The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 17

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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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The Abandoned Prince’s Phantom Bride — Episode 17

[……Could something be wrong?]
Caesar had been gone less than ten minutes. Yet an ominous premonition kept gnawing at her. Why?
Lucian was sharp—he wouldn’t do anything reckless. No, wait. He might blunder into beast territory without realizing it.
One thought chained to another, spiraling downward until she imagined him becoming prey, vanishing from the world forever.
[Unlucky thinking.]
It couldn’t happen. Lucian would return safely. He had to.
It wasn’t just what she wished for—it was what must happen. If it didn’t, she didn’t know what she’d do……
Bang—!
“Ghost! This kid’s dying!”
The door flew open as if to shatter, and Caesar appeared. His words scattered her form for an instant.
[Lucian!]
Lia rushed toward Caesar. The Lucian cradled in his arms was utterly transformed from when she’d seen him that afternoon.
Not a part of him was unmarked. His clothes clung thick with mud and sweat. His entire body burned scarlet, and his breath came in ragged gasps.
“This fever is no joke. He’s going to die like this.”
Lia bit her lower lip and lifted Lucian from Caesar’s arms.
Caesar faltered, watching Lucian drift through the air.
Indifferent to whether Caesar saw or not, Lia poured all her focus onto Lucian.
She hurried upstairs to the second floor and ran water in the Bathroom first.
She was too panicked to wield magic properly. Her Mana wouldn’t settle; her hands kept slipping.
Afraid she’d drop him, she set him down on the floor for a moment.
[Damn it! I don’t know how to use Healing Magic!]
The terror that Lucian might truly die seized her.
“Lia…….”
A hoarse, broken voice reached her. Lia looked up at him.
His brilliant golden eyes were swollen shut from how much he’d cried, nearly invisible beneath puffy lids. And tears pooled in the gaps between them.
[Shh, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay now. I’m here.]
“I’m sorry. I said terrible things to you……”
Lia started to snap at him as she usually would, then bit her lip instead.
[No. I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have found you faster. I should have kept you out of the forest in the first place……]
“……Are you forgiving me?”
[Forgive? There’s nothing to forgive. You didn’t do anything wrong. So just rest now. I’ll stay by your side.]
“He, he-he……”
Scraped cheeks, torn lips, puffy eyes—despite his pitiful state, his smile instantly stilled the anxiety roiling in her chest.
Lucian surrendered to sleep, falling into unconsciousness with that smile.
“Hey, ghost. Is the kid all right?”
As she was filling the tub, Caesar slipped in, gauging the situation cautiously.
He looked around the room and Bathroom, so visibly different from before, bewildered.
Lia retrieved the Stone Tablet from the room and wrote on it.
-Thank you. The child lives because of you.
“……Hm. I’ve lived a long time, but never expected to hear you thank me. You never thanked me even once when I brought you gifts.”
Caesar flushed slightly before grumbling with stubborn embarrassment. At that, Lia laughed quietly.
-I know you come for me every time. I’m grateful for that too, obviously.
“Hm-hm! Is that so?”
She owed Caesar greatly. Honestly, without him, she might never have found Lucian.
If Caesar had been human instead of a Dragon, she couldn’t have searched so easily. The fact that he wielded magic so freely as a Dragon made all the difference……
[Oh! That’s right!]
Lia remembered something and hurriedly wrote on the tablet.
-Can you use Healing Magic?
“Healing Magic? Of course. Even among hatchlings, I’m considerably skilled. My mother always said I had a natural gift for magic!”
Perfect timing.
-Then please, heal this child. I can’t possibly do it myself.
“Eeeeck—!”
Caesar made his displeasure openly apparent. His eyes fixed on Lucian with obvious distaste, then he pointed accusingly at the tablet in Lia’s hands.
“You keep forgetting, don’t you? I’m a Dragon?”
-Yes, I know.
“You know, yet you keep sending me on errands! Threatening me constantly! And now you want me to heal some human? Why should I?!”
She’d thought he’d agree readily as he usually did. But apparently he wouldn’t.
“You need to understand I’m being nice to you. Is there another Dragon in this world being dragged around like you are? If my mother found out, she’d burn this Mansion and you along with it.”
[Just when I try to be kind to him, he ruins the mood with that mouth of his.]
“And what is this kid anyway? A human who won’t even live a hundred years! Why do you care so much?!”
[Huh?]
There was something beyond irritation in his tone—something sorrowful. Lia’s eyes widened.
Looking closer, Caesar was sulking, his cheeks puffed out.
What was a nearly three-hundred-year-old doing acting like this?
“You always tell me to scram! You even set my backside on fire at fifty to drive me out! Why does he get special treatment? Love me too!”
Whine, whine, whine—
A Dragon’s petulance exceeded imagination. Worse, he was Polymorphed into an adult male form, so the sight of him sprawled on the floor being stubborn was genuinely appalling.
Lia grasped a fundamental truth: no matter how handsome or beautiful the shell, if the core is childish, it’s worthless.
“Love me too, I’m telling you—!”
The Dragon’s tantrum made the Mansion tremble slightly.
“Mm……”
Finally, Lucian—who’d been sleeping—let out a groan. Lia threw up her hands in surrender.
-All right, all right. I’ll love you!
She thrust the tablet at his face, and like magic, he stopped instantly.
“Really?”
[……I want to punch him.]
Lia suppressed the urge to curse and wrote.
-Yes. I’ll treat you the same as Lucian, so please stop this.
“Who’s Lucian? Oh, you mean this guy?”
When she shook the tablet up and down, Caesar’s lips pouted slightly as he glanced dismissively at Lucian.
Lucian moaned, delirious from fever, unaware of anything.
“If I heal this guy, what will you do for me?”
-Love you, like you asked.
“You’re supposed to do that all the time.”
[This brat. His demands never end.]
-Then what do you want?
“Um…… well……”
[If you don’t know what you want, then just stay quiet! Look at Lucian’s face! He’ll stop breathing in a moment!]
Lucian’s condition worsened by the second while Caesar lounged in leisure. Lia was furious. But with no one else to heal Lucian, she played her last card.
-I’ll give you something.
“Huh?”
-Anything you wanted from the Mansion last time. Pick one thing.
Caesar’s eyes went wide as saucers.
He coveted many things from within the Mansion.
Hard-to-find items, or so he claimed. Either way, he’d long eyed the Mansion’s treasures, and once he’d even stolen something and been soundly punished for it.
Given that history, Lia had ensured he couldn’t touch the Mansion’s belongings. But now she was offering not a loan but an outright gift—Caesar might have thought he’d hit the jackpot.
“You, you, really? You’re not going back on your word?”
-I’m not.
“Then the Raphael Ring!”
[That’s the one I treasure most……]
“No, wait. The Spear of Heavens instead! Weapons made by that craftsman are impossible to find now!”
[……When did you even get into the armory? I never showed you that.]
“Actually, maybe Trin’s Compass? Argh! Which should I pick so people think I chose well?”
[This brat’s trying to strip me clean? How does he keep picking the expensive things I’ve hidden away?]
Caesar agonized, selecting then discarding repeatedly. The longer he deliberated, the worse Lucian’s condition became.
Lia grew restless and snapped her chalk in half.
Screech—screech-screech—!
“Agh! That’s the sound I hate most!”
-I’ll give you anything, just heal him now!
Seeing the letters scrawled in anger, Caesar immediately cowed. He shuffled toward Lucian, grumbling.
“Hmph. Consider it an honor. A Dragon healing a human. Mother will punish me severely for this.”
Despite his words, Caesar’s expression turned grave. His lips parted.
Be healed.
Dragon Language—the exclusive province of Dragons alone.
Magic cast without incantations or circles, wielded through Dragon Language alone.
White, holy light poured from Caesar’s fingertips, seeping into every corner of Lucian’s body. In less than ten seconds, the smallest wounds began closing, then the larger ones.
The torn lip and swollen eyes gradually restored themselves, returning Lucian to a state far healthier than before he’d entered the forest.
His breathing came even and steady.
[Thank goodness……]
She could breathe again. Lia washed Lucian clean. Watching, Caesar leaned against the Bathroom door and asked.
“But really, what is this kid? I’m pretty sure he wasn’t here last time I came. Are you raising a human?”
Now that he mentioned it, she hadn’t told him yet.
Lia wrote on the tablet explaining her relationship with Lucian. Caesar’s delayed reaction came.
“Wh, wh, what?! Married?! To this brat?!”
-Yes. So from now on, don’t treat my husband disrespectfully.
Caesar’s face went slack at the next line.
Thanks to his shock, Lia was able to wash Lucian in peace.

