The Baby Raising A Devil - Chapter 271

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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 271

I looked at Duke Amitie with a hardened expression. Though I had suspected it might be possible, confirming that he truly had memories of the first life made my heart feel like it was sinking.

When the disturbance occurred in the shopping district, Duke Amitie had been holding my wrist.

Did he also see the flashbacks that appeared in my mind at that time? Or does he know even more than what the flashbacks showed?

What does he mean by illusion? Are memories of the first life gradually surfacing triggered by the flashbacks? How much does he know from where to where? Don’t tell me he came to confront me about why I, a fake, am deceiving the people by pretending to be real?

Questions and anxiety tangled chaotically in my head.

‘Calm down!’

I tried desperately to chase away the anxiety while staring wide-eyed.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I just need to deny it completely.

Duke Amitie is someone who has rumors circulating that he dies if he tells lies, but even so, no one would believe words like ‘I saw in an illusion that Lady Dubbled seems to be my daughter.’

‘If Duke Amitie is in his right mind, he would never say such things.’

Wouldn’t it be no different from stepping forward and advertising that he’s a madman?

“I see illusions of you calling me father.”

…Is he really insane?

I looked at the Duke with an expression of disbelief. Since I was genuinely flabbergasted, it wasn’t too difficult to put on that expression.

This should be enough to make him close his mouth out of embarrassment, but Duke Amitie was truly a formidable opponent.

“You were a good child. So much so that the current you couldn’t even imagine.”

“…”

“You knew how to consider the people’s pain as your own pain, knew how to share even a piece of bread from your arms, and knew how to think of others’ desperation before your own personal desires.”

“…”

“That you called me father. With a truly happy expression.”

He looked at me frantically. As if overlapping the me from the first life with the current me.

“Leblaine, so what I want to say is…”

“Me.”

“What?”

“I don’t understand at all what Your Excellency is saying to me. But still.”

“…”

“Was I in Your Excellency’s illusion really happy?”

Duke Amitie’s gaze wavered, and I muttered weakly.

“I don’t think so.”

“…”

Back then, I was truly a good child. A desperately good child who treasured my first parents so much.

The me of this life is probably a bad child. No, I certainly am. I’ve become someone who values myself more than others, who finds my family’s smiles more important than others’ desperation, and who’s allergic to words like justice or sacrifice.

But I was happier now. I preferred being a bad child over being a good child.

“I know how difficult it is to maintain justice. That righteous and good things receive praise because they’re difficult. So Your Excellency is truly a wonderful person, but still.”

“…”

“You wouldn’t set aside all your work and stay up all night feeling my forehead when I’m sick like our father does. Because you have other values that are much more important than me.”

“….”

“Our father may be a bad person in the world’s eyes. But he’s someone who becomes a fool for me. He’s someone for whom no value is more precious than his children.”

“….”

“That’s why I don’t want to become the daughter of a duke.”

Duke Amitie was silent. He looked at me with a strange expression. It was a very confused look that seemed both flustered and wronged.

“Leblaine.”

At the voice coming from afar, I quickly raised my head. It was Father.

“Ah!”

My expression instantly brightened as I hurriedly ran to him. When I reached his knees, he lifted me up in his arms.

In mid-air, Father’s and Duke Amitie’s gazes collided.

The Duke’s gaze trembled faintly as he looked at me in Father’s arms. After moving his lips several times, he spoke to me.

“See you again.”

Father answered in my place.

“Nonsense.”

“…It seems your family house needs something from me.”

‘What?’

How did he know that?

I opened my eyes wide, and Duke Amitie spoke to Father while keeping his gaze fixed on me.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to get from me, but I’ll give it.”

Really? Then if I ask him to cry, will he cry for me?

When I opened my eyes round, Duke Amitie nodded as if answering my question.

“However, there’s a condition.”

A cold wind blew between Father and me as we heard his next words.

* * *

That night. I looked at my brothers who had returned home with narrowed eyes.

‘No matter how I think about it, it’s Isaac.’

The person who got caught by Duke Amitie, I mean.

Johan and Henri were excessively thorough people. Even if Duke Amitie noticed something, they would have made it so he couldn’t be certain it was Dubbled.

Isaac looked at me with a bewildered expression.

“Why?”

“What did you do to Duke Amitie?”

