Beep?

Beep?

It’s the first time I’ve seen Han A-rin so shocked.

I’m not sure if it’s right to express it as fortunate.

Han A-rin, while not screaming, repeated an unidentifiable performance art in front of us, making all sorts of gestures indicating she was extremely shocked.

“Uhehe?”

She immediately broke down and slumped to the floor.

Watching this, Chae-a tilted her head in confusion, not understanding Han A-rin’s condition. She gently poked her cheek and tilted her head again.

“Big sister is broken.”

Then, after staring blankly at Han A-rin’s face, she made a ‘hmm’ sound, hugged Han A-rin tightly, and turned around to say.

“Then, since Chae-a is the oldest sister now…! You have to listen well to Chae-a, okay?”

Yuna, who witnessed this sudden (not really) battle for the throne.

Realizing that the tide had turned in Chae-a’s favor, she immediately pledged her loyalty to Chae-a.

“Okay.”

Watching this, I thought that Yuna would survive anywhere she goes, and as I was patting her head.

Suddenly, the Spirit User Uncle who had entered my lair approached us with a very confused expression.

“Um… What’s going on?”

Not only his expression but also his voice was full of bewilderment, making it easy to guess his emotions.

Hearing this question, I quickly explained the situation.

“Chae-a says she wants to be buried.”

“Buried? Where?”

In response to this question, Chae-a stepped in to answer instead of me.

“Ground!”

“What?”

“Because sprouts go into the ground too… Chae-a wants to go too!”

“Ah.”

The Spirit User Uncle quickly assessed the situation, perhaps because he had children of his own.

He vigorously patted Chae-a’s head while speaking.

“I understand what you’re saying, but from now on, you shouldn’t say you want to be buried, okay? And Ha-eun, you too.”

Why is he talking to me?

I stared blankly at the Spirit User Uncle, not understanding, but.

The Spirit User Uncle blatantly ignored my gaze and continued speaking.

“Anyway, let’s stop this conversation, and as for Ms. A-rin… I’ll take care of it and come back.”

The Spirit User Uncle sighed and quickly shook Han A-rin’s shoulder.

*

It had been an extremely shocking event (for Han A-rin).

However, since the important thing was to get the examination, Han A-rin quickly regained her composure and took us to the examination room within the association.

The examination room was a bit different from what I knew.

From my knowledge, one had to go through a somewhat complicated process of moving between examination areas divided by floors to receive related tests, but.

‘Here, you just need to enter a white room and come out, that’s all.’

Because the examination was completed in such a simple way here.

It had incredible convenience, finishing all tests in just 10 seconds by mixing in a few processes.

‘Mana is truly amazing.’

While I was thinking how interesting it was, considering it a technology that makes the impossible possible.

Yuna, with her tail drooping, clung to my side and warned me in a small voice about one danger.

“You have to be careful. If you let your guard down, they might stab you all over with sharp metal needles.”

The experience of being pricked by a needle seems to have left a strong impression on her mind.

Yuna is trying hard to protect me, quickly scanning the surroundings.

I shook my head at Yuna to indicate that it’s okay, but she shook her head back as if to say absolutely not, and continued to be on guard.

‘Well, needles are scary indeed.’

While I was sighing, understanding her feelings,

Chae-a quickly approached me and said one thing.

“Hey. I wonder if Sprout is doing well!?”

Actually, it would be more correct to call it a seed rather than a sprout.

Not wanting to point out that she was wrong, I just nodded.

Chae-a crossed her arms, went “Hmm” in thought, and then whispered to us softly.

“I wanna go see Sprout. I think Sprout might be crying because it’s lonely.”

It’s hard to completely deny Chae-a’s words because.

Considering that the reason the World Tree seedling withered was ‘loneliness’, Sprout might also be feeling lonely as Chae-a said.

“Then shall we go see it?”

Thinking it might be good to check at least once, I suggested we go, and Chae-a and Yuna nodded simultaneously.

Now that everyone’s opinion was unified, I thought it would be good to leave right away and was about to head to the lair.

“Oh, kids? It’s late now, so why don’t we go tomorrow?”

Han A-rin, who had regained her senses, tried to calm us down and pulled us inside.

Chae-a whined and showed a small rebellion against Han A-rin at this action.

“I want to see Sprout…! If we don’t go now, Sprout will cry…”

“That’s right.”

Although she tried to rebel, Han A-rin firmly rejected Chae-a’s opinion and said resolutely.

