The Baby Raising A Devil - Chapter 179

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 179

When I opened the gift box, a gem the size of a newborn’s fist was revealed.

A deep and vivid red color as if blood had been condensed. At first glance it looked like a ruby, but having lived in the shrine during my first and second lives, I knew better. This was spinel. Red Spinel.

It was commonly mined from the spinel mine owned by the shrine, and unlike Blue Spinel which could contain divine power, it had no special function.

Because of this, the miners called Red Spinel waste.

“Wait, Leblaine. That’s─”

I heard Adrian’s voice, but I reached my hand toward the gem.

It felt the same as when I touched the Newit that had unlocked my power. As if someone was controlling my body, my hand moved without my will.

The moment my finger touched the gem.

Boom─!

A tremendous roar came from all directions as if heaven and earth were shaking.

A blinding light burst forth from the gem, and the light soon wrapped around my entire body like shackles.

In an instant, strength drained from my body. The small amount of power I had absorbed through the mana stone was swallowed by the gem in the blink of an eye.

“Urgh…!”

My head felt like it would split, and my breath was cut short. Blood rushed to my head as if my throat was being strangled.

[That chestnut-like thing… eat it… I wonder.]

[Hello, Leblaine… muddy.]

[My Little One… ka!]

[Regardless of your purpose, I… meaning.]

[Called Lea… Young Lady.]

The distorted voices of my family members and Lea passed through my mind one by one.

I knew this sensation. The problem was that I knew it all too well.

When regression begins.

A tinnitus like a warning alarm rang violently in my head.

‘Stop, no…!’

Even my voice wouldn’t come out. Just as the tears that filled my eyes were about to fall.

“Leblaine!”

Adrian pulled me into his embrace.

As soon as I felt the warm embrace behind my back, the warning alarm that had taken over my mind suddenly stopped.

My breath returned and the light that had bound my entire body faded away.

Then, just as my body felt like it was floating, my vision went dark.

* * *

At that moment, Johan, the Eldest Son of Dubbled, arrived at the abandoned village.

Those who became slash-and-burn farmers due to the tyranny of lords, those who lost their homes due to wars with foreign tribes, those who committed crimes and hid in the darkness, and so on.

This shantytown where those with nowhere to stay gathered to live was called the ‘Abandoned Village’ by people.

The Dubbled Knights who accompanied Johan knocked on the door of a house made by roughly weaving together planks and cloth.

After a while, a man wrapped in shabby blankets slightly lifted the tent flap with a wary expression.

“Who goes there.”

“Are you the village chief of the Abandoned Village?”

“Village chief, what… Would there be a village chief in a place like this? I’m just an old man who’s lived here the longest.”

“Whatever works. I need help. I’m looking for someone.”

Johan pulled out a small portrait from inside his robe.

“It’s a portrait from 5 or 6 years ago, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to recognize.”

The man, wearing broken glasses hanging around his neck, took the portrait with trembling hands affected by hand tremors.

The man, who had been examining the portrait closely with narrowed eyes, shook his head.

“Well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone like this.”

“He was a caregiver. Haven’t you heard of him?”

“I told you I’ve neither seen nor heard of him. Look here. Most of this village consists of those who committed crimes and hid away. Would such a person easily reveal their identity? Moreover, if he’s a successful caregiver, word might leak out, so there’s no way he’d confess—”

Before the old man could finish speaking, Johan grabbed his throat with one hand.

With a thud, the old man who was pushed against the wall struggled greatly.

“Why, why are you doing this!”

“I said the person in the portrait was a caregiver, but I never said he was a successful caregiver.”

Anyone can get a job at private or public orphanages, but national orphanages are different.

Since the national orphanages directly under the Imperial Palace are managed by people sent from the Imperial Palace’s Administrative Department, caregivers at national orphanages were officials receiving the nation’s salary.

That’s why people called caregivers at national orphanages ‘successful caregivers.’

“Th-that’s…!”

“You’d better speak quickly. My patience isn’t very long.”

When killing intent appeared in Johan’s gaze, the man’s eyes shook violently.

“The mountain cabin below. He’s teaching the children of this village there…”

Only then did Johan release the strength from his hand.

The knights who checked the map nodded.

“It’s not far from here.”

“Let’s go.”

The man who had collapsed on the floor, coughing and wheezing, shouted.

“Why on earth are you looking for him!”

“…”

“He did commit a crime and flee to this village, but he’s not a bad person. He has such an upright nature that residents who’ve been through all sorts of hardships trust him enough to entrust their children to him. Ashital is!”

Johan answered flatly.

“I won’t harm him. If he tells the truth.”

Ashital Duval was a clue he had barely found.

Johan had thoroughly searched the orphanages near the Imperial Capital where Leblaine had stayed, but couldn’t find any particular peculiarities.

Just when he was thinking that Father’s speculation wasn’t true after all, he realized something strange.

There were no life records that every orphanage child should have.

To be precise, there were no living records until she was two years old.

What people commonly call a diary is sometimes used when a child goes for adoption, but its most important role is serving as supporting documents when the country provides subsidies to orphanages.

Private orphanages don’t have direct government oversight like national ones, but they do receive subsidies.

There were even pieces of trash who created orphanages for the purpose of subsidies.

So the diary meant it was data they would rather forge and create additionally than absolutely never record.