“What do you mean what did I do. You said you needed tears. So I did something that would make tears come out.”

“So what exactly did you do.”

“I bribed some kids that Duke Amitie obviously couldn’t do anything to. I told them to poke his eyeballs.”

“What?”

“Setting a fire or sprinkling pepper might make some tears come out, but not enough to fill a bottle. But if you poke the eyeballs, either blood or tears, something will definitely flow out.”

He was very triumphant. I was so dumbfounded that I gaped my mouth open and closed.

“Idiot! That’s why Duke Amitie noticed something suspicious!”

As I fumed, Isaac waved his hands as if he felt wronged.

“It wasn’t me who got caught. I made sure the children kept their mouths shut thoroughly.”

However, my family members, including myself, looked at him with expressions of distrust.

I let out a deep sigh and told my brothers about what happened today.

Duke Amitie had come to see me, and said he saw me from my first life in a vision.

And that he knew Dubbled had something he needed, and if we wanted, he would give it to us, along with his conditions.

“…He wants to spend a day with Little One?”

Isaac frowned as if he couldn’t believe it, and the other family members’ expressions weren’t good either.

I let out a hmm and sighed.

“Not the whole day, just while the sun is up, so exactly half a day.”

“Half a day or whatever, tell him to stop talking nonsense.”

“He said as long as it’s outside a 2km radius, I can have as many guards as I want, and I can carry a teleportation array. If the Duke becomes suspicious, I can run away anytime.”

Henri, who had narrowed his brow, asked.

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to go?”

“The conditions are good though?”

“What?”

“Look here. The Duke said I can run away anytime if I become suspicious.”

I grinned and giggled.

“Suspicion is subjective, right? I can spend about an hour with him, then make up some weird reason and run away, and he won’t be able to do anything about it.”

By investing just one hour, if I can obtain the tears, I can return to my previous body.

Isaac said with a sullen expression.

“What if the Duke changes his mind and says he can’t grant it?”

“He absolutely won’t change his word.”

He’s someone who would rather die than tell a lie. Because his ideals are too precious to him.

Henri looked at Father.

“Do you trust Amitie’s words?”

“I don’t trust Amitie. However.”

He looked at me.

“I trust my child.”

I giggled and hugged Father’s neck.

‘See, I’m much happier now.’

What I wanted wasn’t a heroic father praised by everyone. I wanted a father who would trust his child, even if he himself felt anxious and afraid.

That’s why I absolutely didn’t want to lose today’s me.

* * *

Duke Amitie watched the child trudging out with a gloomy expression like a child being dragged to the dentist.

The child saw him waiting at the entrance of the forest and let out a deep sigh.

The Duke, who had been leaning against a tree, straightened his posture and asked.

“You must have had trouble sleeping.”

“Yes. I didn’t want to come out.”

“….”

The child was excessively honest. She truly didn’t want to come out, frowning with all sorts of expressions, and walked keeping a distance.

He knew she wouldn’t like today’s meeting. Even so, confirmation was necessary.

Whether the tenderness he felt every time he saw the child in his visions was a mistake or real.

Ever since the shopping district incident, he kept seeing visions of the child.

When passing by the temple, he would think of a child around fifteen, clutching a book bundle and walking while watching for others’ reactions.

In the empty room of his mansion, he would think of a child who smiled bashfully when their eyes met.

In the shopping district, in the Imperial Palace, and even at the altar…

[Oh, you came, Father.]

[It suddenly started raining… I’m sorry. For coming without telling you…]

[Ah, Father! …No. It was nothing important. I’m sorry.]

At such times, his heart would strangely ache. Since he couldn’t understand the reason at all, he needed time with the child.

This forest was the place that made his chest feel most suffocated among all the places where visions appeared.

Wenton Forest.

It was a place where those who didn’t have enough money to enter the shopping district but needed a way to make a living did business in small huts or food stalls.

“Shall we have a meal first?”

“I already ate. With Papa.”

“Would you like some juice at least?”

“I drank some. With Papa.”

“There’s a bookstore nearby, shall we go to the bookstore?”

“Papa bought me lots of books.”

There was absolutely no opening for conversation.

After walking in silence for a while, Duke Amitie glanced at the child.

“Do you dislike me that much?”

“Yes.”

“….”

“Why?”

“…Never mind.”

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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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