[3] Oppa, Which One Is Prettier?

Even after that, we continued talking for a long time, as though making up for all the longing that had accumulated between us during our time apart.

But after we had been doing that for quite a while—

“By the way, Sia. Don’t you think we should start moving somewhere else?”

“Why, Oppa? There aren’t even any people around us.”

“No, that’s not it. If it were somewhere else, I wouldn’t mind, but this is a cemetery. Staying here for too long feels a little…….”

And it wasn’t just any cemetery. It was a somewhat eerie place where Sia’s body from when she had still been human was buried.

Hearing that, Sia nodded.

“Now that you mention it, I guess you’re right. Come to think of it, my body is buried right next to us. Ugh.”

She scrunched up her face before suddenly grabbing my hand.

“Oppa, hold on tight.”

The moment Sia said that, my vision suddenly became bright, as if a flashbang had exploded right in front of my eyes.

[Teleport.]

And a moment later—

“How is it? Do you like it? It’s way better than before, right?”

The scenery had changed in the blink of an eye.

Just a moment ago, we had been in a cemetery, but now the place where I stood was a small beach where there was no sign of anyone around.

“Sia, did you just…… use Teleport?”

“Yep! Do you remember how I once told you that my dream was to go camping with you on a deserted island and spend a cozy day there, just the two of us? I suddenly remembered that.”

I vaguely remembered Sia saying something like that once.

But that wasn’t what had surprised me.

‘She can use Teleport…… this easily?’

The magic known as Teleport was by no means a simple spell that could be cast without performing any formulaic calculations or incantations.

Just how incredible was my Sia?

“Sia. So, does that mean you could Teleport even to the other side of the Earth, somewhere like Paraguay?”

“Of course! Why? Oppa, do you want to go to Paraguay?”

Sia urged me to name anywhere because she could take me wherever I wanted.

“No, I was just wondering. But it would be nice to go anywhere together.”

“Hehe.”

After we exchanged those embarrassingly sweet words—

Sia, who had been about to say something to me, suddenly seemed to remember something she had forgotten. She lightly smacked herself on the head and scolded herself.

“Ah, what am I doing? Oppa, wait a second.”

With that, Sia instantly cast Teleport again.

“Ta-da!”

She reappeared just a few seconds later.

In one hand, she was holding the spicy rice cakes I had brought along for her.

“Oppa prepared these spicy rice cakes for me. I couldn’t just leave them behind.”

Perhaps because she was excited about eating spicy rice cakes for the first time since her reincarnation, Sia was grinning from ear to ear.

But from my perspective, I wasn’t sure whether she should actually eat them.

Of course, they were spicy rice cakes I had bought for Sia, so there was nothing wrong with her eating them. But…… they were, essentially, food prepared for a memorial rite.

If Sia herself wanted to eat them, I couldn’t exactly stop her, but personally, I would rather have bought a fresh serving of spicy rice cakes.

And then—

“Oppa, what’s wrong?”

When I continued staring at her without saying anything, Sia must have sensed something strange, because she asked in a trembling voice.

It wasn’t just her voice. Her entire body was trembling.

Like a puppy standing before its owner immediately after getting caught doing something wrong.

If I didn’t say something right away, it looked like Sia might burst into tears at any moment.

Flustered, I quickly waved my hands.

“No, it’s nothing. I was just thinking that since those spicy rice cakes were brought as food for the memorial rite, maybe it would feel a little uncomfortable. I was wondering if it would be better to just buy a fresh serving of spicy rice cakes.”

“Absolutely not!”

Although she let out a sigh of relief at my answer, Sia firmly shook her head.

“Oppa prepared those spicy rice cakes for me. Not eating them would feel even worse! And the alcohol, too…….”

The moment the word alcohol came up, Sia and I realized the same thing at the same time.

We had left the rice wine behind.

“……I forgot.”

“I seem to remember fantasy novels having settings where Dragons never forget anything, no matter what happens. Is a real Dragon perhaps different?”

I mixed a joke with a little sincerity and playfully teased Sia the way I always used to.

But upon hearing my words, Sia’s expression suddenly darkened.

As though she had committed some terrible mistake.

“Why…… did I leave it behind?”

The Sia I knew would normally have taken a joke like that in stride and probably even tried to tease me back.

But after becoming so restless over nothing more than a bottle of alcohol, Sia disappeared again after telling me to wait a moment.

And just a few seconds later, Sia reappeared carrying the rice wine we had left behind.

Her eyes were unfocused, as though her mind had wandered somewhere far away.

“The alcohol Oppa brought for me…… It’s the one you brought for me…… I shouldn’t have left it behind…….”

But something about Sia seemed strange.

Muttering quietly to herself, Sia carefully stroked the bottle of rice wine.

“Sia?”

“Oppa, I’m sorry. You prepared this for me, but I forgot about it…… I’m sorry…….”

It was obvious at a glance that Sia wasn’t in a normal state.

How should I put it?

Maybe her mind had become unstable after spending two thousand years researching dimensional transference magic, or perhaps it was some aftereffect of using dimensional transference magic.

Whatever the reason, Sia looked extremely fragile.

If she had been like this immediately after coming out of the Gate, I could have understood it. But she had seemed perfectly fine until just moments ago, so I couldn’t help but feel flustered.

I hugged Sia tightly to help her calm down.

“It’s okay, Sia. When have I ever gotten angry over something like that? You’re back, Sia. What does a bottle of alcohol matter compared to that?”

“…….”

“I was just joking. Just teasing you because I was so happy to see you again.”

As I comforted her with the gentlest words I could manage, Sia gradually began to regain her composure.

