IATAOTHKG | CHAPTER 114

[CHAPTER 114]

“What? Meyna…….”

Nyniel clung tightly to Meyna’s arm and pleaded, her lips trembling with desperation.

Theon kept glancing around, shaking with fear.

The two children, who looked exactly alike, stood side by side with their chestnut-colored eyes shimmering with a bright light.

‘It’s white.’

It was not black.

Then… can I believe what these children are saying?

“Wait a moment, Nyniel.”

Meyna gently wrapped her hand around Nyniel’s, who was gripping her with all her strength, and met her gaze.

“Can you tell me a little more about Mother?”

“Um—.”

Nyniel lowered her eyes at an angle and chewed on her lips, then glanced at Theon standing beside her.

‘Not here.’

Theon silently mouthed the words and widened his eyes at his younger sister.

“So, Meyna—.”

“Hey.”

Theon cut off Nyniel just as she was about to answer.

“Why!”

“You can’t talk about it here.”

“What if someone hears?”

“But when morning comes……!”

“Shh. Quiet.”

After scolding his sister rather sternly, Theon looked at Meyna.

“Come with us to the secret house.”

“Then we’ll tell you.”

Though his face looked only about sixteen or seventeen at most, Theon’s eyes as he waited for Meyna’s decision were sharp and serious.

Meyna fell into thought.

Nyniel’s claim that Mother was not their real mother.

The siblings’ behavior, as if they were hiding something yet desperately wanted to confide it.

There were too many things that bothered her to dismiss them as mere childish antics.

After all, even if she had heard Mother’s story from the villagers, the woman’s behavior had been anything but ordinary.

And there was also Amali’s terrifying smile that Meyna had witnessed in that brief moment.

“Alright, kids.”

“Let’s go to the secret house together.”

“Yay—!”

As Meyna spoke with resolve, Nyniel bounced in place with excitement, and joy spread across Theon’s face as well, which had been tense the whole time.

“But can I go up to the second floor for a moment first?”

Meyna gestured with her eyes toward the second-floor guest room window of the mansion.

It was the room where Caliph was sleeping.

She intended to explain the situation to him before heading to the children’s secret house.

Her intuition told her she might learn something about the dungeon’s core.

“Why?”

Theon asked, instantly bristling like a stray cat.

Meyna hesitated, unable to answer easily.

She could not explain that this place was a dungeon, or that they were outsiders with special abilities who had come to destroy it, or that even the villagers could not be trusted without caution.

“There’s a friend sleeping in the guest room upstairs.”

Meyna answered in a way suited to the children’s perspective.

“We promised not to leave the yard.”

She added gently.

“Wouldn’t it be better to tell him first?”

“If I disappeared without a word, he’d be really surprised.”

After thinking it over, Nyniel smiled softly.

“I’d be really scared and start crying if my brother disappeared while I was asleep too.”

Unlike Nyniel, Theon nodded reluctantly with an unhappy expression.

“But you can’t take too long.”

“Alright.”

Meyna patted each of the siblings on the head in turn.

“I’ll be right back, so you both have to wait here.”

“Okay!”

“You really have to come back quickly.”

Just as Meyna turned her back on the nodding children and was about to enter the mansion, the lights in the first-floor parlor turned on.

“Gasp……!”

Nyniel’s sharp intake of breath sounded behind her.

When Meyna turned around, the children, on the verge of tears, rushed about and each grabbed one of her wrists.

“Meyna, please.”

Theon looked up at her with teary chestnut eyes, full of desperation.

“We can’t let Grandpa Holter see us……!”

Through the gap in the parlor curtains, Holter’s silhouette was visible.

Wearing his coat, he slowly paced the room as if he were about to step outside for some reason.

The dark guest room window on the second floor.

And the children’s faces, twisted with fear.

Meyna looked between the two in turmoil, then made her decision.

“Let’s go.”

“Kids.”

She could not ignore their plea.

* * *

Deep in the night, the road was pitch-dark due to the lack of streetlights.

