How to Replace Your Dad - Chapter 220

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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 Father
Chapter 220
“Oh, no! No!”
Madison’s distress was evident in her speech—the formal ending still missing from her words.
Yet Dolores’s eyes glimmered with something sharp.
Or perhaps “flashed” was the more accurate word.
Dolores spoke with an expression of disbelief.
“Abduction. The act of forcibly confining someone’s person without their consent…?”
The dictionary definition of abduction flowed from his lips.
Dolores drew closer, step by step.
Had a stranger witnessed it, they would have sworn it was a scene from some classic horror film.
Considering he wore the full vestments of a priest and possessed luminous silver hair like a priest’s halo, the effect was deeply contradictory.
Madison Pashard’s hands trembled violently.
“It’s a lie! You’re lying!”
“Lying…?”
His eyes, which had flashed an instant before, now fixed upon me.
Antonio bit down on his fist behind me.
Some muffled words escaped his clenched throat—something about prayers and reluctance.
But I remained calm, reaching for the pendant at my neck.
“Miliano is a kind person. Rational affection can develop. But abduction crosses a line.”
“And what can you do with that? Start a war between families over one knight? I have no intention of letting Miliano go. No matter what you do.”
It wasn’t only Dolores’s prayers that blazed fire in this cathedral.
My mage Ros—
“A recording? That’s absolutely… perfect!”
—cheerfully created a magical device that also spouted flame.
In other words, it was a recording device.
At the perfect evidence, Madison’s eyes trembled as if struck by an earthquake.
I clasped my hands together and spoke.
“Now, let us pray.”
Dolores’s sinewy hands folded Madison’s palms together in the posture of prayer.
Madison cried out.
“No!”
* * *
Madison’s face had turned ashen.
When the prayer session began, the hour hand had pointed to one. Now it stood at five.
Over four hours of continuous prayer, and Madison was experiencing the outer limits of her endurance.
Even I had to admit this was torture.
Members of the Torchlight Society who had taken breaks in the lounge prepared within the cathedral shook their heads and left.
Anne had already fled long ago, saying she’d swim away if necessary.
“My Lord, save this wicked heart…”
“He was always meant to be mine—!”
Madison shrieked, her eyes rolling wildly.
Dolores, who had been praying with tears streaming down his face, lifted his head.
Light returned to the eyes of the Irregulars, which had been half-closed and clouded.
I too looked at Madison.
Dolores spoke with a sorrowful expression.
“Exorcism… she’ll need an exorcism. Now, let us pray again…”
“I can’t take it anymore—!”
Four hours of prayer torture had granted Madison an impossible strength.
It had allowed her to break free her hand from Dolores’s incredible musculature.
It may have been a miracle born of desperation to survive.
Madison gasped for breath.
“He was a gift from my father on my seventh birthday. He’s the one who ran away. I simply found him and took him back!”
The Irregulars and I froze.
‘She already knew Miliano?’
Now that I think about it, I don’t truly know Miliano’s past.
I don’t even know how he manifested his Pattern.
I had asked about it once.
Manifesting a Pattern alone is miraculous—so how did he do it?
He had smiled his usual gentle smile and told me.
“In desperate circumstances, God sometimes answers. Though I’m unsure if that counts as grace.”
It was an ambiguous answer.
Madison ran out of the prayer chamber toward the door.
In that moment, I called out.
“Yuise.”
From Yuise’s fingertips, a string of characters lashed out like a whip.
The string became a chain, binding Madison.
I spoke.
“The games end here, Madison Pashard.”
“What… what are you doing…?”
Members of the Torchlight Society watching from outside the prayer chamber.
Even Dolores, who had cried out that “violence is unacceptable,” froze.
I approached Madison, who could not move an inch.
And with a flat voice, I declared:
“Miliano belongs to no one. He belongs only to himself.”
“He was given to me by my father—!”
I looked at her.
“I said the games end here.”
“…”
Madison swallowed hard.
“I will trample your garden, drag your family out like dogs. Everyone who protects you will be drenched in blood, yet no one will save you.”
“What… what did you say?”
“My Irregulars will not cease until my command falls silent.”
Yuise and Antonio moved to stand behind me.
Their expressions were as cold as ice.
Madison’s face drained of all color.
More than when she had endured four hours of prayer.
The reason I had let Madison off easy until now was simple: I knew this was nothing but child’s play to Miliano.
With his Language Arts, he could escape at any moment.
In the first place, the soldiers of House Pashard that Madison could muster wouldn’t have been able to kidnap him.
It wasn’t hard to guess that Miliano had gone along willingly.
He was endlessly kind to the weak.
‘But if Madison had wielded some old grudge.’
If Miliano had been dragged not by his own will, but by another’s hand.
I gripped Madison’s jaw tightly.
“It’s war, Madison Pashard.”
All color drained completely from Madison’s face.
Her hands fell slack.
She had surrendered.
Antonio muttered.
“That was so cool.”
I chose not to tell him that Dolores was approaching from behind.
* * *
Miliano, bound to a pillar with leather restraints, glanced out the window.
The rain had stopped, and the sun was setting.
‘About ten days, perhaps.’
That was roughly how long he had been confined in the Pashard Family Estate.
‘The unit members must be worried.’
He released a quiet sigh.
He was a man who thought of his comrades’ anxiety before his own captivity.
‘Perhaps it’s time to leave.’
Miliano applied force, pulling the leather restraints roughly.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
The leather stretched to its limit, producing sharp friction sounds.
After several attempts, the leather began to give way, tearing with a sharp sound.
Veins bulged fiercely across his forearms.
Soon his wrist found freedom.
