I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain Chapter 124

If Yohan said so, then it truly meant this wasn’t magic.

 

There was no one whose judgment I trusted more than his.

 

But it didn’t seem like a natural earthquake. There were too many things about it that seemed unnatural.

 

“Then….”

 

Meanwhile, the earthquake became more severe and cracks began to appear in the ceiling.

 

The already narrow entrance to the temple became even more chaotic as nobles, all of them trying to get out, crowded together.

 

The ground began to shake violently, and some people were crawling, bending down.

 

The entrance was so crowded that even getting out seemed difficult.

 

‘This….’

 

Amidst the chaos, Rivena was nowhere to be seen. As if he had anticipated this, Theodore also disappeared.

 

‘It’s Rivena’s doing.’

 

I’d never imagined there would be such a massive mechanism hidden within the temple.

 

‘I knew she might act recklessly… but still.’

 

Even with our greatest enemy gone, the temple was enemy territory.

We had come prepared for danger.

 

But I had never imagined they would collapse the temple on this scale.

 

That was when.

 

“High Priest!”

 

A priest who had been dodging the situation shouted in a sharp voice.

 

I looked up at the stage in surprise and saw the boy who had just become a high priest lying on the ground, having been hit by a collapsing statue.

 

In this chaotic place, no one cared about the boy who had been nothing more than a ceremonial puppet of the imperial family.

 

Even the Emperor and Empress, who had once acted as though they would protect him, were now too busy worrying about their own escape.

 

Only one young priest rushed forward, catching the High Priest’s body as he cried out desperately,

 

“He’s not breathing—he’s not breathing! What do we do?! A doctor! Is there a doctor?!”

 

Of course, there was no doctor here.

 

In fact, injured people were appearing everywhere.

 

Yohan was holding me, Father was supporting Mother, and we were narrowly avoiding flying debris—but everyone else looked barely capable of keeping themselves upright.

 

“Damn it…” Yohan muttered under his breath.

 

“Of all times… There are too many wizards here.”

 

He was right.

 

The presence of so many reasonably skilled wizards only made things worse.

 

With the entrance blocked, wizards began firing spells wildly, determined to break through the walls and escape.

 

But the temple walls only crumbled further without opening any real path.

 

‘It’s fine. This is within expectations.’

 

I thought as I fiddled with the medicine from Runart in my arms.

 

‘We prepared a plan all the way to the very end. Stay calm.’

 

But to do that, I had to find Theodore and Rivena.

 

They hadn’t escaped outside. I was certain of it.

 

After all, their target was me.

 

As long as that didn’t change, I could keep drawing them out indefinitely.

 

“Wait!”

 

A huge crescent-moon-shaped statue fell from afar with a thud. It had clearly been struck directly by someone’s magic.

 

“No!”

 

I shouted loudly, despite having been carefully observing the situation until now.

 

“If that disappears….”

 

The crescent-shaped statue was the symbol of the temple where the high priest was appointed.

 

If such a statue were to be shattered and disappear, the next high priest would not even be able to be appointed.

 

With the current High Priest boy already hovering between life and death, losing the next candidate would be the same as never being able to obtain holy water again.

 

We could trace the magic later, but no matter how I thought about it, this felt like Theodore deliberately trying to screw us over.

 

“Duke Hyrad!”

 

My father, who was nearby, seemed to have similar thoughts.

 

Father rummaged through his pockets and threw a small glass bottle at Yohan.

 

“Just in case—keep this.”

 

It was holy water, freshly divided into two from what we had obtained earlier.

 

Yohan easily accepted the small bottle my father had thrown.

 

“Because you are stronger than Jayden.”

 

Certainly, Jayden seemed to have difficulty even avoiding the flying debris from afar. He was staggering as if even staying upright was difficult.

 

Yohan took the bottle of holy water and carefully placed it in his pocket.

 

“Fire! There’s a fire!”

 

At that moment, acrid smoke began to rise from far away.

 

“Damn it,”

 

My father swore with an annoyed expression on his face.

 

“It’s the garden.”

 

If it was a garden, it would be a place where alit grass was in bloom.

 

Rivena and Theodore were steadily driving us into a corner.

 

My father’s eyes met mine.

 

We hadn’t expected things to escalate this easily—but we hadn’t failed to imagine it entirely, either.

