Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 198

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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 198
Pierre was in a foul mood.
Today’s duel was the battle Calypso had long anticipated.
Yet his daughter’s expression after finishing the duel looked anything but satisfied.
Rather, her face was a tangle of anger and conflicting emotions, as if she’d confronted a new problem during the fight itself.
His daughter was a child who didn’t show much emotional turbulence.
Though she seemed to believe herself a cheerful and lively person.
But the more he observed her, the more he realized that was merely exaggeration—she was an oddly mature child.
It was something he’d sensed for a long time.
So Pierre simply assumed his daughter would tell him about it when the time came.
That’s why, even when he witnessed his eight-year-old daughter defeat the Matriarch with power equal to his own—or perhaps even beyond prediction—
he paid it little mind.
“….”
And then there was the matter of her sharing some profound understanding with his Second Brother, who appeared late, instead of his first subordinate Agenor.
The fact that Calypso knew things she shouldn’t possibly know—he simply let it pass.
Even now, he harbored no suspicion about what his daughter possessed, nor did he feel particularly curious about it.
His foul mood wasn’t caused by such grand matters.
It was the moment right after the duel ended—when she grabbed Ekion’s wrist and ran off.
That situation was what bothered him.
He wanted to seize the Dragon Duke and demand to know what schemes he’d been plotting with his daughter, driven purely by instinct.
“Father!”
Yet when Calypso returned to the Manor, she looked remarkably relieved.
“Sorry for suddenly leaving the cleanup to you.”
Pierre cast aside his thoughts and fixed his gaze intently on his daughter’s face.
Checking if she was hurt anywhere, if there was any shadow in her eyes—as if this were the purpose of his entire existence.
At least, that’s what Pierre believed.
His daughter had saved his life.
So wasn’t it only natural that he spend the rest of his days living for her?
Even if his daughter did hide quite a lot from him.
The suspicions had already been serious from the moment she appeared before him at three years old.
“What happened to the Matriarch?”
“She regained consciousness midway and walked back to her room on her own feet.”
Pierre fell silent for a moment before continuing.
“She said she’d settle things within a short time.”
“Hmm, really?”
Calypso’s expression was unconcerned.
“That’s funny. I didn’t expect her to admit defeat so easily.”
That was unexpected for Pierre as well.
Of course, the defeat was clear.
But precisely because of that, both father and daughter had anticipated the Matriarch might request another match, or attempt to transform it into a power struggle by any means necessary.
“I doubt you’re plotting to stab me in the back.”
Her tone was characteristically dismissive.
Calypso didn’t trust people.
Perhaps that’s why she could remain so composed and indifferent about everything.
At least, I didn’t believe the affection and trust she showed me were false.
But sometimes, if I suddenly told her one day that I was no longer on her side…
“Ah, is that so? I understand. There’s nothing to be done about it.”
She would likely respond with that same calm, unruffled manner.
My instinct was probably correct.
Then what had made Calypso this way?
It was likely connected to some secret my daughter was hiding.
“Father, do you have a moment?”
At this, I set down the documents I’d been holding.
Ever since my illness cleared, I’d been catching up on work I’d neglected.
I hadn’t told anyone, but the illness had made it difficult to read text for long periods.
Now that I was better, I no longer had to leave all the documents to Rayla alone.
I was reviewing them to see if there was anything I could help Calypso with.
“Since no one else is in this room, we can talk here comfortably.”
“Yes, I like that. Anywhere is fine as long as it’s just the two of us, quietly. Oh, but where did everyone go?”
Atlant and Bellus had disappeared to settle a match they hadn’t finished before, and Agenor had followed his brother with great interest.
Levai had gone to his room, and Whale had followed the three brothers.
Or rather, he’d been swept along by Atlant.
Calypso laughed upon hearing this.
“They still love fighting, I see.”
The moment Calypso finished speaking, a pale curtain of water unfurled across my entire room.
Now no sound would escape outside.
“Father’s water color is truly fascinating.”
Calypso gazed quietly at the water. The color of my water had changed since my illness cleared.
Had the illness clouded my water’s color? Or was it because I couldn’t use my full power until now?
Surely all of it had some effect.
The water now unfurled had an emerald hue mixed within it.
I’d never been to Earth, but through a television screen, I’d seen the Mediterranean Sea, and I imagined it looked like this.
“You sound exactly like your mother.”
Calypso blinked.
It was rare for me to bring up her mother first.
“Father, why don’t you call her your wife?”
“Well, she’s certainly the woman I married.”
“….”
“But I still don’t know if we were truly husband and wife.”
A faint image of a smiling woman’s face flickered through a corner of my mind.
Calypso resembled that woman. There were hardly any corners where she resembled me.
Was it regrettable?
Or perhaps… was it longing?
“So what did you want to tell me?”
At the affectionate yet resolute tone that redirected the conversation, Calypso lost another opportunity to speak of her mother.
It couldn’t be helped. There would be plenty of chances ahead.
“I thought I should tell Father something secretive today.”
Calypso shrugged once and fixed her gaze upon Pierre.
She had deliberated greatly.
