Chapter 2

Oppa, We’ll Never Have to Part Again.

Published on Oct 7, 2026

[2] Oppa, We’ll Never Have to Part Again.

My beloved girlfriend, Sia, died a year ago.

And yet.

A suspicious woman suddenly appeared from a Gate—not a monster, but some strange woman—and immediately began claiming that she was my dead girlfriend.

In a situation like this, how many people in the world would actually believe what that woman was saying at face value?

At the very least, I wasn't one of them.

If anything, I was furious to the point of boiling over because I felt like I was being deceived on the anniversary of Sia's death.

This was an insult to the late Sia, and to me as well.

I stepped back from the woman who claimed to be Sia and tried to throw her arms around me.

I wanted nothing more than to curse at this woman who was impersonating my dead Sia and tell her to disappear from in front of my eyes immediately.

But.

Since she was an entity that had emerged from a Gate, I decided it would be better not to provoke her recklessly.

For now, the priority was to calmly attempt a conversation.

"Who exactly are you? How do you know me, and how do you know the woman I love?"

I asked the woman while suppressing my personal feelings as much as possible.

But when the woman heard my emotionless question...... she immediately began to cry.

'She's crying?'

This was a development I had never expected.

It was fortunate, at least, that this woman had not shown any hostility toward me yet, but somehow the situation was becoming increasingly strange.

An unidentified entity that had emerged from a Gate.

And on top of that, there was no combat personnel here other than me.

'Stay calm. I have to stay calm.'

First, I needed to figure out why this woman knew my name and Sia's name, and why she was trying to pretend to be the deceased Sia.

Just as I was calmly organizing the next thing I would say in my head—

"Well, my appearance has changed a lot, so there's no way Oppa could think otherwise. Still, I was worried about what I'd do if Oppa forgot me, but I'm so relieved. I'm sorry. I was stupid for doubting Oppa. Oppa even bought spicy rice cakes and seaweed rice rolls because you were thinking of me. Right? There's no way Oppa could have forgotten me. Of course. There's no way Oppa would have met another woman while leaving me behind. That's right. I was wrong. I was stupid for doubting someone like Oppa."

After muttering to herself like that, the woman took a moment to catch her breath and looked all around her.

Then, she raised one hand high toward the sky and began muttering something in an incomprehensible language.

[Silence.]

The moment the woman's muttering ended, a tremendous amount of mana began to envelop the surrounding area.

"There aren't any people around here, but just in case."

'Magic?'

And she activated it simply by chanting, without even performing any calculations?

At that moment, I instinctively realized something.

No matter how desperately I struggled and attacked her, this woman was an incredible monster capable of subduing me without even lifting a finger.

My legs trembled so badly that I felt like I could collapse on the spot, and my heart was pounding so violently that I thought it might burst at any moment.

"Oppa, Oppa, what's wrong all of a sudden? Are you feeling sick? You're not feeling sick, right? Right? Come on, Oppa, get a hold of yourself!"

"Y-you, just who are you......"

The overwhelming difference in power made it difficult for me to breathe.

But she seemed even more flustered by the sight of me struggling to breathe.

"What's wrong, Oppa? Or is it because you're scared of me? Oppa, stay calm. Breathe in deeply and then breathe out. I'm your girlfriend, so why would I hurt you? Stay calm. No, I'll make you feel better."

Then the woman muttered something once again and cast magic on me.

I couldn't hear exactly what she had muttered, but once again, she cast the spell instantly without performing any calculations.

"How do you feel? Are you feeling a little better now?"

"......Yes, I feel better."

"Phew, that's a relief."

Just a few seconds ago, my heart had been pounding as though it were about to explode, but my heart rate returned to normal as if by magic.

Yet that very fact only made me even more frightened.

A spell that calmed the mind.

I had never even heard of such magic.

"For now, I understand that Oppa can't believe I'm Sia, and I also understand that you have no choice but to feel that way in this situation. All right, then. I just have to prove that I'm your girlfriend, right?"

After catching her breath, the woman began speaking calmly.

Our first meeting.

What Sia had said to me when she confessed her feelings.

The place where we had our first kiss.

The first birthday present Sia had ever given me.

The songs I always used to sing whenever Sia and I went to karaoke together......

They were all things that no one could have known unless she herself were Sia.

Then, could that woman really be Sia......?

It was an absurd situation, but I decided to ask one more question, just in case.

"Then, what's my favorite drink?"

"It's a little questionable whether you can call it a drink, but you like coffee milk, don't you, Oppa? That's why I always used to tell you that you were addicted to coffee milk."

With that answer, I became certain.

I didn't know why she had appeared from the Gate, nor did I know why she looked completely different from the Sia I had known.

But.

The woman standing before my eyes was undoubtedly my beloved girlfriend, Sia.

"That's what you said, Oppa. You said that you were addicted to coffee milk, but what you were really addicted to was you, Sia...... And then you told me not to say things like that anymore because they gave you goosebumps. When was that again? It was when I was twenty-one, so—"

"Sia."

Before Sia could finish speaking, I pulled her tightly into my arms.

"Sia. Sia. Sia."

Is this really not a dream? I've missed you so much. I love you.

So many things came to mind, but I didn't have the chance to say any of them. I could only keep calling Sia's name.

