Let’s Block the Ruined Route in Advance Chapter 47

“Lua, are there no more people?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“You shouldn’t have come out, you’ll get in trouble.”

 

Huddled in an old abandoned wooden crate in the corner of the alley, two small snakes squirmed, clinging to each other.

 

They were tiny, barely more than 20 centimeters long at most.

 

“Brother will hate us now.”

 

“No, he’ll come looking for us.”

 

Moa, the smaller of the two snakes, cried, and his sister, Lua, patted him with the tip of her tail.

 

It was their fault for disobeying Laquerta’s warning to never leave the house.

 

It was Saturday morning, and they were waiting for Laquerta as usual, but somehow he was late. The price for sneaking out to pick him up was harsh.

 

“That must have hurt like hell,” she says.

 

“I’ll die, and I’ll never see Brother Laquerta again.”

 

“No! You idiot!”

 

Smack!

 

“Why did you hit me?”

 

The two of them, who seemed to be getting along well, soon started fighting. They should have gone home now, but they were afraid to leave the box in case the poker flew at them again.

 

“I’m hungry.”

 

“Me too. I was going to eat with you when we got home.”

 

They fought for a while. 

 

Moa, who hadn’t had breakfast and had come through the commotion, was the first to collapse to the floor, exhausted. 

 

Lua, who was lying down with Moa as a pillow, sighed heavily.

 

“Meow~”

 

The box shook with a creepy sound.

 

“A cat!”

 

Realizing the identity of the danger, Lua clawed at Moa’s neck.

 

“It’s a cat! We have to run!”

 

Moa looked up, frightened. The cat was pawing at the box, looking for an opening.

 

“Aaaaahhhh.”

 

Moa saw the cat’s sharp claws right in front of him, and he stuck his head in the corner and cried out.

 

“You fool, run away.”

 

Lua choked back her tears and grabbed Moa’s tail, pulling him to his feet, her body shaking, but she was Moa’s only sister.

 

“Brother told me to keep an eye on you, and if he does come in, I’ll bite you hard!”

 

Moa bared his venomous tusks ferociously and glared at the wall with wide eyes. Soon, with a creepy popping sound, a crawling cat poked its head through the crack in the box

 

“No!!!”

 

Lua squeezed her eyes shut as Moa hovered over her. Just when they thought it was all over.

 

“Shoo! Get away from them!”

 

“Meow-!”

 

Someone shooed the cat away with an urgent voice.

 

“What?”

 

Moa looked up with tears streaming down his face, and Lua immediately slapped him.

 

“You idiot, it’s a woman’s voice!”

 

Lua, past the immediate crisis but still wary, peered out of the box, and soon heard a soft, whispering voice.

 

“Hey, kids, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

 

Lua and Moa looked at each other.

 

“Sis, she called us kids but we look like baby snakes!”

 

“No. Maybe she’s just pretending to be nice on purpose to get us!”

 

While the children were confused, Eileen scrunched her forehead in puzzlement. She’d heard about the little snakes’ disappearance and had immediately used Star to explore the area.

 

Not far away, she spotted a small snake being attacked by a cat, and she rushed over and chased the cat away.

 

‘Bright lemon color. They must be the ones I remember seeing in my memory, but why are they snakes and not humans?’

 

The little snakes seemed wary at first glance, too wary to be coaxed out. Through the gap created by the cat’s head, Eileen peered into the box.

 

‘They’re so small, like forsythia.’

 

Showing that she had nothing in her hands, Eileen slowly sat down on her hands and knees in front of the box.

 

“Um, I’m Eileen, and I go to Verotanis Academy out here, and I’m not a bad person.”

 

The larger of the two snakes flinched and poked its head out.

 

“Verotanis? So you know Brother Laquerta?”

 

Lua asked cautiously, her voice still filled with suspicion.

 

‘I don’t understand a word she says.’ Eileen thought, gazing fondly at the young snake with a head the size of a thumb.

 

“Hiss-! Hiss-! Hiss-! Hiss-! Hiss-! Hiss-! Hiss-!”

