How to Replace Your Dad - Chapter 212

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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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How to Replace a Father
Chapter 212
The corner of Mateo Caron’s mouth lifted.
But Yustea didn’t miss the faint tremor running through it.
Mateo Caron opened his mouth to speak.
“What—”
“Nonsense.”
“I—”
“—or anything like that.”
“In front of all these people—!”
“Since you’ve insulted me and my family, you should be prepared to answer for it.”
Yustea cut off Mateo Caron’s words at every turn.
His face flushed crimson.
“Saint!”
That was when it happened.
“What is this commotion!”
Marquis Nevarro and the Duke appeared at the top of the stairs.
It was Marquis Nevarro who had shouted.
To Mateo Caron, he must have seemed like a lifeline.
For Marquis Nevarro was the one who had been actively pushing forward the engagement between Mateo Caron and Guinevere.
“Marquis!”
Mateo Caron rushed toward the Marquis with quickened steps.
“The Saint is trying to frame me. She must fear that I, a central figure of the New Forces, will accomplish greater deeds than she could as a member of the Seven Families.”
Mateo Caron spoke while glaring at Yustea.
Marquis Nevarro’s gaze also turned toward Yustea.
“That’s….”
The courtyard fell into chaos.
Everyone wore expressions of confusion, unsure whom to believe.
In particular, Prince Gaspard, who had deep enmity with Yustea, lifted the corners of his mouth sharply.
“Indeed, it’s strange. Even if there is a spy among us, we can’t definitively say it’s Mateo Caron. There’s no evidence.”
With Gaspard’s words, the mood shifted in Mateo Caron’s favor.
Marquis Nevarro furrowed his brow.
“I don’t understand what’s happening. But if you truly viewed this matter as a competition between the New Forces and the Seven Families, I’m disappointed.”
That was when it happened.
Yustea spoke in an unusual tone.
“Lark.”
At this abrupt interjection, the people’s expressions grew puzzled.
Yustea approached Mateo Caron.
“The way you call Guinevere ‘lark’—”
“It’s an affectionate nickname. Is there a problem?”
“I’ve heard it before.”
“Pardon?”
“From Benjamin Becker.”
Mateo Caron’s face stiffened.
A man of the Seven Families, an officer of the Restoration Council, who had died by Luciano’s hand while targeting Yustea.
Benjamin Becker had said it clearly.
“I didn’t expect to see you again here, lark.”
It was not a nickname one used carelessly.
Which meant, without a doubt….
“You were influenced by Benjamin Becker. You’ve known her since he was alive.”
“….”
Mateo Caron’s complexion shifted.
His Adam’s apple bobbed visibly, trembling.
“Then among the captured members of the Restoration Council, someone who knows you is certain to exist.”
Yustea’s eyes flashed with intensity.
Mateo Caron flinched back so sharply was the force of her presence.
Ain, who had been standing with his arms crossed, opened his mouth.
“An investigation will be necessary.”
No one dared to speak.
Mateo Caron resisted, his face pale, but he could not shake off the Imperial Soldiers.
The nobility, watching the heir of the Caron family—a linchpin of the New Forces—being dragged away, wore stunned expressions.
Most of all, Marquis Nevarro, who had tried to bind his beloved granddaughter to this man, seemed to have had his very soul torn from him.
“What is… what on earth….”
As Marquis Nevarro swayed, his son, the Duke, rushed to steady him.
“Father.”
“This… cursed—!”
Bang!
The Marquis slammed his fist violently against the railing.
That afternoon, one of the captured members of the Restoration Council confessed that Mateo Caron was connected to the group.
The New Forces fell into disarray.
“What is the meaning of this! How could Mateo Caron possibly—!”
Just as the Seven Families faced complete collapse and the New Forces were about to seize control of the Empire’s center.
It was a bolt from the blue.
The assembly hall of the New Forces erupted in confusion.
Amid the tumult, which sounded like a marketplace in uproar, a man quietly rubbed his chin with his fingertips.
Count Pehhalo, the supreme leader of the New Forces, addressed the man.
“What do you make of this, Duke? Should we sever the Caron family, or—”
“Isn’t it amusing?”
