Limited Extra Time - Chapter 180

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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 ——

-Don’t be afraid, Millaiyen. You are my hero.

And you’ll be Seren’s hero too.

“Carina Leopold!”

-I love you too, Millaiyen. Thank you for bringing gifts on my birthday every year. I feel happy every time I see the different flowers you bring each year. Thank you for creating a memorial service for me too.

Millaiyen’s eyes trembled faintly.

Overwhelmed with shock, I couldn’t even speak, only staring intently at the blue stone.

I saw it.

“How did you…”

-Millaiyen, I’m truly doing well. So you should be happy too. Enjoy your life.

Be happy. Enjoy your life.

I won’t even flirt with anyone else and will just sit by your side waiting.

I liked Millaiyen Pestellio living his life confidently, not dying miserably.

I didn’t fall for Millaiyen Pestellio because he was just barely getting by, waiting for that one day.

The light was gradually going out.

—— Page 2 ——

It felt like I was witnessing the last powerful flutter of a firefly’s wings as its life was about to end.

Millaiyen Pestellio urgently grabbed the stone with both hands. Not knowing what to do, he moved his hands and then slowly let it drop.

“I…”

-Or maybe I really will betray you. The male gods here are quite handsome, you know.

“Who do you think you are!”

Millaiyen Pestellio’s voice rose sharply.

A soft, giggling laugh drifted through the darkness.

-That’s right. Enjoy it. Have adventures and create many memories with Seren. Live that way, and when you return, tell me all about it. I want to hear everything.

“Yes, yes. I will.”

Millaiyen Pestellio nodded frantically.

-After this night passes, the world will move on once more, but I will always be by your side.

“I love you, Carina Leopold. Wait for me. Until I finish this entire journey.”

-Yes. Come back slowly, very slowly. So Seren won’t feel lonely.

The moment Millaiyen Pestellio whispered his love once more, the stone’s light extinguished completely.

Millaiyen Pestellio gripped the stone tightly and drew a deep breath. His eyes burned with heat, but he endured it.

“Wait for me, Carina Leopold.”

He pressed his lips reverently against the stone.

After sitting there for a long while, Millaiyen Pestellio lay down beside Seren and extinguished the light.

The deep darkness that descended no longer felt as desolate as before.

***

“I told you not to interfere unnecessarily, Carina Leopold.”

“…I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”

—— Page 3 ——

Ajidahaka regarded Carina Leopold with obvious displeasure before letting out a sigh.

He couldn’t fathom why he had to languish in this tedious, joyless, and dreary existence, seated in a divine position he’d never sought.

Just as he was about to drift into that long slumber beside her, he felt his soul being violently torn away.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself summoned to the Divine Realm—the most unwelcome development of all.

Apparently, the God of Art had filed a lawsuit against him.

The charges were straightforward.

Ajidahaka had abused his authority by reviving a human named Carina Leopold who was meant to live only her predetermined fate, thereby disrupting the natural order.

Furthermore, he had forcibly taken a child who should have belonged to the God of Art’s destiny, thus violating his domain.

Naturally, Carina Leopold herself was also summoned as a party to the case.

However, the lawsuit ended up being rather anticlimactic—concluded with Ajidahaka’s overwhelming victory.

There was only one reason.

The moment Carina Leopold heard the name “God of Art,” she seized him by the collar without waiting for the trial to commence, and proceeded to beat him mercilessly with the judge’s gavel that lay nearby, venting her fury.

In truth, it was already rare for the Divine Realm to summon the souls of a newly deceased human and a dragon for trial in the first place.

But when the God of Art’s most cherished human—a woman he had favored enough to bestow such an epithet upon—was now spitting curses so vile they were scarcely fit to be spoken aloud, the shock was understandable.

It was said that the God of Art, apparently quite shaken by what Carina Leopold had done to him, took to his bed afterward.

Nevertheless, the argument that “Ajidahaka had disrupted the order” was accepted to some degree, and he was sentenced to become a god in the Divine Realm, which suffered from a severe shortage of deities.

—— Page 4 ——

did it.

And Carina Leopold remained by his side for a while.

“Aren’t you bored? Going forward too…”

“I’ll have to watch this tedious daily life for decades more. A daily life you can never reach and never will be able to reach.”

“Well, each day is so different that I could never grow bored. Even if I cannot reach him, that’s all right. Simply seeing him brings me happiness.”

And with Millaiyen Pestellio there to remember me and care for me, how could I ever be unhappy?

Riga.

I will watch his every moment as he walks upon this earth.

Until the day he returns to where I am.

“Humans are a species that can never be understood, no matter how much time passes.”

“Yet Ajidahaka watches Seren grow each day and nods with satisfaction—”

“while nodding.”

“…Ahem. As her godfather, it is only natural that I take pride in watching my goddaughter flourish.”

Ajidahaka cleared his throat awkwardly, his gaze drifting away as he spoke.

“Pfft…”

“Hehe…”

The two of them laughed loudly at how amusing each other’s actions were, then turned their gaze back to Millaiyen Pestellio and Seren reflected in the pond.

Holding the child in his arms, Millaiyen Pestellio looked more at peace than he had in any moment recently as he drifted off to sleep.

