Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 175

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 175

The moment I parsed Lisianthus’s words, reason screamed inside my head.
No! That’s not it! I don’t go careening through life causing disasters like you do! So why are you looking at me like you’ve spotted a kindred spirit?
I had plenty to say, but since they were coming from the person currently ferrying me around at speed, I held my tongue.
After traveling for a while, I spotted a snow-covered mound. Beside it, Bibi and Rasper stood shoulder to shoulder, their cheeks flushed with excitement and joy. Their faces chapped by the cold wind, their eyes gleaming brightly.
‘Ah.’
Something rolled around inside my chest. Like a hard candy tumbling through an empty glass bottle. I thought I could hear it rattling.
‘It looks so nice…….’
Bundled in thick clothes, a hat, and gloves without exception, only my nose and cheeks stung in the cold—less biting than I’d expected. And yet each time I exhaled, my chest grew just slightly numb.
The dog sledge slowed gradually. Whether we’d reached our destination or not, at Lisianthus’s signal, the sledge came to a complete stop. Looking out at the landscape, I gasped in admiration.
Beyond the ridge, the crimson light of the setting sun painted the white peaks like watercolor. The sunset bled through the ice flowers clinging to the bare branches, looking exactly like falling autumn leaves.
“Ta-da.”
Lisianthus laughed boyishly and spread his arms wide in a show of pride.
“How about it? Pretty impressive, right? With these friends’ help, I didn’t want to miss this view, so I hurried us here.”
“Yeah. It really is amazing…….”
Lisianthus freed the dogs from the sledge one by one. They’d been waiting for exactly this moment—they shook themselves and bolted off in all directions. Seeing my bewilderment, Lisianthus laughed shortly.
“Since we made it this far up, you should try the sledge on your own. We’ll let them play, and they’ll come back when we call them on the way down.”
“On my own?”
Why does this feel familiar? Did I do something like this back in Korea? When the ice got thick in winter, right? When I’d pull out fertilizer sacks from grandfather’s storage shed and slide down and up the frozen path over and over again?
While I stood in silence at the vaguely familiar setup, Lisianthus skillfully disassembled individual sledges he’d packed separately on the larger one and distributed them to me, Bibi, and Rasper. He didn’t give one to Lucy, who was staring blankly from the side, or to Bibi’s guard. When I silently asked with my eyes why he was playing favorites, it was Bibi who answered instead of Lisianthus.
“Lucy says she doesn’t really find this fun! And Killian won’t let me ride alone.”
“The two of you ride together……?”
“I am capable of that.”
Unlike Bibi and Rasper, whose cheeks were flushed and who were bursting with excitement, both Lucy and Killian sat on the sledge with remarkably composed expressions. Well, fine.
“This slope is the best for playing. It’s safe. If you slide from there and go like this…….”
“Great!”
“…You seem to really like it.”
I set off the moment I heard Lisianthus’s explanation. With snow piled up everywhere anyway and bundled in layers, I figured even a tumble wouldn’t hurt much. I positioned the sledge on a slope of just the right angle and climbed on.
Of course, speeding downhill on the dog sledge moments earlier had been wonderful, but this was wonderful in its own way.
…My mental age was that of an adult, yet I was throwing myself completely into this kind of play! I had things piling up to do, and here I was playing so thoughtlessly! That thought did cross my mind.
Whoooosh, plop.
I’d whoosh down on the sledge, then scamper back up with quick feet, and whoosh down again. After repeating this several times, I paused for a moment.
I was slightly out of breath. Rasper and Bibi, still being children, squealed like dolphins with delight and rode the sledge over and over without tiring.
Suddenly a hand came near, brushing snow off the top of my hat, then gently rubbing my nose, which had frozen bright red. It was Lisianthus. He’d brought us here, and he’d tamed the dogs himself. I thought he’d be even more excited than the rest of us, but it seemed he’d been quietly watching the others play instead.
“Glad you came?”
The self-satisfied grin on his face was a bit annoying, but I laughed.
“Yeah! Really, I feel all my stress melting away.”
“Looks like it. What’s with you? You refuse to play, but then you enjoy it this much?”
“I had no idea we could play like this in the Castrain Territory. I thought we always had to be on guard for Magic Beast attacks.”
