The Baby Has No Strength to Hide! - Chapter 15

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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 15
The atmosphere in the Reception Room had grown heavy. On any other day, the space would have been filled with discussions of the Territory’s affairs, voices overlapping in casual debate. Today was altogether different.
Several of the retainers bore furrowed brows or pressed their fingers to their temples. They were knights of the Emerging Faction who had been exposed to Demon Energy on the front lines of the Human-Demon War. The chronic headaches from Demon Energy Addiction seemed to be setting in, yet the Traditionalist nobles who had summoned them appeared indifferent, sitting in silence and merely sipping their tea.
Most striking of all was the sour, weathered expression of Baron Molton, seated by the window.
He set down his teacup with an irritable clink and opened his mouth.
“I confess, I cannot fathom what Your Grace is thinking.”
The sharp edge in his voice drew every eye toward him.
“To bring an unknown scrap of a child into the city? And as if that were not enough, to grant the brat a fine chamber? The honor of the Grand Ducal House is being dragged through the mud.”
He habitually smoothed back the wisps of hair he’d combed over to conceal his bare crown, then clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“Well said!”
As Baron Molton voiced his discontent so openly, the Traditionalists nodded in agreement. Count Jenno seemed the most delighted among them.
Yet the Emerging Faction exchanged glances that suggested they saw no need for such bluntness.
“I’m not even certain this child was truly raised by Zeronias. Look at her—cunning as they come, clearly angling for His Grace’s favor on purpose. For all we know, she’s some remnant left behind by the Demon Race…….”
“That remark is excessive, sir.”
“What?”
Baron Molton’s face contorted with rage. It was Baron Kirein, the linchpin of the Emerging Faction, who had stepped in to check him.
“I observed her only briefly, but she hardly struck me as such a child.”
“Do you have children? What authority do you have to speak so confidently?”
“Suppose, as Baron Molton suggests, that the child were indeed a trace left by the Demon Race. Would that not mean His Grace had fallen prey to their shallow schemes?”
“Hm.”
The cool rebuttal gave Baron Molton pause. He clamped his mouth shut—after all, to suspect his lord’s judgment was to forfeit any standing. Yet his sidelong gaze never wavered.
He had never warmed to that young man.
For the upstart to receive a barony simply because he’d distinguished himself in war—it was preposterous. The House of Molton possessed both tradition and substance; they had served the Rubentains as their lords since the days when Rubentain was a duchy.
The notion that someone who’d spent his days wallowing on the battlefield now wielded equal voice to him was beneath contempt.
And the way he moped about with his aftereffects and ailments—it was absurd, no matter how much the Grand Duke himself had permitted it.
“His Grace appears to be taking a stroll.”
Just then, Count Sorenin, the youngest among the retainers, ventured a comment, as if to clear the air. As though by prior arrangement, they all rose and moved toward the window.
The towering pillar that upheld the north of the Empire—Calisto Rubentain.
Standing alone in the center of the garden, his very presence dominated the air around him. Each time the wind stirred, his golden hair caught the light with a brilliance like molten gold. In stark contrast, his Military Uniform, dark as pitch, encased his powerful frame.
As Calisto wandered through the garden, his footsteps abruptly ceased. His gaze fixed on something ahead. Then, dropping to one knee, he spread both arms wide.
From not far away, a bundle of golden fur came scurrying toward him. Behind it, a cat followed with aristocratic grace.
“It appears young master is here as well.”
Calisto and Ailene were pressed forehead to forehead, engaged in some animated conversation, while Kaiuss stood a little behind them, watching the scene with a complicated expression.
“Ahem.”
Someone behind them cleared their throat softly. It was a peaceful tableau—the sort that made the heart ache with longing. The Emerging Faction retainers, seeing their lord at rest after his time upon the battlefield, momentarily forgot the bitter strife that had filled the Reception Room moments before and gazed out the window, transfixed.
“I say, the clothes are quite filthy, aren’t they?”
The Traditionalists, however, harbored different sentiments.
“Good heavens, how has our young master come to such a state? A person of such refinement, rolling through mud puddles like a common child—how unseemly! It seems the stone that came rolling in is proving to be a corrupting influence, just as I feared.”
“Indeed. One can scarcely find a trace of dignity in that display.”
To the Traditionalist nobles, the child was nothing but an uninvited guest disrupting the order of the Grand Ducal House. A gnawing anxiety—that she might contaminate the virtuous before she could be expelled like some base affliction—set their eyes alight with resentment.
Yet the Emerging Faction possessed a different view.
They were men who had spent long years in the trenches, steeped in blood and earth.
That their lord—who had commanded the battlefield with killer’s eyes—could wear such an unguarded expression now struck them with an almost tremulous sense of relief.
Even young master Kaiuss, whose face had always been honed sharp as a blade, now bore a peculiar vitality—not corrupted by her presence, but visibly healthier for it.
They could not tear their eyes from this unexpected, achingly human spectacle of the Rubentain they had never before witnessed.
***
Calisto, standing in the garden, found himself doubting his own eyes.
A small child, caked entirely in mud. Golden hair, once carefully brushed and bound, now tangled haphazardly with leaves. Her clothing had long since surrendered any claim to its original color.
She looked as though she’d just emerged from wallowing in a mudpit.
Her cheeks, streaked with dirt, bore a scrape. Calisto touched her cheek gently and spoke.
“Ailene?”
At the sound of his voice, the child’s head snapped up.
“Cal!”
Ailene’s face blazed with joy, as though she held the whole world in her hands. Without thinking, he spread his arms wide to receive her.
She came rushing toward Calisto but stopped just short of him. He had anticipated the warmth of her rushing into his embrace, so he dropped his arms awkwardly instead.
“What on earth have you done to yourself?”
“Ha-ha-ha!”
To his question, Ailene only laughed heartily. She even thrust her round belly forward with obvious pride.
Watching her sway her hips in delight, Calisto carefully reached a hand toward her head.
He meant to pick out the leaves tangled there.
Ailene squeezed her eyes shut and thrust her head forward. Startled by the child’s sudden movement, Calisto Rubentain picked a leaf from her hair.
“My hair too!”
“What?”
“Liri’s hair is coming undone!”
Ailene began shaking her head left and right with careless abandon. The twin braids came loose and flew about wildly. Seeing how one side had already begun to unravel, Calisto’s expression softened.
So she was asking me.
Calisto Rubentain.
“You want me to tie your hair?”
“Tight!”
Calisto found himself quite bewildered by the sudden turn of events. Right, just tie it more firmly—that was all—but his hands hovered uncertainly in the air, searching for where to begin, for he had never done such a thing before.
If Evangeline had been here, she would have managed it with ease. Or he could have simply called for a maid or attendant. But he found himself unable to summon anyone else. That small crown of her head, trusting him so completely, was far too precious.
Calisto finally rolled up the sleeves of his Military Uniform. Those enormous hands that had cut down tens of thousands of Demon Race across battlefields now approached the child’s fragile hair with the utmost care. With the gravity of executing the world’s most critical operation, he began fumbling delicately with her locks.

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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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