Chapter 40

—That was duller than I expected, wasn’t it?

Lakis inwardly agreed with the bug .

‘Really, they just found it by chance . ’

He was steaming a little as he moved on the roof of the building .

He thought there might be some other fragments, but apparently, his expectation was pointless . In the end, all he did was run a fool’s errand, so he was a little annoyed . Like he thought, he should have at least taken the ruin’s fragment from the white mask back then .

But there might still be a chance .

Lakis narrowed his eyes as the thought crossed his mind . Then he softly leaped to the roof of the building across .

He could see the sun slowly setting beyond the horizon .

Knowing he had to return before Yuri got home, Lakis increased his speed .

* * *

“Leo . ”

“Kng!”

As soon as Yuri walked in and called out that name, a brown shape rushed out from within . A fluffy tail shook rapidly behind it .

“Yuri!”

Leo, who ran out with his ears pricked up, happily clung to Yuri .

“Wait…”

However, perhaps Leo was overjoyed today, because he pounced on her with more intensity than usual . So Yuri was eventually pushed back by Leo and fell down .

Although it wasn’t raining now, there was a shower a while ago, so her clothes got wet . And the hem of her dress immediately got dirty .

“Kreung!”

Leo’s tail wagged frantically behind him as he looked at Yuri with sparkling eyes .

In the end, Yuri gave a shallow sigh and scratched his chin, while Leo purred like a real animal . Now, Leo’s tail was moving so rapidly that she thought it might fall off at this rate .

After taking in this frenzied welcome, Yuri brought up her main reason for coming here today .

“I brought you new clothes . The ones you have are getting dirty now so change into these . ”

A thread shot out of her hand .

When Leo pounced on her earlier, the thin bag in her hand had flown to the side . Now, the paper bag on the floor was pulled to her at blinding speed .

“I also brought you your favorite candy . ”

“Candy!”

Leo instantly began to drool .

Like Odin said, Leo was not a completely successful experiment at the lab but like the other test subjects, he didn’t need to take in any other nutrients . But as someone whose growth was stopped when he was still a child, Leo loved snacks like candy and chocolate .

Yuri understood Leo’s behavior because she herself ate at every meal even though she didn’t need to . So she often bought snacks for him in this manner .

Crunch! Munch!

“Leo . ”

*Chomp*!

Leo’s attention was already focused on the candy and at some point, he had shredded the paper bag while his nose was buried in the bag . He didn’t seem to even hear Yuri’s voice .

Yuri considered telling him to change his clothes first then eat, but when she saw Leo’s sharp teeth glistening with crushed candy, she figured the new clothes would get dirty soon anyways .

While Leo’s mind was lost to candy, Yuri went to check on the ruin’s fragments she had left here . It was in the hole under the statue in the monastery’s prayer room .

‘Yeah, let’s sell it to Damon Salvatore . ’

Perhaps her fellow test subjects might curse her out if they knew but in the end, everyone was a slave to capitalism . Of course, the ruin’s fragment could be said to be the main culprit of Yuri’s long suffering but in her eyes now, it was a bundle of money .

“Kreuk!”

Then she suddenly heard an unhappy cry in front of her and when she looked, she found Leo spitting something out of his mouth like he’d just chewed crap .

“Bleh!”

Then he began to act like he was fiercely burying it in the ground .

“…”

Yuri was momentarily speechless .

You’re a fox, not a cat…

Do foxes also bury things that taste bad in the ground?

Finally, Leo spat several times at the spot where he’d just buried the candy, like he was getting rid of the aftertaste . Then he dug into the paper bag, picked out all the candy that were the same as what he just ate, and began to bury them into the ground with his front paw…wait no, with his hand .

He seemed very repulsed by that particular candy .

Hestia loved it when she gave it to her so she bought it for Leo too . But apparently, Leo didn’t like it at all .

After burying the unwanted candy to his satisfaction, Leo looked pleased with himself and shoved his face back into the paper bag .

“Leo, I’ll get going . See you later . ”

Yuri said her goodbye, but Leo was too focused on the candy to hear her . However, she was used to Leo being like this when he was distracted so she let him be and left the monastery .

She couldn’t take the ruin’s fragment home since Lakis was there, so she kept it back where it originally was and even blocked it off with her thread .

When she stepped out, she noticed the dark clouds had cleared after the rain stopped, and the glow of the sunset was striking in the sky .

Yuri remembered the person at home and quickened her pace .

The test subjects from the research institute were fundamentally independent and tended to be individualistic . So even after escaping from the institute, neither Yuri, nor Odin, nor Leo had ever thought of living together .

Therefore, even though Yuri had experienced it for several days now, it was hard for her to get used to this situation where someone was waiting for her at home .

And so, she headed home, where Lakis was .

* * *

On her way home, she discovered that her regular grocery store had a lot of things on sale . When she thought about it, she realized that she did have to go shopping so she went inside .

“Ms . Yuri, have you been buying more groceries lately?”

A while later, the clerk whom she saw often tilted their head and asked instead of calculating the price .

Like he said, the number of mouths in her house had doubled so naturally, the amount of food she bought doubled too . Plus ever since that one morning, Lakis did the cooking sometimes and his food was amazingly delicious . The sub-villain’s cooking was so much better than she expected .

“It became like that somehow . ”

“We have very fresh tomatoes today . Would you like some? I’ll give you on the house . ”

However, the clerk only looked at Yuri with curiosity in his eyes and didn’t try to pry for more information than necessary . Like that, Yuri got some free tomatoes and left the grocery store .

At sundown, the sky was dyed a bright red . Twilight slowly began to creep in, causing long shadows to extend behind people .

“Oh my gosh!”

“Oh no, it’s dangerous…!”

Then suddenly, Yuri heard people gasping and yelling not too far away from her . Her eyes followed the noise to the source of the disturbance .

The next moment, she was faced the scene of a child who had fallen on the floor and a carriage which was running straight at the child from a short distance . The person driving the carriage didn’t seem to see the child that had fallen down .

Seeing the carriage approaching fast, people screamed .

But the child’s silver hair was familiar to Yuri . Her eyes instantly narrowed .

The child currently fallen by the roadside was Anne-Marie’s little sister, Hestia . She didn’t know why, but despite seeing the approaching carriage, the kid couldn’t get up .

Yuri quickly grasped the situation .

People were focused on what was happening so she couldn’t use her web here . She quickly calculated her distance to the kid and how long it would take her to get there . And after reaching a conclusion, she began to run .

“Hestia!”

Hearing Yuri’s call, the child unconsciously turned her head . Her delicate face was white as sheet .

Yuri’s paper bag fell to the floor and crushed tomatoes came rolling out of it . Finally, Yuri’s hand reached the child .

Neigh!

The horse cried out loudly as it drew incredibly close to them . Now, all she had to do was carry Hestia and get out of there…

Just before she could spur herself out of there, someone dragged her backwards . Drawn by the strong grip, Yuri tilted and fell backwards with Hestia in her arms . But as she fell, the person caught her .

No, they didn’t just catch her .

Yuri suddenly found herself in the embrace of someone she didn’t know . She was holding Hestia, but the unknown person seemed unaffected by this as they supported her . And they moved with surprising agility, leaving the danger zone in the blink of an eye .

Fwoosh!

The carriage raced behind them by a hair’s breadth . Yuri’s long hair was tossed all over by the wind before slowly settling down .

“Are you alright?”

A very polite and clean-cut male voice rang out in her ears .