Episode 40
[Move this away, Sir Golden Bunny!]
[Lize is not here.]
Beep, Cassium’s rabbit speech was conveyed to Julius as human language.
Both instinctively understood that they could communicate.
[Don’t lie. Lady Lize was the one who picked me up, wasn’t she? The fact that you’re here proves it!]
[Well.]
[Do you intend to lie before a priest?]
Cassium closed his mouth. Right now, wasn’t he just a stone rather than a priest?
[Lady Lize!]
[Be quiet. Lize will wake up.]
[No, if Lady Lize wakes up, it will be because of you.]
[Are you blaming me?]
[That’s not it. What I mean is, Lady Lize won’t even be able to hear me. I’m a stone, after all…….]
[…….]
At that moment.
“Mm…….”
The sound of blankets shifting was followed by Lize opening her eyes.
Cassium and Julius both fell silent at once.
“Cassium?”
“Beep.”
Lize’s gaze turned toward them. Rubbing her still-sleepy eyes, she sat up.
“Cassium.”
When Lize called his name, Cassium unconsciously raised his front paws.
But Lize passed him by and gently cradled the Julius stone in both hands.
It was a tender gesture.
Lize met Julius’s eyes closely and spoke.
“Cassium. What were you two talking about, my Golden Bunny?”
“……”
Cassium couldn’t hide his complex and subtle expression.
Julius, as if to tease him, cheerfully spoke.
[So it really was Lady Lize who picked me up, wasn’t it?]
[And what will you do about it?]
[More importantly, Lady Lize is incredibly kind. Even treating a mere stone with such care.]
[Be quiet.]
“Golden Bunny? Why do you look so scary?”
Lize’s gaze shifted to Cassium, whose face was scrunched up in frustration.
Smiling, Lize gestured for him to come closer.
“Golden Bunny. This is Cassium.”
“……”
“I’ve told you a few times, haven’t I? This guy turned into a stone.”
[I am Julius.]
“This happened because you were being mean, Cassium.”
[That may be so, but I am Julius.]
“You were punished for being mean. You get that?”
“Beep……”
[Oh dear.]
Julius sighed. Cassium’s expression grew even more tangled.
Noticing that look, Julius stifled a laugh with a small snort.
Cassium glared at him.
[I hope you won’t act mean anymore, Sir Golden Bunny.]
“Beep.”
Cassium was about to land a rabbit punch on the stone.
“Hey, hey! No, Golden Bunny!”
“Beep.”
“I thought you two had gotten along since you were talking so well!”
Lize hurriedly turned and shielded the Julius stone with her hands.
Her touch was so careful that Cassium found himself unable to say anything.
“Beep!”
Lize, this damn stone—!
He clenched his front paws tightly.
Lize gently pried open his paws and looked at Julius again.
Then, bringing the stone even closer to her face, she whispered.
“See? Even Golden Bunny is angry. It’s because you’re unlucky.”
[Is that so?]
“Even as a stone, why do you still look so unlucky?”
Holding the stone with both hands, Lize murmured closely.
It was a conversation just between the two of them.
Watching that, Cassium felt like losing his mind.
“Beep!!!”
Don’t talk to that guy. If you have anything to say, say it to me instead.
“Cassium. Promise me you’ll turn back into a human within a day.”
“……”
“This is a bet. If you fail, I win.”
Those words—weren’t they always meant for him?
“Come on, promise.”
To make things worse, Lize even held up her pinky to seal the promise with the stone.
She had never done that gesture, ‘pinky swear,’ with him before.
Yet now she was doing it with some suddenly appeared Julius stone? It was driving him crazy.
“Beep!!!”
“Hm? Golden Bunny?”
“Beeep!!”
He rushed forward, sticking out his front paws without thinking.
He knew he was acting childish.
But being childish was better than letting Lize and Julius continue their little private conversation.
“Beep!”
Only when Lize matched her hands with his did Cassium finally feel a little calmer.
“Golden Bunny, good night. Cassium, as for you… sleep or don’t.”
