Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Lars’s face was taut as he swept through the room like a whirlwind. Mugs of honey beer, pink bows, dolls in lace dresses, and all sorts of other things kept flying out under his hands.

“The cup is the Cup of Bosen, which can turn any liquid into poison. The bow is Medusa’s Hair, which can turn into a venomous snake in someone’s sleep and bite them to death. And there are dolls that can be used to cast curses… Every random thing in here is a lethal magic item.”

“Hey! This is breaking and entering!” Tio was tied firmly to a chair, shouting in wounded protest. “Those are all my precious collectibles! You can’t find such cute ribbons anywhere else! And they’re not that scary. A lot of them are perfectly safe.”

Lars gave a cold laugh, straightened up with a saucer in his hand, and said, “Yes. All the food in the room is normal. And none of the sweets among that food are poisoned.”

Ruiyin watched with her own eyes as the black lace dress Lars had just thrown out instantly transformed into a mummy wrapped in poisonous thorns. In that moment, she gained a profound understanding of just how terrifying a glutton’s obsession could be.

After Lars finished searching everything, he returned to stand in front of Tio and said coldly, “Release our companion.”

“No.” She petulantly turned her head away and side-eyed him.

Lars calmly dodged the little snake that suddenly appeared at his feet and lunged at him with its jaws open. With two fingers, he snapped up the man-eating flower that had somehow stretched its body over to his shoulder, then turned back with perfect courtesy. “A monster-summoning array? I noticed that one too. Sorry.”

“You people are so boring,” Tio said, rolling her eyes. “Relax, I was afraid he’d get lonely, so I specially sent him somewhere very safe to play! So let’s play too. Come on, let’s play, let’s play~~”

No one knew how she had broken free from the chair, but she kept the posture of being tied up and rolled back and forth across the floor. With astonishing agility, she avoided every bit of food while knocking over every neatly arranged miscellaneous item. She was practically a human-shaped smart bowling ball.

“No need.” Ruiyin stopped Lars, who looked ready to charge over in a fury and tie the little girl up again, and shook her head. “It won’t work. It looks like this entire tower is under her control. There’s nothing we can do to her here.”

As if to prove her words, the ropes around Tio untied themselves. One end hooked onto the chandelier while the other tugged at her ankle like a little hand, leaving her hanging upside down from the ceiling, swinging back and forth.

“Wrong, wrong. Not just the tower. This whole city is mine~” she said smugly.

As she spoke, the ropes that had just been used to bind her had already arranged themselves into a swing between the shelves. Amid Tio’s laughter, they carried her from one end of the room to the other. Crystal balls on the bookcases flashed with lights of every color. A venomous little snake that had crawled out from who knew where quietly climbed onto her shoulder and flicked its tongue. The doll that had been tossed onto the floor sat up and revealed an eerie smile… Everything in the room, including the desserts, seemed to be staring coldly at the outsiders. For an instant, Ruiyin actually had the illusion that this lunatic really was the Queen.

“The Dark Elf Queen from two hundred years ago? The administrator of the Royal Capital?” Ruiyin looked at her. “Mordova, the one who brought us here, never told us any of that.”

With a clatter, every sound in the room fell silent.

The doll instantly hid its face. The little snake stiffened into a chopstick on the spot. The lights inside the crystal balls died down and, while they were at it, pulled the curtains shut. As for the great Her Majesty the Queen, Tio slowly crawled up from the floor. She did not even wipe away the nosebleed from landing face-first. She only stared at Ruiyin with an almost idiotic expression. “You… who did you just say brought you here?”

“Mordova,” Ruiyin said, looking at her a little strangely, still not understanding what had caused such an immediate effect.

Lars watched for a while, then suddenly smacked his fist into his palm in realization. “Oh, I almost forgot. He did say he killed you two hundred years ago. But… huh? Why aren’t you dead yet?”

He looked at her with wide, puzzled eyes.

Under that pure, innocent gaze, Tio nearly coughed up blood, but she could not stop her face from going green, then white. After a long time, she gave two dry laughs. “Ahaha. So Mordova was the one who told you to come. Here, please sit. Have some tea.”

With absolutely no trace of invitation in her manner, she took out two cushions and two teacups that had gone moldy inside, then sat down first with a wooden expression. She reached out and smacked the little snake that was trying to sneak away. Only then did the snake slowly hook a brass kettle with its body and pour pale green liquid into the teacups.

The room returned to its previous silence. Every living and nonliving thing stayed where it belonged. After Ruiyin and Lars sat down, Tio quietly took a sip of tea before saying, “I didn’t expect Mordova to be the one who brought you. The last time he brought anyone here was two hundred years ago. I’m truly sorry for being so rude to you.”

“It’s fine. Where is our companion?” Lars asked impatiently.

“He’s very safe.” Tio lifted her eyes to glance at him and said in a perfectly proper tone, “I will take you to see him. Please don’t worry.”

“Why are you so afraid of Mordova?” Ruiyin asked curiously.

Compared with how she had acted before, the current Tio was far too normal. But precisely because she was too normal, it gave people an empty, disorienting sense of unease. Ruiyin truly could not imagine what sort of terrifying power could turn a madwoman back into a normal person in an instant.

