Chapter 57
Chapter 57
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Claiming the Moon Yin Body
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“Lirina, Lirina.”
Having finished cleaning Aslan's room as usual, Lirina turned her head at the sound of someone calling her name.
There stood a maid with a slightly sinister smirk.
“Someone's looking for you outside.”
Lirina blinked her half-closed eyes.
She pondered if there was anyone who might come looking for her.
“A cute boy. Who else have you gone and charmed?”
But upon hearing those words, her eyes widened round.
She realized exactly who the maid was referring to.
Krash?
He had never once come to see her in person before.
That meant his visit had to be about the favor she had asked of him.
In just a few days...
Perhaps he really had called upon the power of the Valheim family.
Even Lirina, who had lived in Halgram for a long time, hadn't been able to track the person down despite asking around.
There was no other explanation for how he'd found them.
But Krash is so shunned by his family that he can barely get a proper meal...
For someone like that to leverage the family's influence wouldn't have been easy at all.
Yet he'd willingly done it for her sake.
Lirina fidgeted with her fingers.
Her thoughts wandered off to unnecessary places.
Ahem. Axe crazy. Axe crazy.
As if snapping herself out of it, she lightly patted her cheeks a couple of times before asking the maid,
“Where is he?”
“You know the back path the maids often use? He's waiting there.”
“Thanks.”
Ignoring the maid's lecherous grin as best she could, she headed to the back path.
After passing through the garden, she arrived and cracked open the back gate door.
But for some reason, the entrance was empty.
A hint of disappointment crept onto her face, unbidden though she'd never admit expecting anything.
“Did I misunderstand something?”
Just as she thought the maid might have given her bad info—
“Lirina.”
She turned at the voice calling her name.
There stood a boy with deep navy-blue hair.
For a split second, a surge of joy welled up in Lirina.
“If you hang around alone on the maids' usual path, they might tease you about being someone's boyfriend.”
But somehow, the words that came out carried a playful edge, a bit prickly.
She couldn't understand why these snippy remarks kept slipping out.
“The only one who'd pull a prank like that is you, Lirina.”
He handled her teasing with effortless skill.
Every time she saw him like this, Lirina felt a twinge of wonder.
Conversations with him never hit a snag.
Maybe that was why they'd talked so often in the park.
Chatting with him was genuinely fun.
“So, what's the reason for coming to find me yourself? If it's got some other meaning, I might feel a little bad.”
“There is an important reason. It's about the favor you asked me.”
Lirina's eyes widened slightly.
Sure enough, Krash must have found information on Dorothy, Aslan's friend.
“That's incredibly fast.”
“Gotta earn my keep, right?”
“For real. I only said it half-jokingly—I didn't expect you'd actually find out this quick.”
Lirina glanced around.
This wasn't a good spot for talking.
So she cracked the back gate open a bit more.
“Let's go into the inner garden. There's a decent place to chat.”
She'd probably get scolded by the head maid, but letting in an acquaintance briefly was something everyone hushed up.
With that, Lirina quickly led Krash into the inner garden before anyone noticed.
The spring garden brimmed with blooming flowers and lush greenery.
As night began to fall, a slight chill rode the breeze.
Lirina stopped, following the wind's lead.
She turned to Krash, her eyes signaling it was okay to speak now.
Krash caught the cue and got straight to the point.
“About Dorothy. First off, to be clear, she's not human.”
“What?”
Lirina froze in that instant.
It was a statement she hadn't seen coming at all.
“What do you mean—”
Unable to comprehend, she pressed him, and Krash swept his gaze around.
Confirming no one was nearby.
“Do you know about spirits?”
Then he asked her.
Halgram City wasn't far from the Spirit King's Forest.
But spirits weren't something ordinary folk knew much about.
And Lirina was no exception.
“Spirits—you mean Erosion species, right?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Lirina's eyes wavered.
She'd caught on to why Krash was bringing up spirits.
“No way... Dorothy is...”
“A spirit.”
“That's impossible.”
Lirina couldn't accept Krash's words.
Because the Dorothy she'd seen was unmistakably human to anyone.
There wasn't a single thing about her that screamed Erosion species.
“Do you know that Erosion species continuously evolve?”
“Erosion species evolve?”
Lirina was just a direct maid.
