The Dragon Family’s Beloved Baby Cat - Chapter 16

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

Chapter 16

‘What’s going to happen to oppa?’

Moa pouted her lips, unable to understand the difficult words.

Even though she didn’t know the meaning, the red text looked ominous, just like Jin Yeongang’s terminal condition she had seen before.

Moa clenched her fists tightly, then turned to look at Yeongang.

“Oppa.”

Moa’s eyes blazed with determination.

She burned with a sense of responsibility to solve this situation herself and help Dowoon.

“I’m going back in there.”

“What?!”

Yeongang was horrified and waved his hands frantically.

“No way! You just saw what happened! Hyung doesn’t seem to be in his right mind right now. You could get hurt!”

“I won’t get hurt. Who said I’m going in empty-handed?”

Moa snorted haughtily with a “hmph.”

“Do you have some kind of plan?”

Yeongang’s eyes became earnest.

Though he had stopped her out of concern for her safety, he also felt that Moa was the only one who could save his brother.

“Yeah. But you have to help me, oppa.”

Adults wouldn’t work. They wouldn’t just let Moa treat Dowoon.

Yeongang, who already knew the situation, was perfect for this.

“Just tell me! What can I help you with?”

“Take me to my room. I need to get something.”

“Why aren’t you getting up?”

Moa’s confident attitude deflated slightly.

Moa’s ears turned slightly red.

“My legs feel weak. Carry me on your back.”

Though she had confidently said she would solve everything, hearing that her legs had given out made Yeongang feel deflated too.

Without hesitation, Yeongang carried Moa on his back and wobbled toward Cheongbingak.

***

When Moa and Yeongang emerged from Cheongbindang, they looked completely different.

Yeongang asked Moa in a voice that seemed ready to crawl into a hole.

“Do we really have to go looking like this?”

“Yeah, otherwise we might get hurt!”

Moa answered confidently.

The two children had small cushions and pillow-like objects tied tightly around their stomachs and backs with string.

It was to prevent injury in case Dowoon threw them again.

“Sigh…”

Jin Yeongang realized he should be satisfied that he had managed to stop Moa from wearing an upside-down pot as a “helmet.”

The thought of walking to his brother’s room with Moa waddling around with cotton padding on her torso made him sigh automatically.

“Can that really save hyung?”

Yeongang looked at the toy doctor bag clutched tightly in Moa’s hand with half-disbelieving eyes.

“Of course.”

Moa shook the bag.

With a rustling sound from inside, the bag opened and a black furry ball stretched long and popped out.

“Oh, Somi! I thought you went for a walk?”

When Moa greeted her happily, Somi rubbed her sleepy eyes and swished her tail.

[After using that much power, do you think I’d be fine? I was sleeping with you too.]

Just like Moa had slept for three days and nights while treating Geumoh, Somi had also been recharging her energy inside the bag.

“What’s in there?”

Yeongang, who couldn’t actually see Somi, looked puzzled.

“Oh, perfect timing! Oppa, my Guardian Spirit is right here.”

“…Where?”

“You can’t see her, oppa. But she’s here.”

Moa traced the empty air where Somi was with her hand.

Yeongang squinted and looked around carefully, but couldn’t see anything.

However, Moa’s description was very detailed.

“Here, no wait, she went over there, oh geez, Somi, stay still for a moment!”

Seeing Moa like this, Yeongang decided to believe her and nodded. He just thought she had misspoken and meant a spiritual being rather than a Guardian Spirit.

“Now that Somi’s here, everything will probably work out!”

Moa confidently grabbed Yeongang’s arm and pulled him along.

Eventually, both of them waddled along like nimble snails, avoiding people’s gazes.

“I’m really glad no one saw us like this.”

Yeongang, who had barely arrived, breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, in Somi’s view, she could see that the adults had pretended not to notice the two children, worried about interfering with their play…

Standing outside the wide-open door again, Moa turned to Yeongang and said solemnly.

“Oppa, stay here for now. I’ll go in first and check things out.”

“But…”

Yeongang was anxious, but seeing Moa’s determined eyes, he couldn’t keep trying to stop her.

“…Okay. If anything happens, you have to scream. I’ll run right in.”

“Yeah!”

Moa took a deep breath and entered the room again.

Like ruins swept by a storm, Dowoon was still collapsed on the floor in the same state.

“Hah, hah…”

Rough breathing escaped from Dowoon’s mouth.

There were even red bloodstains scattered about, as if he had coughed up blood.

And beside him, Imun lay weakly collapsed.

Imun’s scales had originally been a grayish blue close to achromatic, but now they had completely lost their blue tint and showed a murky ashen color.

“Don’t… come…”

Sensing someone’s presence, Dowoon spoke as if squeezing out the words, unable to even lift his head.

Moa felt sorry for Dowoon, who had been lying prone in the room where no one came until she finished her preparations and returned.

“Oppa, are you cold?”

Dowoon’s lips looked white and cracked from his cold breath.

He seemed to have no strength to answer and just hung his head low again.

He also appeared to be shivering slightly, so the worried Moa looked around.

She needed something to cover him with during the treatment attempt, but couldn’t see anything suitable.

‘This… no, that won’t work.’

