Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 25

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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 25
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“Sister, I’m cold.”
Looking back, it all began with a single loaf of bread.
“Come here. Stay closer.”
On a winter’s day when white snow, carried on the biting wind, had settled softly over the world like quilting, the two sisters huddled behind a shop in the Downtown Area, sheltering from the blizzard.
Liriope and Caliona had ducked behind a shop in the Downtown Area to escape the worst of the snowstorm.
Orphaned overnight and cast from the warmth of a greenhouse into the wild, the sisters struggled like tender hothouse flowers thrust into a season of bitter cold—their environment changed too drastically, too fast.
Moreover, in an age when everyone struggled to survive, people’s hearts had grown callous and unyielding.
In such a world, orphan children often banded together to steal from shops, or waylay travelers from out of town.
Had Caliona and Liriope joined such a gang earlier, they might have adapted to their new circumstances more smoothly.
But at that time, the sisters were still unspoiled by the world—they could not even imagine harming others to fill their own bellies.
Both Liriope and Caliona were grateful for the smallest kindnesses: someone’s leftover scraps given out of pity, or a night’s shelter in a ramshackle warehouse.
“Sister, where is that delicious smell coming from?”
“Let’s try visiting Sasha’s place later. Maybe there’ll be some leftover lunch rice.”
“But she told us four days ago not to come back.”
At Liriope’s listless words, Caliona fell silent for a moment.
“……It would be nice if we could find somewhere to work. I could do simple tasks, and we don’t need much pay.”
“It’s strange……. Why won’t anyone hire girls? Now that I think about it, someone told us before—there’s a big shop with a gate decorated with flowers in the next neighborhood. They give good food and pretty clothes. If there’s work I could do too, maybe I could go and try…….”
“You! Don’t even think about going there. Forget what you heard. If someone tries to sweet-talk you into going there when I’m not around, don’t go even if it kills you. And if they try to force you, you run. Do you understand me?”
Liriope happened to remember something and blurted it out, and Caliona’s expression turned terrifying.
At her sister’s grim response, Liriope could only nod in agreement, startled.
Caliona, her face angry, scraped up the wet soil beneath her eyes and smeared it across Liriope’s face.
Whenever her sister deliberately dirtied her face like this, Liriope felt a desperate urge to wash herself clean immediately.
But in reality it was impossible, so she only harbored sad fantasies in her heart.
Clang!
“Father, I’ll take this as a snack for Ruby!”
Then a small child, who appeared to be the Shop Owner’s Daughter, pushed open the back door and stepped outside.
Wearing a thick, warm Overcoat, she toddled along, and in her hand she carried a small bowl containing food.
Bread. It was bread.
Old and hard-looking, brittle and dry, but even that was a luxury in a state of hunger.
Liriope’s eyes followed the young girl’s hand without her own awareness.
The child seemed to notice that gaze and slowed her step, turning to look back at Liriope.
The first emotion that appeared on the girl’s face as she took in the sisters was naked contempt.
But then, as if she’d thought of something, she actually approached the sisters and thrust the bread bowl suddenly before their eyes.
“This looks good, doesn’t it?”
At the girl’s question, Liriope nodded numbly.
“Yeah. Uh-huh.”
“Do you want to eat it?”
“Yeah…….”
“Should I give it to you?”
“Really?”
At the sight of Liriope’s desperate eyes, the child burst into clear, crystalline laughter.
“Of course I was joking, dummy! This is a snack for our dog!”
She stuck out her tongue at Liriope mockingly, then trotted off to the side and set the bowl on the ground.
“Ruby, come out! Let’s eat something delicious.”
Then a white dog on a leash suddenly jumped out from what appeared to be an empty wooden crate.
Looking closer, the crate was lined with a thick Blanket that looked far warmer than the clothes the sisters wore.
In that moment, Liriope was startled to realize she felt an intense, bitter envy toward the dog.
Seeing Liriope’s blank stare as the dog buried its nose in the bowl and began eating the bread, the girl clutched her belly and laughed again.
“What, looking like a beggar. You really want this, don’t you? Fine, I’ll be generous. You can have what Ruby’s been eating, if you don’t mind.”
The dog’s bowl was thrust before Liriope’s eyes once more, as if offering charity.
The bread was torn and mangled from the dog’s bites and dirtier than before, but it was still bread.
Liriope swallowed hard.
So fixed was Liriope’s gaze on the bread before her that she didn’t even notice the malice in the young girl’s eyes.
The dog, unhappy at having its food taken away, began barking loudly in protest.
At the sound, Liriope felt as if pushed from behind and reached forward.
“No!”
But just before her hand touched the dog’s bowl, Caliona gripped her arm painfully from the side.
“Don’t. Don’t eat it.”
When Liriope turned her head, she saw her sister’s face twisted in anguish.
“What is it? Why so much noise?”
“Father!”
The Shop Owner emerged outside, having heard the dog barking.
And astonishingly, the young girl pointed directly at Liriope and cried out sharply, as if she’d been waiting for this moment.
“She was trying to steal the bread by force!”
“What? You filthy beggar brat! How dare you lay your dirty hands on—!”
The man’s face twisted viciously as he rushed forward and suddenly slapped Liriope’s cheek hard.
“Liriope!”
“I turned a blind eye to you resting behind my shop! And you have the nerve to steal our bread? You ungrateful thing!”
Liriope, experiencing an adult’s violence for the first time, was utterly dazed.
It was Caliona who cried out on her behalf, protesting Liriope’s innocence.
“She didn’t steal it! That girl said she’d give it, and we didn’t take it!”
“Don’t lie! I was wondering why things have been disappearing from the shop lately—it’s all because of you two! Today I’ll break those miserable hands of yours!”
The man seized a Broom leaning against the wall and swung it mercilessly.
“We didn’t steal! We didn’t eat anything! It’s that man’s daughter who’s lying!”
Caliona pulled Liriope close and shouted with a voice full of resentment.
“Besides, what if we did steal? You were just going to throw it away as dog food anyway……!”
The moment those words left Caliona’s lips, her face went white.
“This is exactly why you shouldn’t be kind to beggar brats! Give them one thing and they demand two, just like bandits! Today I’ll beat that wicked habit out of you!”
The sisters huddled together and endured the brutal beating.
Through a blur of tears, they could see the white dog eagerly devouring the bread.
Ah, how bitter and cruel everything seemed in that moment.
“Damn it! Business is already bad enough without this bad luck! Let’s go inside and not bother with these filthy things!”
“Yes, Father!”
After the tempest had passed, the sisters staggered away from that place.
Still cold, still hungry, and now compounded by the pain of the beating and the sting of injustice, their tears would not stop.
“Liriope, lift your head.”
After some time, when they had finally found a place to shelter from the wind and crouched down, Caliona softly called to her sister.
Liriope had expected to be scolded for coveting the dog’s food despite her hunger, but her sister said nothing about it.
Instead, she pulled a loaf of bread from somewhere within her clothes.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you? Eat this.”
It looked far more appetizing than what had been in the dog’s bowl, and just looking at it made her mouth water.
It was the kind of bread one would expect to buy from a shop—large, soft, glistening with a sweet sheen…….
Without thinking, Liriope lifted her head and looked at her sister’s face.
She would never forget the look in her sister’s eyes at that moment.
It was as if a bright, radiant light had dimmed by a layer; in those violet eyes dwelt something like resignation mixed with resolve, like stains swirling together.
Their parents had taught them that stealing others’ things was wrong. Both sisters knew it was something they must not do.
But that first loaf of stolen bread tasted sweet enough to cry for.

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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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