Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 33

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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 33
Either way, there was a strange power in that voice that made it difficult to dismiss or refuse carelessly.
Though there was no reason for it, even Liriope had begun to feel a peculiar persuasiveness in the words being spoken.
“Ugh, haah…….”
Had it not been for Caliona’s strangled whimper, breaking through the suffocating air at that very moment, Liriope might have gone on listening to the boy’s voice indefinitely.
“Sister?”
Liriope’s head snapped toward Caliona reflexively. In doing so, her gaze toward the boy naturally severed.
At that instant, what little expression had remained on Belkiers’s face vanished entirely, but Liriope did not see it.
“Sister, I’m here. Can you hear me?”
“Ugh……. No, I can’t…….”
“Sister?”
“Help me……. No, please help me…….”
But Caliona could not open her eyes, and continued only to mutter in her sleep, cold sweat streaming down her face, her words unintelligible.
“Sister, you’re all right. Open your eyes for me……. Please?”
Flutter.
“Sister…….”
Flutter.
And then—from nowhere, black butterflies began to arrive.
As Liriope tended to Caliona, they came one by one, their delicate wings trembling softly, alighting silently upon her body.
At first, they were merely a trivial black blemish, a mere afterimage brushing the corner of one’s vision—barely noticeable at all.
But as they added to their numbers in silence, endlessly swelling their mass, their oppressive presence became impossible to ignore.
Flap!
“……!”
In an instant, tens, hundreds of butterflies multiplied and beat their wings in a manner that threatened to engulf Caliona’s body.
From her prior unpleasant experience, Liriope could easily discern whose tainted magic this was.
Though the phenomenon was entirely different from before, the intent it carried was far too familiar.
A piercing Killing Intent that bored to the marrow.
“Sister……!”
Liriope hastily pulled Caliona away just before the black butterfly swarm could engulf her completely.
Whoosh!
At that, the butterflies rose up all at once like autumn leaves caught in a gust, their blackness consuming Liriope’s entire field of vision.
“What are you doing……?”
As Liriope lifted her head, her violet eyes emerged from the shadow that had swallowed them.
“What exactly were you trying to do to my sister, you?”
Her voice, compressed and lowered all the way to the ground, was threaded through with a cold chill so intense it could make the finest hairs on a listener’s skin stand on end.
Due to the Cognition Distortion Magic, none of the other children around them were aware of their presence.
In that silence belonging only to two, Liriope’s piercing fury bored relentlessly into Belkiers.
Meeting it head-on without filter, his eyes flickered with the same strange light as before.
“I was merely doing what must be done. Why are you angry?”
“What must be done?”
“Culling those who lack qualifications.”
“Lack qualifications?”
“Yes. That child you just called your sister.”
With a glance as hollow as his casual tone, his eyes dryly skimmed over Caliona in Liriope’s arms.
“It would be better for you too if you let go and left her behind.”
Though his voice carried a faint hint of provocation, it was delivered with a pride so absolute it seemed to recite truth itself.
“Belegot is not lenient enough to survive easily while shackled to a useless Leech like that—one that knows nothing but how to suck the blood of others.”
“……A useless Leech?”
“It would be better for a Leech too to close its eyes in peace now rather than suffer and die in agony.”
Each word that fell from Belkiers’s refined lips seemed aimed deliberately at Liriope, piercing and tearing mercilessly into her chest.
From those wounds so deeply driven, bitter emotions threatened to spill forth. Liriope gritted her teeth hard, forcing them back down.
‘My sister…….’
Liriope’s sister had had to endure nearly half a lifetime of hardship because of that worthless Leech.
In those days when their sisterly bond had been good, how much suffering had Caliona been forced to bear on account of her incompetent younger sister?
Even after she became a wicked sister, Caliona had surely risked her life to save Liriope…….
“……Don’t speak carelessly just because your mouth runs loose.”
Yet now, merely because her body was temporarily unwell, how could everyone alike treat her sister as if she were nothing but useless baggage?
No one had any right to do such a thing.
Her throat felt strained from suppressing the rising passion. As she clenched her fists in a strangling grip, her palms burned where her nails dug in.
Liriope drew a ragged breath, unable to fully contain the violent resentment churning within her chest.
“What do you think you know about my sister to say such things?”
“I don’t understand which part is making you angry.”
At least that remark didn’t seem like he was intentionally provoking her reaction for amusement.
Rather, his gaze—spider-web thin and clinging—seemed to genuinely pierce and search through to Liriope’s very depths, sweeping slowly across her now rigid, pale face.
“Is it an insult to call a human a human, a dog a dog, and a worm a worm?”
Of course, that only further provoked Liriope’s anger.
“Do you have a family?”
At her thin voice—heated to such intensity it seemed to have cooled into something cutting—Belkiers tilted his head slightly to the side.
“If you’re referring to biological blood relations, then there is one person I might call a mother.”
“Right. Judging by how you carelessly spout such repugnant nonsense to someone you hardly know, it seems you haven’t received proper family education from your mother.”
“What?”
“Your mother must be a terribly irresponsible permissive parent, not caring whether her child becomes a rude, thoughtless adult.”
“What did you say?”
“Why? It’s true that your words are repugnant, and it’s also true that your actions are ignorant behavior from someone who never received basic family education. Your mother, who raised you this way, also bears responsibility for her negligence in teaching you. Since I’ve only spoken facts, you shouldn’t have reason to be angry, should you?”
Deliberately contemptuous, barbed and sharp words thrust and tore into the other aggressively.
Then a brief silence followed, as if he had heard something he had not anticipated.
In Belkiers’s widely opened eyes, a glimmering firefly light sparkled.
He seemed startled by Liriope’s words.
As if hearing such things for the first time in his life, his expression—tinged with a raw, bewildered astonishment—laid bare his genuine emotion without filter.
Since Belkiers had shown little more than cool indifference until now, this shift was all the more striking.
Watching his reaction, Liriope felt her anger ease somewhat.
“See? Everyone is told to consider things from another’s perspective. If you heard a complete stranger suddenly curse your family like I just did, you wouldn’t get angry either, would you…….”
“Ha…….”
But Belkiers’s next response was far different from Liriope’s expectations.
“Ha-ha, aha-ha-ha……!”
Astonishingly, he began to laugh.
Bright and clear, with genuine delight, as if he had heard something wonderful—with the pure, innocent face of a boy…….
As his laughter rang in her ears, this time it was Liriope who fell speechless in bewilderment.
And even after his laughter had nearly faded, Belkiers showed a reaction contrary to her expectations, leaving her deflated.
“Ah, that’s certainly true. Since I really am someone who hasn’t learned anything from anywhere.”
“…….”
“So you’re free to curse me more if you like.”
Was he insane?
She hadn’t even praised him—so why did he look so pleased?
Liriope found herself staring at Belkiers with the eyes of someone witnessing something utterly bizarre.

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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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