“No.”

At the firm opposition, Chae-a made a sullen face and pouted.

Then, as if she had a good idea, she stretched her body and said.

“If you don’t let Chae-a go…! Chae-a will roar! As scary as Squirrel Oppa!”

I’m not sure what connection there is between squirrels and roaring.

But looking at the context, since she’s calling it Squirrel Oppa, oppa means someone older and therefore scary.

And roaring is what scary tigers do…

So maybe she’s threatening to do something extremely scary by combining two scary things. Probably.

As I blinked at Chae-a, who was raising her hands like a red panda trying to be threatening,

Yuna next to me grabbed my hand, trembling, and said quietly.

“… It’s scary.”

“…?”

It seems more cute than scary to me…!

As I was blinking, thinking I really couldn’t understand no matter how I looked at it, Han A-rin picked up Chae-a and said.

“If you go see the sprout, the ice cream that unnie prepared will melt and you won’t be able to eat it. Do you really want to go see the sprout?”

The moment Chae-a heard the word ice cream, she exclaimed ‘Ah…!’ with a surprised, blank expression.

Then, after making a gesture as if thinking about something, she squeezed out words urgently.

“The, the sprout also wants to be alone…! So I’ll see it tomorrow!”

At Chae-a’s reaction, Han A-rin’s lips twitched as if trying to hold back laughter.

Ha-eun soon cleared her throat playfully and said:

“Didn’t you say the seedling was lonely? I think we should go see it.”

“… Okay!”

Han A-rin couldn’t hold back her laughter at Chae-a’s reaction and burst out laughing loudly.

I was smiling along, enjoying the sight.

Chae-a, who was the only one being serious, said to Han A-rin:

“But you know, Chae-a likes strawberry ice cream. She likes peaches too.”

At that subtle hint, Han A-rin nodded and said she would prepare strawberry ice cream.

* * *

As you know, I do various training exercises at night.

For example, stretching to grow taller, training to control my tail freely, exercises to enlarge my palms, and even mana circulation training.

I spend time growing by doing all sorts of things.

In other words, it meant that at night I had time to do what I wanted without adult interference.

To put it more simply, it meant that at night there was ‘a time when adults were not around’!

“Yeah. Let’s go see the seedling…!”

This meant that there was no one to stop us no matter what we did.

Chae-a, being very clever, ate two strawberry ice creams but suggested we go meet the seedling.

Even I, who would normally have refused, nodded in agreement, strangely feeling more and more concerned about the seed (seedling).

Yuna raised one problem in a worried voice:

“It’s scary at night. There are tigers.”

It was about how it could be dangerous because it’s dark.

Chae-a had a somewhat worried expression due to the seriousness of the matter.

But soon, as if she had a good idea, she picked up Somteol who was munching on leaves and suggested it would be okay.

“It’ll be okay if we have Somteol!”

“Beep!”

“That’s right. It seems like it’ll be fine if we do that.”

Although I couldn’t understand at all why it would be okay.

As everyone seemed to accept it, I was silently listening.

Chae-a brought a children’s blanket called Tiny Tiny Pang Pang from nearby, threw it over our heads, and said.

“If we wear this, we won’t get caught!”

Then, looking like baby ghosts, she scurried forward and said.

“Shall we go then?”

We both nodded simultaneously at Chae-a’s words.

* * *

The association is dark around 10 PM.

Of course, it wasn’t extremely dark, and we could still discern things due to the streetlights outside and the faint light coming from the distant corridors.

But compared to daytime, it was quite dark, so the three of us were wandering around the association, dragging our blankets in a tense state.

“Ch-Chae-a is not scared at all. Because Chae-a is as scary as Squirrel oppa…!”

“Me too.”

“Let’s go this way.”

Chae-a pretended to be confident to overcome her fear.

Yuna, though scared, calmly responded to Chae-a’s words.

I calmed down such little ones and showed them the way to go.

Of course, they were finding their way well even without my guidance, but just in case, I was carefully heading towards my lair while paying attention to each one.

In the distance, I noticed something huge and blurry approaching this place.

‘…?’

What could that be?

As I was squinting my eyes, thinking it looked somewhat ghostly and fluid-like.

Suddenly, the blurry and enormous something began rapidly approaching us at high speed.

As this unidentifiable entity drew closer to us.

As if rehearsed, we grabbed each other’s hands and quickly started running away.

“Peep?”

Except for Somteol.

It was summer.