The Baby Raising A Devil - Chapter 125
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 125
Duke Valois chuckled with great amusement before continuing his words.
“That child is living without even knowing who her parents are, having been robbed of everything she should be enjoying right now by you.”
“….”
“It’s all your fault.”
It was a terribly deep voice, as if he were casting a curse.
“My fault?”
“Theodore and Dubbled never gave up hope until you were adopted. They were desperate to find the Fourth Child, deploying most of their secret agents. And this year, after a fake appeared, they completely stopped searching.”
“….”
“If only they hadn’t stopped searching, they could have found the Fourth Child. Isn’t it all your fault?”
“….”
“That child is alive. Someday she’ll return and take everything away from you. Only then will you feel it too. My bitter sorrow…!”
Duke Valois laughed arrogantly.
“The Heretic Trial is where all Five Dukes gather. Your father will be in the courtroom too, won’t he? What would you do if I told him all of this?”
“….”
“The search will start again and you’ll be pushed aside. This time, the real daughter might appear and take back everything you have.”
“….”
“How about it? Will you let me meet Theodore?”
He twisted his lips.
“But if you help me escape, I’ll cover all of this up.”
“….”
Duke Valois came close to the iron bars and whispered.
“The Empire’s greatest wealthy man, beautiful father who only knows you. The affection of brothers so outstanding it’s frightening for the future. A special and wonderful aunt who receives all the attention of the Empire’s citizens. You’ll lose all those special people who tremble at even a single wound on your finger. Now, child. This is your only chance.”
For a moment, my family smiling at me and the people I love flashed through my mind.
I hung my head and muttered weakly.
“…Yes.”
“Good, then quickly help me…!”
“You’re still garbage.”
“…What?”
I suddenly thrust my hand through the iron bars and grabbed him by the collar.
His body, ruined by long torture, couldn’t even shake off a child’s hand.
“If I’m afraid of the Fourth Child returning, I could just kill you here, couldn’t I?”
“M-murder is different from mock battles. Do you think your conscience could handle murder!”
“Hiding that the Fourth Child is alive is a sin against my family, and if I’m conscienceless enough to handle that, then even murder wouldn’t matter. Right?”
“You, you…!”
“Isn’t this guy an idiot.”
When I let out a hollow laugh and spoke, Duke Valois stiffened rigidly.
This kind of intimidation was something I had grown sick of hearing in my second life.
“Since you still haven’t been able to draw upon divine power, the fact that you’re a fake will soon be revealed to the entire world. The Temple will abandon you, and even the Empress Dowager will no longer protect you. I have prepared an ‘experiment’ for such a you.”
That’s how he cornered me and achieved his desires.
‘But do you think I’ll fall for it again this time?’
“If you kill me when I’m scheduled to undergo a heretic trial, you’ll have to spend your whole life being chased by the Imperial Guards. If you’re caught, even your precious father won’t be able to clean up the mess!”
“Wouldn’t it be the same even if I release mister?”
“Does that mean I don’t have to answer your questions anymore?”
I smiled brightly.
“Why did you create and send Mireille? To shake up Dubbled? No, if you knew Fourth Child’s whereabouts, you wouldn’t have dangerously created Mireille, but would have threatened us by taking the real Fourth Child hostage.”
“…!”
“With your personality, whether using alchemy or conducting experiments, you would have turned Fourth Child into a puppet and used her, right?”
Duke Valois’s brow furrowed. Having lived as his daughter in my second life, I knew this was evidence that he was flustered.
“What I was curious about was why you specifically chose ‘Mireille’ as Fourth Child’s substitute.”
“….”
“Mireille was your lover, wasn’t she? So you knew very well that she wasn’t the perfect person to act as Fourth Child. Why did you specifically send her as Fourth Child only to have her exposed? I was curious about that, but I’ve already heard the answer.”
The words he used to threaten me were enough to understand his purpose.
“…What?”
“You wanted to make me anxious, right?”
He stiffened and swallowed dryly.
“If I stayed under Dubbled’s protection, you wouldn’t be able to extract me, so you wanted to make me anxious enough to voluntarily take someone’s hand.”
When I was young, someone called a ‘client’ had tried to kidnap me.
Since they failed then and nearly got their tail caught, they changed their approach.
To make me voluntarily take their hand.
After pushing him away, I dusted off my hands and laughed.
“That means there’s something about me that I don’t know. Something very desperately desired by whoever is controlling you.”
“Cunning wench….”
“Now there’s only one thing I need to hear. Who’s the one controlling you?”
Duke Valois flinched and stepped back.
“Do you think I would tell you that?”
I smiled sweetly.
Even without looking in a mirror, I could tell. That I was making an expression very similar to that Duke Valois.
Since I had learned it by watching him in my second life.
“We have plenty of time. Let’s ‘experiment’ to see just how much pain a person can endure.”
When I signaled to Glashalabolas, Duke Valois’s face turned pale.
Soon the prison reeked of blood, and tearing screams echoed throughout.
Duke Valois only confessed when he had been reduced to something barely human.
“Igor Marche!!”
The father of Empress Yvonne, and the Empress Dowager’s cousin.
