episode_0027

The fear and anxiety that had been felt just a moment ago now felt like a dream. Pia looked at Ryan with a blank expression.

“Why? Did you see something scary? A ghost, perhaps?”

As Ryan nodded, he began to tell an absurd story with a serious expression. Perhaps because she had been so scared and then suddenly relieved, Pia couldn’t control her expression as usual.

“Don’t forget the horizon coordinates and the water oak -”

“Haha… Stop, it hurts… I can’t take it…”

When was the last time she laughed this much?

Perhaps due to the sudden release of pent-up emotions, laughter continued to flow.

“If you’re not coming in, what are you doing?”

“Oh, I was having a very important conversation.”

“Haha…”

A conversation that would have normally been unpleasant sounded amusing. Pia found herself not rejecting such an unexpected feeling of amusement.

“If it’s such an interesting conversation, come inside and have it. I want to hear it too.”

Ryan and Noah went into the restaurant, leaving Pia alone. She tried to swallow her laughter and enter the restaurant.

{Are you having fun, sis?}

“…?!”

If her sister’s voice hadn’t returned, she would have certainly felt that way. The laughter that had been forming on her lips quickly subsided, and a chilling fear spread throughout her body.

“How could I have fun? You killed me, didn’t you?”

“No, no…”

{If you had tried a little harder, I could have definitely survived. But you let me die. You abandoned me. So, it’s no different from killing me.}

The terror that felt like being thrown into a deep pit began to gnaw at Pia again. Instinctively, she grabbed the door handle of the restaurant.

“Sis? Where are you going? Are you trying to leave me again?”

The words that reached her caused fear to surge. Pia’s mind was filled only with thoughts of fear and the need to escape.

As we urgently opened the restaurant door and stepped inside, the auditory hallucinations faded and then disappeared. Pia’s gaze turned towards Lilly, who seemed to have just started her meal.

“Ah, my sister.”

Pia, in a half-distracted state, received her food and headed towards where Lilly was.

“…Lilly, is it tasty?”

“Sister, are you feeling unwell?”

“No?”

How could I possibly feel unwell? It should be you who feels unwell.

The auditory hallucinations ceased, but the words whispered by the hallucination lingered like burn marks, endlessly tormenting Pia.

“This is all because of the ghosts.”

It was Lian who once again pulled her out of the troubled waters in the dark room. As Lian earnestly spoke about exorcism methods, the fear that had been gnawing at Pia’s mind vanished in an instant.

“Oh! Jess, amazing!”

“Amazing!”

As they looked at the bustling scenery, laughter bubbled up. For the first time since becoming a slave, Pia burst into hearty laughter.

However, there was someone who did not appreciate this situation.

“Damn it…! Why does the magic keep breaking? Could it be that some kind of protective spell was cast?”

It was all due to Lian’s comedy filter, but there was no way for anyone to know that.

“If this continues, I’ll have to cast even stronger magic.”

With a flicker in his eyes, Dovan gathered magic and cast a dreadful black magic spell on Pia’s bed. Dovan shrugged and let out a displeasing laugh, like a deflated balloon.

Rustle -.

“..!”

Suddenly, amidst the laughter, Dovan, startled, hunched his shoulders like a frightened mouse. Then, he quickly glanced around, rolling his eyes.

Caw -.

“Tsk…”

A crow roamed around a pile of garbage, letting out its distinctive cry. Thinking it was a demon, Dovan tensed up, then sighed in relief.

“I’ll get that slave as soon as possible and leave this place!”

Doban added more magic to Pia’s bed with a sinister smile. Thanks to the unpleasant and quiet movements, like bugs crawling among piles of garbage, he could avoid being noticed by Mia.

However, he was noticed by someone else.

“Huh, I thought you’d run away to die, but here you are stuck in here.”

Tan skin, bright hair between yellow and orange, eyes that couldn’t tell if they were open or closed.

The Four Kings’ Jisoo was looking down at Doban from a place quite far away where he was hiding, on top of a tall building. Behind him, a woman dressed in a suit and with her hair tied up like a cat spoke in a gruff voice.

“It seems there is another purpose.”

“Is there something more important than life? Interesting?”

