Chapter 218 : Chapter 218
Chapter 218. Hatch the Magical Beast’s Egg
Leon gritted his teeth inwardly while looking at Radel.
He ended up being swayed by that guy’s words.
He should have ignored the remark about whether he was going to apologize from the start.
What is there to be sorry about to a guy like him?
The feeling wasn’t good from the moment that guy suddenly approached.
To think he would even reveal the fact that he was tailing him.
‘I haven’t even found out anything about that guy yet……!’
Should he stop everything here?
It was then.
Radel glanced at the hourglass and gave Leon some advice.
“More than that, there isn’t much time left now. You’d better hatch it quickly, you know?”
“I know that too!”
Leon turned his back abruptly.
Nothing good would come from staying in the same space as that crazy guy any longer.
It seemed he needed to go somewhere that guy couldn’t be seen and think calmly.
Listening to such nonsense made his head spin.
‘I shouldn’t get swept up anymore. Let’s focus on the exam.’
Leon had devoted himself to studying while enduring insults from an unlucky spirit in the library to prepare for this Cryptozoology exam.
‘I guess they really are twins.’
When the Spirit of the Library muttered while looking at Leon, he doubted his ears.
Did he think he wouldn’t hear it?
Leon couldn’t just let it pass and ended up asking the Spirit of the Library.
‘……What do you mean by that?’
‘Aren’t you twins with my lacking contractor. That guy also has an annoying habit of checking what he already knows like you. Wondering where you got this resemblance as if to prove you’re twins, tsk.’
It was truly an insulting remark.
Leon’s expression hardened stiffly.
‘Please take back those words.’
‘Take back what words! Who are you to tell this body to take back or not! I said you resemble him because you look exactly alike, got a problem? Here, I am king! If you have a problem, stop pulling out books!’
After that, Leon was tormented thoroughly by the Spirit of the Library.
However, in the Cryptozoology books he studied while enduring such insults, methods to hatch eggs didn’t appear.
Only the types or habits of magical beasts appeared, not the types of eggs or conditions for eggs to hatch.
If a magical beast incubates an egg, doesn’t the young come out naturally?
Leon looked down at the egg with a frustrated heart.
However, the white and glossy egg held in Leon’s hand was silent.
While he was pondering, advice flew in from behind.
“Leon, hold the egg up to the sunlight.”
It was Radel, whom he thought had disappeared earlier.
Hmph. What advice from a guy like him.
Leon turned his head pretending not to hear Radel’s words.
However, when Radel’s figure disappeared, he subtly lifted the egg and held it up to the sunlight.
‘?!’
Lifting the egg and holding it up to the sunlight, the form of a lizard wriggling inside the egg was seen.
I see.
It was a Salamander.
Then this had to be thrown into fire.
Because it was common sense that Salamanders were born in fire.
“Burn.”
Leon unfolded Fire Element Magic and burned the egg fiercely.
The egg gradually changed to a red color within the flames.
The egg turned red soon harbored the energy of fire and blazed with a golden light.
CRACK.
Cracks formed on the surface of the egg, and intense heat began to pour out.
And with a bright light, a bright red lizard wrapped in flames broke the shell and revealed its appearance.
- Chirp?
Bright yellow pupils stared intently at Leon.
An innocent gaze sent by an existence newly born into the world.
Leon had no interest in Cryptozoology, but he couldn’t help feeling awe just for this moment.
- Chirp!
Seeing the baby lizard spewing fire from its body as if saying it was also a Salamander was fascinating.
It was when Leon was briefly immersed in emotion.
“Oh, you hatched it?”
A familiar voice was heard.
It was also a voice he didn’t particularly want to hear.
“The Salamander is cute. I succeeded in hatching mine just now too.”
Radel suddenly approached and spoke to Leon.
Leon hardened his expression, but because he was able to hatch the Salamander thanks to Radel’s advice, his mood was slightly softened.
So he threw a question he wouldn’t usually ask.
“……What did you do.”
Radel answered with a smile.
“Mine seemed to be an insect-type magical beast, so I supplied some moisture to the shell. Then this cute fellow was born, you see. Want to see?”
Saying that, what Radel thrust forward was a magical beast resembling a pine caterpillar.
On its chubby body, hair thinner than needles grew densely.
“Leon?”
Radel felt something strange when Leon didn’t say anything and looked at him.
Leon turned pale white and couldn’t say anything.
“Ah right, Leon. You hated pine caterpillars.”
Radel, realizing something from Leon’s reaction, obediently backed away.
Right. Thinking about it, that guy was originally like that.
Leon recalled the forgotten past.
* * *
The time when the two were still young.
The 5th Imperial Consort’s Palace overflowed with vitality every morning.
“Radel! Leon! It’s morning.”
Unlike other royals, Bianca, the 5th Imperial Consort, visited the two sons’ room every morning.
And if the children didn’t wake up, she jumped onto the bed and tickled their sides wildly.
“Wake up quickly. If you don’t get up, Mom will tickle you!”
“Aaaack!”
“Kyahaha!”
Young Leon and Radel woke up screaming mixed with laughter under Bianca’s attack.
When the tickling ended, Bianca would give soft kisses on the children’s cheeks.
The warm smile and sunshine of that time still remained in Leon’s heart.
And the appearance of his one and only twin brother too.
“What are you doing?”
