Chapter 162 – Hide-and-Seek

That brat Rosie was being particularly mischievous today.

You want to see me? Then I’ll decide the time and place. First, the rendezvous time is tomorrow at 7:30 PM!

And the place?

Unit Leader Ji-han has to figure out the place with his skills! It’s always been like that, hasn’t it?

Rosie. I’m not a free person. Hurry up and tell me the rendezvous point.

Hey! I believe Unit Leader Ji-han can do it! Well then, I’m off! Bbyong!

After that message, there were no more replies from Rosie.

I could only let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity.

To just tell me to find her without any clues.

As expected of a dragon’s bloodline, her eccentric personality was something that couldn’t be helped.

In that case, I had no choice but to find her myself based on the living radius of Rosie that I knew.

The key depended on how Rosie managed her mana.

If Rosie didn’t hide her presence, I was confident I could find her within an hour.

Because I knew what the unique aura of a dragon was.

But if Rosie was determined to hide her aura, it wouldn’t be easy even for me.

‘Surely she wouldn’t be that unreasonable.’

But the next day, I couldn’t help but be amazed by her mischievousness.

Rosie had completely hidden her presence.

It seemed she was playing hide-and-seek so that I couldn’t find her easily.

In the end, I was in a situation where I had to run around busily on my own two feet.

I immediately started a map search on my smartphone.

I tried to think of places where Rosie might be at this time in the evening.

I narrowed down the candidates to three.

She could be eating mint chocolate chip ice cream somewhere, or playing the claw machine in front of an arcade, and I also heard that she had recently gotten hooked on coin karaoke.

A search revealed that there were 6 ice cream shops, 7 arcades, and 12 coin karaoke places in this area.

‘For now, I’ll just go where my feet take me.’

I thought it was meaningless to deduce any further.

For now, I decided to trust ‘Nike’s Ring,’ which brings good fortune, and just start searching.

With the well-founded belief that I would find her on the first try, or at the latest, the third.

The place I arrived at, letting my feet lead the way, was Yongyong Coin Karaoke.

The name of the place was exquisite, so I entered the establishment without hesitation.

Since it was a weekend evening, all the booths were full, and all sorts of voices mixed and pierced my ears.

Thanks to Rosie, I got to visit a place like this, it was truly a unique experience.

‘If she is indeed here, she has hidden her mana perfectly.’

Usually, at this distance, even Rosie would have been detected by me.

Considering the slightest possibility, I dismantled every incoming sound, one by one, filtering and filtering again.

Just in case the unique vocal print of a dragon might be mixed in among them.

As I eliminated the unlikely voices one by one, one voice eventually remained. On the surface, it was a woman’s voice.

But as I dug a little deeper, I felt a sense of disharmony, something that couldn’t be called human.

I moved my feet, following the source of that voice.

‘Her singing skills are terrible.’

An awkward sense of rhythm. An unnaturally forced high note even while singing a children’s song.

Inside the booth, a long-haired girl was singing her heart out, her shoulders trembling slightly.

I could only let out a chuckle.

I opened the door and sat down next to the girl.

“It’s been a while, Rosie.”

Only then did Rosie release her perfectly concealed presence.

But she absolutely did not take her mouth off the microphone.

Looking at the lyrics, it was a song about a family of three bears.

But Rosie was changing the lyrics and singing.

For example, she sang Papa Dragon instead of Papa Bear.

‘Do dragons have family affection too?’

In fact, there was too much I didn’t know about dragons.

Most legends had weak grounds, and Rosie rarely talked about dragons.

Anyway, I had no choice but to wait until this song was over.

Fortunately, this children’s song wasn’t long, and eventually, Rosie finished the song with a great deal of emotion.

“Unit Leader Ji-han! You have to check the score!”

Rosie acted first, as if she was afraid I would turn off the machine.

The numbers immediately started going up on the screen.

99 points.

For a moment, Rosie screamed and hugged me tightly.

“Unit Leader Ji-han! It’s 99 points! The highest record so far!”

“Congratulations.”

Even at my soulless congratulations, Rosie looked thrilled.

“It’s a relief that Unit Leader Ji-han came just in time! It was a score too good to see alone. Right?”

“Right.”

Rosie went so far as to take a selfie with the score screen in the background.

“But Unit Leader Ji-han! How did you find me right away?”

“Rosie, no matter how far you run, you’re still in the palm of my hand.”

“Lies! Who could do that to a dragon!”

“If you don’t believe me, try hiding again next time.”

“What, you’re so confident it sounds real!”

I stroked Rosie’s head, reconfirming our hierarchical relationship.

“Don’t do that, Unit Leader Ji-han. It makes me feel like your subordinate.”

“Subordinate? We’re friends.”

“Anyway, it feels a bit weird. By the way, now I want to see Unit Leader Ji-han’s ability.”

“What?”

“You said I’m in the palm of your hand, right? Then you have to prove it.”

With that, Rosie handed me the microphone.

“Don’t tell me you’re making me sing?”

“Yup.”

I touched my forehead.

I had never imagined that the great Johan Raven would be forced to sing.

