“Aw, really? That’s a shame. I was going to catch it for you if Naro wanted. Then since I came all the way here, you can serve me a cup of tea, right?”
“What?”
“Let’s drink tea together and talk about this and that. How about it?”
Anton’s gaze became thoroughly suggestive.
“I’m in the middle of working. If you don’t have business, I’d like you to go back…”
“You’re just sending a customer away like this? It’s been a long time since we talked. It’s been a while since I’ve seen your face too.”
That was because Naro had desperately avoided getting involved with Anton.
“I-I’ll serve you next time. I can’t right now because I have to work.”
“Work? Ah, you mean this pharmacy? Then I’ll help you.”
He was truly persistent. When Anton tried to go inside on his own, Naro widened his eyes and blocked him. The baby dragon was inside.
“There’s no need, so please leave now.”
“…Ah, I get it now. I knew it, you really have been avoiding me, right?”
At Naro’s desperate behavior, cracks slowly formed in Anton’s brow. His voice became similar to when he’d shouted in the plaza about paying on credit.
“After how well I’ve treated you, you avoid me? Is serving a cup of tea that difficult? When you smile just fine at other guys!”
He shouted and grabbed Naro’s shoulder tightly.
“Ugh…”
Naro frowned at the sudden pain while thinking of the baby dragon that would be inside. Worried that it might be startled by the loud noise, Naro wanted to quickly kick this person out.
“This is why I avoided you.”
Determined, Naro smacked away Anton’s hand.
“What?”
“Being rude to people, causing harm… isn’t it natural not to want to encounter you? And don’t touch my body carelessly. I-it makes me feel bad.”
Naro spoke while barely managing to steady his trembling voice. Perhaps because he’d almost never said unpleasant things to others, even making such a justified claim was an action that required considerable courage for Naro. But if he left it like this, similar incidents would surely occur again next time.
“After I was a little nice to you…!”
Just when Anton’s momentum was about to become even more menacing, the shop door opened and Garnet came inside.
“Naro, this time… Huh? You! Anton, you bastard! What are you doing to Naro! There’s a limit to coming to our village and causing trouble. Won’t you stop it?!”
Garnet had the best physique among the men living in Rodelus village. He was tall with bulging muscles, giving off quite a threatening atmosphere just by approaching.
“I was just having a conversation…”
“Conversation? Look at Naro’s expression! What conversation?”
When Garnet strongly warned that if this continued, the village side would respond forcefully too, Anton let out an annoyed sigh, yelled a bunch of things, and turned around.
Even while leaving the pharmacy, he didn’t forget to glare at Naro.
“Naro, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay. I’m alive thanks to you, ahjussi. Thank you.”
“Anyway, be careful. That bastard, whether he has something to rely on or not, his behavior is getting worse day by day.”
Saying he would do so, Naro tried hard to smile. Still, since Garnet ahjussi had given such a warning, Anton would be quiet for a while at least.
However, a few days after encountering Anton, Naro realized his thinking had been truly complacent.
It was when he went to the pharmacy with the baby dragon to work as usual. A broken lock was lying in front of the door.
“No way…”
With an ominous premonition, Naro quickly threw open the pharmacy door. And what greeted the baby dragon and Naro was literally a scene that had become hell.
The boxes were all overturned, and the tools from the warehouse were also scattered about. Seeing the medicinal herbs trampled and crushed by feet scattered on the floor, Naro grabbed his throbbing head.
It was clearly done by a person. It was certain that someone had intentionally caused this, and there was only one person that came to mind right now.
Anton.
He must have held a grudge about what happened recently.
“…”
This pharmacy held quite a different meaning for Naro.
He’d started his second life in a new world with a body that wasn’t sick together with this pharmacy. This place was both a workplace that earned him money and also a place he’d built himself for the first time as a stranger.
The baby dragon stuck to Naro’s leg. Then something warm dripped onto the dragon’s head. The dragon slowly raised its head, and in its green eyes, Naro’s face could be seen with his lips pressed together, crying silently.
