­ Soju and the Visitor

'Hm?'
The man walked right past CheolHo.
At that moment, CheolHo sensed something peculiar.
There was a heterogeneous aroma diffusing from the man's body. At the very least, he wasn't an ordinary human being.
'Detect Eye'
A transparent, double layered lens formed over CheolHo's eyes, granting the capability to examine the target.
But nothing could be read.
What was this?

The man entered the kitchen, and fixed his eyes on the basket full of the eggs.
"It was here."
CheolHo was startled. Maybe it was true.
"What?!.... Are you a dragon?"

CheolHo's words seemed to freeze up the man. The unknown, mysterious man and his odd response fascinated CheolHo even more.
'Wow... There's still dragons even in this universe. That is quite surprising.'
CheolHo thought that the man seemed too young to be the parent of the eggs, as it took at least a few hundred years for dragons to lay their eggs.
Whilst CheolHo was throwing around thoughts of possible situations, a response was sent from the man first.
WHOOOSH!
Crackling sounds filled the room as the man's body was instantly covered in flames; flames that emitted extraordinary auras.
Auras of flames swarmed over the body, as if a spirit of fire had settled upon the man. The auras circled around the man, rapidly spitting out fiery forces.
CheolHo had seen an aura like that before.
'It was in the dragon mountain of this universe... emitting forcefully from the chief dragon; Rex'
CheolHo had memories of spontaneously raiding and beating up Rex and his nameless, fellow dragons, and stealing all of their Bogus.
'I don't really remember the name of the bogu that I scavenged, but I do remember breaking it while battling the Devil King.'

The flames stroke up high, blackening the ceiling of the store.
"Damn... the ceiling's black"
"How do you know my identity?"
CheolHo was proud and happy to hear that his assumption was correct.
"I have no intention to fight. I have an artefact called 'Detect Eye', and the only beings that cannot be discerned by it are dragons."
"Detect Eye!"
The man opened his eyes wide.
The dragon was aware of the Detect Eye. It was an artefact which allowed the wearer to accurately examine the target's strength, and its temperaments.
It was a dragon's Bogu.
"Oh, you know Detect Eye? That makes life easy then!"
It was only then that the man had realised, that CheolHo was no ordinary restaurant owner.
'I simply cannot even guess who this owner could possibly be...'

The unchanging confidence in the presence of a dragon, the expression that shows his calmness, so calm and relaxed it may even be more accurate to say 'lazy'. Finally, an invisible sense of immense strength and power that ran beneath all this.
The dragon began to slowly back off.

After letting out a long yawn, CheolHo pointed at the eggs and said,
"Those are your right? Yeah, I sort of guessed it. Go ahead and take them"
"Wh... what?"
"Go and take them. It's a relief that the eggs found their rightful owner. But it would be greatly appreciated if you would clean up this mess before you leave"
"Hm?"
The dragon started chuckling, deemed this entire situation ridiculous.

"A mere human... daring to order me aroun......... WHAT?"
At that moment, the man's eyes shot straight at a knife that was sitting on top of a chopping board.
The blades contained deep shades of blue, and the handle was too luxurious to be sitting in a restaurant such as this.
The man could instantly recognise the materials of the blades; perhaps an instinctive recognition of its own kind.
"Scales of a blue dragon?"
CheolHo bluntly replied while he scratched his head and picked up another cigarette.
"Ye"
"I..Is it a weapon?"

CLICK, CLICK
After realising his zippo lighter had run out of gas, CheolHo casually walked up to the dragon, who was still covered in circling flames, and used that flame to ignite his cigarette.
CheolHo replied as he let out a long puff of smoke,
"Well, I guess it can be used both as a knife or a weapon or whatever... but it's mainly used in the kitchen"
It was a kitchen knife. The infamous Blue Dragon's scale used as a kitchen knife.
It was at that moment the dragon began sensing something very strange yet familiar about this kitchen.
'... The chopping board! It had a very familiar scent.'
The man walked up and began chewing on the chopping board.
"This.... This is made out of dragon bones..."

CheolHo had made a chopping board out of dragon bones.
The man had completely lost his temper.
'We, Dragons once ruled all realms, priding ourselves as the strongest beings... every scale, every pound of our flesh, every inch of our bone have phenomenal value... and yet this damn human being killed our kind and turned us into kitchenware? How can this even be possible?'
It was evident to the man that the kitchenware was made out of newborn hatchling dragons.
"Well... yeah, it's dragon bone. But never mind that, let's get a move on with the clean up" CheolHo replied in an expressionless tone.
"I cannot forgive you."
The flames surrounding the dragon began to grow rapidly.
"I will kill you! You filthy human being"
Blue flames of extreme temperature began to form within the man's mouth.
"Sigh... not wise", CheolHo shook his head while he quietly murmured to himself.

