Chapter 25 (1/2)

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

‘Why is Camille’s name being mentioned here?’

Camille was Dietrich’s birth mother who kidnapped me.

Don’t tell me he knows 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 stretches his gray eyebrows and nods.

“Yes. So will 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 when we enter the temple of Eredia.”

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

‘If he finds out I have an ability, I will be revealed.’

* * *

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 is to see Josef who provided snacks whenever I met him.

‘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.”

It seems that I was too 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 is 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 seems he doesn’t like Josef very much, but when I think about it, Dietrich doesn’t like anyone.

“Yep. Are you coming later?”

“Yeah.”

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

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.”

Joseph 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?”

“Yep.”

As he had finished his job, Joseph, comfortably seated in the armchair in front of me, and 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.

Joseph turns 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 has never been touched by my purification, so the reason he treats me well is 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 devil. I’m not as much of an enemy as Hera, the sun god, but Eredia once fought against the devil when she was a human being.”

“Uhm?”