“Sniff…”
His mysterious bronze-colored eyes looked especially larger, submerged in teardrops. His snow-white cheeks were dyed red. Though he must be angry and upset, Naro didn’t cry out loud, just bit his lips tightly and rubbed his eyes hard with his sleeve.
“…”
The dragon’s expression hardened immediately upon seeing that scene.
Naro wiped away all his tears without leaving any behind. He couldn’t just keep crying forever, so he had to clean up first. After changing the pharmacy sign to ‘CLOSED’, Naro officially started cleaning. His face was still sunken and his eyes were swollen red.
Among the objects scattered on the floor, some were broken. If he bought new ones, it would cost that much money. His heart ached every time he saw the trampled medicinal herbs. They were things he’d prepared carefully one by one, but they’d all become unusable.
“…”
Naro crouched down on the floor and silently picked up the ruined medicinal herbs. The baby dragon stood by the door, staring intently at his endlessly shrunken back, then scurried to Naro’s back.
Naro, who heard footsteps, turned his head. When his eyes met the baby dragon’s, Naro pulled up the corners of his mouth.
“I can’t do business today. You know, you won’t have fun at all being here today.”
Naro brought the baby dragon back home. He carefully placed the dragon, which couldn’t take its eyes off Naro’s face, on the bed.
“You stay comfortably at home. You have to be obedient, okay?”
After stroking the baby dragon’s head once, Naro left the house again and returned to the pharmacy. The baby dragon got down from the bed and stood in front of the firmly closed door. In the dragon’s mind, the image of Naro smiling earlier came to mind. His face smiling and pretending to be bright on purpose to avoid worrying it.
The past few days had been too hectic. Who said it? That bad things don’t come separately but come all at once. Naro was painfully realizing those words these days.
Not long after being threatened for his life by a frightening beast on the mountain, he’d now seen the bottom of how far human ugliness could fall.
After Anton turned the pharmacy into a mess, Naro cleaned up alone for several days. Unable to do business, he had no choice but to write and send letters of understanding to people who’d placed orders in advance.
Half of them said they understood and it was okay to send it slowly, but the remaining half showed displeasure and withdrew their orders.
In this kind of work, trust with customers who used the shop was very important. So Naro always made efforts to send medicinal herbs within the set deadline so that people who placed orders could trust and rely on him.
But this incident had cracked the trust he’d worked so hard to build. It was upsetting and sad, but to restore things to their original state, he couldn’t just be frustrated and gloomy.
Today too, Naro started the day with a sigh. While preparing breakfast, he heard scratching sounds from the door.
“Oh, dragon. You again…”
Startled, Naro removed the baby dragon scratching at the door from the door.
“Why are you like this lately?”
Already, each day was hectic because of the shop problem, but the baby dragon had also started causing trouble that wasn’t quite trouble. For some reason, the dragon wanted to go outside. Like when it tried to escape before, it acted as if it had somewhere to go. Since it kept scratching the door to go out, he couldn’t feel at ease even at home.
But now the baby dragon didn’t guard against Naro. The reason for trying to go out wasn’t just to escape from this place, but since he didn’t know the reason, he could only block it saying it wasn’t allowed.
“You want to go outside?”
The baby dragon nodded its head vigorously.
“You can’t go alone. You’re frustrated being only at home too, right? I’m sorry. When things settle down to some extent, I’ll let you get some fresh air.”
As if that wasn’t it, the baby dragon shook its head left and right, but right now Naro didn’t have the presence of mind to figure out the dragon’s intention one by one.
In any case, because of the strange behavior the dragon was showing these days, he couldn’t leave it comfortably at home either. So today too, as he set out to organize the pharmacy, Naro had no choice but to take the baby dragon along.
Still, thanks to working hard for several days, the cleanup was almost finished. It would take a little more time until he could resume business again, but still, he’d largely escaped from the shock when he first encountered this scene. That didn’t mean the gloomy feelings had completely disappeared though.
After finishing organizing to some extent, Naro’s eyes caught the sight of the baby dragon jumping to grab the pharmacy door handle.
