Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 298

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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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No matter how I thought about it, the child seemed to have a talent for acting, so I whispered about it to Seian and Gerth, and Seian nodded in agreement.
“Right, she definitely seems talented, doesn’t she?”
“She’s a genius, isn’t she? She really seems like a genius?”
“Hehe, you two are absolutely shameless.”
Gerth was smiling contentedly himself while calling us shameless. As I was whispering with my husbands, Cecilia, who had been quiet, moved the Bachelor and asked to hold Obero.
Gerth obediently handed Obero over to Cecilia, and Cecilia stared at Obero without saying a word.
“….”
“Daa!”
“….”
“Da, daa….”
Somehow Obero seemed to be losing the battle of wills.
“How amusing.”
There it was! Cecilia’s signature move! Saying something is amusing while wearing a completely unimpressed face!
I listened carefully to see what part of Obero this abyss of madness would find amusing, when something unexpected came from Cecilia’s lips.
“She doesn’t cry even when she sees me.”
Damn it, most babies cry and have fits just at the sight of Cecilia!
I hadn’t anticipated this, so Obero looked to me for guidance—her eyes asking if she should cry now. I signaled her to keep going as she was. Let’s just say she’s a carefree baby too simple-minded to feel fear. If she suddenly burst into tears now, it would look unnatural.
“Daa!”
Understanding my signal, Obero grinned widely and unleashed a solar beam at the abyss. And caught up in the spirit of performance, she grabbed Cecilia’s hair.
“Your Majesty!”
“Your Majesty, she is but an innocent babe who knows nothing. Please do not be displeased.”
But that was too much, Obero! There is hierarchy in this world, and she stands at the very top of it!
“Do you like it?”
Cecilia smiled faintly. I felt chills. I wondered what ridiculous thing she was about to do, but the woman skillfully cut off her hair with a paper knife. A handful of black hair fell into Obero’s hands. Obero, not expecting to receive a bundle of hair as a gift just for tugging on it like a baby would, panicked.
“Ha ba, ha bwa wa wa wa wa.”
“The baby seems to be saying something.”
“I don’t know, you probably called her an idiot.”
“You wretch! You’re being disrespectful to the Emperor!”
Hit me. Go ahead and hit me. I offered my head and told him to hit me as much as he wanted, so the Bachelor struck my head in exasperation at the existence of someone like me.
“Why is the baby trembling?”
“Wouldn’t most people tremble upon receiving a cursed item on first meeting?”
“A curse. It could work well enough as a charm to carry around.”
What kind of charm is that—a cursed hair charm? I continued to reproach Cecilia for her disturbing reasoning, but the woman stubbornly brought out a pretty envelope and carefully placed the cut hair inside. The neatly folded golden envelope was placed in Obero’s arms, and she shook her head at me, the little one.
“She, shea!”
“The baby seems pleased.”
“My, how wonderful.”
Things given by the Emperor are always considered good, even if you dislike them, Obero. I hope today’s experience becomes an opportunity for our daughter to reflect on what it means to navigate this world.
And thank heavens Cecilia’s gift was merely a handful of hair. Your father received a fire starter discovered in the palace where his mother burned to death as a birthday present. I should have warned you in advance about how utterly devoid of gift-giving sense Cecilia is.
“I do hope you’ll like this one.”
When Cecilia told him to bring it out, the Bachelor carefully presented an elegant-looking whip. Seian went into convulsions.
“Gack! Cough!”
“Doctor!”
The moment I secured Seian’s airway and shouted for a doctor, Young Seian Mark Two brought the Imperial Palace physician. The speed of his arrival suggested they’d anticipated such an incident and stationed him in advance.
“What in the name of madness is this.”
Even as I called Cecilia mad, the Bachelor didn’t stop me. He clearly understood this was genuinely insane.
“Interestingly, it seems to have deep connections to both you and Seian.”
“I got caught in the crossfire while beating my younger sibling senseless. There’s no ‘connection’ about it.”
“Since I have no further use for it, if you and Seian’s child would take it off my hands, I couldn’t ask for more.”
