Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 240

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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 240

Even if I died, even if I died and was reborn only to die again, I hated the thought of this man reliving the way I was back then. I had always hated it.
That he pitied me, that he carried guilt for what happened—it was something I’d despised more than death itself, truly and deeply.
Perhaps I still do now.
I blinked. Suddenly the strangeness of this moment struck me with full force. This man I’d known for so long, and myself. Yet the words I needed to speak tumbled slowly from my mouth, hollow as a pearl rolling across an empty corridor.
“I’m sorry.”
“…”
“I’m sorry.”
The man’s eyes went blank as if he’d heard something incomprehensible. His golden eyes wavered, and the strength drained from the body that had held me.
Even if someone were to strangle him or strike him down, I doubted he would show such weakness. Seeing him like this, I let out a bitter laugh.
“The world will turn back. In the end, you won’t remember any of this. I thought that would be a sufficient reason to act petty like this.”
“…”
“If it was all going to be undone anyway, I didn’t think there was any need to say such things.”
“…”
“But me from that time—I doubt I could have ever spoken such words myself.”
I could easily picture Lisianthus sneering at me now, asking if I truly expected him to believe such an apology after all this time. Instead of bowing my head in apology, I had always found it easier to secure rations for two and throw myself before enemies. I was hopelessly clumsy at this. It was a misguided sort of stubbornness.
Now I could view that version of myself with some objectivity. That was all.
“You were always simply doing your best in your own way.”
“…”
“Looking back now, you always seemed so grown to me. Someone who would never make a wrong choice—so responsible, so dependable. I think I believed it was alright for me to be spoiled, to be unreasonable around you.”
“…”
His grip on me tightened.
Well, that made sense.
Looking at it now, Raymond must have suffered terribly in his own way. He struggled through it all, bringing me to where I wanted to go, only to have me throw myself away and leave him with words that amounted to a final farewell. Anyone could see it was a death wish. Even though he never showed affection, even though he shared his food with me during that time and fought alongside me and suffered through everything to get me there—and this was how I repaid him.
Whenever he regained his memories, I’m not certain, but in this “new” life I’d lived quite virtuously. It would be no wonder if this man’s heart festered with guilt many times over. It was similar in nature to the apology I’d made to Bibi.
Without intending it, I had become this man’s trauma.
Multiple Titanias within my heart clasped hands and whispered.
Should I have been angry instead? Ha—what did you think when you saw me falling before your eyes? Did it feel exhilarating? Or perhaps.
Or perhaps?
…The time for such childish obstinacy had passed. The turbulent thoughts that had churned within my mind slowly subsided.
“You’ve had such a hard time.”
“…”
“Truly impressive. Truly.”
I stroked his head slowly. With each touch, his shoulders convulsed as if seized by spasms.
He refused to show me his face, instead focused entirely on accepting my touch with desperate intensity.
Like the bowstring of an infinitely taut bow suddenly snapping. As I patted the back of the man clinging to me like he’d collapse without my support, the tension that had held his shoulders gradually released. Watching his state, I smiled faintly.
“I can’t claim I regret the past entirely, but if I could go back to that moment… I would make the same choice. It isn’t your fault, Raymond.”
“…Even now, why…”
“That’s why.”
I coaxed Raymond, who had been avoiding my gaze, to look up at me with a light touch.
Our eyes met. His expression was on the verge of tears. Watching the pale gold of his gaze as he looked at me in a daze, I whispered softly.
“What happens next isn’t your fault either.”
“You don’t mean—”
The moment he heard my words, his pupils trembled as if someone had spilled golden ink into water. There was no time for guilt.
I pushed away the man who had been clinging to me. In that same instant, a tempestuous surge of Wind Power seized him. In unison with it, the blade lying on the floor blazed with blinding light.
Whoooooooosh!
It was a brightness so intense that anyone viewing it from nearby would struggle to recover their sight for some time.
“Screech!”
Jemina, who had been hiding her presence like a plate or a blade, lent her strength as well. Though I had absorbed most of the power that should have been hers to inherit, Jemina was still a Divine Beast. The ground where Raymond touched became like a magnet, holding him fast.
