Favored by the Family That Will Become the Strongest! - Chapter 71

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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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Diena came to understand this truth only after leaving House Rothwell. While investigating the Nightmare Phenomenon alongside Malacar, she discovered that Cain was the one orchestrating it all.
Until then, Cain’s publicly known Ability had been Illusion Magic. But his power was said to do nothing more than show people happy fantasies—it held almost no killing power whatsoever.
‘Cain had concealed his true strength so thoroughly. No one understood the real extent of his Ability.’
This was what happened when an Ability went unchecked.
And so—
‘Even if we used a Side-Effect Suppressant, the results would be the same.’
At first, the phenomenon had occurred mainly among Ability Users, so Diena had wondered if it might stem from some dark side effect. But that wasn’t it.
Her uncle had been trying to use Cain to control the highest-tier Ability Users.
Rudrick Castleton was not an Ability User.
Yet her uncle had said such a thing as a lie, to keep Ellia firmly in his grasp. He knew how much she cherished her non-Ability User son, and he meant to exploit that weakness.
‘I did find a way to counter Cain’s Ability alongside my Master.’
The problem was, she had never once gotten to use that solution. Diena pretended to observe Rudrick while recalling a past conversation with Malacar.
“You think this Nightmare Phenomenon is being caused by Cain’s Ability? How are you certain of that?”
“Because I’ve suffered terrible nightmares myself. Just like the other Ability Users who fell prey to the Nightmare Phenomenon. It was when I refused to use my Purification Ability against my uncle.”
“……Is that so?”
“I thought it was just a simple nightmare back then. But thinking about it now, I believe I had fallen victim to Cain’s Ability.”
“That’s…… a vicious thing to do. Using such an Ability on family, of all people.”
To Malacar’s words, Diena spoke matter-of-factly.
“No, Cain isn’t so depraved as that. He probably just never thought of me as family to begin with.”
“Diena.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t trouble me. I don’t think of Cain as family anymore, either.”
Malacar seemed at a loss for words. He gazed at her with eyes he couldn’t quite explain. After a long silence, it was Diena who spoke first.
“Besides, thanks to that, I was able to understand how to break through Cain’s Ability.”
“Speaking of which…… how did you manage to escape when you fell prey to Cain’s Ability?”
“I ended up fighting Cain within my own dream…… and I killed him.”
Diena found it difficult to speak that fact aloud. She had feared Malacar might see her as coldhearted. But explaining the method to overcome Cain’s Ability left her no choice.
As the silence stretched, she added something like an excuse.
“It was unavoidable if I wanted to survive.”
“I would never blame you for that, Diena. I was simply…… saddened by it all.”
Taken aback by Malacar’s words, Diena continued somewhat sheepishly.
“As Cain was dying, he told me with an expression of complete shock that his Ability wasn’t working on me. I didn’t understand what he meant then, but looking back, that must have been the weakness of the Nightmare Phenomenon. When the caster dies within the dream owner’s dream, the Ability stops working entirely.”
……
“And Cain probably won’t know this. When I saw him the next day, it seemed he had no memory of anything dream-related. It was as though he had simply woken from a dream and lost all recollection of it.”
From that experience, she had learned.
Cain’s Ability was to enter another person’s dream. Within that dream, he would use his Illusion Magic to manipulate the dream and attempt to control the other person.
But if he was killed within the dream, he could never use his Ability on that person again.
After hearing the whole account, Malacar comforted her not with words but by patting her shoulder. Diena actually preferred that. Through the people of House Rothwell, she had learned that action mattered more than polished words.
A single warm touch was more precious than eloquent speech.
“If we had Sleep Magic, we could have countered Cain’s Ability.”
So saying, Malacar let out a regretful sigh.
“Ha, I never thought I’d be saying this. If that bastard Helio had lived, we might have found a solution.”
Sleep Magic had been devised for Ability Users who couldn’t fall asleep. Generally it amounted to improving one’s mood and enabling deep sleep, but……
“That bastard Helio was different. He began developing the magic, saying he would enter dreams directly.”
Yet Malacar had never considered Sleep Magic particularly important and had shown little interest in it. His chief concern had been research into Side-Effect Suppressants and lethal magic.
‘In the future, my uncle will want to eliminate the mages.’
He had neglected them, but as time passed, he grew wary of them. Mages possessed such versatile power that he feared they might one day replace Abilities altogether.
When the thought struck him that Helio’s Sleep Magic might become a means to counter Cain’s Ability, he could not leave it alone.
So in her past life, as soon as her uncle seized power, he executed every mage in the Magic Tower. Because of that, in the previous timeline, Cain had been able to run truly wild.
‘Now we have Helio. We’ll use his Sleep Magic to enter Young Master Castleton’s dream before Cain does.’
And she knew the grounds on which to persuade Helio to use that magic.
That too……
‘was something my Master had discovered.’
Having finished her thoughts, Diena slowly turned to look back.
“You would know, wouldn’t you, Helio?”
At Diena’s words, Helio looked startled, meeting her gaze. Though he had no idea what she was about to say, something in her confident bearing inspired an unexplained trust.
“……Know what?”
Diena slowly gathered Mana into her palm.
Helio’s eyes widened at the sight.
‘I heard she only awakened to Mana a few days ago?’
Someone who knew nothing would not grasp how extraordinary this was. For someone who had so recently awakened to Mana to wield it with such fluidity was astounding.
“Our Diena is truly a remarkable genius. She sensed Mana in just a few days! A genius on par with me, even. She’ll probably be wielding Mana freely before long—I did the same, after all.”
When Helio heard Malacar say that, he had thought the old man was being hyperbolic.
But watching Diena handle Mana directly, he had no choice but to acknowledge it. It was as if she had been working with Mana for years, wasn’t it?
‘Damn it. Malacar was telling the truth.’
Diena looked toward Helio and spoke.
“Come closer.”

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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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