Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 109

Louis looked up at the sound but saw the newcomer dive down again without hesitation. Everything happened so quickly that Hasting, closest to them, could only watch as a huge black hole suddenly appeared in the water behind Louis, swallowing the trio in a moment and vanishing without a trace.

Darkness enveloped everyone’s sight. Louis closed his eyes briefly, confirming that he wasn’t suddenly having vision problems but had entered a strange and dry space. The cold river water at his waist and the slightly fishy air of the port had also disappeared.

What just happened?

Instinctively, he reached into his coat pocket to retrieve his lighter, but a voice echoed in the darkness. “Don’t move.”

Louis paused. He was certain he had never heard this voice before—it felt both unfamiliar and familiar, inexplicably tensing his body.

“It’s me, Louis,” said the rabbit-headed shopkeeper, as if seeing his movement. “Don’t light it—this is a Darby Belly Fish. Anything heating up inside it can irritate it. Wait a moment…”

There was a rustling sound as the other person seemed to be searching for something. Louis stood silently still for a while.

“Charlie?”

“Hm? How did you know? Oh, Elena must have talked a lot. After leaving Fortuna City, I did use that name for a long time.” The rabbit-headed shopkeeper finally found what he was looking for: a small ore lamp he had made himself, using luminescent moss that emitted light without producing heat, specifically designed for the peculiar needs of the Darby Belly Fish.

As for why he hadn’t offered this during their first ride—basically, the rabbit-headed shopkeeper did it on purpose. Because the species was so rare, he wouldn’t casually transport people on it, so the Darby Belly Fish weren’t used often. Observing passengers react in the darkness was one of his hobbies.

But this time, it was best to light things up to check on Elena’s condition.

Amid the tense situation, Charlie had only seen Louis stab Elena with a knife before more and more people headed to the dock. So, he simply pushed both into the mouth of the Darby Belly Fish to leave the scene immediately. Hasting might have seen it, but Charlie believed him to be trustworthy enough not to blab.

Louis pursed his lips, still unsure if he really wanted to see the face of the person he had once been closest to in the world, though that face was no different from his own.

But before he could hesitate much longer, there was a click, like something being shifted, and a flood of light suddenly filled the space. Louis squinted, half blinded by the light and half unwilling to face reality.

“Louis?” Charlie called again.

Louis sighed deeply in his heart and looked up.

Suddenly, a fuzzy-eared rabbit face appeared in front of him.

Louis: “?!?!”

“Hey, hey.” Charlie saw Louis raise his hand, knowing it was his instinctive gesture to attack—the shiny dagger was still in his grip. Immediately realizing his appearance had startled him, he said, “It’s me.”

He didn’t look at the dagger but instead reached out with his free hand, expertly grabbing Louis’s left hand, just holding three fingers from index to ring.

According to the person who had cared for them as brothers, this was almost a habit they had from birth. His motion was so fluid that Louis’s body remembered the sensation of those three fingers being encircled even before he saw his hand.

In this world, only one person would hold his hand this way, and he only allowed one person to do so.

Louis looked down at their clasped hands silently.

He had imagined many scenarios for their reunion and considered various actions he might take. But when the day came so suddenly and chaotically, Louis realized he couldn’t recall any of those imagined reactions.

Because whatever he did would be futile. He knew the person before him too well, including his thoughts and actions.

No matter his reaction, the other would likely act as if nothing had happened, insisting on holding or leaning on him until he reluctantly agreed not to pursue the matter further.

……

But the years apart had indeed been too long, and Louis’s prediction was slightly off because Charlie soon let go of him and instead shoved the ore lamp into his hands. “Light it up. I need to check on Elena.”

Louis then realized there was another person lying at their feet, barely alive—it was that rat-playing witch.

He stepped back half a step in disgust, prompting Charlie to call out again. “Get closer. I can’t see the wound.”

Louis then realized his brother was still as odd (naïve) as he had been in childhood.

He couldn’t be thinking of saving this witch, could he?

This woman had been after him. Her nerve-wracked appearance was enough to give children nightmares at night!

Not to mention now her hatred had spread to him.

Without raising his head, Charlie patiently explained, “Look at my head—the original breed was a Lloyd Country Rabbit, which is long-haired.”

While speaking, he confirmed that Elena still had a pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief, and began pulling out various bottles and containers, arranging them at his feet.

Louis said emotionlessly, “I can’t tell. So, is this some special breed worth close appreciation?”

“No, it’s just a common rabbit in the south,” Charlie explained as he cleaned around Elena’s back wound. “I meant they usually have very long fur, but now it has become short.”

As Charlie quickly cleaned the wound area, he continued, “This is Elena’s curse—it weakens when she is weak, and if she dies, the magic will disappear completely.”

So every time Elena was injured or lost control, causing her magic power to drop sharply, he had to find a place to hide and wait for her to recover, although this wasn’t frequent.

Louis finally squatted down. “So she cursed you.”

“Yes.” Charlie snapped his fingers. “Help me out. Flatten her a bit so I can stop the bleeding. You really went for the vitals there. Good thing she’s not foolish enough to go unprotected.”

