Star Child's Parenting Diary - Chapter 11

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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 11
Chapter 4. Shushu’s Warning (1)
“Make me a medicine.”
“Of course.”
The physician bowed respectfully and opened his medical bag wide.
Inside lay various examination tools alongside small bottles of apportioned medicinal ingredients.
Some had been refined into white powder or crystalline form, while others remained in their raw state.
The physician selected a few and mixed them together.
The soft rattling sound echoed in the quiet, almost peaceful.
“Doctor, will you take a cup of tea?”
Setia asked after moistening her throat with warm water.
“I’m grateful for the offer, but I must decline.”
“You must have patients waiting.”
“Yes.”
Seeing Setia’s poorly concealed disappointment, the physician laughed awkwardly.
“I’ll make time next visit, I promise.”
He had recently arrived as a replacement for Setia’s former personal physician, who had perished in the calamity.
Though his competence was uncertain, his mild temperament paired with his gentle, open countenance left a favorable impression.
Yet he kept a certain distance, never lingering long.
Because of this, Setia felt both deep gratitude toward him and an unshakeable sense of reserve.
Still, there was a reason she hadn’t changed physicians.
Physicians had become nearly extinct throughout the Empire.
She could hardly afford to swap out her doctor over something as trivial as a distance in feeling.
‘At least he’s quite conscientious.’
Setia watched the physician’s back for a moment, then turned away.
She felt the sound of approaching footsteps—loud and hurried.
She knew exactly who it was.
“Let them in.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Setia greeted them before they could even knock.
“I told you—no ‘mister.'”
“Not it!”
“That’s not how it goes.”
“Not it!”
“That’s how it goes.”
“No.”
“You just said it didn’t.”
……!
Edan, victorious through a cheap rhetorical trick, entered with his lips curled in smug satisfaction.
Aspe seemed to have taken the blow hard, standing frozen like stone.
Setia couldn’t help but laugh at the sight.
The physician, apparently startled by the unexpected scene, froze mid-motion while preparing the medicine.
And there was one who approached quietly beside him……
“That’s not medicinal herb.”
It was Argares, his presence concealed.
The physician, startled by the sudden proximity, stumbled back with a shudder.
“Hmm.”
Argares examined the medicine being prepared and reached out his hand.
What he grasped was a crystal suffused with a soft crimson glow.
“This too.”
Argares’s eyes blazed a vivid blue.
“Not medicine at all.”
Gack!
Crackle.
Silver scales tore through skin and spread across Argares’s hand.
His claws closed around the physician’s throat, his voice eerily flat.
“Was it you who tore out a dragon’s heart from its corpse?”
Gahhhhh!
Argares’s grip tightened.
The dangling feet thrashed once, then slowly stilled.
The Doctor spat dark crimson blood, his head snapping back violently.
And at the end of his gaze lay…….
“Aspe! Get the child out of here!”
It was Bell.
Edan, who had caught the dangerous intent in that look with razor-sharp sensitivity, moved like lightning.
He thrust Bell toward Aspe, pushing his subordinate forward by the shoulders.
In the same motion, he drew Ether up around himself.
Shrrip!
It happened in an instant.
A black tendril lashed out from the Doctor’s hand, striking Edan’s face like a whip.
“Edan!”
“My lord!”
“My lady, you mustn’t step forward!”
The guards who constantly attended Setia drew their blades with practiced speed.
Black smoke erupted like a curtain, swallowing the room in darkness, and the dragon’s body flew backward, crashing into the wall from the violent repulsion.
“The vessel is not yet complete.”
In the thick haze, eyes blazed with an eerie pale luminescence.
Those two pupils fixed themselves upon Setia and Edan in turn.
“Slowly……. Let us take our time.”
A mouth slick with blood hung open in a grotesque grin.
“We have so very much of it.”
“What nonsense.”
“Our star——gck.”
The moment the Doctor’s gaze touched Bell, a hand suddenly burst forth from behind him.
Edan, wreathed in Ether, seized the Doctor’s skull and broke his neck with a single, fluid motion.
With a sickening crack, the Doctor’s head twisted backward.
Almost simultaneously, Argares’s talons pierced through his heart.
“Back away! This creature won’t die unless we use Purification!”
