Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 102

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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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Chapter 102
Tezebia exhaled softly as she left the King’s office. In truth, she couldn’t entirely fault her father’s perspective. She herself would have raised both hands in protest if Yerenika had announced her intention to venture into Belgot territory. How could she possibly send a child to that perilous land, where magical energy flowed twice as abundantly as in Lebovni, burdened with the incurable affliction of magical maladaptation?
Tezebia returned to her chamber in the Royal Palace and withdrew a small box from her drawer. Inside lay a bundle of letters—ones she had painstakingly smuggled away over the past month, even enlisting Sergei Lebanon’s aid. She had been thorough enough to have the letters she couldn’t intercept returned before dispatch, yet guilt refused to release its grip on her.
“Is this truly acceptable…?”
Tezebia closed the box with a heavy heart, clinging to the hope that the Emperor wouldn’t be so reckless as to invade Lebovni directly.
“I’m sorry, Yeni….”
From that day forward, unofficial correspondence between Belgot and Lebovni ceased entirely for a month and a half. Of course, neither Tezebia nor the King of Lebovni—nor anyone else—could have foreseen whom this incident would summon.
* * *
Summer was on the verge of beginning. The spring breeze had grown increasingly warm, and now the season had arrived where standing in direct sunlight meant sweat trickling down one’s spine. I had sung that time moves slowly, slowly—yet suddenly I found myself in summer once more.
The sun hung directly overhead. The brilliant blue sky stretched unmarred by a single cloud. An occasional gentle breeze wove through the strands of my braided hair. A languid, peaceful afternoon. The embrace of the Royal Palace, safe and secure. The luxury of having nothing to do.
“….”
Yes. It should have been a wonderfully pleasant day—yet I was profoundly, deeply discontented. The returned letter crumpled pathetically in my grip.
“This man really….”
Was he seriously suggesting we try things out? Not one month. Not two months. But two and a half months of ignoring my letters?
“This wretched person. I won’t let this slide.”
I muttered curses that had become habitual over these months, then hurled the returned letter into the waste bin. It was the letter I had sent to Belgot a mere fortnight ago. It had been two and a half months since contact had abruptly ceased. My blood was boiling.
“Soon it will be three months. Exactly three months.”
Until this spring, letters had arrived at intervals never exceeding ten days. Yet even that amounted to merely two letters per month, which had always felt insufficient. I took a deep breath and forced a serene smile.
“No, Yerenika. Calm yourself.”
Fine, the first month was busy—I’ll grant that. Perhaps something happened in Belgot. I can understand that much. But….
“Three months is simply too much!”
I finally abandoned my composure and shouted aloud. The young wolf cub sprawled across the bed jolted awake.
[You startled me, you wretch!]
“Perhaps he’s had a change of heart.”
[What?]
“Perhaps he’s forgotten all about someone like me!”
[…There you go again.]
Raulus regarded me with profound exasperation before stretching out lengthwise on the bed once more. The sight of him scratching his fluffy belly with his hind legs was infuriatingly endearing. I narrowed my eyes to slits and glared at Raulus before turning away, pressing my right cheek against the window frame as gloomy thoughts continued their spiral.
‘The sudden silence is making me anxious….’
The last news I had received from Auredhian Belgot was that Belgot’s purification efforts were nearing completion. He had mentioned that the seed of sanctity clinging to Soleia Elad’s body was still faintly detectable on the tracking network.
Yet mere weeks after receiving that letter, Raulus detected that the seed of sanctity had vanished from the terrestrial realm. The implication was singular: either Hades had discovered and destroyed the seed attached to his own body, or he had achieved perfect adaptation to Soleia Elad’s form, causing the seed to perish from the strain.
If the former, I could console myself that time remained. If the latter, it was troublesome—I could no longer predict when Hades might arrive. Moreover, it remained uncertain whether Hades’s target was me, standing beside Raulus, or Auredhian Belgot himself. Either way presented a problem.
Amid this mounting anxiety, the letters that had been flowing steadily suddenly stopped. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost my mind.
“You said you wouldn’t make me wait long!”
Eventually, my disappointment spilled forth in fragments.
“I’m not even expecting to see your face. Must I really wait this long for mere letters?”
