Black Killer Whale Baby - Chapter 99

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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 99
Lirivel thought this way, but she did not voice it aloud.
After all, one only speaks useful words to those who will listen.
Would she really say such things to her Father, who clung to futile hope like treasure and refused to hear anything, simply because her brother had gone mad?
That would be inefficient.
Lirivel slowly turned her head.
“What do you think, Mother?”
“….”
Heila, who had remained silent until now and watched this scene quietly, turned her head.
With eyes narrowed to slits and a merchant’s smile on her face, she tilted her head curiously.
“Oh, Lirivel. Your Father is right—your brother is simply ill for now. He’ll come to his senses soon.”
“As expected, you share my thoughts, madam. I knew you would believe in me…!”
Heila smiled obediently.
She approached Rodesen, who was sitting, with a gentle manner.
“Of course, dear. Who else would believe in you if I didn’t?”
Rodesen sighed softly, resting his head against Heila’s belly as if he had been waiting for this.
“Heila….”
“Yes, Rodesen. You have only me, don’t you?”
A soft and gentle voice fell from her lips.
Yet contrary to her voice, Heila was merely patting Rodesen half-heartedly with one hand while watching Baian, who was busy beating someone like a madman.
At the same time, she gripped the fan in her other hand tightly.
“Baian….”
Her eyes were bitterly cold and chilling for someone looking at a beloved child.
“He will improve.”
* * *
Shortly after, Heila and Lirivel left the room where Rodesen had been.
The moment the door closed quietly.
Only the two of them remained in the empty corridor. They had walked a little.
“Mother.”
Heila turned around.
It had been long since servants stopped coming near this place, afraid of Baian.
Because of this, Lirivel’s frail voice rang out clearly in the quiet corridor.
From the lips of the ice-like child flowed a clear yet dry sound.
“Baian—you already know he can’t be used anymore, don’t you?”
There was no pity in Lirivel’s demeanor toward her brother anywhere.
Even seeing her face full of mockery, Heila said nothing.
“He’s become far too useless. Isn’t that right?”
Beneath Heila’s eyes, which were nearly slits, her black pupils swept across Lirivel.
The child had always been unremarkable before. Finding the changed appearance of the silent child strange, Heila stared for a long time.
“How can you say such things to your brother.”
Her tone carried concern, yet her face bore no trace of it whatsoever.
“If you leave things as they are, Father will start raging before long. He’s spent his entire life trying to surpass Uncle Pierre, after all. As long as that Calypso girl lives, it’s the perfect excuse for him to lose his mind.”
“…Calypso has long since earned a reputation for lacking talent.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
Lirivel laughed elegantly.
At least she had awakened the power of water, but that was where it ended for her. After that, Lirivel had learned other things rather than martial arts.
Rodesen and Heila had allowed Lirivel to remain merely a beautiful doll without objection.
That daughter now gazed at Heila as if asking, ‘Mother doesn’t think that way, does she?’
“Your eyes for seeing the truth are always accurate, Mother.”
Lirivel had known from the beginning that her mother was no ordinary person.
“What value does a brother who’s become garbage have that you’d continue investing in him?”
Already, because Baian had failed to recover over five years, fine cracks were forming in the trust of the Branch Families.
Hairline fractures they might be, but great currents always struck at such fissures until they burst open in an instant.
“With Brother Baian in this state, if Father starts raging too, your position will narrow, and the power you desire will slip further away.”
Lirivel, who had been speaking calmly, turned her eyes toward the door they had entered together.
“What I’m saying is, I know Mother will make the intelligent choice.”
“….”
Lirivel whispered this expressionlessly, then looked at her mother.
“Which means you’re also thinking it’s time to abandon that and make your decision now…”
Heila looked at the daughter she had borne.
“I gave birth to a daughter…but she has a flaw, you say?”
A daughter who had spent her entire life crushed beneath her older brother, suffocating in silence.
A child who was superfluous—present or absent, it made no difference.
Even the Matriarch, who had preferred grandsons, had shown her no interest.
“Choose me.”
“….”
“I will create the results you desire, Mother.”
What could she possibly want to say, bearing such a serious flaw as she did.
“At least I don’t think Father is everything, like that fool Baian does.”
“…What do you mean?”
“I’m saying I understand that more than half of the power Father possesses was created by you.”
Heila Ruzel. A killer whale beastkin from a Branch Family House.
“Mother gave up becoming the head of a House to marry into this one, didn’t you?”