The judgment, the decision, did not take long.
“Is it an important secret?”
“It is important.”
Because it was a secret that encompassed her entire existence.
Pierre watched his daughter before him smile. It was a smile with a slightly different quality than before.
“Father, I have lived for a very long time.”
“…Eight years is not exactly a short span.”
At Pierre’s jest, Calypso simply laughed.
“You’re a clever person, so you know this isn’t just idle talk, right?”
Did he want to know his daughter’s secret? Or would it have been fine to remain as a family without asking?
Perhaps his decision that this was fine was not merely out of consideration for Calypso.
“This life is exactly my fourth.”
The keen intuition born from Pierre’s tremendous power may have already revealed this to him.
Since long ago, Calypso had always told me what was necessary.
Precautions, notes, and such.
She was a child who always informed me of what was needed. She was not a child who deliberately created secrets.
So the fact that she had kept this secret from me all along meant…
“When I die, I am reborn each time and live the same life again.”
…If he came to know this, perhaps there might be significant changes for him or between father and daughter.
Calypso unfolded her story. It was a life story summarized as concisely as possible.
And when all the story had ended, Pierre knew his intuition had been correct.
“How about it, would you believe me if I said I had such a dream?”
“At least I know it’s the truth.”
“….”
“I believe whatever my daughter says.”
Calypso’s smiling face wavered.
She laughed bitterly.
Pierre had never pitied his own life throughout his existence.
However, he was aware that in the eyes of the world, his life, the misfortune he carried, was immense.
“They say I die at such a promising age.”
“My goodness, and with such tremendous power at that?”
“What a waste. A limited lifespan, then.”
And he faced before his eyes a misfortune that paled in comparison to his own—no, a daughter whose entire life had been one of suffering.
“…I never imagined I’d come to understand just what a worthless piece of garbage I’ve been in this way.”
Three years old.
Now I understood why my daughter, whom I’d met for the first time, had always been so guarded, yet sometimes looked at me with such sorrow and resentment.
Now I understood why she had never even dared to hope.
“…Haha. Garbage, even.”
Sixty years. The time Pierre had turned away from Calypso within Calypso amounted to such an eternity.
At this point, the fact that Calypso had opened her heart in this life felt less like an achievement and more like a miracle.
She was a resilient child.
But Pierre understood something.
Even the hardest wood sometimes dies absurdly from insignificant insects or mold.
If that composed, powerful exterior had crumbled and been reassembled countless times.
Then the scars of those fractures had always existed.
If the fragility he’d always sensed in his daughter stemmed from this.
Then a clumsy apology would not do.
Forgiveness was her burden to give.
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“….”
“I’ve already forgiven you, Father.”
Perhaps because she’d laid bare all her secrets, Calypso’s smiling face looked refreshed.
“I didn’t expect you to believe so easily. I think I really do like that composure of yours, Father.”
“….”
“I’m not fond of dramatics.”
Her dislike of commotion—did she inherit that from me?
“I’m sorry, Father, but the reason I revealed all this is actually because I have some rather unreasonable requests to make of you.”
Calypso laughed brightly.
“When you think about it, I’ve waited decades for you to finally act like a proper father. Haven’t I?”
Calypso spoke brazenly. Pierre nodded as if entranced.
“So Father, you just need to wait for a very short time compared to that.”
Calypso briefly outlined her plan.
“The impossible abilities I displayed in the fight with the Matriarch came from drawing out all my latent potential, and because of this, let’s say I’ll be asleep for about three years.”
“…During that time, you’re saying you’ll take care of things?”
“Yes.”
Calypso gazed at the window for a moment.
“I want to cherish the things that have changed in this life more, Father.”
When I think about it, I lived my third cycle far too hastily. I’d tried to live this life similarly, but my thoughts have changed.
“Actually… this plan is only possible if there’s someone I can trust completely to support me from behind, someone so reliable I wouldn’t be anxious entrusting them with my position.”
“….”
“You’re someone I can trust, Father.”
The daughter who claimed not to trust people broke into a radiant smile.
“You will, won’t you, Father?”
This time, it was a smile utterly free of shadows.
Pierre understood.
That smile before him now was more childlike than the one she wore at three years old.
If Calypso were a returnee, then the smile she bore at three would have been a face still bearing traces of her previous life.
If nothing else, if his time with her had left something behind in Calypso as well.
He hoped it was the fresh innocence he saw before his eyes.
And so he, shamefully enough, could not refuse his daughter’s coquettish plea.
“…Whatever you wish.”
It was his penance for abandoning his daughter to a merciless life during those years he knew nothing of, and his path to atonement.
It would become the steadfast guide for the path they would walk together as a family from this moment forward.
“I shall do it.”
Days later, as news of the duel’s outcome spread through Aquasiadel, the previous Matriarch suddenly stepped down from her position.
A new Matriarch ascended to the seat in her stead.
The new Matriarch’s name was Pierre Aquasiadel.
Yet he made one thing abundantly clear.
He was merely a “temporary” Matriarch.
* * *
Another week passed.
Lilibell Aquasiadel received an unexpected summons.

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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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