At words at odds with the context, Count Pehhalo hesitated.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“The Saint. She’s been shaking the foundations of the Empire practically from the moment she appeared.”
“That is….”
The man—Duke Ort, the leader of the New Forces—laughed softly, his shoulders shaking.
“She grasps situations swiftly, draws out their essence, and acts without hesitation.”
“….”
The New Forces fell silent.
Indeed, since the Saint’s appearance, the atmosphere had changed fundamentally.
By entrusting the Demonic Stone to Ain, she had diminished the prestige of Gaspard, who enjoyed the protection of the New Forces.
The moment the Young Ladies were abducted, she immediately took action.
And swiftly detected and dealt with the spy.
“Well, such….”
“Hmph….”
The nobility of the New Forces let out pained sighs.
Duke Ort’s lips curled upward in a smile.
“What we need to seize at once may not be the Crown Prince’s crown, but that woman instead.”
“But she is the fiancée of Prince Luciano.”
Duke Ort laughed aloud.
“People’s hearts waver even after marriage. If you think an engagement alone can hold her completely….”
He slowly rubbed his chin and continued.
“Luciano is a foolish man.”
A wind swept through the assembly hall.
Duke Ort’s dark hair, the color of the deep night, fluttered lightly as his crimson eyes were revealed.
* * *
Mateo Caron was locked in the Underground Prison.
“We’ve found the spy. Now we just need to move on it.”
At Ain’s words, I shook my head.
“We don’t know if there’s just one spy. To be certain, we should move with a small elite unit.”
“A small elite unit?”
“I’ve arranged the teams like this….”
When I showed the arrangement I had drawn up, Ain nodded in approval.
I had divided those who participated in the rescue into groups of ten.
From a perimeter of five kilometers outside where the tracking device responds, we would narrow the search in a circular pattern.
If we reveal the exact location of the tracking device beforehand, another spy might alert the Restoration Council.
“So we told them the tracking device can only pinpoint a general area, not an exact location.”
“Well done. Your team will close in on the exact location, then?”
“Yes.”
Duke Navarro and Father both nodded in agreement.
We were in the midst of discussing these matters when it happened.
“Um….”
Ros, my mage who had created the tracking device, raised his hand hesitantly.
“Yes?”
“What is it?”
When we turned to look at him, Ros laughed awkwardly.
“The signal has moved.”
“…What?”
“To a strange location.”
We rushed toward Ros.
A red dot was moving on the signal tracking device Ros held.
It meant that Marchioness Navarro, who was wearing the tracking device, was on the move.
But….
“This is the foot of the mountain. You’re saying they’re moving while digging through the ground?”
Ain furrowed his brow.
The people looked bewildered.
Marquis Nevarro swallowed hard and spoke.
“Did the Restoration Council discover the tracking device? If they used jamming signals to confuse us…!”
“Your words are correct, Father. Then this is no time to waste. We must pursue them before moving the Young Ladies elsewhere.”
That was when Father murmured something.
“The sewer.”
“What?”
“What did you say?”
Duke Navarro and his son looked at Father.
“They may be moving through the sewers beneath the mountain. If so, it means the Young Ladies have escaped.”
I quickly reviewed the sewer maps.
It was certain.
Sewers in this region did run beneath the mountain.
“That’s it.”
At my words, the men gripped their foreheads.
“If the Young Ladies are captured….”
“With the spy already caught, they’ll become even more brutal. They might sever tendons so the captives can never escape again.”
‘Mother—!’
I gripped my head and groaned.
I told her to stay put.
Now it’s a true race against time.
“Let’s move!”
To catch a spooked filly!
* * *
Gasp.
Wheeze. Gasp.
Ragged breathing echoed through the sewer.
The noblewomen and Young Ladies, who had never exerted their bodies in earnest, struggled to wade through water that reached their waists.
“Could we… could we rest for just a moment…?”
One of the noblewomen spoke with an utterly exhausted face.
Marchioness Navarro, who had been walking at the very front alongside Dia, glanced back.
“Dia, everyone seems very tired….”
“There’s no time. We have to get out of the sewer before nightfall.”
“But….”
It was just as Marchioness Navarro was murmuring her concern.