“……I’m sorry, Oppa. I scared you, didn’t I?”

“No, it’s okay. As long as you’re okay, Sia, that’s all that matters.”

As I gently stroked her back again, Sia seemed to calm down little by little. Her expression softened, and before long, she gave me a bashful smile.

“Then, Oppa, let’s eat spicy rice cakes together now!”

Sia used magic to create a small folding table and chairs, then placed the spicy rice cakes and alcohol on the table.

She finished opening the partially opened package of spicy rice cakes, then tore open the two sets of wooden chopsticks inside the bag and handed one to me.

“Then, let’s eat!”

With that cheerful greeting, Sia began eating the spicy rice cakes in earnest.

“Wow, how long has it been since I last had spicy rice cakes?”

From the very first bite, she started making a huge fuss as though she were eating the most exquisite delicacies in the world, and soon she began devouring the spicy rice cakes at an impressive speed.

Of course, she didn’t forget to drink rice wine every now and then.

Spicy rice cakes and alcohol, and not just any alcohol, but rice wine meant for a memorial rite.

It was a bizarre combination that I could never have imagined, but Sia didn’t care in the slightest and happily enjoyed the rice wine together with the spicy rice cakes.

“You know, Oppa, when I was a hatchling, there was this one time when I wanted to eat spicy rice cakes so badly that I gathered the ingredients myself and tried making them. But I don’t know whether my cooking skills were lacking or whether the ingredients were different from those on Earth, but it just didn’t taste the same.”

Sia had already devoured a third of the entire serving by herself in no time, then gulped down the remaining rice wine as though it were water.

“But now that I think about it, neither of those was the reason. The real reason was something else.”

“Then what was the real reason?”

“I guess it was because I wasn’t eating them with Oppa.”

Sia gazed lovingly into my eyes as she adorably took a bite of a piece of fish cake.

“The spicy rice cakes were delicious, but I liked spending time eating spicy rice cakes with Oppa even more. I think that’s why I liked spicy rice cakes so much.”

At that moment, it felt as though something had struck me hard in the head.

Sia had loved eating spicy rice cakes with me so much, so why had I always complained about how we were eating spicy rice cakes again?

Regret washed over me once more, and I felt sorry for Sia.

“From now on, I’ll buy you so many spicy rice cakes that you’ll get sick of them.”

Who cared if she ate them until she couldn’t stand the sight of them anymore? At least I would get to see my Sia enjoying herself.

I had said it because I felt sorry, but Sia seemed deeply touched by my words and bashfully twisted her whole body around.

As we continued eating spicy rice cakes and chatting about this and that in our cozy atmosphere—

Before we knew it, the takeout container was completely empty.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Yep! But Oppa, I’m still hungry.”

Hungry?

I stared blankly at the takeout container, which had been completely cleaned out without a single morsel remaining.

‘Normally, that amount would have been enough for both Sia and me, with even a little left over.’

And yet she was still hungry?

“Hungry……?”

“Yep. Since I’m a Dragon, I eat a little more than I used to.”

Come to think of it, that made sense.

I didn’t know what actual Dragons were like, but Dragons as they were generally depicted in fantasy novels all had enormous bodies that were incomparably larger than those of humans.

So perhaps it was only natural that Sia couldn’t feel full even after eating this much.

“Then shall we go buy some more spicy rice cakes?”

“Let’s! We can buy them in our neighborhood, right?”

“Hmm.”

Before using Teleport, we cleaned up the trash.

While doing so, my eyes landed on Sia’s clothes.

If she went outside dressed like that, there was no doubt other people would stare.

For one thing, the clothes Sia was wearing were obviously not something a modern person would normally wear.

If I had to describe them, they looked like an elaborately made cosplay costume.

“Sia. Are you really going out to buy spicy rice cakes wearing that?”

“I was going to change anyway. Oppa, what should I wear? I’ll wear whatever you choose.”

Hmm.

There wasn’t really any particular outfit I wanted Sia to wear.

Whether Sia wore an elegant dress, a refreshing tennis skirt with a pastel-colored top, or loose-fitting sweats, I would have liked any of them.

But if I simply said anything was fine, it might seem like I wasn’t putting any thought into it, so I immediately mentioned the first outfit that came to mind.

“A white T-shirt and jeans?”

“Okay!”

With a single gesture, Sia instantly changed the clothes she was wearing.

Her outfit, which looked like something a medieval European might have worn, transformed with a single wave of Sia’s hand into a neat white T-shirt and jeans.

“Does it suit me?”

“Yeah. My Sia is really pretty.”

I wasn’t saying it just to flatter her. I genuinely meant it.

Sia had already been quite pretty before her reincarnation, but the Sia standing before me now was beautiful enough to inspire awe.

I wasn’t saying it simply because she was my girlfriend. Objectively speaking, Sia as she was now looked less like a human being and more like a living work of art.

The kind of expensive masterpiece that made you feel like someone like me shouldn’t dare lay a finger on it.

Of course, she wasn’t a human or a work of art. She was a Dragon.

But anyway.

Her figure was perfect, so she would look beautiful in anything, but this outfit in particular was impossible not to find pretty.

It had that effortlessly stylish look that made it seem as though every passing man would glance at her at least once.

We had gotten rid of the spicy rice cakes, and she had changed into clothes appropriate for a modern person.

Now all that remained was to Teleport.

But then—

“Oppa, wait a second.”

Instead of casting Teleport, Sia suddenly stopped me.

“Oppa, do I look better with this face right now, or was my original face before my reincarnation prettier?”

“……Huh?”

Sia’s question left me completely speechless.

……How the hell was I supposed to answer that?

‘I’m screwed.’