Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 183

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

Chapter 183
‘Tsk.’
Ocula Aquasiadel, the current Matriarch of the Aquasiadel family, clicked her tongue.
She was clearly looking at her granddaughter, Calypso Aquasiadel.
Yet the moment that child grasped the suddenly appearing door, her vision went black, and she found herself standing in an unfamiliar place.
He did not panic, as befitted someone who had lived through long ages.
Of course, everything that had happened since entering this place was filled with events shocking enough to astound even her.
But it was because the same occurrence had taken place here as when she was with Calypso.
Before her eyes, someone was moving. An Ocula with an appearance identical to her own.
Or rather, she should call her another ‘Ocula’.
* * *
The ‘Ocula’ of the first cycle was busy attending to her duties as Matriarch.
“Ahem, Matriarch. A regular report has arrived from the Third Brother we planted in the Dragon Duke’s household.”
Her secretary, an Anchovy Beastkin, was somewhat timid, but his intellect was exceptional.
The fact that ‘Ocula’, who disliked cowardly individuals, kept him at her side spoke to his competence.
“Summarize it.”
“Yes, well… Ah, it seems the Dragon Duke’s household and the mainland beasts are still not leaving the Noble Lady alone.”
Reports about her granddaughter, sent as a betrothed to the Black Panther Family—or more precisely, sold off—came regularly through the Third Brother she had planted there.
Even in the Aquasiadel family, that defective granddaughter had failed to adapt there and was being eliminated.
It was not an unusual matter.
Ten years had passed since she was sent, yet she still hadn’t shown any backbone—it was simply laughable.
She was her granddaughter, and Pierre’s daughter. Moreover, Pierre’s wife had not been an ordinary woman either. How had such a mutation come about?
A failed product.
‘Ocula’ paid it no mind.
Then one day, another piece of news arrived.
“Um, Matriarch… The Noble Lady has apparently… passed away….”
A thin report arrived stating that ‘Calypso’ had become a cold corpse.
“It seems she thought it could happen at any time. Well, the Noble Lady left a will, and the Dragon Duke’s side sent it to us. Looking at it, it’s more like a letter to you than a will, Matriarch.”
“….”
“Shall we discard it?”
‘Ocula’ read that report directly, unlike other days. And she also received and read the letter that ‘Calypso’ had left behind. It was merely a meaningless whim.
「Hello, Grandmother.
By the time you read this letter… I will probably no longer be in this world, yes? Since I left a will.」
The paper was crumpled. She could almost see a pitiful girl trembling, crumpling the edge of the paper with shaking hands.
It was useless content.
Just as she thought to stop reading, the main point continued.
「I resent you. I truly hate you. I hated you until your death, and I will hate you even after I die.」
The content was calm yet fierce at the same time. Here and there, the paper bore marks of being crumpled. Had she cried? Likely so.
She was a failed product who shed tears uselessly.
「But it’s funny, isn’t it? When I think about dying soon… I remember you, Grandmother.」
Ocula paused, her hand freezing mid-crumple of the paper.
「I find it ridiculous too. I don’t understand it myself… Grandmother, you were the only family I ever knew in my lifetime. So when I thought about dying, your face came to mind.」
Ocula couldn’t comprehend why she continued reading this pathetic letter without tearing her eyes away.
「Why do I consider you family? All you ever showed me was a face calling me trash, a person who abandoned me most cruelly and miserably until the very end… Yet I still believe you are my family.」
The heavily pressed words were someone’s desperate scream.
「I’m lonely, Grandmother. It’s so hard. So very hard. I wanted to die, but I was afraid of dying. Do you know what’s most pathetic? Everyone knows me as someone abandoned even by Aquasiadel.
Why am I still alive?」
“…Matriarch?”
「Grandmother, I know I will die. Why? Because I chose it myself. I knew this way, I could die.」
The thin report stated that Calypso Aquasiadel had been poisoned by the Crown Prince.
The mainland beasts believed the filthy orca beastkin who dared approach the Crown Prince had died in an accident.
They considered it fortunate.
Yet the letter delivered to Ocula revealed that none of this was true.
That she had chosen death of her own volition.
「Even in death, I will resent. I wanted to have a family. What wrong did I commit? Why must the weak die? Why must I die so unjustly?」
Ocula stared at the letter with an expressionless face, though others might have pitied it.
「But the most foolish thing in this moment is that even knowing I will die soon, I still consider you family.」
Yes, it was truly absurd and utterly senseless content.
「I know it’s foolish to say, but I want to see you. What did Aquasiadel ever do for me that I want to return?」
Yes, it was foolish.
She should have done something instead of wasting time writing such a letter. What remains after death?
She should have clicked her tongue. If life was hard, shouldn’t she have simply run away?
Why cling so pathetically? Why endure?
「This is my final request. Please remember me, whom you called trash. At least remember my death. That such a granddaughter existed.」
There was nothing to gain from saying such things.
「Please remember me.」
Only after reading those final words did Ocula let out a cold, quiet laugh.
