Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 244

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

Chapter 244

“…….”
I’d known that war was coming.
I’d known the enemies would eventually grow impatient and strike. And I still believed that perfecting the Northern Barrier would help more than my fumbling involvement in their conflict. What I hadn’t expected was for Rasper to speak to me like this.
“So, it’s fine if you just come see us and then leave. That promise I made to send you back—it looks like that was a lie after all.”
The image of Raymond flickering in front of me came to mind. That look of despair as he watched me disappear before his eyes. Those fingers that had stopped in mid-air, unable to hold me back.
When I took his words at face value and hesitated with ‘If it’s okay to just come see you and leave…,’ he’d been so happy.
Even knowing that once I learned the full truth, I would never meekly remain inside the Castrain Residence as he wanted—he’d still been happy.
Why?
Because it didn’t matter to him whether I was angry at that final moment or not? Or was it because even if the future was fixed, he could spend those brief hours of peace with the Castrain Family?
Though it was only one day, when I actually returned to the Castrain Residence, it was Bibi and Lisianthus who clung to me. Raymond himself acted satisfied simply by having me there. But the moment he noticed me fleeing, he’d turned frightening…….
“…Are you sure about this?”
Rasper nodded as though it were obvious and spoke.
“This is my decision alone. Raymond and Lisianthus—and Bibi—none of them know I was preparing something like this. Well, since I’m the only one in the family who can handle magic to any real degree, that’s how I was able to exploit the opening and get you out, Your Highness, but…….”
“Mm, I wouldn’t call it ‘to any real degree’…….”
“I apologize for asking something like this. But I know this was what you were planning to do in the first place.”
“That’s right. I understand what you mean.”
His face pleading with me was full of guilt. Standing before this boy who had trembled, hiding even the fact that he was a mage from his own family, I was the one who had laid bare his secret. And looking at the expression on Pan’s face beside him, as though he were biting down a mouthful of bitter water, I felt something strange stir in my chest.
“I’ve told you the situation honestly because I didn’t want to lie.”
“…….”
“There will be a great war, and the Imperial Palace will be laid to waste. I can’t guarantee the safety of the Empress Dowager, who still remains in the Palace, nor that of Prince Adrian, who is preparing outside the Palace. And the news of the Second Empress is not encouraging either.”
“…….”
“But if Your Highness Titania becomes caught up in all this and comes to ruin, then we lose before we even begin.”
I have never told anyone outright that entering the Barrier myself would be like becoming a living sacrifice—living forever in anguish, my very self withering away and lost.
Yet this clever boy seemed to grasp all of it without my having to spell it out. That’s why he was asking me like this—with a face nearly crumpling with tears, with eyes trembling without end.
“……I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me.”
I reached out and stroked Rasper’s head. Then I turned to the High Priest Illian.
“That you’re here means you’re willing to help, doesn’t it?”
“…Yes.”
“I figured that even if others didn’t, you at least had some idea about me. You were simply keeping it to yourself.”
Theresia, wasn’t it? The person I’d seen when Raymond suddenly brought me to the Temple to heal my wounds. She no longer stays at the Temple, but they said she was the High Priest’s disciple. Once I recovered all my memories, her identity came back to me too. She was the one who would succeed Illian as his heir after his death.
“To be honest, approaching the Northern Barrier while avoiding the eyes and interference of the Castrain Family…… it doesn’t seem like it will be easy. Even if only I can enter the Barrier itself, the path there is entirely within Castrain Family territory.”
“Actually, I have something to tell you about that.”
Rasper conjured a map from water in the air. Then he marked several points in blue and red, connecting them. The sword murmured in an astonished voice upon seeing it.
-…That’s, well. Contractor…….
‘Yeah, I’m looking too. Unless my memory’s wrong, that’s the… trace of the Ancient Temple we were thinking of exploring, right? If I’m not mistaken, there’s a mark on both the Temple of Beloborg and the Temple of Chernobog.’
“Nnngh…….”