She was both a martial artist and a beastkin possessed of exceptional intellect.
“…Is there a special reason I should choose you?”
“Isn’t it enough that I’ve recognized Mother’s uniqueness that even Father doesn’t know about?”
However, the direction in which she wielded that intellect—scheming and character assassination—was a specialty that kept her hidden from view.
“I know well how much you love power and how desperately you crave it. I’m your daughter, after all.”
In nature, a mother killer whale cherishes her daughter and teaches her with direct, devoted care.
Of course, under the premise that her offspring has no flaws.
That’s why Lirivel had been waiting for the moment when her parents—especially her mother—would have no other choice.
The moment when she alone could not be replaced.
“I’ll show you how I transcend my limits. If you choose me, you won’t regret it.”
* * *
A few days later, news that Baian Aquasiadel’s funeral was being held spread throughout the Manor like wildfire.
* * *
“…That bastard Baian is dead?”
At the crude words that burst out suddenly, Eiya, who had been serving, flinched for a moment before quietly setting down the plate she had been handing to me.
“Yeah, he’s dead? Heh, very cleanly too.”
The one nodding while crunching an apple decisively in front of me was none other than Agenor.
My Third Brother, who had shot up during those five years, had become quite the impressive build—truly living up to his orca nature.
‘He’s gotten disgustingly tall.’
Though not quite as large as my two older brothers yet, he was certainly bigger than orcas his own age.
‘It’s unfair. Why did only he grow?’
Should I hit him once?
Agenor continued speaking, blowing air from his mouth with a “pfft” as his bangs covering his eyebrows bothered him.
Though five years had passed, what remained unchanged were those blue eyes that gleamed with obsession directed at me.
“Aren’t you happy? That direct line disgrace finally died.”
My Third Brother wore a delighted expression.
“The rumors about his funeral are spreading everywhere.”
Baian was dead.
I learned of this news this morning, right here at this meal.
‘Dying at this time? That shouldn’t be possible.’
In the previous cycle, he hadn’t died at this time.
His death came years later.
‘But with so much changed, it’s inevitable that the facts I knew would shift.’
I quickly accepted this and nodded.
“What’s the cause? Let’s at least figure out why that idiot died.”
“Well, they say it was suicide?”
“What?”
It was truly nonsensical.
“An orca eating plants? Are you serious?”
“Ugh, Sister. Could you not release your hostility like that? My heart… my heart…!”
I tried to cut him off before he could continue with what was coming next.
“Don’t.”
“It’s trembling! Amazing! Truly amazing! How about we spar once…!”
“Want to be kicked out?”
“Right, no. I’ll postpone sparring with my heavenly sister for later. What were you curious about? That it couldn’t have been suicide?”
“Yeah.”
Baian was someone with tremendous pride and arrogance.
Even if someone who had lorded over others their entire life fell into ruin, as long as there remained those beneath them, they would never take their own life.
‘Unless they had vented their frustrations by tormenting the weak somewhere else.’
All rumors and talk of Baian had ceased abruptly three years ago.
Every trace of him vanished as if someone had deliberately erased it.
My Uncle had apparently scrambled in every direction trying to restore Baian to his former position.
‘But seeing as he never resurfaced, I figured he was broken beyond repair.’
In the end, he was the type who couldn’t rise again once his pride was shattered and he fell into the abyss.
Hmph, what kind of Matriarch was such a man.
‘His strength may have been somewhat useful, but his vessel was fundamentally flawed.’
He was merely a textbook example of someone with only a pittance of talent who happened to be born to the right parents.
But if my Uncle had believed in Baian so firmly until now, and he was suddenly dead…
‘It seems Lirivel has made their move.’
I couldn’t think of any other reason for his sudden death.
‘So they’ve already stepped in?’
I rubbed my chin and spoke with indifference.
“Well, there’s no need to worry too much about it. I think I know why he died.”
“What? You know that too, Sister? Tell me as well.”
“If you complete a full week of training with Father, I’ll tell you.”
“…Are you just saying you won’t tell me in a roundabout way?”
I let Agenor’s voice drift past as I recalled someone’s face.
“Hello, are you Calypso Aquasiadel, who has returned to the Noble House this time?”
Fair, delicate skin, and long natural black hair that fell to her hips.
A cold, beautiful girl with dark eyes inherited from both her parents.
And the only child who had welcomed my return in the previous cycle.
Of course, it took less than a week to realize that welcome was merely a well-crafted performance.
“Calypso, what a shame.”

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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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