Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 267
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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 267
What happened next could be summed up simply enough.
A shocked Lilium, Jemina and I and my blade all together in one rowdy, glorious rampage…
Jemina had drained everything she could drain by then, and I spent the rest demolishing the entire area with glee. Lilium looked ready to stop me, grinding her teeth—before rushing off to find Primrose, whose recovery was still incomplete. Well, suit yourself.
With Jemina having thoroughly siphoned the life from this place, it was hollow and fragile as a corn cob stripped of its kernels—easy to smash to pieces. I climbed onto her back and laughed, bright and unrestrained, watching buildings and forest crumble beneath sweeping flame.
“Thank you for underestimating me! Thank you for leaving me alone! Wahahaha! Your indifference! It comes back to you like this!”
-Contractor, I must say—you sound rather villainous.
(゜▽゜;)
“Look at that fire burn, would you. I was worried it wouldn’t catch, but it’s burning beautifully.”
Flap, flap. Jemina’s wings drummed loudly. Wind brushed past my ears.
I’d been concerned that since I wasn’t Lisianthus himself, I couldn’t ignite ordinary fire—but I was wrong. The flames born from my hand with Jemina’s aid consumed this parched, defenseless land without resistance.
With one of the enemy’s vital strongholds rendered helpless, I hung suspended in the sky, held fast by Jemina, and studied the bracelet Rasper had given me. The slightly loose bracelet I’d kept hidden inside my ankle all this time.
A portable warp marker activation device. But surely Rasper, being a genius, built in other functions too. If he designed it with me in mind, there had to be something more… a communication function, perhaps. That’s what I need right now.
Until now, I’d avoided examining it openly, terrified the enemy might learn I possessed such a thing. But now was different. As we pulled away from the burning mountain and I gripped the bracelet, wrestling with its casing—
The sky began to dissolve.
Or more precisely, some opaque membrane I’d never even known existed slowly vanished like cotton candy melting into water. The instant it disappeared, a somewhat frantic voice crackled through the bracelet I held.
[Are you there?! Please—Your Highness, are you safe?!]
“Eh? Eh? That voice… is that you, Rasper?”
[Thank the gods! You’re alright, yes? We did detect you near Marquis Habilios’s territory, but we were trying to have Lisianthus come to your aid—]
Static and crackling made the transmission loud and choppy.
“Yeah, I have plenty to report too, but I’ll head your way instead. It’ll be faster if I come to you.”
[Y-yes?]
I was very high up.
The Capital, seen from above, was smaller than I’d imagined. And beyond its walls, countless battles raged. Fire burst from the Imperial Palace, people swarmed and clashed. Near the Castrain Estate, multiple conflicts erupted…
Absolute chaos.
From such a height, people fighting, dying—it all looked no bigger than matchsticks burning inside a matchbox.
So small that any worry or emotion seemed meaningless. Higher still, and there would be clouds. The wind howled relentlessly, yet I felt no fear. Even the sun’s stinging heat couldn’t touch me.
Cradled beside Jemina’s wings, neither light nor wind could harm me.
My blade hung at my side, flashing in the sunlight. Perhaps it was because Jemina had truly grown as a Divine Beast—the frantic pulse in my chest quieted.
A sensation of being severed from the world itself. As though I could do anything. A strange, vertiginous feeling.
Is this what it feels like to become a god?
To gaze down at countless people fighting below and deem it worthless—nothing but the restless scrambling of ants?
“… Lisianthus’s flames are really easy to spot from far away.”
Burning bright, fighting the enemy, burning to protect his own.
Don’t be ridiculous.
Blood rushed through my veins.
[C-can you see it?]
“I’m coming now!”
What kind of god lives in lonely indifference while people die around him?
If that’s what a god is, let me fall to earth instead.
Jemina caught sight of our destination and spread her wings wide.
Riding her back, I plummeted toward the ground like hail.
From a distance, it must have looked like lightning falling in broad daylight.
* * *
Lisianthus fought well.
The mages were the same. Using the openings Lisianthus created, with guidance from Pan and Rasper, they coordinated to regenerate the Protective Barrier and focused on completing their calculations.
Pan insisted on coming to the field himself, and Rasper’s voice could be heard desperately arguing against it from the other side.
