I Will Try to Save My Dad - Chapter 168

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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 168

“Wow. Are all these carriages trying to leave?”
“The wheels aren’t moving. Something must have happened up ahead.”
Calips, the Knights, Jeffrey, and Roxie were evacuating outside the Imperial Palace with me.
We had tried to pass through the Main Gate by carriage, but the situation here was no different from when we left the Banquet Hall.
The road was congested with the carriages of nobles attempting to escape. Our carriage was at the very end of the line.
“I really can’t stand this.”
We were still near the Main Palace. With no progress from the same spot, Calips, frustrated, finally rose to his feet. I thought he was sleeping with his arms crossed and eyes closed, but it seemed he had been seething with anger the whole time.
“What are you doing?”
“Hey, wait. Let me try telling them to move aside.”
At the mention of the Trabel Family, two or three carriages ahead turned their horses to the side, but that was all. There was no room for Trabel’s ornate and massive carriage to squeeze into the densely packed line of vehicles.
“Not a chance.”
“You tried hard, Calips.”
Jeffrey and I greeted Calips as he grumbled his way back into the carriage. This time, Jeffrey stood up and stepped outside.
“I’ll climb up into the tree and see if there’s another exit!”
“Up a tree? That’s dangerous!”
I was rising from my seat to follow Jeffrey when Calips, sitting beside me, furrowed his brow and spoke.
“Leave him be. He wants to go up there.”
“But the wind is blowing so hard! What if he falls from the tree?”
“Hey, are you his guardian?”
“Yes.”
Jeffrey was still a minor, and when Anne wasn’t around, Father served as his guardian. Since neither Father nor Theon was here now, it was only natural that I became Jeffrey’s guardian.
To me, nodding obediently, Calips spoke.
“He’s a commoner. You’re the granddaughter of Count Trabel.”
“What does that matter? Jeffrey is like my brother.”
“Is Stone House always like this?”
“Like what?”
“When you’re close, does social status stop mattering? Riding in the same carriage, eating from the same table?”
I pressed my lips shut. I wasn’t unable to understand Calips’s position of prioritizing social status, but I had no intention of changing my actions according to his thinking.
My attitude toward Jeffrey was different from others’, not wrong.
“I don’t want to argue with you about this now.”
“But I need to.”
“Stubborn.”
“There’s something I’ve been curious about for a while.”
Calips leaned his upper body against the backrest. Looking at my reflection in the glass window, he tapped it and asked.
“Do you think of us as family?”
“…What?”
“So, Ciel, Hati, Mati. And… me.”
Calips spoke with a note of disappointment, but I couldn’t give him the answer he wanted.
‘Didn’t Calips hear about this at the Academy?’
Recently, an awkward situation had arisen between the Twins and Ciel. A portion of Priscilla’s family lands that was supposed to go to the Twins’ share had been transferred to Ciel’s name after she came of age.
‘I heard Ciel directly requested it from Priscilla.’
I didn’t know what words had passed between them, but it was clear that Ciel had stepped in and taken the Twins’ share.
Because of that, the atmosphere between Uncle Yosel’s household and Uncle Hevanth’s household had been tense for a while.
‘Does Calips really consider such relatives as family?’
I wanted to ask him instead. Fighting over the family’s assets and accomplishments, threatening lives, scheming and undermining one another.
“Hey, did I ask such a difficult question? Why… is there… no answer…?”
Calips’s voice trembled at the end, matching the uncertainty in his gaze. I opened my mouth, watching Calips’s reflection in the window glass.
“I am… Jeffrey!!”
“What?”
Calips lifted his head at my cry, and upon witnessing the same sight I saw, his eyes widened.
“Let him go!”
A knight with a build even larger than Uncle Rex—the vice-commander of the Trabel Family, nicknamed the charging grey bear—lifted Jeffrey with a single hand. Standing beside him, brushing dust from his clothes, was…
“Kane?”
Calips gasped in surprise and pressed his face closer to the window glass. I leaned my body in the opposite direction. As I reached for the carriage door to exit, Jeffrey’s voice rang out.
“Berry! Run!!”
I grasped the carriage door with one hand and froze. Somehow the path had cleared—the crowds and carriages that had been in front of the Trabel Family’s carriage were now moving toward the Main Gate.
A single Trabel Family carriage sat abandoned. The knights escorting it could only stand there helplessly. One knight whose eyes met mine moved his lips slightly, then shook his head while glancing at Kane.
“Berry!!”
Behind me, beyond the carriage, Jeffrey’s cry came again.
“Young Master Kane is going to kill you!!”
Thud!
Following the heavy impact, Jeffrey’s voice ceased.
Whoooosh—
A violent gust of wind blew over my head. I clutched my bag. Inside were only self-defense items of little value, but I had no time to worry about such things. I had to save Jeffrey. My family—
“Run, you idiot.”
Calips hoisted me onto his shoulder and leaped from the carriage.

***

“Demian.”
Theon recognized Demian’s identity the moment he drew forth the earthen Holy Sword from its sheath—a blade he had sheathed with the resolve to offer both his arms.
Theon’s sword edge, swung in a charging thrust, merely grazed Demian’s sleeve before stopping. It was superhuman reflexes. Had any other knight been in his place, Demian’s wrists would surely have been rolling across the earthen ground.
‘…So the disciple of a genius is also a genius.’
My hair was damp with perspiration.
Only after watching Theon’s sword return to its sheath did Demian re-fasten the earthen Holy Sword at his waist. Erdis whimpered softly.
“A sharp blade you possess, Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
“…Yes. It was forged by the Dwarves.”
Theon nodded.
The moment Baltar discovered adamantite, he had contacted Baron Oldman, offering to craft anything desired. At that time, what Berry had requested was a single sword.
“Berry gave it to me as a birthday gift this year.”
An unsolicited explanation was added. He already knew well enough that Theon harbored affection for Berry. Demian had no desire to initiate conversation on a topic whose trajectory he could all too easily predict.
“I see.”
Demian nodded. With the Artificial Lake between them, Windis erupted into frenzy once more in the distance.
Kuuuuung—.
A violent shockwave sent tremors through the earth, and the lake’s waters surged upward before cascading down.
Whoooosh.
It was as though we stood within a downpour. Demian gazed at Theon’s face, wet as if drenched in rain, and marveled inwardly. Perhaps because his line of sight aligned with Berry’s height, the angle from which he viewed this face felt refreshingly novel.
The sense of betrayal he had felt upon learning of the betrothal announcement melted away like snow before such beauty.
“Where is Berry?”
It was unthinkable that Theon would move alone in such circumstances. Demian naturally sought out Berry, whom he expected to have followed. Theon shook his head.
“She is with Calips and Jeffrey. And you, Master?”
“Reytan…? Did you realize this commotion was Windis’s rampage?”
Theon nodded.
Demian’s fingers twitched. Without prior knowledge, it would have been difficult to immediately connect a phenomenon resembling a natural disaster—an earthquake or typhoon—to a Holy Sword’s rampage.
The fact that he had left Berry behind suggested he had truly sensed Windis’s power. And yet, that he came here regardless—.
“Your Highness came to stop the rampage.”
“Yes.”
As expected.
Demian barely restrained the urge to pat Theon’s shoulder in consolation. Two individuals of Grand Master caliber had been born in a single generation.
‘Theon will become Emperor far sooner than he becomes a Grand Master.’
No matter how he considered it, his friend bore no mark of an early death. Demian pointed toward the night sky. Above the bright moon, wisps of pale clouds drifted.
“You need not worry about the rampage. The person within the vortex is not Reytan.”
Theon lifted his gaze toward the direction Demian indicated.

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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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