“You’re deliberately ignoring everything I say, aren’t you?”
Despite my obvious objections, Cecilia simply pretended not to hear and announced that the final gift was for all of us, then dramatically drew back the curtain.
In the garden outside stood an enormous cauldron-like structure, hollow inside with an iron rod running horizontally through its center. As Gerth and I examined it, it appeared to be a massive cooking apparatus, though the purpose of the central iron rod puzzled us, until Cecilia offered her cheerful explanation.
“It’s called the Paoluo.”
Ah, the punishment from the Shang Dynasty under King Zhou—where condemned prisoners were forced to walk across an oiled copper pillar suspended over burning charcoal?
Given the cauldron’s design, it appeared the area around the horizontal iron rod would be lined with burning charcoal, and should a prisoner slip from the rod, they would fall directly into the smoldering heap below, where they could be slowly roasted. A distinctly Cecilia-style arrangement, one might say.
“What exactly are you expecting us to do with that.”
“Bring me those you wish to kill slowly. I grant you usage rights.”
Ah, I see—a free distribution of Paoluo usage rights by Imperial authority. You certainly do channel your enthusiasm into the most pointless of endeavors.
“This—this is not conduct befitting a head of state!”
Just when I thought she’d held her tongue long enough, Obero finally spoke. As she criticized Cecilia, the Bachelor and Young Seian Mark Two opened their eyes as wide as they could possibly go.
“When virtue and magnanimity alone should suffice to nurture the young people! How could this be! How could this possibly be!”
Obero lamented that this was the very definition of wickedness, and tears finally streamed down her face. A child who had never cried once in her life, yet the Paoluo brought her to tears in an instant.
“Don’t you find it amusing?”
Cecilia, unsurprised that Obero could speak at all, seemed genuinely taken aback that Obero found no amusement in the Paoluo, and covered her mouth delicately.
“Where is the amusement, where!”
“The process of humans dying is a primal form of entertainment.”
“The nation—the nation is doomed!”
That tendency to nearly faint backward when bored—you inherited that from Seian, Obero.
As Obero clutched the back of her neck and trembled, I held the child and gently rocked back and forth to help her find her composure. The rhythmic swaying and floating sensation finally calmed Obero enough that she offered Cecilia a seat, and I too settled onto the sofa.
“This conversation seems like it will be lengthy, so do sit.”
“Very well.”
What now—is Obero about to deploy another stratagem? Are Obero’s schemes clashing with whatever incomprehensible skill Cecilia possesses, some sort of mind-control technique?
As I watched with keen interest, Obero thundered as she always did about the duties of a proper person. When she asked whether Seian hadn’t been taught to govern the nation through virtue upon assuming the throne, Cecilia simply answered that she had not been taught such things.
Obero experienced a profound cultural shock.
“A person—a person’s life is precious. To kill for another’s amusement is utterly unreasonable.”
“That is not something the child need concern herself with. Those who receive such punishment are lowborn criminals.”
“Haaaah!”
Obero, though I haven’t known you long, I’ve raised you in the greenhouse of natural human rights alone. The thought that you must learn what bloody history this nation stands upon makes my vision darken, yet the child remains unbroken.
“There is no hierarchy in life! Are not all lives of equal value?”
As Obero spoke in bewilderment, Cecilia offered a smile that suggested she found the topic rather tedious.
“Child, the value of a person differs from one to another.”
“Kyaaaaaaa!”
The Starving Child shrieked as though they had glimpsed a ghost, trembling violently in my embrace. I wasn’t sure how the battle between education and indoctrination was unfolding, but mentally, Obero seemed to have suffered a complete defeat.
“The child is traumatized and has gone into a cocoon state. I should take them back now.”
“That would be best. Let’s arrange another time next visit.”
Wait, you’re saying we’ll meet again in the Abyss, and now the child is hiccupping.
I assured the child that we would all come together next time as well, comforted them, and then warped to the Tower. After Obero returned to the Serpent King’s Tower, they shut themselves in their room and wouldn’t even eat the meat they so loved.
I was worried.

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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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