I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 58

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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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Chapter 58. Forgetting a First Love

But he had to forget.

‘That world no longer exists.’

‘Krash, I’m a greedy person. Because of what happened to Aslan, I keep wanting things I shouldn’t. So please don’t be kind to me.’

He recalled those words, spoken as she slipped from his arms on the day Aslan died, tears streaming down her face.

Did she not understand who had been the one restraining himself, holding back his desires?

At that moment, Krash had been utterly dumbfounded.

But he learned later.

After Aslan’s death, when he brought her here dispirited and took her on as his personal attendant.

After the World Erosion in Balheim ran rampant not long after, and he lost her along with Cheong Song Manor.

That’s when he understood—he was a fool who didn’t even know how to desire.

‘If only I had been greedy then.’

The pain and sorrow he had rehearsed countless times, Krash had not forgotten.

But time is a strange thing.

Pain, too, fades gradually as time passes.

Lirina’s death had occurred in the early days of the World Erosion’s rampage.

After that, having gone through various trials within the Starry Generation, he had managed to forget the pain of losing Lirina.

How else would he have come to think of actually going on a date she had proposed, despite having no real reason for doing so?

‘Well, it all became meaningless anyway.’

Thanks to Mary Diana and that accursed incident, he never did go on that date.

And after that day, she said nothing more to him of consequence.

And so everything that had happened with Lirina, including all that, is now as if it never was.

The Lirina before his eyes is someone different from the one he had known.

“I’m afraid not a girlfriend, then.”

So Krash smiled at her, slowly.

She was Aslan’s personal attendant, Lirina.

And from now on, she would remain his personal attendant, unchanging—that was who Lirina was.

Krash’s first love no longer existed.

It was a love that had ended long, long ago.

The day she died.

Krash had quietly ended his love for her before her corpse.

‘Snow doll.’

The brief surge of emotion that had risen was suppressed by the snow doll and vanished far below.

“Lirina.”

Because of that, Krash was able to call her name now in a different way than before.

“Let’s work together so that Aslan can live.”

And so that she could also go on living.

When Krash spoke thus, Lirina fell silent before lifting her head.

“You said anything I asked wasn’t a lie, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I find that reassuring.”
“Then order me. What is it you’d like me to do?”

Watching her wait with her skirts gathered up as if receiving a command, Krash let out a soft laugh.

And then he told her something that would make her flinch.

“Tomorrow, Aslan will attempt Immolation Suicide.”

Sure enough, Lirina’s body went rigid.

“While that happens, I’d like you and Crim to break into the Viscount’s chambers and find Dorothy’s Crystal.”

And at his next words, her body stiffened once more.

“…You really do say anything, don’t you?”

Her face looked utterly dumbfounded.

＊ ＊ ＊

The Flame King.

Agatha of Igritt.

A mage of the 7th Class, Adeptus Mazor.

In terms of Aura, she stood among the world’s foremost mages, having reached a ripened mastery at the Master level.

She had grown older, her face lined with age, and now she sat in her room with pen in hand, lost in thought.

Of late, she found herself sinking into such deep contemplation quite often.

The greatest reason for this was none other than her own inadequate son.

When she first became pregnant, Agatha loved her son more than anyone else could.

But as he grew, she discovered an abnormality developing in him.

The crucial matter was that he had possessed the Wol-eum Constitution from the moment of his birth.

Aslan, who bore the Wol-eum Constitution with its lunar yin-yang nature, could not study Igritt’s Flame Magic.

Which meant, in other words, that her son could never earn the Igritt family’s favor—nor could he ever become its head.

Yet despite all this, Agatha loved her son dearly.

Even at his young age, he studied magic with fierce dedication and showed genuine talent for it.

Apart from the Wol-eum Constitution, he was a son she could take pride in—flawless in every way.

But that was only her thinking, as his mother.

The eyes of others saw him differently.

Most of all, when she heard the words of her father—Aslan’s grandfather, one of the Ten Strongest Under Heaven—the Flame King, she finally understood how everyone truly regarded her son.

‘Aslan is to be removed from the line of succession to Igritt.’
‘Father!’

The man she had called by his title as family head far more often than by any other name her whole life.

And yet, both she and Aslan shared his blood.

‘Aslan is your grandson! How can you strip him of the succession? What is he supposed to do with his life?’

Though the Flame King had never once treated her with warmth as his daughter.

Because she knew how unbearably difficult that truth was, Agatha cherished and loved Aslan all the more.

So she desperately hoped that somewhere in her father’s heart, there remained affection for both her and her son.

‘Sigh, Sub-Patriarch.’

But the Flame King was nothing like Agatha.

He was the head of Igritt before he was her father.

He placed the future of Igritt and the Red Tower above the love of his children and grandchildren.

In that tower of absolute magic supremacy—the Red Tower alone.

How could anyone who cannot even wield the Flame Magic that Igritt has cultivated for generations.

How could such a person ever make a name for themselves in Igritt?

It would be strange if he did not face ridicule.

So the Flame King had long since closed his mind to Aslan.

‘In three years at the tower, even a dog learns magic. But that one—Aslan—cannot even become the tower’s dog. To make him heir would only tarnish Igritt’s name.’

The moment Agatha heard those words, her eyes went wide.

She could not believe her ears—treating his own grandson like a beast of burden.