She rarely encountered Erosion species in her life.
Naturally, she wouldn't know such details.
“Erosion species evolve steadily. More precisely, World Erosion does. They learn, gain experience, and embed it into World Erosion.”
That's why World Erosion must be eradicated the moment it's detected.
Left alone, it grows beyond control.
But sometimes, World Erosions grow too vast to touch.
Ones that existed before humanity claimed the world.
The Forbidden Zones were prime examples.
So humans separated them from living areas.
Better to cut off their learning entirely and manage them steadily.
“Dorothy is a new spirit born from the Spirit King's Forest. The closest thing to a humanoid spirit.”
A spirit born by absorbing knowledge from a Chaos spirit that lived among humans.
That was Dorothy.
Lirina's face grew even more bewildered.
It was only natural—Aslan's friend being a spirit?
“Even so, do you still want to find Dorothy?”
This situation was far from normal.
For Aslan, a direct descendant of the Igrit family, to have a spirit attached to him would spark all sorts of rumors.
Not finding her might actually be better for Aslan.
As Aslan's direct maid, Lirina's role was to guide him to the best path.
“Yes.”
But she answered without hesitation.
“Even if everyone points fingers, I'm the maid who follows Lord Aslan. Right now, he needs Dorothy.”
Even if she regretted it someday.
Dorothy was necessary for Aslan.
Hearing her words, Krash slowly nodded.
“Then there's one thing you need to do.”
“Anything. Just say it.”
“Introduce me to Aslan.”
Another unexpected request.
But she realized Krash had something to say to Aslan directly.
“So my role ends there.”
“You've already gone above and beyond.”
Lirina gripped her skirt hem tightly and bowed to Krash.
“Lord Krash, I'll keep making sure you get your meals without worry from now on. So please take good care of Lord Aslan.”
Truly, a request just like her.
Aslan Igrit.
Now 15 and newly an adult, he opened his eyes only as evening deepened.
His long red hair, skin pale from nocturnal habits, and deep dark circles stood out as he glanced at the blackout curtains.
They remained firmly shut, showing no sign of opening.
In the past, a certain visitor would have snuck in and parted them.
“Aslan, sleeping in again? I came straight from the academy. You should've waited for me.”
Her voice still rang clear in his memory.
Dorothy.
Each time he remembered, Aslan's expression darkened.
She, his one salvation, was gone from this world.
All that lingered in his mind was her final smile amid the flames.
That was the moment.
Knock knock—
Suddenly, a tapping sounded from beyond the window.
Aslan's eyes snapped to it, startled.
Confusion filled his gaze.
His heart began to pound.
“Ugh.”
He bolted up, only to swallow a groan from the pain in his neck.
The lingering ache from hanging himself.
Pressing his neck, he staggered to the window.
Then, yanking the blackout curtain aside, he saw a boy with an unfamiliar face.
Black hair, a crow perched on his shoulder—an odd sight.
Younger than him, perhaps.
The boy tapped the window again.
As if asking to be let in.
Though puzzled, Aslan opened it, entranced.
Dorothy had done the same thing often.
“You...”
“Aslan.”
Under the moonlight draped by the night sky.
The boy called his name as if he knew it.
The glint in his blue eyes drew attention in a strange way.
“Do you want to bring Dorothy back?”
The boy tossed out the question bluntly.
Aslan's eyes bulged at the unforeseen words.
The boy knew Dorothy's name, sure—but he spoke as if aware of her current state.
“...I want to bring her back.”
And so Aslan answered, as if compelled.
He wanted to bring her back.
That desire hadn't changed.
In that instant, the crow on the boy's shoulder spread its wings and took flight.
Amid scattering black feathers, the boy below flashed a deep smile.
“Good. Then let's make a deal.”
A deal to revive Dorothy, begun with this peculiar boy.
Hearing the word “deal,” Aslan blankly asked,
“Are you a devil...?”
Devils who tempted people into deals.
There were Erosion monsters like that, for sure.
The words slipped out unwittingly, and the boy looked exasperated.
“Devil my ass. Devils don't make deals like this. They chop off your limbs, then say pay up if you want 'em back.”
Comparing him to those devilish bastards.
Unpleasant memories surfaced, making the boy frown, and Aslan mirrored with a hollow expression.
