I Will Try to Save My Dad - Chapter 158
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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 158
Clatter.
The wooden die that Yuraha had thrown rolled across the table. The twelve-sided die symbolized the world.
The gods had cast dice to claim the world. The god who rolled the highest value became the master of this realm.
It was the mythology of Aubaut, the primordial god.
“Listen, Chloe.”
Click. The man sitting across from Yuraha set down his glass of whiskey with ice, speaking as he did.
Kane, the eldest grandson of Count Trabel.
“What should we do now?”
“About what?”
Yuraha touched the die with his fingertip. A fish-shaped hieroglyph symbolizing the number eight faced upward.
‘Repetition.’
In the Aubaut Order, eight signified time repeating infinitely.
The world flowed from past to future, then from past to future again. Those who existed outside that flow were called Retrograde Walkers.
‘Such a being could not possibly exist.’
The flow of time was the providence of this world, determined by the god Aubaut. There could be no being that defied the will of the divine.
“Very well. Let me try to persuade Reytan Quartz Trabel to participate in the war you mentioned.”
Belesa Valenhardt spoke those words and then betrayed me.
The war Yuraha had planned was supposed to occur in spring, when my divine power would be at its strongest—powerful enough to send the Grand Master plummeting into the gorge below.
But with Belesa’s counsel, the timing of the war had been moved forward.
‘The future does not change.’
Yuraha recalled the future I had seen.
Reytan Quartz Trabel, collapsed at the bottom of a gorge whose depths could not be fathomed, breath stilled.
Windis embedded in the cliff face, rampaging. Myself standing above the gorge, hand clutching my bleeding throat, gazing down at that scene.
‘It’s a shame to lose my voice, but there’s no helping it.’
My vocal cords would be rendered useless by Reytan, but I could afford to sacrifice that much.
‘Quartz must not survive.’
Yuraha gripped the dice in my hand with an emotionless face.
Choosing spring as the timing was to minimize the possibility of failure. Even without that season, my divine power was sufficient to face an enraged Reytan.
‘Will Berry Quartz weep if Reytan Quartz dies?’
Before Yuraha sat a glass filled with a beverage.
Pink lemonade.
I had ordered it thinking of Berry Quartz, but I did not bring the drink to my lips even as the ice melted completely.
“What’s wrong, Cloy.”
Kane across from me muttered with lingering intoxication in his expression.
The place they occupied was Ketil, a city near the Imperial Capital.
They had secured a room in a tavern there and spent the night awake, for the sake of discussing matters in secret.
“Cloy, Reytan’s deployment is no longer happening in spring. Isn’t your prophecy wrong?”
Kane’s gaze turned toward Yuraha.
Several weeks prior, I had driven a carriage to the address written on a note received at a regular bar. It was a dilapidated mansion. When I pressed the doorbell, the man before me opened the door and stepped out.
“Cloy. That’s my name.”
A man with brown hair, utterly unremarkable. Yuraha had consumed an alchemist’s potion to alter his appearance.
“Don’t worry, Kane.”
Yuraha spoke to the anxious Kane.
“Even if your uncle’s deployment has been accelerated, nothing will change.”
“….”
“Has my prophecy ever been wrong, even once?”
Instead of answering, Kane lifted his glass and wet his lips. An inexplicable anxiety kept gnawing at him. The spirits burned where they touched his mouth.
Kane set down the glass after a moment’s pause to collect his thoughts, then answered.
“No.”
Cloy’s prophecies had never been wrong. Reytan Quartz Trabel would die in this war. The anxiety I felt now stemmed from the accelerated timeline of the plan I’d become entangled in.
“Your prophecies have never failed. That’s what’s driving me mad.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t make sense. The Grand Master dying in such a place. I feel like he’ll come back alive and kill me.”
Reytan’s training had carved itself deep into my very being.
Ever since that day, Kane had often suffered nightmares where Reytan’s aura strangled him. The fear etched into the unconscious mind could not be ignored.
Cloy spoke.
“Kane, if you feel like you’re going mad, trust me. I’m certain. Reytan will die.”
“….”
“You did everything I told you to do, didn’t you?”
At Yuraha’s question, Kane nodded.
At some point, Kane had begun following Cloy’s every word. It felt as though his life would flow smoothly only if he did.
Because he knew the future.
“The chrysanthemums, you see.”
Cloy—or rather, Yuraha—had given Kane two tasks.
To use Hevanth Cornelian Trabel’s authority to prevent Demian and the other Grand Masters from deploying.
And to leave chrysanthemum flowers and a letter in Reytan’s sleeping quarters at the time he instructed.
The first task had been easy. All it took was tying down Demian Knox. The other two Grand Masters showed no interest in a minor war.
“I’ve planted my people on the battlefield. They have the letter you gave me, so just say the word whenever.”
Kane opened his mouth again.
“But what exactly is it that lets you blackmail Reytan with that?”
Just a single flower and a letter. How could that possibly move Reytan?
At Kane’s question, Yuraha smiled with his eyes.
“Trauma.”
“What?”
“You hear a lot of things when you’re behind the walls.”
Hevanth, the master of Diamond House.
Whether the guilt for killing his step-sibling had come belatedly, the man who visited the Grand Temple not long ago entered the prayer room alone and confessed his sins.
Unaware that Yuraha was listening from behind that very wall.
“God, I beg you. Save this wretched soul. I ordered Brown’s death.”
The motive, the plan, the execution. And the situation I found myself in.
“I intended to pin the blame on Yosel. But it seems Reytan knew. That it was I who sent the chrysanthemum and the letter.”
From Hevanth’s tear-stained lips poured nothing but self-pitying pleas for salvation.
Yuraha had to cover his mouth with his palm to suppress a laugh that threatened to burst forth.
Yuraha let slip to Kane the laughter he’d held back then.
“I really think your father is something else, Kane.”
***
Morning broke. As Kane and Ciel stepped from their room, a servant cleaning the corridor glanced at them.
That look grated on Kane’s nerves.
“How rude.”
The servant’s gaze unsettled him. Kane shoved the servant against the wall and pressed his forearm against the man’s throat.
“Gack.”
“You dare look at a guest that way?”
“I—I didn’t—!”
The servant’s words tumbled out desperately. If he didn’t clear up the misunderstanding, the young master of the Trabel Family would surely kill him.
“N-news! The Emperor will announce an engagement with the Trabel Count Family tomorrow!”
At the servant’s rapid-fire words, Kane’s brow furrowed. Yuraha, who had been standing beside him with apparent indifference, now turned his gaze toward the servant.
Kane asked.
“What engagement? With whom?”
Surely not my younger sister. Ciel was only twenty-one.
No matter how obsessed my father was with protecting Diamond House—
“Miss Berry Quartz Trabel, sir!”
At those words, Yuraha’s expression crumpled.
***
“…Really, I’m not sure what to say.”
Sir Shylo spoke.
It had been exactly two days since I left the Imperial Palace to meet Belesa Valenhardt.
Theon and I had succeeded in returning before the coronation by riding the Wolf Tribe, but….
“You’re hardly presentable for the coronation ceremony in that state.”
I looked absolutely dreadful. Theon plucked a twig stuck in my hair and spoke.
“Berry looks fine as is.”
“…What?”
“Because you’re beautiful.”
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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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