Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 260

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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 260

“Could you check whether I have the Power of Wind within me?”
“…….”
The Holy Empress furrowed her brow.
She had withdrawn from the world for some time. No one dared to enter her chambers.
Her body would not last long. Everyone knew this. So they quarreled only over who would become the next Holy Empress—Marjid, Illian, and the rest. She conducted herself with the austere indifference of one unconcerned with the mundane. She sought to find whoever had the audacity to disregard her will and admit a child into her quarters, yet saw no culprit.
There was only a small girl before her, gazing up at her. Soft brown hair. Pale cheeks. Blue eyes.
Was this little girl the youngest daughter of that Castrain Family—the one known for causing trouble everywhere, the one who received the family’s affection? Though everyone spoke of her as a lovely, endearing child, the Holy Empress’s gaze was like that of a withered tree, bone-dry.
Facing such a presence, the girl swallowed hard and spoke in rapid succession without hesitation, as though she had memorized every word.
“The Divine Weapons have taken many paths. But ultimately, once they’ve served their purpose and disappeared, only traces remain. Last time, the Power Awakener of Earth was Teresia. But because we couldn’t find the Iron Staff of Dagda, we mistakenly thought no such person existed.”
“Who are you?”
It was less a question of identity than an accusation—what business does the likes of you have here? But the girl’s bright blue eyes only grew brighter as she pressed on.
“Cloris’s Necklace probably disappeared after saving me. Rasper suspected as much. Illian also said it might be so. Which means, if that’s true, I might be able to use the Power of Wind as well. If so, it would help everyone.”
“You come before me spouting nonsense about Divine Power and the Power of Wind. Teresia lost her Divine Power and left the Temple——”
“It was said that Your Majesty was once called a Holy Maiden, one who led the way in saving people! Illian told me so!”
Tears welled up in Bibi’s eyes, born of indignation she could not contain.
“I know. You must be wondering who this strange child is, how she even got in here. You must be thinking, how dare she speak such words to the Holy Empress. But you know what I’m saying. You know the truth about Divine Power. You know the history, all of it. And yet you simply closed your eyes to it. You ran away, knowing an end would come, finding it too hard to stay present——”
“…….”
“The Imperial Majesty allowed all the empire’s citizens to perish. He may have been too foolish to understand. Yet in that most crucial position, he never once considered uncovering truth or preparing for what lay ahead. Because of him—because of that—so many people will die. They’re dying even now!”
“Then you’ve come to scold me, calling me a Holy Empress as thoughtless as the Emperor?”
“There are people I want to save.”
Bibi tried to hold back her tears. Her large eyes were brimming with them. She tried to keep even her voice from breaking.
She had tried to be clever about this.
She had tried to win sympathy by acting like a child.
She had tried to present terms, to make a contract.
But when the moment truly became desperate, her mind went blank.
“Our—our whole family are fools……. Every single one. They just can’t abandon things. The Titania who saved my life. The foolish Raymond. Rasper, who’s barely old enough to act so coldly rational. Lisianthus, who smiles and says it’s fine, fine, when nothing is fine at all. Even Papa, the fool who thinks it’s fortunate to use this chance at life usefully. All of them.”
“…….”
“All adults are idiots and liars!”
“…….”
“I was abandoned in front of an orphanage at first, then met an awful couple. Eventually, I was sold as a test subject to some strange mage after the Castrain bloodline. I was rescued by my family before I died——. But in the end, I died anyway. And by luck, I was sent back to my childhood. By Cloris’s Necklace. There might be other mysterious powers involved, I don’t know!”
Because of that. Because I could approach my family first now. I could spend real time as a family. I could help in various ways, or so I thought.
The truth is, I failed once.
Bibi doesn’t remember it, but this world was able to “turn back” because of Titania’s contract.
That was the conclusion drawn from every scrap of information she’d gathered.
From that miserable end where everyone died or suffered worse than death.
Bibi alone could not change everything.
When she learned all of this, Bibi wept. She forgot to act childish or mature. She no longer knew which one she truly was. She simply wept as Bibi.
Her mother, whom she’d never seen, fought enemies and tried many things, all for the world and for Bibi. If her mother had worn Cloris’s Necklace then, perhaps that mother could have regressed from the very start. If she was the kind of person who matched Duke Orto in temperament from childhood, perhaps——
But Mother was already in danger then.
Everyone was after the Castrain bloodline.
Perhaps even the Castrain Family itself would mean nothing in the future. So they left her in a place no one would find her, abandoned as a child without parents.
Illian, the Castrain Ducal House, her mother—the previous generation already did all they could and failed. Bibi also failed——.
Just as Illian had some grasp of the situation, so too must the Holy Empress have known this truth.
That’s why she turned a blind eye to the factional strife tearing the Temple apart, why she pretended not to notice as wretches like Marjid rose to power.
Because the end was already fixed.
The God of Light’s end was imminent, so what did it matter if believers struggled?
The true bloodline of the God of Light was the imperial family itself. Even the imperial family had come to this. What could an empty shell of a Temple do now? What could the Holy Empress possibly change?
Bibi sometimes recalls the light of defeat that flickered across Illian’s eyes. Eyes that had walked a path traced by accumulated failure and death through long ages. Eyes that had walked for far too long to turn back from that path.
Perhaps true adulthood is compromise with reality. To mock oneself, to resign to the certainty of failure, to accept that nothing will change.
Bibi wiped her streaming tears away.
“……The original condition of the Northern Barrier’s Dedication Ceremony was that all Power Awakeners would grant their strength. And originally, truly originally, Darkness too was part of Divine Power, but at some point it disappeared from the conditions. And they all treated it as ominous, as if such a thing couldn’t exist, so the Darkness bloodline was forgotten. And I heard that the late Duchess inherited that power.”
“The tangled bloodlines of the Castrain Family are no concern of mine.”
“That’s exactly why our brother became a medium for that rotten God of Darkness to prey upon!”
Bibi shrieked, venting all the frustration she’d accumulated.
The Power of Light was originally capable of using—of controlling—other Divine Powers.
It was an absurdly broken ability.
But in the first place, wind, earth, water, fire—you could imitate them all with magic without bothering with Divine Power.
So why did the God of Light grant these other powers in the first place?
In the first place.
Does the God of Light really dominate wind, earth, water, and fire? If he’s that strong a god, why is he so pathetically struggling now?
Is Darkness among the powers he granted? Then, is the Divine Power he granted really the power of the God of “Light”?
And that Northern Barrier.
The one Titania is going to become the linchpin of, alive and whole.
…Actually, couldn’t those Dedication Ceremony reinforcement conditions be useful elsewhere too?
“So—so if I can be there, along with Raymond, and Lisianthus, and Teresia, and Titania, maybe we could accomplish something bigger than just the Northern Barrier!”
Perhaps it was only a way to kill.
Even if they all gathered, at best they would kill Raymond, who had become a vessel for the God of Darkness, and that would be the end of everything. All this effort might simply be rushing toward a drawn-out, futile conclusion instead of saving the whole family.
But.
But…….
“…So that foolish Titania doesn’t have to bear it all alone and act like ‘as long as the Barrier is safe, we’ll avoid the worst’!”
“…….”
“I don’t know! Cloris’s Necklace, the Iron Staff of Dagda, whatever—I couldn’t find the real things! But someone of Your Majesty’s standing should be able to sense them to some degree. They said the only veteran more experienced than Illian is Your Majesty.”
But.
What if—just what if.
A path where everyone could be happy might actually exist.
So Bibi wept, really and truly thinking nothing else.

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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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