Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 265

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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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Episode 265

Lilium could not believe, even for an instant, that she found a failure of a human so captivating.
[Let’s make a bet, shall we?]
[If I succeed in turning back the world. And if I meet you, and call your name. Yeah, that would be damned fate too, wouldn’t it?]
Even with that appearance—something anyone with their eyes shut would mistake for a corpse—she kept refusing the invitation of Chernobog. It made no sense.
[Right. Chernobog will be victorious. So whether you kill a single existence like me or not, the future won’t change.]
But those green eyes were so beautiful. It was strange. In her entire life, Lilium had never thought anyone but herself was beautiful. Yet those eyes burning with the will to live sparkled with such an odd light. Why? They weren’t perfect, yet they shined.
[So here’s the thing.]
[You said I was meant to be a wedge and anchor for that great god. Then tell me how to remove it. Whether it’s the god’s wedge, his anchor, his weakness, whatever.]
[Look at this state. If a chance were given again, would there be any possibility you and I would meet? Would the odds of me calling your name be high? Could I even carry it out if I knew?]
Once upon a time, there lived a wicked woman.
The wicked woman struggled with all her might until she met a witch whom even she deemed worthless.
The wicked woman knew, the moment she saw her opponent, of the witch’s lack.
And so…….
[……Just once.]
So she decided to gamble.
Because Beloborg had given her a chance, because Chernobog had underestimated her, and because Chernobog’s Followers had grown curious about her.
[Why don’t you test your own fate too?]
In other words, so to speak.
For the witch, the encounter with the wicked woman was, in a sense, much like a devil’s arrangement.
Devils never lie when making contracts.
They simply do not reveal everything.

* * *

[Contractor, what is your business?]
[You said I lost ■■■, right?]
[Yes, that is correct.]
[Are there any other remnants missing from my current memory besides that?]
[There are. However, as it was a result of a legitimate contract, those matters are locked. They cannot be unlocked.]
[My sword has those memories too, doesn’t it?]
[As it is presumed to have accompanied you in the same circumstances, yes, they exist. However, your sword’s consciousness was incomplete at that time, so unless it becomes aware, the memories are organized in the deepest place.]
[Let’s bring them out.]

Even though I yielded being sacrificed as a living offering to the Northern Barrier against my will, I remain the legitimate master of the Northern Barrier.
So we can communicate from a distance. But once I entered this space, nothing worked. No WiFi, and barely a single bar blinking now and then—that kind of feeling. But I managed it all the same, draining the opponent’s mind and buying myself time. The answer sheet glittered.

Click-click, click-click, squeak, snap.
Small gears turned inside her mind. The sound of slow interlocking gears.
The contract condition was fulfilled. The contract condition I had wagered with a sneer—’what could that possibly do’—was achieved in this way.
Looking back at my own form, crawling along the ground with a shattered body, spouting ‘let’s make a contract’ with scabbed lips. The returned memory was simpler, more trivial than expected. But it seemed the opponent was not.
“…So you were also damned lonely, weren’t you.”
“……!”
“If I had grown up under a kind father even with something broken without Imperial Consort Cleo, I would’ve turned out just like you. Me.”
-Waaaaah, what is this?
ヾ(｡ꏿ﹏ꏿ)ﾉﾞ
‘Oh, a remnant of the past?’
I gave a cursory response to the sword making a fuss about what had happened to my Contractor, and looked at the opponent’s face, stiffened in dismay. It was a face I had never seen before. The beautiful woman whose eyes had always held leisure as she looked down from above could never have imagined such a thing.
“……That’s impossible. It’s an impossible contract condition.”
“Mm. Is it?”
“You must have done something to me. For me to make such, such a contract just from a strike…….”
“People who grow up without friends really do go mad in an instant like that. But charming unknowns and melting them at whim—that’s your specialty, isn’t it……. It just didn’t work on me because I’m a Contractor of Light.”
“What…….”
“Growing up alone without proper parents or friends, thinking I’m so great all by myself, and meeting someone who doesn’t match my values. Yeah, it happens. Just like how I was charmed the moment I met Raymond.”
They say admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding. Just because others praise you doesn’t automatically serve your pride.
Lilium had everything decided from birth. She achieved nothing through her own ability, yet looked down on ordinary humans as beneath her. Everything must have grated on her.
Like a balloon stuffed full of false adulation, drifting through the air. One trigger and she crashes.
I, starved for affection, did mad things to keep the seat beside Raymond the moment I met him, even knowing that nothing but his appearance matched. Just like that.
That’s how it goes. I remembered the white face watching me with leisure, as though I were a ruin come to play.
Did she feel kinship? The thought that if the one who succeeded were the god of Light, wouldn’t she be in a similar situation?
“If she had just been honest about her own feelings, the result might have been different. But it seems she wasn’t.”
If she had felt interest in Titania, I wouldn’t have sent her away with such a trivial contract. I would’ve just kept her, locked her away because she pleased me.
But knowing that letting me live and merely making a contract would bring scolding from my father and Chernobog, I suppose she just left it at that.
Fanning the opponent’s desire while Titania simply laughed. That opponent, whom I had never properly faced even when I roamed society like a mad woman—now looked at me with such eyes from right before me.
You were also damned unlucky.
“…….”
“So now it’s time to receive what we agreed on.”
The way to kill a god.
What?

