection, but the back of my neck grew hot. My fingers, gripping Yul’s wrist, curled in embarrassment.

“Th-that, Yul, what we just did…”

“Did you hate it?”

Yul looked up at me, his cheek still resting on my nape. …How can he look at me like that. When he looked so pretty, my mouth froze as if my lips were stuck together. After hesitating, I ducked my head low. Even I, the great balancer, was no match for Yul’s face.

“…I liked it, but still.”

“If you liked it, that’s all that matters.”

Yul said that and then rubbed his lips against my nape. My heart pounded. It felt even more obscene because I could clearly feel that Yul’s lips were wet.

“You make me abnormal.”

Yul muttered in a low, whisper-like voice. My ears and the nape of my neck all felt ticklish.

“You wouldn’t know what this feels like.”

“Yul, you know, could you just do one thing. When I’m this close to you, two things are impossible…”

Right now, all my nerves were focused on him tickling me. I heard Yul’s words, but I didn’t quite understand them. As I was at a loss, Yul smiled faintly. It was not a smile of joy.

“It would be nice if you were like me.”

“Sorry, I can’t become a human…”

After barely catching one phrase and muttering a reply, Yul buried his face deep in my shoulder.

“Ngh.”

My shoulder was nibbled on. It was the same kind of bite as usual, but the reason my fingertips were curling up was probably because the sound of my heart was too loud.

Jibril opened his eyes as soon as morning broke. Hwaaam, letting out a long yawn, he checked on the child sleeping soundly in his arms once, then looked back at Yul and me.

“Shh.”

I spoke first, in case Jibril made a loud noise. Jibril, who was about to say something, only rolled his eyes to look at my shoulder. It was the shoulder Yul was leaning on as he slept.

“Doesn’t your shoulder hurt?”

Jibril said in a whisper. I was about to snort, but held back in case the lightly sleeping Yul heard.

“Not really. Pain is something that weak humans like you feel.”

“Yeah, you’re so great.”

Jibril said, as if I were being obnoxious, then suddenly tapped his own cheeks. Why is he doing that? As I tilted my head, Jibril added an explanation.

“But your face is a little red?”

“Huh?”

“You, I’m saying your face is a little red. Did you get heatstroke from being so close to each other?”

“…Uh, uh?”

For some reason, panic surged. No, actually, I knew the reason.

‘From being so close’. Those words from Jibril had replayed last night’s events in my head.

Yesterday, I had sat on Yul’s thigh and kissed him. Not a peck, but a very deep kiss. Recalling that moment, I couldn’t keep my body still. I fidgeted, clasping and unclasping my fingers for no reason, and avoided Jibril’s gaze.

“Don’t be complacent just because you’re a little strong. You’re a dragon’s familiar, not a dragon, right?”

Wrong. I wasn’t a familiar, I was a dragon.

But with Yul right next to me, I couldn’t tell the truth, so I just nodded vaguely. Jibril didn’t stop there and wagged his finger as if to lecture me.

“There’s that saying, ‘Your body is your own.’ Huh? If you, the only one among us who knows how to purify, get heatstroke, we’re all done for. So be careful.”

“Uh-huh, okay…”

After answering awkwardly, I glanced at Yul again. His was a face that was a feast for the eyes. The finely stretched eyelashes beneath his closed eyelids, the sharp line of his nose, and his soft-looking lips…

“Your staring is tickling me.”

Yul mumbled with his eyes still closed. I whipped my head around, startled as if I’d been burned. The back of my neck suddenly felt like it was burning up. I fidgeted with my nape and averted my eyes.

“Yul, when did you wake up?”

“Just now.”

Yul, who muttered in a low voice, rubbed his hair against my shoulder. The soft hair scattered ticklishly. My gaze turned to Yul without my realizing it. I kept gulping down dry saliva.

“…Why am I stuck in here suffering.”

Jibril muttered something and then clapped his hands, clap clap.

“Now that the Hero is awake, could you please stop being lost in your own little world and look over here?”

I glared at Jibril for ruining the mood. I didn’t know what he was trying to say, but it had better be something important. I narrowed my eyes.

“Huh?”

But the object Jibril took out was enough to surprise me. Shattered black fragments…

“That’s the bomb from yesterday.”

“That’s right. The remains of the bomb. I brought them to analyze, but yesterday, the Hero’s mood was so menacing. I thought he’d grind everything to dust if I even brought up the bomb, so I hid it.”

After hearing Jibril’s words, I looked at Yul. Yul was staring coldly at the remains of the bomb, with eyes that looked like he really would grind it to dust.

“Get rid of it.”

“Oh, come on, Hero, I said I brought it to analyze it, didn’t I? You’re so impatient! Even if we get rid of it, we have to know what it is so we don’t fall for it next time!”

I also agreed with what Jibril said, but the painful mistake of letting the child live yesterday weighed on my mind. I carefully asked the stubbornly-faced Yul.

“Yul, what do you want to do?”

“…”

Yul looked back and forth between Jibril and the remains, then said as if chewing on his words.

“Talk.”

As soon as permission was granted, Jibril’s face brightened up.

“I secretly took a look at it yesterday. This bomb is a very sophisticatedly made weapon. It would be hard to find this level of technology not only in our kingdom but also in the Empire, to the point where I’m curious who made it. I could make it, but procuring the materials would be a problem, and it would take quite some time to produce…”

Come to think of it, Jibril did have some knowledge about making weapons. He did have a history of showing us a strange can that spewed smoke when we first met. I had forgotten because he had only shown his pathetic side so much.

“But the gunpowder that was inside this bomb, it’s a little strange. I didn’t touch it because it felt so off, but I think it’s a substance I’ve never seen before.”

“Let me see, too.”

It had been a bomb powerful enough to shock me. But to hear that what was inside was ‘something I’ve never seen before,’ I wanted to check it out. I stood up abruptly to approach Jibril. At that moment, my wrist was grabbed with a snap.

“Let’s go together.”

Yul said, looking up at me. I looked at him gripping my wrist so forcefully, then nodded my head. At my signal of agreement, Yul immediately stood up.

As we got closer, Jibril pushed the bomb remains, which were wrapped in cloth, toward me. I touched the sticky liquid left on the fragments. Was this the liquid that had splattered on my face? I brought what was on my finger to my nose. Along with a sharp gunpowder smell, a hidden fragrance brushed the tip of my nose.

“Do you know what it is?”

“It’s the flower.”

“What?”

“The thing you call the flower of disaster. That’s mixed in.”

This bomb was a weapon with the intention not simply to injure, but to annihilate everything that became a target. It was a good thing I had kept Yul and Jibril at a distance and got hit alone yesterday. If either of them had been within the bomb’s range of influence, they wouldn’t have been safe.

“Who would make such a terrible weapon…”

Jibril trailed off. He bit his lip hard, as if he really couldn’t guess who made such a weapon. But I had a guess.

A very sophisticatedly made weapon, a level of technology that humans could not easily reach, someone who could procure the materials to manufacture a bomb in the devastated eastern continent.

Only the dwarves met all these conditions.

But there was still a point I couldn’t understand.

There was no dissonance in the sentence ‘Dwarves can make bombs.’ But the guess that ‘The dwarves transplanted the flower into the human world’ was strange. This was because the dwarves I knew, for one, were not interested in the human world, and for another, they were not diligent enough to transplant flowers. The ones with that kind of diligence were, if anything, the elves.

But the elves don’t have the technological skill to make a weapon like this…

“Ah.”

At that moment, I thought of the worst-case scenario without realizing it. What if the two races committed this act together? I felt like I had been hit over the head.