Free Web Novel“What was that supposed to mean just now?”
Ravi, who had been rubbing his face over and over, finally turned to look at Camilla. frёeωebɳovel.com
“What do you mean, another murder case? Don’t tell me you—again!”
“No, I said if. Do you not know what if means?”
“You said if last time too!”
“Did I?”
...Tch. His memory really is annoyingly good.
Seeing Ravi’s brows knot sharply, Camilla hurried to add more.
“You know how it is. What if I was just born with the sort of fate where incidents keep happening everywhere I go whether I want them to or not, like CoXan or Kim JeonX?”
“Co... what? What are you talking about now?”
Ravi’s look turned even more suspicious. Hadn’t she said something like this before, right before something actually happened?
Was it a cult or Jaybi or whatever!
You’re the one who personally caught that murderer professor and scared the entire household half to death!
“Tell me the truth. What happened this time?”
“Oh, seriously. Why can’t you ever trust what I say? I told you, this is hypothetical.”
Camilla shook her head emphatically and denied it.
I could just handle it quietly.
But there was something she needed to ask Ravi for, so she did not really have a choice. If she laid the groundwork like this in advance, maybe he would agree.
“So just in case, I wanted to ask our genius brother for a little favor.”
“...What favor?”
Camilla’s flattery only made Ravi look at her with even more caution.
“Brother, you can carve other magic into this bracelet too, right?”
“Other magic?”
“I thought it might come in handy if someone ever came after me.”
You could call it the key piece of equipment for solving this.
Though that’s not the only reason...
It was also just in case. Things did not always go the way you wanted.
She fully intended to solve this without anyone realizing she had gotten involved.
Still, shouldn’t I prepare for the possibility that I get caught?
If she gave the tiniest hint ahead of time like this, maybe she would get scolded a little less later.
“Let me say this again. If I somehow end up caught in another incident, I want you to remember that it absolutely was not intentional on my part.”
You know what I mean, right?
Take my side when I get in trouble.
“...”
That only made Ravi look at her more suspiciously. She was definitely plotting something again.
“Haa.”
Even so, it was not as though pressing her would get him a straight answer.
Ravi let out a long sigh and stared at her for a while.
“I told you before. Don’t stick your nose into pointless things. Just report it to the guard. Or if you hate that, tell me. I’ll handle it.”
“Oh? Since when are you acting like an older brother all of a sudden?”
“Then what am I, your younger brother?”
“Sometimes you do seem like the younger—ah... aaah!”
Ow!
Ravi grabbed both of Camilla’s cheeks and shook them mercilessly. After barely freeing herself, Camilla clutched her face and glared at him.
If my skin gets damaged, you’re taking responsibility.
But Ravi only snorted at her murderous, offended glare as if it were ridiculous.
“I’m saying it again. Do not get involved in anything dangerous.”
“Tch. And I’m saying it again—things don’t always go the way people want.”
Ravi cleared away the shattered mana stone and sat back down at the workbench.
“I don’t want to become an orphan either.”
“An orphan? What’s with this orphan talk all of a sudden—?”
Camilla, who had been looking at him in puzzlement after his casual remark while taking out a new mana stone, slowly widened her eyes.
Ravi’s earlobe had turned faintly red as he turned the stone in his hand.
The moment she noticed, a smile spread at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, our brother’s scared of becoming an orphan.”
Poke, poke.
“...Shut up.”
Where are you getting that baby voice from?
Camilla kept poking at Ravi’s slightly reddened cheek with her finger, then burst into a quiet laugh as his face grew redder and redder.
“Didn’t I already tell you? I’m going to live much longer than you. I’ll make absolutely sure you die first, so don’t worry.”
“Hey!”
“I said I won’t leave you an orphan.”
“...”
In the end, another long sigh slipped out of Ravi.
“Leave the bracelet and go.”
“Really? You’ll do it?”
“What kind of magic do you want?”
“Well...”
Camilla briefly explained the magic she wanted.
“That’s not particularly difficult. I’ll have it done by today.”
“Oh? So I’m leveling up already?”
“Lev... what? Are you going to keep saying things I can’t understand?”
