Chapter 09
“Where is she?”
“Uh, upstairs, in the bedroom, on the bed…”
While the flustered Sis stammered, Asuka strode up the stairs. Sis, coming to her senses a step too late, ran after him.
“Y-You can’t just barge in!”
Is he trying to take advantage while my guard is down? Bad adult!
But when Sis, fully angry, entered the room, what she saw was a very unexpected scene.
“…”
Asuka was pressing the back of his hand against the forehead of the lying Lelsis. Sis realized that this posture resembled the orphanage director checking the temperature of sick children.
Before long, Asuka let out a faint sigh of relief.
“So she was just asleep.”
“Yeah, it was a bet to see who falls asleep first, but I lost.”
“Indeed, she sleeps well.”
Asuka chuckled. For a moment, Sis’s guard nearly crumbled at the unexpected smile, but she steeled herself and put on a deliberately sulky face.
“I didn’t open the door for you.”
“Ah, sorry, I was in a hurry. Should I go back out?”
“Hmm, but Ash, you can come in whenever you want whether I open the door or not.”
“That’s true.”
“Then what’s the point of keeping the door closed?”
“You’re really smart.”
Asuka knelt down in front of Sis and pressed his index finger to his lips.
“Keep it a secret that I came in on my own. She probably wouldn’t like it.”
“…Hmph, fine. I’ll let it slide this once!”
Six-year-old Sis couldn’t understand overly difficult words. But she could understand what ‘rival’ or ‘worst of the worst’ meant.
‘It means they’re not friends.’
A relationship where they don’t want to meet each other and don’t play together.
But it was strange.
Lelsis, who was so disgusted by Asuka, didn’t actually seem to hate him at all.
Rather…
“Have you had lunch?”
Just then, Asuka suddenly asked. Sis, hardening her softened heart, became alert.
“…Uh-huh, not yet.”
“Good timing. I bought something delicious.”
“De-Delicious?”
Asuka lifted the bag he was holding. A very appetizing smell wafted out from inside.
*Growl.* A loud sound echoed from Sis’s stomach.
“Do you want to eat this with me now, or wait until your mom wakes up and gives you permission?”
“…”
“For your information, food gets cold and tastes bad. I’ll give you 10 seconds to choose. 10, 9, 8…”
“Waah, I want to eat!”
Sis’s last remaining thread of wariness crumbled away.
—
Opening the door to the mansion’s dining room as if familiar with it, Asuka seated Sis at the table and began preparing the meal.
‘Preparing’ was just taking out the packaged food, but regardless, Sis had already lost her mind at the appetizing food smell.
“Here you go.”
Asuka even pulled out the dining chair for her with a rather kind demeanor. Sis quickly took her seat and nimbly picked up her utensils.
Adult Lelsis was great in many ways, but the food was horribly bad. Recalling the taste of the first meal she had, Sis unconsciously shook her head.
‘This isn’t my fault. It’s my cooking-idiot big sister’s fault.’
Having rationalized that, little Sis began happily tearing into the warm bread.
“How is it?”
Sis, munching away, stared intently at Asuka. Even while scanning him with wary eyes, she never stopped eating.
After devouring one piece of bread in an instant, Sis reached her spoon toward the soup but suddenly stopped.
After carefully examining the chunks in the white soup, Sis made a sulky face, *Hmph.*
Noticing something, Asuka asked.
“You don’t eat mushrooms?”
“Yeah…”
At the listless answer, Asuka chuckled.
“You’re really her daughterāyou have the exact same taste. Give it here.”
He promptly took the soup bowl to his side and began picking out the large mushroom chunks one by one. Sis’s eyes went wide.
“Wow.”
His hands were surprisingly fast, as if he’d done it many times before. In an instant, Asuka removed all the mushrooms from the mushroom soup.
“Hey, Ash, do you hate mushrooms too?”
“Yeah, I hate them.”
At the blunt answer, Sis was shocked.
‘There are adults who don’t have to eat mushrooms!’
The director was a liar! She said if I didn’t eat them, I’d stay a little kid forever!