And when you connect them all like that—how should I describe it? Crisscrossing territories in conflict, or a path that cuts across the continent……. As I stood frozen, unable to speak, watching it all, and the sword, and the Divine Beast, Rasper continued his explanation for our benefit.
“I’ve embedded Warp Markers there—mediums that allow for Teleportation. Using those, you can reach the Northern Territory in a short time.”
“……There seems to be a trace of the Chernobog Temple mixed in there?”
“My two spirited older brothers thoroughly disturbed it. No matter what methods they used, the energy was completely drained out of it, so I suspect even they or our enemies wouldn’t have expected something like that to be there.”
“Well, there is still some risk involved. But I figured it would be better for avoiding my senile Master’s eyes.”
As Pan, who had been standing looking uncomfortable all this time, interjected, Rasper admonished him.
“Master.”
“Why not? I should speak my mind. If we have you and me on our side, the other side has the ‘Immortal’ Kosheay. That addled arch-mage. Until now, he’s been cooped up in his lab conducting experiments, crossbreeding Magic Beasts and brewing potions, so he didn’t seem to go out much himself directly. But targeting Bibi and hunting Rasper, now he’s started showing his face aboveground openly. That man’s underground lab—or more accurately, his underground workshop, sprawling like an ant colony. The Magic Beasts have been quiet these past few years, haven’t they? Now comes the order when all the ones he’s raised in the meantime come spilling out to their deaths.”
As Pan spoke so bluntly as always, Rasper’s eyes grew clouded.
“Master, if you say things like that…….”
“Like that? Will Your Highness here, with all her meddlesome nature, decide to go kill as many Magic Beasts as possible, end all the dangerous business, and then enter the Barrier? You were hiding things even to the very last moment, and I’m guessing you found it hard to ask your benefactor to sacrifice herself because you still felt guilty. Really now. This is far easier than cleaning up a disciple’s corpse.”
Despite the sarcasm in his voice, his expression was deeply troubled. The words of a Master stepping forward for his student fell without restraint, as though deflecting the arrows of blame onto himself. I simply remained silent. The High Priest Illian appeared much the same.
“…….”
“And really, I didn’t want to say this.”
Pan let out a heavy sigh.
“Something’s not right about Raymond.”
“…….”
“It’s not just his eyes. There’s a strange aura wafting off him. How do I put this—a balance between light and darkness, I suppose. As much as Beloborg has flourished on the Surface, so has Chernobog accumulated power in the Underground. The truth is, humans aren’t entirely incapable of wielding Dark Power itself. Even back in the First Emperor’s time, there were apparently subordinates who wielded Dark Power, but since it’s been the image of the greatest enemy, it’s been completely erased from history. The one bloodline that carried it was the late Duchess.”
“…….”
“To be blunt, it’s strange. Lisianthus wields Fire Power. Rasper wields Water Power. Miss Bibi hardly reveals her inner thoughts, as I well know. But judging by the appearance of that thing you were searching for so desperately back then—it looked like the Necklace of Chloris. That grants Wind Power. Now, putting all the pieces together, it seems that Necklace is what saved Miss Bibi’s life, and then it disappeared.”
From what I remember, when ‘Titania’ was foolishly weeping, suddenly appearing and hoarding everyone’s love—Bibi had already been in her second iteration.
So did that become the Regression Artifact? Even as Bibi, reborn, used her power, the Northern Barrier ultimately collapsed due to the other side’s relentless assault, the Front Line fell, and the world became hell. And after I made a Contract with the Divine, I succeeded in walking through that hell and resetting everything to the beginning.
In other words, Bibi was the protagonist of the previous iteration. And because even that failed, the Divine Beast Beloborg scraped together all of his remaining power and poured it all into me, resetting the game.
Even a god wasn’t omniscient, so I only came to certainty about these inherited records from my previous life after I finished all my makeshift Master Ceremony……..
That’s right. I’ve sorted through all of that.
But still, an ominous foreboding continued to gnaw at me.
So why Raymond?

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