Crackle-crackle-crackle.
Black smoke spiraled violently in a single direction.
Beneath Argares’s feet, a blue circle bloomed at the center of the vortex, and Incantations flowed swiftly from his lips.
“For now, sending it far away is our only option.”
As those words ended, a brilliant flash erupted from the Magic Circle.
“We shall return.”
Dark crimson blood dripped steadily from the Doctor’s torn mouth.
“Our beloved star.”
The Doctor’s pale, bleached pupils met Bell’s gaze.
Within that meeting of eyes burned a dull red light.
“……Star…….”
Bell’s expression turned rigid and cold.
His violet pupils flooded with white brilliance.
The white light that burns when a star consumes itself.
And the black malice dripping down with the force to devour that very light.
Gulp.
Bell’s mouth opened slightly, but no sound emerged.
Bell was far too young to confront such suffocating darkness, too young even to understand why it should terrify him.
There was only one thing he could understand.
“Star……!”
Beyond that presence lay a star.
A star of tremendous power, one he had never seen before, was calling out to Bell with desperate urgency.
“Star!”
“No!”
“My lady!”
Setia lunged toward Bell.
Edan, occupied with forcing back the enemy clinging to the edge of the Magic Circle, had no room to maneuver.
“Hurry!”
Edan, grown urgent, pressed Argares harder.
The Incantations flowing from his lips quickened slightly, but the One Who Dwells in Darkness still held his gaze fixed upon Bell.
“It can see.”
The gaping jaw suddenly fell slack.
It looked grotesque, like a clay figure melting away in the rain.
But instead of backing away in fear, Bell reached out.
“Song!”
“No, Bell!”
Setia barely managed to catch the child and hide her in her arms—otherwise the small hand would surely have touched it.
“Hnh……!”
‘There’s a star there. A star trapped inside!’
Crunch.
With a wet, adhesive sound of something twisting and collapsing, the Doctor’s form crumbled completely.
What emerged at last was the Void that had been hiding within him.
It was the true form of the nameless star that had never been discovered, unable even to take shape until now.
The red eyes that Bell had glimpsed within it stared down at the child.
There was no emotion in those eyes.
They simply gazed at Bell, nothing more.
“Song!”
Bell frantically reached out toward that form.
Reach out.
Come here.
Take my hand.
“Pannee!”
Hurry.
Did it hear the child’s desperate voice?
The eyes widened, and the black haze trembled violently.
-Grrraaa.
The Void, robbed of its tongue to speak, uttered a grotesque sound.
Bell clenched her small fist at empty air.
[You can’t.]
Within the black haze, a blurred form spoke, its crimson gaze blazing.
[You can’t reach me.]
And with that, it swallowed the Void that had been desperately resisting the Magic Circle, then vanished into the circle itself.
Like a valiant knight who has leaped over a cliff alongside an enemy, the star that consumed the Void threw itself into the Magic Circle of its own accord.
At the same moment, the Magic Circle closed.
After the violent tempest passed, only silence remained.
The room enclosed in an eerie stillness.
The first to break that quiet was Setia’s exhale.
“Ha, ah…….”
In her excessive tension, she hadn’t even noticed how tightly she was holding the child against her.
Her ragged breathing was uneven.
“Setia.”
Edan’s knees buckled as he tried to approach his startled wife.
He collapsed where he stood, and a pained breath escaped between his lips.
“……Ha…….”
The backlash came swiftly—he’d had no time to refine his Ether before drawing upon it under that sudden assault.
Strength drained steadily from his body, and his vision flickered rapidly.
“Edan, you…….”
“Breathe.”
He steadied his weakening frame as best he could and gently brushed her cheek.
“I’m fine.”
Tears began to pool in Setia’s wide eyes.
“……You’re bleeding…….”
“Duke. Your wounds are severe. Let me see them.”
Only then did Edan become aware of the pain from his injuries.
Now he understood why his vision had felt oddly constricted since a moment ago.
His clothes weren’t soaked with sweat—they were soaked with blood.
He hadn’t managed to block the attack completely.
‘If I hadn’t cloaked myself in Ether, my head would have been gone by now.’
Reason, swept away by the sudden crisis, began to return to him slowly.

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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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