“I can’t go any further!”
A mother and daughter in crimson dresses cried out shrilly and leaned against the sewer wall.
They were the wife and youngest daughter of a prominent New Forces family, notorious for their arrogance.
The daughter’s expression twisted in frustration.
“Why did we even have to run in the first place? If we’d waited there, the Imperial Court and our family would have come to rescue us!”
The exhausted Young Ladies were irritable.
Resentful remarks came from all sides.
Marchioness Navarro tried to soothe them, but the mother and daughter in crimson waved her off.
“Why do we have to suffer like this!”
“There wasn’t a single woman among them.”
At Dia’s words, the Young Ladies looked puzzled.
Dia turned to face them.
“Not one woman among those who brought us here.”
“Why would that matter?”
“We’re all women. It’s difficult for men to attend to restrooms, menstruation… our needs. But they didn’t assign even one woman to serve us?”
“That’s….”
“From the start, they had no intention of letting us leave unharmed.”
“…!”
The Young Ladies’ faces went ashen.
Now that she mentioned it, there truly was not a single woman among them.
Only rough men.
Dia spoke.
“What do you think they’ll do when the Imperial Court and nobility come to rescue us?”
“What would they do….”
“If it were me, I’d kill the women one by one in front of them. Unable to do either, until all of us are dead.”
“What… what are you saying?”
“They didn’t abduct us to negotiate. We’re bait—meant to lure out our husbands, children, or lovers.”
Dia said.
“So walk. Don’t let them catch us.”
“….”
“….”
Silence fell over the sewer.
The first to move was Marchioness Navarro.
“I’m going to follow Dia. Because I want to live, and I want to save my children and family.”
The other noblewomen began to force their bodies into motion.
Eventually, all of them were moving again.
Even the mother and daughter in red dresses followed uncertainly.
The sewer filled with the sound of the Young Ladies’ sobs.
Marchioness Navarro whispered.
“Are we going the right way?”
“We’re not.”
“What?”
“Since they’ve realized we’re gone, the Restoration Council will pursue us immediately, and if we meet them in the sewer, we have no defense.”
“Then…!”
“And we have no weapons either.”
Dia bit her lip hard.
‘Yustea.’
I should have held you before I left.
I should have told you I love you one more time.
She missed her daughter.
Even more than that, she prayed her daughter would not die because of her.
The Young Ladies’ footsteps grew steadily slower.
Their strength had been depleted to its limit.
But that was when it happened.
“There they are!”
A booming male voice came from behind.
The Restoration Council had caught up to them.
“Run! Hurry!”
Dia ran and shouted urgently.
But the muscular men kept drawing closer.
Dia, running for her life, reached the end of the sewer.
“Go up, quickly!”
She pushed the Young Ladies up the ladder that connected to the exit.
And as Dia hung from the ladder, she desperately kicked to fend off the men.
But it was futile.
Her legs were grabbed and she was pulled down.
“This damned wretch…!”
A man’s hand, broad as a kettle lid, seized her by the hair.
“Dia!”
Marchioness Navarro, the first to climb the ladder, cried out with tears streaming down her face.
“Go! Now! You can’t be captured!”
It was Marchioness Navarro who wore the tracking device.
She too knew she must not be captured.
Through falling tears, she pushed open the hatch above her head.
Dia held onto the ladder, resisting so the women could escape.
Because of her, the men still could not reach the ladder.
Among the men came a giant, more than two meters tall.
When he extended his hand, a man from the Restoration Council drew his sword.
The giant seized Dia by the hair and wrenched her head downward, stretching her neck taut.
The blade was about to touch Dia’s throat when—
‘Yustea.’
Screech—.
The hatch to the sewer opened fully.
And with a crash.
Someone leaped down into the sewer.
Dia’s gaze fixed on the back of the figure who had leaped down.
The one who leaped down spoke.
“My apologies. An unusual signal was detected in the border sewers.”
“…Ah.”
Dia stared at the man with trembling eyes.
That man.
In other words….
The one who had severed the giant’s arm in a single stroke—.
“Are you well, Mother-in-law?”
—Luciano.
Dia let out a cry.
“Son-in-law…!!”

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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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