The roads of Linelor City were cracked and narrow, a knot of lanes like tangled roots.

Old plaster had peeled like shed bark; bare bricks, pitted by beading rain, breathed a damp, ancient smell.

Using poles and dumpsters as cover like a stray cat in shadows, Purple Illusion tailed her sister’s steps to a sagging single‑story shack.

A slovenly man sprawled inside like a discarded rug. Purple Illusion knew him: their long‑estranged birth father.

“Where’s the booze! The bottle I asked for!” His voice scraped like a broken bottle.

“Father, I’m sorry... th-this is all I could bring...” Her tone shook like wet paper.

“Useless brats! This little? How’s that enough to drink!”

“I-I’m sorry!”

The man lurched up like a storm breaking. He slapped Purple Dream, then blows thudded in a bleak, relentless drumbeat.

“Sister!”

Panic surged like a wave before her feet moved. Purple Illusion rushed in, but she was a frail sparrow before a 170‑pound bull.

In a blink, he snatched her up like a hawk grabbing a chick.

“Little Illusion?”

“Sis, run!”

The purple‑haired little girl clung to her birth father’s knee like ivy on stone, but Purple Dream did not run.

“I’ll go buy more right now. Please don’t hit Little Illusion!” Her plea trembled like rain along a window.

“Filthy thing—move!”

...

In the end, only when Purple Dream returned with more liquor did the squall pass.

They made it home that night, yet the night had sunk deep like ink.

In their bare little room, only two girls leaned on each other like twin candles in wind.

“Little Illusion... why did you follow me today...” Her voice was ash‑tired.

“B-because I was worried about you, Sis!”

She hugged her sister’s arm; warmth bloomed like a small hearth.

“Thank you, Little Illusion... but from now on, don’t follow me.”

“No way! Are you still going back there, Sis!”

“Mm. He’s still... our father, after all...” The words fell like stones.

“Sis, don’t go again!”

“Heh... it’s enough if you stay home, Little Illusion. Do not follow me, or I’ll get angry.” The smile was thin as paper.

No matter how Little Illusion pleaded, her sister would not bend, like a willow in a gale refusing to snap. She forbade tailing; if she caught her, she’d be “very angry,” thunder behind a closed door.

But then the bruises on her sister multiplied like dark moons, and her lively face thinned, wilting day by day.

And even when Little Illusion followed, it helped nothing. Afraid her sister would be hit, Purple Dream bowed lower before their father and only ran to buy more drink, like a river dragged into a whirlpool.

Even calling the police was useless. The birth father dodged with false excuses or feigned remorse; once they left, his cruelty doubled like a rising tide.

They still studied together, still slept side by side, still shared meals, still listened to little stories, like trying to keep a lantern lit in wind.

But her sister’s expression grew more drained, the light guttering. The young girl knew she was near collapse. This could not go on.

So a demon of a thought rose in the girl’s chest like smoke.

Just kill the birth father. That would do.

Yes. Kill him, and Sis would stop getting hit, stop scraping for liquor money, stop fading day after day.

The thought fermented in her heart, turning from mist to stone. Before she turned ten, the purple‑haired little girl chose to make it real.

First, make it look like an accident, like a leaf slipping on wind.

Second, never let her sister know.

How to move?

A little girl’s strength was small, but a drunk’s mind was mud.

So lure him out with liquor, then shove him off a high building, and it would be done, clean as rain.

It was Purple Illusion’s first lie, and her first taste of how sharp a lie could cut.

Now the man was a corpse, cold as river stone, and would never trouble them again.

No one suspected her. The police filed it as an accidental fall; a drunk’s death, not worth stirring the silt.

But Purple Illusion hadn’t foreseen this.

Her sister cried.

Even before the body of the man who had done so much harm, her sister wept like rain on graves.

W-why...

Bewilderment swelled like fog. They no longer had to force themselves. No one stood in the way. At his funeral, what was there to mourn?

Maybe it was karma.

Not long after, her sister fell gravely ill, as if winter had moved into her bones.

They got her into Linelor Central Hospital, but the bills climbed like vines. Debt piled high.

“Sis, I brought you apples!” Her smile was a small sun.

“Wow... Little Illusion, you’re so sweet...” The praise flickered like a candle.

“When will you get better, Sis?”

“Mm, soon... almost there...” Hope stretched thin as a thread.

She didn’t know the name of the sickness, but the little girl believed. Her sister would get better. She clung to that like a talisman.

So Purple Illusion took her sister’s jobs, scavenged scraps for cash, borrowed notes from classmates, and read with her by the bed like keeping vigil.

Yet one day, she overheard the doctors talking, words like cold water down her back.

“The patient in C12—it’s that XXX condition, right?”

“Yes. No targeted drug. With long-term complications, there’s little we can do.”

“What about the Life Loop device?”

“She’s an orphan, and she’s broke. Even if it can string life along, that machine only stretches the pain.”

Even Linelor Central Hospital seemed powerless before this illness, like doctors with empty hands.

“Are you Miss Purple Dream’s sister?”

“Y-yes!”

“Please... sign this form.”

What the doctor handed her was a critical-condition notice, paper heavy as stone.

Her young heart didn’t grasp the jargon, but she knew this: a signature meant accepting her sister’s leaving, like opening the gate to winter.

“No, I won’t sign! You have that Life Loop device—use it!”

“Little one, where’d you hear that? That device costs a lot.”

“Please save my sister! No matter how much, I can pay!” Desperation clawed like thorns.

Purple Illusion had never known what money really was, just numbers like distant stars.

But now she knew it was a key that could unlock her sister’s life.

(I can’t lose my sister.) (Never.)

How does a ten‑year‑old girl make money?

No higher schooling. No proud skill. And on a world like Dreamwood Star, a cold forest of steel.

The only thing she could sell was herself, a candle offered to the dark.

In the end, she slipped into the underworld and found traffickers. Purple Illusion meant to sell herself to raise that last medical fee.

But, absurdly, even traffickers wouldn’t take a little girl. Undeveloped girls weren’t worth much offworld, and the risk was sky‑high.

“Please, even ten thousand! Just buy me!”

“Beat it. In Dragon Heaven, touch a minor and the Grand Princess burns you alive.” His laugh crackled like coal.

If it ended there, Purple Illusion might have had to give up and wait for her sister’s death, like watching dusk swallow the sky.

But by chance, Linoket showed up among the traders that day, like a magpie drawn to shiny things.

Linoket had a collector’s itch. He spirited Purple Illusion away and placed her in a friend’s underground maid house, planning to enjoy her once she grew.

He didn’t expect her to scent an opening. She flattered Linoket skillfully and, by her own grind, earned the first sum for treatment, coins like drops in a basin.

What followed felt like a miracle. As she grew, her sharp mind bloomed; with crafted lies and an angelic face, she edged out rivals one by one, steps up a dark tower.

Her rank climbed: head maid, manager, then even regional manager of the chain.

As Purple Dream worsened, they moved her from the central hospital to Stargel Industries’ headquarters. Stargel Industries worked in pharmaceuticals; it became the purple‑haired girl’s only straw to clutch.

Severely ill patients couldn’t travel through space wormholes. So Stargel Industries’ high tech was the only way to treat her sister, a lighthouse in black water.

So even if she had to deceive everyone, even if she had to sacrifice herself, Purple Illusion would save her sister, even if it meant stepping into a blazing sea.