I Became the Daughter of a Disgraced Duke - Chapter 40

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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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Chapter 40
Adrian didn’t understand what the two of them were saying.
Why had Father sealed Valentine’s memories, and what did the world’s apocalypse have to do with any of this?
“We don’t know how we’ve traveled backward through time, but this is our chance to prevent the apocalypse.”
“We lost. We mobilized every ounce of strength we had, but we lost. The Demon God was stronger than our best.”
“Shut up, Elmar!”
Enrique snapped at him sharply. Elmar swept back his silken silver hair in agitation.
His shoulders sagged so heavily he looked utterly spent.
“If you’d already accepted defeat, you wouldn’t have sealed Valentine’s memories!”
“You’re asking me to thank you for spending months persuading the crown prince through your father? Enrique. Tell me—how were we supposed to win that godforsaken war? Say it! We exhausted Rosetta and still lost! The Holy Family lost its power, and the Demon God’s servants were impossibly strong—so how in the name of everything do you explain that?”
“We have to find the Saint. The prophecy was right. We failed because there was no Saint.”
“The Saint? You actually believe in prophecies?”
“It was a war where we threw everything at them. The only thing we didn’t have was the Saint.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
Elmar grabbed Enrique by the collar and shoved him against a tree.
Bark bit into the back of his head, and Enrique’s face twisted in pain.
Elmar’s face had flushed red as he shouted.
“While Demon Beasts swallowed our cities whole and Evil Spirits crawled into human bodies to turn the world into hell itself, where was this precious Saint? When a Dark Knight’s blade turned everything to ash! Where was the Saint then!”
“Elmar, control yourself. Your voice is rising.”
“When I died! And when you died! What did the Saint do? What did the Goddess do? A goddess who could only watch while her own Holy Knights were torn apart by the Demon God’s servants—what kind of god is that?”
“Watch your tongue!”
“The Goddess can do nothing but maintain the flow of the world she created! Our defeat was already written in fate!”
Elmar seemed to be suffering as though abandoned by the world itself.
Adrian, crouched and hidden in the brush, could see the anguish written across his face.
Breathing roughly, Elmar didn’t give Enrique space to interject, only shouted on.
“Enrique, there is no Saint. There is none anywhere, nothing! No one will save us! All we can do is remain trapped in a child’s body and wait for the death that’s coming!”
…….
“You find the Saint yourself. I’m done.”
Elmar walked past Enrique and left.
Alone now, Enrique lowered his head, steadied his breathing, then struck a nearby tree with all his might.
Blood trickled from the back of his hand, but he didn’t seem to feel the pain as he struck the tree again and again.
“Fine. You sit there and wait for death. I’ll handle burning the Witch at the stake and finding the Saint myself.”
With that, Enrique too left the Garden.
Adrian remained still until both had vanished and the Garden fell silent again, then finally exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
He was certain now—he’d witnessed something he shouldn’t have.
A conversation so strange it would be difficult to tell Father, or even Uncle Valentine.
* * *
Valentine, who had been speaking so much about a child named Lissy, had no memory of Lissy at all.
Elmar, the crown prince’s playmate, had vanished somewhere and remained absent until Adrian and Barelmore left the Imperial Palace.
Enrique watched with hollow eyes as Adrian and Barelmore played with Valentine.
It was unsettling enough that even Adrian, who rarely picked up on such things, began to notice.
‘Ugh. I don’t know what’s going on! This is all Valentine’s fault!’
Exasperation mounting, Adrian swung the Wooden Sword down at Valentine’s head.
Seeing this, Barelmore approached Enrique and struck up a conversation.
“I’ve never met anyone from the Holy Family before. They usually stay in the Sacred City, don’t they?”
Enrique simply stared at him instead of answering.
When Barelmore showed signs of bewilderment, Enrique asked a question.
“Is your younger cousin doing well?”
“Airis? You know Airis?”
“You and Adrian both seem to care for her a lot.”
“She’s my sister.”
“Your sister… Do you believe in God?”
“What?”
His gaze was the kind that looked ready to dissect Barelmore layer by layer, detail by detail.
There was no affection in those eyes. Nor was there twisted obsession.
To be precise, it was hatred. Or rather, rage.
Depending on perspective, one might call it revulsion or resentment.
“Don’t speak blasphemy.”
A laugh erupted from Enrique’s lips.
The smile vanished from his face just as quickly as if he’d heard the world’s cruelest joke.
He let out a long sigh and rose from his seat.
