episode_0013

“Visitors are coming today.”

“Visitors? Should we prepare some tea and cookies then?”

“Well, it would be nice if we did.”

Mia savored the memory of the cookies Lian had baked. The cookies, with chunks of chocolate, were so sweet that her usual expression was momentarily disrupted.

“Come to think of it, what is that black thing?”

She wondered briefly before dismissing it. Mia lacked talent in cooking, so it was a rare case to consider having talent in alchemy.

And so, an ordinary day began as usual.

***

Ding-.

With a cheerful chime, the oven stopped.

“Where -..”

As she opened the oven, a rush of heat poured out. I familiarly took out the pan with the cookies on it.

“Hehe, they’re well done.”

On the kitchen table, the cookies were piled up like a mountain. Thanks to thinking of the kids, she had baked a lot.

“Oh..”

“Wow…”

As the sweet smell of cookies spread, the children peeked into the kitchen entrance, gazing at the cookies.

“We’ll give you some after dinner. Everyone stay calm, okay?”

“Yeah!”

“Yes!”

The children, who had started receiving education from Noah since yesterday, were able to speak simple words.

“Now… should I prepare something else before the visitors arrive?”

There was a need to tidy up the space for the guests and find the tea to serve. I murmured while holding the handle of the kitchen drawer.

“I’m sure the tea should have been here -.”

Muttering thus, as I opened the door, I found a glass bottle containing tea leaves.

“Today’s my lucky day.”

The world of comedy has a few rules. If various items are piled up, they are treated as a lump and appear brown or gray, or when rummaging through a pile of things, something never seen before may pop out.

There is a hint of something inside right now, and sometimes things that weren’t there appear. Of course, it doesn’t always happen. It was something that happened if you were really lucky.

“I thought I had to do it about 245 times, but I’m lucky.”

Frantically opening and closing the drawer repeatedly was quite laborious, but as someone from the comedy world, opening and closing the door as fast as the wind was nothing.

“The car is ready, so let’s go get the other things.”

Leaving the car on one side, he rushed out of the kitchen. It seemed that the children gathered in front of the kitchen were being led away by Noah and Pia.

“It’s heartwarming.”

Seeing the children who were starving to death in prison now living their “daily lives” made him feel proud. As he wiped his chin with his index finger, his waist felt sturdy.

“…Um, Jess?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Hanging out with Miss J.”

Jess answered, hanging onto my back and mumbling.

“Why…?”

“To protect Miss J.”

His words touched and pained me. Is this what it feels like to raise a daughter?

“Yeah, let’s stay together today.”

“Yeah.”

I started cleaning while still carrying Jess on my waist. Because Jess was a water creature, it wasn’t too difficult.

“Phew, this should be okay, right?”

Wiping the sweat that trickled down with my sleeve, I looked at the sparkling reception room.

Swaying gently.

I could feel Jess, hanging on my waist, wagging his tail. Occasionally, the tip of his tail tapped my thigh.

“Now let’s start getting ready for dinner.”

“Yeah!”

With his head raised, Jess, buried on my back, replied in a bright voice.

Thud!

His tail began to wag vigorously. I was worried that he might hurt himself. To prevent Jess’s tail from falling off, I hurriedly headed towards the dining room.

***

On one side of the reception room, there was a full-length mirror over 2 meters tall. The mirror began to ripple as if someone had thrown a stone into the water.

Zing -..

With a strange sound, the surface of the mirror began to vibrate more roughly, and a sparkling shoe tip popped out from below the mirror.

“Ugh.”

As if someone was stretching out from inside, a person emerged from the mirror.

“Hmm, looks like I arrived safely.”

The emerging figure, Dovan, shook the small cane he held in his hand while rubbing his jawbone noisily. Then, Dovan’s figure became transparent. Smiling happily at his perfect black magic, he quickly scanned the anteroom.

“Ah… as expected, this place lacks beauty… huh?”

Just as he was appreciating the somewhat well-matched space, Dovan’s gaze flashed towards the sparkling floor.

