How to Replace Your Dad - Chapter 277

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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
277
I hesitated.
The Elite of the Irregulars stared at me, my gaze fixed on empty air.
“What’s wrong?”
“Did Oscar send something?”
Yuise and Antonio whispered in turn.
I didn’t answer them. Instead, I spoke to the soldiers.
“Some of the soldiers must be exhausted from the journey. Let’s stop here, refuel, and rest for a moment. Send out scouts and maintain your vigilance.”
At my command, Luciano’s soldiers moved at once.
Only Luciano and the Elite of the Irregulars remained.
Yuise, sharp-eyed as always, spoke first.
“Oscar?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“It’s a trap. He told us to flee.”
The Elite of the Irregulars stiffened.
Cesar asked urgently.
“Pashard Village isn’t the Reconstruction Council’s headquarters?”
“I don’t know. That’s all the message said.”
“Damn it. Whose trap is it? Did Gaspard deceive you? He might have been fooled by the Reconstruction Council himself and led us here.”
“I don’t think Gaspard deceived me.”
I’d known Gaspard since he was very young.
He wasn’t the type who could pull off that kind of deception.
Besides, luring us here into a trap would be inefficient.
‘They’d rather spend that time capturing one more Reconstruction Council member.’
They couldn’t dismantle the Reconstruction Council while fighting us simultaneously.
Gaspard wasn’t that foolish, and even if he were mad enough to try it, the Empress’s faction would have stopped him.
Cesar clicked his tongue.
“Then we have to assume Gaspard got himself led here by the Reconstruction Council. We need to withdraw immediately.”
“The troubling part is—”
I’d barely started speaking.
Another message window appeared.
Oscar: Where are you.
As I hesitated again, Antonio asked urgently.
“Oscar’s message?”
“Yes. He’s asking for our location.”
“Location? Could he have escaped the Reconstruction Council and be coming back?!”
Antonio’s face lit up instantly.
Even now, the news that a comrade was returning filled him with excitement.
He chuckled.
“If Oscar comes back, his Power of Symbols will help us move faster, the Unit Members’ morale will soar, and our overall strength will increase.”
The other Elite looked at me.
Yuise stepped closer and spoke.
“He might be showing us an escape route.”
“Either way, send him a reply, young lady.”
Antonio chuckled.
I composed a response.
Yustea: Are you trying to come back?
Oscar: If you’ll have me.
When I relayed the message, Antonio smiled wryly.
“That coward never changes.”
Miliano gently ruffled Antonio’s hair and said kindly.
“He’s thoughtful. Oscar understands the other person’s pain, but can’t forgive himself for inflicting it.”
I quietly sent another response.
Yustea: Did the Reconstruction Council notice your betrayal?
Oscar: Yes. I’ll escape soon and rejoin you.
Yustea: Do you need support?
Oscar: With my Power of Symbols, I can escape alone. I’ll rendezvous at the Northeast Gate. If we head toward the swampland, we should be able to move without being caught by the Reconstruction Council.
The swampland….
Yustea: Soldiers laden with heavy armor and wearing steel walkers cannot move through swampland in groups. It’s impossible.
Oscar: Which is precisely why the Reconstruction Council won’t suspect you’ve fled toward the marshes.
Yustea: But….
Oscar: The surveillance unit has already departed. They’ll have your position pinned down soon. We’re running out of time.
While I wrestled with the decision, another message from Oscar flashed before me.
Oscar: If you condense mana to form stepping stones, you can cross without sinking into the bog.
I groaned softly and typed my reply.
Yustea: We didn’t bring many mages with us.
Yustea: I can’t be certain we can create a condensed surface large enough to move the carriages and horses all at once.
Yustea: The only ones who can use magic beyond that are the members of your unit….
Oscar fell silent for a moment as my string of messages came through.
I bit my lip and sent another message.
Yustea: More than anything, I’m worried about you.
Yustea: What if I came to rescue you instead? I could move you using the Power of Symbols. I’ll deploy my unit.
Yustea: Send me your coordinates.
I waited anxiously for a reply.