* * *

Whoosh—
A fierce wind cut through the dark forest. Leaves trembled in its wake, eerie sounds echoing. Through it all, Lucian ran blindly.
Gasp, gasp, gasp, hack——!
Behind him, wolves bounded forward, saliva dripping from their fangs.
‘I, I have to get to Lia……!’
He understood instinctively: if the wolves caught him now, he wouldn’t survive.
The moment he turned his eyes forward again, a tree root he hadn’t spotted caught his foot.
Lucian lost his footing and crashed hard.
Stones scattered across the earth drove dull pain through his body.
‘Ugh, it hurts…… aah!’
Pain shot through his knees and palms, drawing groans from him—but only briefly before he realized he was still being hunted. He lifted his head.
Too late. The wolves that had been distant moments ago closed in, surrounding him.
In that moment, the face that flashed in his mind wasn’t his family—faces he’d never seen—but Lia.
‘Lia……!’
Would he die like this? He’d said terrible things to her before they parted. He should have listened to her.
Thump, thump, thump.
Whether his racing heartbeat had been pounding all along or sprang from terror, he couldn’t say.
But one thing was certain: he didn’t want to die like this.
He had to return to Lia, no matter what.
Yet despite his will, his exhausted body wouldn’t move, and tears of reflex blurred his vision.
Growl—
The lead wolf bared its fangs and advanced. Lucian reflexively raised both arms and squeezed his eyes shut.
He’d sensed the end, but no matter how long he waited, pain didn’t come.
Instead, cool wind wrapped gently around his body. When he opened his eyes, the thief from the forest stood before him.
The thief drove back the wolves, then turned to him.
Lucian tensed, waiting to hear what he’d say.
‘Why isn’t he saying anything?’
Huh?
A voice far younger than before reached him. The carismatic face twisted and warped, taking on a strange form.
It looked lizard-like and human all at once—grotesquely in-between.
“Hey! You brat! Get up!”
Lucian’s eyes snapped open at the voice that echoed even to his skull.

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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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