Memoirs of a Wicked Magician - Chapter 87

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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 87
Liriope had never known what burden Caliona had been carrying alone all this time, from the past until now.
Of course, the past and present were not identical. So perhaps the same events would not unfold as they had before the Time Regression.
Yet when Liriope met her sister again not long ago, she felt traces of the past lingering there. And so she was forced to revisit the future that had vanished.
What had Caliona been thinking when she began consorting with Belegot’s wicked sorcerers? Why had she engaged in such destructive acts, seeking to seize the Calamity’s Power sleeping in the Corrupted Holy Ground?
And… why. Why had she let Liriope live, hidden from her fellow mages’ eyes, only to return as a corpse herself, slain?
Until now, Liriope had known none of these things, but she did not believe she could remain ignorant of them going forward.
She no longer wanted to.
“The truth is, I’d like to always be a good sister to you, so maybe I could act as I pleased and hide everything from you. And perhaps that would be better for both of us. But I don’t want that.”
So this time, she resolved not to let Caliona retreat.
“I don’t want to show you only my good and virtuous side. I want you to accept me and love me even when I’m bad and pathetic.”
“What are you saying…? Of course I don’t care what kind of person you are, Liriope.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Even if I’m far more pitiful than you think? You won’t hate me?”
“I won’t.”
“But I don’t think you trust me enough to believe that.”
And at Liriope’s bitter whisper, Caliona’s eyes wavered for a moment.
“Actually, I don’t have no secrets from you either. So even if there’s something you don’t want to tell me, I understand. I know you do it for my sake too, and I’m grateful.”
After all, no matter how close family, lovers, or friends might be, it was never easy for them to share everything about each other, to lay bare their very depths.
Liriope understood that. She herself had things she found difficult to tell Caliona.
“But I hate the thought of hiding all the truly important things from you, smiling brightly on the surface as though I had no worries at all… only to end up seeing only the beautiful and good in each other, until the moment we truly need someone to lean on, we can’t share our hearts.”
So they could at least try to make an effort.
“Just as you’ll be my sister until the day you die, I’ll be your sister’s sister until the day I die.”
And she wanted her to understand.
“Don’t you forget that, either.”
Just as Caliona was Liriope’s unconditional supporter, Liriope too could be Caliona’s.
So there was no reason for either of them to stand alone.
“Please don’t forget, sister…”
Caliona stood rooted in place as though time had stopped, her breath stilled, her gaze fixed on Liriope’s face for a long moment.
Liriope gazed back at her with eyes so steady and unshakable that it was hard to believe this was the younger sister Caliona had known.
As she looked upon Liriope thus, ripples suddenly appeared on Caliona’s face.
They began small, like a raindrop falling on a lake, but soon spread into a great wave that crashed through her chest.
Her lips, which had parted and closed several times, finally pressed tightly together.
“…Liriope, I understand.”
And at last, Caliona unstuck her feet, which had been rooted to the spot like a stake driven into the ground.
She approached Liriope with slow, careful steps, as one might approach an untamed beast or a small animal wounded unto death.
“What you’re trying to tell me, what you want me to understand…”
Drawing near enough to gaze deeply into Liriope’s eyes,
“I truly do understand it all.”
From Caliona’s lips flowed the words Liriope had longed to hear for so long.
“From now on, I’ll do this. I won’t hide everything from you, won’t decide alone, won’t drift away… I won’t do any of that.”
What tempest stirred within the quietly standing Liriope at that moment, Caliona could not know.
What emotion surged up at finally hearing that promise, welling up and clutching at her heart, she could know even less.
“So don’t do it now, all right? I’d prefer if you didn’t kill Stella.”
A soft, soothing voice flowed forth again, as though caressing Liriope.
“I have something I want to repay in my own way. And it’s not that I’m trying to keep a secret from you—”
At first, even after hearing those words, Liriope did not withdraw her murderous intent toward Stella.
“So Liriope, let’s leave this place together for now.”
But with each gentle caress of her sister’s words flowing into her heart again and again…
the sharp, jagged malice that had lingered in her chest began to soften and blunt.
It seemed Stella’s thread of life was longer than expected.
Carefully, Liriope took the hand Caliona extended toward her.
“Yes, sister. Let’s leave together.”
Just as when they had clasped hands without thought on the day of their reunion, this time too, unlike in the External Estate, Liriope’s Mana was not drawn into Caliona.
Only after confirming this fact once more so clearly did the trembling that had soaked into Caliona’s hand gradually cease.
The two of them finally faced each other properly, holding each other’s gaze for a time, before laughing—neither one beginning first.
It was a bright, joyful laugh that evoked memories of a distant, unclouded happy childhood so vividly that if they were to make a deal with Ode someday in the future and wish to “return to the day I could truly laugh with my sister,” they might not regress further than today.
Liriope withdrew her Mana directed at Stella with a feeling of relief, as though dark clouds had parted after rain—a sensation she had not felt in a very long time.
* * *
“Ah, ahhhhh!”
The spell that had constricted Stella vanished as if it had been a lie.
Stella, who had been unconscious for a moment, awakened only after falling to the floor in a pitiable state with red lines etched across her entire body.
“Huh, hah…?”
She gasped for breath in a panic.
‘What—what is this? Am I alive?’
She hastily felt over her entire body to check, but not a single thread of light that had been burrowing into her flesh could be seen.
Only the red lines etched across her body ached, and she was covered in an ugly mask of blood.
“You damned wench!”
Refusing to yield, Stella activated Domain Design Magic to reclaim the space, and her head snapped up.
But what her eyes beheld was an unbelievable sight.
She had been the one attacked just moments before—yet now before her eyes lay Liriope, bound in Threads of Light.
Worse still, she hung limply as though unconscious, her eyes tightly closed.
Stella gaped like a fool, unable to comprehend what was happening.
Crack!
Shatter!
“Stella, how dare you commit such atrocities!”
Just then, a Sharp Wind suddenly came cutting through from somewhere, mercilessly severing the threads that bound Liriope.
A figure caught Liriope firmly as she fell through the severed web of threads.
“I warned you plainly not to cause trouble. Yet the moment I turned away, you’re at it again with this petty nonsense!”
It was none other than Caliona who had suddenly appeared to unleash a torrent of recriminations upon Stella.

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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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