Raymond watched in silence at the figure smiling kindly toward him.
Anywhere, in the gardens of nobility, one might see such an ordinary groundskeeper. There was such peace about him that no one could have imagined him to be a marquis of high rank.
Marquis Habilios was organizing gardening tools beside Raymond. He studied the floor and altar covered in scarlet letters, corrected something, or let out sighs of “Hmm.”
The way he added a comment now and then as if worried—how to describe it.
Raymond bore the pain of insects gnawing through his mind while alive, ignoring it, and looked toward him.
Powers collected from the empire’s mainland were ultimately concentrated, refined here—where Raymond was, in this underground—and linked to Raymond’s body and to Chernobog’s soul.
Marquis Habilios, overseeing that process while occasionally receiving reports from outside, seemed—how to put it—far too tranquil for someone standing on the eve of an important ritual.
“To be honest, I think Chernobog is being too greedy.”
“…Is that so?”
“Yes, well……. There is a condition that the sacrifice must offer themselves of their own will, but at your level, even a corpse would do.”
“You say that knowing what my contract condition is?”
“To be honest, I wonder if you’re not hoping for some miracle.”
He laughed peacefully.
“Well, if your luck is truly good. Even when the god descends into that body……. There might remain, however faintly, something of your will. Then perhaps one woman you love would be acceptable enough.”
“Is that so?”
“If you obtain this body of yours in your hand, Chernobog will finally become perfect, or so he thinks……. The risk is far too great. You have four Demon Seeds, once servants of Chernobog, embedded in your body right now, and you’re still in your right mind.”
Marquis Habilios spoke in a tone that remained serene, saying how he’d been scolded for stopping Kosheay, whose eyes had rolled back and who wanted to lay hands on things.
“Well, I suppose if our side becomes overwhelmingly disadvantaged and we lack even the power to drive the barrier, we might have to send you to the Front Line. But that’s impossible anyway. You’ve made a contract, so you’re ours. So honestly, even if you have other schemes, it means little to me. I merely thought, given the pain you’ll endure, I might as well lighten it beforehand.”
“Remarkably kind words.”
“It is too late to save the one you love after you’ve already failed.”
“Is that experience talking?”
“You see, I could not understand the Castrain Ducal House.”
Marquis Habilios stopped whatever he had been touching, apparently intending to have a proper chat with Raymond, and slowly poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it.
“At any rate, the god of Light’s power, the Barrier—both are approaching their limits. All that remains is destruction……. Yet the Castrain Ducal House allowed the woman he loves to die while standing idle for that obvious end. His children are caught up in it too.”
“You’re saying you’re different?”
“I keep all traces of my wife.”
Marquis Habilios was like a gardener who gathered all the falling leaves of a maple tree, made them into compost, and spread them again over the roots of the maple.
“I could not prevent my wife’s death itself. In any case, if it were not for Raymond’s cooperation, my daughter would have to become the medium for summoning him, so I should do it as perfectly as possible. My wife has clear limitations……. So I suppose a temporary parting was all. But that is ending now.”
“Ending?”
“Until my wife is born again, I will repeat it countless times. All traces and information are recorded. The chance of restoring memory will be slim, but now my daughter and I will become Immortal, so I can build memories forward from now on. My three-person family will create a perfect future in a perfect world. A brief parting for that time.”
Had the Castrain Ducal House bowed his head to Chernobog early, he would not have had to endlessly repeat the agony of meaninglessly losing those he loved even after suffering through everything, Marquis Habilios spoke as though he genuinely could not fathom it.

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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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