I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 57

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 57. Accepting the Woleum Body

“Lirina, Lirina.”

Lirina, who had just finished cleaning Aslan’s room as usual, turned her head at the sound of her name being called.

There stood a maidservant with a somewhat sinister smile playing at her lips.

“Someone’s looking for you outside.”

Lirina blinked her half-closed eyes.

She was trying to think of who might have come looking for her.

“He was a cute boy. When did you manage to enchant someone like that?”

But at the maidservant’s follow-up remark, her eyes widened.

She had recognized who the maidservant was pointing to.

‘Krash?’

He had never come looking for her directly before—not once.

If he had sought her out now, it could only be because of what she had asked of him.

‘In just a few days, he managed to find……’

Perhaps he truly had drawn upon the power of the Balheim Family to do it.

Even Lirina, who had lived in Halgram for a long time, had failed to find the person through her own inquiries—there was no other explanation for how he could have succeeded.

‘But Krash can barely afford to eat three meals a day, shunned as he is by the family.’

For him to draw upon the family’s power would have been no small feat.

Yet he had granted her request without hesitation.

Lirina fidgeted with her fingers.

Her thoughts drifted carelessly elsewhere for a moment.

She let out a small, deliberate cough.

‘Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.’

Lirina tapped her own cheeks twice as if to snap herself back to attention, then asked the maidservant a question.

“Where was he waiting?”
“You know that Back Path the maidservants use? He’s standing there, waiting.”
“Thank you.”

She deliberately ignored the maidservant’s sly smile and headed toward the Back Path.

Passing through the Garden, she reached the Back Path and carefully opened the gate.

But strangely, the entrance ahead was completely empty.

Disappointment flickered across her face, though she hadn’t consciously expected anything.

“Did I misunderstand something?”

For a moment, she thought the maidservant must have given her wrong information.

“Lirina.”

She turned at the sound of her name.

There stood a boy with dark blue hair.

Lirina felt a sudden warmth bloom in her chest.

“If you stand alone where the maidservants pass through so often, they might tease you and ask whose boyfriend you are.”

Yet somehow her words came out with a playful edge, as if she couldn’t quite help herself.

She didn’t understand why she kept making remarks like this.

“The only one who would tease me like that is you, Lirina.”

He deflected her jesting with practiced ease.

Lirina always found something remarkable about him.

Conversations with him never seemed to stall or falter.

Perhaps that was why she kept meeting Krash in the garden to talk.

Talking with him was genuinely enjoyable.

“So what’s the real reason you came looking for me? I’d feel terrible if there was some deeper meaning to it.”
“There is an important reason I came directly. It concerns the favor you asked of me.”

Lirina’s eyes widened slightly.

So Krash had indeed found information about Dorothy, Aslan’s friend.

“That was fast.”
“I have to earn my keep when someone feeds me, don’t I?”
“I mean it. I only asked in jest, but I never expected you to come back so quickly.”

Lirina glanced around them.

This wasn’t a proper place to talk.

So she slipped open the door to the Back Path.

“Let’s go to the inner Garden. There’s a good place to talk there.”

The head maidservant would likely scold her, but slipping a visitor inside briefly was something everyone quietly overlooked.

So Lirina quickly led Krash toward the inner Garden before anyone could notice.

Spring had brought the flowers and greenery into full bloom.

As night began to fall, a cool breeze drifted past them.

Lirina came to a halt as the wind guided her steps, pausing at just the right moment.

When she turned to look at Krash, her eyes now held a clear message: it was safe to speak.

Krash caught the meaning and decided to get straight to the point.

“It concerns Dorothy. First, I must tell you—Dorothy was not human.”
“What?”

Lirina went rigid at the words.

It was a statement she had never considered.

“What do you mean?”

Unable to make sense of it, she asked again, and Krash’s eyes swept across their surroundings.

He was making sure no one else was listening.

“Do you know about Spirits?”

Krash posed the question to her.

The city of Halgram lay not far from the Spirit King’s Forest.

Yet for ordinary people, Spirits were not something studied in detail.

And Lirina was no exception.

“When you say Spirits, you mean the World Erosion Species, don’t you?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”

Lirina’s eyes wavered.

She had caught on to why Krash was mentioning Spirits now.

“Surely you don’t mean Dorothy is…”
“A Spirit.”
“That can’t be.”

Lirina could not accept what Krash was saying.

The Dorothy she had seen was unmistakably human to anyone’s eyes.

There was nothing about her appearance that would suggest she was a World Erosion Species.

“Are you aware that the World Erosion Species continuously evolve?”
“The World Erosion Species evolve?”

Lirina was merely a direct personal attendant.

Encounters with World Erosion Species were rare in her life.

It was only natural she would know nothing of such things.

“The World Erosion Species evolve steadily. More precisely, it is the World Erosion itself that does so. They learn, they gain experience, and they bury all of it within the World Erosion.”

This was why World Erosion had to be eliminated the moment it appeared.

But occasionally there exist World Erosions so vast they’ve already grown beyond human reach.

World Erosions that existed long before mankind ever seized the world.

Geum Yeok was precisely such a thing.

