Chapter – 30
Chapter 5: The Disappearance of Cropot
“One, two, three, four…”
Inside a sparkling glass orb, colorful marbles glimmered brightly.
“Wait, how many were in the left one again?”
A girl with luscious golden curls, around ten years old, lifted her dazed face.
“Oh no, I forgot!”
The girl jumped up and grabbed her fluffy hair in frustration. At that moment, the ceiling above suddenly opened.
With a cloud of dust and loud creaking, stairs descended from the ceiling.
From there appeared a teenage girl with long reddish hair tied together, her mouth covered with white cloth.
“Shasha, that’s why I told you to count everything and write it down,”
“No, unnie! I thought it would be fine since there were only three bottles,”
Shasha spun her head toward Mari.
Though time had passed, their height had grown, their features slightly changed, there was one thing that remained unchanged—their sea-like, reserved eyes that shone clearly.
Mari sighed deeply.
“All the contents are magic stones, so we have to manage them properly. Calm down and count them from the beginning again.”
“Ah, really!”
Mari removed the cloth covering her mouth.
Her large green eyes, smooth small white nose, and softly plump cheeks—her face radiated love, like spring flowers in bloom.
“If we lose even one, it’ll be a disaster. Shasha, can you handle it?”
“I really don’t want to count numbers…”
Shasha slumped her shoulders, bent her knees, and looked into the glass orb again.
“One, two, three…”
Mari took off her messy apron and placed it on the nearby table. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, let her dress flap, and shouted toward the ceiling.
“Cropot! Don’t dawdle—come down! We need the water bucket!”
A deep, heavy sigh came from above.
“Mari-posa, do you think I’m your servant?”
Cropot stepped down the old, creaking stairs, dragging his gray-toned cloak behind him.
His white hair was tied carelessly, he wore his usual white cloak with a blue sash, and even in the darkness, his delicate features glowed.
He had the same stern face and sharp tone as ever.
“Why are you cleaning an unused attic? I said I’m fine several times…”
“Even if it’s unused, it needs cleaning. This is our home,”
Mari replied firmly, hands on her hips, eyes sharp.
“It’s been five years since we started living together—how can we just ignore the attic now?”
“Right. If I hadn’t looked at the ceiling patterns, I would never have found it!”
“Hmph.”
Cropot sighed.
He wondered why anyone would care about ceiling patterns.
When the water bucket floated gently from the attic, Mari finally smiled in satisfaction.
“Cropot, can you come up with a mopping spell? If we do a round-trip movement three times per second, it should cover the attic area.”
“You want me to come up with a mopping spell now?”
“Please.”
Whether Cropot, the archmage, felt frustrated by the mopping spell or not, Mari returned to the attic, dusting the stairs with her nimble hands and cloth over her mouth.
Cropot muttered, watching Mari’s back,
“She’s like a bean sprout.”
She’s really grown up diligently.
Then, without warning, Shasha shouted behind Cropot.
“Unnie! Cropot said you’re like a bean sprout!”
“What?”
Cropot held his forehead. No matter how accustomed he tried to be, he could not get used to Shasha’s antics or Mari’s nagging—it was enough to make his head ache.
Five years. Five years had already passed.
Mari was fourteen, and Shasha was nine.
The children had settled into the antique shop according to their personalities, and every moment with them had become part of Cropot’s daily life.
That first summer at the shop, Mari’s first birthday—Shasha had been advertising it for a week. Cropot surprised Mari with a cute birthday cake and an unreleased product from a bald man he had pressured, making Mari burst into tears of joy.
Her loud crying then… aside from the time Shasha had been kidnapped, Mari had never cried like that before.
Then the seasons passed. Autumn came, bringing Shasha’s birthday.
She had prepared a gift list a month in advance, insisting on thirty-five gifts.
Cropot and Mari, planning to scold her for being greedy, first gave her a large, encyclopedia-like book instead of a cake.
Shasha glanced at the book once, then at Cropot and Mari, tears welling in her eyes. Cropot sighed and handed over a toy; Mari brought out the cake.
Slowly, little by little, memories were made.
As the children grew rapidly, Cropot often had to visit shops to order new clothes.
When a young, stern but elegant man appeared holding hands with two children, people in the marketplace speculated endlessly: Were the kids adopted? Are they his biological children? Did they resemble their mother? Perhaps a noble family eloping in secret had escaped here…
All the rumors finally quieted when Jerome, a boy from a poor family working at a poultry shop, suggested that Mari and Shasha’s mother had died a few years ago, and the man seemed to have adopted them.
Jerome was one year younger than Mari, never had real conversations with the sisters, but secretly admired them from afar.
One day, while buying chicken, he finally mustered the courage to speak to Mari. She kindly responded, and they became friends.
Of course, Cropot, aware of Jerome’s infatuation, stopped bringing Mari to the poultry shop. But they still exchanged letters from time to time.
These days, Cropot grew irritable because the newspaper delivery boy had recently been replaced by a boy two years older than Mari.
Every morning, Mari would encounter the boy, waiting to strike up a conversation—it was enough to make Cropot wish he could curse him.
“Cropot?”
Mari’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
Cropot glanced at Mari’s innocent, pure face.
“Was cleaning too hard? Why aren’t you eating?”
After a long, grueling attic cleaning, the three of them now enjoyed tea in the study.
A few years ago, Cropot had a huge desk in the center of the study. After Shasha bumped her head while playing, it was removed. A comfortable sofa and low table replaced it, creating a cozy space for tea and snacks.
“Why are we using the attic for storage anyway?” Cropot complained again.
“Cleaning is good! There were probably precious antiques up there too—they should benefit the shop,” Mari said sharply.
The old attic was full of antiques, most ordinary items from the human world, forgotten and shoved aside according to Cropot. Mari saw them as valuable assets.
“We should sell what we can,”
“There’s no need. This is a magical consultation office, not an antique shop.”
“Cropot, then what are we living on this winter?”
Cropot remained silent. Mari, at fourteen, complaining about money—it made his head hurt.
“No, we have money. There are jewels at home.”
“Those are Magia’s jewels. Don’t we need to go to Magia to sell them?”
“Well…”
Cropot sighed, holding his smoking pipe in his mouth. Shasha suddenly shouted, mid-bite of cake.
“Cropot! Your pipe!”
“My head hurts.”
“But we agreed not to smoke while eating!”
“There’s no harmful ingredient. No smell at all,”
Cropot replied.
The pipe contained herbs to relieve headaches and calm nerves. Since it was harmless, the children naturally became curious.
“Can I analyze it? I want to know how it works.”
“You want to analyze my magic powder?” Cropot chuckled—an archmage’s calmness.
“Mari-posa, do you think you can do it?”
“I can! I recently read Minutia Parina’s ‘All the Dusts That Cause Coughing in the World.’”
“You read that?”
The book, written by the magical scholar Minutia Parina, was a must-read for anyone interested in magical herbs. A few days ago, she mentioned it, and Mari had already found the book in the study.
“It’s five volumes, isn’t it?”
“You can memorize that in two days.”
“Ha.”
That sigh was not from Cropot.
Shasha copied Cropot’s expression and sighed again,
“Ha…”
“Don’t.”
Shasha’s antics once again drove Cropot to exasperation, though Mari couldn’t help but hide her laughter.
Yet again, Cropot’s temper flared.
“Shasha, I said don’t…”
“Mari-posa! Are you home?”
Cropot’s face crumpled.
The voice belonged to none other than Jerome.
“Damn…”