Feeling betrayed, the mushroom-hating little one trembled her shoulders. Then, a sudden question occurred to her, and Sis looked at Asuka.
He was a very handsome oppa. For someone with that face to be a picky eater seemed somehow unfitting.
“Ash, you look like you’d eat everything well. Why do you hate mushrooms?”
“Why do I hate them?”
As if chewing over the question, Asuka blinked once and then answered simply.
“It’s contagious.”
“Contagious? Is hating mushrooms a disease?”
“It’s not a disease, but it does spread.”
“Why? From whom?”
Asuka chuckled and lightly tapped Sis’s forehead with his finger.
“Ask your mom.”
Normally, ‘ask someone else’ was a technique adults used to avoid answering.
Sis didn’t ask further and focused on her meal. Only the sound of utensils clinking echoed through the quiet dining room.
Breaking the calm silence, Asuka spoke up.
“…Can I ask you something too?”
“Uh-huh.”
Sis nodded without a second thought.
“What kind of person is your father?”
At that moment, the child’s constantly moving hand stopped.
—
The young Dawn Tower Master had been relentlessly busy for a while.
He was already occupied with reviewing the flood of research documents and handling various agenda items, but on top of that, an incident had occurred.
—
*’The timeline has been disturbed.’*
—
Magic doesn’t always have only good effects on the world. As powerful as it is, there is a clear risk of causing great chaos or taking many lives.
That is why the Magic Association was established.
They designated certain magics that mages must never perform as taboos and strictly monitored them to ensure they were not violated.
And one of those taboos was interfering with the timeline.
As soon as the anomaly was discovered, the Magic Association requested cooperation, and the Dawn Tower launched a related investigation.
Emergency meetings were held several times, communications with the Association were made, data was received with the cooperation of the Investigation Bureau, and likely suspects were narrowed down…
The first time he had some free time was today. He visited Lelsis’s mansion. Since it happened to be lunchtime, he brought packaged food.
With a hint of fatigue, he pressed the doorbell and waited. Small footsteps approached from inside.
It wasn’t the presence of an adult. If so.
“…A daughter?”
“Ash?”
Why was the child alone? That was the first thought that came to mind, above all else.
“Where’s Rel? Is she not home?”
“No, she’s here, but she passed out a little while ago.”
“…Passed out?”
At the child’s words, Asuka forced the door open without a moment’s thought.
Since their academy days, Lelsis never knew how to take care of herself. She would overexert herself by cutting back on sleep, resulting in nosebleeds or fainting spells more than once or twice.
Asuka enjoyed the fact that Lelsis’s competitive spirit was entirely directed at him, but he didn’t like it when Lelsis suffered because of it.
He still vividly remembered the midterm exams of the final semester.
Lelsis, who had studied all night to beat him, had collapsed with a high fever.
Looking at Lelsis, who was sleeping like the dead in the infirmary bed, Asuka felt a very unfamiliar and immense void.
Lelsis, who would open her fox-like eyes and growl whenever she saw him, was so quiet. Even though he was right beside her.
In that moment, Asuka felt as if he had been erased from the world. It was something he never wanted to experience again.
‘She shouldn’t get sick on a whim.’
You’re the only one who deals with me.
Asuka entered through the open door of the upstairs room and immediately found Lelsis lying on the bed.
He first checked if she had a fever. Placing the back of his hand on her forehead, he felt a lukewarm temperature.
Only after thoroughly checking did he finally feel at ease.
“So she was just asleep.”
“Yeah, it was a bet to see who falls asleep first, but I lost.”
“Indeed, she sleeps well.”
Asuka turned his head toward the window through which bright sunlight was pouring in. As he moved his fingers, the curtains slid shut and the room grew dim.
“I didn’t open the door for you.”
Just then, Lelsis’s daughter protested with a sulky face.
“Ah, sorry, I was in a hurry. Should I go back out?”
“Hmm, but Ash, you can come in whenever you want whether I open the door or not.”
“That’s true.”
“Then what’s the point of keeping the door closed?”
“You’re really smart.”
Lelsis’s young daughter resembled her mother.