Moa glanced down at the cushion tied to her stomach and shook her head.

“Yeongang oppa, throw me the pillow.”

“…This one?”

Moa turned her head and asked for the pillow tied to Yeongang’s stomach.

When she asked him to remove his safety gear, Yeongang looked somewhat flustered and asked, so Moa nodded shamelessly.

“It’s better to untie oppa’s since you’re far away than to untie mine.”

Unable to argue with Moa’s rational reasoning, Yeongang grumbled internally as he untied the pillow and threw it to her.

Moa thought it might be less cold if he hugged it instead of a blanket, so she loosely piled it on top of Dowoon’s body.

That’s when it happened.

“I was… wrong.”

A crushed moan flowed from between Dowoon’s lips.

“I, I dared to… Grandfather…”

Even in his confused state of consciousness, Dowoon was trapped in that moment from the past.

The terror of the unfilial act of trying to attack his respected grandfather.

“Mother….”

The guilt of not being able to save anyone.

And even self-reproach for ultimately erasing his emotions.

His emotions were strangling himself, freezing his soul.

Moa firmly grasped Dowoon’s cold hand with both of hers.

“No.”

“….”

“It’s not your fault, oppa.”

Moa spoke clearly and distinctly, as if addressing the boy from the memory she had just seen.

“You were trying to protect Mom. That’s not bad. That’s very brave.”

“That’s a lie… I ran away….”

Unlike his face contorting with anguish.

The fact that not a single tear came out seemed to show his sense of disconnect.

“You didn’t run away! You didn’t want both Mom and Grandfather to get hurt, so you decided to suffer instead!”

Moa’s cry reached Dowoon’s frozen ears.

“I, I am.”

Dowoon’s eyes half-opened without focus.

“Grandfather wouldn’t have wanted to hurt Mom either. You stopped it!”

Sacrifice.

It wasn’t running away, but a desperate sacrifice.

The moment he heard those words that no one had ever said to him, a single tear rolled down from Dowoon’s unfocused eyes.

“…Ugh.”

The tightly closed latch of Dowoon’s heart opened ever so slightly at Moa’s resolute words.

Then.

[Haaak-!]

As soon as they got close, Somi hissed fiercely at Dowoon.

More precisely, she was being wary of the dark energy that burst forth explosively as soon as Dowoon’s heart opened.

When the Guardian Spirit, who was more sensitive to ominous energy than anyone, hissed, the evil energy that had been lurking and coveting Dowoon’s collapsed state hesitated for a moment.

[It’s a bad feeling energy!]

As Somi repeatedly hissed showing her displeasure, Imun’s body, which had been drooping while consumed by dark energy, twitched briefly.

[Moa, I think it would help if you treat that dragon first!]

“Yeah, I don’t know how to treat people anyway. Hey, hey? Ah, they said quack doctors are bad!”

Moa didn’t know how to fix Dowoon in the first place.

However, she only trusted her doctor play tools that diagnosed spiritual beings’ illnesses amazingly well.

-Kuuung….

When Moa’s touch reached him, Imun made a pained sound. It seemed like there was somewhere that hurt badly.

Then, Somi jumped down from Moa’s shoulder. Somi climbed onto the dragon’s body without hesitation.

As if Imun noticed Somi, he looked at the black cat that had climbed onto his body with a questioning gaze.

[Purr purr purr purr….]

Somi climbed onto Imun’s body and purred somewhere around his neck.

“You shouldn’t climb on someone else’s body!”

Moa was startled and tried to stop Somi.

Imun flicked his tail as if to say don’t do that.

Because as soon as Somi climbed up and started purring, he immediately felt the pain of his tattered soul calm down.

Soon Imun’s rough breathing gradually subsided.

“Oh, do you like it?”

Moa roughly understood the situation and nodded.

Then she first took out a medical chart from her medical bag.

“Patient, please state your name.”

-Kuuuu.

Imun, who understood Moa’s words, answered quietly.

Then the letters “Imun” were written in the ‘name’ field on the medical chart.

“Oh ho ho, as expected.”

Moa felt her nose rising with pride as she smiled contentedly.

The age field was also filled in. Imun’s age was fifteen, exactly the same as Dowoon’s.

Like last time, Moa put the stethoscope in her ears and placed the heart-shaped end against Imun’s body.

She felt it was much easier to draw upon her power than when she had healed Geumoh last time.

‘Huh?’

She expected to see something black again, but the skin under the stethoscope looked perfectly fine as if asking what was wrong.

However, when she concentrated for a moment, she soon heard the slow sound of a beating heart.

It was scary enough to think ‘Is it okay to beat this slowly?’

[My body hurts!]

Contrary to Moa’s worry, a child’s voice popped out from the stethoscope like before.

Right after the voice echoed, a diagnosis was written on the medical chart.

-Diagnosis: Disease of unknown details (Tools are not appropriate for viewing detailed diagnosis.)

“What is this?!”

This time, it didn’t show where it hurt or what prescription should be given at all.

Shocked, Moa gripped the medical chart tightly and shook it vigorously.

‘T-this won’t do?’

Where does it hurt, what medicine should be given, exactly!

It should explain everything neatly on its own!

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