Chapter 218

“Hmm.”

Jinseong looked at Iarin, who confidently claimed she didn’t know anything.

“How many have you already eaten?”

“Not me!”

Her attitude was bold.

“How could I, someone so delicate, huh? How could I possibly eat such cute little creatures? Do you really see me that way, dear brother? Hmm?”

“Hmm.”

Jinseong stared at Iarin, who puffed out her chest proudly, asserting her innocence and that she was blameless.

“I believe I told you to quickly deal with that demonic beast from Russia.”

“I don’t know.”

Though he brought up Iarin’s potentially controversial past statements, she dodged the issue like a pro.

“I don’t know! No idea. Can’t remember.”

Cheat phrases.

“I don’t know. I can’t recall. That’s beyond my knowledge.”

She expertly avoided Jinseong’s attacks with her three invincible sentences, as if she were a master of jujutsu who had understood the essence of yielding to overpower.

But there’s no such thing as a perfect evasion technique.

A force that could break her cheat-like logic appeared.

“You’re not a girl.”

“Hey! You scared me!”

Another figure had appeared beside Iarin, who was boldly leaning toward Jinseong as if to say, “Deal with it.”

It was her sister, Iserin.

Whoosh-!

Iserin suddenly materialized there as if she had emerged from a ghostly realm. She appeared like she was assembled from darkness, suddenly making her presence felt as she took her place beside Iarin. And her startling appearance was enough to shock Iarin.

Especially since Iarin, who had senses keen as a beast, couldn’t help but be astonished by Iserin’s sudden emergence as if she had been created on the spot.

Iarin jumped up like a startled cat when she saw Iserin and, as if defying gravity, floated through the air to the edge of the pool. She managed to regain her balance on the slippery floor, pressing her hand against her chest as if she had just barely avoided a heart attack. Then she yelled loudly as if in protest.

“Hey! I said to make some noise before you show up!”

However, despite Iarin’s loud protest echoing through the underground space, Iserin didn’t flinch. Instead, she shot a look as if to say, “Why are you making noise at this hour?” and surveyed Iarin from head to toe with disdain, as if inspecting something utterly ridiculous.

This made Iarin, in a fit of rage, plunge her hand into the pool, splashing some water, and then used footwork to dart toward Iserin in an instant. Before Iserin could react, she had positioned herself behind her and tugged at the back of her pajama collar to create some space.

Then, she poured the water she’d scooped up into the hole she’d made.

“Ah?!”

Naturally, Iserin, caught off guard by the unexpected splash, jumped up.

She bounced in place as if trying to shake the water off her back, and thankfully her pajama was a skirt, so it was easy to remove the water. But even if she succeeded in getting rid of it, the wetness on her back wasn’t disappearing.

She glared at Iarin with annoyance at the feel of her damp back and the soaked material of her pajamas.

“What.”

Iarin, facing Iserin’s glare, shrugged as if to say, “What’s the problem?”

Not only that, but her face also reflected a sense of pride, as if she were doing something righteous.

Iserin’s expression was charging up to the point of exasperation, enough to make her want to curse.

“Clumsy Iarin.”

“No, you’re the clumsy one!”

“Nope. You’re clumsy.”

“Uh-huh, isn’t it true? I told you several times to make some noise, and forgetting that makes you the clumsy one!”

“Nah, I didn’t forget. I just ignored it.”

“Yeah, you forgot, right? You forgot and then tried to defend it, huh? But a clumsy person wouldn’t even realize that fact, right?”

“No.”

“Besides, warriors are supposed to develop their brains, so calling someone clumsy makes no sense, right? Someone who doesn’t even know that brain development isn’t the same as wisdom is the real clumsy one, right?”

“No, that’s not true. And brain development and wisdom are…different. You’re the one who doesn’t have wisdom…”

“Uh-huh, I won’t listen to someone clumsy.”

And thus began an entirely childish fight, spurred by Iserin’s name-calling.

Iserin threw out all the words she could muster to strike Iarin, and Iarin retaliated with tactics to infuriate her—the methods she had learned from who knows where.

