Baby Lynx of the Tiger Family - Chapter 18

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Tiger Clan’s Baby Bariya
Chapter 18
A shrill ringing filled my ears as everything slowed to a crawl.
The poison spewing from the assailant’s body engulfs Sirka.
Sirka’s face stiffens in shock, and in an instant his arm shoots out to shield Bariya.
And then.
‘Mother.’
A worried look aimed at the mother who had already lost a son once before.
“Sirka!”
At the sight of her son swallowed by the pitch-black poison mist, Sabrina screamed and charged toward them.
She was too frantic to even consider that she might be poisoned herself.
‘My son.’
Her only remaining blood.
Terror washed over her that her child had once again been pushed to the brink of death by the Hyena.
At the moment when rage and shock threatened to completely snap Sabrina’s reason,
Whoosh!
“Huh…?”
With a light gust of wind, the pitch-black poison mist vanished in an instant.
“Cough, cough. What?”
Even Jake, Bariya, and Sirka, who had been drenched in the poison, all looked perfectly fine.
Far from being poisoned, the three of them waved their hands through the air and coughed as if they’d been dusted with flour.
“What on earth happened? We were definitely…”
“Ugh! Young Family Head, look at that one!”
Jake, who had been shielding Bariya with his whole body, jumped back with a start.
The assailant who had sprayed them with poison lay dead, his entire body melted.
“Looks like it really was poison.”
If it was that bad, it must be no ordinary poison. So why are we fine?
“Sirka.”
Sirka, who had been glaring narrow-eyed at the assailant, turned his head at the voice calling him.
Wham!
At the same moment, Sabrina pulled him into a tight embrace.
“I’m fine, Mother. I’m surprisingly unharmed.”
Sirka smiled wryly and held Sabrina in return.
The look on his mother’s face in the moment the poison had hit him.
Truly, he never wanted to see it again.
He did not want his mother to lose a child twice.
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
“…”
It was certainly nothing Sirka had to apologize for, but Sabrina had no presence of mind to point that out.
Sirka was safe.
She could think of nothing else.
“B-but how are we actually unharmed?”
The moment he was drenched in poison, Jake thought he was going to die for real.
But when he came to his senses, the poison mist was nowhere to be seen. Only the man who had sprayed it lay dead, while they stood there unharmed.
“It doesn’t seem like the poison was fake…”
Just as Jake looked around in bewilderment,
“Cough.”
Bariya, who had been held in his arms, let out a small cough.
“Oh, dear, young lady. You must have been so frightened… Huh?”
Jake, who had been fussing over Bariya, went pale.
The child was scrunching up her face and struggling to catch her breath.
“Young lady! Don’t tell me it’s poison!”
At Jake’s cry, Sirka and Sabrina snapped out of their daze and looked at Bariya.
Seeing the child in such clearly poor condition, everyone’s faces grew grave.
“Could it be a poison that does even worse harm to the little one?”
They said that if we wanted the antidote, we should go to Marina and hand over Bariya.
At such a despicably cunning scheme, Sirka’s fury came boiling up.
“…No, she isn’t poisoned.”
Just then, Sabrina shook her head.
Bariya showed not the slightest sign of the symptoms peculiar to someone who had been poisoned.
Ragged breaths, a slight fever that left a sheen of sweat, and above all, that distinctive scent of Pheromone clinging to the air.
“Baby, did you use your Authority?”
Authority Fever.
It was the classic symptom that appeared when a young Beastkin overused an Authority it had not yet learned to control.
“Don’t tell me you’re the one who neutralized the poison?”
Sabrina’s voice trembled.
Bariya, who had been gasping for breath, snapped her eyes open.
“No!”
Sabrina, Sirka, and Jake were all startled.
Bariya’s eyes, which had been a soft shade of brown, now glowed a deep amber.
Yet Bariya didn’t seem to notice that her eyes had turned into a beautiful gemlike color, and she kept on denying it.
“I… I don’t know. I don’t have any Authority or anything like that. I didn’t do it.”
Bariya clenched both fists tightly, her teeth gritted.
The desperation and fear in her vehement denial were plain to hear.
Only then did Sabrina realize her mistake.
To ask a child who had likely been imprisoned by the Hyena because of her Authority such a question, of all things.
Sirka had nearly died, so Sabrina herself wasn’t thinking straight.
“Right. I understand.”
Sabrina stopped pressing and nodded obediently.
“I’m so glad you’re unharmed, too, sweetheart.”
Then she gently stroked the child, who was trembling with tension.
So that she would no longer be afraid.