“Of course there are dangerous places plenty. We can play here because it’s relatively safe. The mountain itself doesn’t have much on it.”
“Doesn’t have much?”
“Well, the scenery is beautiful, sure…… But snow piles up like this even in summer, right? Nothing grows. Since there’s nothing to eat, there aren’t really any dangerous wild beasts. No Magic Beasts either. Those show up more frequently in the outer regions. Would I have let this happen if it were dangerous? Bringing you, Bibi, and Rasper with me. And the dogs look gentle because they like people, but actually they won’t run away even if a Magic Beast shows up, those guys are…….”
Woof! Woof-woof! Arooooooooo!
“……something seems to have happened?”
Lisianthus furrowed his brow and looked toward where the barking came from.
“Should we go check?”
“…It’s not so much dangerous as I get the feeling they’re calling me. Come here for a bit, they’re saying.”
“Then go. Lucy should be fine with Killian—he can handle Bibi and Rasper. And I brought a sword, so I can manage myself.”
“Hey, I’m starting to hate the fact that you keep saying you’ll take care of yourself.”
“Why?”
Lisianthus hesitated briefly, then poked my forehead while I stared blankly at him. A complicated look passed through his eyes and vanished.
“…It’s just. You’re supposed to be my guard, yet you’ve been useless the whole time. So I’m trying to score some points this time, to make up for it.”
“What kind of reason is that?”
“Even if I’m not stronger than my brother, there’s one thing I do better. Playing.”
His rough, callused hand—scarred all over—gently squeezed my cheek before letting go. His body temperature ran so hot that even that brief contact left warmth there.
“You always look like you’re worrying about something, even when you’re smiling. As for me…… Well, I’m surrounded by people who do nothing but worry. And since I’m stupid, even if I think about things, it rarely helps much, so I can’t exactly say I’ll be of use…….”
Sometimes I envied Lisianthus.
The way he reached neat conclusions about things so effortlessly. The way, if something happened, he’d say, “Damn, luck wasn’t on my side,” grumble about it once, and then seem to move on cleanly with that breezy confidence.
Protecting his people, doing what he could do, forgetting what he couldn’t touch.
I sometimes thought how nice it would be if I could live like that.
A person whose inside matches their outside. Which was why when the old Lisianthus had hated “Titania,” had seen her as a thorn in his side, it was honest and straightforward.
When “Titania” had obsessed over Raymond and raged at everything, she couldn’t contain herself in Lisianthus’s presence either—that made sense now.
Looking at the scene before me, I reflected.
These are good people.
“I’m worried about you.”
My voice was terrible.
Lisianthus pressed his foot against a twig poking out of the snow, grinding it with his heel. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
“……It’s different from worrying about Bibi or Rasper. For them, I just want them to not see anything harsh. I want to let them stay safe and warm, drinking warm milk by the fireplace, reading books. You, though…… it’s different.”
“I’ve certainly shown you me nearly dying beside you more than once.”
“No, it’s not that. I just…….”
Lisianthus roughly raked his fingers through his own hair.
“I just… wish you didn’t get hurt anymore. When you do stupid things, I get angry, and when you’re in danger, I get scared. When I see something so small trying to do all these things, I think it’s cute sometimes too…….”
“Sometimes too?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’m just… afraid.”
“…….”
“I had this weird dream. A dream, I think? Honestly, I’m not even sure if it was a dream. I can’t really explain the contents…….”
It was strange.
Lisianthus’s cheeks, which supposedly never felt cold, were pale. Beneath the twilight shadow of his hair, dark crimson eyes met mine. Just for a moment, Lisianthus seemed to be not the second prince of the Castrain Family—the one who loved his family, was a bit simple-minded, faster with his body than his brain, the one who grumbled “What are you doing again?!” and wished I wouldn’t charge forward relying only on my sword. It seemed like something else entirely.
Not a boyish smile on a kind face, but as though something else entirely had seized my ankle and was about to whisper. Not someone who warmed everyone around him like a cheerful flame, but something vast and dangerous.
Like a pale blue fire burning endlessly over pools of blood. Like a ghost-calling flame in a dark forest.
“Isn’t that strange? For no real reason at all, it suddenly feels like you’re going to vanish.”
“…….”
“And I… I feel like I’ll keep searching for you, wandering endlessly.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————