The Baby Raising A Devil - Chapter 77

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

Chapter 77

“You need to see a doctor. Wait here. I’ll have someone call for one.”

“I said I’m fine!”

Johan yanked my wrist, so I smacked his back with my other hand. Even in pain, I could feel him flinch.

He looked at me with a somewhat dazed expression.

“The cut is all festering. Purification won’t heal it! If you try to stop me again, I’ll pinch your cheek too.”

When I glared at him threateningly, the strength slowly drained from Johan’s hand.

I stubbornly brought a doctor to examine him and even called for Father.

Father’s expression was dark as he looked at Johan lying on the bed. He seemed both angry and exasperated.

“You were in pain.”

“….”

“You endured wounds from mercenaries all this time by yourself. Without saying a single word to me.”

“I received treatment at the Viscount Dubois estate.”

So that’s why he went to the Dubois estate.

I swallowed a sigh.

‘Dubbled stubbornness.’

This stubbornness seems to be passed down through generations. Not just Johan, but Father, Henri, and Isaac were all stubborn.

“You two conspired to deceive me. How bold of you.”

“That’s correct.”

See? He absolutely won’t say he was wrong. Father’s eyes grew increasingly cold.

“Father, Father.”

“….”

“The doctor said Johan needs to take medicine. And eat meals too.”

When I spoke with drooping eyebrows, Father, who had been glaring at Johan, soon backed down.

Father listened to more details about Johan’s condition from the doctor, and only then left the room.

After the doctors and employees who had been helping left, the room became quiet again.

“Did you get what you wanted?”

Johan asked coldly, so I furrowed my brow.

“I should have let Father scold you more.”

Then I sat in the chair beside the bed. I scooped up some of the slightly thick chicken soup that was on the nightstand and held it out to him.

“…I’m fine.”

“The medicine the doctor prescribed will make your stomach really upset if you take it on an empty stomach.”

“….”

“Hurry up. Otherwise I’ll go out right now and tell everyone ‘Johan is sick!'”

My hand is getting tired.

I held out the soup once more. After staring at the spoon I offered for a while, he soon opened his mouth slightly.

As soon as he swallowed the soup, I held out the spoon again.

“That’s right. One more time.”

“….”

“Just one more time.”

“….”

“This is the last one.”

“….”

“Hey, there’s still some left, so let’s finish all of this, okay?”

“….”

“Wow, now this is really the last one.”

I emptied the small bowl of soup completely and held out the medicine.

“Once you take this, today’s annoyance is over!”

When I coaxed him gently, Johan swallowed the pills with a sigh. He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at me. It was a deep, dark gaze whose meaning I couldn’t understand, but I wasn’t scared of Johan at all anymore.

* * *

Several days after that.

Johan now stared blankly at Leblaine, who casually trotted into his room without a care.

Today she had even picked a bunch of flowers from somewhere and arranged them in a flower vase. Then she looked at them with enchanted eyes, saying “Pretty.”

For the past few days, that child had been constantly coming and going from his room.

She would come and chatter away endlessly about who knows what before leaving.

“Did you eat?”

“What about your medicine?”

“We had shrimp soup today and it was delicious. They said they’ll serve chicken soup tomorrow.”

Even when he snapped at her to get lost because she was annoying, she would come again in the afternoon asking if he had eaten, if he had taken his medicine, and how he was feeling.

After arranging flowers in the vase, Leblaine sat in the chair beside his bed as always.

Then she propped her elbows on the bed and started chattering away.

“So, Viscount Dubois got in huge trouble. Father didn’t say much, but he seems to be very frightened on his own.”

“….”

“And today Yuni mismanaged the servants’ laundry, so everyone had to wear clothes stained blue. She got scolded by the butler. They said they’ll bring in new clothes tomorrow.”

“….”

That child was blue.

Blue that filled the always quiet ducal house with noise.

He tried to ignore her and read his book, but the pages wouldn’t turn at all.

“So, we had French toast for breakfast with condensed milk and it was delicious. Oh, that’s right. The tea today was really good too. The doctor said Johan could drink it too. Lea, please prepare some tea.”

That child was truly strange.

At first, she was scared of him like everyone else, but at some point she became the most annoying existence in the world.

It wasn’t just that child herself who was annoying. Even the things affected by her were irritating.

Last evening, Isaac came to visit. He stood there looking at me with a sullen expression for quite a while, so I thought he might be picking a fight, but then he moved a wild boar into my bedroom.