Up to that point, everything was manageable.
Pan and Rasper’s ultimate objective was to disrupt the enemy’s Descent Ritual of Chernobog. To achieve that, the mages had been dispatched here—but they couldn’t abandon their primary goal just to save them.
Accounting for the formidable opponent before him, Lisianthus advanced on Kosheay and scattered fire—flames many times more intense than usual, so fierce they might have consumed him as well. He poured them out without restraint.
No matter what summoned creatures and Magic Beasts Kosheay sent forth, the flames burned far too intensely to hold them back for long.
And successfully, Lisianthus drove his blade through the enemy’s chest.
“Swallow this—!”
Crack. The sound of bone grating against the sword’s edge.
He was certain the blade had pierced through to the back. It should have been a killing blow, whether against beast or man. But in that moment, their eyes met.
That was when Lisianthus truly understood why Kosheay was called the Immortal.
Should he have severed the neck? Or would that have been useless as well?
Between bone fragments scattering in the air, glowing red eyes mocked him.
“What remarkable vitality. How exquisite. Truly exquisite. Skin so ripe and succulent it looks ready to drip from the merest touch.”
Nothing remained but bone. Where a voice should have been impossible, skeletal jaws clattered within a hollow throat, jeering.
“Your ignorance is not your sin.”
Kosheay’s bones didn’t burn. They merged again before his eyes, slowly, defiantly, before returning to their original form. Lisianthus dodged endless summons and Magic Beasts that spawned no matter how many times he destroyed them.
Though he’d unleashed his full power just before, carved open Kosheay’s chest and driven flame within, though his own skin burned and ached—the enemy simply clattered his teeth and spoke. Sickly blue Demonic Energy oozed from the ground like viscous slime, rising to meet the fire.
“And your weakness too is not your sin! It is the very fate of mortals to be bound by the limitations of their birth!”
Clack, clack—the moment the bone-made hands mockingly collided, skeletal fingers identical to Kosheay’s own erupted from the ground, seizing the mages who’d been desperately casting from behind. Screams erupted from all sides.
“Aaaaah!”
“Damn it, we’re running out of power. No matter how many Mana Stones we use—!”
“R-run!”
Lisianthus bit the inside of his mouth so hard it bled, and pushed himself forward anyway. Though he couldn’t burn Kosheay himself, he could incinerate and shatter the smaller bone fragments erupting from below. Watching this, Kosheay laughed.
“But, my boy. I know what’s there.”
A silence fell over the side that had been scrambling to find a counter-strategy.
“My boy. Are you still afraid of your teacher? Do you not understand? Well then. Yes. Yes. I suppose I was rather hasty back then. I lacked compassion toward you. But—”
The white bones that kept erupting from the ground entwined like flowers, then separated, clicking and swaying in a grotesque dance.
Mocking the mages standing frozen with terror, unable even to flee.
“Is it not beautiful?”
-…
“See how complete I’ve become.”
Cut my neck as many times as you wish. Pierce my chest as many times as you desire.
“Look. So. I heard you took in quite a clever apprentice. Though rather rough around the edges. Your magical formulae spread across the Capital show considerable skill.”
-Don’t you dare lay a finger on Rasper, you damned old fool. You’ve targeted him more than once—don’t pretend ignorance.
“No, well. To be honest, I’ve lost some enthusiasm. Raymond’s body truly does befit a perfect divine vessel. Not even I could cobble something together through a bit of experimentation, no matter how hard I tried.”
Lisianthus felt nausea rising in his throat.
He knew full well what atrocities the grotesque Archmagus had committed. Countless experiments. He’d tried to kill Pan. He’d tried to kill Rasper. Yet hearing him croon in that tender, doting tone—like some affectionate grandfather coaxing his grandchild—made his skin crawl.
“Well then, I’ll make you a generous offer. If you come to me now, yes. I’ll let you serve as my assistant.”
-…What?
“Are you so very displeased that I briefly touched your apprentice? How amusing. I’ve changed my research direction, you see. The more refined the genetics, the greater the limits to cloning or creating variants. And having seen Raymond’s body—that Form—I must pursue other paths. If you insist on standing against me while protecting these worthless children one by one…”
The Archmagus, now mere bone, laughed darkly.
“Every single one of them here will die.”
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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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