“We’re heading back to the mansion.”
It was Bariya who was actually taken aback by that reaction.
“Baby, the poison didn’t make you sick, did it?”
“Miss, are you really all right?”
Even Sirka and Jake asked only after her well-being.
“…Yeah.”
When Bariya nodded, the two of them let out a sigh of relief, saying that was good enough.
At that, Bariya loosened the hand that had been clenched tight.
She had been terrified that her Authority had been discovered, and that she might have to leave Kalif tonight.
But all three of them looked so unbothered that her fear seemed utterly pointless.
The strength drained from her tense body on its own.
‘My Authority activated on its own.’
The moment she was drenched in the poisonous mist, she knew instinctively.
This was no ordinary poison.
It was the Pheromone of a Beastkin with toxic properties.
The instant she recognized it, the Authority meant to protect her activated by itself.
Pheromone Control.
A formidable ability that can forcibly control not only one’s own Pheromones but also those of others.
That was the Authority Bariya possessed.
Even if it was poison, as long as its basis was Pheromone, it could not threaten Bariya.
Because it was such a special Authority, her mother had earnestly pleaded with her never to reveal it to anyone.
Not even Darius Mariner, her biological father, knows about it.
That is also why Kalif, though aware that it differs from the Hyena, wants to conceal the Authority at all costs.
‘But how on earth does a Hyena possess toxic Pheromone?’
It is exceedingly rare for Pheromone itself to carry toxicity.
Usually, poison only seeps into their teeth, fingernails, or claws.
Yet Hyenas are not venomous animals to begin with, so how did that creature come to have toxic Pheromone?
And poison strong enough to harm even the Pheromone’s own owner.
Bariya looked at the attacker, melted by the poison, with an uneasy gaze.
* * *
Fortunately, the Authority Fever had completely subsided by the time they reached the mansion.
“Baby, there’s somewhere I need to take you for a moment.”
So she tried to dash straight to her room, but Sirka caught her.
“Do we really have to go right now? Can’t we go later?”
“No. It’ll only take a moment, so please spare me some time.”
She considered running away, but even though the Authority Fever had subsided, her exhaustion remained, and she figured she’d be caught again in no time if she tried.
In the end, she gave up and submissively let herself be embraced, and Sirka patted Bariya’s back.
“You must have been so frightened today. I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t let you get hurt, and yet I put you through this.”
“Why is Sirka apologizing? Those bastards came after me, didn’t they?”
If not for her, Sirka and Jake would never have been put in danger, and Sabrina would never have been so shaken.
“So I’m the one who should apologize…”
“No, we’ve been fighting the Hyenas for a very long time, long before you arrived. Today, they weren’t after you alone.”
Sirka stepped into one of the rooms.
Tairin had once shown them around the estate, so Bariya knew exactly where this was.
A gallery of portraits of the Kalif’s direct line, past and present.
She had never bothered to come in, having only been given the tour, since it didn’t seem worth the time.
“This is our family portrait. It was painted on my eighteenth birthday.”
“Wow.”
Bariya let out a small gasp as her eyes landed on the painting closest to the door.
The brushwork was remarkably vivid.
It captured Baiden’s unusually sharp eyes, Sabrina’s cool air, and Sirka’s relaxed expression with striking skill.
Looking at it like this, they really are a family that’s hard to ignore.
“What do you think of it?”
I doubt she wanted to hear that it was nicely painted.
Bariya studied the portrait again.
An ordinary composition: Baiden and Sabrina seated in front, Sirka standing behind them.
But there was one thing that felt off.
“There’s too much empty space over there.”
With Sirka standing behind Sabrina, the space behind Baiden looked painfully bare.
I don’t know much about painting, but wouldn’t the center usually be filled?
“You’ve got a sharp eye. It’s empty on purpose. That spot belongs to someone else.”
“Who?”
“My older brother.”
Bariya’s eyes widened at Sirka’s words, which she hadn’t expected at all.
“Your… brother?”
“Yes. My brother, who died before I was even born. Our parents’ firstborn, the eldest son who would have become the Kalif’s heir had he lived.”
Sirka showed Bariya a single frame resting on the table.
It was a portrait of a toddler, no more than two or so, with the bright golden hair of Baiden and the blue eyes of Sabrina.
“Rabin Kalif. He was murdered before he turned three. He’s the family’s everlasting sore spot.”
“…”
“And that’s also why we hate the Hyena Beastkin.”
Sirka said, his face twisted with pain.
“The ones who killed a brother I never got to see are those wretched creatures who deserve to be torn apart.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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