Tio took another sip of tea and gave a fake smile. “Who’s afraid of him? I’m n-n-n-n-not afraid of him at all QAQ!”

“…” If you have the guts to say you’re not afraid, then have the guts to say it without an emoticon!

“Mordova, that man who has absolutely no tender regard for women, absolutely no knightly manners, never considers a lady’s feelings when he hits people, and has enough combat power to conquer the world, is not someone I’m afraid of at all!!!”
“…Are we really talking about the same person? Why have I never once felt that he was such an intimidating presence?”

Tio gave a cold laugh. “Since he was willing to bring you here, of course he wouldn’t show that side of himself in front of you. That man is the best there is at playing innocent. Well? What did he send you here for?”

“Oh, we ended up stranded on this island by accident. He said there was a passage to the mainland inside this tower.”

Lars suddenly froze. He tugged lightly at Ruiyin’s sleeve. “Um… Ruiyin, weren’t we originally here to look for the missing Vigia?”

Ruiyin’s raised hand went still. After a long while, she turned back with a perfectly calm expression. “Were we? Sorry. I forgot. Heh.”

She had clearly only repeated what Galahad had said in the previous chapter, which meant… aside from Lars, everyone had already forgotten about Vigia…

“He only told you there ‘was’ a passage to the mainland here?” Tio suddenly asked.

Ruiyin nodded and looked at her questioningly.

“I can’t tell you how to get out.” Tio instantly brightened.

“Oh? You’re not afraid he’ll find out and beat you up again?”

Tio flushed with anger. “I wasn’t afraid in the first place! Besides, he only told you there was a passage here. He didn’t say I had to lead you out, so I have no obligation whatsoever to let two humans who barged into my territory leave!”

That instant burst of unreasonable nonsense seemed to restore her earlier, unserious self. She swung her bare feet and sat back down on the mountain of cushions, smugly watching Ruiyin’s brows draw together.

That was, admittedly, very strange.

If the Black Knight was completely on their side, then why had he not mentioned anything about either the Royal Capital or the tower? He had said he killed Tio two hundred years ago, so what was going on with this person here now? And since he knew Tio, there was no way he did not know what she was like. In that case, why had he left only that one sentence behind?

“He did ‘tell us’ there was a passage here.” Lars lifted his head and fixed his sharp gaze on the triumphant Tio. “You have no obligation to lead us out, but you must do exactly as he said and ‘tell us’ where that path is.”

Ruiyin looked at Lars as if she were looking at a monster. He scratched his head a little shyly. “I… I was just guessing, hehe… Tell us right now. Did you hear me?”

The domineering content after the ellipsis was a clear sign of his inner and outer personalities switching depending on who he was facing.

Tio sat high above them, her beautifully curved calves dangling down. With taut, wheat-colored skin and flawless, delicate features, she really was a rare beauty, apart from her brain. With a smile that was not quite a smile, she said, “You want me to tell you the way? Then what will you trade for it?”

“Trade?” Lars raised an eyebrow.

“That’s right. He only said I had to tell you the way. He never said I wasn’t allowed to charge a fee. Would you like to trade gemstones, high-grade magic materials, or… your beauty?” Tio stuck out the pink tip of her tongue and seductively licked her lips. “For a delicious young knight like you, I am very… ow!”

Before the Queen could finish her declaration, an iron helmet struck her squarely in the forehead, sending her tumbling down from above.

“Absolutely not.” Ruiyin held the throwing pose and said coldly, “Even after the parts of you that make you a woman finally grow in, don’t even think about having a single crooked thought about him!”

Tio lay sprawled on the cushions, her jealous gaze traveling from Lars’s broad shoulders to the healthy line of his waist exposed through his tattered leather armor. The fire in her eyes nearly burned. She snorted with her nose in the air. “What’s so great about that! You’re only a tiny bit bigger than me! Two hundred years ago, every handsome man in the entire Dark Elves race was mine to choose and mine to bed!”

Lars’s whole face turned bright red. He hesitantly glanced up at Ruiyin, then immediately turned his head away bashfully.

Just now, she… seemed like she was defending him!

And… she did seem to be a little bigger than Tio… Uh, stop! Stop your filthy imagination, Lars!!!

Tio reluctantly took one last look at the appetizing Lars before finally turning away. In a nasty tone, she said to Ruiyin, “You brought the key, didn’t you?”

“Key?”

“Yes.” Tio’s tone was thoroughly vile. “Use that lower life-form brain of yours and think. If you didn’t have the key, how did you get into the Royal Capital?”

Ruiyin suddenly remembered something. She took two flat red crystals out of her backpack. They were the ones she had found earlier in the eye sockets of the Bull Demon King’s corpse. “Is this the key you’re talking about?”

Tio snatched them over, held them up to the light, then nodded. “That’s it. Well then, are you ready? I’ll send you over now.”

“Wait. Where are you sending us?” Ruiyin asked warily.

“To the passage you want.” She smiled maliciously. “What, Mordova never told you? There is only one true passage, and it exists within the memories of Orc King Kandaru.”

Author’s Note:

Tio: That woman is only a tiny bit bigger than me! Just a tiny bit, QAQ!!!