‘To begin with, I could have blamed you for birthing a child this way. Did I not warn you repeatedly? That man you brought back would surely produce a child of no use to the Igritt family.’

Agatha’s wide eyes trembled, flickering like flames.

The Flame King had opposed her many times when she first brought home the man she wished to marry.

Yet despite his objections, Agatha had grown close to this man, eventually conceived Aslan, and ultimately went through with the ceremony.

But her husband, though not born with the Wol-eum Constitution, carried yin energy in his blood and had always been of frail health.

As a result, under the pressure and scorn of the Igritt family, his mind grew sick with anguish, and before long his body fell ill as well, until he died young.

Knowing how her husband had died, she found herself utterly unable to accept her father’s words now.

Perhaps her husband’s death had been her own fault—born of her selfish desires.

But now Igritt and her father were trying to kill her son as well.

Rage poured through her, and her teeth chattered with fury.

‘You said yourself you would not bear another man’s child. Very well—there is a girl at the Red Tower, gifted with Flame Magic. I shall take her as my adopted daughter.’

Agatha nearly collapsed under the weight of his successive bombshells.

The Flame King had truly abandoned Aslan.

Afterward, she made it her business to learn about the child her father intended to bring into the family.

Her name was Abella. Though she had not yet been formally adopted, her talent was undeniable.

At such a tender age, she wielded Flame Magic as naturally as breathing—a prodigy even the Igritt family rarely produced.

Once Agatha learned of her, anxiety took root in her heart.

She began to believe that her own son truly could be cast aside by the Igritt family.

And of all people, her father would be the one to do it—she was certain.

Because he lived and breathed only for the family’s sake.

From that moment on, Agatha began to change.

The hand that once had gently stroked Aslan’s head in praise now struck him down coldly, driving him to master magic.

To cure his Wol-eum Constitution, she hunted down every miraculous elixir known to exist and force-fed them to him until he retched.

‘Don’t you dare show weakness! You are Igritt’s future—the one who will lead this family! Rise! Aslan! Use your magic now!’

She screamed these words at her son, collapsed and drained of all his mana.

If she left things as they were, her son would be cast away from the Igritt family forever.

Agatha could not bear to let that happen.

For the sake of the husband who had gone before her, she could not allow it.

So she became cruel.

She taught him harshly, scolded him without mercy, and forced him to transform his very constitution through grueling effort.

And yet Aslan endured it all with unwavering resolve.

A strong child who resembled her.

But Agatha never noticed that his core was rotting away, day by day.

Nor did she see that her own core was decaying in exactly the same way.

And in the end, their relationship led to ruin.

The day she witnessed Aslan attacked by a Spirit in the burning Academy Dormitory.

She threw caution aside and burned the Spirit to ash with her own hands.

There was not a shred of hesitation when it came to saving her son.

But after that, Aslan fell completely to pieces.

She understood only too late.

The nature of the bond Aslan had formed with that Spirit.

Because afterward, she watched him tear through countless texts on Spirits with a manic fervor.

But she could not accept it.

In House Igritt, Spirits were forbidden.

Being involved with such a thing would destroy Aslan’s future entirely.

She knew better than anyone what would happen if word of it reached the Flame King.

To her eyes, the Spirit was nothing but an Erosion Species that would ruin Aslan’s life.

She tried to convince him countless times, but he would not change.

Only when he grasped that the Spirit could not be brought back to life.

Then Aslan shattered completely.

He stopped eating and drinking, and locked himself away in his room.

Agatha came to him again and again, forcing him to his feet, making him eat.

Now she did not know how to treat him with kindness.

She had been harsh with him for nearly ten years.

But there was no light in Aslan’s eyes when he looked at her.

He was like a puppet with its string cut.

And then his suicide attempts began.

“Ah… ah.”

Agatha pressed her face into her palms.

What should she have done?

The world was vast and cruel.

That was why living without the protection of the Igritt family was as much a death sentence for Aslan, born as he was with the Wol-eum Constitution.

Even if it meant being despised by her own son, she wanted to keep him within the Igritt fold.

But the result had been catastrophe itself.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’

She didn’t know.

Too much time had passed, too much had unraveled, and now she couldn’t trace the root of it all.

Her eyes drifted toward the drawer.

The crystal she’d found in the ashes of the Spirit, burned to nothing.

Somehow she’d kept it, but she’d never told Aslan it existed.

“Madam!”

In that instant, the door burst open without so much as a knock.

Agatha’s head snapped up, and there stood the Head Maidservant, her face drained of all color.

“Head Maidservant?”
“It’s—it’s Aslan, ma’am!”

At the sight of her, Agatha’s own face went rigid.

That she’d come rushing in like this—it was already the second time this month alone.

By now, Agatha could read the truth in the Head Maidservant’s expression before a word was spoken.

Aslan had attempted to take his life again.

“He’s attempting Immolation Suicide!”

But what she heard this time was of an altogether different order.

Immolation Suicide—burning one’s own body to death.

Unlike other methods, even failure left catastrophic scars.

At the news that her son had chosen such a terrible end, Agatha’s face turned ashen.

“Take me to him. Now. At once!”

Agatha bolted from the room, shoving the door aside.

Unaware that as she fled, a figure slipped silently into the corridor beyond her door.

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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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