“W-what is this… Gasp?”

Only belatedly did he realize that the glimmer extended not only on the floor but also up the walls.

“W-what’s going on…!”

In awe, as he took a step forward.

Creak!

“Oof…!”

Dovan tripped over his own feet and stumbled forward. The floor was so rough and gritty that the friction caused his foot to catch, making him fall forward.

Thud!

“Ugh…!”

Falling frog-style onto the floor, Dovan grabbed his chin and got up.

“This woman, she set up quite a convincing trap.”

Though he wanted to immediately blast all the places with dark magic and blow them up, he suppressed that urge.

“Sigh… I have to endure it to obtain the poison grass.”

Dovan hadn’t initially planned to sneak into Mia’s stronghold. He had intended to give Mia suitable materials in exchange for the poison grass he desired.

“Damn woman, what kind of experiment is she doing! She doesn’t even understand aesthetics!”

Mia had refused Dovan’s request, wanting to experiment with the poison grass on Lian.

After repeated experimental failures, Dovan, driven mad, plotted to sneak into Mia’s stronghold and steal the poison grass.

“I just need to quietly steal the poison grass and make my escape!”

Eyes flashing, he slowly left the anteroom.

Clack.

He opened the door and stuck his head out. The deep purple floor and beige walls caught his eye first. Because it was made of expensive mahogany, the house had a purplish-black hue mixed with black overall.

“Fortunately, I wasn’t caught.”

Feeling relieved that nothing seemed suspicious, he opened the door and stepped out.

“Haha, if it weren’t for Lady Rania’s choice, I would have been discarded. It’s inevitable that there’s such a difference in skill.”

He sneered and waved his cane.

“Now, point to where the poison is.”

As he said this, a black aura visible only to Dovan shot forward. Dovan began to move forward following the light.

“Let’s go there.”

“Yeah!”

After a while, faint voices of young children could be heard. Dovan furrowed his eyebrows as he thought.

“Hah, claiming not to be interested in human experiments, acting all high and mighty, but secretly doing it like a little mouse? Ridiculous.”

Dovan chuckled to himself.

“Heh, should I play a little prank like this?”

Dovan lightly clenched his fist and exerted force on his hand. As a result, his sturdy arm began to twitch wildly.

This was because the parasites inside his arm were reacting to the magic and moving vigorously. Dovan led the parasites out of his hand with magic.

As a result, the palm slightly tore open, and something like a centipede crawled out from inside. It was about the length of an adult man’s middle finger and covered in a dark red liquid as if soaked in old blood.

“If I plant this guy, I might see quite an interesting scene.”

Holding the wriggling parasite, he approached the two children walking back and forth. The parasite squirmed disgustingly.

“Alright, go—”

The moment Dovan threw the parasite at the children, Lian walked out from around the corridor corner. She had just finished putting the cleaning tools used in the reception room into the tool cabinet and was heading towards the dining room.

Jesse, who was attached to Lian’s back, was torn off in the middle by Noah, who told Lian not to be hard on her and left alone.

“…! Hyeong!”

“Oong!”

The two kids started running towards Lian with excited faces. As a result, the detached parasite fell to the ground. But that wasn’t the end of the problem.

Because if the parasite stayed outside the body for too long, it would gradually weaken and die, it desperately tried to return to its original body. As a result, the fallen parasite flew up and landed on Dovan’s face, who was wickedly laughing.

“Huh? What are you guys doing here?”

“Eating something!”

“Oong!”

When the two kids made a gesture as if they were eating with their hands, Lian nodded her head and said, “Were you going to eat?”

“Yeah!”

“Oong!”

The kids, who had just started talking, nodded with a small smile. They couldn’t smile innocently yet, as the dreadful experience hadn’t completely faded.

“Darn brat!”

Dovan grabbed the parasite trying to burrow into his eye and threw it to the ground, then turned his head to look at Lian.

“…!”

Dovan’s expression, which included Lian in his sight, went blank. Before dozens of seconds had passed, his eyes became filled with greed.