"Kkyu......"

At Ppuppu's dissatisfied grunt, Tie drew her brows together sharply.

Then, glancing briefly at Berugon a little way off as he untangled the badminton net wrapped around his ankle, she said, "Stop already, Ppuppu."

"......Kkyu!"

"That is exactly whining now! Even if you really wanted to hatch, you can't touch someone else's trauma!"

"Kkyu, kkyu. Kkyurrung."

Tie closed her mouth.

'Could it be that Ppuppu truly had nothing left either, and he also needed to eat and live somehow...!'

Her heart fluttered at the unexpected reply.

For a moment a faint light flickered in Ppuppu's eyes as if he understood.

The little elephant planted his tiny hands on his hips and began to snap back even more stubbornly.

"Kkyururung. Kkyu! Kkyukkyu!"

"But still......"

When phrases as complicated as "the law of nature" and "competition for survival" began to tumble from Ppuppu's mouth, Tie's eyes went wide.

Despite calling her mother, Ppuppu seemed far smarter than Tie herself.

"Kkyururung. Kkyu? Kkyu. Kkyurut."

Then Ppuppu hopped up onto Tie's palm.

Tie hesitated a little, then asked again, "Really?"

"Kkyu!"

"And you really promise?"

Ppuppu nodded his trunk over and over.

Tie, as if unable to argue further, sighed.

"......They say a parent cannot outargue their child."

Then she gently stroked Ppuppu's head with a finger.

"Alright. But from now on you must never torment people again."

"Kkyu......!"

"If you get hungry, Mama will give you magic. Understood?"

Ppuppu sprawled contentedly and made a heart with his trunk.

And just as Tie giggled watching him,

[Of course.]

an irritated voice sounded from below.

Looking down, she saw Lucarion already sitting on the floor, his legs neatly tucked beneath him.

His black tail, foul in appearance, slapped the floor: slap, slap.

[You intend to share magic with that thing?]

Before answering, Tie checked where Berugon was.

Berugon was inspecting the teacher's room, then came out into the play area.

Tie lowered her voice and whispered, "Kkamani, Ppuppu says he can't live without Tie's magic. Otherwise he'll be too hungry and will have to eat people's trauma."

[You are seriously going to shelter a magical creature?]

Tie scooted a little closer to Lucarion, sliding on her bottom.

"But he says he doesn't remember anything...... it's a pity, the little one."

[And what of it? Forgetfulness is natural for all.]

Tie’s face fell.

Then her small lips pouted in displeasure.

"......But Tie still doesn't like when someone loses their memory."

Meanwhile Lucarion swallowed a sigh with difficulty.

What Astie was thinking now was clear without words.

'It is obvious what she thinks about that man.'

The reason Lucarion knew of his existence was simple.

'Because in the previous world I heard about him every day.'

At that time Lucarion slept inside the Lodge of Rest.

From there, faintly but still, he heard the sounds outside.

The sounds of how Tie and that man lived, how they talked to the neighbors, and various other noises.

Inside the Lodge of Rest Lucarion lived more or less peacefully.

When he heard Astie's laughter he felt good, and on days when she suddenly cried, his heart grew heavy.

'......Can one even call that merely heaviness?'

When the child cried, Lucarion felt as if the world itself were splitting into pieces.

It would be more accurate to say he was filled with unbearable compassion and an obsessive thought rose in him to make the child stop crying at any cost.

Lucarion sighed again.

'So that's how it was. That day too.'

He remembered clearly the moment Astie first touched him while he lay in a box.

Lucarion opened his eyes as if awakening from a long sleep.

It was like hot blood running again through frozen, clogged vessels.

And then he saw her for the first time.

"Kkamani, are you all right?"

Astie, almost no different from how she was now.

Her eyes the color of fresh shoots, like spring arriving at a lake.

Her small pale face and ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) chubby cheeks too.

He saw that face for the first time.

It was certainly foreign to him, unfamiliar, awkward.

And at the same time familiar.

So he was flustered.

Because in that moment, when he saw the child's face, such longing rose in him that all the walls in his heart seemed about to collapse.

At the second Lucarion saw Astie's tears, he literally lost control of himself.

How to make the child stop crying.

How to soothe that sorrow even a little?

That is why, using the power he had been slowly restoring inside the Lodge of Rest, he distorted time and space.

In the end the child needed that man, that is, Astie's father, however......

'In that world he was already dead.'

So they returned to Tallocium.

But as soon as they arrived, bits of forgotten memory began to surface.

Things he had been running from before falling asleep inside the Lodge of Rest.

That the way magic moved inside his body had been far from ordinary.

And even that, although he brought the child immediately, the man would still not remember her.

At the moment when he was tormented by tangled thoughts, exhaustion from magic overcame him and he fell asleep.

Of course, as in Korea, inside the Lodge of Rest Lucarion could, in broad strokes, understand what was happening outside.

If he did not fall into too deep a rest, it all reached him without effort.

The problem was that inside the Lodge of Rest his abilities were limited.

But if that could even be called luck,

it was then that he accidentally discovered one thing.

It turned out he could absorb Astie's magic.

And it was not that difficult.

Lucarion only had to touch Astie somehow.

Whether he was in the Lodge of Rest or embodied.

The moment Astie's hand touched him, a stream of pure magic poured into him.

As if some law of nature existed between them.

From that moment the things Lucarion could do increased greatly.

He could take Astie's magic and go, or he could prepare for the day he would have to face those pursuing him.

But he did neither.

Because Astie weighed on him.

'What is there so special about her?'

Lucarion stared at Tie with bitterness.

To him Astie was a strange being.

From the very first instant that his broken memory began, Astie for some reason seemed almost sovereign to him.

An absolute sovereign to whom he must serve.

A being who gently held a leash around his neck, someone he could neither now nor ever oppose.

That was why Lucarion could not sink into a deep rest even when inside the Lodge of Rest.

He kept his nerves taut all day, watching carefully what happened outside.

So he could manifest if Astie fell into danger.

And when the child was safe, he returned to the Lodge of Rest and rested.

Because if he stayed embodied too long, he would have to absorb even more of Astie's magic.

But for some reason Lucarion felt uneasy about drawing off Astie's magic.

It felt almost as if he were wounding the child's body and drinking its blood.

Of course, when the child became trapped in the subspace, he himself longed to embody and destroy the damned Krazar.

But perhaps because it was a subspace, controlling magic was difficult, and so his embodiment was delayed.

'......Whatever the case.'

Lucarion shook his head, brushing off the thoughts.

Then, suddenly opening his eyes wide, he glared fiercely at the uninvited guest before him.

Right now that was the biggest problem.

That nasty creature of disgusting appearance.

And yet Astie had just said she would willingly give that dull monster her magic.

The magic Lucarion had been guarding with his whole mind until now, the magic that was necessary and precious to him.

Staring at the tiny elephant with a self-satisfied face, Lucarion gritted his teeth and said,

[I don't believe it. No, I cannot believe it.]