༺ Sisters Are The Closest Friends! (7) ༻
Sway— Sway—
A tail was wagging.
Naru was very fond of it.
“Oh, holy shh…! It’s a radiant tail…!”
A radiant tail.
Just like Naru said, it was a shining tail.
That’s why she called it a radiant tail.
This radiant tail was about as thick as a pinky finger, with a bead-like round end, and the way it swayed side to side was quite fascinating.
Of course, its owner Horohoro spoke calmly and collectedly.
“Everyone needs to be careful…!”
Horohoro.
The suspicious friend from Class H.
The child who introduced Hina.
Tywin couldn’t dismiss her suspicion about Horohoro’s appearance in this underground.
‘What is this child? Why a tail?’
It was exceedingly strange.
But thanks to Horohoro’s shining radiant tail, the surroundings were brightly lit, and she seemed to know the underground well, leading the children adeptly.
“We’re close to a safe place…! Bad monsters can’t come there, so follow quietly…!”
Horohoro skillfully guided the children using secret passages in the walls.
At last, they reached a safe zone.
It was a dead-end space wedged between walls, piled high with boxes and assorted items.
Old blankets, pillows, and a kettle suggested it was quite a lived-in space.
The quick-witted Naru asked.
“Is this Horohoro’s home by any chance?”
“Yes! Horohoro lives here…!”
Living in this terrifying underground.
Elizabeth couldn’t understand it at all.
But there was something she could be sure of.
Horohoro from Class H.
This child was not human.
Something else.
Tywin quickly realized that.
“You’re the imp in contact with my Mom. Horohoro.”
She already knew that her mom, Elle Cladeco, was in contact with an imp.
And she had asked Professor Brigitte for help to investigate it.
A shining tail.
A strange way of speaking.
All characteristics of an imp.
Soon Naru tilted her head in confusion.
“Imp…! Naru needed to find an imp, and now I have! But it’s a little different from what I thought. No horns. Similar to Sifnoi?”
Then Horohoro spoke.
“Horohoro is an imp…! A loyal servant of Lord Nocturne…! Originally, imps were nymphs, but we received Lord Nocturne’s blessing and got these wonderful tails…!”
Nymphs.
A race favored by the Demiurges.
There were nymphs who followed Nocturn, and it seemed that the corrupted nymphs became the lesser demons, imps, because of Nocturne’s perverse power.
Of course, whether that was true or not wasn’t important to Tywin.
“Get us out of here.”
Escaping this bizarre place.
Could there be anything more important than that right now?
“Molumolu…”
Naru murmured with regret.
But Naru couldn’t risk everyone’s safety just to find Molumolu.
Free time was already over.
The adults must be worried by now.
“Okay…! This Horohoro will get everyone out of here…!”
Horohoro declared.
Soon, Horohoro began to lead the children somewhere again.
The place they now faced was very sleek and mechanical, unlike the stone-wall-filled area before.
There were various devices installed, and the bubbling foam from the blue, transparent tanks looked quite eerie.
“…A laboratory?”
Whose question was that?
It was Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s father was a renowned pharmacist.
He had a private workshop that doubled as a laboratory.
There were cages full of pitiful mice and frogs, and tanks lined up with their dissections.
Young Elizabeth found the sight quite horrifying, which made it a place she did not want to enter.
This place now resembled that laboratory exactly.
However.
What was in the tanks was neither frogs nor mice.
It was humans, with strange mechanical devices and tubes connected to their pierced chests and necks, floating.
Yes.
They were all humans.
The sight of over a dozen humans surrounded by the blue tanks and mechanical devices.
‘Dad told me, experiments on humans are illegal. That’s why he uses frogs and mice for experiments. We all owe a debt to the frogs and mice… Then what is this…?’
Illegal.
Elizabeth firmly recalled that unfamiliar yet familiar word.
They were witnessing an outrageous ‘illegal’ act!
“We need to get out of here quickly…!”
They shouldn’t get involved with this.
‘You shouldn’t know too much’—the young girl’s instinct screamed.
