25  Chapter 25 (Edited)

I didn’t miss the old man’s low murmur and kept my ears wide open.

‘Why is Camille’s name mentioned here?’

Camille was Dietrich’s birth mother who kidnapped me.

Perhaps you know I’m Euclid’s kid? I squinted my eyes and waited for the old man’s next remark.

“I heard the child was dead, so it can’t be.”

“Grandpa, only say weird things.”

“I’m sorry to give you a headache.”

He smiled vaguely and pulled a candy out of his pocket.

“Are you giving it to Anissa?”

At my question, he stretched his gray eyebrows and nodded.

“Yes. So can you hear my stories often?”

When I didn’t answer the old man’s unexpected request, he belatedly said, “When I’m talking to you, I feel like my head is clearing. Just like entering the temple of Eredia.”

I was stunned by the old man’s words and nodded my head.

‘If you discover I have an ability, I will be caught.’

* * *

After attending banquets, I often followed Dietrich in and out of Nature.

I made an excuse to watch if Leon was bothering Dietrich, but I had a greater purpose which was to see Josef who provided snacks whenever I met him.

‘Because I might be able to find out more about Eredia’s powers through him.’

Marilyn seemed to be worried that I would lose my way in the big nature, but I stuck out my chest triumphantly, saying, “I would never do that.”

“Anissa will not lose her way.”

“It’s because nature is complicated.”

“There’s also Detrie, right?”

I turned to Dietrich and grabbed his hand. At my urging, he nodded roughly as if he couldn’t help it.

“Alright. The young master is brilliant so I’m sure he won’t lose the princess.”

Marilyn nodded briefly as if she would trust Dietrich, not me, and gave me a snack on my bundle.

“Although if you are here, I can make you oat cookies.”

Marilyn nodded briefly as if she would trust Dietrich, not me, and gave me a snack on my bundle.

“Although if you are here, I can make you oat cookies.”

It seems that I was so proud of the strawberry candy that Josef gave me last time. Marilyn’s face was full of sorrow, so I kissed her shortly on her cheek.

“I’ll be back.”

Because Joseph was a believer of Eredia, he seemed to know her abilities very well.

‘Dessert is dessert, but Eredia must have other skills besides purifying the aura.’

I smiled at her and then followed Dietrich.

“Are you going to the old man again?”

He didn’t seem to like me hanging out with Josef. It seemed he didn’t like Josef very much, but when I think about it, Dietrich didn’t like anyone.

“Yeah. Are you coming later?”

“Sure.”

Since Josef usually stayed in a laboratory connected to the Garden of Nature, Dietrich took me to the garden and left.

I knocked on the door of the lab, staring at Dietrich’s cold back without looking back.

I stared at his cold back as he went further away without looking back and knocked on the door to the laboratory.

“Granpa.”

“You came.”

Josef opens the door as if he had waited. He was a believer and alchemist of the goddess Eredia, and according to Marilyn, it was very weird.

‘Alchemists are usually unbelievers.’

I entered the room, glancing at the huge table where the statue of a woman, which seemed to honor Eredia, was located.

“What were you doing?”

“I was making medicine. All the people in Lagrange have severe headaches.”

“But granpa is not a doctor?”

“It’s not a common medicine for headaches, so I’m making it.”

Josef clicked his tongue and sat me on a huge desk.

I moved cautiously so as not to hit the bottle of glass containing the medicine or smoke-filled suspicious powder.

“Because Lagrange was cursed instead of gaining strength.”

“Cursed?”

“Yes, the curse of the demon Asmodeus.”

Josef responded slowly to my words and poured the white powder into the green jar. Strangely, nothing smells from the pots that boil in the furnace.

“Are you here today because you’re bored?”

“Yeah.”

As he had finished his job, Josef, comfortably seated in the armchair in front of me, opened the book he had read to me last time.

Her myth, the adventures of Eredia when she was still human.

“So you like the story of Eredia. She’s not the god the North believes in.”

“She’s pretty.”

I inherited her abilities but I couldn’t say that so I grinned and pointed at her statue.

Josef turned over the book with a big smile.

“As I said before, she had the power to move people’s minds to a certain extent.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She couldn’t make a man who hated her dearly love her, but she could make a person who had no feelings for her have a good feeling.”

‘So if the person doesn’t have malice against me, I can do anything that makes me feel friendly and cute.’

Josef’s aura had never been touched by my purification, so the reason he treated me well was not because of my abilities, but I thought I could try it once.

As I looked up at him with big blinking eyes, he stopped talking and put a basket full of candies next to the table.

