Chapter 65

Chapter 65. What Did You Do to Oppa?

Minjun could scarcely believe what he had just heard.

‘She genuinely expects me to crawl into her bed to catch some sleep?’

They had literally been introduced today, and this was by no means an intimate rendezvous. Besides, he had explicitly made it clear during their prior conversation that he was in a committed relationship.

Yet here she was, brazenly inviting him to stretch out on the mattress and take a rest.

‘…Is this simply how open-minded people are in the West?’

He contemplated for a second whether foreign cultural norms might account for such forwardness. Regardless of any cultural gap, however, every sensible fiber in Minjun’s body screamed that accepting such an invitation was out of the question.

“I am quite all right, but thank you for the thoughtful gesture.”

Hoping to spare her any awkwardness in case her intent had been entirely innocent, Minjun offered his refusal in the most polite, casual manner he could manage.

At the exact same time, his mind raced to formulate a graceful excuse to depart immediately. He had only allowed himself to be swept into this situation because the sheer novelty of an SSS-rank Hunter going out of her way to seek him out had piqued his curiosity.

Now, however, his raw intuition was sounding alarm bells, warning him that lingering near this woman any further would inevitably trigger a disaster.

Above all else, he needed to preserve his clarity. As the old proverb went, even if one stepped straight into a predator’s den, survival remained possible so long as the mind stayed sharp.

“Pardon me, but I need to step away to the restroom for a brief moment.”

“By all means.”

Yet the second Minjun rose to his feet, a sudden wave of lightheadedness washed over him. Every sensory nerve in his frame began flashing danger signs.

His plan was straightforward: splash cold water on his face in the washroom to shake off the haze. If his senses failed to clear up after that, he would politely offer his apologies and head straight home.

Staggering slightly, Minjun searched for the bathroom door. Yet perhaps because Yuria had woven an imperceptible hex that dulled his spatial awareness, the door he grasped and opened did not reveal a lavatory at all.

Instead, he found himself staring into a private bedchamber saturated with her presence. An open piece of luggage sat nearby, articles of clothing lay strewn across the furniture, and shockingly skimpy undergarments that clearly belonged to her rested in plain view.

“…?!”

With his consciousness drifting through an unnatural fog, the reality of what was before him registered a second too late. Mortified, he snapped the door shut and pivoted to locate the actual bathroom, but Yuria intervened without giving him a chance.

“L-Lia, I was merely trying to find the restroom and took a wrong—”

“My, my, Mr. Minjun. Didn’t I mention that you were welcome to stretch out if fatigue was getting to you? Truth be told, drowsiness is catching up to me as well. Would you like to share the bed with me?”

Dropping every shred of subtlety with that loaded invitation, Yuria leaned in and pressed her frame flush against his chest.

“There is nothing wrong with it. Why not just take a comfortable rest on the bed? Once you wake up refreshed, we can share a lovely meal and pick up the discussion we left hanging. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

While Minjun had harbored lingering doubts before, this erased any ambiguity. She was making an overt, shameless pass at him.

‘What on earth is driving her to do this?’

Her brazen conduct sent Minjun’s thoughts spiraling into pure disorientation. He remembered skimming entertainment gossip that depicted her personal life with men as utterly messy, though he had brushed it off as sensationalized fabrications at the time.

Yet even if those rumors were completely accurate, he had reminded her mere minutes ago that his heart belonged to someone else. More fundamentally, he could fathom no conceivable motive for an elite figure like her to pursue him in such a manner.

Unfortunately, he lacked the mental composure to dissect her underlying motives right now. The softness of her physical form was bearing down against him with suffocating closeness.

“W-What are you attempting to do here?”

Under normal circumstances, his tone would have carried stern authority, and he would have shoved her off without hesitation. But trapped beneath the subtle sorcery Yuria had cast over him, Minjun found himself stripped of his usual decisiveness.

‘What is taking over me?’

A bizarre haze clouded his mind. Lurid, dishonorable impulses—notions so foul he would never dare breathe them aloud—began sprouting unbidden in the dark corners of his thoughts.

He caught himself visualizing the unthinkable: tangling intimately beneath the sheets with a female who was not Sia.

Catching the conflict flickering in his unsteady gaze, Yuria pressed even closer, letting her breath brush against his ear. “Are you feeling pangs of remorse? Terrified that your darling partner might discover this?”

“I already have someone by my side… How could I ever bring myself to share a bed with another woman?”

“You possess far more sentimentality than your exterior suggests. You must know that plenty of societies permit a man to take numerous partners. Such rigid restrictions are merely hollow traditions. Why insist on playing the role of the saintly, devoted companion instead of embracing your true desires?”