“They said Leblaine was abandoned at the orphanage as soon as she was born. But why are there no records until she was two?”

“That’s… No, Young Master, please don’t glare at me like that. It’s not that we didn’t write it, but when the Young Lady was sent from the national orphanage to this place, it was omitted…”

“National? She was at a national orphanage? I never heard such a story.”

“It’s not particularly good news, so there was no need to mention it… Wait, wait! Put down your sword. I’ll tell you. I said I would! So there’s a secret between orphanages…”

“A secret between orphanages?”

“National orphanages must somehow maintain an adoption rate of over 90%. Otherwise, the administrators get replaced. So they send problematic children to private orphanages, and this isn’t a bad thing for private orphanages. The money they receive when national orphanages send children is quite substantial.”

“…”

“So everyone keeps quiet about moving children around between national and private orphanages. Especially from the Imperial Palace, it’s absolutely secret.”

The fact that Leblaine was moved around like garbage disposal even in the orphanages, or used as a trading tool by dirty adults, was a terrible thing.

Though anger surged, what was more important was that Leblaine was from a national orphanage.

He immediately searched for the national orphanage where Leblaine supposedly lived, but that place had already closed several years ago.

The caregivers from that time didn’t remember Leblaine.

“Well, I’m not sure. Even if you say it’s a child who was transferred to a private orphanage… There are quite many such cases.”

“The record keeper? Of course, the child’s assigned caregiver does that. Raising newborns is such hard work that newcomers do it.”

“Let me see. The newcomer at that time was… Ah! Ashital. That guy, he had no skills so he only got the hard jobs.”

He finally found out about the caregiver who was supposedly in charge of Leblaine.

This person was the last clue.

Johan walked for a long time with the knights toward the bottom of the mountain. In the distance, a shabby hut could be faintly seen.

* * *

“…aine. Leblaine!”

Someone shook me awake.

Coming to my senses, I forcibly lifted my extremely heavy eyelids.

Before I could even look around, a groan naturally escaped. My whole body ached as if I’d been beaten.

‘This is strange. It hurts much more than when I usually collapsed from lack of divine power?’

Usually it aches like having a cold, but this time it stings like I really got beaten up.

When I looked down at my most painful arm, blood showed through my dress.

‘I’m really hurt! No, blood aside, why am I soaking wet?’

Come to think of it, my whole body is shivering.

I rubbed my arm and turned my head. Adrian, who was similarly soaked with water, was looking at me.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. But where is this place? Weren’t we at the Imperial Palace?”

I looked around. This was a cave I’d never seen before.

“I don’t know. You collapsed and we moved to this place. It seems like it was because of Blasio’s gem that you touched. We got swept away by rapids as soon as we moved. We barely got out of the water and came here.”

“You saved me. Thank you…”

I always seem to cause trouble for Adrian.

When I became dejected, Adrian said.

“It’s okay. More than that, I think we should first figure out where we are.”

“I have a communication stone. Since it has tracking magic on it, if I contact my family…”

I said that while taking out the communication stone.

But something was strange. The communication wouldn’t connect.

Adrian shook his head.

“I tried to communicate with the Imperial Palace too, but it’s been completely dead.”

“B-but it’ll be okay! If the gem is a magic tool from the temple, we couldn’t have moved very far. They can’t do long-distance transportation.”

And if it’s a mountain in the Imperial Capital, it can only be Mount Redgus behind our mansion.

‘I just need to go down and return to the mansion.’

“Let’s go.”

When I spoke, Adrian got up following me.

We walked the mountain path together.

But the further we went, the more I was gripped by a strange sense of unease.

‘Mount Redgus is this vast?’

Moreover, haro flowers were blooming. A whole lot of them too.

I quickly covered my nose with my sleeve.

I had a severe haro flower allergy. My family, who are the most particular about my health in the world, couldn’t tolerate even a single haro flower in the vicinity and had completely eliminated all the haro flowers that bloomed on the mountain.

“This isn’t the vicinity of the Imperial Capital…”

When I said that, Adrian furrowed his brow and looked somewhere.

When I turned my gaze following Adrian, what I saw was…

‘Dubbled Castle.’

The castle in our territory.

We moved this far away?

‘That can’t be. The temple shouldn’t be able to do long-distance transportation.’

That’s when it happened.

“Who goes there!”

Along with a sharp shout, footsteps could be heard from all directions. When I hastily turned my head, what I saw was.

“…Lea?”

Lea, covered in blood, was pointing her sword at us.

But…

“Why do you look so young?”

“What nonsense are you…”

Lea frowned and continued speaking fiercely.

“How did you get into the mountain? Are you the Previous Duke’s lackeys? If you don’t want to spill all your guts, you’d better talk obediently.”

“You shouldn’t say such cruel things in front of the Young Lady.”

Our Lea saying such words…

As my mouth fell open in shock, a woman wearing a robe pulled low over her head rushed toward Lea.

“What are you doing? We need to find a place for the birth right now!”

“But, Sister. These people are…”

Sister? Could it be that Reina who supposedly died protecting Lady Lisette and Baby Bird?

“Such a young child couldn’t be an enemy. Hurry up. Lady Lisette’s condition is serious.”

The woman who had turned deathly pale bit her lips tightly.

Only then did I realize.

The Red Spinel had transported Adrian and me.

To the past when Baby Bird was about to be born!

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————