[Ugh, so noisy….]
Surely not. Surely not. Surely this isn’t the end? That would be unacceptable. I went to such lengths to pull you free from the original narrative’s constraints—you can’t simply ignore me like this!
“…But so much time has passed.”
My boiling rage cooled swiftly, replaced by melancholy. Yes. Two years had passed. Six times longer than the time we had spent together. It was hardly surprising if feelings had changed….
When I had returned to Lebovni with such confidence, my spirits had plummeted to rock bottom. In truth, those first few months after leaving Belgot, I hadn’t wanted to do anything at all. Every night I’d clutch Raulus and weep.
“Damn it, I should have stayed in Belgot, no matter what. Before Hades could kill me, I was becoming a living zombie from lovesickness…”
But that illness, recited like a mantra, did eventually fade with time. And as tasks began piling up for me one by one, I thought I’d managed to escape the worst of the longing. Yet after enduring two full years, he strikes me like this from behind…?
I clenched my fists tightly.
“If I ever see him again, I won’t let him off easy.”
But how could I possibly meet him?
“I thought everything had crumbled, but he actually had that wall repaired already…?”
Did that mean I had to start from scratch? Raulus, who could read my heart like an open book, chuckled mockingly at me.
[Well, isn’t the human heart like a reed swaying in the wind, little one?]
Raulus, despite taking the form of a short-legged wolf cub, was being insufferably arrogant as he lay sprawled on his front paws, watching me at an angle. That habitual jab he threw struck my anxiety with perfect accuracy. I hung my head in dejection.
“Right… A man’s heart is like a reed swaying in the wind…”
Wait, wasn’t it a woman’s heart that was like that? Damn it. What good does it do if a reed—whether it belongs to a man or woman—sways? I don’t even know which way that man is being blown right now. What if one day I suddenly hear news of the Belgot Emperor’s marriage…?
“Auntie!”
That worst-case scenario was cut short by a lisping child’s voice that pierced my ears.
“Huh? What?”
I made a bewildered sound and jerked my head up.
“You didn’t say you were coming today…?”
I jumped to my feet and peered out the window below, spotting a familiar head of red hair. Toddling toward the window was unmistakably my beloved niece, Brizni.
“Auntie Yerenika!”
The moment I saw Brizni, my anxiety was swept away to the far recesses of my mind. I gasped and bolted upright.
“Brizni, where’s your mother? You can’t be alone like this, it’s dangerous!”
“Play with Bri!”
“Don’t eat anything you find—wait for me!”
But it was already too late. From wherever she’d been playing in the dirt, both her hands and the hem of her skirt were completely covered in soil. The moment I saw Brizni bring her hand to her mouth, I didn’t hesitate—I leaped straight out of the second-floor window.
“Stop, stop!”
My beige dress skirt billowed out into the air. A pleasant energy rippled and wrapped around my legs and body in one complete circle. Ah, right. I shouldn’t keep showing the child how I casually leap through windows like this… But it was a thought that came too late. My body was already floating gently down to the ground. The moment my feet touched earth, I rushed toward the child.
“Here, let me clean your hands. Clean them.”
“It’s Auntie Yerenika!”
My niece, now three years old, daughter of my sister Tezebia, and the heroine of the original novel Brizni Wants to Be Happy, broke into a wide smile and reached her dirt-covered hands toward me. Small, chubby, adorable little hands. Oh, how cute. I grinned widely and gently brushed the dirt from Brizni’s hands.
Brizni was now quite nimble on her feet. She understood words well and was excellent at chattering away to herself. And just as children her age should be, she was absolutely impossible to take my eyes off. Brizni was a notorious troublemaker.
“Where did you leave your mother, little niece? Coming here all alone?”
“Bri not alone.”
It was no exaggeration to say she was covered in dirt from head to toe, wherever she’d been rolling around today. I tilted my head curiously and picked the child up.
“Then who did you come with?”
“Lex-ee.”
“Lex-ee?”
I was gently brushing away a bit of dirt from the tip of Brizni’s cute little nose when I went rigid.
Lex?
“Brizni!”
And then I heard a small mischievous voice that stabbed directly into my eardrums. Oh no.

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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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