“I don’t know why Unit Leader Ji-han wanted to see me, but if you don’t sing, I won’t say a word.”

“Rosie, so this was the reason you were here.”

“Yup. That’s right.”

“Then I’ll have to set a condition too.”

“What condition?”

“The condition that if I prove my ability, you’ll answer everything I ask.”

“Unit Leader Ji-han. Don’t you remember my score?”

Finding where Rosie was in one go probably hadn’t used up all the luck from ‘Nike’s Ring.’

If the condition was to get a higher score, I had no confidence in losing.

“Then I’ll take that as you accepting.”

“It’s strange how Unit Leader Ji-han is always so confident.”

“Same song selection.”

Since I didn’t know any songs, I chose the children’s song Rosie had just sung.

“This song, it won’t be easy.”

Rosie shook her head and looked at me with a serious face.

However, it was also difficult for me to be bad at singing.

For me, who knew how to perfectly control all the senses of the body, playing with the vocal cords and uvula was a trivial matter.

Moreover, by adding a subtle amount of mana to my voice, it became a heavenly tone, so I was in a body that couldn’t be bad at singing even if I wanted to.

Just like Rosie, I slightly changed the lyrics.

Instead of Mama Bear, I sang Mama Dragon.

Whether this touched Rosie’s heart, she watched my song with a moved expression.

Especially at the last line, ‘Heave-ho, heave-ho, you’re doing great,’ her eyes welled up.

In the end, I finished the song perfectly, and my score started to rise on the screen.

I had done what a person could do, and Nike’s Ring would work its magic on the machine, so I watched the screen with a calm mind.

“100 points.”

At the unsurprising result, I smiled at Rosie.

I thought she would throw a tantrum, but she obediently accepted this result.

“I’ll admit it. When it comes to singing, Unit Leader Ji-han is a little better than me.”

It probably wasn’t just ‘a little better.’

Anyway, it was now time to get to the main point. I took out a map in front of Rosie.

The title of the map was not yet displayed, and it was an object close to a blank sheet of paper with only a very small part of the picture faintly filled in.

But the moment Rosie touched the map, her eyes widened like a startled rabbit as she looked at me.

“What are you so surprised about?”

“Unit Leader Ji-han! Where did you get something like this!”

“Even though it’s incomplete, you can definitely feel it. That this map is connected to a dragon’s nest.”

“And it’s a Red Dragon’s at that!”

With Rosie’s comment, the identity of this map became certain.

Old man Jenolf had made the item properly without any mistakes.

A problem that needed confirmation was solved, so I smiled a triumphant smile.

And one more thing.

“I have something I’m curious about.”

“I may have lost the bet, but please don’t ask anything too difficult.”

Since I couldn’t know the standard of that difficulty, I just asked without hesitation.

“This map. Will it be completed on its own as I adventure through the Abyss?”

According to Jenolf’s hypothesis, this was the surest way.

In fact, when I completed a quest in the Abyss, this map did reveal a little more of itself.

Rosie made a troubled face, and after pondering, she finally opened her mouth.

“I’m not supposed to say things like this…”

It was always the same pattern.

In the end, Rosie would speak.

“There will be a limit with just the usual Abyss quests. Unit Leader Ji-han will find out eventually anyway. At some point, the process of the map being made will become very slow.”

“So it’s impossible with just Abyss quests?”

“No, not necessarily. As I said, the speed slows down, and by human standards, it’s quite slow. Even if you’re Unit Leader Ji-han, you can’t live to be 200, right?”

True. There was bound to be a big difference in the perception of time between dragons and humans.

Humans live for 100 years at most, but to a dragon, a few hundred years would be nothing more than a long hibernation after a good nap.

“So in conclusion, what else is needed?”

“There is one catalyst that completes the map. And that is…”

Rosie paused for a moment and then confessed everything.

“When the map is completed to a certain extent, you sprinkle a dragon’s blood on it.”

After saying that, she looked at me intently.

“What’s the meaning of that look?”

“Because it feels like Unit Leader Ji-han is after my blood. I wanted to tell you that’s absolutely not going to happen.”

“Can’t you just give a little?”

“Blood that I shed voluntarily has no effect.”

I found it hard to say anything to Rosie’s words.

“I see.”

“Honestly, even if Unit Leader Ji-han were to aim for me, it’s impossible. No matter how great Unit Leader Ji-han is, you’re still just a human.”

Rosie’s conclusion was, in a nutshell.

With human strength, one couldn’t even draw the blood of a hatchling, let alone a dragon.

Sometimes she acted cute with me, let me win, and even let me pat her head, but I could clearly feel what dragons thought of humans.

But Rosie hadn’t seen me during my Johan Raven days.

A human existence on a different level from who I was now.

“You’ve got it wrong, Rosie.”

“What?”

“That humans are beings with far greater potential than you think.”

“I know, I feel that through Unit Leader Ji-han.”

“No, it’s much higher than what you think.”

“But I’ve never heard of such a human.”

The Red Dragon, Devrias.

It must have been an embarrassment for him too.

Seeing as he didn’t properly announce our fight.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep