Star Child's Parenting Diary - Chapter 7

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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 7
Chapter 3. A Kaleidoscope of a World (1)
Ethan caught Bel’s body as it went limp, his strength finally spent.
“Bel!”
“Mmmgh……”
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
Beyond the ruined rubble, soldiers called out desperately, searching for their Emperor.
As the spirit faded with its last reserves of power, the magic binding the soldiers dissolved as well.
“We should get some food into the Child of Stars first.”
Argares snapped his fingers.
The debris of the collapsed building rose into the air and stacked neatly into one corner in a heartbeat.
As the entrance opened, those who had been pacing anxiously above came tumbling down into the basement in a rush.
Aspe was among them.
“Your Grace! So you’ve finally rebelled against the Imperial House and destroyed the basement? Good heavens, what have you done!”
“Aspe!”
“Yes, Your Majesty! I had nothing to do with it. It was all Your Grace acting alone……!”
“Food!”
“Right away!”
Aspe understood Ethan’s curt, forceful command perfectly and spun on his heel without hesitation.
“You two are perfectly matched. A match made in heaven.”
The Emperor’s cheerful observation followed them.
* * *
Flicker.
Within complete and utter darkness, a pair of eyes opened with a gleam of light.
[What is this?]
The Calamity, dormant and swallowing even light itself, had opened its eyes for the first time.
The meaning of this small shift was unmistakable.
[Found it.]
[Found the Star I failed to kill.]
[The Calamity resonates.]
Several shadows stirred and murmured in the darkness.
Their voices, each muttering to itself, gradually converged into one.
[Report this to him at once.]
* * *
The chaos in the basement was attributed to the Dragon’s rampage, and Duke Aivec’s timely intervention brought matters to an end.
It was a measure taken immediately to conceal Bel’s true identity.
And……
“Well, well.”
At the dinner table, all eyes—Ethan’s, the Emperor’s, and the purified Dragon Argares’—fixed on a single point.
Nod, nod.
A head as large as its body kept threatening to topple forward.
Bel struggled against sleep, nodding repeatedly, then suddenly snapping to attention and chewing vigorously at the food in his mouth.
“Stop eating.”
Unable to bear it any longer, Ethan reached for the fork in Bel’s hand.
“Nuh-uh.”
Bel puffed out his lips in refusal.
Why did a mere two-year-old have such a grip?
“You’re exhausted. Just go to sleep.”
“Nuh-uh-uh.”
“You can eat again after you wake up, I promise.”
“Nuh-uh-uh-uh.”
Bel shook his head stubbornly from side to side.
“This is driving me mad.”
Ethan clutched at his own hair in frustration.
The Emperor, who had been watching this spectacle with obvious delight, added a cutting remark.
“This is exactly what I meant about the joy of raising children, Duke.”
“It feels more like fury than joy, I assure you.”
Ethan ground out his words, barely suppressing his exasperation.
Yet to the Emperor’s eyes—raised as a brother beside him—it was simply amusing.
“Tell me honestly. You didn’t plot this just to make me die of frustration, did you?”
“Not at all.”
“Tsk.”
Argares, who had been watching Ethan’s fumbling efforts, clicked his tongue.
“I’ve never seen a man so helpless with a child before.”
He gently lifted Bell, who stubbornly clung to her fork, into his arms.
After tilting her head to rest against his shoulder, he patted her back softly, and the child fell asleep in an instant.
Argares carefully extracted the fork from the girl’s small fist and set it on the table.
As if by unspoken agreement, the dining room fell silent.
“What do we do now?”
“……What do you mean, sir?”
Ethan’s voice was so quiet it hardly seemed to belong to him at all.
Small and careful, pitched low — it betrayed his concern for the child.
“Those who dwell in Darkness will surely hunt the girl’s life.”
“Are you suggesting I abandon her to save her life, sir?”
Ethan delivered his response with deliberate sharpness.
He recalled the orphanage as he had observed it earlier, cataloguing every detail with studied indifference.
Small, round children packed together like flattened dough, crammed into a cramped building.
That humble place reeking of humanity would vanish without a trace in a single assault.
“I will protect her myself.”
“What if we protect the child within the Imperial Palace?”
“I refuse.”
Ethan answered at once, as if he had anticipated such a proposal.
“She would draw too much attention.”
The Eternal Night of Sailing had claimed the previous emperor and empress, the former Duke Aivec, and countless other figures of state.
An unprepared generation had succeeded them, and the realm remained mired in the chaos of transition.
Desperation had even driven them to resurrect the Senate, once a blight upon the empire.
“The moment the Senate takes notice of her, Bell will become their instrument.”
The Senate was a cabal of entrenched elders who had seized power during an age of fierce political intrigue and imperial grandeur.
They were deft, and they were cruel.
He had no doubt they would prove poison to the girl.
They would coax the unknowing child with honeyed words, corrupt her thinking, and wield her as they saw fit.
“Don’t speak such weakness. You are the sole heir of the ducal house. Compared to the weight of power that will rest in your hands, this is nothing.”
But this was one thing Ethan could not abide.
He had endured it most acutely.
“She is already my daughter.”
He drew a sharp line with those words and moved to rise from his seat.
“Stay here one more night.”
“What? Why?”
Yet Argares blocked his path as he rose to leave.
“I want to show the child something.”
“Show her what?”
“It would have escaped your notice.”
Argares murmured as if to himself, then flicked his fingers through the air.
In that instant, the surroundings darkened.
“What is this……!”
Ethan reacted sharply, gripping a dinner knife like a weapon.
But he could not bring himself to point it at Argares, who held Bell in his arms.
“Calm yourself. It’s only Magic.”
Argares spoke with casual indifference, surveying the dimmed surroundings.
“And look closely.”
The interior was shrouded in a pale, ashen mist.
Faces were blotted out in shadow.
Everything the eye touched was drained of color.
“This is the world as this child sees it.”
“……What?”
Confusion flooded Ethan’s eyes.
He tried to make out the expressions of the Emperor and Aspe, but could not.
Black smoke clung thickly to their faces.
“The Calamity has not fully receded. Corrupted Ether blankets everything. Until this child purges all of it, she must live in a world like this.”
No one’s face can be seen.
I know the voice that speaks to me so gently, but I don’t know that smile or the warmth in those eyes.
The world was all black.
There was no sunlight.
Argares snapped his fingers again.
The mist that had covered the room lifted, and a vibrant, multicolored world returned.
Ethan blinked vacantly, like someone waking from a dream.
“But today, for the first time, you awakened your power and purified the contamination. At least within the Imperial Palace grounds, there is no corruption left.”
Argares told the child to show the girl the colors of this world and take her away.
“She ought to know—that people, the world itself, can be this radiant and beautiful.”
“…Aspe.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Go on ahead.”
It was an instruction to explain the situation briefly to his wife, Setia, who would be waiting for him.
Aspe, understanding his meaning, bowed respectfully to the Emperor and withdrew.
* * *
Cheerful morning sunlight tickled Bell’s eyelids.
Bell, who had been tossing restlessly on the soft bed, opened her eyes with a flutter.
“…?”
Hair pressed flat and tangled every which way stuck out wildly from beneath the blanket.
Blink. Blink.
Bell gazed blankly at the sight before her eyes.
‘Shimmering.’
Everything in her vision was colorful and shimmering.
She couldn’t understand how this had happened.
Bell looked down at her own two hands, then ran her palm across the soft blanket once.
‘That’s pink.’
She lifted her head again.
The Teddy Bear sat on the bedside table.
‘That’s brown.’
The colors the spirit had shown her came to mind one by one.
The sky is blue. The clouds are white. Yellow resembles Bell’s own hair, and red is so vivid it almost hurts to look at.
Then, as the door opened quietly, Ethan appeared.
Behind him came the Emperor and Argares as well.
“You’re awake.”
Bell stared intently at their vivid faces.
“Little one, you’re up. Aren’t you hungry?”
The Emperor’s eyes and lips curved evenly to match the gentleness in his tone.
‘A good face.’
A smiling face.
Bell’s small mouth opened slowly.
Wide with wonder, her eyes swept restlessly in every direction.
Clear.
The entire world is clear and clean.
She could see people’s faces.
“My little Child of Star.”
Argares, understanding what the child’s gaze meant, lifted her high into his arms.
“It’s thanks to you that you purified the 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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