Elena’s seemingly ordinary dress was actually a magical item, probably made by herself, but its purpose wasn’t protection but transformation.

Charlie carefully turned back the fabric near the wound, revealing a layer of magic circles underneath.

They were indeed products of the same school. The design philosophy of this magical item was similar to the dragon-shaped flier Charlie had tinkered with before, except Charlie transferred bird souls onto several chairs, while Elena transferred part of a bird’s soul onto the person wearing this dress—the wearer would become lighter and be seen as kin by crows, even capable of flying with a flock. This was probably one of her means of escape.

Although the principles were the same, Charlie would never have directly applied magic to a human body, as it was illegal.

It seemed that Elena had no reservations about how far she took this path, which explained her notorious reputation.

“This magic temporarily changed her internal structure. You didn’t pierce her heart, which is good.” Charlie magically produced a bottle of green, snot-like medicine, slathering it all over Elena’s wound with a somewhat pungent odor. “As long as the heart isn’t damaged, it’s okay.”

After swiftly completing the task, Charlie looked up to meet Louis’s skeptical gaze.

He knew that look all too well—it was the face Louis made every time he lied or boasted as a child.

Charlie: “??”

“What’s your relationship with her?” Despite intending to appear indifferent, Louis couldn’t help but ask.

“We attended the same school many years ago, but back then she wasn’t so,” Charlie paused, “obstinate.”

In front of his brother, Charlie dropped the pretense of his past grandeur and accomplishments, which Louis would never have bought into anyway.

“Elena was talented but very sensitive, often overreacting to others’ attitudes, making her somewhat friendless at school.”

That was putting it mildly. Elena was extreme in her likes and dislikes. When she first started school, her younger age and unfamiliar surroundings didn’t fully showcase this behavior.

Charlie first heard about Elena through underclassmen gossip, mentioning a new student who had set another student’s bed on fire—an impressive feat since they were only taught magic theory in the first year, with practical magic introduced in the second. It was unclear how she managed it or why the conflict between the young girls escalated so severely, but both were disciplined and assigned to different dormitories.

At the time, Charlie didn’t think much of it, and it was much later that he understood the full story: Elena was introverted and unremarkable in appearance, not making friends easily, and initially kept to herself, unlike most girls who preferred to socialize.

Eventually, she made a friend, a cheerful young girl. They seemed inseparable, attending classes, visiting the washroom, and dining together. Everyone thought they were close until they unexpectedly fell out. Elena, being more powerful, ended up burning the girl’s bed.

The girl later told her friends that while she was willing to befriend Elena, she couldn’t meet her expectations—Elena wanted them to be together constantly, doing everything as a pair. But the girl had other friends and needed her space, finding Elena’s clinging possessiveness increasingly suffocating, leading to a bitter end to their uneven relationship.

“Oh,” Louis drawled. “So, you were the second girl.”

Elena had caused such a stir as a freshman and wasn’t particularly likable, so most students probably stayed away to avoid trouble.

If, at that time, a senior student who was exceptionally nice and considerate and who didn’t care about her bad reputation or her clumsy ways, started showing her kindness, falling for him would be a natural reaction.

The only issue was that this was simply his nature. He was equally gentle to everyone.

Charlie raised his hands helplessly. “It’s a school tradition, with upperclassmen guiding underclassmen one-on-one through their first practical lesson, randomly assigned.”

Getting assigned to Elena was a coincidence, and indeed, Charlie wouldn’t have coldly rejected any underclassman girl or deliberately distanced himself from her just because of rumors. In fact, his continuous popularity at the academy as the most favored male student stemmed from this—everyone loves a good-looking and kind top student, right?

Being a well-liked upperclassman, Elena and other students who admired Charlie felt that Charlie’s care for her was unnecessary and even resented it.

But like in her freshman year, Elena would express her feelings too drastically. Fortunately, Charlie graduated before her. Students weren’t allowed to leave the school freely, so Charlie thought he had seen the last of Elena. But this was merely his wishful thinking. As Elena grew older, her psychological dependence on Charlie only intensified, to the point that she could see no one else but him.

“She came looking for me right after graduation, but I couldn’t meet her expectations. Her research in school was already on the fringe, and the teachers probably didn’t want to bother restraining her, so they just let her graduate. In any case, the years didn’t make her any more mature or calm. Her reactions to rejection were even more intense than when she was young,” Charlie said, sitting down fully now, stretching out his legs, half his face vanishing into the darkness. “She was a child I had looked after. I had reservations and was unprepared for her to curse me.”

Actually, he reacted quickly, avoiding most of the curse, which was why he only ended up with a rabbit’s head.

Others might not understand, but Louis knew that Elena’s move arguably did Charlie a favor.

Magic that permanently altered human form wasn’t allowed, and temporary shape-changing magical devices were merely superficial toys at best, perhaps changing hair color or the like. So for Charlie, who had left the academic ivory tower, this curse was nearly perfect. Without much struggle, he happily embraced his new rabbit-headed identity, packed his bags, and went as far as the Pennigra continent.

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