A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad - Chapter 233
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
A Powerful Child Searches for Dad Episode 233
“Worry?”
“Yeah! Worry!”
“What kind of worry… ah, trouble.”
Veil furrowed his brow.
“But what trouble all of a sudden?”
Tie shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. Princess suddenly…”
The child glanced around and gestured for him to come closer.
When Veil brought his ear close, Tie whispered.
“She suddenly hugged Tie and cried really hard, you know?”
Veil paused and stared at Tesetan.
Tesetan was looking toward the empty Corridor.
Tie chattered beside him.
“Brother, remember what Tie said before? That Princess seems to be mistreated at Home.”
“Yeah, you did say that.”
“Do you know why Tie thought that? Originally, Princess should live happily in a really pretty Domain, right? But Association Leader Princess even did dangerous things like the Clock Tower siege.”
“That’s right.”
“But you know what! Today I saw that Tie’s guess was right after all. Earlier when talking with Emperor Father, his eyes were like… hating Princess… mmph.”
Veil covered the child’s mouth.
Tie widened his eyes and frowned.
“Eeeh, why!”
“Let’s talk later, later.”
Veil said this and stared at Tesetan.
“Regent. Shouldn’t you go?”
Only then did Tesetan turn around.
He looked at Tie with serious eyes for a moment, then nodded to Veil.
“Take him inside first.”
Tie stared blankly at Father walking in the direction he had come from.
From behind, Veil’s sighing voice could be heard.
“Complicated, so complicated…”
Tie turned his head.
“What’s complicated?”
Veil stared at Tie with indescribable eyes.
Then he very gently pushed Tie’s forehead.
“You don’t need to know.”
“What, tell Tie too!”
“Tell you what. You’ll naturally find out when the time comes.”
“Ugh!”
Veil took the hand of Tie, who was pouting.
Then he began walking toward the Banquet Hall door.
“Everyone went out to the Garden. We should go too.”
Tie puffed his cheeks and glared at Veil, then reluctantly nodded.
But he couldn’t help constantly glancing back.
A dejected voice echoed in Ardiana’s ears.
‘You said I was a hindrance…’
Ardiana covered her stiff eyes with her hand and leaned back against the old chair.
A little away from where she had walked with Tie, there was a secret Space only she knew about.
This place at the western edge of the Garden had been neglected for a long time.
Originally, they had planned to build a pond here.
After construction was halted due to weak ground, only trees and grass grew thick in this place.
It was Ardiana who had made a small path there and brought the chair the Empress used to enjoy sitting in during her lifetime.
‘I absolutely won’t hold Father’s leg.’
Why did the child’s words feel like a dagger?
Because of that, Ardiana could only hold Astie and cry for a long time.
Without being able to say even one of the many things she wanted to say.
Throughout her sobbing, only one question circled in her mouth.
‘Why do you worry about such things.’
Why think about such things, why put such things into words.
Astie was only four years old.
He was definitely not at an age to worry about being hated by someone.
Or worry about being a burden to someone.
‘Don’t hate Father because of Tie.’
With those words, Ardiana felt as if she had glimpsed all four years of the child’s life.
It felt like the child’s hidden loss was now clearly visible.
‘I hoped it wouldn’t be true, that it shouldn’t be true.’
Her absence had already left scar-like traces on the child.
Just as Ardiana bit her lip at the feeling of her heart collapsing, it happened.
“Ardiana.”
Someone called her with a rustling sound.
She removed the hand covering her face.
In her blurred vision, Tesetan was standing there.
“What are you doing here.”
Tesetan approached, breathing heavily.
Ardiana stared at him with a dazed expression.
Tesetan said.
“I searched for a long time. Then I remembered something you mentioned in passing before…”
“…I remembered everything.”
Ardiana interrupted Tesetan’s words.
Her eyelashes trembled.
“The stories you wrote in your letter, the ones you said I needed to know.”
Tesetan closed his mouth.
Tears flowed from Ardiana’s eyes.
“That’s why I did it. It wasn’t a scheduled banquet, but the child… I missed the child so much.”
