Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 157

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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 157

“Once you return to the carriage, you’ll receive proper treatment anyway.”
“……Bibi will worry.”
“Ah, that’s right. Bibi…….”
Titania understood the man’s excessive reaction. She was his benefactor, an ally of the Castrain Family, and a useful wielder of Light Power. This man carried even a senseless guilt with him.
“It’s fine, though.”
“…….”
To be honest, she couldn’t bring herself to care much beyond that point. Her vision was already starting to blur at the edges—she was reaching her limit. When the sleeping Titania woke up, she’d probably think something like ‘What?! Administrator Authentication is done and I killed a Magic Beast? Covered in blood?!’ But it didn’t matter.
Despite her perfunctory response, the man was staring at her intently, so Titania made the effort to put just slightly more sincerity into her answer.
“As long as Bibi is safe, that’s all that matters…….”
“If Bibi heard that, she’d be hurt. Your Highness, I’m sorry.”
The man’s grip on her arm tightened.
“……What happened just now?”
Titania’s eyes grew dark and distant.
“I hope it’s just my imagination, but something seems…….”
This man still had an uncanny ability to sense things in places where it didn’t matter. Sharp enough to dredge up unwanted memories.
Their eyes met.
Raymond’s eyes widened. Titania could not smile.
A thought surfaced that even he would not remember now.

‘……What am I trying to do right now?’
Back then, her physical condition was worse than it was now.
In truth, she was more of a provisional contractor for Beloborg than a formal one, so there was no help for it.
After reversing the world, Kendo could only perform the final master ceremony—there was nothing to be done about that.
Besides, the world was so close to destruction. By then, the number of awakeners capable of wielding divine power had dwindled, and there weren’t enough left to bring in as allies.
In any case, Titania could still wield Light Power. She scraped together what little vitality remained in her body and channeled it into self-recovery. She purified tainted water for drinking. She roasted the carcasses of wild beasts and used Magic Beast limbs as kindling for fire. One did what one could.
In the final moments, she had at least the skill to protect Raymond’s or Lisianthus’s backs and flanks.
Yet to the very end, they never once willingly entrusted their backs or flanks to her.
But this—this was something else entirely.
As Titania was about to fall obediently through the crumbling floor, Raymond’s arm caught her around the waist, trembling violently. His eyes, frozen in place, were strange—as if he were watching someone march toward death.
Ah, this was what she’d feared. Because of her, graves that were not graves had been created for the precious subordinates she carried like thorns in her heart.
If only she could have spent hours mourning there. She furrowed her brow.
……No, really. Why did she come out so early? Raymond, her vice-commander, whose eyes had always looked like they wanted to tear her to pieces, was lying there too. She’d thought it would take at least a couple of hours to find each person one by one, to recognize them, to refresh them in memory.
It couldn’t possibly be that Titania had been worried enough to abandon the last traces of those precious connections from the past, scarcely even glancing at them.
‘I need to go save Bibi.’
‘……To fall into the Underground World?’
Ah, Titania understood. The final moment had arrived, so he’d come out worried she might do something reckless. But for something of that nature, the desperation in his hands as he held her close was peculiar, and it made her feel strangely off.
And more than anything, whenever she’d said that she could save Bibi, he’d put up some resistance—dropping hints like ‘I won’t forgive you if this is a lie’—but he’d eventually let it pass.
Why was he acting like this now, with the true end drawing near? She wanted to click her tongue.
‘Surely you don’t think I’d suddenly switch sides to the enemy?’
‘Entering the Underground World alone in such a state—what nonsense!’
‘Why the sudden concern?’
She was one of the few useful soldiers, so it made sense to prevent her from being uselessly thrown away. True enough. It was indeed ‘nonsense.’
Who would descend into the Underground World alone unless they didn’t value their own life?
And Titania truly did not value her own life.
The world had to be restored either way……. In the end, Bibi would live.
So she hadn’t lied. Though there were certain truths she’d deliberately left unsaid.
‘Let me go.’
Apparently her explanation had been insufficient.
Far from letting her go, Raymond’s arm around her waist only tightened further. Titania sighed as she watched the earth trembling around them.
‘Explain yourself.’
‘To save Bibi, I need—’
‘……You know as well as I do that the source of the Magic Beasts lies in the Underground World. I’m not asking for your objective—I’m asking for your reason! Do you want to die? Do you need the heart of a specific Magic Beast? Explain! So I can do whatever I’m able to do! Why do you keep trying to run from my sight and do insane things!’
Titania was taken aback slightly.
Raymond’s eyes—how could she describe it? They looked truly gone. Anger? Love and hate? Resignation? Who knew. As far as she could tell, too many things were burning like molten steel in a furnace.
‘……Is this what they call camaraderie? Ha ha. I suppose I’ve proven useful as a comrade after all.’
‘Don’t change the subject!’
Titania decided to smile.
Words?
What words could there be to speak? Not now.
It was absurd for a reformed villain to offer petty explanations at this point.
Even as the world crumbled into ruin, those burdened with responsibility could not flee.
Titania had learned that Adrian, the prince who had never shown her even a shred of warmth, was performing the role of emperor quite admirably.
Even with the Imperial Palace itself in ruins and so few of the empire’s people surviving, he would likely not flee to the very end, but close his eyes as emperor within the palace walls. Unlike their father, who had been garbage.
She had never become an excellent daughter, a proud sister, or a beloved betrothed.
Cleo was dead now, so there was no one left to blame. She hated it when others granted her absolution.
Yes, she had lived harshly. But to live so pitifully and so hard, fighting for the world. Killing Magic Beasts. Striving to restore the realm. Surely that much made you…….
Made you what?
‘Good’?
She would rather be called a villainess than hear such things.
Titania simply wanted to be, even slightly, a person of worth. She needed no recognition from others. It was enough if she could recognize herself.
To Raymond, and to Raymond alone. Perhaps this was mere inferiority, but…….
She didn’t want him to see her differently, as if that wretched woman had changed.
That’s why she hadn’t done all this to change how he saw her. Not to win his acknowledgment.
Ah, her reflection in the man’s eyes. Now she couldn’t even be called beautiful by flattery. But she found she liked this version of herself.
In a ‘dream,’ she wanted to be ordinary. For her parents to be ordinary, for herself to be ordinary too. Appearing so common you’d see them everywhere.
A dream of living such an ordinary life that she’d never brush even a fingertip against a man as extraordinary as him.
‘Raymond.’
She struck at her opponent with a sheathed sword, used Light Power to block their vision, and slipped her body through the reflexive gap in their defense. As she fell through empty air, Titania reached out a hand toward him with a strangely hollow expression and whispered…….
‘After all, it would have been better if you and I had never met.’

