Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 155

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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 155

When Titania’s lukewarm drops of blood touched the stone, it blazed to life. The golden characters that shimmered with ferocity incomparable to before suddenly dimmed all at once. Yet no one present could have read what those characters signified in the first place.
In that same moment, the Magic Beast inflated its entire body as though a balloon were stretching to its breaking point. Like a beast puffing its fur to appear larger, the gesture seemed ephemeral and yet desperately necessary. This was moments after it had been imitating the forms of various victims, gauging human responses.
Raymond felt an omen in watching it.
Why?
Whatever method it had employed, the Magic Beast had clearly taken fright. It bore the appearance of something trying to flee. What reason could there be for dread?
“Your Highness!”
Again. It was Titania again.
…Why had he thought “again”?
Raymond stood some distance from the stone, dazed, watching as Titania swayed unsteadily for a moment. He shouted until his throat burned raw. There was still time.
He could simply pay no heed to whatever stance the Magic Beast took next, ignore whatever it might be cradling to its chest, and tear it to shreds. And somehow it felt urgent—he needed to assess Titania’s condition. That sense of crisis rose into his throat.
Ahead of him, the knights maintained their vigilant positions with fearful bearing, dutifully responding to Raymond’s directives to constrain the Magic Beast.
Yet Titania, to all appearances, seemed……well, beyond whatever she had attempted by spilling blood upon the stone, she didn’t look particularly endangered.
Titania swayed for a moment, then drove the sword she held into the ground and steadied herself. Her careless movement caused blood to drip steadily from the forearm where she had deliberately cut herself.
Titania’s green eyes were vacant, as though she had only just woken from a long sleep. She looked as if she had lost her mind, or gone mad……
Yet Titania glanced toward where the Magic Beast lay, and without hesitation, walked toward it.
“…It would be dangerous to approach carelessly.”
Rather than warn her further, Raymond simply gritted his teeth and set about destroying the Magic Beast as it swelled like a hollow balloon.
It was tedious work. The Magic Beast, disintegrating piece by piece as though being dismantled alive, finally emitted something resembling a scream.
Titania watched the spectacle from a distance, then laughed lightly.
“It’s fine.”
He’d heard that phrase often enough.
Yet something felt strange about it. Really, it’s fine, ha-ha, it’s fine. The Titania he usually heard speak that way would……
“I can eliminate something like that easily.”
…her voice would seem to carry concern for the other person.
Titania drew her forearm against the blade and cut deeper.
More blood dripped steadily, trailing down the sword’s edge. She walked toward the Magic Beast, which had been prevented from fleeing far thanks to Raymond and the knights’ control, her steps deliberate.
“Your Highness!”
And there, in its center, she drove her blood-stained sword. Crunch, crack, screech, bang!
Like driving a needle into a balloon.
The Magic Beast shrieked—a sound that tore the eardrum like a poisoned dart striking a vital point.
And in the next instant, the shadow that had been fluid like a gas hardened.
It froze like an eggshell, and the moment after, it shattered with brittle snaps into ash that poured toward the ground. Pebbles, twigs—everything spilled out onto the earth below.
Watching the Magic Beast crumble to pieces, Titania moved to the side of the stone and pressed her bleeding forearm against it. The stone glowed brilliantly, then the light went dark. With a rumbling sound, it split cleanly down the middle.
“Young Duke! There are stairs beneath the stone!”
“I sense presences. They seem to be the people reported missing……”
“D-did Your Highness resolve all of this?”
The knights raised their voices in unison. The Guide, who had somehow remained unharmed in all the chaos, suddenly leapt to his feet and cried out.
“Children! Children, are you listening! It’s me!”
Unable to ignore the commotion, Raymond issued orders to his subordinates.
“…Form teams and advance cautiously. Explore the stairs, rescue any survivors, and eliminate any Magic Beasts that appear.”
“Yes, sir!”
Only after hastily organizing the situation could Raymond approach Titania.
Titania had chosen a suitable spot among the scattered stone fragments and sat down casually. She paid no mind to the drops of blood falling from her forearm.
“Your Highness. If I may ask, what was that just now……”
“Ah. I think my blood might be toxic to Magic Beasts. That was an…ancient barrier, or something like that. It seems to have activated naturally to protect the children from Magic Beasts. I tested it by applying my blood, and this is how it reacted. Perhaps it’s some device created by the Founding Emperor or the like?”