At last, the message window appeared.
Oscar: You’re only planning to deploy your unit? What about you?
Yustea: If necessary, I’ll go too. Give me the coordinates.
When I shared the message content with the Irregulars, their eyes went wide.
They stared at me for a moment, then nodded slowly.
After a brief pause, another message arrived.
Oscar: I’m hurt pretty badly. I need your healing.
Yustea: I’m coming. Send the coordinates.
Oscar: The coordinates are….
Once I confirmed the coordinates, my fist clenched tight.
* * *
Underground Prison of Reconstruction Society Headquarters.
Yustea: You have to get here without getting any more hurt. Please, Oscar.
“Quite beloved, aren’t you, Oscar.”
The Game Master, gazing at the message window hovering before his eyes, smiled slowly.
Oscar’s eyes, bloodshot and raw, fixed on the man with a glare.
“Nngh…! Urrgh!”
With the torture device lodged in his mouth, Oscar’s voice emerged as a strangled wail.
The needles of the device tore relentlessly into his flesh, shredding the inside of his mouth into tatters, yet he remained unmoved.
The man bent his knees, bringing his gaze level with Oscar’s.
“Don’t struggle so much. You don’t want Yustea to be hurt, do you.”
From Oscar’s throat came a sound like the cry of some wounded animal.
The Game Master’s smile widened.
“I wonder if there are any places left to damage.”
Oscar’s condition was catastrophic.
Between the gaps of his unbuttoned shirt, the marks of every conceivable torture were visible.
His flesh was torn and pulpy, bone showed through in places, and fluid oozed like filth from his wounds.
It had been a week since Oscar’s betrayal came to light.
It took only three days for the beautiful form—as if sculpted by divine hands—to warp into something monstrous.
The Game Master smiled and tapped Oscar’s cheek with his fingertips.
“Are you aggrieved.”
Between the teeth of the torture device, a metallic whimper escaped.
“Yustea will never know. She’ll never learn that you, so noble, have been reduced to this state of ruin and yet never once divulged any information about the Irregulars.”
“….”
“She won’t know that you bit your own tongue to the bone, repeatedly choosing death rather than betrayal.”
“….”
“She’ll only remember you as a beast without equal—twice broken by torture, doubly forsaken by the world.”
A scream tore through the prison cell.
From eyes whose capillaries had shattered, blood ran in place of the tears of anguish that would not come.
The Game Master smiled as if mourning him.
What a noble creature he was.
Born between the Empress of the Empire and the head of the Imperial Restoration Council, he carried the most exalted blood—yet it was deemed the most abhorrent.
Though raised by his own father, his life had been threaded through with an aching loneliness.
“So I understand your longing for warmth. Yustea—that child is warm, after all.”
“….”
“I play the cynic, but I’m a softie when it comes to the people in my arms. I give them everything.”
“….”
“So I understand why you did everything to protect that child.”
Oscar stared at the GM with a look that could tear him to shreds, his expression twisted in fury.
The GM deactivated Oscar’s torture device.
With a dull thud, the device clattered to the floor, and only then did Oscar’s voice rasp out through gritted teeth.
“What… what do you… know.”
“I know that child far better than you do. I even know how cruelly he turns on those who betray him.”
“…I didn’t… betray… I… I didn’t….”
Oscar’s face contorted.
He held on. He endured.
Death was sweeter than selling out his comrades a second time.
If he couldn’t hold on, then death was the answer.
If he could hold out to the end like this, he could tell himself this life had meant something—and he could smile at that thought.
If the GM hadn’t intercepted the system that Yustea had granted Oscar, using the new trait he’d acquired and the knowledge he’d mastered as a system administrator…
Even now, Oscar’s spear hanging in midair moved exactly as the GM pleased.
Yustea: I’m coming.
Yustea: You have to be safe. Oscar.
Oscar: I’m waiting.
The message the GM had written would have reached Yustea.
‘Please, Yustea.’
See through it.
It’s not me.
I tried to protect them.
I didn’t betray them twice.
Oscar’s sharp gaze fixed on the GM.
