I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit - Chapter 201

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Side Story
Arun spoke.
“We had such a good time back then, didn’t we?”
“Back then?”
“Yeah. When we went to visit your hometown.”
That’s right. A few years ago, drawn by some miracle, we embarked on a journey to Earth.
The blue planet, Earth. My homeland.
A place filled with more painful memories than pleasant ones.
A place too agonizing and difficult to hold onto as a cherished memory.
The place where I was born, yet it never felt like my true home.
“Well, it was fun, I suppose…”
If I had to be honest, it leaned more toward the enjoyable side.
Though it was certainly bewildering.
As always, Arun shifted gears quickly.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly thrilling, was it?”
“…”
“Was it Udyr-level?”
I sighed.
Arun was still afflicted with “Earth Sickness.”
A condition where one develops considerable pride in Earth’s vocabulary and culture, particularly South Korea’s—a disease that, in this world, only Arun suffered from.
“Don’t look at me like that, Isabel.”
Arun smiled brightly.
Even though ten years had passed since we officially started dating, Arun’s gaze remained tender.
Without question, his eyes had never changed even once.
Eyes like pupils crafted from honey gazed upon me.
“I don’t think Earth Sickness is such a bad condition. It’s simply a means that makes me more special.”
“A means that makes you more special?”
“It’s like a connection between you and me. Something very special and intimate.”
It must be my imagination that it sounds like lyrics from some old Earth song.
“Only I know it. I’m the only one who has truly experienced your homeland. Only I can understand your world, Isabel.”
Arun laughed proudly, letting out a bright laugh.
Just then, a shooting star fell across the sky once more.
The Milky Way stretched across the night sky.
A sky sparkling with far more starlight than Earth’s.
‘That’s right. It was a night like this back then too.’
This story takes place a few years ago.
On a sweltering summer night.
It began suddenly one night when shooting stars poured down.
A memory that arrived without warning, like a thief, catching me off guard.
I wish to share a memory that was particularly special, even to one who lives miracles.
This story is about a strange journey I took with Arun several years ago.
The kind of tale where ‘a boat travels to a mountain,’ or rather, ‘a train ascends to the sky.’
A story that might make ordinary web novel readers tilt their heads in confusion.
Yet it was a story I had always desperately wanted to tell someday.
This is that record.

* * *
There is something I always say habitually.
‘I am living a miracle.’
And it was true.
How else could I describe my life if not as a miracle?
An incurable girl abandoned by her parents crossed into another world, overcame a terminal diagnosis, and now lives surrounded by so much love?
There was no other word to explain it besides miracle.
This ordinary life was a miracle to me, and I was always grateful for it.
And that gratitude and fear were always proportional.
The more precious this life became, the greater my anxiety about losing it grew.
Sometimes I was afraid of this miracle.
Because it didn’t feel like it was ever truly mine.
As if fate might capriciously take it away again.
I was never meant to belong to this world anyway.
‘Is this really allowed?’
It was an inevitable fear that comes to those not born with fortune.
What if I suddenly opened my eyes one day and found myself back in a hospital room?
What if I returned to that fragile body, unable to even take a sip of cola?
Before sleep, I always prayed.
‘Please let me live as Isabel.’
A life that came like a gift.
A life that had become a miracle to me.
A life I never wanted to lose.
Because it was so precious, I sometimes had nightmares.
Dreams of returning to my original world.
When those dreams came, I would wake up screaming.
And every time, Kim Beolggwol lay curled up beside me, sleeping.
“Thank goodness.”
As I stroked Kim Beolggwol’s back, some peace settled into my heart.
Kim Beolggwol was my tranquilizer.
I held Kim Beolggwol tightly.
It was a rough enough embrace to wake her, but she pretended to sleep for me.
So I could hold her a little longer with peace of mind.
‘Thank you.’
Kim Beolggwol’s tail was already swaying, clearly having woken from sleep.
Humans are truly weak creatures when it comes to sight.
Kim Beolggwol was Arun, and Arun was Kim Beolggwol, yet somehow they felt different to me.
For what it’s worth, Kim Beolggwol’s form was far cuter.
When I held him close while sleeping, I could enjoy sweet slumber like honey.
“Sorry for waking you.”
Kim Beolggwol gazed at me with drowsy eyes and conjured magical letters.
[Nightmare?]
“Yeah.”
[Don’t worry. Kim Beolggwol. Always together.]
Kim Beolggwol extended his paw toward me.
His fingers were too short to link pinkies, but communication was smooth regardless.
And then I suddenly realized something.
“That is…”
I saw something distinctly different from the chandelier that hung in my room.
I jolted in surprise and looked around frantically.
“White bed.”
An IV line was inserted into my arm.
“What…?”
I pinched my cheek to test it.
A vivid sting flooded through me.
“What is this?”
Today, the nightmare had lasted far too long.
Kim Beolggwol rose from his spot and surveyed the surroundings.
[Where is this?]
My nightmare had become reality.