Before long, Iserin got caught up in Iarin’s childish yet oddly provoking tone, and realizing this, Iarin took the opportunity to assert dominance, puffing herself up as if to say, “I’m going to win, so you just deal with it or dodge me.”

And so, in a sequence of verbal attacks, Iserin found herself overwhelmed, and unable to endure any longer, resorted to her cheat.

“Brother. Iarin learned something weird.”

“Hey!”

Snitch.

Iserin pulled Jinseong in, as if motivated by her anger toward Iarin, all previous awkwardness towards him forgotten as she tugged on his sleeve, pointing at Iarin with her finger.

“I learned something strange while hanging out with Asha.”

“Hmm.”

“While hanging out with Asha every day…”

Iserin began to recount incidents that Iarin had caused during the time Jinseong wasn’t around, and noticing this, Iarin attempted to cover her mouth using some clever footwork.

However, anticipating Iarin’s attempt to silence her, Iserin used her contractor powers to lower her body to the ground, disappearing into it as if she were burying herself, then bursting up beside the pool like someone re-emerging from a refuge.

“That’s evil magic, evil magic!”

“Shut up….”

Iarin grumbled about Iserin’s ridiculous evasion tactics as she moved closer, and this time, Iserin didn’t evade but allowed Iarin’s gestures.

As soon as Iarin’s fingertips touched Iserin, she beamed with victory, and just like she had learned in school, she slid her hand smoothly to grab her joints and twist them for domination, but…

Snap.

In that moment, Iserin’s form changed.

What once seemed gloomy and lethargic transformed into strands of bright yellow thread made of red and gold, and the pajamas Iserin wore became a transparent lace resembling a cicada’s wings. Those strands latched onto Iarin’s body like a net, clinging tightly as if they were spider silk, pinning her against the wall.

“Hey! Get this off!”

Iarin struggled like an insect trapped in sticky goo or prey trying to escape a spider’s web, fighting fiercely to free herself. Despite her efforts causing some threads to break and the lace to stretch and tear, the sheer number of strands indicated that it was going to take some time to break free.

Meanwhile, Iserin utilized the precious few seconds effectively and wisely.

“Clumsy Iarin has become even clumsier. She’s so enchanted by that bunny that she helps out with all sorts of things. Just recently, she brought a friend who’d mastered the ice ball technique, claiming they wanted to build a giant ice sculpture on the mansion’s rooftop and needed water from the makeshift pool for it, leading to the roof collapsing.”

“Hey!”

“And you know what? There was that time in Russia when I saw her drinking beverages with a bear. She even broke into an illegal bear bile farm. You wouldn’t believe what a shock it was when the police arrived, only to find her chilling with a bear and having cola.”

“Iserin!”

“Plus, at school, she seduced Ella into doing weird things! She claimed real dinosaurs turned into oil, and since plastics are made from oil, plastic dinosaurs must be real dinosaurs too… So she asked Ella to create a giant plastic dinosaur model and made it move using witchcraft to have it battle! It was wild!”

Iserin’s non-stop snitching went on while Iarin struggled to break free.

All semblance of awkwardness around Jinseong vanished, replaced solely with her intent to inform him about the beastly sibling who was genetically programmed as her enemy, delivering her strike with all her might.

“That time she was hitting on Ella was something else. Aren’t we friends? Aren’t we special? No way! I’ve thought of how special you are! It was so cringe, like a host hitting on a girl. Plus, she was super persistent, and with even Asha joining in, Ella couldn’t withstand it for long….”

Thud.

But that revenge didn’t last long.

Iarin, unable to endure having her actions snitched on, summoned all her might to break free and sealed Iserin’s mouth.

“Ahem, brother? I’m hungry, so stop chatting and make me a gift.”

“Mmm! Mmm!”

“Grill those two for me! Got it?! I’ll be in the restaurant shortly!”

Iarin tightly sealed Iserin’s mouth, lifting her up and promptly using her agile footwork to exit the underground space.

And after the stormy sibling battle had passed, the underground space fell into silence…

Bloop?

Capybaras, hiding in the water from the tempest, peeked their heads up one by one, looking at Jinseong.

Their faces seemed to ask what had happened.