“…”
“Sob, sniff. I wanted to tell him. Anything, the stories I couldn’t tell all this time. But my mouth wouldn’t open.”
Ardiana hung her head.
Words wouldn’t come out well, as if something was stuck in her throat.
It would have been good if that was all.
Since the memories surfaced, there was something else that stuck like a thorn.
“What will happen to Astie now…?”
Ardiana raised her gaze.
Magic activated by twisting dimensions.
A child who appeared at a time and place where she shouldn’t exist.
“Answer me.”
Even Ardiana, who knew little about magic, could sense it intuitively.
Great magic always demands a corresponding price.
Just as there are no miracles given freely in this world.
“Answer me. Tell me that Astie, my daughter, isn’t that price.”
Making the decision to defy the Emperor.
While secretly contacting the Empress Faction Nobles, she had thought.
That if she tried from now on, she could change things.
That doing something would be more helpful in protecting the child than doing nothing.
But all those hopes only had meaning under the premise that Astie was safe.
But Tesetan gave no answer.
Ardiana shook her head in denial.
“No.”
She repeated with trembling hands.
“It can’t be like that… it can’t.”
Tie’s words, who had comforted her by patting her back, echoed in her ears.
‘Association Leader, it’s okay to cry more.’
‘…’
‘Tie also, *hiccup*. When sad, Tie cries a lot a lot alone. After crying, then it gets better.’
The words about crying alone pierced her heart painfully.
The child already seemed accustomed to suppressing emotions.
She must have learned to stand alone first, before learning it was okay to laugh, throw tantrums, and cry while being held.
“…There’s a way, isn’t there?”
That’s why she couldn’t stand by and watch anymore.
She couldn’t leave Astie like that.
That’s why she had thought of overthrowing the Imperial Palace.
Because she wanted to give Tie a safe world, even if it meant staining her hands with blood.
Only then could Astie finally cry and laugh like a child should.
But what if Tie wasn’t in this world?
What if the child disappeared as the price for magic?
Then what meaning would any of it have?
“I can’t do without Tie, Tesetan…”
Ardiana grasped Tesetan’s hand.
“Without that child, there’s no meaning. Nothing, nothing…”
Her body trembled.
But Ardiana forced herself to calm her ragged breathing.
Then she wiped her tear-stained eyes and looked directly at Tesetan.
“You have a plan, don’t you?”
The Tesetan that Ardiana knew was that kind of person.
Someone who prepared the best option, the second-best option, and even a final contingency plan for when even that failed, in any situation.
“Tell me. What do I need to do?”
Tesetan’s gaze toward Ardiana grew heavy.
A cool wind blew between them for a moment.
Tesetan, who had kept his mouth shut, spoke.
“When I go to the Central Continent, I was planning to investigate the World Tree.”
Ardiana’s brow furrowed.
“The World Tree…?”
Tesetan nodded.
“Do you remember? The moment I was sucked into another dimension with Tie in the Underground Palace Plaza.”
Ardiana closed her mouth.
How could she forget?
That day, she had endured the poison and destroyed the Heart of the Mana Stone.
After that, Tesetan and Astie had appeared from beyond the collapsed wall.
But there was no time to rejoice in their reunion.
“…Yes. Something appeared from the Heart of the Mana Stone.”
That something, glowing golden, had instantly disappeared into Astie’s chest.
Tesetan lowered his voice.
“If my guess is correct, that was the World Tree.”
Ardiana furrowed her brow.
That golden object was the World Tree?
“But…”
She looked at Tesetan with an uncertain expression.
“Tesetan, the World Tree is corrupted. According to the Order, it entered rest in Roxe Forest to recover its divinity.”
“No one has seen it directly.”
Tesetan said.
“There are only words that it entered rest. No one has directly seen that World Tree in Roxe Forest.”
His gaze turned toward the top of the Imperial Palace Chapel rising in the distance.
There, a sacred spire symbolizing the Temple pointed toward the Central Continent, the Order’s stronghold.
“Except for Pope Luciano, who always acts suspiciously.”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
