Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 266

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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 266

“But here’s the thing—everything you’ve done so far might become meaningless. And you’re willing to sacrifice someone you love for one last desperate gamble?”
“…….”
“What good is everyone’s happiness if my love isn’t in it?”
Marquis Habilios clicked his tongue softly.
“That’s exactly why I understand your choice. Why I even asked if I should kill you myself.”
“……I see.”
“If the Castrain Family stopped this mess right now and surrendered wholesale—every last member—well. Your bloodline is special enough that His Majesty might show mercy. Who knows what leniency awaits?”
“They’re all stubborn. I doubt that’ll happen.”
“Then that’s fortunate. But…….”
Marquis Habilios set down the teacup he’d been holding and drew a blade that gleamed black in the light. With the casual ease of someone reaching for a bread knife, he drove it straight into Raymond’s abdomen.
“……!”
Raymond’s massive frame convulsed like a fish hurled from water. Instead of blood spraying, something dark and viscous clung to the blade as it sank deeper, pulsing with a faint, sickly heartbeat. Watching Raymond writhe and convulse without breath, the Marquis clicked his tongue in disappointment.
“You should’ve died when I told you to. Now you can’t even speak properly.”
“…….”
“Well, that’s fine. Things outside are in such chaos, anyway. Kosheay must have bolted by now. It’s not a perfect beginning, but I suppose it’s good to start while we’re ahead. That’s what I thought.”
Marquis Habilios traced his fingertips across his own body, locating the Seeds of Corruption he’d planted, and checked that the blade he’d inserted had made proper contact with them.
Once he was certain, he looked into Raymond’s unfocused eyes.
Across the golden irises that should have burned with such luminosity, black spots appeared like light-devouring voids, spreading and deepening. The whites of his eyes, once pale, had turned crimson—so much so that one might doubt he could see anything at all. Ordinarily, a man would lose his mind long before reaching this point, or his very soul would shatter into fragments. The self itself dies.
His final mercy was exhausted. After all, Marquis Habilios was Chernobog’s servant, and he desired the body that would become his master’s possession to remain in as complete a state as possible. Now he could only pray that everything would end quickly, and that this wretched sacrifice might be spared a fraction more of his agony.
They’d said that Raymond carried darkness-aligned blood through his mother’s line, but Chernobog’s power had corrupted everything, so the bloodline itself would hardly matter anymore.
“Your Contractor—His Majesty Chernobog—considers you a thorn in his side, of course. But if everything goes well in the end, well. Yes. I’ll do my best to ensure you might live on, even as a plaything for my daughter.”
“…….”
“Ah, perhaps you can’t hear anymore…….”
Marquis Habilios arranged the corpse-like man properly on the altar. He placed the blade he’d been clutching like his very life beside him with reverence, and adjusted his clothes.
Finally, he checked those eyes that still held no focus. His body did shudder occasionally in pain, but that was all.
He was, for all practical purposes, dead. Marquis Habilios offered a brief eulogy.
“You were a fine young man. A pity.”
Fewer people are dying than he’d anticipated, and the ritual progresses slowly, but it hardly matters.
Tomorrow, everything will be finished.
Marquis Habilios turned away and ceased thinking of Raymond.
In that very instant, the golden eyes that had been fixed in place like those of a corpse flickered with the faintest glimmer of light. Only for a moment.

* * *

In the beginning, there was Chaos.
Creation and destruction dwell in the Realm of Chaos.
Light and Darkness were born from Chaos.
And they waged war over the world, and the defeated Darkness fell beneath the earth.
Light exhausted itself protecting humanity, while Darkness, having preserved its strength, cast its gaze toward the Surface.
So then.
What is the method to kill Darkness?