Lize placed Julius back onto the sofa and returned to bed.
Julius yawned once before falling silent, leaving only Cassium deep in thought throughout the night.
***
The next day.
Lize’s face was clouded with worry as she stared at the stone.
Cassium had an idea why she was anxious.
The regular meeting of the Elders was tomorrow.
If he didn’t show up there, he would become the perfect target for the Elders, who loved to criticize.
‘Lize must be aware of that too.’
Which meant she had to turn him back into a human by tomorrow.
The weight of that responsibility was evident in her gaze.
Cassium approached the stone and gave it a small tap.
“Beep.”
[How can the black magic be undone? You’re a priest—you should know.]
[If it were something that could be undone with the power of the main god, I would have already lifted you high into the air for fun. Instead of being stuck like this as a stone.]
Julius let out a sigh.
[Of course, as a priest, my resistance to black magic is strong. Which means the one who cast this spell must be quite powerful as well.]
After a moment of thought, Julius continued.
[But black magic, by nature, exists outside the dominion of the main god. Since it is beyond that balance and order, those who use it must offer something of their own as a price.]
[So, there’s no way to counter black magic?]
[Of course, the power of the main god can be used to locate or defend against its energy. But to eliminate its core…….]
[…….]
[There was once someone with that power. But they no longer exist.]
Julius didn’t elaborate further.
Cassium, sensing that he had no intention of continuing the conversation, stopped asking.
His gaze shifted to Lize.
Her eyes, fixed on the stone, were still filled with concern.
“Cassium……”
Cassium clenched his fists and focused on the energy within his body.
He could feel a foreign force—traces of black magic.
But over the past few days, that energy had been fading.
His own power was gradually overwhelming it.
‘Black magic activated when my body was weakened. If that’s the case…….’
A thought struck him, and he climbed down from the sofa.
Then, he dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups with his front paws.
“Golden Bunny?”
“Beep, beep, beep.”
Chanting to himself, he kept doing push-ups while Lize stared at him in disbelief.
It seemed as though he had accepted that he was giving a hint about something.
However, it was not exactly a hint about how to turn the stone back into a person.
‘I’m sorry if I made you misunderstand, but I need this.’
The stone wouldn’t know, but at least for himself, this method might prove effective.
Raising his stamina.
Strengthening the power of his own energy to suppress the black magic lingering within his body.
If this method worked for him, then perhaps the same principle could be applied to turning Julius back from stone to human as well.
‘But I have no idea how a stone could build stamina.’
That wasn’t his concern at the moment.
What mattered now was turning himself back into a human.
Before the Elder Council meeting began.
***
Over the course of a day, I devoted all my time to figuring out how to turn Cassium back from stone into a human.
I read books on black magic in the library and wandered through the back alleys, searching for practitioners of sorcery, gathering any useful information I could find.
‘But I haven’t learned much.’
The one thing that was consistently mentioned everywhere was that black magic had no expiration date.
If the affected person’s energy overpowered the black magic’s influence, they could return, but if not, they might never return at all.
I had heard talk about manipulating the body’s energy, but I had no clue how to deal with the energy inside a stone.
“Cassium, try circulating your energy properly. You’re a Sword Master, aren’t you? Isn’t this exactly the kind of situation where a Sword Master should use their skills?”
“……”
“If you don’t come back, I’ll be the new leader of the Black Leopard Division. Can you really handle your knights serving under me?”
So I kept throwing out words like that, hoping to provoke him even a little.
“Is he not here?”
I went to see if Priest Julius might have any useful advice, but he wasn’t at the temple.
‘Should I ask another priest?’
I hesitated for a moment before turning back.
‘Telling someone else that Cassium has turned into a stone feels too risky.’
If word got out that something had happened to him, it could become Erne’s weakness.
That was probably why Commander Denver and the Black Leopard knights had kept silent until now.
“Let’s just head back, Cassium.”
But just as I was about to leave—
The stone trembled slightly.
• ❁ • ❁ • ❁ •By Esraa• ❁ • ❁ • ❁ •
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