Pan, who had been waiting behind me for this moment, now began the proper activation of the Warp Device. A brilliant, jewel-like blue object—resembling an earth itself—shone radiant in the air.
Of course, Raymond did not submit without struggle. The moment he was dragged was brief; the instant he grasped the situation, he surged to his feet with a grinding sound and rushed toward me.
Given that his vision shouldn’t have recovered from the flash of light, his level of response was nearly monstrous.
He tore through the Wind Power binding his limbs with sheer grip strength, drew his blade, and slashed through empty air.
Had I been even slightly slower, he would have caught me.
But now I had no need to hide my power before Raymond. If he had recovered all his memories from that previous life, then this window to hold him would be brief indeed.
Whether Raymond thrashed or not, I gave it my all. The wind itself that shook this entire space was so violent that an ordinary person would be blown about like a piece of paper caught in a storm—yet Raymond planted his blade into the ground and used it as a fulcrum to resist. Gouging through the earth, dragging himself half across the floor, still rising to his feet again and again…
“Titania!”
His voice was anguished. The hand outstretched toward me was blackened. Each time he rebuffed or tore through the Light Power or Wind Power, his limbs were torn and scorched as if burned by flame or struck by lightning. Yet he thrashed on as if he felt no pain at all.
“Please!”
It was a plea that sounded as though it bled from his throat. But this time, I was determined not to look back. My Hair Strands fluttered like a veil in the turbulent air. A stormy sky. Hair glistening like gold dust, soaked in rain. The Warp Device blazing with brilliant noise. Me, running toward it. And a single man crying out toward me.
“That cannot be!”
It was like a scene from a tragic farce.
If he had recovered his memories, then the Dedication Ceremony should no longer be necessary, and the distance between us should have widened further. He could not possibly fail to grasp the meaning of my feigned death.
He could not have failed to understand.
Even if he didn’t foresee that I would become a living sacrifice for all eternity, he could at least anticipate a life tantamount to death. And now…
That man, broken because of me, wracked with guilt—he would never allow me to meet an end similar to the one where I threw myself before him for the world’s sake.
Now it was clear why that man had shed tears and feigned weakness in front of me. Why he had picked up fragments and tempted me. Everything became lucid.
So now it truly could not be. I could not meet that man again. He would become my greatest obstacle.
Particles of light swallowed my entire body. Jemina, the blade, Pan—all entered safely within the space of the Warp.
The moment Pan chanted the activation words of Magic, something like a transparent circle rose up and enclosed us. It seemed to be a protective barrier.
The instant I confirmed it, Raymond, teeth gritted, hurled his blade toward us.
Thunderous crash!
As black lightning wreathed around the blade and rushed toward us in a flash, Pan gasped and desperately mashed something. Like pressing the help button in a broken elevator.
“No, at this rate the device breaks! We’re finished…!”
“Kyaaaahhhhh!”
—aaahhhhh Contractor I’m so scared! ༼;´༎ຶ ۝ ༎ຶ༽
Cracks continued to spider across the protective barrier. While the blade and Divine Beast and great mage descended into chaos, Raymond pushed ever closer. His body was torn and bleeding from our resistance, a complete wreck, and yet…
Pan screamed like a victim in a horror film with a serial killer inches from her face.
“Blast it, you ungrateful disciple! You said you’d take responsibility! You said everything would work out! Aaaahhhhh!”
Whether coincidence or not, the light of the Warp Device shifted.
Beep.
Beeeep. Bleep.
Beeeee…
The cracked barrier shattered like glass and exploded.
Immediately, a new barrier encased us, and Raymond was thrown backward once more. And this time, truly, my vision blurred.
Even covered in wounds, the man never stopped pursuing me to the very end. Then, in that instant, our eyes met again.
I had already apologized.
I had already praised him for his hardship and his strength. I had spoken with full meaning that his fault lay in none of this, that he should bear no burden going forward. Yet had that been true, he would never have chased me so desperately.
No sound reached me anymore. So with words that could not be heard, I shaped them only with my lips.
Live happily.
As though the words I left behind were a curse rather than a blessing, the man went rigid.
That was the last sight I saw.

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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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