* * *

“You were actually planning to kill yourself? You absolute madman!”
-N-no, please calm down, Contractor! ∑(⌒◇⌒；)
“I’m not crazy! How in the world does someone decide that they hate being used as a load-bearing component for the Northern Barrier so much that they’ll lock their own god inside their body and die just to annihilate the god of Magic Beasts entirely?!”
-C-Contractor, over there, th-the fire! ヘ（゜◇、゜）ノ
“Did you lose all sense because the person you cared about died right before your eyes? Are you insane?!”
-Kyiiiiiieeeee! We’re falling!
＼(´◓Д◔`)／
“Jemina!”
“……Squawk.”
With a sigh, I leaped onto Jemina as she unfurled her magnificent wings and soared skyward, escaping the burning building.
The enemy structures I’d smashed to pieces during my frantic escape were quite the sight.
I buried my face in Jemina’s feathers and gathered my thoughts.
Right, my past self—Titania—happened to meet Lilium and, rather than beg for her life, she realized this girl had been raised in some twisted hothouse by Chernobog’s faction, warped in strange ways, and struck up what was almost a gamble of a Contract. And it worked.
Well, “worked” is relative. We only gathered information.
You can’t kill something without substance. Even though Beloborg won against Chernobog, all it could do was banish him to the Underground World and erect a Barrier—nothing more. That’s why.
A god is closer to a spirit, an entity without physical form, and most bodies can’t even withstand a fragment of a god’s power.
However, if there exists a vessel that can fully contain a god, and the god is sealed within it, and if the god and vessel achieve perfect fusion……then killing the vessel kills the god.
But, of course, there are problems.
I mulled over what had just happened.
The moment I declared the Contract sealed, Lilium was startled. The next instant, her composure returned.
‘Hmph. Fine. A Contract is a Contract. But a vessel inhabited by a god is effectively immortal! The neck won’t sever. The heart can be pierced and it won’t matter. So what if I’ve given you information? What difference does it make?’
Watching the figure across from me, her eyes burning with wounded pride, I sighed.
‘What else? It seems my former betrothed simply trusted me too much.’
‘……What?’
‘I can’t figure this out alone. I need to talk to a genius.’
‘You say that so lightly, as if going for a stroll……!’
Confirming that she was furious but unable to charge at me, I shrugged.
I’d verified everything I needed to. There was nothing left to see here.
‘Jemina, did you finish eating?’
‘……What?’
I remembered the days when I’d lost my energy and slept fitfully, leaving Jemina behind while I wandered with only the Emoticon Sword—and behind the confused Lilium, her frown deepening as if my question made no sense, there came another sound.
A frantic patter of feet racing across the ground echoed through the space.
And Jemina, noticeably chubbier than before, came flying over and let out a loud burp. Her eyes sparkled.
-Wow, Contractor! Jemina’s gotten so big!
‘Yeah, yeah. She’s fully grown now, I’d say.’
Watching Jemina—her feathers now gleaming and her body grown robust—nuzzle against me, the figure across from me wore a dumbfounded expression.
I explained kindly.
‘Our Jemina is a magnificent omnivorous Divine Beast, and she comes from a mother who, when survival is on the line, uses Magic Beasts as both food and bedding. When my mother Divine Beast passed most of her power to me while Jemina was still young, I think that’s why Jemina seems to be an Evolved Divine Beast form. Survival evolution, you might say—the Northern Region was so lacking in light and divine power that even a fingernail’s worth was hard to find back then. Even Mana Stones, the source and life-core of Magic Beast power, can be purified and used.’
‘W-what……?’
‘The power of earth, or was it Healing Force? Whatever she passed to me back then—yes, self-healing. Don’t you think it’s a wonderful power? To be able to consume things even when they might cause injury, yet manage oneself and somehow eat through it all? Besides, I gave Jemina plenty of blood before.’
‘What are you talking about now?!’
At first, I’d thought she was just sleeping from exhaustion. But Jemina, growing alongside me—or more precisely, after I finished establishing dominion—had become far more capable than expected.
While I and the Emoticon Sword surveyed the area and experienced various things with Lilium, Jemina slept and slept and slept, consuming the ambient energy. Like an animal before hibernation, she packed energy tightly into her own body.
It’s impossible against Magic Beasts that try to devour her outright, but she can apparently consume things like comatose entities or the refined energy sources that her kind boost each other with—Magic Beasts or Demonic Energy in that form.
Especially since most of it was refined into plant-like forms, it made for a very palatable buffet for Jemina, who was familiar with the power of earth. If it had been blazing fire or anything like that, she couldn’t have eaten it.
Normally, that would cause injury. But Jemina and I were not “normal.”
I spoke to the figure across from me, who wore the blank expression of a merchant whose entire storehouse has been emptied.
‘Our baby ate very well. Thank you.’
In agreement, Jemina let out a long, pleased sound. There was joy in her voice.

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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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