With one hand held by each child, Meyna hurried through the dark alley as if fleeing.

Dodobodo!

Nyniel and Theon, walking diligently on their short legs, clutched Meyna’s hands tightly, putting their full weight into them.

As if it would be disastrous to let go.

“The secret house is a place only my brother and I know.”

“It’s at the end of this alley!”

“We’re almost there.”

Chirping like sparrows, Theon and Nyniel kept craning their necks to check Meyna’s face.

Despite the cool weather, beads of sweat formed on all three of their foreheads.

After walking a long way and turning several corners, the alley suddenly grew narrow and darker.

Tall walls rose on both sides, and a strange smell of burning filled the air.

“What is that smell?”

As Meyna murmured to herself, Theon jerked his head up.

“Shh.”

Behind the frightened Theon loomed a blackened wall.

Perhaps due to its age, thorny vines grew thickly along its warped surface.

Something that might have been dried leaves rustled in the wind with a brittle sound.

“We’re really here now!”

Even before Nyniel said it, Meyna could tell they had reached the end of the alley.

At some point, there were no houses or buildings in sight at all.

“It’s here, Meyna!”

“We’re here.”

The two children finally stopped and announced their arrival.

Nyniel pointed straight ahead with her finger.

At the end of the dark alley stood a single wooden house, hidden away in secrecy.

Strangely, it looked like a gigantic wardrobe.

It was extremely old, cracked in many places, its exterior walls covered in moss, and the small window frames were completely rotten.

As Meyna watched Theon pant and scan the surroundings, she murmured quietly.

“It really looks like a wardrobe.”

“Right!”

“I’m only telling this to Meyna, but—.”

Nyniel stood on tiptoe, and when Meyna bent down to lower herself, she whispered in a small voice.

“The big sister who gave us this house said so.”

“She said this house is called ‘The Wardrobe That Leads Everywhere.’”

……

It was probably just a slightly unusual house.

And its name likely matched its appearance, nothing more.

Even so, Meyna could not shake the intuition that she was facing something enormous and secret.

“Let’s go inside.”

Theon wiped sweat from his forehead with his arm and tugged on Meyna’s hand.

Faced with the bizarre house, Meyna hesitated for a moment.

Fear welled up suddenly, but she could not turn back now.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go in.”

Answering with resolve, Theon ran ahead toward the house, pulled a key from his clothes, and opened the door.

As soon as Meyna stepped inside with the children, a strong stench of burning hit her first.

It seemed the source of the smell that had lingered in the alley was this house.

Next came a musty odor of dust that stung her nose.

The furniture, barely visible in the darkness, was all old and coated in dust, as if no one had used the place in a long time.

The lights on the first and second floors were both off, and only the attic between the second floor and the roof glowed with a soft orange light.

“Come up!”

Lifting her deep pink lace skirt, Nyniel dashed up the stairs first, with Theon following close behind.

“Be careful, Meyna.”

“Thank you.”

Meyna smiled with her eyes at Theon’s gentle warning and followed the children up last.

‘The stairs are clean.’

In a house filled with dust, only the staircase gleamed as if it had been carefully polished.

It clearly showed that the children only used the attic.

“Ta-da!”

Nyniel, who had arrived first and was waiting, spread her arms wide.

“Wow……”

An exclamation slipped from Meyna’s lips.

The attic, shaped like a small hideout, looked like a general store run by young wizards.

Paints, crayons, large drawing papers, toy blocks, dolls, and brooms filled the space, each arranged according to its own rule.

And from among the piles of items, what Nyniel pulled out was—

“……A painting?”

Nyniel and Theon nodded at the same time.

“……This woman…….”

“She looks exactly like you, Meyna!”

It was undeniably a portrait of a woman who closely resembled Meyna.

Long emerald-colored hair.

Light brown eyes.

A face smiling faintly with one hand lightly covering her mouth.

‘No matter how I look at it, it’s my face.’

Pushing aside the dizzying confusion, Meyna asked the siblings.

“Who drew this picture?”