My Girlfriend Returned as a Dragon — Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - You Haven't Found Some Other Girl While I Was Gone, Have You?

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[In Memory of Jeong Sia / 2000.08.25-2023.08.25]

Exactly one year ago today, she died suddenly. It happened just six months after she graduated from the Hunter Academy and became a full-fledged hunter. She had already lost her family to a gate break when she was in high school. I never imagined she could suffer an even greater tragedy. Who could have known she would die so senselessly on her own birthday?

"It's already been a year since you left me, Sia."

Today, on the anniversary of her death and her birthday, I visited Sia's grave with her favorite tteokbokki in one hand.

"I still can't believe my beautiful Sia is gone."

Jeong Sia. She was my beloved girlfriend, the only one for me in this world.

On the day we'd promised to celebrate her birthday over dinner at a nice restaurant after her training session, a terrible accident happened inside the gate. Gates were dangerous places where no one knew what might happen, but who could have expected such a horrific blaze inside a D-rank gate?

The accident left three people injured and one dead. And that one person was my Sia.

'What if I'd been a little stronger?'

Since Sia died, that thought hadn't left my mind for a moment. If I'd been just a little stronger, if I'd moved just a little faster, could I have saved her life?

'If only that ability had awakened...'

By every measure, I was just an ordinary D-rank hunter of the swordsman class.
Except for one thing.

[??? (EX)]

Skill Description: ???

The problem was that I had no idea what the skill was or how to use it. I didn't even know whether it was passive or active.

But if I'd known what the skill was, if I'd been able to use it even a little, maybe Sia wouldn't have died such a senseless death.

'What good does thinking about it do now?'

A skill I'd never used, one that hadn't protected the person I loved. I was better off living as though a skill like that didn't exist.

Setting aside the pointless what-ifs that held me captive, I took out my phone and slowly scrolled through the photos I'd taken with Sia, one by one. Every photo brought back a vivid memory.

Sia, who'd confessed her feelings to me without caring what anyone else thought, always so direct. My Sia, whose smile was more beautiful than anyone else's in the world. My Sia, who said it was so warm in my arms and never wanted to leave them. My beloved Sia, who'd been my reason for living.

As I remembered our time together, I felt my eyes growing hot. We'd loved each other so fiercely that we couldn't live without one another. Why had we been forced apart like this?

Holding back the tears threatening to spill, I poured a cup of clear rice wine I'd brought with the tteokbokki and placed it before Sia's grave. I set down her favorite tteokbokki beside it. Its spicy aroma brought back the day she'd died.

"Sia, let's go out for something good tonight. What do you want to eat?"

["Hmm... Tteokbokki! Let's add loads of extras!"]

["Tteokbokki? Come on, it's your birthday. Let's have something nicer. I'm buying, remember?"]

["You don't really like tteokbokki? But that's what I want to eat."]

If I'd known Sia would leave me so soon, I wouldn't have grumbled about eating the same thing we always did. I would have shared tteokbokki with her one more time. Remembering it brought another wave of regret.

I poured the cup of rice wine over Sia's grave, then filled it again and drank.

"Sia, it's okay if I get a little drunk today, isn't it?"

But just as I emptied the cup and went to refill it...

RRRRUMBLE

The ground suddenly began to shake, and a deafening roar rang out. Then the air split open, and a small rift began to form.

'A gate break!'

These were unmistakably the warning signs of a gate break. As the rift grew, my mind raced. Of all days, it had to happen on the anniversary of Sia's death—and right where she was buried?

I knew what a gate break was, but this was my first time seeing one for myself. Faced with something I'd never experienced before, I froze.

'I have to do something.'

I needed to report it to the Hunter Agency, then buy time on my own somehow to keep the damage from spreading. But the moment I raised my phone to take action, the gate began to writhe, and something emerged from it.

Certain it was a monster, I hurried to pull my weapon from my pocket dimension... but as soon as I saw what it was, I stopped short.

A young woman with an exotic appearance, seemingly about my age. Astonishingly, the unidentified being that had come out of the gate was a woman. But she was anything but ordinary.

Her red hair resembled a sacred flame, and her ruby-like eyes hardly looked human. And that wasn't all. Her skin was white as jade, her features delicate, and she was beautiful enough to be called a goddess. Her clothes didn't appear to be from Earth, either, making the impression all the stronger.

'No. Don't let her looks fool you.'

She might be an unreported monster that looked like a human woman. I couldn't let my guard down. Even if no one else was around, I had to prepare for the worst. Until I knew what she was, I needed to be careful. The first thing to find out was whether she was friendly toward humanity or hostile.

I was cautiously drawing my weapon, but she was looking elsewhere as though she couldn't care less about it. At the tteokbokki and gimbap beside Sia's grave—and the birthday present I'd never given her, still unopened after a year.

After examining them, the woman turned her gaze on me. I could understand her looking at my face, but why was she interested in the tteokbokki? The truly strange thing, though, was something else.

"Babe?"

Despite looking so foreign that I couldn't imagine she was Korean, she called me "babe" with perfect pronunciation, as if we were close. Babe? She'd called me babe? I was on the verge of demanding to know what she was when she spoke again.

"Minjun, it's me. Sia. Your girlfriend, Jeong Sia."

... What?

"To see you again, I spent two thousand years shut up in my lair studying dimensional travel magic. I didn't even go out to play once. I did good, right? Really good?"

Two thousand years? A lair? Dimensional travel magic? The woman claiming to be the dead Sia was throwing words at me I couldn't make sense of.

"But babe, you haven't found some other bitch while I was gone, have you?"

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