Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 272

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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 272

“…I will offer you my hand.”
“Hoh?”
“This hand has carried your curse for long years. You cannot simply dismiss it as merely one pair of hands. Surely you understand what it means to give a part of a living body to your master?”
“Can you swear by your own name?”
Pan hesitated only briefly. The face of Rasper rose in his mind. The visage of Titania, who would surely be aghast and cry out against such madness.
A hand was just a hand, but if Pan severed it and gave it over, it was entirely possible for Kosheay to seize Pan himself through it as a conduit.
The plan was to masquerade as Pan while the old schemer, impersonated, waited until the incident concluded among his colleagues before fleeing.
Of course, there were countermeasures. Pan would simply have to accept the danger.
Without bait of this caliber, that cunning old man would never provide useful information. At minimum, he could not lie while bound by such an oath.
“By my own name….”
He had resolved to do it, yet even so, in the brief moment before he could speak the words with finality, the door burst open.
Bang!
Who had opened the door, which he’d sealed shut with layers upon layers of Magic? By what means? This was the chamber holding that dangerous Kosheay—how dare anyone—! Before anger could fully bloom.
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! I hauled you out of a lifetime of debt and the fool lets himself be seduced by honeyed words and is about to sell his own body again!”
Smack!
Pan felt a warm, stinging sensation across the back of his neck, his senses reeling. Titania rushed forward with a face of utter exasperation, while Rasper stood beside her, wearing an awkward smile.
“Rasper. Look—this man has made a habit of binding himself in debt using his own name. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t come?”
“Aha, haha… Master was simply in a hurry, it seems. And from what I gather, you were about to eliminate an opponent for good. Aha, haha. Yet you recoil in horror whenever a single needle touches my hand.”
Pan felt cold sweat breaking out. Though Rasper’s words were delivered with a smile, his anger was unmistakable—as was Titania’s fury beside him.
With this pair working together, tearing the door open and forcing their way in was entirely feasible.
“Now, now, employer. Do you have a better alternative at hand? People are fighting to the death in the Imperial Palace, and across every major city of the empire, they’re tearing each other apart even now.”
“B-but the Ritual has already begun! If you don’t hear my information—”
Pan and Kosheay protested in unison, as though aggrieved, and Titania let out a scoff of contempt.
“Why bother with a Contract? Just take the body. Treat him like a mouse in a cage.”
“…What?”
“Let’s conduct a grand Resurrection and Regeneration Experiment with it. If he provides good information, we’ll upgrade him from a mouse in a cage to an actual mouse. What do you think, Rasper?”
“A mouse would be better for observing the experimental results.”
“Eh, what?”
“If there’s only one body to transfer to, there’s no real choice anyway. That thing—if you can even call it a body—with all its power drained, will blow away if you so much as breathe on it. The Soul continues to survive and transfers to other bodies, doesn’t it? Hmm, perhaps a cockroach? Though their survival rate is too high, so maybe not?”
“Yes, just to be safe.”
“B-but I have no reason to transfer into such a body—!”
“Why not?”
Titania chuckled darkly and seized the thrashing Kosheay with her bare hands. No matter how bodiless he claimed to be, he couldn’t harm her in the slightest—instead, the shriveled little mass let out a shriek as if it would wither away entirely.
Titania looked down at him with eyes gone cold and contemptuous.
“Because you want to live forever. Because death terrifies you. Because you’ll do anything to survive in this world. You never cared whether your beloved disciples lived or died, or anyone else in this empire for that matter.”
“…….”
“Yet now there’s a body right beside you—be it insect or rodent. Are you truly so noble that you’ll fade away without crawling into it? Try if you can.”
Pan found his mouth falling open without thought.
After all, Kosheay was his former master—a Grand Mage, one of the enemy’s chief architects. Pan had believed that such a man’s noble pride would never bend unless the stakes involved Pan’s own hand; that he would refuse to cooperate otherwise.
He was cunning enough that without offering even a single escape route, he would not yield.
Yet Titania and Rasper had solved the dilemma with stunning simplicity.
Continue to survive without dying. Seize your chances. Trapped within this sealed, narrow space we have created, bound within the bodies of the vermin you once despised.
Continue to feel only agony and death.
Only when you cry out begging for us to kill you at last.
“Try to choose your own noble death with your own hands, if you can. Go on.”
Pan understood now.
His master would not endure this torment.
There would be no scenario where he held out until the very end and refused to negotiate until they provided a proper escape route, thus complicating matters for them.
What will to resist did a man who had treated others’ suffering as nothing more than blunt text his entire life possess when faced with agony that burned soul and body alike?
Such resolve typically arose only in those noble souls driven by purposes they would pursue even unto death.
He would struggle, despair, and finally break—spilling information under unbearable anguish. He would cry out for mercy, yet find no proper rest, only endless torment.
In a sense, it was a fitting end for a man who had treated both the deaths and lives of others as nothing but experimental subjects.
As fitting as the prayers of all those who had died by Kosheay’s hand since ancient times.

