I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit - Chapter 209

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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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Arrival in Busan.
I walked along the famous Haeundae Beach.
Since summer hadn’t fully begun yet, there weren’t nearly as many people as I’d seen on the news.
In my mind (I had only ever seen the world through news broadcasts), Haeundae should have been packed with scantily clad men and women flaunting their bodies, but it wasn’t.
What caught my eye first was the blue sea.
Not the sea from a dream, but the real sea of Earth.
“The sea. It’s beautiful.”
“So are you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Whether in Kim Beolggwol’s form or Arun’s, compliments came flying at me from every moment and place.
The fact that he meant it sincerely was somehow amusing.
“I know well enough that I’m not beautiful right now.”
The illness may have disappeared, but my appearance was in terrible shape.
From not eating properly for so long, I was gaunt and skeletal, and my face still looked hollow.
I wore a hat to hide my head, which had almost no hair left, but that didn’t really hide anything.
Unlike the fresh and vibrant Isabel, this version of me on Earth.
So the me on Earth wasn’t particularly beautiful on the outside.
Even being generous, it was more like “not bad for someone who just barely overcame a terminal diagnosis.”
Arun squeezed my hand firmly.
“You’re beautiful.”
His gaze was fixed far away.
Where the sea and sky met.
I couldn’t tell where the sea ended and the sky began, but his eyes were directed toward that distant horizon.
His somewhat oblivious attitude somehow put my mind at ease.
It felt like there was simply a very solid rock beside me.
A rock so sturdy that no matter how strong the waves crashed against it, it would never be worn away.
That rock was holding my hand.
I felt like I wouldn’t waver either.
“How did Teacher Karin recognize me?”
“I don’t know.”
Arun’s expression darkened slightly.
He looked displeased.
“Arun, what’s wrong?”
“I thought I was the only one special.”
He clicked his tongue sharply.
He had thought only he would recognize me, and he was disappointed that Karin had too.
“How did you recognize me, Arun?”
Those clear eyes that had been gazing at the distant horizon turned to look at me.
Eyes deeper and wider than the sea itself.
“When you love someone, you just see them.”
“….”
“I swear it. Even if you transformed into something like a cobra instead of a human, I could still recognize you.”
“No, but a cobra is still….”
“Fortunately, I’m a dragon.”
What he meant was that since he was a dragon, he could transform into any form.
Just like transforming into Beolkkot.
“If you became a cobra, I’d become a cobra too. Ah, that might actually be even more special.”
“Huh?”
“At that point, wouldn’t even Princess Karin fail to recognize you?”
“Maybe….”
“Then it would objectively prove that I love you more than anyone in the world.”
Arun suddenly grew serious for no reason.
“No, wait. Actually, it’s not just Princess Karin. There’s my father, my mother, my brothers… sigh. There would be so many people who could recognize you besides me. Honestly, I think Princess Karin would figure it out too. Then do you know what the problem would be?”
“Problem?”
“Probably the cobra clan would end up ruling the world instead of humans?”
Two sisters with remarkable physiques approached Arun, who was joking around—I didn’t know their ages, but I decided to call them sisters anyway. It somehow felt like the right thing to do.
“Want to play with us?”
Only then did I snap back to reality.
‘Oh. Right.’
It wasn’t just Arun who habitually said “you’re so pretty.”
Though my charm was slightly weaker than Arun’s, I too was constantly showering him with “you’re so pretty” every day.
In fact, “pretty” hardly did Arun justice.
Something beyond beauty, beyond prettiness.
Something crafted from the world’s most radiant jewels.
Something with a luster too luminous to be called merely human.
Arun was that something.
Only now did I realize it.
‘Everyone was stealing glances at us the whole time?’
I had been too absorbed in Arun and my own world to notice.
I could feel the gazes of people of all ages and genders stealing looks at us.
Ah, right. It was the same over there too.
Arun showed off his hand holding mine.
“Can’t you see?”
A blunt, casual tone thrown out suddenly.
It was an attitude that would seem rude to anyone listening, but the sisters didn’t mind.
“You’re working a part-time job, right?”
“Like a fake boyfriend service or something?”
The two sisters laughed at me openly.
Rather than angry, I felt somewhat amazed.
