Limited Extra Time - Chapter 122

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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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—— Page 1 ——

“Winston.”

Periel located the vein in her arm, then withdrew his hand.

Winston handed him a syringe filled with medicine. Periel carefully inserted the needle into the vein he’d found.

“Ugh….”

“Carina Leopold, you’ll feel better soon.”

Periel spoke gently as he withdrew the syringe. Carina Leopold clenched her teeth, her body trembling violently.

“I hate this….”

At the sound of her tear-stained voice, Millaiyen pulled Carina Leopold into his embrace.

Carina Leopold clung to him like a child, as if she’d been waiting for this moment. She despised the throbbing in her arm, despised the ache in her chest—all of it.

‘How much longer….’

How much longer must I endure this terrible agony?

No matter how strong I become, the moment pain strikes my head, I crumble into weakness. I can barely keep myself from uttering those final, desperate words.

—— Page 2 ——

Clinging to her reason as her only anchor, she slowly closed her eyes beneath his soothing touch.

“It’s alright. I’m here with you.”

“…Yes.”

Her answer came like a candle flame flickering before the wind, barely audible.

“Sleep now, Carina Leopold.”

“….”

He whispered against her forehead as she closed her eyes, pressing his lips gently to her skin.

Carina Leopold’s breathing gradually became steady and even. Only then did Periel Kalos exhale a low sigh.

“For now, let’s settle what we couldn’t by getting Carina Leopold to her room.”

“Settle? There’s nothing to settle. I just need those people to disappear from my sight.”

“Carina Leopold seemed unable to finish her conversation either. Are you thinking of robbing her of that opportunity?”

Periel Kalos’s words struck a nerve, and Millaiyen clicked his tongue in displeasure.

He turned away with an irritated expression. As Millaiyen’s retreating figure disappeared from the Reception Room, Periel Kalos discarded the syringe and organized the medicine box.

The air in the room remained heavy and oppressive.

* * *

Millaiyen climbed the Staircase with deliberate care, fearful that Carina Leopold might wake.

The Carina Leopold who had been groaning in distress now wore a peaceful expression. Millaiyen entered the Room and laid her down gently.

He draped the blanket over her, closed the Window, and drew the curtains halfway before returning to brush the sweat-dampened strands of hair from her face.

—— Page 3 ——

He arranged them with meticulous tenderness, then turned quietly and left the Room.

The expression that had worn a faint smile beside Carina Leopold’s side now held no emotion whatsoever.

From his crimson eyes, now cold as ice, dripped only fury.

His footsteps headed toward the Reception Room once more. Millaiyen Pestellio strode forward and flung open the Reception Room door without even bothering to knock.

He entered with a murderous gaze, closing the Reception Room

door behind him.

“Is Carina Leopold well?”

“Whether you’re fine or not, what business is it of yours?”

Millaiyen asked as if he didn’t understand Infrick’s question. The rising irritation made him feel like drawing his sword.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and placed it between his lips. Peng, standing nearby, stepped forward and lit it for him.

“Carina Leopold is my younger sister.”

“Duke, aren’t you being rather rude right now? How can you be so heartless as to reject a family’s concern for their daughter?”

Count Leopold added to Infrick’s words.

He was worried about Carina Leopold. That much was true. Millaiyen gazed quietly at both their eyes before taking a deep drag from his cigarette.

As the smoke reached his lungs, Millaiyen’s pupils dilated slightly. The image of Carina Leopold struggling in pain and crying

was etched upon his eyelids, surfacing every time he blinked.

“Rude, rude, is it…”

Millaiyen’s voice dropped considerably.

Periel Kalos, seated on the sofa, awkwardly scratched his cheek with his fingernails, looking troubled.

‘I’ll just stop him at the right moment.’

In essence, as long as no one died, it would be fine. Truth be told, Periel Kalos himself was rarely angry. Even if they were injured, he possessed the power to heal them—

—— Page 4 ——

after all.

“So it’s proper etiquette to barge into someone else’s home uninvited, and then coerce and shove your way toward someone I can barely touch without breaking, is it?”

“…I apologize for coming here without notice. But when our daughter hasn’t made contact for months, what choice do we have? We didn’t even know she was ill.”

At Count Leopold’s words, Periel Kalos tilted his head slightly.

‘What is he even talking about?’

Periel regarded him with a bewildered expression.

If his memory wasn’t a dream, hadn’t he gone to her himself and spoken about her illness?

‘So she really does only hear what she wants to hear and remember only that.’

Periel smiled crookedly. The most vicious part was that he didn’t even realize it.

I couldn’t fathom how Carina Leopold analyzed people so well. Anew,

as I pondered her remarkable insight, my eyes darkened. Because my thoughts had reached the reason why she had no choice but to be this way.

