Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 225

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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 225

“Contractor! I’ve seen this in so many novels! It’s what they call a Beauty Trap!” (・`ヘ´・；)
‘…You don’t have to spell it out for me. I can see that much.’
Something felt off from the moment I saw him at the Imperial Palace last time, but why is he like this all of a sudden?
Without thinking, I forced my jaw shut before my mouth could fall open. Every version of Titania in my memory threw up her hands in protest.
This Lisianthus is completely unlike himself! What’s gotten into him? I have no idea! What about you? No, I have no idea either……
Though I have to admit, his physique really is something else.
No, stop it, don’t think like that! Clean thoughts, clean thoughts! Think of Jemina pecking at my earlobes to wake me up when she’s hungry!
Caught between shock and confusion and panic, I waved my hand dismissively, trying to forget the lingering sensation still burning at my fingertips.
“…Well, since it’s me, I’m not going to misunderstand. Normally you shouldn’t let someone touch your chest so casually like that.”
At my words, Lisianthus’s eyes widened.
“Why wouldn’t you misunderstand?”
“What?”
“Why wouldn’t you misunderstand? Is my face not to your liking?”
……
I fell silent, watching Lisianthus sink into deep contemplation before me.
He tilted his head with a soft tilt, and rose-petal-like strands of hair rustled right beside me.
I thought it might just be my imagination, but a faint rose scent drifted over. I wondered if it was from the flowers decorated nearby, but the fragrance I felt each time his hair moved was unmistakably artificial.
Lisianthus, who seemed like he’d finish a shower in ten minutes flat because he found it bothersome, wore perfume? And yet he dressed so freely with his top half exposed?
“Your face isn’t…exactly displeasing.”
“Then is it not your taste? What bothers you about me?”
“…This behavior of yours right now?”
“Aw.”
The way he pouted his lips and smiled, as though disappointed by my answer, looked exactly like some soft drink commercial.
With his upper body half-exposed like that, all it would take is someone splashing a cup of water and it’d be perfect……
—Don’t be charmed by his looks, Contractor!(⊙⊙;)/
‘Beauty Traps really are terrifying. This family’s faces are truly no joke. Wow, my heart’s racing.’
Was he trying to keep me by his side because his family’s benefactor faked her death, pulled a disappearing act, and came back? Or was it something else?!
I was grateful for my face muscles, which had gone rigid. Just then, Bibi, who had been quietly rubbing her cheek against my arm, spoke up with sparkling eyes.
“My big brother’s muscles are really amazing. His arms are just so, like, huge!”
“That’s right.”
I watched as Lisianthus proudly offered his arm to Bibi, and she squeezed it and showed it to me, which put me somewhat at ease.
Ah yes, of course. Since Bibi and Lisianthus were so close, he was probably just showing off to me, but his dialogue was far too explicit for that……
Or was it a case of excessive self-consciousness—why aren’t you flustered by someone as handsome and strong as me? It’s self-conscious, sure, but he really is impressive……
As endless thoughts spun dizzily in my head, Raymond cut in with a smiling face.
“Are we going to keep standing out here?”
“Oh right. Come on in! I’ve made tons of your favorite dishes!”
“Woof!”
I stood up awkwardly, and found myself being herded inside, surrounded by Raymond, Bibi, Lisianthus, and one dog. The current felt so natural, so smooth, that resistance never even occurred to me.

