Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 26

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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 26
“Does it taste good?”
“Mm-hmm, yes!”
“Eat slowly. I’ll bring you more tomorrow.”
From that day forward—from that single piece of bread—Caliiona stopped trying to remain a Good Child.
She learned to lie, to deceive, piece by piece. When necessity demanded it, she didn’t flinch from theft or violence.
She still kept Liriophe from such things, but she grew less and less hesitant about soiling her own hands.
“You two have the makings of mages, I’d say. What do you think—will you come with me?”
A year later, after entering the Magic Tower, it only intensified.
Later, after being driven out of Beleggot, Liriophe once glimpsed Caliiona in a gambling den deep in the Back Alley—laying wagers on human races.
Men crazed for large stakes and larger winnings went red-faced, their voices raw with madness and curses.
When the signal rang and runners crossed the starting line drawn on the ground, there was nothing left but to run toward the goal, heedless and desperate.
All the way to that distant finish, without pause, breathing ragged, giving everything, eyes fixed forward until the very end…….
Liriophe thought her sister looked like those human racers—like someone walking a precarious tightrope toward some distant, burning sun.
So had her sister reached her destination before the end came?
What was it, in the end, that Caliiona had sought in that fierce, relentless life?
Liriophe desperately wanted to know the answer to that question she could now never ask.
* * *
[Listen, wake up.]
Someone kept calling to Liriophe as she lay in the deepest sleep she’d known in ages.
[Contractor, can’t you hear me?]
No. I want to sleep more. I’m so tired…….
Her body, starved of proper rest for so long, now complained of its exhaustion, dragging her deeper into unconsciousness.
[If you don’t want to die, get up right now, brat!]
But the voice was relentless, and soon Liriophe found herself thrust awake by a cry that seemed ready to split her eardrums.
“Gasp! Boss! Look, she’s awake now……!”
The excited, boyish voice from beside her jolted her foggy mind to full awareness.
“So you’re finally coming to? I figured I’d have to grab you by the collar and shake you awake.”
Liriophe forced open eyelids that felt as heavy as lead.
The first thing to swim into her vision was the familiar face of the Red-haired Boy, and a dull, chipped blade.
Wait—a blade?
“What is this……?”
“Shh, be quiet. We don’t know what’s around us, so don’t make a sound. If you understand, nod. Then I’ll let you go.”
It felt like her sister had held her in a dream just moments before, but the rough hand covering her mouth now bore no resemblance to that gentle touch.
As the blade tapped lightly against her cheek, her mind snapped fully into focus.
Liriophe nodded, and the Red-haired Boy released her as promised.
But he kept the blade trained on her.
As her eyes adjusted, she made out the narrow space around them—a cave so cramped she could barely straighten her back.
She saw the Red-haired Boy holding the blade, and behind him, another boy with brown hair.
A moment of disorientation washed over her.
‘What—what’s going on? How did I end up here?’
“You don’t remember passing out inside that creature?”
The boy seemed to read the confusion on her face and offered an explanation.
“I blacked out for a moment when we got out, but when I came to, there you were lying on the ground in a dangerous state. I could have left you, but I picked you up and brought you here, so be grateful.”
At his words, those hazy recent memories crystallized back into focus.
The swarms of wasps that appeared in turn, the creature, and Zed bleeding from repeated blows to his head before he fell, and then the silver-haired boy who came after…….
The moment understanding struck, Liriophe jerked to her feet so violently she cracked her head against the low ceiling.
“Ow!”
“Whoa, watch the ceiling!”
The pain in her head was nothing compared to the agony in her Mana Core, which had been pushed far too hard, but that wasn’t the urgent matter now.
“How much time has passed?”
“What?”
“How long was I unconscious?”
Liriophe shouted in a rush, as though she’d completely forgotten about the blade still aimed at her.
The force of her voice made the Red-haired Boy fumble for an answer.
“Well, not long. Of course, without a watch I can’t be sure, but from what I can tell, it’s been less than an hour…….”
Liriophe moved urgently toward the cave entrance.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“My sister’s been captured. I have to go get her right now.”
“Wait, can’t you even see—I mean, your sister’s been captured by those bastards from before?”
All of Liriophe’s attention was elsewhere; no words were reaching her ears properly.
She’d originally meant to dispose of Zed and his associates all at once and return immediately, but somehow the time had slipped away.
She worried for her sister alone, and for some reason she found herself thinking about that silver-haired boy too—the one who’d tried to kill her but then let her live.
The Red-haired Boy, on the other hand, looked deeply unhappy at being ignored by someone who clearly had her mind elsewhere.
“Hey, wait right there. We need to settle our account first, don’t we?”
The point of his blade rose more menacingly toward her.
The sharp edge, pressed so close, looked as though even a small mistake would draw blood and pierce flesh.
“You just breezed right past our agreement, didn’t you? We promised that if something happened to one of us, the survivor would look after the other. But you took your sister and left him in the cave.”
“Exactly! After making such a promise with the boss, you turned your back on us—apologize right now!”
The brown-haired boy behind the Red-haired Boy bobbed his head vigorously, adding his accusations.
Was his name Dino?
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been unconscious, but now he looked worn and worn-thin, though otherwise stable enough.
“And when those people were chasing us, you were the one who threw that snake at me, weren’t you? That’s how I ended up in that giant creature’s belly……. Look, I was gagging just thinking about all those squirming sensations. Ugh.”
“B-boss! Don’t throw up here! Bad enough you smell like that already—if you throw up too, I’m not going to be able to hold it in. Ugh.”
Both boys were retching so badly at mere memories that Liriophe’s own stomach began to turn in sympathy.
“Anyway, in all that time I nearly became some pervert mage’s test subject, and I was almost sold off to the mines to choke on gas and die. I mean, is dying as bug shit really an acceptable way to go? Is it?”
The Red-haired Boy had clearly endured considerable suffering inside that creature’s body.
Liriophe, having experienced something similar herself, couldn’t exactly fault him for his complaints.
The Red-haired Boy’s blade pressed insistently against her arm, punctuating his grievances.
Liriophe glanced down at it, then opened her mouth.
“……I thought you were someone who calculated things carefully.”
The old, chipped blade that Zed had dropped, that Liriophe had picked up, that she’d used to stamp on the silver-haired boy’s foot—now held in the Red-haired Boy’s grip.
“If you truly understood calculation, you’d lower that blade before my eyes right now.”
At those words, the Red-haired Boy’s eyes narrowed.
Like a contest of wills, an invisible, razor-sharp current passed between Liriophe and the Red-haired Boy.
The air in the narrow cave grew heavy with threat and cold in an instant.

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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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