* * *

“Damn it. Just how much is all of that…. It pains me to think of it all going up in smoke.”
Sara was dutifully carrying out the orders of the Imperial Consort.
The places the Imperial Consort had indicated were supposedly near the Empress’s Palace and the Rose Palace, but they were hardly close. What was called an Underground Passage proved to be more like a tunnel in places—she had to dig through earth heaps and descend, press upon objects of unknown purpose, turn handles, and smash through sealed doors. The brilliantly gleaming Mana Stones looked far too valuable to destroy, and it pained her.
Well, setting that aside. The most accessible location had been the Storehouse. When she was searching through the Precious Metals, Silk, and piles of clothing stacked between the shelves and pressing the triggers within—her hands trembled with regret.
All of this turning to ash? My goodness, now that she’d become an Imperial Consort, she didn’t begrudge it. But couldn’t she pocket some of it before it was destroyed?
Yet the Imperial Consort had given the order directly. Fires blazed in every direction and screams echoed—it was frightening, and in any case, better to complete the task swiftly and return. So Sara was heading now to carry out the Imperial Consort’s final order: to kill the prisoners held in the Punishment Chamber.
In truth, she didn’t even need to follow that last order. The Imperial Palace was already in chaos—who would care about a few maids locked in the Punishment Chamber? Once fire swept everywhere and explosions began, the prisoners were as good as dead without her lifting a finger.
But Sara had no intention of fleeing. Instead, she smiled wickedly as she stood before the empty corridor. Beyond the heavy wooden door wrapped in iron chains, all was silent.
“Is anyone there?”
She pitched her voice thin and gentle, as if coming to help, as if a fellow servant—and from within the previously silent chamber came a response.
“W-who is it?”
Hmm. Who? Do I know this person? The voice is unfamiliar. Well, it doesn’t matter. Sara let her tone drip with kindness.
“Girls, it’s me. Sara. I’ve come to save you.”
“S-Sara? Really…?”
“Hey, hey everyone, come here! Someone’s come to rescue us!”
“D-Dorothy, wake up!”
That damned Dorothy was in there too? She’d love to watch them all burn to death while begging for their lives. Sara’s smile widened wickedly.
She had lived in grinding poverty her whole life. She had bowed before others all her days. Thanks to her quick wits, she’d managed to work under the Imperial Consort—but you unlucky wretches will die that way.
I will survive. Unlike you.
“Sara, Sara is coming to rescue us!”
“Thank you, Sara, please open this door!”
“My throat is so dry…!”
“Haha, I’m so glad they’re happy to see me. Girls. But what to do….”
She felt along the wall and found a tiny ventilation grate. Through it, she inserted a small Explosive. This was the dangerous part. Once she threw it in, she had to run immediately.
“…Because I came here to kill you!”
Any moment now, the blast would come. She anticipated the screams, the wails—and took off running. She sprinted down the empty corridor, then noticed something odd.
Silence.
No sound of an explosion, no cries condemning her.
Rather, on the contrary….
Clang!
A metal door descended directly in front of Sara. She grabbed it, trying to pull it up. It wouldn’t budge.
“What? There was something like this here? Since when? I never heard about it.”
Clang, clang-clang-clang. Gritting her teeth, Sara turned and ran. The corridor was empty, no guards, but there was a path in the other direction. So—her running footsteps stopped.
Screeeeak.
The sound of a door opening.
Thud, thud, thud. The unhesitating footfalls of people stepping out.
“…W-what. You people.”
Sara forced her stiffened lips to curl upward.
“H-hey, you should’ve said the door was open. Everyone’s safe…?”
“…….”
“I-I did say something strange, didn’t I? Haha, sorry. For teasing you all. I really was coming to open the door. It was just a joke… girls?”
The door was already open, and those who stood within were already staring at her with eyes full of deadly intent. Sara felt cold sweat trickling down her face.

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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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