* * *

“Now assassins come for me day and night without rest.”
Adrian wiped his cheek. A grimy mixture of sweat and blood came away on his hand.
“Considering that, you seem rather composed.”
Debbie threw a pointed remark at Adrian. He chuckled in response.
“Well, I handle my own affairs myself, don’t I?”
Adrian had come of age before Titania. Until now, he’d remained with the Empress, but that was no longer possible.
Brian had been assigned a palace right next to Cleo’s.
Adrian, however, had been relegated to a remote location far removed from the Empress’s palace.
After Titania’s scandal, Cleo became absolutely unbridled.
As if no longer needing to worry about anyone’s opinion, she glared at the Empress and Adrian with eyes sharp as a venomous serpent, bloated with malice.
Separately, the international situation grew turbulent. The weather grew drier with each passing day; drought and floods alternated, and Magic Beast sightings reached unprecedented frequency.
It had been several years since the Castrain Ducal House had stopped showing its face at the Imperial Palace, using poor health as an excuse,
and the Emperor seemed to believe the old man’s time had truly come, appearing unusually pleased.
He even began dropping hints about needing to appoint a Crown Prince.
As a result, Adrian was sleep-deprived from dealing with assassins that came day and night. Had Debbie, who stayed attached to the Rose Palace and occasionally came to help him, not intervened, he might have suffered serious wounds not from lack of skill but simply from exhaustion.
“The Empress Dowager is a lower priority than me for them……. Well, that’s convenient.”
“So that’s why you’ve been helping the Crown Princess with her scheme?”
“Why wouldn’t I help?”
Adrian twirled the dagger in his palm as he spoke. Adrian and the Empress had pretended all this time that Titania was truly dead, but once they confirmed that the Castrain Ducal House had discovered traces of that ‘Titania,’ they dropped the act.
“My faction has grown considerably, but if the Emperor formally appoints Brian as Crown Prince, what method would I have to oppose it? What method……?”
Short of outright rebellion.
Adrian’s laughing face was like an unfinished portrait hidden in shadow—eyes that rarely betrayed emotion, cold and serene in the darkness.
“But His Majesty has such a strong pride that he can’t imagine needing to yield to the situation, adapting himself to necessity, following procedure, and placating his nobles.”
Magic Beasts appeared for the first time in the Southwest Region of the Empire, where none had ever been sighted before.
The Emperor ordered Brian to requisition part of the Capital’s defense forces and Royal Guard, gave him command, and ordered him to exterminate the creatures.
The Magic Beasts were successfully repelled, and the Emperor declared, “See—without relying on the Castrain Ducal House, the Imperial Family’s name alone can produce a hero brave enough to slay Magic Beasts,” and personally draped a Crimson Cloak across Brian’s shoulders.
Sensible nobles were appalled.
The Imperial Family barely had a knight order to speak of, and what little it did was all but useless. Even during the previous attack on the Imperial Palace, it was ultimately the Castrain Ducal House that resolved the crisis.
Because the Imperial Family showed little enthusiasm for Magic Beast subjugation, territories typically handled the threat themselves or requested aid from the Castrain Ducal House. Sometimes they even hired mercenaries with their own funds.
But why would the Emperor not request soldiers from neighboring lords of the affected territories, and instead……
Send forces stationed to defend the Capital, along with troops under the Emperor’s direct command, into the hands of a single individual like Brian?
It takes an age just for those forces to march to the Southwest Region. How severe did they expect the Magic Beast crisis to be, to justify sending troops all that distance?
…Yet the lords of the territories where the Magic Beasts appeared—the nobles themselves—held their tongues.
The creatures had been exterminated successfully; there was nothing more to say. Everyone knew the whole affair didn’t add up. The rumors claimed the Magic Beast swarm had dealt tremendous damage, yet allegedly they were vanquished so easily, dissolving like wet tissue paper.
But when a powerful figure openly patronizes something, dissent becomes impossible to voice.
You cannot best the unreasonable with reason.
Gradually, the water level of dissatisfaction buried beneath the surface rose higher, yet the Emperor simply ignored it. Because until now, he had always been able to.
“In conclusion, my dear Emperor seems intent on killing me.”
Precisely, that was it.
He wanted to eliminate the Empress and Adrian. Then there’d be no need to convince the nobles that Brian was superior.
Why?
He was still his own son.
Did he truly not sense the wrongness in ‘Brian’? Was he so indifferent that his son had become splendid and impressive, and that was enough?
No one had the answer.
Adrian chose not to understand.
What did bloodline matter? What did parental affection matter?
“Anyway, it’s good that Titania left the Imperial Palace. Isn’t it?”
If possible, he would have liked to evacuate the Empress too under some pretext, but she would not leave the palace. That was her pride.
‘I don’t consider that man my lord. Even given this situation, how could any feeling remain? But I am the Empress.’
No matter what happened in the palace, no matter if war came, no matter when death might come. The Empress would not leave the Imperial Palace. So Adrian had given up trying to convince his mother.
And he measured when Cleo’s hidden explosive device, planted in the Rose Palace, would detonate.
A very dangerous fuse, one that would rock the entire Imperial Palace.
If Titania had known, she would have grabbed Adrian by the hair and demanded to know what he was doing in secret from her.
Siblings bound by only half blood, yet in some ways remarkably alike.

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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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