Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 171

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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 171
“Stop mocking me and just tell me. What happened to Lili?”
“Your words are short?”
“…What happened, exactly?”
I shrugged as I watched him readily change his tone.
“We’re protecting the Baby Squirrel.”
“…What? Surely not in this castle?”
As I nodded, Palaya eagerly scanned the room.
But soon he had to look back at me. Father’s power had fixed his jaw in place.
I tilted my head like a villain from a gangster movie.
“The story isn’t over yet. You made that child run away, didn’t you?”
“How could you possibly…”
“How did I know? I heard it from the person involved. You would’ve crumbled like a cracker.”
Actually, I was puzzled too.
‘Why does Lili follow me so devotedly?’
Lili seemed to follow and adore Palaya, unlike anyone else.
Yet just moments ago, even as we restrained him, the way she gazed at him with such bright, sparkling eyes…
I’d be able to understand that a little later if I asked about it.
For now, I needed to talk with this one first.
“We have no intention of keeping this child for long.”
I stated it plainly.
“Ah, we can’t return her to Father!”
I stared at Palaya intently.
“Why?”
“You’re keeping Lili, so you must have heard everything!”
Palaya spilled his words quite easily, as if he believed we’d learned everything from Lili.
“If you heard, then you’d understand! The Imperial family keeps doing strange things to her. Father doesn’t know, or rather, he doesn’t object. He says it’s for her sake!”
“What’s the reason?”
“I don’t know either, so I smuggled her out!”
He seemed like someone who had been desperate to tell all of this.
But.
“And what exactly did you do right by putting a Three-Year-Old in a cart and telling her to run away?”
“What?”
“What could a Three-Year-Old possibly do?”
When I mentioned that she’d ultimately been found by us half-starved, Palaya’s face went pale.
“I, I was trying to help…”
“Your judgment was wrong too.”
No matter how clever he was, he was still young. Immature.
“The, the Maid I sent with her promised she’d take good care of her, and I gave her money too…”
Trusting someone just because he’d given them money.
“But I absolutely cannot return anything to Father or our family!”
I fixed Palaya with a cold stare.
“You have one task. If you want Lili back, create a safe environment for her.”
I’m only temporarily removing this bastard from my revenge list for one reason.
“It’s not your fault, Sister. I’m sorry…”
“It’s because of me…”
In my first life, in the wreckage of my shattered existence, Lili was the one who wept for me.
Our moment of contact was far too brief. There was an instant when I found solace in that fleeting pity.
I’m simply paying the price for that pity now.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Your maternal family. You have no connection to the Black Panther, right? Besides, you’ve fallen out of the Imperial family’s favor.”
Snakes occupied a peculiar position in this world.
“Go to your mother right now and convince her.”
Snakes can live both in water and on land. Because of this, the mainland Beastkin often viewed them like bats that could cling anywhere.
The marriage between Palaya’s mother, a Snake Beastkin, and the Black Panther had likely fallen apart for this very reason.
Snakes were targets of yet another form of discrimination.
This one, carrying Snake blood, was no different. In the original story, he carried his own wounds.
“Your mother is currently the head of the Snake clan, isn’t she?”
“Why specifically a Snake?”
“Then where else would I send Lili? Surely you don’t expect us to keep her indefinitely when we have no connections whatsoever?”
“…I never intended that!”
True to form for a mainland beast, a faint resistance toward aquatic animal Beastkin emanated from him.
I simply laughed.
“Three months. That’s how long we can wait. When you’re ready, come to Aquasiadel.”
“…”
At my signal, Father released his grip. All the water binding Palaya vanished.
“Walk out on your own two feet.”
Palaya rose and peered around the room.
“…Lili is… she’s doing well, right?”
“Do we look like the type to abuse children like you filthy creatures?”
Well, I lived through such abuse myself. But that’s information this bastard doesn’t need to know.
At my mockery, Palaya’s face flushed red.
“Could you give me time to say goodbye to her?”
I deliberated before telling him a few things.
As he listened, his eyes widened slightly before he slowly nodded.
“If I do that, you’ll give me a chance to see Lili?”
“Yes.”
Palaya nodded and left, casting one last reluctant glance around the room.
All preparations for departure were complete.
I stretched languidly and gazed up at the sky.
What a wonderful day to head back.
* * *
The next day.
The Black Panthers were as busy as ever searching for the Dragon Duke.
Though they grew anxious seeing no trace of him—not even his shadow—despite combing through the entire city.
Yet they had something to rely on.
Assel had begun searching for the Dragon Duke using the great ‘Power of the Land’!
They overflowed with hope, convinced their master would find him.
But Assel alone remained grave.
‘Why can’t I find him?’
Assel swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth.
He wiped his mouth and cleaned the blood on the back of his hand with a handkerchief.
He couldn’t find the Dragon Duke.
This pointed to one thing only.
The Dragon Duke was not in this city.
‘Did he really escape from Peseum and leave the city immediately?’
Was that even possible?
The Dragon Duke was ignorant of everything. He didn’t even know how to converse with people.
He couldn’t survive without someone’s help, and it was the Imperial family and the Mainland Beasts who had made him that way.
Thinking the Orcas must have helped, he investigated their movements.
But there was no trace of them crossing the city walls anywhere. It was unsettling.
Just as Assel clenched his teeth and was about to activate his ability once more.
Boom boom!
“Your Grace!”
The Knight Captain burst into where Assel was.
Since he wasn’t one to act without decorum, something grave had happened.
“What is it?”
