“Brother, your hand?”
The bright red blood flowed down the mottled wall. The sweet, pure voice behind him brought Roy's consciousness back. The grim expression on his face softened into a gentle smile, and he quickly turned around, saying, “……Sorry, I startled you, Lola! I was feeling a bit agitated by the content of that book, and when I came to my senses, I was like this.”
Roy pointed his mouth at the ‘Book of 777’ on the table.
As a brother, he couldn't let his troubles spread to his sister. He was the kind of person who could perfectly fulfill the responsibilities that came with his role.
It was an original magical tome with extreme toxicity, almost like a record of the ‘essence of the evil god’. Dull-witted people would be fine after seeing the arcane knowledge recorded on its surface, but the more intelligent people dug deeper into the book, delving into Aleister Crowley's thoughts, the more they were eroded by the profound and terrifying poison.
“Aleister Crowley…”
Lola Stuart saw the author's name on the book. Her azure eyes, as pure as the ocean, flashed with a hint of gloom, and even her sweet, pure voice turned low, “……Brother, you shouldn't read the things written by this trash person. You'll be poisoned by it.”
Ever since she was a child, Lola's voice always carried a deep resentment when she mentioned 'Aleister'. At the time, Roy thought Lola hated Aleister for forgetting about them, leaving them orphaned and alone. But after hearing what Aiwass had said, Roy thought Lola's resentment towards Aleister must have a deeper meaning.
“Oh, dear, your hand is still bleeding, brother…”
The slightly airheaded girl seemed to finally react. Seeing the blood still slowly flowing from Roy's hand, she hurriedly and clumsily found a roll of gauze.
World War I had just ended, and it was easy to find military supplies that could be used on the frontlines in London. Lola found scissors and carefully cut a piece of gauze, gently and meticulously wrapping it around Roy's right hand.
Roy looked down, the air filled with the girl’s faint, orchid-like fragrance. He watched Lola’s gorgeous, elegant golden hair scatter messily on the ground, her delicate features serious, her slender hands like pale jade, carefully wrapping his wound with gauze. Only—
“Lola, I advise you to maintain your kindness, and never go into a career related to nursing.”
Roy looked at his own swollen, gauze-wrapped hand in amusement. He felt like his aorta was being strangled by all that gauze. If it could stop the bleeding, he’d be surprised.
If he were on the front lines, the soldiers probably wouldn’t die from enemy fire but would be strangled to death by Lola’s gauze.
“W-what? My technique really that bad? I was taught by someone, you know…”
Lola's eyes darted around, avoiding eye contact with Roy. A faint blush crept across her tender cheeks, making her look quite flustered. She smiled sheepishly, looking like a clueless goose.
“Who taught you how to bandage?”
“It was Sister Ella from the nearby Anglican Church.”
“I trust Sister Ella’s bandaging skills. She wouldn’t teach you to bandage like that.”
Roy glanced again at his oddly bandaged right hand and joked.
“So my technique really that bad, Brother? You’re not kidding?”
Lola slightly opened her mouth, her face showing a surprised expression.
Roy rolled his eyes. He had to say, his sister, Lola Stuart, was sometimes a complete airhead, so clueless that he couldn’t understand her.
“The bread will get cold. It'll be hard when it's cold, it won't taste good. I'll go get it.”
Perhaps a little embarrassed by Roy's expression, Lola pulled up her long skirt and stood up to get tonight's dinner. However, she had been kneeling for so long that her blood circulation wasn't good, and when she stood up, she accidentally stepped on her hair, which was almost as long as she was tall. Her foot slipped, and if Roy hadn't caught her, she would have fallen flat on the ground.
Seeing Lola run into the cramped kitchen in such a silly and adorable way, Roy simply couldn't help but laugh.
This was the sister he had lived with for over ten years, a sister who, besides having an unbelievably beautiful face, was practically useless. She seemed incapable of doing any work. Perhaps the only thing she could do was raise her beautiful, cute smile to be adorable.
Dinner began on the old table in such a warm atmosphere. It wasn’t malicious to say Lola was ‘useless’ because she really couldn’t do many things well. For example, this simple dinner she had made was just mediocre. The homemade jam was a bit too sour, and Roy could barely swallow it down.
But he wouldn’t complain about it. This wasn’t the 21st century. In London, where the war had just ended, two poor children being able to eat a little jam was already a very happy thing. Ten years of hardship had taught Roy to be simple.
After dinner, Lola cleaned up the house. Although she was diligent, she was also very clumsy. Roy dared not let her touch things like plates and bowls, because if she accidentally broke them, they would have to eat with their hands for a long time.
During their leisure time after dinner, Roy walked to the bookcase and pulled out a random book.
As if remembering something, he asked Lola, who was busy cleaning, “…Is there any news today?”
Lola, who was wiping the table and accidentally bumped her knee, winced in pain as she heard Roy's question. After a moment's thought, she said, “……Sister Ella said the countries at war seem to be having a meeting.”
The siblings had been cared for by the church when they were young, so they were considered good churchgoers. When they had free time, they would often go to the church to do some volunteer work to help others.
“Paris…”
Roy muttered under his breath.
At this time, Roy was already thinking about whether to find a way to move to North America. The safest place in the first half of the 20th century should be there. Other countries had varying degrees of war.
However, the war was still more than ten years away. Maybe by then, he would have become a powerful mage and could protect himself and his sister in the war, so Roy wasn't in a hurry.
He read the book for a while, then closed it and flipped to the cover. He saw the author's name—Aleister Crowley.
The book wasn’t a magical book, but a complete erotic novel.
In Roy's limited memory, Aleister Crowley was a final big boss who seemed to be playing the whole world in the palm of his hand behind the scenes. But in reality, Aleister Crowley was a very repressed, middle-aged man, one could even say ‘lecherous’.
Aleister lived a chaotic life, had many lovers, loved to tell strange jokes, and lived among women.
However, Aleister had no respect or sacred feeling for ‘love’. In this house, there were also letters written by Aleister to Roy’s mother. From the few words in those letters, one could tell that the reason Aleister had this kind of thought was because he was too handsome.
Yes, Aleister was simply too handsome. He could easily win over women with his appearance. Getting women was as easy as eating and drinking for him, so he was indifferent to women, even unaware that he had illegitimate children.
(Note: I didn’t make this up. Aleister in the original story was like this.)
“This pathetic, hateful face-worshiping world!!”
Roy wailed. He had a hard enough time finding a girlfriend in his previous life, and now he was really sour.
But when he saw himself in the mirror, the lemon planted in his heart quickly turned from sour to sweet. He seemed not to have to be envious, inheriting Aleister’s excellent genes.
“Even Aleister has limitations of his time. What a load of garbage these novels are. They’re completely incomparable to the Chinese novels I've read. Even if I wrote now, I'd write better than him.”
Roy shook his head, putting the novel back on the shelf. Aleister loved to write strange novels, but they were really not good. No publishers were willing to lose money to publish them, so Aleister ended up financing the publication himself.
After clearing his mood, Roy returned to his workbench. Taking a deep breath, he took a book from the bottom of the desk.
This book was a true forbidden book, the book that all religious mages feared.
Roy looked at the name on the cover—
《Law.of.the.Thelema》