The Baby Has No Strength to Hide! - Chapter 18

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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 18
Ailien stood among the retainers with her arms crossed, utterly unruffled.
“Lili picked the flower! Lili picked it!”
“Young mistress!”
“Thank you, young mistress!”
“Please forgive us for not recognizing you sooner, and for our rudeness.”
“That’s right, you were all terrible to me.”
The Innovator Faction, who had tasted the horrors of war, felt a miraculous liberation that the Traditionalists could never fathom. While the Innovator retainers stood transfixed by the wonder of the Demonic Energy—that terror worse than death itself—washing away, the faces of the Traditionalists watching the scene contorted.
“This is impossible.”
Baron Molton, who had been sitting with a sour expression, shot to his feet and bellowed.
“She must have used some underhanded trick—there’s no other explanation!”
“Underhanded trick?”
Baron Kirain challenged him in turn.
“I’ve been suspicious from the start. If that’s the case, then the young mistress sitting here couldn’t be——”
“Underhanded?”
Ailien cried out loudly.
“Am I being underhanded? Hmm? Is Lili being underhanded? Is that it?”
“No, I didn’t mean——”
Confronted by Ailien’s sparkling eyes and her barrage of questions, Baron Molton lost his words and took a step backward.
“Calisto! He says I’m being underhanded? Am I being underhanded?”
“Not underhanded—remarkable.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?”
“They’re completely different.”
Though Calisto spoke to Ailien in a gentle tone, the look he turned on Baron Molton was glacial. Receiving that gaze, the baron seemed to realize his misstep and hastily bowed his head.
“I apologize for my tardy introduction. I am Baron Kirain.”
“Baron Kirain!”
Ailien clenched both fists and shouted. Calisto found himself oddly distracted by her flushed, plump cheeks.
There was something strange about the direction his thoughts were taking.
“Barons must be in fashion these days!”
True to form, Ailien spun toward Calisto and exclaimed.
“That one’s a baron, and this one’s a baron too!”
“Is that so?”
Sensing she had reached the limit of her patience, Ailien climbed down from the sofa. She then placed her hand on Calisto’s knee and looked up at him with imploring eyes.
“Can Lili be one too?”
“Be what?”
“A baron……”
Calisto realized that the unease he had felt moments before was now manifesting as reality. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his index finger.
“A barony isn’t something just anyone can hold……”
“But Lili is Lili, and she is Zeroniath……”
“What?”
At Ailien’s sudden remark, everyone behind her drew a sharp breath.
***
“That can’t possibly be true.”
After the brief but startling encounter with Ailien and her retainers ended, they all filed into the office of the Rubentain Grand Duke.
Standing before the massive desk, Calisto offered a hollow laugh at the gazes fixed upon him—when was the last time they had looked at him with such clear, bright eyes?
Yet to the question of whether Ailien truly was the next Zeroniath, he replied coldly.
“But, surely——”
The retainers, who had witnessed Ailien’s miracle firsthand, showed no sign of believing Calisto’s words. Their openly skeptical stares left him exasperated.
“You yourself said that Zeroniath had raised her directly……”
“If being raised by Zeroniath makes one Zeroniath, then being raised by a Swordmaster makes one a Swordmaster? In that case, since I’ll be raising Ailien from now on, she’ll become a Swordmaster.”
“That’s hardly what we meant!”
“Enough. Off you go. I may start charging lodging fees soon.”
As Calisto dismissed them, the retainers turned to leave while exchanging loaded glances with one another.
“Let me warn you now: if you pester Ailien, I won’t forgive it.”
Though his tone was listless, his expression bore a chilling sincerity. These were the very people who had been peppering Ailien with questions in the reception hall earlier.
The matter had come to nothing because Ailien had kicked up a fuss about being tired, but given how persistent they were, they had tried to corner the child until finally being forced to send her to the bedroom.
The retainers, who had failed to extract the answers they wanted from Calisto, trudged out of the office. His gaze darkened as he found himself thinking of someone who was absent.
After brooding for some time, Calisto left the office and walked down the corridor. Without Ailien running about, the halls of the Grand Duchy were nothing but silent.
Then something caught his eye.
A single Yellow Flower resting atop an intricately carved Console Table.
“Good heavens.”
One of the servants following Calisto came rushing up in haste.
“You’ve placed it here as well, haven’t you?”
“Here as well?”
“Yes. I found this flower scattered throughout the castle. I wasn’t sure what to do with it…….”
Yet even as he spoke, the glance he cast toward the Grand Duke Calisto’s expression betrayed no real desire to remove it at all.
A single tiny Yellow Flower, placed in this barren ducal residence.
“Leave it.”
“Sir? Yes, sir!”
The servant answered brightly and withdrew with care, and when Calisto resumed his walk, the faintest smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“A single Yellow Flower.”
Calisto’s destination was none other than Ailien’s Bedroom.
Standing before the door, he found himself pausing to draw a steadying breath before opening it. To enter this masterless room required a courage so small it was almost unbearable.
A courage far more delicate and deliberate than the fierce valor with which he charged into battle and cut down his enemies.
Creak.
The well-oiled hinges made barely a sound, yet to Calisto’s ears it seemed like the groaning of a vast fortress gate swinging wide.
As he stepped inside, the first thing to greet him was the soft, golden scent of sunlight. The chamber, which had held only cool stillness in its emptiness for so long, now carried warmth in its air—changed in mere days by Ailien’s presence.
Calisto’s gaze was drawn to the enormous Canopy Bed positioned in the center of the room. Curled like a wisp of spun sugar in its very center lay the small child.
Calisto approached the bedside with utmost care. Ailien had fallen into such a deep sleep that he almost hesitated to draw near.
Her pale, soft belly rose and fell like warming bread, slowly expanding and contracting. Beside her lay a black cat coiled in a ball, while the flying squirrel issued a small chirp of recognition, as if eager to acknowledge him.
Calisto gazed down at the yellow hair spilled carelessly across the white sheets.
‘So small,’ he thought.
He settled himself at the edge of the bed and looked down at the child’s peaceful face. All the grand titles his retainers spoke of—successor to the mighty Zeroniath—seemed utterly hollow before this soft, sleeping breath.
‘Are you the gift Marline left behind for me?’
Had she known, somehow, that I would one day come seeking? Did she place you there for me to find?
Even as he thought it impossible, his eyes held a tender, aching longing. This room had been prepared by Evangeline and him, filled with a desperate hope.
A place kept empty for some beloved who might one day return—and now this child lay sleeping in it.
“…Is that you, Calisto?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Ailien’s eyes fluttered open slowly. Calisto’s heart grew heavy, worried he had disturbed her deep rest, and he gently brushed her yellow hair back from her face.
The child offered a sleepy smile.
“It’s nice.”
“What is?”
“Ailien woke up and someone’s touching her hair like this.”
At words that should have been simple, ordinary, Calisto found himself momentarily at a loss.
“After Marline went away, no one did this for Ailien.”
“I see.”
Calisto answered tersely, but despite the brevity of his reply, heat rose sharply in his throat.
“Say, Calisto?”
“Mm?”
“Does Ailien bother you?”
“Why would you bother me?”
Ailien opened her mouth slightly, then swallowed the words unspoken. She could not bring herself to confess that she was the child who had taken Marline away from them.
“Ailien isn’t anything special. You saved people with flowers, didn’t you?”
“Well, I guess that’s… kind of something.”
The words tumbled out between yawns so endearingly that Calisto could not help but laugh, his gravity forgotten.
“You really are a gift, aren’t you?”
But Ailien, sadly, did not hear those words—she had already drifted back into her peaceful dreams.

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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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