The Baby Raising A Devil - Chapter 32
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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 32
Really?
You’re giving this as a gift?
A deed?
And it’s the deed to the biggest toy store in the shopping district?
Calm down. I need to calm down.
If I swallow something this terrifying, my throat might tear apart.
As a fake Child of Fate, I know all too well how painful it becomes the moment you possess something beyond your capabilities.
I can’t exactly pack this up and take it with me when I flee into exile.
Since young me can’t operate such a big store, the palace’s management would handle it instead. So it’s money I can’t touch anyway.
The moment I try to sell it for cash, the Duke would find out and my exile plan would be exposed instantly.
With tears of blood in my heart, I carefully put the documents back and held them out to the Duke.
“You can’t read the letters, can you.”
When the Duke spoke arrogantly, Lea smiled warmly and said, “I’ll read it for her.”
“Oh my, this is a toy store deed, Young Lady!”
I spoke in a gloomy voice.
“Lebu doesn’t want this.”
“It’s not just paper, Young Lady. With this, you can have all the toys in the store, you know?”
I shook my head with a sad expression.
“I don’t like this… I like regular toys better.”
Then I heard small chuckles from around me.
Henri and Isaac were looking at the Duke with cunning faces while wrapping their arms around my shoulders.
“A shopping district deed doesn’t really appeal to a young child.”
“Mm, that’s right. A bow or dress would make her happier.”
The Duke looked like he’d been struck by lightning. But the Young Masters smiled brightly while keeping me in their embrace.
“Let’s go to your room, Leblaine.”
“Yeah, we’ll tuck you in.”
As I weakly followed the Young Masters, I heard the Duke’s low voice behind me.
“Bring me the list of those who handled this matter.”
It seemed there was another incident at the palace that I didn’t know about.
* * *
I woke up before dawn and secretly slipped out of bed.
‘Good, I’ve got the bow Isaac gave me.’
Just in case, I even put the tracking magic device Lea had given me safely in my pocket.
Since there’s someone targeting me enough to let human traffickers infiltrate even inside the palace, I need to be careful.
I stealthily walked into the underground prison.
Though soldiers were patrolling, I succeeded in sneaking in by reviving my experience from my beggar days when I was called a mouse.
Of course, lockpicking was also a skill I learned from my Beggar Gang companion.
“Seria.”
When I called out quietly, she lifted her head from where she was crouched.
“Young Lady…!”
“Shh!”
When I put my index finger to my lips, Seria flinched and lowered her voice.
“What brings you here?”
“There’s somewhere to go with Seria.”
I took the hand of Seria, who was blinking as if she couldn’t understand, and left the prison.
The place I brought her to was a prison cell in the most remote corner of the underground.
Through the iron bars came a terrible groan that sounded like scraping metal.
Seria gasped when she saw the figure inside the iron bars.
“Jacob…!”
She looked at me with an expression asking why I had brought her here.
I shrugged with a nonchalant voice, saying “I told you, I’d help.”
“But it should be locked.”
“I don’t think so.”
Then I opened the door.
“How…!”
Jacob never revealed who the ‘client’ was until the end. He wailed that he truly didn’t know.
So the Duke would have left the door unlocked.
‘So Jacob could escape.’
Where else would Jacob, being chased from Dubbled, go but to the ‘client’ who ordered him to kidnap me?
‘That’s why he left the prison empty like this too.’
Thanks to that, it was easy for me to move around.
He probably already fed Jacob a tracking magic device or attached one to him.
The Duke Dubbled I had heard about was that frightening a person.
“Let’s go in.”
When I opened the door for her, Seria slowly entered Jacob’s prison cell.
Jacob, sprawled on the floor, could barely move his eyes to look at us.
“Save me… save me…”
“That’s not what I want to hear!”
Seria screamed in frustration.
She rushed at Jacob like a hawk and grabbed him by the collar.
Jacob, who had already endured terrible torture for hours, had no strength to shake off Seria.
“Where are my siblings from the House of Hope? Where did you sell them…!”
When Jacob didn’t answer, she began to tightly strangle his neck.
Jacob’s face turned blue as he groaned “Grrruuugh!” and flailed like a fish fallen on the ground.
“A, a Client.”
“What?”
“A Client took them.”
“You mean the Client who told you to kidnap the Young Lady? The one whose identity you don’t know.”
As Seria loosened her grip, Jacob gasped for breath while clutching his reddened throat.
“I don’t know their identity. Really. Every time, a Subordinate would come and buy the kids. All the children raised at the House of Hope were bought by that person.”
“What are they trying to do with my Siblings?”
“….”
“Speak!”
Jacob swallowed dryly as he looked up at Seria.
