Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 39

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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 39

“And you could have been the one torn apart by that Magic Beast if the odds had shifted.”
“That’s a risk I had to take. But I was certain. I thought the princes would be in greater danger than I.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Older, stronger, and closer to the throne yet without a formal coronation—I believed such a person would be attacked first.”
No matter how I think about it, this trap reeks of something an emperor would set when civil war had spread even within the palace walls, or out of fear that his own siblings might rebel right before his eyes.
I’m not sure whether someone formally granted the Crown Prince Position would fall within the Magic Beast’s range of attack.
The current emperor has granted the Crown Prince Position to no one. In other words, the emperor’s two sons are his strongest rivals for Imperial Authority.
The Magic Beast in the Labyrinth Garden didn’t kill me but would attack other intruders to finish them off, yet the one hiding in the Hall of Glory prioritizing attacks on Imperial bloodline is somewhat odd.
Such traps would have been set back in the founding emperor’s era, and those Imperial Family members back then wielded the Power of Light just fine, didn’t they? They shouldn’t have fallen so easily to a Magic Beast….
Rather than killing other Imperial Family members for the emperor’s sake, it may be that there’s a prohibition preventing it from touching all Imperial bloodline except the emperor and empress—or perhaps that’s the truth.
“And besides me and Prince Brian, it could have attacked Prince Aedrian as well, couldn’t it? The Empress was taking just as much risk.”
“By striving to lose nothing, one may end up losing everything. I’ve simply come to understand this anew.”
The Empress regarded me with eyes that revealed nothing.
“You are remarkably composed. Aedrian and Brian learned swordplay, yet you’ve never once wielded a blade, and wasn’t it not long ago that you nearly died in a Magic Beast’s attack?”
My expression hardened. Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely without worry. I borrowed it precisely because I wasn’t certain I wouldn’t be attacked.
……
I gazed at the pristine white cloth draped across my shoulders, my unease plainly visible.
It was the Divine Garment of Gloriana, no less….
It must be an artifact that has endured for an immeasurable stretch of time, and true to its name as a divine weapon (though the Divine Garment didn’t look much like a weapon), it gleamed with a pure white radiance.
It resembled the form of decorative cloth hung upon walls, yet it also seemed fashioned like a cape one could sling casually over the shoulder.
The thin white cloth was precisely sized to drape across my shoulders alone. Every movement made the golden tassels hanging from its hem sparkle brilliantly.
That emoticon sword kept rambling about a test this and that, so I was reluctant to even touch it ordinarily. In fact, I expected that even if I made the request, I’d be ignored, or I’d hear something like ‘So I actually hand over this precious thing, and it turns out you were just talking empty words.’
When I asked if it might be lent to me, what was I supposed to do when they just laid it out on the spot?
In any case, when I checked the record I borrowed that time, this weapon apparently had the function of providing modest protection to its wearer. To be precise, it seems to only apply to “awakened wielders of the Power of Light,” but I thought something was better than nothing.
I shrugged my shoulders as I spoke.
“I simply placed my faith in the stupidity of Prince Brian, who has never once faced a crisis like the one I experienced.”
Prince Brian naturally had his hands in informants planted by the Empress or the Castrain Ducal House.
Prince Brian was remarkably susceptible to suggestion. If someone said the weather was fine and suggested a hunt, he went hunting. And if during the hunt someone suggested that the prey looked uninspiring today and proposed drinking wine instead, he’d excitedly rush off to drink.
Cleo, the Empress, who had planned to bring a High Priest to the Empress Palace to determine if I was cursed, to purify and heal me, and to wake me, mostly kept her son out of her own affairs.
Indeed, Prince Brian was less intelligent than Empress Cleo.
He made efforts to please the emperor but was so clumsy about it that if the emperor hadn’t been blinded by paternal affection, seeing him as his beloved child with indulgent eyes, the whole scheme would have been exposed long ago.
Moreover, should anything go wrong, the Empress would take it all upon herself and ensure the prince would not be affected.
‘That wouldn’t do at all.’
She would exhaust every stratagem herself while keeping her son from harm?
That’s laughable.
What happened to Prince Brian that day went as follows.
Because Empress Cleo had instructed him to spend the day quietly, Prince Brian had intended to rest in his quarters.
But the moment morning arrived, a hunting companion burst in breathlessly, spouting about “a wolf with remarkably beautiful golden fur—no one has ever seen a prey like it—but it was wounded and fled near the Imperial Palace’s Hunting Ground, and it may well have slipped into the palace itself.”
Does that even make sense?
Well…. Yes. The Imperial Palace is vast.
It’s conceivable that a beast could creep down from walls and roofs under cover of night, evading human eyes, and hide somewhere like a garden.
But when that gossip-monger added that “the trail had gone cold nowhere else but near the Imperial Palace, and those who are passionate about hunting are truly disappointed. Aren’t there no armed warriors within the Imperial Palace?”—he successfully fanned the flames of Prince Brian’s desire.
An animal with an unusual color and form, possibly stained with Magic Beast blood, and already bearing severe wounds from someone’s prior attack.
Hidden near the Imperial Palace, making it a prize that other nobles bound by the rule of hunting only in designated Hunting Grounds wouldn’t dare approach.
If he could only capture it, that would truly be something to boast of to the emperor.
Yes. If he could only capture it.
And so Brian fell into the trap.

