I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 119

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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 119
Her sudden words hung in the air, and silence pooled between them.
“Your birthday?”
Edward repeated it back, as though verifying he’d heard correctly.
Luciana nodded.
“Yes. My birthday.”
His expression shifted then, degree by degree.
From surprise to bewilderment, bewilderment to something like distress.
“…Why are you only telling me now?”
“That’s why, sir.”
“You should have said earlier. Then I wouldn’t have arranged this drab affair at all—we could have gone somewhere else, somewhere that would make you far happier, and—”
“Sir!”
She caught his face between both hands, and what she saw was a man painted entirely over with wounded feelings.
The same betrayal she’d felt at learning his birthday too late—he wore it just as plainly.
‘He’s adorable.’
She steadied the softening in her chest and opened her mouth carefully.
“I couldn’t tell you beforehand.”
“Why not?”
“Because I only decided it today.”
“…What?”
Luciana blinked at him, slowly and deliberately.
Hoping her meaning would reach him clearly.
“The truth is, I don’t have a birthday. I don’t know when I was born, or which orphanage I was in.”
In my past life I did, but…
That became meaningless once the Monsters appeared.
After my sisters left, no one remembered to celebrate it anyway, so I’d just hum a sad little birthday song in my head and let the days pass.
A birthday not observed was worse than no birthday at all.
So I made myself forget when it had been.
‘…Perhaps.’
Perhaps Edward forgot for the same reason.
She didn’t know the details of what had happened between him and the Former Duke and the Duchess Consort, but…
‘They seemed to get along very poorly.’
Before, she’d simply thought it was Edward’s temperament.
But now, thinking back on it…
Now, watching how his arms bent so readily around her…
‘Perhaps I was wrong.’
That’s what occurred to her.
Could parents who spent a mere year perfecting a child, who kept him from any normal life, truly be good parents?
Could parents who sent a ten-year-old out to fight Monsters really have been good to him?
The moment she thought it, something shifted.
Edward, polished and flawless, suddenly seemed no different from the children she’d sheltered in the Evacuation Shelter.
Most of them had grown up too fast.
They had to—there was no other way to survive.
You couldn’t endure otherwise, not without becoming your own parent.
‘…If Edward was in that situation too.’
If he’d been denied the chance to be a child, regardless of wealth and comfort…
The Duchess Consort she’d glimpsed seemed exactly the type to do such a thing.
A woman who looked at her own son with fear rather than pride, who sometimes watched him with ice in her eyes.
Perhaps the Former Duke and Duchess had never given Edward a birthday because they’d been too busy forcing the duties of a Divine Incarnation upon him.
‘That would explain it.’
That might be why Edward didn’t care much for his own birthday.
‘Did I go too far?’
Even wondering that, Luciana felt her instinct was not entirely off the mark.
What came back to her was the moment she’d stood against the Duchess Consort.
How the Duchess Consort had made those pointed references to “that time,” as if to provoke her.
And how Edward, watching the Duchess Consort, had let slip an aversion so desperate it rippled through the air itself.
No matter how cruel his nature might seem, Edward was not a man who wielded violence without reason.
There had to be something behind those feelings—something real.

Without meaning to, Luciana had reasoned her way to something close to the truth, and now she stared directly into Edward’s eyes.
‘If that were the case….’
It made sense, then, why Edward disliked his own birthday.
…and yet.
‘I wish he could be celebrated.’
I wish he could be celebrated purely, and find joy in it.
Not to shrug it off as something he doesn’t deserve, something tedious and bothersome….
‘I wish he could be happy.’
Even if he’s already extraordinary in every other way, wouldn’t it be good if there were at least one day when he became even more so?
But if Edward wouldn’t mark his own birthday….
‘…then couldn’t I simply make it impossible for him not to?’
Edward would surely neglect his own birthday, yet he would never neglect hers.
He’d make a great fuss to ensure it was special, want to turn it into a day of celebration.
‘Because that’s the kind of person he is.’
The sort who would attend to everything for her sake.
And by doing so, she herself would also be honoring Edward’s birthday.
So that he too could enjoy that day.
That was why.
“So I’m thinking we should just set it to today.”
That was what she had said.
Edward stared at her with an expression of someone at a loss for words.
“This is the birthday gift I’m giving you.”
Luciana grasped his cheeks firmly and whispered.
“I’m giving you my birthday.”
……
“So let’s celebrate together.”
“Luciana.”
“Let’s make it a special day together.”
……
“A day when we celebrate together, when we both rejoice.”
Bang!
In the next instant, fireworks bloomed across the sky, brilliant and radiant.
As if starlight were cascading down.
Lit from behind by their glow, Luciana beamed.
Edward gazed at that face as though entranced, sinking into an indescribable afterimage.
A feeling without name rose up and struck him at the chest.
And only then did he realize: today was his birthday.
‘Just another birthday.’
He had thought so once.
He’d known exactly why he never liked it in the first place.
“Haha, at last! At last!”
“We’ve done it, haven’t we? Truly?”
“Indeed, madam!”
Edward had successfully completed the Divine Incarnation experiment on the first day of the new year when he turned nine.
Only after dozens of children and hundreds of rats had died.
“From this day forward, you are born anew, and so I shall recognize today as your birthday.”
……
“Consider it an honor, and receive it with gratitude!”
The Former Duke and Duchess Consort had made that day Edward’s birthday.
Solely to commemorate their own achievement.
That was why Edward hated his birthday.
He believed that day ought to be mourned, not celebrated.
Every time the Former Duke and his wife formally held a birthday banquet for appearance’s sake, the lavish dishes laid before him seemed to overlay with the forms of dead children and rats.
As if they were reproaching him: how dare you alone enjoy this?
‘It was quite a struggle, holding back the nausea.’
But he didn’t know when his real birthday was—the one worth commemorating instead.
Afterward, he’d been too occupied hunting monsters; the years without birthday banquets felt like a reprieve.
At some point, he’d decided to simply treat himself as birthless.
There had even been times when he thought it would have been better never to have been born at all.
…and yet.
“I hope you receive congratulations, Your Grace.”
“…….”
“No one is born to be celebrated, but no one is born to be forgotten either, are they?”
Edward felt something vast and immeasurable open before him as she spoke those careful words.
A boundless, towering emptiness.
An overwhelming tide of sorrow and joy he had no words to name.
“If there was some other reason you disliked it…”
“No.”
Edward gently cradled Luciana’s cheek where she cupped his face.
When he brought his forehead to hers, he felt the delicate warmth of her skin as her brow creased—ticklish, uncertain.
“You’re right. Congratulations.”
“…….”
“You were born to be celebrated. You truly were.”
At least to me.
“And meeting you—not anything else, but you—feels like something worth celebrating.”
“…hehe.”
Even as Edward held Luciana close, delighting in her joy, he found himself thinking he wanted to hold her like this forever.
“…I wish it would last.”
“Pardon?”
“I wish this moment could be eternal.”
At those words, Luciana’s heart too began to race.
‘…this is a flag.’
Every time he said something like that, something terrible seemed to happen.
Even knowing that, she couldn’t help it.
Because she felt exactly the same way.
Because right now was far too happy.
“I also…”
Luciana was about to answer.
“…Duke of Teseron!”
A loud shout burst from outside, as if determined not to let the moment pass.

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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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