Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 202

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

Chapter 202
Calypso’s expression was cold.
And utterly vacant.
Her demeanor suggested she didn’t care what happened to Ocula before her. It was only natural.
“Apologize.”
The memories of Calypso’s life flashed before Ocula’s eyes.
It was a curse left behind by the Dragon Duke.
“I have a mouth and will use it freely—who could stop me?”
“….”
“But you shouldn’t assume I’ll accept your apology.”
I saw the face of my granddaughter, weeping so desperately that she seemed to pour out all the water from her body, gazing at me with such longing.
As that face faded, Calypso appeared before me again.
Her expression was utterly composed.
“How shameless.”
How many ordeals had she endured until even her tears ran dry?
The me from not long ago would have scoffed at such a story, but things were different now.
I moistened my parched lips.
No matter how much I wet them, I felt a thirst that couldn’t be quenched.
Then what should I have done?
I was a weak individual.
In nature, the strong preyed upon the weak—wasn’t this equally true for beastkin, who were simply animals transformed into humans?
Indeed, after I became Matriarch, Aquasiadel flourished even more.
The mainland beasts still looked down on aquatic creatures, but they didn’t dare treat me carelessly.
I established order and maintained dignity.
What was wrong with me?
“…I’m lonely.”
Young Calypso murmured in the Black Panther Manor.
As memories not my own invaded my mind beyond my control, I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them.
I had never known until now that dreams were truly an appropriate form of punishment.
I had to feel even the emotions Calypso had experienced in the past, exactly as she had felt them.
And through this, I came to understand naturally.
Loneliness.
Decades had passed since reaching the pinnacle.
Insomnia that crept in slowly like termites, hollowness.
Yet a shadow that I couldn’t confide in anyone, leaving only an empty shell behind.
This was the same as the loneliness Calypso had felt, cast out and alone in the Black Panther Manor.
Though the forms might differ… the essence was identical.
In that moment, I sank into an even deeper abyss.
For the first time in my life, I had met my own blood, a granddaughter I truly wished to spend my remaining years with.
Yet she was a pitiful victim created by my past self, and she had become a monster nourished by that very suffering.
Ocula’s lips parted.
If she couldn’t even apologize.
Was this how she would spend the rest of her life—endlessly tormented by insomnia, buried in loneliness with nowhere to confess her anguish?
She had already fallen from the pinnacle where she’d reigned for a lifetime.
Though she had descended by her own choice, she understood.
It was merely a matter of timing.
Even if she reclaimed the position of Matriarch, it would be a seat destined to be stolen from her.
Time and the era were not hers to command.
Ocula felt the ground beneath her sinking.
A marshlike viscosity seized her ankles, dragging her down.
Tonight too, she would witness her granddaughter’s death before her eyes.
Either calling out to her in desperation and hatred, or dying in solitary anguish.
Ah.
So this darkness that swallowed everything—its name was despair.
“What will you do with me now?”
Calypso’s azure eyes beheld the elderly woman before her—once formidable, now somehow diminished.
Why was it that the elder no longer radiated arrogance?
This was the gaze of one whose spirit had been broken.
Why?
But did Calypso need to understand?
She had erased even her resentment toward the one she’d resented for so long.
The opposite of love is not hatred.
In her past life, and again in this one, Calypso’s heart had been filled with Suha and family—there was no lingering attachment left for this woman.
Let vengeance and hatred be forgotten.
Only indifference remained.
“There is a place I’m sending you.”
The elderly woman before her was now merely someone who had once allowed countless children to perish.
Anyone could offer an apology spoken carelessly.
Atonement was not made so easily.
Calypso recalled the dilapidated house where she had grown up.
She remembered the children who had withered away and died, separated from their parents by a single command from the Matriarch.
“Go and meet, one by one, the parents of every child you killed.”
During the three years I am absent, you will wander, reflecting upon your past.
You who coveted power your entire life will be given nothing.
“I hope you live out your remaining years forgotten by everyone in squalid circumstances.”
Calypso quietly indulged in a certain fantasy.
“Don’t think your remaining life will be comfortable. I intend to be cruel. Don’t feel wronged that I was neglected and abandoned in childhood. If I hadn’t been strong, who knows where I would have been sold?”
A dream where this grandmother truly became a meaningful mentor or family, teaching her with pride.
In her imagination, she had stood up to her grandmother boldly, and the elder had not grown angry—only gazed upon her with warmth.
It was an impossible dream.
She let out a soft chuckle.
“I hope you become pathetic and wretched.”
“….”
“And then one day, when I grow so sick of my own miserable self that I wish to die… come find me.”
“….”
“I’ll kill you.”
You’ve guided me down the path of death as the Black Panther countless times.
Why couldn’t I do the same?
“At least in death, I’ll grant you the death you desire.”
Calypso before me was smiling brilliantly, yet her eyes gleamed with the madness only a returner could possess.
“It’s my final consideration for you.”
Doesn’t that sound good?
* * *
The exile location of the former Matriarch Ocula Aquasiadel was decided.
Three hours later, Calypso entered the Time Rift with Tus.
Three years later, she tried to imagine what awaited her, but her imagination couldn’t reach its conclusion.
Whatever awaited her, she had confidence she could handle it, so it didn’t matter if her imagination remained unfinished.
“This life is truly entertaining.”
Calypso closed her eyes in the Time Rift with a refreshed smile on her face.
When she opened them, she would see the Dragon Duke waiting for her.

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