 

The temple was a closed space that had never been opened to anyone, and it was a place where secret experiments were conducted on my father and me.

 

We had always suspected countless hidden mechanisms lay within.

 

There had been a reason we came here despite knowing the danger.

 

“How about we just leave?”

 

My mother, who was being held by my father, slowly opened her mouth for the first time.

 

“Mariel was badly hurt… I’m so worried about her. And Yurika, and Duke Hyrad… and Jayden too. I don’t think anything good will come from staying here any longer.”

 

She’d acted as if she had little interest in Yohan, but apparently she at least knew his name.

 

With anxious eyes, Mother looked from me to Yohan, then to Father.

 

“You can get out, can’t you? And so can Duke Hyrad.”

 

Even in the midst of all this, my mother frowned from time to time as if she had a headache.

 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but I think the safety of my family is more important than that.”

 

My mother looked at me with a small smile.

 

“Isn’t that so, Yurika?”

 

From the moment the ceremony was announced to be held at the temple, we’d known it could be a trap set by Rivena and Theodore.

 

Perhaps the safest choice would have been for none of us to attend.

 

But it was something related to my mother’s illness.

 

If we missed this opportunity, my mother would have to live the rest of her life with terrible headaches, not being in her right mind, and living like a ghost at home.

 

‘In truth… we had even considered the possibility that Rivena might destroy the Alit grass and eliminate the High Priest altogether.’

 

That was why we had rushed to secure the holy water as soon as the ceremony began

 

Even so, I couldn’t choose not to attend alone.

 

Rivena and Theodore could easily have taken our family hostage within the temple and used them to threaten me.

 

Knowing it was a trap, we had still walked into it—for Mother’s sake.

 

And if we were going to attend at all, then Yohan and I needed to come together and bring our full strength before things reached this point.

 

“My family is the most precious thing to me.…”

 

Mother urged Father gently.

 

Tears welled up in my eyes.

 

I hadn’t expected the temple to physically collapse like this—but I didn’t regret coming at all.

 

If anything, the only thought in my mind was that we had to leave with the medicine, no matter what.

 

My family—the ones who had recognized me at a glance even when I didn’t yet know who I truly was.

 

“Besides, I couldn’t protect Yurika.… I don’t want to fail to keep her this time either.”

 

When I heard my mother’s words, my nose started to tingle and I just moved my lips, but then Johan spoke instead.

 

“You are also a member of the family, ma’am.”

 

That was when.

 

Far off in the distance, the flames flared up once more.

 

The startled wizards now even destroyed the fountain, creating a water chaos.

 

This was not the time to be so sentimental.

 

“Put me down—now! I can go on my own!”

 

I quickly got out of Yohan’s arms. I was confident I could move my body quickly.

 

Grabbing Yohan’s hand, I started running toward the central garden.

 

Far away, my father was also running in the same direction, keeping his distance.

 

‘I can do this. The timing’s unexpected, but it’s still within what we prepared for…’

 

As I was running, dodging debris falling from the ceiling, someone blocked my path.

 

“Ah—just a moment!”

 

It was one of the wizards of the border region I saw earlier.

 

“Wait for a sec… wait for a sec…Can’t you stay by my side? I feel a sense of stability when I’m by your side.…”

 

I paused and blinked as the other wizards began to gather in front of me.

 

“I… I’d like to stay with you too.”

 

This was truly an unexpected situation.

 

The female wizards even approached me, as if trying to grab my hand, saying things like, “Would you like to escape together?”

 

Of course, Yohan wasn’t about to let that slide.

 

“Get lost. What are you doing?”

 

Yohan spoke ominously.

 

—Boom!

 

With a thunderous crash, a massive wall collapsed between the wizards and me.

 

“Good job, Yohan! Now let’s go—huh?”

 

I gave him a thumbs up, but Yohan’s expression was a little strange.

 

Yohan’s purple eyes were shaking violently. He spoke in a cracking voice.

 

“Something’s weird here, Yurika.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Using magic hurts several times more than it should, and…”

 

I hurriedly grabbed his hand.

 

But instead of his usual careful, gentle touch, Yohan suddenly laced his fingers tightly with mine and pulled himself close.

 

“….Right now, I want to hug you so much.”

 

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