Perhaps she finally felt reassured when I called her name, because Sia smiled brightly and called my name in return.

"Minjun Oppa."

"Yes, Sia."

Instead of asking each other how we had been all this time, we simply held each other in silence for a long while.

Her face, voice, and height were all different, but once I held her in my arms, I knew for certain that she was Sia.

Because only Sia loved being in my arms this much.

After we had held each other for quite some time—

I wiped away my tears and asked Sia,

"Sia, what on earth happened to you all this time?"

***

Even as her entire body was being burned by the unbearably intense flames that had erupted inside the Gate, Jeong Sia never lost hope of surviving.

I won't die. I absolutely won't die. For myself, and for Minjun Oppa, the man I love, I will survive until the very end somehow.

Unfortunately, however, only half of her determination came true.

She came back to life.

But in a dimension completely different from Earth.

As the strongest living creature in the world—a dragon.

Immediately after reincarnating, she couldn't believe what had happened to her.

But as she gradually adapted to life as a dragon, she was able to enjoy her dragon life.

However, that happiness didn't last long.

'I feel empty.'

After being reincarnated as a dragon, she could have anything she wanted and do anything she wished.

Her kind new parents also showered her with affection.

And yet, she couldn't be satisfied.

'I can't see Minjun Oppa.'

She had everything, but the boyfriend she loved wasn't by her side.

Minjun, whom she had loved so deeply that she considered him the other half of her soul.

Sia desperately missed that other half of her soul.

One day, while suffering from the emptiness that couldn't be filled because of her longing for Minjun—

She finally decided to go and meet Minjun herself.

There was only one way.

She had to develop and use a dimensional transference magic formula that could transcend space and time.

From that moment on, she began making plans to accomplish it.

Until she became an adult dragon, she trained relentlessly and acquired power far greater than that of other hatchlings around her age.

Whenever she had spare time, she also took magic books from her father's study and read them, building up a foundation of magical knowledge.

And after becoming an adult dragon, she devoted herself entirely to researching dimensional transference magic as if she were insane.

Other dragons tried to tempt her, saying, "Dimensional transference magic cannot exist in this world in theory, so why don't you come play with us?"

But she never wavered in the face of their temptations and devoted herself solely to developing dimensional transference magic.

Creating entirely new magic on her own, without any guarantee that she would ever succeed, was by no means easy.

At first, she had begun the endeavor thinking that it didn't matter if it took thousands of years, as long as she could meet Minjun.

But as time passed, she increasingly felt like she was going insane, and thoughts of giving up on everything constantly wandered through her mind.

Whenever that happened, however, she would carve Minjun's face into a stone and steel her resolve.

'Get a grip, you idiot. Are you really going to give up here? Minjun Oppa is waiting for you! You weakling.'

'Just as much as I miss Oppa, I'm sure Oppa misses me too.'

'Oppa can't do anything right now, so at least I have to keep trying to meet him.'

Minjun Oppa. Minjun Oppa. Minjun Oppa. Minjun Oppa.

'Wait for me. I'll definitely come to see you.'

A hundred years passed.

Then two hundred......

A thousand years passed.

And when a little more than two thousand years had gone by—

Her efforts finally bore fruit.

Unlike the dimensional transference magic that existed before, which could neither set the coordinates of the dimension and time one wished to travel to nor be used without putting one's life on the line—

She had created a groundbreaking dimensional transference magic that allowed her to travel to the desired time in the desired dimension.

Although there was still a possibility of a slight error when setting the temporal coordinates,

and the spell consumed an enormous amount of mana, meaning that the side effects caused by casting it had yet to be determined,

she was confident that she could bear all of it.

Going to meet Minjun was worth taking such risks.

"Finally, the day has come."

As soon as she finished verifying the calculations, she cast the dimensional transference magic without hesitation.

"Wait just a little longer, Oppa."

***

"I originally intended to travel to the day immediately after I died, but after I cast the spell, I suddenly remembered that I'd made a small mistake in the final calculation."

Sia confessed that she had belatedly realized she had set the time value to one year instead of one day.

"As soon as I discovered the mistake, I tried to modify the formula, but the spell had already been activated, so I couldn't change it. If I hadn't made that mistake, Oppa could have met me a little sooner."

And with that, Sia's long story came to an end.

Honestly, if I considered the story itself, I couldn't help but think it was completely absurd.

Ever since Gates first appeared several decades ago, various monsters had been discovered, but a dragon had never once been observed emerging from one.

More than anything, I had always thought reincarnation was something that existed only in novels.

But Sia had miraculously returned to me like this, so what was there left that I couldn't believe?

Whether she was a dragon or anything else, the only thing that mattered was that she had returned to me.

"Our Sia, you must have had such a hard time. Two thousand years...... Just how incredibly long—"

Before I could finish speaking, Sia suddenly pulled me into her arms.

Just as I had done moments earlier.

"Oppa."

Then, Sia suddenly pressed her cherry-like lips firmly against mine.

"I was really late, wasn't I? I'm sorry. I wanted to come back a little sooner, but even though I wanted to, I couldn't."

"Sia."

"We'll never have to part again. Never."

Sia's lips were sweet enough to send shivers down my spine.

Perhaps she had missed me terribly all this time, because Sia didn't seem to have any intention of pulling her lips away.