……What happened after that? Titania’s state wasn’t complete either. How had Raymond reacted?
Well, insofar as she existed here now, Titania had achieved her purpose.
And so the rest of that story, being already a lost future, held no bearing whatsoever.
“Somewhere.”
“You look different from usual.”
A fragment of future and past smiled at Raymond. He instinctively sensed something and could not turn his gaze away.
It’s fine.
This Titania, raised and loved by parents better than she’d anticipated, was softer in temperament and slower in her work, but that she didn’t properly grasp the deliberately scattered memories of past and future—she found that pleasing.
The man in her memory had ultimately lost Titania, and this man before her would arrive at a similar conclusion.
Whether what he holds in his heart is false lingering attachment or pity or anything else, the conclusion is simple.
That much, at least, pleased her.
So before Titania closed her eyes for the last time, she smiled as if she were an obedient and gentle girl.
“Surely not. I’m fine, as always.”

* * *

…And so the villainess thought, watching the harmonious prince and princess together.
The villainess believed that living as a villainess held no meaning.
Yet now, she had no confidence that she could smile like a flower freshly bloomed in a new garden.
The sun spoke to her thus.
Child, night is coming soon.
This empire is like candy made from light and warmth and sugar.
A glass vessel that will melt into mud when night falls.
Before the curtain of night draws closed,
Will you light a candle for me?
Before twilight descends,
Will you kindle the morning star?
With your blood wreathed in thorns,
With your bones for a wick,
Let it burn and burn, blazing bright.
Then you
Like the little match girl
Will be able to dream a sweet dream…….

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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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