Titania’s voice was flat. Her manner of speaking was certainly the same as always.
Yet normally, she would have glanced at Raymond with a slight smile. Her eyes would have betrayed the thought: “I had my own reasoning for doing this, but I suppose you’ll worry anyway. How should I explain it away?” A look like that.
Titania was tenderhearted. Precisely for that reason, even when she set boundaries clearly, she sometimes revealed an immaturity like that of a wounded child.
But the Titania visible far more often was simply smiling, saying “it’s fine.” Nothing much had happened! Everything turned out well! Always just laughing like that.
While to those who worried about her, she’d say, “I’m sorry.”
Yet those eyes just now had been disturbingly numb.
What could those eyes be called? Ah, here is a useful “tool.” The way she wielded her own blood as though handling an efficient weapon……
…Yes. Before Bibi had come.
She looked exactly like Raymond himself—using everything dispassionately as necessity demanded.
“I wasn’t entirely unable to defeat the Magic Beast either. Had it retreated and returned with proper preparations……”
“We need to finish up quickly and head back anyway.”
“There was no need to wound yourself……”
“I won’t be using my arm anyway, so I’m fine. The wound won’t become infected.”
“……”
“Look, Raymond.”
Titania’s laughter was boundlessly light.
“No one died. The Missing Persons are coming out of that passage. The children too—they look tired, but they seem unharmed.”
“…Your arm needs to be treated.”
“It’s just a surface wound, not deep. The artery is fine. You’ve seen plenty of this sort of thing on the battlefield.”
Raymond fell into an odd state of mind.
Why would the Princess cut her own arm while speaking as if “the artery isn’t even damaged, so it’s fine”? Like someone who had witnessed veins or arteries being severed countless times, bleeding freely?
“…I have the duty to protect Your Highness. If you’ve said I was your companion, how could I not even listen when asked to treat you?”
Raymond continued to swallow down something that rose from deep within his emotions. He grasped her white forearm, drew out a White Cloth from his breast pocket, and wrapped it tightly to staunch the bleeding.
“You said you’d receive proper treatment once we return to the carriage anyway.”
“……Bibi will worry.”
“Ah, right. Bibi……”
Titania’s eyelashes blinked slowly. She seemed to be pondering something, then returned to her light, easy smile.
Less like she was smiling from joy, and more like it was the only expression she could manage. Like the kind of smile she wore when she wanted to brush everything aside.
“It’s still fine.”
“……”
“As long as Bibi is safe, that’s all that matters……”
“If Bibi heard that, she’d be hurt. …Your Highness. If I may.”
Raymond hesitated for a moment. Was asking such a question crossing a “line” that Titania had drawn?
It wasn’t as though they needed to share everything, but the perceptive Titania surely knew that the Castrain Family would have already guessed most of what there was to know about her. Yet there were things he deliberately refrained from asking. Where, confined as she was within the Imperial Palace, had Titania obtained information about ? What was the nature of that blade? Looking at the type of power she wielded, she was clearly a legitimate user of Light Power……
“…What happened just now?”
Titania’s explanation wasn’t nonsensical, per se.
Just as the Imperial Palace contained facilities and remnants from the Founding Emperor’s time that even the Castrain Family hadn’t properly catalogued, similar things could exist scattered throughout the Empire.
It was strange that Magic Beasts and barriers would suddenly appear in a place not so far from the Capital, but circumstances notwithstanding, the Castrain Family itself had planned the path of departure toward Castrain.
Yes, it was a narrative he could overlook.
“I wish it were merely my imagination, but somehow……”
…it seemed precarious.
To begin with, the Titania he knew would never have answered so indifferently to “Bibi will worry.” She should have made a fuss: “Oh! Bibi, if I explain that I didn’t mean to do this, you’ll take my side, won’t you?” Really, she should have tried to convince him it was nothing to be concerned about.
Titania depended on no one, would leave no loose ends, and spoke only the words “everything is fine,” moving through the world like a child who rarely troubled anyone.
But her behavior just now seemed less like that of a child yearning for adult affection while trying to seem grown-up by finishing their tasks, and more……
Well. Like a child sitting astride the railing of a tall building, swinging her legs over the void, playing as if nothing mattered.
Their eyes met.
Raymond found himself holding his breath.

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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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