Meanwhile, the Anchovy Beastkin retainer tilted his head, unable to understand why his Matriarch’s eyes remained fixed on this mere letter for so long.
What was wrong?
“…Anchovy, how did she die?”
“Ah, it’s known as a carriage accident, but apparently she had already consumed poison and died before the accident occurred.”
“….”
“Interestingly, the Imperial Palace used a potent poison. But the strange part is that the poison had such a foul smell it would have been difficult to drink by mistake. Don’t orcas have poor sense of smell?”
That was true.
Aquatic animals had more developed olfaction than vision. Therefore, a keen sense of smell was a characteristic most aquatic beastkin possessed.
The final sentence entered her eyes once more.
「But you know… if by some chance we meet again, could you be warm to me just once then?」
The letter was soon crumpled in Ocula’s hands. Then it fell onto the desk with a soft thud.
“Prepare for the next meeting.”
“Yes, Matriarch.”
Ocula hesitated for a moment.
It was something she herself couldn’t understand.
“…What became of the corpse?”
“Pardon? Ah, you mean the Noble Lady? Well, I’m not certain. Wouldn’t the Black Panther Family have handled it themselves?”
Ocula realized what she’d been about to say and frowned.
Why should she concern herself with the dead?
A fool who remained foolish to the end, who never grew stronger—she had simply died.
A mere letter could not shake her; as Matriarch, she was far too cold for such sentiment.
What troubled her, however—
was that no one had ever called her family.
Before being anyone’s family, she was a reigning Matriarch.
Ocula walked to shake off the unease, yet this faint discomfort clung to her despite her efforts to dispel it.
The final request contained in Calypso’s letter had gone unfulfilled.
In her second life, she too had been driven out to the Black Panther Family and died alone and forgotten.
In her second life, Calypso had left no final words at all.
She had already known it would be futile.
Yet there was one fact Calypso never learned: the Third Brothers reported with greater frequency.
On rare occasions, the Third Brothers would secretly aid Calypso under Ocula’s command.
Mostly by obstructing her path to prevent encounters with the Black Panthers, or keeping her from crowded places.
But such protection was worse than none at all.
Because of this, Calypso was instead misunderstood as having made an error with Lili, and became trapped.
To order protection for someone she had forcibly cast out—it was no different from a crocodile’s tears.
The result eventually reached Aquasiadel.
“It is said the Noble Lady ultimately died of tetanus.”
“….”
“Matriarch?”
The second-cycle Ocula felt something strange upon learning of her granddaughter’s death—the one she had sent away.
But it was fleeting.
Just as she was about to enter the meeting, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she uttered words that bordered on mere caprice.
“…Find her and bury her in Aquasiadel.”
“Pardon?”
“Should the Orca be buried in that foul-smelling land?”
“Yes. Um, understood…!”
Ocula couldn’t fathom why she felt so unsettled.
Well, wasn’t it because her destined rival and those abhorrent Black Panther whelps had dared to kill the Orca?
Dead Calypso was a failure, but she was nonetheless a member of Aquasiadel.
Had she died here, it would be one thing, but dying in that land warranted concern.
It was selfish behavior.
Though Ocula had helped Calypso when she was at the Black Panther Manor, it was she who had sent her away in the first place—was acting as she pleased truly consideration?
Ocula’s kindness itself was merely self-serving.
‘Am I growing old as well?’
There was no humor in it.
That she—who hadn’t batted an eye at her sons’ deaths—now felt a pang of regret over the death of a mere young granddaughter.
‘She was Pierre’s daughter, after all….’
The thought simply surfaced unbidden.
Still, she was Pierre’s daughter. Would things have been different if she’d been kept within the family?
But among the Aquasiadels, there was only one direct female descendant suitable to send as a token of the transaction—Calypso Aquasiadel.
Lirivel was also a granddaughter, but she suffered from an incurable illness. Had I sent her, the Dragon Duke’s side would have seized upon it, claiming they’d been given a defective fiancée.
Such callousness in trading one’s own children was merely routine for the Aquasiadel Matriarch.
And yet, why.
Did it trouble me so?
As the scene slowly faded, Ocula’s brow furrowed.
Though it was something that never came to pass, how disturbingly real it felt. Everything was precisely the sort of thing she would do.
More than a chill, a sense of revulsion welled up within her.
‘Tch, why must I keep seeing such things?’
A gap in time, they called it.
If this gap were a living, breathing entity, she wanted to ask whether it harbored some ill will toward Calypso.
All it had shown her since moments ago was that child living a wretched life.
Yet that girl was thriving in the Aquasiadels, renowned as a prodigy.
And Ocula coveted her granddaughter.
No, there was no one else.
She resembled me.
Yes, it had to be her and no other.
I would make Calypso the next Matriarch.
The next Matriarch would be her.
The Aquasiadels would prosper even after me.
Therefore, that ruin I’d witnessed alongside Calypso earlier would never come to pass.
It should be that way….
Then why did this strange revulsion keep creeping in?
As Ocula’s brow knitted, a scene unfolded before her eyes.

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