The moment Camilla handed over the bracelet, Ravi got to work.
Camilla watched with interest for a short while as he quickly lost himself in engraving the spell formula, then quietly left Ravi’s room.
All right. Time to hear the report, then.
Along with Xeno, the ghost who had been staring at her from one side this whole time with an expression that plainly said they had a lot to say.
*****
[That bastard is completely insane.]
There had to be a verification process.
Camilla was not stupid enough to believe a ghost’s word unconditionally.
Even if that ghost happened to be a bright-eyed, innocent-looking little child.
Do you know how good child ghosts are at lying?
Not that she thought Rana was one of them. Even so, this was still the kind of thing she needed to confirm for herself.
So she had asked Xeno for a favor.
She told them to keep an eye on the little bastard Rana had identified as the killer and to let her know immediately if they noticed anything strange. freewebnøvel.com
“Don’t tell me he already killed someone else?”
[He did.]
“...What?”
Camilla had asked lightly, but Xeno’s answer made her jolt.
Really?
He had committed another murder already?
[He was killing animals. Brutally.]
“Animals?”
At that, Camilla’s brows drew together slightly.
[Birds, puppies, cats.]
Xeno had not watched him for many days, yet even what they had seen in that short time seemed to leave them appalled enough to keep shaking their head.
Whine...
You don’t have a home, do you? Then do you want to come with your big brother?
Watching the boy cradle an abandoned puppy from the roadside in his arms with a face as lovely as an angel’s, Xeno had first thought Camilla had made a mistake.
Maybe the child spirit named Rana had lied instead.
Or perhaps she had mistaken someone else for the killer.
Because to Xeno’s eyes, the boy had not looked like someone capable of murder at all.
But...
[He killed the puppy viciously.]
With that angelic face.
[And the way he smiled while killing something so small...]
Xeno shuddered as though the memory had come back to them all over again.
They had existed among the dead for a long time and had seen countless wicked people.
But it had been a very long time since anyone had made their skin crawl like that.
Maybe it felt worse because he was a child.
“People say it all the time. The ones who abuse animals are latent murderers.”
[Really? First time I’ve heard that.]
Well, it was obvious enough.
Life was life, however small.
If someone could treat a living thing lightly, why would killing a person be impossible for them?
[The funny part is, he only kills baby animals. Puppies, kittens, all of them. Once they get a little bigger, he doesn’t touch them.]
“So he’s a textbook coward.”
Which meant he only went after things clearly weaker than himself.
[But listen.]
Xeno frowned as if there were more they still needed to say.
[I think everyone in that house already knows the child does it.]
“Everyone in the house?”
[Yeah. They looked completely used to it.]
The boy’s parents had been far calmer than expected when they saw the dead puppy in his room.
All they did was order a manservant and a maid to clean it up at once.
They said nothing else to the child.
“Tch.”
Well, was that not a familiar story?
Parents who did everything they could to keep their child’s wrongdoing from ever reaching the outside world.
Never realizing that was exactly what turned their child into a monster.
Camilla clicked her tongue again and again.
That world or this one, it made no difference.
Bastards like that did not just appear out of nowhere.
“Don’t tell me this place also has some X kind of law?”
[X kind of law?]
“The juvenile offender kind.”
[Juvenile... what’s that?]
“If there isn’t, all the better.”
I should look into that later.
It would be annoying if she went to all the trouble of exposing his crimes and catching him, only for him to walk free with barely any punishment because he was young.
“I think I’ll need to see it for myself too.”
But she did not like the idea of using another child as bait when their life might end up in danger.
He only targets small living things, huh?
After a moment of thought, Camilla’s gaze slowly dropped.
[Kyuu.]
There, sitting on her lap and making soft little sounds, was exactly one small living thing.
“Our King.”
[Kyuu?]
King, who had been dozing with a lazy expression, opened his eyes at Camilla’s voice and looked up at her.
“I’m going to go teach a rotten little bastard a lesson. Want to help me?”
[Kyuu!]
King had no idea what the situation was, but at the sound of Camilla’s gentle voice, he immediately nodded hard.