She might end up like her mother, who knew too much and had an accident.
But.
Tywin, who until just a moment ago had the strongest desire to escape, moved as if spellbound.
Gradually.
Towards the shining, blue-lit tank.
Whoooosh—
The shining tank.
Tywin’s face in front of it was pale and blue-lit.
Bubble—
In the bubbling tank, a girl with vacant, ashen eyes crouched.
Her gaze met with Tywin’s.
“She looks exactly like Tywin. What’s this?”
Naru asked.
Indeed, the girl crouched in the tank and Tywin looked strikingly alike.
The shape of the face and eyes, the color of the hair.
If there was a difference, it was just that the girl in the tank seemed slightly skinnier and older.
“…Sister?”
Tywin muttered to herself unknowingly.
Sister.
The girl who was always first in the heart of her Mom, Elle Cladeco.
The rival always compared to Tywin.
Though Tywin heard she was a genius surpassing even her, Tywin had never met her.
She had died before Tywin was born— or so Mom Elle had said.
Then who could this woman in the fish tank be?
“Vermin… have crept into the sanctuary.”
Then someone appeared behind the children.
He was a giant, rock-like man in light attire, with a black mask wrapped around his face.
Elizabeth gasped at the sight.
“T-That man is the villain who came to Naru’s party!”
A monster who could punch through steel.
His name was Mara.
“Honestly, I don’t like… killing children. I hope you know… I have no ill will towards you. Now that you’ve seen the secret, I will send you off without pain.”
Pop—
Mara launched himself.
And just as a huge shadow called ‘death’ seemed to approach Tywin-.
Clang-!
A sharp metallic sound rang out.
“Free time is over, you know? This is why I dislike kids.”
When Tywin came to her senses, she saw a woman blocking the man’s fist with a dagger.
It was their homeroom teacher, Salome.
“…Salome. Why block my punch?”
Mara asked.
To which Salome replied.
“Well, because my daughter might be here!”
“…Daughter? But you’re not strong enough. Salome, you can’t beat me.”
“For someone who can’t beat me, you seem pretty wary, huh? Afraid of getting hurt by this dagger? You’ve noticed it slows healing, haven’t you?”
“……”
Salome and Mara faced off for a few seconds.
A brief time.
But for them, beyond their limits, a few seconds were enough for dozens of exchanges.
A master’s duel where a moment’s gap could mean death.
The one whose concentration wavered first would surely be at a disadvantage.
And the situation was worse for Salome.
Because she was hiding the children behind her.
‘This is really the worst. This is why I hate kids.’
Facing Mara head-on was foolish.
Was there a better way─while pondering, Naru shouted.
“Molumolu!”
━Grrrrr…!
With Naru’s cry, something burst from the darkness.
It was a black cotton ball, menacingly approaching Mara’s face.
“It’s useless.”
Mara calmly swung his fist, slapping the cotton ball away.
But, as if hitting an intangible ‘cotton ball’, Molumolu stuck to his face, undeterred by Mara’s punch.
“…What!?”
“It worked! The secret technique I practiced for cheating during test times by sticking Molumolu on the supervisor’s face…!”
Mara was quite flustered.
He tried to peel off the cotton ball stuck to his face, but it wouldn’t come off easily.
Salome did not miss that large opening and fiercely slashed at the man’s neck.
Swoosh—!
A strike carves through the carotid artery.
Whoosh—!
Blood spurts out.
“Damn, too shallow.”
But Salome realized that the attack was superficial.
Mara’s skin had become as impervious as a diamond.
“Still, this should be enough!”
“Futile efforts-.”
Mara pressed his palm against his bleeding neck.
For the ascetic monk Mara, controlling his body was a simple task.
Inhale—
As he tensed the muscles throughout his body, his flesh, trained to be harder than steel, swelled, stopping the bleeding.
Pop—
Simultaneously, the tuft of hair stuck to Mara’s face disappeared.
“……”
Mara scanned his surroundings.
But the children and the Back Alley Princess had already vanished.