Carina Leopold watched that figure with her eyes further

She tapped the pond lightly with her fingertip.

Small ripples formed and the wavering water surface gradually became calm.

Autumn passes and winter comes.

And spring will come again.

A season kind to everyone, where new sprouts emerge and flowers bloom in full, no longer tinged with sadness alone.

—— Page 5 ——

What if—

Carina Leopold was the second child of the Nobility, unremarkable in every conceivable way.

Sandwiched between Infrick, the flawless heir with no shortage of martial or scholarly prowess, and the Leopold Twins, beloved by all and impossible to resent, she was the ugly duckling—invisible, unremarkable, and unlike her other siblings and parents, not even particularly beautiful.

Yet Carina harbored no particular resentment about it.

In her childhood, she had felt disappointment and sorrow, but after a dream years ago, her heart had become remarkably serene. Somehow, she felt as though they and she were strangers to one another.

It happened when she was about ten years old.

Carina had experienced an extraordinarily long dream. She had fallen asleep on Friday evening, but when she opened her eyes, it was Sunday evening.

She had slept for two full days.

Of course, no one in her family had worried about her.

‘They probably never even noticed. No one in the family paid attention to her anyway.’

Though it should have been disappointing and sorrowful, it wasn’t. It was as if someone she didn’t know had taken the liberty of organizing her heart and left.

Within the dream, Carina Leopold had experienced a joyful existence.

She had become engaged, grown into adulthood, and as she prepared for her final moments, she sought out her Fiancé.

Though her dream life contained countless sorrows, in the end, she had met someone precious, borne a child, and felt herself living each moment with all her might.

In the dream, she had received help from many people, but she contracted an illness called “Art’s Affliction” and ended her life at a young age.

The sight of her weeping, unwilling to die—

—— Page 6 ——

made her heart ache, and tears flowed unbidden.

Watching those who grieved her death, Carina found herself contemplating many things.

What startled me most upon waking from the dream was discovering that the future I had witnessed in that dream was unfolding identically in reality.

‘Have I regressed in time?’

Carina Leopold set down the salad she had been mechanically chewing, having taken only a few bites.

“I’ve finished my meal, so I’ll excuse myself now.”

“Very well, do as you wish.”

Her parents’ indifferent tone and vacant gaze remained utterly unchanged.

No matter how profoundly my inner world had shifted, what my parents demanded of me had not altered in the slightest.

They still expected me to sacrifice myself—to look after my younger sister Abelia, to view Ferden with mature understanding, and to embrace him with compassion.

Though the dream had not transformed my nature overnight, the moment my expectations of family dissolved, so too did my willingness to make the effort.

I was no longer the obedient, dutiful daughter. If something felt tedious, I simply would not do it. I no longer bothered to gently soothe my siblings’ complaints, nor did I constrain myself to speak only kind and pleasant words.

“Sister! I want to go out tomorrow—do you have time? If we eat breakfast and leave around lunch, it should work!”

At Abelia’s words, I halted just as I was leaving the Dining Hall.

I blinked slowly before turning my head.

“I have plans tomorrow, and frankly, it’s a bother. Let’s go another time.”

In the past, I would have hesitated and reluctantly agreed, but now I refused with indifferent candor, citing only my own reasons.

“What? But—where are you even going?!

—— Page 7 ——

You could just take me with you!”

“No.”

“Carina, your sister is asking so earnestly—surely you can spare the time.”

“I don’t want to.”

Her parents’ eyes narrowed with displeasure at her refusal.

“You’re the older sister, so you should….”

“I’m sorry, but before being an older sister, I’m also a person, and I can’t help being tired. Mother, if there’s nothing more you wish to say, I’ll retire now.”

That dream from childhood had made her capable of thinking a little more about herself.

She didn’t want to expend her energy on people who would never look back on her anyway.

Since the day Carina Leopold had that dream, she had abandoned the completion of paintings.

Just days after having the dream, she had unknowingly thrown a tantrum, and when her mother slapped her, the shock had been overwhelming, but she had not violated the taboo of painting her parents.

However, that didn’t mean the artistic curse hadn’t manifested within her. When she completed a painting with genuine sincerity, it came alive with life.

Of course, she still had the artistic affliction of creation, and there were several times when she would unknowingly complete paintings and lose herself in the beauty of those magnificent scenes.

Carina Leopold often traced back into the past.

Groping through memories he had seen in dreams, he had recently even come to meet a physician named Winston. Winston calmly pointed out that she was still suffering from her artistic ailment and expressed his concern for her.

She planned to leave for the Northern Territory once she came of age. Since Carina Leopold had turned seventeen this year, she had three years left.

In her dream, she saw a man holding her as she was dying and weeping sorrowfully.

—— Page 8 ——

However, the Fiancé she had met at the engagement ceremony was a rigid and sharp person who seemed like he wouldn’t let even a needle slip through.

Perhaps he couldn’t have that dream-like passionate and fiery love anymore.

Carina Leopold continued to think that way.

That evening, if Millaiyen Pestellio had not knocked on the door of Leopold Manor without any prior notice.

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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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