“Shall I catch him?”

“Nah, let’s see what treasure he brings.”

Jisoo shrugged his shoulders with a loose laugh.

***

“This is also part of education, so you should leave now.”

“But…”

“Lian.”

“Okay.”

He came to the kitchen to do the dishes and ended up being chased away. The reason was that the children had to do the cleanup themselves.

The sight of children, almost 10 years old, doing the dishes might have looked like child abuse, but for the children, learning was a matter directly related to survival.

There was nothing to do once out of the kitchen. There was nothing to do here without even a radio, except meditation.

“Sigh… Since there’s something to worry about. Should I take a walk?”

The worries that had been pushed into a corner suddenly raised their heads, with no solution or clue.

“Haah…”

What popped out was a sigh.

Iris was originally supposed to be sold to Odil’s laboratory and live as an experimental subject. Before she could be captured by the slave trader, Odil ran away, and the laboratory burned down completely.

The original plan had been completely twisted from the beginning.

“Ugh… She’s not really dead, right?”

A sense of frustration surged. The original work that could have been used as a cheat code was completely distorted from the beginning, so it was of no help.

“I wish I could confirm life and death. But I can’t leave here… Should I ask Mia to run an errand for me? No, no. Even if she allows it, I’ll be caught by slave traders in no time and sold again.”

Other opinions such as “Ask Mia to go shopping together,” “Sneak out of the mansion to find Iris,” “Find useful tools that seem dangerous in the mansion and track Iris” were all useless.

Pavabath.

I screamed inwardly while tossing my head wildly.

“Ugh! Seriously! There’s no way to meet Iris without going outside!”

While screaming inwardly and crying, a bold idea flashed in my mind.

“Oh? Can’t I just ask Mia?”

Mia was a cool-headed black magician, but she subtly listened to Lian’s requests.

“Because she’s been listening to my requests well lately…”

Mia, whose mental state had recently deteriorated, easily granted small favors. I immediately turned towards the direction of the laboratory.

“If I do it right, she might help, right?”

As the thought of obtaining information about Iris came to mind, various ideas bounced around in my head. Before I knew it, my steps quickened and my breathing became rough.

“Haa, haa!”

Thanks to the fast run, I arrived in front of Mia’s laboratory in no time.

“Phew…”

After taking a deep breath, I cautiously knocked and then entered.

“Hmm… What’s up?”

Mia was slouched in her chair with a vacant expression. Since she often sprawled out like this after tidying up documents, I went in without being surprised.

“Um, Mia, could you… help me find someone?”

“Huh…”

Mia looked at me with a forced smile. Her eyes were filled with a hint of anger and irritation.

No matter how well Mia treated me, asking her to help me like a mercenary, despite my being a slave, was crossing the line.

But I had a reason to demand this confidently!

“I’m worried about my little sister who looks just like me.”

“Sister…?”

“My sister with the same ‘lineage’ as me.”

“Same lineage… a new test subject…”

Mia’s crumpled expression quickly became bewildered. If Mia, who was very interested in my body, found it interesting, it would be a story worth telling.

‘I can do whatever it takes to bring her here!’

I could do to Iris what I did to Mia, but I wasn’t too worried.

As Iris was a descendant of a hero, she had a much better recovery ability than an ordinary person, but not as much as me.

‘It’s impossible for a skull to come back.’

Seeing the relatively ordinary(?) appearance of Iris, I would quickly stop the experiment.

If Mia got angry and sold Iris, or if she didn’t stop experimenting on Iris, I could show the surprising mystery of the resident jester.

‘I’ll just introduce them to the organs roughly.’

If the lips and eyes of the organ said, “Excuse me, pretty lady, do you have time?” while handing over a rose from an unknown place, I could somehow pass it on.

But if that didn’t work, I could bring up the excuse I always laid out before coming here, that “if I suffer a mental shock, my body weakens,” and lie that my recovery is slow because I don’t have a sibling.

“What does your sister look like?”

Mia seemed to be completely captivated by my words, her eyes sparkling, as she leaned forward. Unintentionally, her gaze shifted downward before returning to Mia’s face.

Coughing, Iris revealed that she was a slave and described her appearance.