“Chasing… isn’t my specialty… but…”
They couldn’t have gone far with the children, even if she’s the princess of thieves.
With that thought, Mara was about to move when-.
Zap—
A sensation buzzed at his neck, and Mara froze.
Soon, a black snake-like entity slithered through the air, aiming its sharp fangs at Mara’s neck.
Screeee—!
Mara deflected the fang-like dagger with his fist.
With it, gaining distance to catch his breath.
‘Is it Salome?’
No.
This attack was colder and more ruthless than that of the Princess.
Everything was suspicious in the underground laboratory.
Bubbling beakers and beeping machines.
The rough noise of the life-sustaining breathing apparatus was all that dominated Mara’s senses when-.
Pop—
A shadow emerged from the darkness.
The shadow wielding a dagger lunged at Mara.
“Damn, it’s you Judas, isn’t it?!”
He had somewhat anticipated it.
However, the shadow that attacked Mara was Judas, yet not Judas.
It would be more accurate to describe it as the shadow of the 12th Judas.
“So it’s true that one can seize the shadow of the one they’ve killed.”
Wrist, heart, eye, neck.
Mara could only dodge the blades aiming for his vital points.
Had he sensed with his thief’s intuition that not all of his body was trained like steel?
Every time he’d try to create some distance, the shadow’s hand-held pistol would fire.
Bang—!
The pain from the bullet lodged in his shoulder was a definite reality, not just an illusion of the shadow.
“The skill of the seized shadow doesn’t seem to have dropped. I’ll ask you. Are you Herod?”
The shadow did not respond.
It just slowly twitched its face to the left.
The movement was eerie enough not to be considered ‘human’.
The 12th Judas.
The evil thief Herod.
A villain who killed even his wife, son, and daughter, aiming to acquire the ‘the vessel’.
I had heard the rumors, but never thought I’d face him like this.
“Interesting.”
Mara, a monk broke his vows for the struggle.
Excited by the opportunity to fight the former Judas, even if only a shadow.
But his excitement turned to slight dismay because of the dark figure that appeared next.
Swoosh—
It was also an intangible shadow, holding two long staves.
A mage.
Having heard of mages who wield two staves, Mara couldn’t help but tense up.
After all, he was the most famous mage on the continent of Pangaea.
“Could it be? You are─.”
Flash—!
When the staves sparked with light and Mara came to, he realized he had been teleported to an unknown beach.
A forced teleportation spell.
Mara recognized this as a spell worthy of being called ‘advanced’.
“Advanced magic. Two staves. Could it be Sabernak?”
* * *
“Gone. Is he gone?”
When Mara’s presence had completely vanished, I appeared from the darkness.
Then, Herod’s shadow and the shadow of the mage with two staves looked at me.
Twitch— Twitch—
Their twitching heads were quite creepy.
I’m still not used to it.
It’s as if these creatures have ‘selves’ of their own.
Perhaps they really do.
The shadow plastered on the ground might be hoping to switch places with the body─.
Thinking of stories fit for a horror tale, I looked around.
The aquariums and their contents here and there were quite bizarre.
“This place is totally over-technology.”
Honestly, I had dismissed the technology of the continent of Pangaea as mostly medieval.
But this laboratory was beyond my comprehension, being from the arts.
“A lab buried 4 kilometers underground.”
It was time for some explanations.
Thud—
I sensed someone’s presence.
Turning my head, I saw familiar faces.
It was Brigitte and Elle Cladeco.
“Judas, why are you here?”
Brigitte asked.
Saying I got lost while looking for the kids wouldn’t be very cool.
I lightly replied.
“I’m about to find out why I’m here. But that aside, isn’t that Tywin? The girl in the aquarium.”
Swoosh—
I pointed at one bubbling aquarium.
Wanna read ahead? Buy coins You can unlock chapters with coins or rather “genesis orbs”
Wanna unlock all premium chapters? Check the Membership Chapters will seamlessly unlock no need to bother buying coins anymore.
You can also support us by becoming an exclusive member here
You can rate this series here
You can check our dɨşçöŕd for illustrations here
21