So humanity learned to distinguish between Geum Yeok and the lands where people dwelt.

Rather than grant it needless learning capacity, they sealed it off at the source and maintained it carefully.

“Dorothy is a new Spirit born from the Spirit King’s Forest. She’s the closest thing to a human form among all Spirits.”

A Spirit born by absorbing information through the chaotic Spirit that had once lived alongside mankind.

That was Dorothy.

Lirina’s expression grew even more bewildered.

It was only natural—learning that Aslan’s friend was a Spirit.

“And yet you still wish to find Dorothy?”

The current situation was anything but normal.

Moreover, the fact that a Spirit was attached to Aslan, a direct heir of the Egrit Family, would spawn all manner of rumors.

Perhaps leaving Dorothy unfound would actually serve Aslan’s interests better.

Lirina was Aslan’s personal maidservant.

It was her role to aid him in the most favorable way.

“Yes.”

Yet she answered without hesitation.

“Even if everyone around us pointed fingers in accusation, I am a maidservant who follows Aslan. Right now, he needs Dorothy.”

Even if one day she came to regret this choice.

Dorothy was someone Aslan needed.

Hearing her words, Krash nodded slowly.

“Then there is one thing you must do for me.”
“Anything. Just tell me.”
“Introduce me to Aslan.”

It was another unexpected request.

Yet she sensed that Krash had words he needed to say directly to Aslan.

“So my role ends here.”
“Rather, you’ve done more than enough.”

Lirina grasped the hem of her skirt and lowered her head to Krash.

“Krash, I’ll continue to ensure you never want for a meal. So please, I ask you to look after Aslan well.”

Yes, it was just like her to ask that.

＊ ＊ ＊

Aslan Egrit.

Now fifteen and counted among the adults, he opened his eyes this evening as the sun was beginning to set.

With his long crimson hair and, having been active only at night, his pale skin and dark circles under his eyes distinctly visible, he glanced toward the Blackout Curtain.

The curtain remained closed, showing no sign of opening.

Once, an unexpected visitor would have drawn it open.

‘Aslan, oversleeping again? I came straight from the academy. You’d better wait for me.’

Her voice remained vivid in his memory, as clear as ever.

‘Dorothy.’

Each time he acknowledged that fact, Aslan’s expression darkened.

She had been his only salvation, and now she was gone from this world.

All that remained in his mind was Dorothy’s final smile.

That smile she had worn in the midst of the flames.

Then came the moment.

Tap-tap—

Suddenly, the sound of someone knocking came from beyond the window.

Aslan’s eyes snapped toward the window in alarm.

Confusion swept across his gaze.

At the same time, his heart began to pound.

“Ugh.”

Aslan rose hastily from his bed, then swallowed hard against the pain that flared in his throat.

The soreness from where the rope had bit remained.

He moved unsteadily, pressing his hand to his throat.

Then, pushing the Blackout Curtain aside, Aslan saw a boy’s face he had never glimpsed before.

Black hair, and perched on his shoulder—a Raven.

The boy appeared younger than himself.

The boy rapped on the window once more.

As if asking him to open it.

Aslan felt a strange pull as he opened the window, though doubts flickered in his mind.

He had memories of Dorothy tapping on the glass like this, more than once.

“You…”
“Aslan.”

Beneath the night sky, moonlight spilled down silver.

The boy spoke his name as if he’d always known it.

There was something peculiar in those blue eyes—a quality that commanded attention, that drew the gaze like gravity.

“Do you want to bring Dorothy back to life?”

Without warning, the boy dropped the question like a stone into still water.

Aslan’s eyes widened. The question had caught him completely unprepared.

It was one thing that the boy knew Dorothy’s name—but to speak as though he understood her present circumstances, as though he knew what had become of her… that was another matter entirely.

“Yes… I want to bring her back.”

Even as he heard himself speak, Aslan felt that same enchantment drawing out his words.

He wanted to bring her back.

That desire had not wavered, not once.

At that moment, the Raven perched on the boy’s shoulder spread its wings and took flight.

Black feathers scattered like snow, and beneath them, the boy’s face broke into a broad smile.

“Good. Then let’s make a pact.”

A pact to bring Dorothy back—beginning here, with this strange boy.

Hearing the word itself, Aslan found himself asking in a daze.

“Are you… a Demon?”

The kind of creature that seduced mortals into pacts—that was how the stories went.

Among the Erosion Species, he’d heard tales of such monsters.

And when the words tumbled out unbidden, the boy’s expression shifted—incredulous, almost offended.

“Demons? Hell no. Demons don’t make deals like this. Those bastards cut off your limbs, then demand payment before they sew them back on. That’s the demon way.”

Why would he compare himself to creatures like that?

The boy’s brow furrowed at the memory it stirred—some ugly recollection—and seeing his reaction, Aslan’s own expression collapsed into weary resignation.

Then, after a moment, he lifted his hand to his eyes, pressed gently, and slowly opened them again.

The haze that had clouded his gaze was gone.

In its place were Aslan’s eyes as Krash knew them well—sharp, penetrating, alive with keen intelligence.

“I’d like to hear more. Go on.”

