The Two Babies Changing the Original Story – Chapter 30

Author: Asternkm

“Princess, you said you’ve never learned separately before, right?”

“Mmm….”

Princess Ellia still hadn’t taken on an official teacher.

When the late king casually asked her about it around age five, she had answered firmly, “No!” So he just thought, It’s not urgent yet… and left it alone.

The little bit of reading she learned from Madam Laval was all the education Princess Ellia had received.

“Then how did you know and use this formula?”

Lombaton pointed with his finger at one of the answers Ellia had written.

Ellia looked down at the answer she had written.

“Formula?”

She had just solved it naturally, so she didn’t even know what a formula was.

“Yes, this is a formula someone created—to make this kind of problem easier to solve. If you didn’t learn it, that means you made it up while solving the problem….”

Ellia looked more closely at the answer.

‘Ah!’

It was a formula her brother had taught her.

She used it so naturally that she didn’t even think of it as a formula.

Ellia’s face went pale.

“How did this happen? Was there someone who taught you this?”

“Uh, um, that….”

What to do?

If she said someone taught her, they would ask who. And if she said she couldn’t remember, they’d question her until they found out it was a lie.

But if she claimed she just remembered it now, they’d treat her like an even bigger genius—more than she could handle. And if the truth came out later, the lie would explode into something even worse.

Problems on this side, problems on that side.

Stuck inside a completely blocked problem, Ellia couldn’t find a way out.

“Th- that. M-my brother….”

Unable to withstand the pressure, Ellia answered honestly without meaning to.

Lombaton tilted his head.

“Brother…?”

Madam Laval, who was dozing by the door, also opened her eyes wide and looked over.

Cold sweat formed.

Lombaton looked back and forth between Madam Laval and Ellia and asked,

“Her Highness has a brother?”

“N-no!”

Ellia shook her head in a hurry. But the word “brother” had already left her mouth.

“That can’t be.”

Madam Laval also shook her head with a smile.

Ellia desperately hoped they would just drop it, but Lombaton kept digging.

“Then how did the word ‘brother’ come from Her Highness’ mouth?”

The question had nothing to do with the problem.

He was simply curious about what Ellia had said.

If Ellia had just smiled and brushed it off, it would’ve ended there. But she panicked and overthought it.

Princess Ellia didn’t have a brother. She had a brother.

If they found out she had a brother, they might also figure out she wasn’t Princess Ellia.

It was a crisis.

Ellia started spitting out random words.

“S-so, in my dream there was a brother!”

“Ah-ha…?”

Lombaton began listening seriously.

No, this isn’t it! Just listen lightly and move on!

Ellia’s mouth went dry with nervousness.

With no time to think, she had to invent the story on the spot.

“So, uh, Luden—no, my brother’s name in the dream was Luden…!”

“Yes, so Brother Luden appears often in your dreams. Is he a real person?”

“Yes! No!”

“…?”

“I mean, he’s my brother in the dream…!”

“Ah, yes. Your dream brother.”

It wasn’t exactly that, but if Lombaton believed it that way, that was fine.

Ellia nodded quickly to go along with it.

“Yeah! He’s a genius great mage brother!”

“Oh? He’s even a genius great mage.”

In a child’s world of dreams and imagination, geniuses and great mages show up all the time.

Lombaton accepted her words kindly, not surprised.

“Yeah, he’s really, really amazing, and we played while solving problems together!”

“So, because you played with your genius great mage brother in your dreams, you learned how to solve this problem too?”

“Yeah!”

“Hm….”

Lombaton looked at her answer sheet again.

‘There’s no way she could know this without learning it….’

No matter how many times he looked, Lombaton’s conclusion stayed the same.

She had definitely learned this from someone.

But who?

The problem Ellia solved was difficult enough that anyone outside the Academy’s curriculum would struggle with it.

At this point, Ellia’s test difficulty had become very high.

‘Brother?’

The existence of a dream genius mage brother stuck in his mind.

It would be easy to dismiss it as a child’s fantasy—if not for the evidence of Ellia’s answer.

“Where does that brother live?”

“Um…, he lives in the forest.”

“In the forest.”

“Yeah, a house in the forest.”

“Not a tower, but a house?”

Lombaton tilted his head.

When someone earns the title of great mage, they don’t have to live in a magic tower—but no one actually chooses not to. Mages tend to be very closed-off people.

And the magic tower was located in the middle of the desert. Far from any forest.

He wondered whether Ellia had actually met a real mage, but the more she talked, the less likely it seemed.

‘If someone’s really smart, their imagination can be strong too.’

She was still young, so she might not clearly distinguish dream from reality.

“I see. It must have really been a dream.”

“Uh…?”

Ellia, who had been insisting desperately that it was a dream, suddenly felt all her strength leave her.

It felt like she had been arm-wrestling, only for her opponent to suddenly let go.

“Uh, no, my brother…. Luden oppa is….”

Ellie blinked.

Her brother wasn’t a dream. He was real. He had really existed.

Suddenly, the reality around her hit her so vividly it was almost frightening.

What if her brother really wasn’t real? What if she had only imagined and pictured him on her own? What if losing her memories had mixed everything up into a mess?

‘Then… does that mean Luden oppa might not come looking for me?’

Fear shot through her.

She had believed he would look for her someday. That was why she stayed strong and pushed through, even when things were hard.

But thinking that he might not come made the path she’d been running feel completely dark.

“N-no…, Luden oppa is real.”

Ellie spoke with a trembling voice.

Earlier she said he was from a dream, and now she said he really existed.

Lombaton shook his head at Ellie’s inconsistent words.

“Could you tell me clearly? When exactly was the period when you lived with this Luden oppa in the forest house?”

“Until after I turned seven…. Until a few days ago….”

“As far as I’ve heard, Princess Ellia has always lived in the palace and was raised by Madam Laval and the late king and queen.”

Even if she was a child, the scholar did not gently accept words that went against logic.

And that only made Ellie’s trembling worse.

“So, I, um, I….”

No matter what, she couldn’t say she wasn’t Princess Ellia.

“In my opinion, it seems you’re confusing things with a dream. In that case, it’s more reasonable to say you solved this problem because you’re a natural-born genius.”

Lombaton didn’t sugarcoat his words.

“Luden oppa isn’t a dream! He taught me magic too! Look!”

“Oh?”

Ellie finally pulled out her last resort.

People said you couldn’t use magic unless a mage taught you.

If she showed magic right here, they would believe she had a great mage brother.

Ellie put her hands together and focused.

Lombaton didn’t deny her words—he simply watched quietly.

“…Huh?”

A drop of cold sweat rolled down Ellie’s forehead.

“H-huh?”

Ellie stared blankly at her palms, where nothing was happening.

That wasn’t possible. This couldn’t be happening.

“Why, why….”

“What’s wrong?”

Lombaton’s voice barely reached her ears.

Using magic, to Ellie, was like splashing water or playing with dirt.

Just like you didn’t need strength to touch water or knead soil, magic was also something she could do “just” by following the method Luden oppa had taught her.

But now it was like her hands were gone—nothing worked.

It felt like her hands had disappeared below the wrists.

“I-I’m weird….”

“Pardon? Are you feeling unwell?”

“Hueeeng, no, this is wrong, why? Why?”

The magic that had existed as naturally as breathing—vanished completely.

Even the faint, tiny bit that had remained—gone. Completely. Without leaving even a drop behind.

Ever since coming to this world, she hadn’t even thought about using magic, and she also tried to hide the fact she knew how.

But she had believed she could use it anytime, if she just tried.

…But she couldn’t.

Her one and only means of protecting herself was gone.

And also her connection to Luden oppa.