Leon, who was sitting maturely at the desk reading a book, discovered his brother doing suspicious actions.
“Huh? Me?”
Radel, who was secretly opening the window, pointed at himself.
Leon nodded as if dumbfounded.
“Yes, you.”
Who else is in this room besides us right now.
“Surely you aren’t trying to go outside? Mother told us to read books until dinner.”
“That’s true, but I finished reading the book earlier. I’ll just go out for a moment.”
“What?”
“I’ll be right back!”
Radel leaped lightly over the window and disappeared.
But he returned somehow before dinner again.
With his pocket bulging from whatever he put in.
Then saying he would show newly discovered friends, he carefully put his hand in his pocket.
Watching in disbelief, he took out bugs one by one and lined them up on the dining table…….
‘Why is he doing that?’
Leon couldn’t understand Radel’s behavior.
That wasn’t all.
Radel would suddenly disappear even while playing together in the garden.
When looking for where he went, he was picking up and eating dirt saying it looked delicious…….
‘And why eat dirt.’
Unlike Leon who was precocious from a young age, Radel…… was a bit strange somewhere.
But he didn’t dislike those unique points.
Because they were twins who did everything together as soon as they opened their eyes.
When they woke up, they were always together, and when they fell asleep, they were together.
To Leon of those days, that was something too natural.
It was one day.
Leon and Radel were having teatime under a tree with their mother, Bianca.
“What do you think, Mother? I sometimes don’t understand Radel.”
“Leon. From Radel’s perspective, you might seem stranger, you know?”
Bianca smiled, saying Leon’s unchildlike appearance would look strange to Radel.
Leon also had no choice but to agree with those words.
Just Inette, a royal of the same age, was too childish to converse with.
“Right. Leon, you are really strange. How can you like reading books more than playing?”
“I read because I have to read.”
“Ugh.”
“Ahaha. See, Leon. Radel says you are stranger?”
It was a peaceful time.
Drinks and sandwiches brought by attendants, cookies Leon and Radel liked.
Mother’s laughter echoing along with warm tea.
A cool breeze blew from somewhere.
And something fell from the tree onto Leon’s eye along with the wind.
PLOP.
WIGGLE.
It was a pine caterpillar.
Simultaneously, a terrible pain as if his eyelid was burning was felt.
“Aack!”
Having been stung severely back then, Leon came to loathe pine caterpillars.
Radel also stopped showing bugs to Leon or bringing them to play pranks after that.
‘He was a thoughtful guy in his own way.’
Right. He was.
Why was a guy like that back then…….
* * *
Leon snapped back to reality.
Before his eyes, Radel had a nonchalant expression.
Radel spoke while stroking the magical beast resembling a pine caterpillar held in his arms.
“That brother must have been surprised, Chungchung. He says it’s because he has bad memories.”
Chungchung?
Putting aside the childish name, that attitude of talking about the past as if it were nothing was bothersome.
“Even though Chungchung is this cool. Later, he won’t be surprised even seeing you.”
Seeing that appearance, sudden anger surged up.
The appearance of joyfully talking to a magical beast with a face knowing nothing like that.
He didn’t like it.
Why must only he be in that hell.
While that guy ran away back then!
While he honed his Ability for his mother’s revenge under his maternal grandfather, that guy hid in the Prince’s Palace fearing the world.
And his personality completely changed too.
He avoided people’s eyes and didn’t come outside.
The brother he knew had disappeared.
His maternal grandfather’s reaction was also cold.
He is a lacking guy.
Leon, he is completely different from you.
For what reason did his mother die…….
He is a guy not worth Bianca doing that for.
Leon remembered clearly the day his mother passed away.
Mother died protecting Radel.
A death that was strange no matter how much he thought about it.
There is definitely something.
He had to become strong.
He had to become stronger than anyone and become the Emperor to uncover the truth entangled in his mother’s death and take revenge.
Leon endured thinking only of that.
And folded his expectations for Radel.
His one and only brother died together on the day his mother passed away.
Since he was a guy who locked himself in the Prince’s Palace and didn’t come out, it wasn’t unreasonable to think so.
However, now that guy stands in front of him with a shameless face.
“Are you angry because I showed you the pine caterpillar? Sorry. You could have forgotten.”
At Radel’s nonchalant words, Leon clenched his fist tight.
“Don’t make me laugh…….”
If you were going to forget everything like that, you shouldn’t have appeared again.
Why appear as if nothing happened and shake him up?
When they can never go back.
Mother’s bright smile, happy memories of childhood, days laughing and chatting together.
Everything was ruined……!
However, Leon’s thoughts couldn’t go long.
Because Radel thrust the pine caterpillar forward again.
“Boo!”
Leon forgot his anger and his face turned pale white.
Black and sharp hairs, black compound eyes whose gaze direction couldn’t be known. Even the patterns wrapping the body.
The form of that magical beast was too terribly that of a pine caterpillar.
“Chungchung, shall we go once more so that brother can get used to you quickly?”
That crazy guy!
Leon stepped backward avoiding Radel who approached holding the pine caterpillar.
“Here, it’s not scary. Chungchung doesn’t sting brother.”
As Radel approached one step at a time, Leon had to retreat faltering.
It was a situation too humiliating.
He muttered inwardly.
Crazy guy.
A guy who has gone mad even more than before……!