 

It was trying so hard to say something with its tiny mouth, but she couldn’t make out a word. 

 

Eileen said, apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak snake, do you think you can turn into a human?”

 

At that, Lua lowered her head sullenly. If she could change into a human at will, she would have done so long ago when the cat appeared.

 

“I see you can’t control it.”

 

Eileen nodded and reached out a hand, having guessed the situation.

 

“It’s dangerous here, with all the people and cats, why don’t we go somewhere else?”

 

Moa crept over and stood next to Lua, his head pressed against her side.

 

“What should we do, sis? We should go back.”

 

“……”

 

Lua looked at Eileen with a troubled face. Laquerta had said that all humans were bad, but the woman with the cozy brown hair didn’t look like it. If anything, her long, flowing hair reminded her of a mother she couldn’t remember anymore.

 

“Hiss-”

 

At the thought of her mother, the pretense of strength she had been forcing herself to put up to protect her sister crumbled away. Lua was about to climb onto her hands when she looked up at her with wide eyes.

 

“What do you think you’re doing!”

 

“Ah!”

 

Laquerta, his hair and school uniform disheveled from wherever he had run, gasped and grabbed Eileen’s hand. Eileen was yanked up in one swift motion and shoved against the wall.

 

“You’re going to rip my arm off!”

 

“What do you think you’re doing!”

 

“I was just helping the kids because they were being chased by a cat!”

 

Cynicism soon grew in his burning eyes. He spoke again, his voice low as an animal’s throat.

 

“Children? Then how did you know they were Suyin, and are you going to call that a coincidence, too?”

 

“Ah.”

 

Come to think of it.

 

Eileen’s head rolled furiously as she realized her mistake.

 

In the original! It wouldn’t be strange if she broke her arm just by saying that.

 

“The spirits told me, I’m an elementalist, I have a good sense.”

 

If Orgen had heard, he would have laughed at the nonsense. Laquerta was looking at Eileen with a very suspicious eye.

 

“Brother, don’t do that! She saved us!”

 

“Yes, she saved us!”

 

Lua and Moa, who had just emerged from the crate, were shouting as they climbed onto Laquerta’s shoes. Flinching, Laquerta lowered his head and looked down at them.

 

“I thought I told you to wait until I got here.”

 

“I’m sorry about that. We were just trying to see our brother off.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Moa sighed and buried his head in Laquerta’s ankle. Sighing deeply, he leaned down and stuffed the children into his pockets.

 

“I’m sure there’s more to say, but let’s move for now.” 

 

Eileen replied, rubbing her throbbing wrist. “I shouldn’t go if I don’t have anything to say, should I?”

 

Slender pupils stared down at her wordlessly. 

 

Swallowing hard, Eileen said. “Yes, a story. Let’s try that.”

 

Eileen obediently followed him, feeling déjà vu that somehow, she was going to end up with Laquerta, too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You live here?”

 

The place where Laquerta had taken the children was a side room attached to a storage room in a dilapidated inn. The surrounding rooms were cluttered with various items, indicating that the former storage space had been rented out on the cheap.

 

After setting the children down on a basket piled high with old quilts, Laquerta turned around.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

Eileen looked around. Tattered quilts, cobwebs that looked like they had been worked on, dust and artwork everywhere. The small, windowless room was a shocking place for children to grow up.

 

“Children live in a place like this…? Why are they here without an adult in the first place? Are these your kids?”

 

Eileen, shocked by the filthy conditions, forgot her fear and lowered her voice to a whisper, and Laquerta’s face contorted.

 

“I’m only sixteen!”

 

“Ah, sixteen. Then you can’t be… What? Sixteen?!”

 

Eileen’s face turned bright blue. The average age of admission to Verotanis was seventeen. It was literally average, so it wasn’t impossible for a sixteen-year-old to be admitted. But…

 

“I thought you were a few years older than me but you’re actually younger!”

 

She shouted angrily after a moment of staring at the very mature Laquerta.

 

“I’m not going to call you my big sister just because I’m younger!”

 

“I never wanted to!”

 

Eileen ruffled her hair.