I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 98

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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 98
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By the time Olivia had tidied up the day’s affairs and returned, it was already deep into the early morning hours.
Having missed her window for sleep, she found herself unable to drift off at all, so she rose from bed instead. Her thoughts were hopelessly tangled.
“Red stones…. They really do cling to a person persistently.”
Olivia traced her fingers slowly across the table. Now that she thought about it, those Magical Stones that Sirius had been searching for so earnestly on the Training Grounds—those had been red too.
And now, red Magical Stones again.
…Wait.
‘Come to think of it, what happened to the Magical Stone we collected during the Field Training Exercise?’
Had she turned it in? Olivia retraced her thoughts carefully.
She distinctly remembered deciding to turn it in, and she had actually…
“…hadn’t she?”
The memory wouldn’t come clear. For some reason, her thoughts felt oddly foggy. It was at that moment.
Hum, hummmm.
“Oh, goodness.”
Olivia startled and glanced down at her waist. The Defensor vibrated indignantly, its blade trembling in protest.
Ever since arriving here, the Defensor had been expressing itself strangely often.
“What is it? Are you unsettled too?”
The sharp blade, the hilt that fit perfectly in her palm, and the groove running along the junction between blade and grip—as if something had once been set into it—along with the finely carved patterns nearby.
Olivia pressed her fingers along the groove where the blade met the hilt, the Defensor still vibrating in her hand.
“This looks like a mark from where something was embedded.”
There was so much she still didn’t know about the Defensor.
While training with Yugin, she had begun to feel a subtle connection forming with this blade. Yet she still couldn’t fathom how she had managed to protect everyone and endure that day when facing the demonic beast.
Olivia let out a small sigh and looked up at the ceiling.
Time continued to flow. Though deep morning silence had settled outside, a testament to the lateness of the hour, sleep still eluded her—her mind too crowded with thoughts, burdened by all she had experienced.
“Maybe I should go back there. I could check on what Sirius was doing while I’m at it.”
Wasting time here seemed pointless compared to doing something, anything at all.
She brightened the lamp beside her bed and wrapped her shawl back around herself. It had been somewhat soiled by the earlier disturbance, but it would do well enough for a brief venture out.
Click.
Now properly belted with the Defensor, Olivia carefully stepped out of her room.
‘I really should go back to the Garden.’
As she emerged outside, cold-laden air enveloped her face.
Olivia loved winter. The air—crisp and crystalline as though frozen solid—would fill her lungs completely, and those moments when it seemed to wash away all the stuffiness and weight from within.
Thanks to it, a lightness gradually crept into her otherwise sluggish step.
“It feels like a stroll.”
The bandages wrapped around her shoulders made movement awkward, but she reckoned it was bearable enough, so Olivia gave a short laugh. She had been thinking of Aiden, who appeared so dramatically whenever she needed him most.
When she was younger, she would speak of him without shame—calling him a hero, a prince—with no sense of embarrassment whatsoever.
Just as Olivia stepped toward the Garden, she murmured softly with a faint smile.
“He really hasn’t changed at all, from then till now.”
And that was when it happened.
“What did I do?”
“Ah!”
Startled by the sudden voice, Olivia stepped back sharply, and Aiden frowned in displeasure before closing the distance she’d created, his expression clouded with dissatisfaction.
“Oh—you?”
“Why are you back here at this hour?”
“You—what are you doing here?”
The sky was still dark, not even approaching dawn, with not a single star visible through the clouds that blanketed the heavens thickly.
From within that darkness, Aiden clicked his tongue briefly and spoke.
“Look at you now—learning how to answer a question with another question. Quite the development.”
“I’m not a child.”
“Aren’t you? Seeing how you’ve forgotten the physician’s orders to rest entirely and made your way back here anyway, you’re being awfully stubborn for a seven-year-old.”
“I’m nineteen this year. I’ll be coming of age soon.”
“That so, little Olivia?”
There was simply no reasoning with him.
Olivia’s expression turned irritable as she passed by him and headed straight for her destination. Aiden trailed along behind her.
Only the sound of their footsteps echoed softly through the silent Garden.
Crunch.
“There it is. The site of what happened earlier.”
A flicker of discomfort crossed Aiden’s face before scattering away.
The servants hadn’t yet cleaned up, so gouges and scattered debris covered the ground. Dirt lay strewn about as though a tempest had swept through, and broken branches of garden plants lay scattered in every direction—an unsightly mess.
Anyone could see something terrible had occurred here. Just as Olivia was about to step toward that spot—
Squeeze.
“…You?”
“Ah.”
“You’ll have to let go if you want me to look.”
“Oh—it was unconscious.”
Aiden’s hand, which had been gripping her sleeve tightly, slowly released it. Only then did Olivia notice that his complexion had gone pale.
This place was, after all… where she had nearly been gravely injured.
“I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not.”
“It’s not me who isn’t all right—it’s you.”
But Olivia chose to brush past his anxiety regardless.
Otherwise, they would never be able to move forward.
As Olivia stepped into the site without hesitation, reluctant footsteps followed behind her. Yet he had recovered his usual composure, having shaken off his earlier disturbance.
Her steps reached the spot where Sirius had been sitting with his back turned.
“…There’s nothing here?”
“It just looks like a tunnel opening or something. Was the goal to create a tunnel?”
“Tsk, tsk. Olivia, you grew up too sheltered, it seems. A tunnel isn’t made this way. You can’t just dig at the city walls like this and call it a tunnel.”
Was that boasting?
Wasn’t this just indirect testimony to the fact that he had been negligent in his studies and fled outside at every opportunity?
Olivia could never quite understand Aiden’s standards.
“Your expression looks suspicious.”
“I was recalling the professor’s testimony that you were irresponsible with your studies.”
“Me? Who said that? I was an incredibly diligent student!”
Olivia let Aiden’s nonsense pass through one ear and out the other, digging further into the spot Sirius had excavated. Since she’d stopped playing in dirt after turning three years old, her fumbling movements felt quite awkward.
“Step aside.”
“Hmm. Why isn’t it working?”
“Because you’re clumsy. See, you have to start from the weakest-looking spot and gently scrape away like this—”
Crack.
“Huh?”
“I just heard something break.”
“Ha, that’s impossible. That’s just the sound of dry earth crumbling.”
Crackle, crackle-crack.
“…Does dry earth make that sound?”
“…”
“What did you hit wrong?”
“Nothing. How could you be so dull in your senses? This sound isn’t coming from here.”
“Then where is it coming from…?”
“Where else—beneath our feet—”
Rumble.
This time, a far more direct and thunderous sound erupted, vastly louder than the crackling from moments before.
Now it was unmistakable. This wasn’t coming from the tunnel opening, nor was it something breaking because Aiden had touched the wrong thing.
Rather, this sound was—
“Get away!”
Rumble, rumble!
The weakened ground was collapsing, caving in beneath them.
Crash!
The lights of the Earl of Arl’s Estate blazed on again. This time, it wasn’t just a few places—the entire mansion was alight.
Another sleepless night at the Earl of Arl’s Estate.

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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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