Just as Oscar moved to bite down on his tongue, the GM shoved his hand roughly into his mouth.
Gripping Oscar’s tongue, the GM spoke.
“Did you think I’d let you die so easily? You have quite a useful Pattern, after all.”
“….”
“I’ll show you Yustea and your comrades. You’ll come to despise yourself bitterly—the one who let them fall into my hands.”
“….”
“Until you become nothing but a puppet without a self.”
The GM’s eyes gleamed with madness.
“For an insect who dared resist me, such a fate is only fitting.”
The GM rose to his feet.
He commanded the soldiers of the Restoration Council who guarded the prison.
“Gag him. We move.”
The Restoration Council soldiers sprang into action.
Oscar was dragged away, a gag in his mouth.
Their destination: the Lake of Hydrangeas.
A beautiful smile played across the GM’s face as he waited for Yustea.
A time that Yustea herself no longer remembered—when she had been his.
“Look, GM. Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s my favorite place, the one I’ve ever seen. I wanted to show it to you.”
[GM: To me? Why?]
“Because you’re the most precious person to me.”
Those days, when he was merely a system yet she regarded him as a person.
It was then, in that form, that he felt it for the first time.
The sensation of being alive.
‘So I have to come back.’
It has to be you.
Only you can make me into □□□.
‘My □□□.’
The GM’s gaze darkened with intensity.
How much time had passed?
A rustling sound reached them from the distance.
Both Oscar, kneeling on the ground, and the GM turned their gazes toward it.
A smile twisted with madness bloomed across the GM’s face.
“She’s here.”
“Urgh, ugh…!”
Oscar cried out in anguish, but the sound was smothered by the gag and never reached them.
Soldiers from the Restoration Council positioned around the area drew their bows.
Aimed at those who would arrive shortly.
And then they emerged, pushing through the underbrush.
Yes, them…!
It was the moment when the Game Master’s and Oscar’s eyes widened simultaneously.
“That is….”
“What…?”
Those escorting the Game Master turned their gaze toward what had come through the vegetation.
It was not a person.
It was….
Some sort of strange mechanical doll.
“What is that?”
One of the guards asked.
The Game Master’s brow narrowed.
“Investigate.”
At the command, a guard moved forward.
He bent at the waist as he approached the mechanical doll.
And then he saw the note attached to it….
[You’ve been duped?]
“…What?”
That was when it happened.
Snap—!
A sharp, piercing light burst forth.
It was an intensity that forced everyone in the vicinity to close their eyes.
And then came the sound.
[None of you can move.]
A low, gentle voice.
One of the guards shouted.
“Cover your ears! It’s an Irregular language caster!”
The sound came through the mechanical doll’s speaker.
Oscar went rigid.
‘Miliano?’
Why had Miliano…
Why had he sent a mechanical doll instead of Yustea and the Irregulars arriving?
‘Could he have… suspected?’
Within the light, Oscar curled his body inward.
Yes, he had suspected.
Oscar recalled the content of the message.
Yustea: Besides you, the only Unit Members who can use magic are from your group….
Yustea: Why not let me rescue you and transport you using the Power of Symbols instead? I’ll deploy your unit.
‘Your unit….’
Yes, she had said his unit.
Yustea now called Oscar’s Unit by the name of Abel’s Unit.
Because he had always emphasized that it was Abel’s Unit, not Oscar’s Unit.
What had the Game Master replied then?
[Oscar: Are you planning to deploy only my unit? What about you?]
He had acknowledged it as his unit.
‘It was a test.’
Yustea, who had found it suspicious that Oscar—who had been silent for days—suddenly made contact, had tested him at that point.
And after confirming it, she learned the truth.
That someone had intercepted Oscar’s system.
‘So that’s why…!’
Oscar curled into himself.
A delighted laugh escaped between his teeth.
‘You always protect me.’
Body and heart alike.
The Game Master’s face hardened with savage resolve.
He lifted his head.
But that wasn’t all that reached him.
[Did you really think I’d be fooled?]
Yustea—that child’s voice!

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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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