Siblings Reincarnate as Enemies

Chapter 99 — In which things burn down (2)

Citrie never murdered anyone, at least not to his memory.

And he would rather not to.

Therefore, he found himself rather flustered when faced with the present situation.

A few minutes ago he found one of the clones, which split up from the rest of the group and headed to one of the balcony rooms of the ceremony halll with unknown intentions.

Citrie at first attempted to start a friendly conversation, but when the guy pulled out a crossbow at him, their relationship naturally turned sour.

Thankfully, the crossbow wasn’t loaded and Citrie managed to knock it out of the guy’s hands, the problem was what came after.

No matter how Citrie tried to stab him (without any intention to kill, he swears on the Sun), he was only successful in destroying his clothes.

Even when he stabbed him in the neck (without any intention to kill!), the guy was still moving just fine.

It was terrible.

Citrie finally in his frustration decided to try to burn him down (again, without any murder intentions) and grabbed a lamp.

He pulled the burning knot from the inside and threw it at his opponent…

Which ended up being unexpectedly effective, and the guy melted before Citrie’s very eyes.

And that led to the current situation and Citrie trying to come to terms with what could perhaps be a murder.

Young Lady Saffra’s puppet show, where a somehow crazy scientist threw souls into a cauldron of melted wax and sung a cryptic song, while singing about the exploitative higher-ups, played in his mind over and over, like some kind of morbid mockery.

Well… he couldn’t really be sure if that wax doll had any intelligence, perhaps it was just a magical construct without any thought?

Right…

Also, he very clearly planned to shoot someone, probably the Lesser Lord Mage, with that crossbow.

Citrie looked at the lump of wax, unconvinced by his own thoughts.

He spent a minute like this.

Then he found a box and after taking out all the trinkets inside, he put all the remains of the guy inside and quietly closed the box.

He decided to do what he did best and put the disturbing problems aside.

After picking up the box and the crossbow for further investigation, he headed out of the room to join back with the Young Lady Saffra’s group.

*-*-*

“Huu… Madam, I insist that you at least pretend to be human.”

Apric said to her opponent, a moving wax figure lacking a chunk of her stomach, after Apric presented her with ‘extreme massage technique’ she developed in her free time.

The wax clone though was moving as lively as ever.

‘… if we didn’t have to worry about damages to the surrounding, it would be much easier to deal with.’

If she could, she would already throw her opponents through the door and find some warm place to calm them down.

But the situation was already politically tense, with those people looking like members of Orche’s envoy.

So they had to solve this situation as delicately as possible.

Bang!

Another clone launched an attack behind her back, but she lightly side stepped and the small club in the man’s hand met with the floor.

In the next second, a knife handle smacked the man in the head, as Durio smashed him into the floor.

“How much longer?”

As Apric threw the woman, who tried to break her arm, at the man on the floor, interrupting his attempt to stand up, Durio took a moment to turn around and ask.

“Just a second.”

In the corner Rambeta and Tangeri were creating the weapons of ultimate destruction, while avoiding attacks.

With the last finishing touches, Tangeri threw something to Rambeta, while delivering a side-kick to a woman, who brandished a knife at her throat.

Rambeta gracefully caught it with her one hand and with another swift movement… she lit up a torch.

Which she didn’t hesitate to put in the face of a guy, who tried to jump at her.

She didn’t admire his melting face, as she passed the torch to her twin, who also made a good use of it, and got rid of opponents who tried to flank Apric.

While she was at it, Rambeta and Tangeri lit up three more torches and armed, retaliated against their annoying opponents.

Dozens of seconds passed and...

At last the fight came to an end.

The four looked around at the mess they created, then at each other and smiled sweetly.

Creak.

Suddenly, their silence was broken by the creak of an opening door.

Craya appeared at the doorsteps.

She glanced at the piles of wax and half-melted bodies, and calmly asked:

“Should I turn the water back on?”

*-*-*

“That little sister of ours seems to be late.”

“I wish you used ‘ours’ carefully. Or someone may misunderstand.”

“Oh, excuse me. I forgot she is only a half sister of yours. Then let me correct myself, my little sister seems to be late.”

“How come you’re so confident she is ‘your’ little sister? Have you checked your blood relationship?”

“Why, are you proposing she is a bastard? That would explain a lot.”

“It’s the opposite, but I’m afraid that even if I explained it a lot, Candidate Orche would find it hard to understand.”

Orche and Mimosa continued to exchange venomous blows for the last few minutes.

Though it was their usual routine, today the atmosphere between them felt much more tense.

Mimosa grabbed a glass of raspberry lemonade to earn at least a few seconds of silence, as she quickly examined their surrounding.

The ceremony hall was spacious, but Mimosa was still quite certain that Saffra wasn’t around.

As not a lot of time was left until the coming-of-age ceremony, Mimosa couldn’t help but worry.

She toyed with the communication stone hidden as a decoration on her sleeve, but she didn’t use it.

There were too many people watching her and Orche.

If she used it, the mages and priests were certain to notice the disturbance of mana and spiritual powers.

So she concentrated on observing Orche and his subordinates to figure out their agenda and exact level of involvement into what was happening.

On the other side of the hall, Scarlen was observing them from the corner of his eye, but his mind wasn’t on it.

The communication stone in his hand was almost burning, because of how tightly he gripped it.

As he kept checking the state of magic circles around and the mana flow, his worries only deepened.

Crimo stopped talking to him a few minutes ago, when the mental pressure to maintain the magic circles increased and Scarlen didn’t disturb him, but it meant he had no way of knowing what was going on.

So when something shook the magic circles and almost crumbled them, Scarlen could only bite his inner cheek and watch it with anxious eyes.

He tried to send a message to Sangria, who was supposed to be guarding Crimo, but there was no answer.

‘Should I go…? There is a teleportation circle…’

He was torn between his fears and duty.

If he left, something might happen to the ceremonial tree, but if he didn’t go and something happened to his Lord then…

“Child, perhaps this is your last chance to save yourself. You should think carefully about your next move.”

Suddenly, an elderly woman stood at his side. Her smile was gentle, but her eyes weren’t smiling. Rather, they held a clear warning.

‘Grandmaster Pomegra…’

The shapeless fear that lingered around his heart, suddenly took a clear form and stabbed with a sharp, twisted blade.

‘What the hell did you do…’

Scarlen turned around.

The tree, the ceremony and everything be damned. If something happens to Crimo, then he…

As he took a step towards the exit, a wave of cold air with a hint of unknown mana suddenly spread out.

It felt as if he was splashed with cold water.

Around him, the unstable circles immediately stabilized.

And as he was about to take the next step.

The communication stone, which he was gripping so tightly his hands were bleeding, activated.

[I’m fine. Don’t worry.]

He stopped in his tracks.

[What happened?]

There were a few seconds of silence and then.

[I’ll tell you later, it’s too complicated to explain like this. Concentrate on the ceremony.]

… He sighed, half in relief, half in frustration.

Then he turned to the elderly woman beside him, with a bright smile.

“Thank you for your advice, Grandmaster Pomegra. I’ll make sure to carefully think about it.”

But she didn’t see his smile.

She was observing the stabilizing magic circles with clear shock in her eyes.

Another one of Scarlen’s communication stones activated..

[>]

Young Master Vern notified him he was ready to proceed with the coming-of-age ceremony.

*~*~*