“A Slaughterhouse is a place that provides meat, not a place to investigate clients’ personal information.”
Thwack!
I kicked his face.
“You think that’s all there is to it!”
Seria, who had been trembling with her fists clenched tight, stared blankly at me as I mercilessly stomped on Jacob’s face, thud, thud!
“Fine, let’s see you get slaughtered too!”
“Gaaaah!”
When I climbed right onto his face and started jumping up and down, I could hear dying sounds.
“Y-Young Lady.”
Rather, it was Seria who seemed startled as she pulled me into her arms.
I glared at the unconscious Jacob and said.
“He’s too scared to even run away, so seeing how he said he doesn’t know, he really doesn’t know their identity.”
As I spoke while breathing heavily, the arms holding me tightened.
I jumped down to the floor and looked up at her.
“I have something to ask you.”
“Please speak.”
I stared intently at her face before opening my mouth.
“How desperate is your desire to find your Siblings?”
“…Pardon?”
Seria’s eyes trembled slightly.
“Would you want to find them even if it means stripping flesh from bones and drawing blood? Can you kill as many as possible of the demons who brutally violated your and your Siblings’ lives?”
At that question, Seria’s eyes twisted strangely.
“You… you’re not an ordinary child.”
I smiled brightly.
“If you have that resolve, I’ll help you.”
I slowly extended my hand.
Seria, who had been quietly staring at my small hand like a maple leaf, bit her lips tightly.
“I already made my resolve when I decided to kill that bastard.”
She took my hand.
“What do I need to do?”
I spoke cheerfully to her as she asked with a slightly nervous expression.
“First, how about we go collect your bounty?”
─I said.
* * *
Seria looked at me with an incredulous expression as I smiled innocently like a child.
“You want me to walk into the Security Force on my own feet? And with my acquaintance, no less?”
“Yep. That’s how we get the bounty. Can’t get it if you turn yourself in.”
“Then I’ll be executed!”
“You won’t die.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Before prisoners die, Priests come to pray to God for them. That’s when you say this.”
I extended my index finger and lowered my voice.
“I know where the Original Scripture is located.”
Seria’s eyes widened.
“That’s impossible. There’s no way I would know such a thing…!”
“I know.”
And if it’s that, the Temple will go absolutely crazy.
They’ll definitely be desperate to get their hands on it and spare Seria’s life.
“The Original Scripture is something priceless and incredible. Why would you use such a thing for someone like me?”
“Because Seria is someone who’s worth that much.”
She couldn’t say anything and just stared at me for a long while.
From her trembling pupils and quivering lips, I could tell how deeply moved she was.
‘It’s true. Seria is someone who’s worth that much.’
She’s someone who dedicated her life for Siblings who shared no blood with her, just because they grew up together at the Orphanage.
That means she’s someone who would never betray you if you could earn her loyalty.
Above all, Seria was smart.
She was different from Jacob, who barely became an Administrator with help from a ‘Client’, or Charlie, who passed the exam after receiving tailored education as a wealthy noble.
Without receiving proper education at the Orphanage, she passed Dubbled’s Administrator exam with only what she learned by watching from the sidelines at the Noble Residence.
‘Plus, the fact that she didn’t ask about my circumstances even after realizing I wasn’t an ordinary child.’
It meant she didn’t care who I was or what kind of person I might be.
As long as we could join hands.
She was someone with both decisiveness and intuition.
‘A talent that rivals North.’
There couldn’t be a better person to have by my side.
“Then where should I say the original is located?”
“The Empress Dowager’s Secret Library.”
Plus, we can screw over the Empress Dowager too, so it’s killing two birds with one stone.
The devoutly religious Empress Dowager was keeping it secret that she had obtained the original.
If the Temple knew that the Empress Dowager, with whom they had such good relations, was secretly keeping the Original Scripture that rightfully should be preserved by the Temple, they would tremble with betrayal.
I was chuckling “ehehe” when I felt Seria’s gaze and tried to compose a dignified expression.
“Leave before dawn breaks.”
“I will never forget Young Lady’s grace.”
Seria, who had knelt down, bowed her head.
“Never, absolutely never. However, this is truly shameless of me, but may I ask one favor?”
“A favor?”
“Please leave this place first.”
She looked at Jacob with cold eyes and continued speaking.
“And no matter what sounds you hear, please don’t come back.”
I stared intently at her eyes that rippled darkly.
“…Alright.”
As she had requested, I left the prison first.
Jacob’s desperate screams followed behind me.
That day, Jacob left the prison as a corpse, and Seria leisurely escaped from the Imperial Palace.
A few days later, a bundle was delivered to me under the name of ‘Children’s Day gifts.’
Inside the bundle was 30,000 francs.
It was the amount of Seria’s bounty.
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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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