Then, rubbing his eyes briefly, he slowly opened them.
The previous dazed look was gone.
In its place gleamed the sharp, intelligent eyes of the Aslan Krash knew so well.
“I'd like to hear more details.”
Only then did Krash smile.
Fortunately, this was the Aslan he remembered.
Krash's memories from before his regression, his past.
Beneath the burned ruins of the Red Magic Tower.
Aslan bit down on a cigarette, his face etched with emptiness.
Today, he'd finished the funeral for his grandfather, the Flame King.
The Red Magic Tower had burned in the war against World Erosion, claiming his grandfather's life.
But the emotion on Aslan's face wasn't grief.
He'd long harbored resentment toward his grandfather, the Flame King.
The problem was, there was nowhere left to direct that resentment.
Krash.
Aslan exhaled smoke slowly from the lit cigarette.
What's your reason for protecting the world?
Always the picture of composure, but that day, he closed his eyes as if unable to maintain it.
I... don't know anymore.
It was 32 days before his own death.
Don't know, huh.
Krash walked through the garden, the brief memory flashing by.
Skinny frame, red hair, skin transparently pale like the mark of his Moon Yin Body, shadowed eyes.
Today was the first time Krash had seen Aslan's true face.
In his memories, Aslan was covered in burn scars and bandages, dying.
But Aslan was the same then as now.
The dial that appeared when using Black Hood.
The option for Aslan's Moon Yin Body was identical, past and present.
What a stubborn ass.
Aslan must have wanted to shed his Moon Yin Body for ages.
But not with someone else's help.
He believed he had to overcome it with his own power.
Stubborn as ever, then and now.
But that's why Krash respected him.
The guy who burned away his Moon Yin Body through sheer will and rose to Flame Emperor.
But this time will be different.
Because he was here now, something absent back then.
He'd revive the one person who could break that stubbornness.
After the Flame King's death, Aslan had said he no longer knew why to protect the world.
This time, he'd force a reason to live into him.
You'll back me up later.
Krash resolved to work him to tears and collect every bit of payback.
“Lord Krash.”
Just then, Lirina called from the garden's edge.
Her half-lidded eyes swirled with various thoughts.
On the day Aslan died, she'd wept bitterly.
Krash still remembered those heaving sobs well.
And how he'd held her then.
“Did everything go well?”
As Lirina asked, Krash glanced back at Aslan's mansion.
“Yes, I finished talking with Aslan. He accepted the method to revive Dorothy.”
Krash had clearly explained how to revive Dorothy.
Aslan had been stunned.
How did you even find a way like that...?
Aslan had scoured every scrap of info on spirits.
Hoping for even a sliver of hope.
Yet even the Igrit family, stewards of the Spirit King's Forest, hadn't uncovered it.
Naturally, he couldn't believe Krash knew.
Does it really matter how I found it?
Krash had no intention of spilling everything.
Aslan didn't pry either.
Theirs was a transactional relationship.
As long as the deal closed, neither cared about methods.
In that, they were alike.
No qualms about means to an end.
I'll deal. Name your terms.
Afterward, Aslan was baffled by Krash wanting his Moon Yin Body, but he agreed firmly.
He knew this was the only way to save Dorothy.
But to seal the deal, one prerequisite was needed beforehand.
Something Krash couldn't do alone.
“That's why I have a favor to ask of you, Lirina.”
“Me?”
Lirina's eyes flicked up briefly before she straightened.
Krash was the only one who could save Aslan's precious friend Dorothy.
She'd do anything she could.
“Just tell me what to do. Should I be your girlfriend, Lord Krash? Maid and noble—such a romantic love story.”
Lirina playfully lifted her skirt and bowed like an obedient maid awaiting orders.
“...”
Krash stared in silence, and Lirina cleared her throat awkwardly.
“The mood got too serious, so I joked around. Don't look at me like that.”
She fanned herself, embarrassed for no reason.
But Krash's delay wasn't for that.
...Arthur, annoying as it is, I kinda get where you're coming from right now.
Hearing dialogue identical to the past, Krash rubbed his brow briefly.
Old memories stirred, souring his mood.
He'd tried to ignore it, but here it was.
I'm such an idiot.
Men can't forget their first love, they say.
Fitting perfectly.