“A grave matter, Your Grace! A grave matter has occurred! His Grace is already heading there!”
Before Assel could ask further, the Knight Captain spoke urgently.
“The former retainers and local residents of the Dragon Duke have started a riot!”
* * *
The alleys of the Dragon’s City were intricately tangled throughout.
Being a city two thousand years old, people had settled before the city’s development, making expansion difficult.
Yet the people cherished these complex alleys, saying they were traces of the Dragon’s tail passing through.
These were people who cherished and loved the Dragon Duke so dearly.
A city that began with the Dragon and would fall with the Dragon.
“Look at us, everyone! We who have served the Dragon Duke for over a thousand years—what state are we in now? Cast out, we couldn’t even know what situation His Grace was in, whether he was healthy!”
The one shouting with a hoarse voice while wearing spectacles was a Terrapin Beastkin belonging to the Tortoise Clan.
The Terrapin Beastkin, naturally gifted at inciting people, was in his element.
“You all remember our patriarch. The patriarch who spared no effort for the Dragon Duke—what is his state now? He has lost his legs!”
“…Good heavens!”
“And it was done by the Black Panther who trampled our Dragon Duke’s lands without mercy!”
Two figures stood protectively before the Terrapin Beastkin. One was the Crocodile Turtle Beastkin who had threatened Calypso.
The other was a Wolf Turtle Beastkin with ferocity that would make even Second Brother look tame.
The Black Panthers had made the Imperial family far too contemptuous of the Dragon’s city.
History does not accumulate easily.
And what does not accumulate easily does not crumble easily—much like a fortress.
“Is this truly protection? You haven’t imprisoned or kidnapped the Dragon Duke under the guise of protection?”
“…What are you saying?”
“Good heavens, those beasts who came to our city were actually here to threaten the Dragon Duke!”
“What? Who dares such madness!”
“They imprisoned him when the Dragon Duke was young…!”
Those spreading information throughout the crowds were either Terrapin Beastkin or members of vassal families who had been driven out for maintaining their loyalty like the Mainland Turtle Clan.
The local residents had long been filled with discontent and anxiety at not seeing the Dragon Duke’s face.
Igniting the spark of this anxiety that had persisted for over eight years was far too easy.
“Let us all protest! Whose is the Dragon’s city!”
“Dragon Duke!!”
“That’s right. We refuse any rule that is not the Dragon Duke’s!”
“We refuse! We refuse!!”
“Stand down!!”
The local residents gathered together.
In truth, their ease in gathering owed much to what had happened in Peseum not long ago.
Without that incident, they could never have assembled so readily.
The Orca Girl who had come as the Dragon’s Bride had become their torch.
The local residents rushed into the streets to protest the Mainland Beasts from the capital or demand explanations.
Beasts who had lived arrogantly since birth could not possibly tolerate such insolence from below.
“He hit them! He hit them, he did!”
“You struck a citizen of the Dragon’s city? By what authority!”
“He must have tormented the Dragon Duke too!”
“Wretched creatures!”
When a beast finally lost patience and struck an enraged citizen, it became an uprising no one could stop.
“Everyone, to the Dragon’s castle!”
The Tortoises led this entire uprising brilliantly.
“…Everyone’s quite energetic.”
After revealing his lost legs, the Tortoise Clan Patriarch withdrew to observe everything from afar and turned his head.
“Haven’t you lived fifty years yourself?”
The middle-aged man attending the Patriarch faced him.
“Indeed. Yet even after fifty years, I cannot compare to the Patriarch who has lived seventy… I feel quite young.”
He gently pulled the wheelchair the Patriarch was sitting in backward.
“It has happened just as that girl said it would.”
The middle-aged man muttered to himself.
The Patriarch watched silently as citizens rushed toward the castle.
Well, this was simply an explosion of grievances that had been accumulating among the retainers and local residents.
But certainly, the Orca Girl’s family had served as the fuse. And quite brilliantly at that.
The Patriarch slowly gazed down at his own hands.
In those hands lay a small piece of paper—a letter from the Dragon Duke that Calypso had delivered.
「Terrapin.
Calypso told me to write this letter.
I am healthy.」
It was written in the crooked handwriting of a child.
「The bad ones are those who tormented me.
I won’t let them off.」
Having served the Dragon Duke for so very long, the clan understood.
Dragons do not even learn language unless they trust someone.
Because he trusted them, the child had been able to write letters and speak words.
It was magnificent proof that they stood with the Dragon Duke.
「Thank you.
You took my side.
I remember from when I was born.」
Thick tears streamed down the aged Patriarch’s face.
When this generation’s Dragon Duke had been born not long ago, all the Tortoises were driven out.
He had been willing to lose his legs to protect the Dragon Duke.
“Kill me and spill my blood! Even in death, I will protect the Dragon Duke!”
Losing his legs was a choice without a shred of regret. But.
The fact that his lord had acknowledged him made him feel like a child again.
His lord would return.
In a magnificent form.
So, all those who remained could do was carve a path for their lord to reach safety.
“Mobilize those who have been hiding as well.”
“…Yes, Matriarch.”
The Imperial family, the Black Panther, and the Mainland Beasts had underestimated the Dragon’s city far too much.
Now it was time for them to pay the price of their arrogance.
Boom!
Soon after, the Patriarch watched as one side of the Dragon’s castle crumbled.
“We are the shield for the Dragon.”
What the shield would protect was no longer a castle without a master.
* * *
I whistled sharply as I watched the castle collapse.
“Wow, now that’s what I call impressive scale.”
Then I suddenly turned toward Father.

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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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