“I think it would serve you well to hold onto faith. There are times when faith matters more than personal affection.”
“You’re going to look for your friend?”
“I don’t have hobbies that suit children.”
Enrique’s gaze shifted to Valentine, who was rolling around on the ground trading wooden sword strikes with Adrian.
“Just because I’m small like a mouse, you keep crawling all over me? Stop trying to win so cheaply. Follow the rules.”
Thwack!
Adrian’s wooden sword came down hard on Valentine’s shoulder.
Though Valentine was a prince, the world of children held no room for rank or station.
Perhaps that was why Valentine spoke to Adrian as a friend would.
“When you win, you win. Rules don’t matter. Would you really stand on ceremony when your friend is dying right in front of you?”
They’d said his memories had been erased.
And yet something lingered in the depths of his unconscious mind.
For five years old, his pronunciation was crisp and his sentences unnaturally mature.
Perhaps because of this, the youngest prince—born between the Emperor and a woman of Silvate, the fallen Holy Family—was already viewed with wariness by his older half-siblings, the Crown Prince and Princess.
Enrique exploited that tension, leveraging his father to provoke the Crown Prince.
What if, using the power of the Holy Family, some dormant gift in the child could be gently sealed away until adulthood?
‘You must never remember the future that has become the past.’
According to prophecy: a Saint who would save the world, and five Holy Knights sworn to protect her.
The Second Holy Demon War had ended in catastrophic failure.
With the Saint gone, their defeat in war was certain—and his mission was clear: find and protect the Saint.
To do that, he would need to find those who remembered the Return.
‘And burn the Witch, that shard of the Demon God.’
If Elmar would not act, then he would act in his place.
‘First, I need to investigate the records of the disappeared Holy Families to gather information on the others.’
Enrique withdrew his gaze and pushed to his feet.
Those fools who had defied the world to save a Witch held no interest for him.
* * *
The red bandage came off in a single day.
Father said it was thanks to me, but I hadn’t done anything, so I didn’t understand.
‘Still, I was happy that Father made those silly sounds for me.’
Getting those silly sounds made me feel like a baby, and it thrilled me for no reason.
I’d been looking at the Shala-La One-piece Dress hanging in the wardrobe when I came to the kitchen and casually asked Father something.
“Father. Is it okay?”
“What?”
“Father’s room doesn’t have any Shala-La sparkles.”
Unlike my room, which was a mix of white and pink, Father’s room had barely changed except for the bedding.
It looked so shabby, almost like an old dog’s house, that Father might be sad.
Father answered as he sliced the watermelon rind with a decisive crunch.
“Well, there’s a roof. That’s enough.”
“But doesn’t a roof always exist?”
“For me, it could exist one day and be gone the next.”
After cutting the watermelon completely, Father emptied the neat, squared-off pieces onto a tray.
Then the outside grew loud.
I heard a commotion, and before Father could even stand, the door swung open with a bang!
“Hey, Adrian. I told you to put that down!”
“No! Then you’ll just abandon me and run away again!”
“We’re already at Uncle’s house. Where would I run to?”
The rapid back-and-forth voices belonged to Barelmore and Adrian.
Behind them, servants from the estate came carrying bundles of luggage.
“Wow! Watermelon! Airis, where’s the fork in your house? I want some too!”
“Hey, wash your hands first!”
While Adrian was in the washroom, Father examined Barelmore’s clothes and asked a question.
“Your outfit is unusually fancy today. Where are you coming from?”
“I just came from the Imperial Palace, Uncle. Father has a business trip for a month, so he said I should stay at your house.”
“Without asking anyone?”
“Well… this is our living expenses for the time.”
Barelmore handed over a heavy pouch.
After checking the pouch, Father spoke kindly.
“You can use my room.”
* * *
Cassian, worn thin by the domestic chaos that gold had traded him for, stifled a tired sigh and drew a deep breath at the mansion’s threshold.
“Hhhhh.”
Even for Cassian Calypso, seeking out a stalker of his own volition was a genuinely difficult decision.
Especially when that stalker wielded skills not far behind Genobion’s own.
‘Damn it. If Genobion were here, this would all be settled.’
There’s a use for everything under heaven, they say, but when you finally need your brother, he vanishes from the house.
The man’s been useless his whole life.
‘For our child, though.’
For Airis’s sake, this much was a trifle.
Cassian raised his hand and knocked on the stalker’s door.
The truth of the matter had begun a week ago.

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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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