* * *

‘Even such a beautiful prey, if it catches the eye of the sentries or knights on watch, would merely be butchered without anyone understanding its true worth,’ he had added this encouragement so effectively that Prince Brian, without saying a word to his guards or the soldiers nearby, quietly armed himself and wandered the Imperial Palace.
Timing his approach to the moment when he’d be closest to the Hall of Glory according to a pre-calculated route, he had the Empress release the Magic Beast for him (while I was already far away in hiding).
The Magic Beast immediately lunged at Brian.
When the beautiful golden-furred wolf appeared, Brian grasped his sword in delight.
But contrary to what he’d heard, there wasn’t a trace of injury on it, and the aura it gave off was far too fierce to be a common wolf. Brian couldn’t even manage a single proper swing of his blade.
Brian, who had brought numerous people along in the past, firing arrows and intimidating prey, driving them into corners and using traps to corner them before finally claiming their lives, could never have hoped to hunt a Magic Beast at close quarters alone.
It was impossible.
Brian’s courage collapsed in an instant, and he fled.
Of course, when the terrified “Is no one there! Save me! Somebody! Please! Help!” screaming Brian was discovered, there were soldiers and knights who charged the Magic Beast.
Brian’s Personal Guard, personally assigned by Cleo, had discovered their missing charge and threw themselves at the Magic Beast.
Brian ran on, leaving behind the sight of his guard sacrificing themselves. But the Magic Beast was tremendously powerful, and after disposing of the guard in a single assault, it pursued Brian.
Paralyzed by fear, Brian forgot every route and passage, tumbling all the way to the Labyrinth Garden (though I had pre-calculated the route and subtly blocked the exits).
While the Castrain Family exerted themselves in repairing barriers and fighting Magic Beasts on the front lines, the major cities and Imperial Capital were relatively safe from them.
You could see it plainly—nobles leisurely enjoyed drive hunts in the forests, and noblewomen held banquets outdoors.
Still, that didn’t mean Magic Beasts were entirely absent. Weaker ones, the sort that usually lost their lives to security patrols, appeared now and then. They were so unremarkable—little different from wild animals and lacking even cores worth mentioning—that people generally didn’t call them Magic Beasts at all.
So how could Empress Cleo or Prince Brian take Magic Beasts seriously?
They brought an object infused with the Power of Darkness into the Imperial Palace without a shred of caution to construct a curse. There’s no way they could understand.
The people of the Castrain Family had learned, generation after generation, through bone-scraping effort, accumulated knowledge, and experience how to face Magic Beasts.
Their power and ability were similar. They understood what methods and approaches could minimize civilian casualties, which Magic Beasts could be killed.
That’s why the Castrain Family could catch Magic Beasts like catching rats, analyze them, and even employ strategies of using Magic Beasts against Magic Beasts—precisely because they were specialists.
Whatever faction Empress Cleo had allied with, they wouldn’t have accumulated the expertise the Castrain Family possessed.
Yet Cleo, bent solely on crushing this side, made a deal with dangerous people.
The Castrain Ducal House quickly confirmed—or rather, deduced—the true nature of the ‘Cursed Artifact’ that had fallen into Cleo’s hands. And they reached a conclusion: it was extremely dangerous.
It was nothing less than a concentrated explosive infused with the Power of Darkness.

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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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