Krash finally smiled.

Thank goodness—it was the Aslan he knew.

* * *

A memory from before the return—Krash’s past.

Beneath the Red Mage Tower, now reduced to ash.

Aslan held a cigarette between his lips, his expression hollow.

He had just finished the funeral of his grandfather, the Flame King.

The war with the World Erosion Species had burned the Red Mage Tower to the ground and claimed his grandfather’s life.

Yet the emotion etched into Aslan’s face was not sorrow.

He had harbored resentment toward his grandfather, the Flame King, for as long as he could remember.

The problem was that there was nowhere left to direct that hatred.

‘Krash.’

Aslan drew smoke slowly from the burning cigarette.

‘Why do you try to protect the world?’

He, the symbol of unwavering composure, closed his eyes as if he could no longer maintain that calm.

‘I don’t know anymore.’

Only thirty-two days remained until his death.

‘I don’t know, La.’

Krash walked through the Garden, carrying the brief memory that had flashed across his mind.

A gaunt frame, crimson hair, and skin as translucent white as the symbol of the Woleum Body, with shadowed eyes.

Today was the first time Krash saw Aslan’s true face.

It made sense—in Krash’s memories, Aslan was covered in burn scars and wrapped entirely in bandages, dying.

Yet Aslan remained unchanged between then and now.

[Break Aslan’s ‘stubbornness.’]

The dial’s instruction that appeared when using the Black Hood.

What emerged when he deployed the Black Hood against Aslan’s Woleum Body was identical, past and present.

‘Stubborn bastard, through and through.’

Aslan must have wanted to abandon the Woleum Body long ago.

But that power belonged to no one else.

He wanted to overcome the Woleum Body through his own strength and burn it away.

Stubborn as ever, this one.

But that was precisely why Krash respected Aslan.

It was Aslan’s sheer stubbornness alone that had let him immolate the Woleum Body and ascend to become the Flame King.

‘This time will be different, though.’

Because now he stood here, something that hadn’t existed back then.

Because he would keep alive the one creature capable of breaking that stubborn will.

After the Flame King’s death, Aslan at that time had said he no longer knew why the world needed protecting.

This time, then, Krash resolved to force a reason to live into him, whether he liked it or not.

‘I need to become his support.’

Krash steeled himself with the promise that he would drag Aslan along until the day he wept.

He had no intention of going through all this without collecting his due.

“Krash.”

At that moment, Lirina called out to him from where she had been waiting at the far end of the Garden.

Her half-lidded eyes held a tangle of conflicting thoughts.

On the day Aslan died, she had wept bitterly.

Krash still remembered vividly those tears streaming down her face.

He remembered holding her close as well.

“Did you settle things successfully?”

When Lirina asked, Krash glanced toward Aslan’s residence.

“Yes. I’ve finished my discussion with Aslan. He’s agreed on the method to revive Dorothy.”

Krash had laid out the method for reviving Dorothy clearly before him.

And hearing that information, Aslan had been visibly shocked.

‘How could you possibly know such a thing……’

Aslan had searched for every scrap of information about Spirits.

Hoping, just perhaps, to grasp some thread of hope.

Yet it was information the Egrit Family itself, which maintained the Spirit King’s Forest, had been unable to find.

Naturally, Aslan couldn’t fathom how Krash could possibly know it.

‘It probably doesn’t matter much how you found out, does it?’

Krash had no intention of telling him everything.

Aslan, too, didn’t probe too deeply into Krash’s nature.

Aslan and Krash existed in a pact—a deal between them.

If they could seal the deal, neither had qualms about the methods employed.

In that regard, the two of them were alike.

A common ground in their willingness to disregard means and method alike.

‘I’ll make the deal. Tell me what you want.’

When Aslan learned that Krash sought the Woleum Body, he expressed bewilderment—yet he agreed to the pact without hesitation.

He understood, too, that this was the only path to saving Dorothy.

But to consummate such a pact, there was one thing that needed preparing in advance.

And it was not something Krash could accomplish alone.

“That’s why I must ask a favor of you, Lirina.”
“Me? A favor of me?”

Lirina’s eyes widened slightly before she straightened her posture.

Krash was the only one who could save Dorothy—Aslan’s treasured friend.

She was prepared to do whatever lay within her power.

“Ask anything of me. Would it help if I became your sweetheart? A maidservant and a noble—it’s rather romantic, wouldn’t you say?”

Lirina lifted her skirt playfully and bowed, assuming the posture of a maidservant awaiting orders.

……

When Krash gazed at her in silence, Lirina let out a small cough.

“The atmosphere grew too serious, so I was only joking a moment. Please don’t look at me like that.”

Feeling suddenly embarrassed by her own words, Lirina fanned herself with her hand.

But Krash’s silence had stemmed from a different cause altogether.

‘……Arthur, irritating as always—but I suppose I can sympathize with you now, at least a little.’

Hearing words that echoed his past exactly, Krash found himself smoothing his brow.

Old memories had surfaced unbidden, souring his mood.

He’d tried so hard to turn away from them.

‘Damn fool I am.’

They say a man never forgets his first love.

The saying fit perfectly.

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