“Kyaa!”

“Didn’t you come here for this? Silly little one.”

I put a piece of white sugar in my mouth and focused on Josef’s words again.

“Why is granpa here?”

“Hmm?”

“The Lagrange don’t believe in Eredia.”

“It’s because I’m interested in the demons. I’m not as much of an enemy as Hera, the sun god, but Eredia once fought against the demons when she was a human being.”

“Uhm?”

It was the first time I heard that. I thought Eredia was a god with no fighting power at all.

“She was able to break the curse of the demon. I’ve dabbled with the sacred tree. I used her power to destroy the demonl here…”

‘The demon?’

I waited for Josef’s next remark, but he shut his mouth as if he had made a slip of the tongue.

“Would you like to see the sacred tree? In the north, there is a deep dark shadow under the earth where a tree has no business to grow.”

As confusion and a puzzled expression appeared on my face, Joseph smiled faintly and brought a small sapling near the window.

Like the liquid in the jar earlier, it was a seedling with no smell.

“This is called Sacred Tree. It has the power to suppress curses.”

‘This could be a little help.’

I looked up at him, holding a pot of seedlings in my arms.

‘If you want to, give it to me.’

I wasn’t sure if this wish would really move his mind, but Josef, who made eye contact with me, nodded with a kind face as if he were really my grandfather.

“If you want to have it, take it. There are a few more.”

“Thank you.”

I bowed my head politely.

“If you are not a person who inherited the power of Eredia, you can’t make seedlings grow, but just having them will give you some energy.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Though I’m quite sure it doesn’t suit your brother.”

Josef continued his speech, stroking the tender leaves of the seedling.

“Because Eredia and Baal are polar opposites. Baal is the only demon with whom Eredia’s power does not work. Isn’t your brother’s shadow that of Baal?”

Is that why Dietrich’s aura was especially difficult to read? I nodded at Josef with conviction.

‘At first I wondered if he had no emotions.’

“Oh. They’re doing a small fireworks display in front of the gate today.”

“Fireworks!”

“There won’t be many, but some merchants will also come.”

“I want to go!”

I blinked at Josef’s words. Children in Lagrange were banned from going out freely, but couldn’t they go to the front of the bridge?

“Do you want me to take you?”

“Yes! Yes! Yeess!”

I nodded with excitement. Josef hugged me and slowly left the research laboratory.

Time passed by and the garden was already dark after hearing the story of Eredia or the Holy Tree.

“Detrie, too, please bring him.”

I entered the garden and pointed to him as if he were coming to pick me up at the right time.

“Alright. Let’s do that.”

Dietrich, who found Josef and I, quickly approached us. Standing next to the grown-old-adult Josef, the blunt, mature Dietrich was just a little kid.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Detrie is small, too.”

He often scolds me, saying I’m too small to get on his bed easily, but if you look at it like this, wasn’t Dietrich small, too?

With a frown while looking at my smiling face, he reached out to me silently.

“Let’s go now.”

“Anissa will go see the fayaworks with granpa.”

“What?”

“Detrie, too, come.”

“No.”

Of course I thought we’d go together, but he shook his head in disgust. I panicked and came down from Josef’s arms and held his hand.

“Wai?” (Why?)

“Because I’m not a kid.”

‘But you are a kid.’

Did it make sense that a nine-year-old boy was not a child?

But he said strange things that he was not young enough to care about fireworks.

“That’s enough—”

“Don’t be stubborn and let us three go together.”

“Why are you going?”

“Aren’t you both still young and can’t wander in front of the castle alone?”

‘This grandpa isn’t helping matters at all.’

Dietrich hated being treated like a child the most in the world.

‘All the more why he doesn’t like Josef.’

Josef was the only adult in Lagrange to treat Dietrich as a child.

“Who is a child?”

“So do you mean you’re an adult?”

“Enough. Only I and Anissa will go.”

Dietrich, so unlike him, took my arm in a fit and dragged me behind his back. Josef smiled as if he found him funny.

“What will we do if you lose your way?”

“I won’t lose my way.”

If I leave it alone, they might fight more, so I slipped in between Josef and Dietrich.

“Granpa. Anissa will go with brother.”

“It’s dark now. Will you be okay?”

“Yep. Anissa is smart.”

‘Even if Dietrich gets lost, I can just find the way.’

I nodded my head without worrying about it, and then I smiled confidently at Josef and said goodbye then turned around.

And as soon as I went out to see the fireworks, I lost Dietrich.

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