Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 156

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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 156

The rules that set the world in motion are, surprisingly, simple.
Every power demands a price.
Since ancient times, demons have fixated on corrupting the noblest of souls—which alone shows you that noble spirits are the most precious. The soul that knows sacrifice. The soul that knows endurance. The soul that knows resignation……. One who, standing before the immutable, measures what they alone can do.
Like an adult shielding a child’s eyes even in despair that stains everything pitch black.
Then what of turning back and winding the pendulum of a world already gone awry?
What salvation can a god, their own power spent, bestow upon their believer?
Through blood as conduit, past and present were inverted by a Contract bound only temporarily.
[Contractor ‘Titania’, welcome.]
This world’s Temporal Axis twisted once as evidence of a Contract between god and Titania. Or, more precisely, the future “ceased to have happened.”
Yet before everything vanished into Chernobog’s grasp, she managed to leave behind certain gaps in that world—though not many, for fear of Raymond or Lisianthus noticing.
[……please recover. And…….]
Something, piece by piece. Fragments still unreadable, inscribed small as sesame seeds, stacked like a puzzle. ‘Titania’ opened her eyes only for an instant—or rather, it was a memory from the past.
Once she becomes the sword’s true master, such memories will lose meaning…….
-…….
‘Titania’ whispered in her head to the sword—a blade she had taught only so much as the current Titania, who knew everything yet had forgotten everything luminously, could bear knowing.
‘Even with conditions this good, I never properly awakened my power. I wasted time saving too many people.’
-Ti, Titania, you worked so hard…….
‘If I’d been smothered with love under good parents, I could’ve become that broad-minded, stupid girl too. I didn’t know. You played the part of a kind guide quite well yourself.’
-…….
Self-contradiction. Knowing, yet twisted inside. It was a curious feeling.
In any case, she had hidden these memory fragments scattered among her fractured power and seals so that the unknowing Titania would fulfill the Contract properly. Now they were erased, fragments of a past that meant nothing. This too was only a temporary phenomenon.
Yet the more she considered Titania’s conduct, the more she was appalled.
Even she would have gambled her own life to save Bibi. But she would never have accepted the way Bibi smiled and fawned over her with gratitude as to a benefactor. The mere thought made her skin crawl.
She even gave a second chance to the maid who tried to backstab her, helped the Empress, played sister games with Prince Adrian, and moreover aided the Young Count Flux who kidnapped her.
This wasn’t just kindness—it was a complete absence of self-regard. Though perhaps that good-natured Titania didn’t know the true ending of the warped “original” that she remembered.
That memory alone was entirely hers, and she would treat it as the story of another. So the change in character couldn’t be helped……. Yet whether she would still play the fool even after learning everything at the very end, she couldn’t say.
‘…But well, it doesn’t matter.’
The irritation that had flared briefly subsided. After all, it was meaningless to her now.
Sensing danger by instinct, the Magic Beast puffed itself up. It posed no threat to her—not now, not when she was careless and couldn’t control her own power.
As she moved a body that was hers and yet not hers, vertigo washed over her. She ignored the pain and wielded the sword like a staff, but the blade didn’t utter a single word of protest.
“…It will be dangerous if you approach carelessly.”
Unable to turn his gaze away, Raymond couldn’t step forward himself—so instead his actions toward the Magic Beast became far too obvious. Raymond worrying about Titania…… The more she saw it, the stranger it was. Or had it never happened at all in the first place?
‘Titania’ laughed.
Right. It was the Titania who begged and cried and pleaded with the Castrain brothers, who chased at their heels and slashed down Magic Beasts, who awakened power. But just before the very end…….
Then, did they worry?
Well, that version of her had been quite useful. She’d been full of hopeful talk about possibly saving Bibi.
“I’m fine.”
Time was short. ‘Titania’ approached the Magic Beast without hesitation. It could never match her—not now.
At minimum, if there existed a Magic Beast capable of facing the current ‘Titania’…… well. It would have to be one to which Chernobog had given a proper name. When would that one appear?
“I can erase something like that without difficulty.”
But the method was the issue. Her starting conditions were far better than ‘Titania’s were, yet this body still floundered, lacking proper ownership of itself, so she had to use an inconvenient method. She smeared her blood on the sword and drove it straight into the Magic Beast.