Her logic was utterly shallow, yet Minjun’s faculties felt paralyzed. Why was he failing to muster the outrage necessary to simply turn on his heel and walk away from this blatant trap?

“Besides, there is not a single way your lover could ever discover what transpires between us within these walls.”

Her voice dripped with honeyed persuasion. Combined with the insidious aura saturating the room, any ordinary individual would have broken under Yuria’s calculated allure long ago, stepping over a threshold that could never be walked back.

Yet Minjun held his ground. Even as the malignant enchantment set his fingers trembling and tossed his reasoning into disarray, he clung desperately to the final shreds of his self-control.

On her side, Yuria was experiencing her own surge of frustration.

‘I have pushed the snare this far, so how is he still resisting?’

The scenario defied her expectations. The hex was functioning as designed, and she had deliberately baited his primal urges at every turn. According to every outcome she had envisioned, Minjun should have completely yielded by now.

The fact that he continued to push back against the tide only sharpened her fixation.

‘A difficult quarry makes the hunt all the more thrilling every now and then.’

Claiming easily manipulated targets had its charms, but what delivered genuine triumph? Dismantling an upright individual whose defenses seemed entirely unyielding.

Curling her lips into an amused grin, she ratcheted up the intensity of the hex permeating the air. Simultanously, her slender fingers began undoing the fastenings of her blouse, intent on shattering whatever composure remained within him.

Yet Minjun forced out his response: “I am… walking away. Let us act as though none of this ever occurred.”

Even faced with what she considered a definitive maneuver, the man refused to capitulate. The sorcery itself was operating without flaw; as Yuria dialed up its resonance, Minjun felt the world spinning around him, the sensations mimicking the overwhelming stupor of an illicit draught.

Even so, clenching his teeth until they ached, he fought the encroaching darkness.

‘How is this possible?’

Watching her design fall apart once more struck a harsh blow against Yuria’s deeply ingrained vanity.

‘How? Why does he refuse to bend?’

By all the laws of charm she practiced, this outcome made zero sense. Her original curiosity had now curdled into a vicious, unyielding obstinacy.

‘Very well. Let us test the true limits of your endurance.’

The warmth vanished from her gaze, replaced by cold resolve. Permitting Minjun to simply stride past her would inflict an unbearable scar upon her pride. She swore to herself that this struggle would be decided here, no matter the cost.

Reaching out, Yuria seized Minjun by the wrist just as he turned to escape, preparing to flood the chamber with an overpowering surge of her hex. Yet before she could release it, a blinding flash tore through the air.

Materializing abruptly between Minjun and Yuria stood a towering figure: Rokan.

“R-Rokan?!”

Minjun gasped, his tone fracturing in pure astonishment at the unexpected arrival. Instantly, an icy dread gripped his spine.

Before them was a rumpled bed, women’s intimate garments scattered across the room, an unknown female stripped of her modest attire, and Rokan’s future grandson-in-law caught in the middle of it all.

Any outside observer would immediately conclude that Minjun was committing infidelity, or was mere seconds away from crossing that unforgivable line.

Naturally, Minjun braced himself for an explosive barrage of fury from the elder.

Instead, Rokan spoke with gentle concern: “Minjun, are you unharmed? Did she hurt you in any way?”

Completely contrary to Minjun’s worst dread, Rokan was purely focused on his wellbeing.

The sheer shock of the reaction rendered Minjun utterly speechless.

“R-Rokan, please listen, this whole thing is—”

“I am aware. I know full well you carry no guilt in this. Cast aside your worries. Return to your home and recover your strength.”

Rokan’s cadence remained astonishingly measured. Yet the profound stillness within that voice sent an even deeper shudder through Minjun’s core.

Offering a reassuring touch, Rokan gripped Minjun’s trembling palm, his piercing gaze shifting toward Yuria, whose complexion had drained of every drop of color.

“I must settle matters with this woman.”

Once Rokan executed a spatial shift that deposited Minjun safely back in his own residence, he turned slowly, closing the distance toward Yuria while uttering her name in a chilling murmur.

“Yuria.”

Up until the moment Rokan had materialized, Yuria had maintained complete dominance, acting as if the realm danced entirely to her design. Now, she recoiled in sheer terror, as if confronting a vengeful specter.

She had become so thoroughly consumed with ensnaring Minjun on the spot and tearing apart his bond with Sia that she had completely overlooked the danger of Rokan detecting her actions.

Even from her own perspective, the oversight had been unforgivably reckless.

“I was well aware that your feelings toward my granddaughter soured following our prior dispute. I could let that pass. However…”

With each stride Rokan took, an oppressive aura of Dragon Fear cascaded outward, so stifling that even Yuria, a fellow dragon, found herself gasping for oxygen.

Though they shared the same draconic lineage, the true release of Dragon Fear belonging to an ancient patriarch occupied an insurmountable plane of dominance.

“It appears you presumed you could indulge in a disgraceful scheme that crossed all acceptable boundaries.”

“Th-That is a misunderstanding, Rokan! My sole intention was to help Shasha make a dignified decision suited to a true dragon, free of any future regrets—”

Yuria’s words faltered in panic. Rokan, however, remembered the exact moment he had finalized the repairs on the dungeon and spotted the alert from Minjun. His instincts had immediately identified the truth: Yuria was attempting to sink her claws into the young man.

Had she been playing her manipulative games with some common mortal, Rokan would not have spared the affair a single second of thought.

Yet the fragile being she had targeted was the precious partner of the granddaughter he cherished above all existence.

“Yuria.”

Rokan reached out and took hold of her collar.

“We shall see if your tongue remains so bold when you repeat those words directly before Shasha.”

Dragging her firmly by her garments, Rokan vanished, hauling the trembling dragon back to his private sanctuary where Sia was resting.

Inside Rokan’s private sanctum, Sia remained curled upon the mattress, absently tapping against the screen of her mobile device.

Should she dial Minjun’s number, or would that be too much? Perhaps typing out a simple greeting was the safer choice?

She remained trapped beneath the heavy shadows of that agonizing memory. She told herself that, with enough patience, she would eventually gather herself and leave the pain behind.

Across the span of twenty-five centuries, she had survived countless harrowing events that had carved scars into her memory, yet she had invariably managed to outlast every one of them. What she required was merely time; the day would come when this misery, too, would fade away.

Yet that day still felt terribly distant.

‘I must find my footing without delay…’

If the lingering dread dragged on for seasons or decades, Minjun, who had pledged to stand by her side, would shoulder an excruciating burden. A handful of years was barely a passing heartbeat to an immortal dragon, but for a mortal like Minjun, it represented an eternity of suffering.

Aware of that painful reality, Sia felt an agonizing urgency to break free of her internal terror as fast as possible.

“What am I supposed to do…?”

However intensely she tried to muster her resolve, she simply could not summon the strength to place the call and fake a cheerful demeanor.

Following a long bout of solitary distress, Sia opted for an old habit that had carried her through hardship before: keeping a personal journal. She reasoned that capturing her thoughts in ink and dwelling on the joyful moments she had built alongside Minjun might begin to unravel the knot tightening within her chest.

Opening a cabinet, she retrieved a bound book and an ink pen, moving toward the writing table to begin. Just as she was contemplating the opening lines, Rokan stepped back into the sanctuary.

“Grandfather?”

Sia opened her mouth to greet the elder with a welcoming smile and ask how his task had progressed, but the words died in her throat as she registered the presence behind him.

A woman was being dragged along beside him. Straining her vision, Sia realized the figure was none other than Yuria, the Black Dragon.

Sia recognized her instantly. She had seen her face on that fateful, nightmarish gathering of their kind.

‘Why would he bring her here…?’

Yuria belonged to that faction of dragons that openly disdained Sia’s attachment to Minjun, and rumors had long circulated about her chaotic entanglements with males.

Beyond those facts, however, Sia held virtually no familiarity with her, having avoided her company entirely since that draconic summit. What purpose brought her into this inner sanctum?

Sia moved her gaze between Rokan and the captive in sheer perplexity. Only then did the details register: Yuria was shivering, her face pale with terror, while Rokan emanated a level of suppressed wrath far beyond his ordinary temperament.

As Sia stood frozen in bewilderment, Rokan’s gaze bored into Yuria with icy fury. “Yuria. Reveal to Shasha yourself, with your own lips, what manner of trap you set for Minjun.”

“…”

Yuria’s jaw tightened in bitter humiliation. The sheer disgrace of having the former Dragon Lord corner her over a mere mortal was already insufferable, but being forced to account for her actions before a dragon she looked down upon as deranged was utterly degrading.

Biting down hard on her lip, Yuria lowered her chin in stubborn silence.

“If you refuse to utter the truth, I shall lay it bare myself.”

“…”

With Yuria keeping her lips sealed, Rokan finally revealed to Sia the reality of what had transpired between the Black Dragon and Minjun.

“Yuria attempted to seduce Minjun and take him for herself.”

The instant those words left his mouth, Sia’s hand swung forward, striking Yuria across the cheek with an echoing slap.