* * *
The manifestation of a nightmare.
It didn’t take long for me to acknowledge and realize that I had returned to my original world.
‘This can’t be real.’
I fell into helplessness and could do nothing.
Learned helplessness was far more terrifying than I had imagined, leaving me paralyzed.
Every moment I had lived as Isabel was negated in an instant, and I had become an abandoned orphan.
Alone, unable to do anything.
Before long, Arun, who had returned to human form, sat beside me and patted my shoulder.
“It’s okay, Isabel.”
Without thinking, I wept in Arun’s embrace.
In that moment, that was all I could do.
Come to think of it, perhaps that was the only thing I could do, and it was enough.
By that point, I had already entered the ranks of Grand Mages.
Regardless of my body’s current state, my mental and intellectual development had reached that level.
Had I made a fuss about opening dimensional gates or tearing rifts in dimensions to return immediately, something catastrophic might have occurred.
The disparity between a Grand Mage’s mind and a frail body.
There was no telling what disaster it could have unleashed.
I might have brought down lightning upon Seoul, causing unintended casualties, or my body might have been destroyed by the strain of the magic—in fact, given how damaged my body was at this point, I might have died instantly had I attempted any magic in this condition.
Regardless, Arun’s embrace was warm.
It was the embrace of someone I had yearned for back on Earth.
With just this, I could find some measure of stability.
I had once thought Kim Beolggol was my greatest tranquilizer, but that was my arrogance.
Arun was my greatest tranquilizer.
“Isabel. You don’t look well.”
From that moment on, my body began to ache as if on cue.
No—I truly ached.
The pain I had forgotten spread through every nerve in my body.
It was as if someone had driven a massive wooden stake through my back and chest, hammering away relentlessly.
Arun’s expression hardened.
“Not a chance.”
Arun bit his own finger, drawing blood, and quickly traced a magic circle.
The blood-formed magic circle spun and took shape, hovering above my head.
It soon transformed into the form of a scale, moving up and down.
“I won’t let such trivial pain torment our Isabel.”
[“Transfer.”]
Arun manifested the dragon-tongue magic in an instant.
Something dark seeped out from my body.
It was like a phantom.
Gooooo—
A strange, incomprehensible sound echoed through the room.
The hospital window shook violently in its wake.
Wind blew where no wind should exist.
Arun drew in a deep breath and inhaled the bizarre black entity.
It thrashed desperately, trying to escape from him, but failed.
The scales that had swayed up and down finally found equilibrium, and in that instant, a brilliant light burst forth with a flash!
“Ugh.”
Arun clutched at his chest.
[Begone, disease!]
Then he returned to his form as Kim Beolggwol.
The pain that had been gnawing at my body vanished.
Kim Beolggwol had taken my illness and all its suffering away.
I was utterly startled.
“Kim Beolggwol. What are you doing!”
They say one shock is buried beneath another.
The shock of suddenly returning to my homeland was buried beneath the shock that Kim Beolggwol had taken my disease.
[Hmph. Kim Beolggwol. Strong. Did not lose.]
And I could only wear a slightly bitter expression.
‘Did not lose’ was the truth.
That terrible ‘incurable disease’ that had tormented me so was merely a trivial poison to Arun.
Before Kim Beolggwol’s formidable spirit and vitality—one who had faced multiple lions and venomous serpents alone—my illness held little power.
[Merely, a slight itch.]
Suddenly, I saw myself in the mirror.
I was a skeletal girl with not a single strand of hair.
My complexion was so pallid that death could have extended its hand for friendship at any moment.
For someone who had lived as the healthy Isabel, it was deeply shocking.
Perhaps even more so than the fact of returning to Earth.
Then, a [♡] appeared above Kim Beolggwol’s head.
[That appearance too, is beautiful.]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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