Let’s Make Saving a Habit - Chapter 126

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 126
Tania accepted Aiden’s offer to ensure she would never go hungry, and she followed him while preserving the current moment in her memory.
Even if Aiden was a bad person, it was an offer a child who had starved as a daily routine could not refuse.
In the end, following Aiden proved to be a choice as pivotal as a turning point in life itself.
He brought me to his home, bathed me, put me to bed, fed me, and gave me the ordinary life I had so desperately longed for.
“I’m a mercenary, so I’ll often be away from home. But I promise you’ll never go hungry.”
Aiden knew that if Tania became associated with him, she might face attacks from assassins.
But he couldn’t entrust her to anyone else.
He didn’t want to repeat the tragedy that had unfolded when he’d left a child in his family’s care.
So what he chose was….
To provide Tania with a safe environment and let her live alone, while he would visit her often to supply what she lacked and confirm her safety.
Tania followed Aiden faithfully.
She thought of him as her savior, as family.
So one day, gathering her courage, she called Aiden “Father.”
“Father.”
The moment he heard that word, Aiden’s emotions trembled.
It was something he had desperately wanted to hear from Tania, yet it was forbidden—taboo.
If it became known that Tania was his child, Duke Tempus’s blade would surely be turned toward her.
“What did you just say?”
“F-Father….”
Aiden gripped the child’s shoulders firmly and scolded her.
“Why would you call me your father? No matter how well I treat you, that doesn’t change our relationship.”
“….”
“Remember this—I am not your father. Don’t call me that anywhere, to anyone.”
The wounded expression on the child’s face pierced through me like thorns, but there was no choice.
“Promise me you’ll never speak those words again.”
I couldn’t bear to lose a child twice.
With Aiden’s support, Tania grew up safely and well.
To the neighbors around her, the girl appeared to be an orphan who lived independently on the inheritance her parents had left behind.
It was exactly as Aiden had wished.
As Tania’s fourteenth birthday approached.
He visited her irregularly, but on her birthday, he always made time to see her.
That day too, Aiden set out on the road carrying a birthday gift for Tania.
Thinking of the child bouncing with joy as she received the gift, even the stoic Aiden’s lips curved into a smile.
As he rode along the road like that.
“Please help me…!”
A small child sitting on the roadside caught Aiden’s attention.
She appeared to be a young girl around seven or eight years old.
“I followed the carriage my mother was in and got lost.”
Aiden was extremely cautious on days when he went to see Tania.
I spoke to no one, deliberately took winding detours, and constantly scanned my surroundings for any sign of pursuit.
Under normal circumstances, I would have ignored the plea for help and continued on my way.
But that day, for some reason, I found myself thinking of the child waiting at home.
Tania must have sought help from the adults around her when she was left alone.
But all she received was cold indifference, and she endured a harsh life until I found her.
That was why.
I decided to help the child.
“Do you live in Asha Village nearby? I’ll take you to the village entrance.”
“Yes! Asha Village is where I live. Thank you so much!”
“Come here.”
The moment I lifted the young girl onto the horse.
A blade drawn from her bosom thrust toward my throat.
It was a trap.
I reacted quickly and dodged the blade, but the tip still grazed my skin.
As if paralytic poison had been applied, my body began to stiffen rapidly from the wound.
I cut down the child who had targeted me.
She hadn’t been systematically trained after all—she offered no real resistance and simply breathed her last.
Before my body could completely stiffen, I mounted the horse to escape the Assassins’ pursuit.
But it wasn’t long before I sensed death approaching.
I had noticed that a pursuer had caught up.
My condition was far too compromised to evade or eliminate the tracker.
“…It’s our daughter’s birthday.”
She must be waiting. I needed to give her the birthday gift.
It seemed this was the end.
Eventually, I stopped the horse, dismounted, and collapsed to the ground.
Thud.
The blade could have been coated with poison potent enough to cause instant death. Yet they chose paralytic poison instead….
It must be because their objective wasn’t assassination but capture.
To extract information about where Tania was.
That was when.
“Impressive that you can still move at all.”
Hugo Tempus.
The eldest son of the Tempus Duchy.
The moment I saw his face, despair washed over me.
I had been hunting down only Duke Tempus to kill him.
He was the root of all this, so I thought I should end it by killing only him, not his entire family.
But Hugo Tempus was entangled in this too.
I should have killed everyone bearing the Tempus name without hesitation.
Hugo Tempus furrowed his brow as if regretful.
“Many of my subordinates, whom I spent considerable time cultivating, died because of you.”
So all those assassins who had attacked him over the years were sent by Hugo Tempus.
“Sending a child was the right call. I thought the undertrained brat would be useless, but… I should have captured him like this from the start.”
“What do you want?”
“Oh, you know everything but pretend not to.”
“…He’s your nephew.”
“Haha! Aiden, I know how many times you’ve attempted to kill our father all this time.”
“…”
“But you couldn’t find where he was. And it felt wrong to kill me, who seemed completely unrelated.”
Hugo Tempus’s lips twisted upward in a cruel smile.
“Want to know something amusing?”
“No.”
“Listen anyway. It’s a fact no one in the Empire knows.”
“…”
“My ability is… controlling bodily time.”
Aiden’s pupils dilated sharply in shock.
It meant he could become an infant or an elderly man whenever he wished.
Then, how old was Hugo Tempus standing before him right now?
“But… damn it, after your child awakened, my ability stopped working.”
Hugo Tempus.
No—Duke Tempus’s eyes gleamed.
“Because of that, I’ve been in a bind. I can’t pretend to be the aging Duke Tempus anymore.”
Regret crashed over Aiden like a tidal wave.
He should have killed Hugo Tempus.
If only he had finished him then, none of this tragedy would have occurred.
“You’d be about fourteen years old now. Aiden, is your child a son or a daughter?”
Aiden glared at Hugo Tempus with bloodshot eyes.
“You won’t extract any information from me.”
Aiden summoned transcendent power, forced his rigid body to move, and without a moment’s hesitation, drove his sword into his own heart.
“Ah, how troublesome.”
Hugo Tempus furrowed his brow as though annoyed.
Even through the excruciating agony, Aiden never took his gaze from Hugo Tempus.
As though swearing he would pursue him even in the depths of hell.

✦ ✦ ✦
Tania spent her fourteenth birthday alone.
Gazing out the window at the steady patter of rain, I found myself thinking that Aiden’s visit was unusually delayed this time.
Though I had spent my birthday in solitude, I tried to console myself that it couldn’t be helped.
Of course, I had planned to pout a little when Aiden arrived, but that was beside the point.
Yet even after a week passed, even after a month had gone by, Aiden did not come.
He never came to find me.
But I convinced myself that he was simply running late, that the mercenary company kept him busy.
The thought that Aiden would never abandon me sustained me.
That night too, I waited late into the darkness, hoping that perhaps Aiden would finally arrive.
Knock, knock, knock.
At the sound of someone rapping on the door, I leaped up with sudden hope and rushed outside.
“Aiden, have you arrived?”
But contrary to my expectations, standing beyond the threshold were several rough-looking men clad in hooded robes.
I stumbled backward in confusion.
In that moment, I wondered if I should change my perspective.
The sole figure among them with a lean frame slowly opened his mouth.
“Are you Tania?”
“…Who are you?”
“We are members of the Golden Silver Mercenary Company.”
The Golden Silver Mercenary Company—the organization to which Aiden belonged.
Knowing they were trustworthy people, my expression eased.
But the words that followed struck me like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
“We have come to inform you of Aiden’s death.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————