Rising and massaging his reddened wrist, he surveyed his surroundings.
“The problem is the Sealing Stone.”
Sealing Stones.
Minerals that sealed mana.
The stronger one’s Divinity, the more violently they repelled it.
Most believed Sealing Stones were a threat only to those with powerful Divinity, but they were equally dangerous to those who had manifested a Pattern.
Manifesting a Pattern meant one’s body harbored the Divine Grace of God, a collection of Divinity.
Sealing such Divine Grace—Language Arts or otherwise—was not only possible but caused bone-deep agony at the slightest touch.
“She prepared quite thoroughly.”
I don’t know how Madison learned of the Sealing Stone’s properties.
But she clearly knew it was dangerous to him and had prepared accordingly.
Otherwise, she could never have gathered so many precious Sealing Stones.
“Perhaps I should offer up one arm.”
His laugh carried no warmth, unlike his usual gentle tone.
As he pondered briefly, he grinned and reached for the door where the Sealing Stone was embedded.
Crash!
“Miliano, where are you! Is it here? Huh?!”
With a familiar force, the door shattered.
And the figure that appeared was a face looking frantically left and right.
It was Antonio.
“How is this…?”
Did he know that Madison had kidnapped him?
But even if he did know, the fact that he would storm and destroy the Pashard Family Estate held great significance.
It was as good as declaring war on House Pashard.
All over a single knight.
“Whoa, Miliano!”
Antonio locked him in a headlock, hanging from him.
Then Yuise, Cesar, and the members of Miliano’s Unit rushed in.
Miliano’s unit members clung to their commander, crying out.
“Are you unharmed, sir?”
“Goodness, your wrist…!”
Members of Miliano’s Unit tended to resemble their commander—quiet and thoughtful types.
The fact that they had come to rescue him without hesitation or judgment widened Miliano’s eyes.
“Why have you come here?”
It was then.
“Oh no, Sealing Stones!”
Someone leapt over the door panels scattered by Antonio’s rampage.
The jump was reckless; the person staggered as they clung to him.
“Young lady…?”
Yustea, shaking her hands at the sight of the Sealing Stones, looked up at him.
“Yes.”
A matter-of-fact reply.
“Did you bring the unit members, young lady?”
“Yes.”
“This is the Marquis Pashard’s estate. And you destroyed the door like this?”
“Well… it wasn’t just the door that got destroyed…”
Yustea glanced outside briefly.
The members of Antonio’s Unit were pounding Pashard’s knights to pulp, gripping them by the collar.
As they laughed broadly, Miliano’s brow tightened.
Yustea grinned.
“Because you wouldn’t open the door. I probably should have brought Madison too. But Madison’s currently undergoing prayer.”
“…”
“Why is your wrist like that?”
Cold fingertips touched his reddened hands from breaking the leather restraints.
Late autumn.
It must have been even colder with the rain pouring down.
His delicate young lady, sensitive to cold, had come seeking him regardless of her confinement.
“…wearing something so thin.”
Miliano looked at Yustea with a serious expression as she examined his wrist.
“Wait, let me heal… oh.”
Yustea’s brow furrowed.
With the Sealing Stone nearby, she couldn’t use healing magic.
Even though Miliano possessed Language Arts, I realized why his wrist was in this state.
Using power within this room—for any possessor of Divinity—was impossible.
Yustea was about to kick the door panel with the embedded Sealing Stone away when—
Miliano hastily caught her waist with one arm.
“—!”
She flinched and looked at him.
Miliano wore an awkward smile.
“It’s dangerous.”
“But your wrist—”
“This is manageable.”
“Still—”
“It’s fine. You came to rescue me.”
Miliano was born among the slaves of an illegal fighting pit.
A life that belonged to another from birth.
His mother died of tetanus when the owner wouldn’t even give her a single injection.
His father died during a pit match.
From such beginnings, the first thing Miliano learned was resignation.
When the Marquis Pashard purchased him as a toy for his daughter, his first thought was:
‘A new owner who keeps animals, then.’
That was it.
For it was only in sharing food with animals that Miliano was permitted any will of his own.
Even after the boy grew to manhood, crossed the threshold of death’s pain, and manifested a Pattern on his own, he harbored no great hopes for life.
He had never thought anyone would come to rescue him.
The Irregulars were a precious home to him, but they were those to protect—
—people he knew would not be protected.
He was content with his role as a component part.
Until today, when this brave young lady led the unit members to find him, he had known his place. Very clearly.
Yustea placed her hand on his face.
“Where does it hurt?”
“Nowhere. It’s just—”
A twisted smile bloomed on his face.
That unwavering gentleness that never lost its smile, for the first time today, had shed one of its layers.
“I may come to expect rescue if I’m ever imprisoned again.”
“…?”
“Because you’ll come to save me, young lady.”
He smiled brightly as he brushed her cheek.
Yustea blinked, her face asking ‘What do you mean?’
Miliano laughed.
“Let’s leave.”
“Yes? …Yes.”
The Irregulars were about to remove the door panel with the embedded Sealing Stone so Miliano and Yustea could exit easily when—
Bang!
Several unit members who had reached for the door panel were flung away, crashing into the wall.
The panel itself, pushed by the attack, drew closer to Miliano and Yustea.
“—!”
“—?!”
The elite Irregulars and Yustea stared at the door.
Purple-violet hair rippled beyond the doorway.
“It’s been a while, Yustea.”
This voice. This face.
Yustea’s expression hardened.
“GM….”
GM smiled brightly.
“I didn’t expect much from Madison Pashard, but it was easier than I thought. I wish she’d at least disposed of one of you properly.”

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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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