A full-length mirror, unnecessarily installed in this cramped room.
In front of it stood a small girl who looked to be about 130cm tall, staring blankly at herself.
That’s right. It’s me.
“Is this… even possible?”
But that wasn’t the only problem.
When I touched my head with a bitter feeling, a strange sensation washed over me.
Horns identical to those of the Black Dragon Tenebris were growing from my head,
and between my waist and hips hung a chubby tail.
‘The Black Dragon… was a girl?!’
Did I foolishly agree to inherit this power for no reason?
But the water had already been spilled.
Black Dragon Tenebris was already dead, and I had become a half-human, half-dragon.
‘Since it’s come to this, I just need to turn this crisis into an opportunity.’
“S-Status Window!”
A hologram-like screen appeared simultaneously with my bitter shout.
Information that any Awakened could check, even if all their stats were F-rank.
An indicator that allowed one to see their growth in real time.
[Name]: Lee Haneul
[Species]: Hatchling
[Strength]: D-
[Speed]: F
[Endurance]: D
[Magic]: D-
[Skills]: [EX] Dragon Heart Lv. 1], [D] Body Enhancement Lv. 1]
“Oh…?”
Come to think of it, it seemed I had inherited it quite well.
For having received the essence of a dragon that was on a completely different level from other lifeforms, it was a bit pathetic, but then again, I was still a hatchling.
That meant my growth potential was wide open.
But what made my heart pound wasn’t something as trivial as stat increases.
“I didn’t have a single skill before… and now a D-rank and an EX-rank!!”
EX.
Two bold letters engraved where the skill rank was displayed.
EX-rank.
My lips trembled.
An indescribable feeling burrowed into my heart.
Even among Hunter galleries, large guilds, and the few S-rank Hunters, SSS-rank skills were treated as ‘urban legends.’
But above that existed EX-rank skills, and one was now stamped in my skill window.
‘I need to read this right now.’
When I touched the engraved [Skill] section on my Status, a new popup window appeared, displaying detailed information about the skills.
[[EX] Dragon Heart]
(Active/Passive Skill)
Can grow infinitely by consuming Magic Stones.
Can transform into a Dragon by consuming Magic.
[[D] Body Enhancement Lv. 1]
(Active Skill)
Strengthens the body by consuming Magic.
“T-This is an EX-rank…!”
Ordinary Hunters grew by clearing Towers or exploring Gates, gaining experience from the monsters they killed.
Even then, every individual had a growth limit, and the reality was that those who reached their limit could never become S-rank Hunters no matter how hard they trained.
But this skill was different.
‘If only the conditions are met, I can become stronger than anyone else!’
An ordinary Hunter would have immediately rushed to a Tower or Gate upon facing such a situation, but my choice was a little different.
[Title: I just got an EX-rank skill]
[Status screenshot with everything except the skill rank blurred out]
ㄴ Clickbait
ㄴ If you’re going to fake it, at least put some effort into it
ㄴ Old man, go take your meds
“Hmm… as expected, no one believes me?”
Was the problem that I slathered everything in mosaics on top of using a VPN…?
I had written the post hoping to make it onto the hot posts at least once, but I had a feeling it would be too much for people to believe.
Since EX-rank skills had never been known to the public until now, everyone probably thought they didn’t exist.
“Well, if they don’t believe me, it can’t be helped.”
There would be plenty of chances for hot posts in the future, so I set my phone aside and began investigating the most important thing first.
I put down my phone for a moment and stood before the full-length mirror again.
The first thing my hand reached for was the horns.
The horns, curled round like a sheep’s, were small and black, so they weren’t very noticeable.
The wings were too small compared to my body size to actually fly.
‘What a shame… Since it turned out like this, I wanted to try flying at least once.’
Lastly, the tail had a certain heft to it.
Judging by the fact that I could control it to some extent if I focused, it seemed like it could be used as a weapon later on.
But if I didn’t pay attention to it, it moved on its own.
I grabbed my unruly tail to examine it more closely…
“Hwaah-!!”
A tingling sensation, as if directly stimulating the nerves in my spine, shot up my back.
“Kgh… I shouldn’t touch my tail….”
I had collapsed to sit in front of the full-length mirror to recover from the overwhelming sensation when an unwelcome sound echoed out.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeep-!
The sound of the door lock disengaging.
My heart dropped.
There was only one person who knew my house password.
Click-.
“Oppa. Don’t tell me you’re still not up? You shouldn’t laze around just because it’s the weekend….”
Brown hair falling to her shoulders.
A calm look that naturally exuded a pure, innocent beauty.
And a convenience store bag filled with food.
Not related by blood, but a younger sister who had stuck with me since childhood.
It was Yoon Seol-ah.
Speechless at my completely changed appearance, Seol-ah scanned my body, shifting her gaze all over.
“…W-who are you?”
H-how do I explain this…?
Would she believe me if I said, ‘I inherited the power of a dragon that suddenly appeared’?
While I stood there flustered and unable to do anything, Seol-ah took out her phone.
Thinking she might call the police, I hurriedly blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Uh… U-uh, Seol-ah, you’re here! Let’s just sit down somewhere! Y-yeah, want to watch Netflix?”
“…?”
I did my best to stay calm, throwing together things I’d normally say to hide my panic. Because I spoke hurriedly, my pitch was off and my words came out slightly slurred, but….
It was a situation that should have made her even more suspicious, but Seol-ah put down her phone and approached, staring intently at my face.
Is she suspicious…? Please, just don’t call the police….
“…Don’t tell me you’re Oppa?”
A low, cautious tone.
Fortunately, Seol-ah seemed to believe that the child before her was me.
“…Yeah.”
