I Raised a Black Dragon - Chapter 189

“Don’t say anything nonsense to Noah, Muell.” 

“I’m sure Noah knows. Right now, Noah is a little depressed.”

“I didn’t… No, first of all. Why is Noah depressed? Because she was looking for her body?” Kyle no longer bothered to conceal what he wanted to hide. If something caused Noah to become unstable, he couldn’t just let it go.

“I don’t know either.” Muell replied as his expression turned rather somber. The little boy witnessed exactly what sort of mental warfare Noah experienced as she came to visit her world in the search of her body, but could not fully comprehend it. For Muell, who was still learning the rudiments of humanity, understanding such complexities of a human mind was a matter of enormous difficulty. After a while of contemplation, Muell managed to encapsulate Noah’s thoughts in one phrase.

“Noah, maybe she didn’t want to come back.” 

But the child’s words were something Kyle hadn’t thought of. It felt like a blow to his head. While Kyle was rendered speechless, unable to find the right words to say, Muell mumbled in thought.

“Everything else was fine, but there was only one memory that Noah had a hard time with. She said it was okay… But it seemed like she had regrets.”

Noah must have had a lingering attachment to her previous world. Did she leave anything of importance behind? Perhaps a thing she treasured the most… Kyle’s thoughts meandered to a depth he had never reached before. A woman who had unexpectedly crossed another dimension on the day of her supposed death still bears sentiments for her world. It only meant there were things she left behind. For all he knows, it could be her family.

Kyle knew almost nothing about Noah’s relationships, except for one thing. When he asked Noah about her original appearance in Tezeba’s interrogation room, he only heard what she said: “I don’t have very much color, I looked like my mom.” Only then did he feel that he had been too indifferent to Noah. Looking back, Noah was quite lonely.

Kyle had never seen Noah blame the young dragon even when she was suffering from the consequence of an accidental imprint. Even when he had told her repeatedly to distance herself from Muell to minimize the toll on her, she stubbornly refused to comply and stuck closer to the boy instead. Furthermore, when they first entered Eleonora’s mansion in Tezeba, she even asked Muell to stay with her until she fell asleep. 

As Kyle mused over his memories, he realized he was achingly apathetic towards Noah, who was more warmhearted than he thought. 

“The medium to Noah’s world hasn’t been completely destroyed yet, so I’m going to ask Noah later. If Noah wants to go, she can go back.” Muell wriggled pieces of crumpled paper out of his arms. Before the portal had entirely disappeared, he hid several pages of the medium into his pocket and casted a protection spell upon them.

Kyle remained silent for a moment. As he fathomed Muell’s remark, a corner of his chest tightened uneasily. If Noah desired to return to where she originally lived, she could. Besides, with the dragon’s power, almost everything could be made possible. 

Noah can always disappear from my side… I’ve never made such an assumption. 

Kyle’s eyes drifted toward the bathroom. The faint sound of running water had long ceased and worries began to invade his mind. He got up from his seat.

*

The last thing her mind could remember was filling the bathtub with warm water to dip herself in before she dozed into slumber for quite a while. When Noah woke up with a chill, the water had already cooled down.

“Should I get out?” I just want to fall asleep like this. I would have if it weren’t cold. Begrudgingly, Noah slipped out of the tub and squeezed the water from his hair. And, as if a moment of eureka, only the opposite, Noah was hit by a realization. 

“What should I wear?” 

She hadn’t brought with her any change of clothes, but it would have been still useless if she had noticed beforehand since she didn’t have spare clothes to begin with. She merey brought a pocketful of Eleonora’s inventions and left all the rest of her luggage somewhere in Noviscosha, which carried all her clothes…

Noah stared at the clothes she had previously worn. Muell had used a spell to clean her clothes before, and even without the child’s help, she knew how to cast it. However, Noah felt repulsed to wear those clothes, owing to the fact that it was from her previous world.

I’m sure my mom changed it for me because it was different from what I wore right before I collapsed. It only implied that it was her sister’s clothes, and Noah hated it more when she thought so. I think there was a gown hanging in the room. Should I wear that? 

As I sighed left her lips, a knock was heard on the door. 

“What’s the matter?” A voice came from beyond the thick wooden door. While Noah couldn’t answer in embarrassment, a series of knocks ensued.