A Dragon That My Cat Brought Home

“Hey, wait a minute, are you a veterinarian, right? Can I ask you something?”

"Huh? Me?"

It was an elderly woman who called me on the way to the grocery store.

“I live in the apartment in front of you, and there is a cat I have been seeing for a while now. But these days, it seems sick, so I don't know what to do. I was on the way to the vet to ask.

“Oh, I am not a veterinarian. The veterinarian is my sister.”

“Last time I saw you locked hospital closed and went home so I thought you were the veterinarian. Then is the woman who was with you your sister?”

“Yes, that’s right. Why were you looking for her?”

"I've never had a cat, so I don't know much, but there's a cat that has stood out for a while now, and I've been seeing it for some time. I gave him some food because he seemed hungry. He became a little closer to me but I think he has a cold now. Is there a cold medicine for cats or something?

“It’s a cat you see often? Can I go and have a look?”

“Can you please? I've just seen it over there, so it's probably still there."

The old woman was smirking and led me.

The cat lying around behind the apartment flower bed was an adult cat with a cute brown mackerel pattern. The tip of the left ear was cut off a little with a mark as if someone had done TNR.

TN: Trap-neuter-return. Process of trapping a stray cat, neutering it, punching a hole in their ear to mark they have been TNRed, and letting them go free.

When he saw the old lady, it meowed as it recognized her and came closer.

“It sounds like he has mucus. He has a cold, right?”

– Purr purr purr·······.

I smiled at the worried look on her aunt's face.

"No. His fur condition is good and he seems healthy? The noise it makes doesn’t come from mucus, it's the sound cats make when it's in a good mood. He seem to like your you.”

"Really? This loud sound isn’t from mucus?"

“Cats are like that. We call it purring.”

I took out my smartphone and showed her the video of cats purring and explained to her.

The lady smiled as her face brightened.

“I didn’t know about cats at all, so I thought the mucus making the sound. I was worried that he might have gotten a cold because I gave him cold water when it was chilly. I’m glad.”

“I’ll bring you some food and snacks later. Cat is very fond of the lady.”

After exchanging contact information, while I was leaving the flower bed, the old woman squatted next to the cat and smiled as she said, "I'm glad, oh, I'm happy".

Seeing the old lady’s warm face warms my heart. It seemed like I had met a good neighbor, so the new neighborhood I moved into felt better.

“Guys, hyung is here!”

“Nyay~”

“Pi-yah~”

A white tiger under my leg and blue dragon over my shoulder came out to meet me.

After stroking the heads of the two animals and patting their buttocks, I put the groceries I had bought into the refrigerator, and the blue dragon flew around me and opened its mouth.

Are you going to play a new game? I tossed a cherry tomato into the air. The blue dragon flew in captivity and licked and bit the cherry tomatoes, and flicked over somersaults and flapped his wings.

Not long ago, after missing a baby tooth, I saw a blue dragon who kept opening his mouth to show off his teeth, accidentally caught the cookie that I threw.

This game is quite addictive, so I also threw food and dry snacks several times a day to play with them. Sometimes, Baek-ho jumps in the middle, snatches the snacks, and wipes his mouth while pretending not to know.

“Peep peep~!”

“Are you so excited? Okay, let's stop now and play again later. I'm going to write now. I remembered an interesting story today.”

When you come up with a good idea, you should write it quickly, if you say that you will write it later and do something else, you will forget it.

I sat down and started typing on the keyboard. Yeah, that's it. There are days when writing is exceptionally good, and today is that day.

Click clack click clack click clack.

Baek-ho and Blue Dragon also suddenly became quiet, and only the sound of the keyboard tapping continued in the room.

******

An unfamiliar landscape entered the blurry vision as if it was slightly foggy.

Yes, today's writing is good and the immersion is good as well, so it seems that the passage to another world has finally been opened. I calmly looked around.

It was the first time in my dreams that I had entered a place with so many people. There are walls that are logs pasted with mud, tables and chairs cut out of rough wood, and there are a lot of people. Food and drinks in rustic wooden crates are on the table. Is it an inn? It's like a town tavern.

The appearance of the people is the same as the last time, but the clothes are different. The clothes worn by Lee Ho-Jun and his group had complex patterns and were luxuriously dressed, but the clothes of the people here are much shabby and without patterns.

People sitting at tables here and there were chatting, but the overall atmosphere was not bright. I wish I could understand this language.

Suddenly, the shutters of the entrance door swung open and crashed against the wall. Five or six people came in in a daunting manner, and everyone in the room stopped talking and was in fear.

A chill ran through my body. Again, that energy. The energy I felt outside of the Blue Dragon's cave, the energy I felt inside the huge gate inside the castle that followed Ho-Jun.

However, like Ho-Jun, these people can only feel a little bit of that energy, so there is no pressure like the one felt inside the castle.

Come to think of it, even though there were a lot of people here, I didn't feel that kind of energy at all until a new group came in.

The people who came in with the door open wildly were wearing clothes similar to those worn by Ho-jun. Each garment contained a complex pattern.

They go from table to table dauntingly, saying something to people, raising their voices at the people that were bowing, threatening and hitting tables and kicking chairs.

People begged them, bowed their heads, asked for something, and I couldn’t understand anymore of what was being said.

It's so frustrating to be deaf and dumb. You can't see or hear, but you can't know, and you can't ask anyone.

I was paying close attention, but I had no idea what was going on.

Suddenly a sharp cry rang out, and the newcomers pulled two of the original men out of their seats. It was a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties and a boy who appeared to be in her late teens.

People around them hung around as if trying to dry them, but those wearing patterned clothes did not care, but raised the two of them roughly and dragged them outside. I hesitated a bit and followed them out.

A familiar castle is visible. A castle that collapsed as if a war had been waged in one corner. This seems to be a village located under the castle. People dragged women and boys towards the gates.

There are people wearing armor and carrying weapons around the gates. The armor also had unusual patterns engraved on it, as seen in Ho-Jun Lee's clothes, and some wore plain armor without patterns.

The men who dragged the woman and the boy stopped near the gates and seemed to be waiting for something. I also turned to one side and looked around.

What am I supposed to see here?

After waiting for a long time, nothing happened. Do I have to go somewhere else?

While hesitating, the surroundings suddenly became noisy. People around you point to the sky and shout something. I followed their gestures and looked up to the sky.

A white light shone from beyond the clouds. Something huge was moving. From the distant sky, a huge, white bird was approaching rapidly and rapidly.

No, it's not a bird. What was flying was a pure white, a white dragon.

When I saw the appearance of the White Dragon, I felt the opposite of what I had felt in the castle last time, a feeling of warm intimacy. A feeling of nostalgia and welcome. Why do I feel this closeness to a dragon I've never seen before?

As the White Dragon drew closer, unexplained anger and sadness overlaid on that intimacy. What kind of emotion is this?

After a while I realized this was the feelings of that dragon. Unspeakable embarrassment, deep sorrow, and intense anger were boiling inside the white dragon, and I could feel the fragments of it.

The gigantic dragon flew up to the top of the castle wall, then turned loudly and howled toward the sky. As if a cloud had obscured the sun, the shadowed ground darkened. People screamed, covered their heads, and fell to the ground.

Instead of kneeling down, I stretched out my arms towards the sky without realizing it. I wasn't afraid. I wanted to reach out to the dragon's pain.

Then suddenly I felt a sharp pain piercing my spine, and I dropped to the ground. That existence. The existence within the castle, he appeared. Something that knocks me down from just existing.

The white dragon howled in pain. I clenched my teeth and lifted my head. A strong sense of pressure weighed on me, but I had to see what happened.

I am only a frail man, but there must be a reason my consciousness was sent into this world. I had to live up to it.

As if submerged in deep water, his hands and feet did not move freely and his head was drenched. Amid the pressure that weighed down on my body, I slowly lifted my head and put my hands on the ground and gave it strength.

The moment I squeezed out all the strength I had been drinking and pulled my body up, my ears popped as if I had suddenly come out of the water. The sounds of words, which had been full of incomprehensible language, suddenly took on meaning and began to ring in my ears here and there.

“The monarch has come.”

“The great one . . .”

“On the castle wall over there . . .”

“But what about… the dragon's wrath…”

Above the wall stood the ominous being. The existence that knocked me down with only the energy radiating from afar.

He’s big. It is a giant that looks exactly like a human, but is almost 3 meters tall. The average person standing next to him looks half as small as him.

Fluttering the hem of his long robe, the giant stretched out his arms toward the sky.

In the giant's grasp, a young white hatchling was drooping, grabbed by his neck.

A huge white dragon roared in grief in the sky, and I lost consciousness.

******

After waking up, it wasn't long before I could lift my head above the keyboard.

I took a deep breath and looked at the monitor.

The message was there.

– You

have the power to communicate.