I reached for the bag that was about to fall from Seol-ah’s hand.
But Seol-ah stood stock-still, staring at one spot.
Right at my head. Specifically, my horns….
The doubt and confusion in Seol-ah’s eyes had vanished without a trace.
Filling that void were curiosity and the desire to touch them.
It was an expression I had seen countless times since childhood.
And every animal that had been on the receiving end of that expression had met the same fate.
“Horns.”
“Seol-ah? Can you calm down for a second?”
Perhaps because too many things had happened at once, I had momentarily forgotten.
Seol-ah was crazy about animals to the point of being recommended for graduate school in the Department of Life Sciences.
Her favorite were reptiles.
Her room was plastered with lizard-related posters, and her only dream was ‘petting a Komodo dragon,’ so….
A being filled with reptilian features had appeared before such a person.
“Can I touch them?!”
“No.”
“Just once!”
“No!”
But Seol-ah shot her hand toward my horns with lightning speed.
I reflexively leaned my head back, but Seol-ah’s hand reached my horns even faster.
In that moment, I felt fear.
Because I saw her eyes light up the moment she touched them….
“Wow! They feel like real horns! No, maybe even harder? Oppa, how did you get these??”
“Hey! Stop it!”
I threw myself onto the bed to escape, but Seol-ah pounced like a predator.
I tried throwing a pillow at her face and even covered her with a blanket, but nothing could break Seol-ah’s will, which was mixed with a mad frenzy.
The cramped studio apartment instantly became a war zone, a scene of utter chaos.
“The tail! The tail too!”
“Not the tail! It’s sensitive!”
“You can feel it too?! I have to touch it more!!”
“Hwaah-!!!”
The approximately seven-minute fight without a moment’s rest ended in my defeat.
Seol-ah, rubbing her cheek against my chubby tail, looked as excited as she had on her childhood birthdays.
“Sigh….”
“…So, what on earth happened?”
Satisfied, Seol-ah opened the drink she had bought and finally asked the question she should have asked the moment she realized who I was.
I quickly summarized my explanation to avoid being boring or pedantic.
Black Dragon, inheritance, mutation.
Throughout the explanation, Seol-ah’s gaze remained fixed on one spot.
The hoodie I always wore, and was still wearing now.
“Oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“But is that the only piece of clothing you have?”
“N-no, it’s not, but….”
“This isn’t even oversized, it’s practically dress-length. Are you going to keep going around like this?”
Seol-ah’s assessment was cold.
As someone usually interested in fashion, her cold judgment felt like it was piercing my heart.
“You’ve got a top-tier clothes hanger like this now, so you should take care of the clothes too.”
“Kgh….”
“This won’t do. Get up, Oppa.”
“W-why?”
“Let’s go to the department store! I’ll pick out some pretty clothes for you!”
Seol-ah stood up, boasting confidently.
…There was no opportunity for objection.
***
The department store on Saturday afternoon was truly a sea of people.
For me, who had a body like a capital I, it was a labyrinth more difficult than even the S-rank Gate I would one day enter.
The moment Seol-ah entered the department store, her eyes shifted into combat mode.
Her strides were wide and her movements fast; with my current leg length, just keeping up was strenuous.
Seol-ah turned her head this way and that, scanning the state of the stores.
The scan took less than three seconds per store.
She wasted no time at all reading the sign names, the clothing style displayed up front, and the overall atmosphere before making her judgment.
“Here first.”
The first place Seol-ah stepped into was an SPA brand store.
The moment she entered, she flipped through the clothes on the racks with quick hand movements like a spy searching for classified documents.
Click. Click. Click.
The mechanical rhythm of hangers colliding with other hangers echoed throughout the store.
I naturally sat down in a chair provided by the store and tried to take out my phone.
“Oppa! Look at this for a second!”
“Hmm?”
Seol-ah stood holding a hoodie with white graffiti-like lettering on it.
“Oh, that’s not bad?”
“What part of it is good? The color? The fit? The design?”
“…All three?”
“…Hmph.”
Seol-ah’s eyebrows twitched for a moment, but she didn’t ask any more questions.
She moved it to the side with the hand that wasn’t searching, perhaps to keep it for now.
There already appeared to be about a dozen or so pieces set aside.
“…I’m doomed.”
“Hmm? What did you say?”
“Ah, it’s nothing.”
After asking my opinion a few more times, Seol-ah seemed to have picked out all the clothes, and she shoved me into the fitting room along with the pile.
I felt relieved that she had only prepared reasonably decent clothes, yet I couldn’t help but admire how perfectly they fit despite her not having measured my sizes.
‘Could it be that the wrestling match earlier was so she could figure out my size…?’
No way, that was probably just desire.
Those spine-chilling hand movements couldn’t possibly have been anything but desire.
Since there were over a dozen pieces of clothing, I went in and out of the fitting room several times, but thanks to Seol-ah, who was serious about fashion, I managed to secure many clothes that fit my current physique well.
But Seol-ah’s shopping was just getting started.
Second store, third store, fourth store….
From the fifth store onward, I gave up on counting altogether.
Right now, Seol-ah was at a shoe store. After figuring out my foot size, she had been agonizing over similar shoes for thirty minutes.
As shoes were being put on and taken off, I sprawled out on a chair.
Despite my overall specs having increased, I couldn’t endure it.
Even an S-rank Hunter probably couldn’t endure this.
“Seol-ah….”
“Yeah?”
“You know all my sizes by now, right? From now on, just pick them yourself.”
“Huh? Really?!”
“Really. My head isn’t working right now….”
Seol-ah looked at me with eyes full of anticipation, then nodded vigorously and ran off somewhere alone.
…For some reason, I felt like I had made the wrong choice.