The name of an absolute power holder who surpassed even Dubbled.
I hardened my expression, and Duke Valois desperately crawled over and begged.
“Isn’t this enough now? Please spare me. Please save me…!”
“…”
“Please…”
“Please save me, Father. Please save me!”
Over his face, the image of myself from my second life, who had wailed, overlapped.
I stared at him intently and spoke to the demon.
“I’ll grant your wish. Take that deep and dark resentment that’s so sickeningly persistent.”
Glashalabolas’s lips curved up in a bloody smile.
I left the prison without regret. Behind me, desperate death throes followed.
Duke Valois was disguised as having taken his own life before the heresy trial.
Taking one’s own life before a heresy trial was tantamount to confessing to using forbidden power, so Valois could not avoid complete destruction.
However, only Hayton and Nils, who had reported their own father, were able to escape the storm.
* * *
The trial ended anticlimactically. Duke Valois’s corpse was hung on the castle wall, and people threw stones even at the corpse.
“Pathetic man. How can the children who had such a person as their father live?”
When Marquis Mirosen clicked his tongue, the nobles who had gathered for the heresy trial added their comments one by one.
“In any case, it’s fortunate that the children didn’t witness the trial. I was concerned about calling young children as witnesses. Heresy trials are too horrific for children to see.”
Count Wenis looked at me sitting quietly beside Father.
As the owner of the Valois Ducal Residence, I was scheduled to attend as a witness.
I stood up pretending to know nothing.
“Father, shall we return to the mansion now?”
“Go back first.”
“What about you, Father?”
“I have matters to discuss with the nobles.”
It would be about the Valois Duchy.
Since the family was destroyed, someone would have to take over the duchy.
Valois Territory wasn’t as vast as Dubbled Territory or as fertile as Marche Territory, but as a duchy, it was an appealing place.
‘Since Duke Grimoire and Duke Amitie didn’t come here despite the imperial command, either Father or Marche will end up taking it.’
I silently cheered for Father with all my heart.
If Father came to own Valois Castle, I would be able to come and go easily.
‘I need to find out what’s there.’
There might be something related to the Fourth Child somewhere.
‘No, given Duke Valois’s personality, he would never have completely trusted even Duke Marche. He must have set up some device to bind Marche.’
I whispered to the Chief Chamberlain beside me.
“We must obtain the Valois Territory by any means necessary. First, try to squeeze them with Spinel.”
“Yes.”
I greeted Father and left the courtroom with the Chief Chamberlain.
‘Why did Marche target me?’
If it were the shrine or the Imperial Family, I could understand. I was the Child of Fate, after all.
But to Marche, I was rather an unhelpful existence.
Duke Marche was just as fed up as the Emperor with the Empress Dowager’s deep religious devotion that sometimes caused trouble. So he was never on good terms with the shrine.
‘That’s why the Empress Dowager excluded her own family, Marche, when deciding on my adoption.’
As I walked lost in thought, I bumped into something.
“Ah!”
“Oh my.”
As I rubbed my forehead, someone extended their hand to me.
“Are you alright?”
When I looked up, a kind-faced old man was extending his hand toward me.
‘Duke Marche!’
I was startled, but quickly composed my expression and smiled innocently.
“I apologize, Your Grace.”
He chuckled as he watched me bow politely. Behind him were Empress Yvonne and a man in a black hat who appeared to be an adjutant.
Empress Yvonne introduced me.
“This is Lady Dubbled.”
“Ah, that Child of Fate. I get to meet such a famous person. How delightful.”
“I wanted to meet you too.”
“You wanted to meet me?”
“North said that Your Grace is a wonderful person called the Shield of the Empire.”
“Eugene North, you say…”
He chuckled and nodded.
“It was regrettable to lose him.”
“You know North?”
Just as I deliberately widened my eyes.
“Leblaine.”
Father, who had been watching me from afar, approached.
“It’s been a while, Duke Dubbled.”
“Yes.”
“Your words are as brief as ever. You haven’t changed from when you were young to now. Even when I first saw you with your father at the Eternal Moon Festival, I thought you were an interesting person.”
Then Empress Yvonne smiled and replied.
“The first meeting wasn’t at the Eternal Moon Festival. There was one before that. Remember when the young ladies and masters fought in the shopping district over the ‘Three Young Masters of Flowers,’ each claiming that the young master they followed was the best, and your father had to settle it?”
“The Three Young Masters of Flowers… Ah, yes! You were ‘My Lord of the Blue Rose’!”
What’s ‘My Lord of the Blue Rose’?
I looked at Father with a bewildered expression, but Father’s expression was terrifying.
“…?”
Duke Marche burst into hearty laughter.
“Your father was quite popular when he was young. Young ladies used to call him that.”
“Ah….”
As I muttered, Duke Marche continued.
“Princess Ingrid was also quite smitten with you, the Blue Rose. Ah, I mean the current Marchioness Nodelli.”
I glanced back at Father, and Father gritted his teeth.
“Please stop talking about that in front of my daughter.”
‘Since he said the Three Young Masters of Flowers, there must be two other people, right?’
Who are the other two?
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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