As expected, it couldn’t even mount a proper resistance, melting away into nothingness—a pathetic sight. Those around her made a fuss.
Bah, what did such a wound matter? It barely hurt. Their murmuring was bothersome.
‘Titania’ thought it easier to finish quickly and give them no time to object. When she touched the stone, familiar characters bloomed in her mind.
[Administrator authentication confirmed. Welcome, Contractor Titania.]
‘Open the Barrier.’
[Opening the safe zone.]
With a rumbling groan, the stone split open, and those around her clamored about survivors within. She watched with mild indifference. Why had such a Barrier been placed here in the first place?
Originally, that Magic Beast had been far stronger. So, was this a side effect of reversing the world? Gods, Magic Beasts, weapons imbued with divine power—they seemed to retain some lingering echo of the future from the previous world. After all, ‘Titania’ had thoroughly shattered that Magic Beast into fragments at the very end. And the purpose of placing this Barrier specifically here was likely…….
‘…A tomb?’
This was one of the Castrain Family’s critical Front Lines.
Unimaginable for the current Empire, but in the world before it fell to ruin, that’s what it was. With so few soldiers, Young Duke Raymond and Lisianthus themselves were forced to stand against vast numbers of enemies alone. Normally, a Barrier like that would have been used to give soldiers some safety while contending with Magic Beasts.
Yes. Titania likely thought: if she left the remains of the soldiers that Young Duke Castrain had struggled to protect here, he would spend some time mourning them and wouldn’t search for her. She had things to do that required him not to see.
“Your Highness, the Princess.”
‘Titania’ felt instinctive revulsion. But she couldn’t show it.
“Forgive me, but what exactly just…….”
Raymond was this polite, this openly concerned, about her?
But suspicion would be troublesome. ‘Titania’ recalled the manner of the original—which is to say, from the true ‘Titania’s perspective, a girl who was both an easy mark and a fool.
“Ah. My blood seems to be poison to the Magic Beasts. That’s……. Some ancient Barrier from long ago, I think. It seems to have activated naturally to protect the children from them. I tried applying my blood just to be safe, and it reacted like this. Maybe it’s some device the First Emperor created back then?”
It was difficult to imitate. Was she doing this right? Should she have had the sword critique her manner of speech?
In truth, ‘Titania’ was so worn and exhausted and dull that she no longer remembered how she’d laughed back when she was foolishly simple-minded in the Imperial Palace. She couldn’t help it.
Raymond hesitated, then countered.
“The Magic Beast itself was not beyond elimination. If we withdrew and returned with proper preparation…….”
“We need to finish up and get back quickly.”
“There was no need to wound yourself…….”
“I don’t have any use for my arm anyway, so it’s fine. The wound won’t get infected.”
‘Titania’ found this situation somewhat amusing.
The Raymond she remembered, that is. When dealing with a princess who Bibi had merely deigned to spare alive, Raymond had acted as though he wanted to tear her limb from limb.
Lisianthus was the same. If they had known back then that ‘Titania’s blood was effective against Magic Beasts, she might have become a living sacrifice, bled dry.
The circumstances had been desperate enough to warrant it, and Titania’s worth had been so low.
Indeed, after the war, barely a tenth of the entire Empire’s population had survived. Adrian had been less emperor than lord of a living hell. Bibi had never awakened. So being used as a convenient source of blood would’ve actually been quite humane treatment, in a way.
-…….
-“Look, Raymond.”
Why that face all of a sudden? He’d seen people alive, devoured by Magic Beasts, screaming at the loss of family. He’d witnessed corpses in states of unspeakable horror. And yet this scrape……. So ‘Titania’ decided to be kind and resolve the situation. She wanted him to return to what he was—the cold, efficient Young Duke of the Castrain Family.
“No one died. The missing are coming out of that passage. The children look tired, but they’re perfectly fine.”
“…Your arm needs treatment.”
“It’s only bleeding, not a deep wound. The artery’s intact. You’ve seen worse on the battlefield.”
“…I have a duty to protect Your Highness. You said I was your ally, yet you won’t even listen when I ask you to be treated?”
‘Titania’ watched impassively as the man treated her arm without waiting for her response.
…He looks somewhat uneasy, doesn’t he?
No. But truly, it was just a scrape. When soldiers on the Front Line fought Magic Beasts, they’d cut off limbs before the Demonic Energy could spread, then undergo aggressive treatment from a Priest afterward.
What was the fuss over this?

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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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