It was more like, ‘So a scene straight out of a third-rate novel is actually happening to me!’
So people like this actually exist in reality!
“I have lots of money.”
“Play with us, Brother.”
Hmm, it was truly impressive.
One of the sisters linked her arm through Arun’s.
For the record, that sister was wearing an extremely daring bikini.
“Tch….”
And for the record, Arun wasn’t actually such a gentle person.
It wasn’t without reason that Arun would sigh, “Sigh, I carry the blood of the Black Dragon…”
Arun’s dragon blood was saturated with the powerful essence of the Black Dragon.
He was a being far more accustomed to destruction than salvation.
Thinking this could turn into a real disaster, I gently pulled Arun toward me.
Though Arun was far stronger than me, he would helplessly be drawn along whenever I pulled.
“Sisters, we’re on a rare date together.”
“Huh? Isn’t she that girl?”
“I saw her on YouTube.”
The sisters who recognized me burst into giggles.
“I heard donations poured in like crazy.”
“Did you use that to seduce a man?”
Wow. That was quite an imaginative leap.
And what was even more astounding was that they could voice such an imagination in front of a man they’d never met before.
It was concerning enough to wonder if there was something slightly wrong with their intelligence.
I was genuinely curious, so I asked.
“Regardless of me, are you trying to win Arun’s affection?”
Did they think that acting this way would make Arun like them?
I couldn’t fathom what these Earth sisters were thinking.
If I hadn’t pulled Arun back, by now those sisters would be embedded in that beautiful horizon.
I can say with certainty that the horizon is only beautiful when viewed from a distance.
If a human fell in there naked… it would probably be quite horrifying.
I spoke while pulling Arun along.
“Don’t be angry, Arun. These women are beautiful on the outside, but their minds are completely empty. In other words, it’s the same as being angry at a parasol.”
I mentioned the parasol because there happened to be one fluttering in the breeze nearby.
“I used a bit of minor magic.”
“Magic?”
I decided to teach the sisters a lesson.
“Minor misfortune that frequently comes around.”
Arun found it somewhat difficult to use such delicate magic.
He was the type who found it easier to create a massive sinkhole than to make a small hole in the sand.
This kind of magic was something I excelled at.
“Getting an upset stomach while driving and suddenly hitting traffic, stubbing your pinky toe on a table leg unusually often, getting red sauce splattered on your white shirt, having a hairstyle you carefully worked on at the salon look completely wrong, rushing to the bathroom only to find no toilet paper, accidentally cursing in front of your boyfriend’s parents, things like that.”
Those sisters will now live consumed by trivial misfortunes.
So I must use my heart gently.
Arun was chuckling.
“It doesn’t seem trivial, though?”
Now the two of us were free from the eyes of others.
It was because I had cast a spell that disrupted perception.
Now we would simply appear as ordinary people.
I should have done this long ago—I often forget how beautiful Arun truly is.
“To be honest, I think I wanted to show off. That I’m dating someone this exceptional.”
“You too? Me as well.”
I laughed without thinking.
Objectively speaking, Arun was indeed an exceptional man.
But me? If I were Isabel, perhaps—but as I am now, I was not.
I was simply a scrawny, unremarkable girl.
Yet my heart felt light.
At least I could clearly sense how I appeared in Arun’s eyes.
Just as Arun sparkled brilliantly in my gaze, I seemed to shimmer with radiance in his eyes as well.
Perhaps it was thanks to that brilliance that I could be recognized.
We sat down on the beach.
The sand was far warmer than expected, like sitting on heated floors.
“I once told my father something. That he was a gift.”
I think that’s when it started.
The light in my father’s eyes changed.
“Arun seems like a gift to me too.”
….
Arun quietly took my hand.
Without words, he seemed to say, “You’re my gift too.”
“You said it, didn’t you? That this sparkling blue star is the only darkness that exists within me.”
Arun had made a promise.
That he would fill that darkness with light, drop by drop.
That this journey was for that purpose.
I too gazed toward the distant horizon.
A pale daytime moon hung in the sky.
“Now I think I understand.”
The only darkness that exists within me.
It wasn’t the suffering from Earth, the bad memories, the trauma and such.

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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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