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chapter 20
“…Brother?”
Lirian and Jeril turned to look at Yuri at the same time.
Having rushed onto the magic circle and handed over his entire allowance pouch, Yuri now stood there, sweat trickling down his otherwise expressionless face.
He glanced at Jeril.
“What about your allowance?”
“I spent it all on snacks.”
“Liria?”
“I asked Sevir and traded mine for milk!”
They were broke.
Yuri squeezed his eyes shut.
…Seran-hyung is really amazing.
To care for siblings like this 365 days a year—suddenly, the eldest brother seemed truly great.
In the end, the three of them were kicked out of the Mage Tower.
Whoooosh—
As expected of a place bordering the desert, the outside air was filled with a chilly sandstorm.
“So what do we do now?”
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t magic theory books say anything about this?”
“…Apparently not.”
Yuri was suddenly starting to feel a sense of doubt toward his studies, while Jeril just thought, Well, it’ll work out somehow, and stayed carefree.
Then, Lirian stepped forward in front of her two older brothers.
“Ahem!”
The two looked at their youngest sibling—the cause of all this mess.
“Then, first, listen to me.”
“What kind of nonsense are you about to spout now?”
“Jeril, not nonsense, it’s sophistry.”
“Eh, same thing.”
Unfazed by the usual collective commentary of a big family, Lirian calmly opened her sketchbook.
“What’s that?”
Yuri and Jeril stared at the map(?) Lirian had drawn herself.
A picture, colored in bright, mismatched crayon strokes.
[← We have to go this way!]
There was something… maybe a house? A roof? But beyond that, they couldn’t make sense of it at all.
“Is this modern art?”
“No!”
Lirian puffed out her cheeks.
“Then an amusement park?”
“Nope! Wrong!”
“A zoo, maybe?”
“Wrong, wrong!”
“An aquarium?!”
“How is this an aquarium?! Wrong, wrong, wrong!”
Yuri and Jeril kept guessing, but none were right.
Finally, Lirian sighed deeply and said as if there was no helping it:
“This is a temple.”
…A temple?
“I need to go to the temple.”
She emphasized it again.
The two of them stared blankly at the sketchbook.
How is this a temple?
Forget the fact that the picture was incomprehensible—was this really why she had jumped onto the warp circle alone? And why a temple in such a remote region?
“Elay is trapped there.”
Lirian said it with a serious face, unlike her usual self.
Since Yuri and Jeril hadn’t overheard her conversation with their parents, they thought the same thing at once:
Who’s Elay?
“I want to save Elay. Elay saved me once. This time, I want to help.”
At their youngest’s uncharacteristic sincerity, Yuri was surprised, and Jeril scratched his head.
“So, what you’re saying is you want to save someone?”
“Yeah!”
“How old is this kid?”
“Um, seven?”
At Lirian’s answer, Yuri’s hand twitched.
A friend the same age as him, trapped somewhere.
Their mother always said that anyone with intelligence should live doing good deeds.
The decision didn’t take long.
“Let’s go.”
“Eh—bro, you really mean it?”
“We can’t go back anyway since we don’t have money. Then it’s better to save the kid.”
“Well, true.”
Though Jeril had questioned it at first, his simple nature made him accept it right away.
“But how are we supposed to save him?”
He asked casually, hands laced behind his head as he strolled along.
“With this!”
At that answer, Yuri and Jeril’s eyes shifted to the cute teddy bear backpack slung over Lirian’s shoulder.
From it, the handle of a toy sword peeked out shyly.
“What do you think?”
Tiny Lirian marched along with her short legs, glancing proudly between her two older brothers.
Jeril grimaced.
“Never mind. Shouldn’t have asked.”
“More importantly, that thing you did earlier—that was mana control, right? You even overlaid mana on it. How did your opponent survive without dying?”
Yuri’s cruelly curious question was wrapped in the guise of pure intellectual interest.
Lirian answered brightly:
“Because it’s a toy!”
“Ahh, I see.”
Neither Yuri nor Jeril wondered much about how their youngest sister could be so strong.
After all, they were all children of the Duke of Ersioni—nicknamed the Demon King.
And Lirian had always been unusually powerful, even among them.
So, beating up thugs with a toy sword didn’t seem strange at all from an “Ersioni perspective.”
The three siblings chatted like that as they arrived at the temple.
“It’s big.”
“Sure is big.”
“Big!”
The children spoke one after another.
For a temple out in a border territory, the Zerkino Temple was unusually large. Suspiciously so.
“Hm. Something smells fishy.”
Jeril smirked with one corner of his mouth.
With his violet-tinged hair like Lirian’s and his naturally roguish good looks, he seemed even more like a villain in that moment.
Yuri stepped forward.
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Mm-hm!”
“Let’s go.”
Without hesitation, the children entered the temple for their “Elay Rescue Mission.”
Once they left—
Hissss—
A snake, its body writhing with black energy, glared after them with glowing red eyes.