"BREATH!"
Dragons are most commonly found in their enormous dragon form, but they can also transform into human flesh at will. This is usually referred to as a 'polymorph', and in that state, dragon's strengths are approximately halved.
As the man was in human flesh, the power of his breath was evidently weak.
However, a weak dragon's breath was still a dragon's breath; it was more than strong enough to incinerate ordinary human beings into fine ashes in a matter of milliseconds.
The man's breath shot out in a straight line, forming a laser beam with a diameter of approximately 30cm.
Despite the great light and overwhelming noise, nothing was being destroyed within the store.
'What's happening? Why isn't anything burning?', the man was puzzled as he ended his breath.

The scene that greeted the man came as a pure shock. CheolHo was casually standing right in front of the breath, holding up what looks like an ordinary frying pan.
"Wha?"
It was a frying pan. However, the man was sure that it was no ordinary frying pan. There was no way that a frying pan made of metal could withstand the heat of a dragon's breath.

'10,000-year metal' is a type of metal which absorbs and consumes heat once it is inserted with mana. When CheolHo was dwelling within this universe, he crafted one of the treasures from the Eastern Continent, the ice sword, and made it into a frying pan.
The man's jaws dropped.
Soon his eyes became sharp focused and the flame that circled his body got redder and redder.
"Aigh... you dragons never change"

CheolHo knew exactly what those signs meant. Such bodily changes signalled a dragon preparing to exit the polymorph and transform into its full dragon form.
As expected, long, red scales began to grow from the man's body as it grew rapidly in size.
At that moment, CheolHo vanished from the half transformed dragon's vision.
CRACK.
A loud cracking sound, somehow familiar, echoed as the man's consciousness slowly began to fade away. It was definitely a sound familiar to the dragon. Yes. It was the sound of a dragon being knocked down by a human.
'When... Where did I hear this?'
.

.

.
'Oh...'
The memories of more than 30 years ago began to flood in at that moment. And what followed, was complete darkness.

After knocking the man out with a simple backhand, CheolHo looked down at him pettily, before letting out a long sigh.
He decided to leave the man lying where he was, and returned to the table to pour himself another shot of soju.
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"I'm going to finish off the Devil King. There's no time and I hate time wasting so let's get straight to the point. Hand over your artefacts; the bogus that you're storing. The bogus that you don't even use but store in your little towns all day and night. Don't cooperate and I will have to bash every single one of you down and take it by force. The decision is yours to make"
"Th...Tha... That crazy human speaking non-sense!!! I will have none of this from a mere human...!"
'No... Dad!!! No!!! That's Miro Raikas!... I remember this memory, this happened 30 years ago. I remember my dad getting his ass whooped...'
THUD! THUD! THUD!
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.

.
"Hm, a hatchling. I have nothing to do with you."
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"ARGH!"
It was about an hour later when the man woke up from a nightmare of his past memories.
"So... I guess you've settled down a bit more. Let's talk. I want to begin with the cleaning first"

CheolHo casually continued the conversation as he laid down his shot of soju.
"..."
The man seemed nervous... perplexed as he examined this extremely unusual scene.
"Due to personal reasons, I don't particularly fancy having dragons over at my place. So if you don't listen and cooperate now, I might have to use force again. But if you man up, take responsibility over the mess you've made then I won't interfere with whatever belonging you want to take from here"
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"How old?"
"...I remember it to be a bit over 50"
The man's name was Edward Khan.
As expected, he was a red dragon. A mere hatchling that's only been alive for 50 or so years, in other words, like a dragon boy. An adolescent going through puberty.
Despite his young age, a dragon is nonetheless, still a dragon and he is still incredibly powerful.
CheolHo thought that with Edward's power, he could easily take on a level 1 Awakened on earth.
"50 aye... then I'm older"
"What?" Khan coldly replied as he gazed back at the human being before him.
"I'm 60. Well, I guess it doesn't really matter too much anyway since we're not of the same kind"
"...!"
"Are you an elf? Do you live long like those guys?"
"Do I look that handsome to you?"
"No, not really"
CheolHo let out a laughter.
"Yeah, well I'm a human being. But just a little bit special... I'm guessing, since you know about Detect Eye, you're not from around here?"
Khan replied bluntly,
"I was born and raised in the Espan continent. However, due to an unexpected dimensional fraction not long ago, I crash landed on this universe"
"I see. So you came through a dimensional gap?"
"I'd presume so"
CheolHo poured down another shot of soju before chewing on a Velto jerky.
"So the Espan continent and earth must be connected somehow. Maybe that explains the frequent monster appearances here"
"You, too, must be from the Espan?"
CheolHo simply nodded.
"Well, yeah. Don't stop wiping though"
Khan continued wiping on the blackened stains on the ceiling, dissatisfied.
"Over there, I was called Miro Laikas. Over here, CheolHo Kang. Have you heard of that name before?"
Khan remained silent.
After swallowing down another shot of soju, CheolHo found Khan frozen up like a statue. Something had shocked Khan profoundly, so much that he did not know how to react.
'I...I knew it... it WAS him...'
(ED Note: What a chapter... Using the most overpowered items as bloody kitchen utensils... I love it...)