‘She must have been watching her father for that long.’

Waiting silently for the years that wouldn’t turn back to finally turn toward her.

She would have inevitably come to know not only what he disliked and liked, but even his smallest habits.

She must have grown watching that back.

Quietly observing from behind, from the side, someone who would never turn around. And gradually, she must have given up.

She would have slowly let go, one by one, resigned to a reality that would never turn back no matter what. Repeating expectations and resignation that no one here could ever understand for a lifetime.

She must have consoled herself thousands of times more, disappointed and holding back tears, saying it was fine. Unable to shake the feeling of being alone on a desolate island.

—— Page 5 ——

Chipping away at her own life, sacrificing decades of time… she must have filled the love she had nowhere to place by drawing parents who would stay by her side only for fleeting moments and embracing them in her arms. Through all that endurance, until she left that house with her own feet, until she turned her own back, hundreds of raw wounds must have been carved into her chest. Only after realizing that they would remain as scars, never to be erased for a lifetime, did she turn away from that house. A young lady who had lived confined in Leopold Manor her entire life, knowing nothing,

took the risk and embarked on a long journey. And what she found was the embrace of a fiancé who was never even kind to her.

‘How desperate must she have been to come seeking that madman?’ As I thought this, my chest suddenly tightened and my feelings twisted. It really would have been better if I had met her first. Periel exhaled a short sigh, crossing his legs in an irritated posture. He hadn’t intended to step in since Millaiyen would make a fuss anyway.

But now that I thought of her, staying silent felt like a sin. “Didn’t I tell you about Carina Leopold’s illness? Several months ago already.” “That’s…” “Or was that a dream of mine?” His head tilted as if puzzled, yet his voice carried a mocking tone. At Periel’s words, Count Leopold’s

words finally caught in his throat. Only then did Count Leopold belatedly realize the atmosphere was strange. Come to think of it, it was odd. Not only that a well-trained soldier would regard a nobleman so dismissively, but the servants were also strangely cold. And that hostility became completely apparent the moment they entered the Reception Room. “…That child was healthy, so I simply couldn’t believe it.” “Ha.”

—— Page 6 ——

Millaiyen, who had been listening quietly while smoking a cigarette, finally let out a hollow laugh.

He bit down on the end of the cigarette between his teeth, and the faintly sweet, slightly bitter aroma of tobacco smoke filled the Reception Room.

Periel glanced at Millaiyen.

‘He’s barely holding back.’

If he still possessed the temperament from his Academy days, he would have already drawn his sword or thrown a punch.

Whether it was the patience he had cultivated as an adult or the awareness of being a Duke, I couldn’t say.

“It’s quite amusing. There are few people who’ve made me this angry.”

As Millaiyen held the cigarette with only a small stub remaining between his fingertips, Peng took it from him.

He rubbed his face irritably a couple of times. Despite smoking, the nausea roiling in his stomach wouldn’t settle.

“Carina Leopold has looked far from healthy ever since I first met her.”

A stiff, brittle voice flowed from Millaiyen.

“She had no color in her face and couldn’t eat properly. Every night she suffered from pain and wept in silence.”

Millaiyen spoke through gritted teeth, his fist clenched tight. Periel smiled bitterly as he watched him, not even sitting properly on the sofa, his jaw locked.

“…I was not aware of that.”

Count Leopold spoke with eyes wide open, his voice somewhat gentler.

Carina Leopold had been a child with a faint presence. Naturally, it was inevitable that less attention would be paid to her.

Still, he had believed there were no major problems. He thought he was raising her without lacking anything.

“I didn’t even care about my own body. She came down with a high fever right away. And yet all she said was that it was fine. She acted as though it didn’t matter whether her entire body froze or not!”

“…”

—— Page 7 ——

“Who in the world did this to her!”

Count Leopold found himself unable to utter a single word against Millaiyen’s fury.

His anger burned like an active volcano, so intense that even facing it head-on was difficult. Naturally, no one in the room dared to speak.

“And you’re trying to sum it all up with just ‘I didn’t know’?”

“…I didn’t realize it was this serious. I intend to take her to the Southern Territory for treatment. I will speak with her properly about this.”

At Count Leopold’s words, Millaiyen’s eyebrows shot up sharply.

He understood it wasn’t a careless answer, yet he couldn’t help but feel indignant and furious regardless.

“I won’t allow it. She doesn’t have much time left. She’ll die on the way there.”

“…Doesn’t have much time left?”

Count Leopold’s eyes widened, and Infrick, whose confusion was evident, asked the question.

Count Leopold stood with his mouth open, as if no words would come. Yet even that emotion seemed genuine.

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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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