“I just brought it because I happened to pass by it. It’s not like I went out of my way to hunt it.”

In the morning, Henri had come. He gathered an armful of documents from my desk, glanced at me sideways, and said.

“You don’t need to do these things for me. It’s burdensome for both of us, isn’t it.”

And then he left.

The next visitor was Father. Father often comes with Leblaine and stares at me silently for about 30 minutes before leaving.

Just as I was focusing my gaze on a book, Leblaine, who had been chattering away for a while, became quiet.

When I glanced over, she was sitting in her chair with her face half-buried in the bed, fast asleep.

Johan gazed intently at the child.

Her white face with plump cheeks was like flour dough, her nose was small and round, and her lips were like a chick’s beak.

An ordinary child with nothing special about her.

Because of this child, the territorial castle was changing.

Sunlight now filled the inside the castle that had always been buried in dark silence. Soft carpets were laid on floors that had been hard and merely luxurious. This was so the child wouldn’t get hurt even if she fell while walking.

‘She does fall quite often.’

She runs through the garden like that, runs through the greenhouse, runs through the corridors.

Even when she fell sprawled out, she never made a crying face and would spring right back up to run around again.

It was the appearance of just an ordinary child, not a noble young lady.

When he unconsciously reached out his hand toward her fluffy hair, the child made a small sleepy sound “mmm” and grasped Johan’s hand with both of hers.

With a soft knock, a maid entered carrying a tray. On the tray was black tea that Leblaine had requested for Johan.

“Oh my.”

The maid placed the tea on the side table and said.

“I’ll take her away.”

“Leave her.”

“Pardon…?”

Johan, who had stood up, laid the child on the bed instead of me.

The maid’s eyes wavered slightly for a moment, but she soon smiled brightly.

Even Johan’s room, which had always been dark, was being gently permeated by sunlight.

* * *

When I woke up, the sun was setting. I blinked my eyes with a dazed expression.

As my blurry vision became clear, I saw an unfamiliar ceiling.

‘Where is this… Gasp!’

I had fallen asleep while coming to nurse Johan. I hurriedly sat up.

‘I even slept in the patient’s bed.’

While I was flustered, I felt a gaze from the direction of the sofa. It was Johan.

I fidgeted with my hands and said.

“I’m sorry….”

I had chased away him, the patient, and taken over the bed.

I thought he would be outraged, but what I heard from him was unexpected.

“Something you want?”

“Pardon?”

“As payment for nursing me.”

“I didn’t do it expecting anything like that.”

What does he take people’s sincerity for.

When I frowned, Johan muttered as if to himself.

“…I know.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean I want to give you something regardless of your purpose.”

I blinked and organized my thoughts inwardly.

‘So that means… he’s saying thank you, I guess.’

I smiled inwardly as if I couldn’t help it.

Hmm, there’s nothing I particularly want…. While thinking that, suddenly a light bulb in my head went click and turned on.

“Mana!”

“Mana?”

I could get his hair, but if I’m going to receive something anyway, just getting mana all at once would be easier and faster.

Johan narrowed his brow and said.

“It would be useless to you who has Divine Power.”

“Still, still…!”

After staring at me intently for a moment, he said.

“Well, fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m excited!”

As I jumped up and down in joy, a small chuckle flowed into my ears.

Startled, I opened my eyes wide and looked at Johan. The corners of his mouth were gently curved.

“You really are like a chick.”

‘Wow….’

I thought he was completely Father’s spitting image, but his smiling face is totally different.

‘Maybe he resembles Lisette.’

I had that thought while following Johan’s lead and laughing, hehe.

When I came back after dinner, there was a white, fine stone on my room’s bed. It was Johan’s Magic Stone.

* * *

That evening.

I looked at Johan’s Magic Stone with a pleased expression in a corner of the empty garden.

‘It really has remarkably pure mana.’

[Now give that to me.]

‘It seems too precious to just hand over, maybe I’ll split it into several pieces and only give you one.’

[What?!]

Paimon shouted angrily and manifested with a red light, then frowned.

“Where is such a thing!”

“You asked for pure mana, you didn’t ask for this Magic Stone.”

“That’s! …But still.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not like you need it anyway.”

“If it’s such a precious Magic Stone, there are endless ways to use it. Even if I sold it to the Magic Tower right now, they’d pay an enormous price for it.”

“Your father is the richest man in the country, so what value does money have!”

“Originally, the more money you have, the better it is, right?”

Flustered Paimon looked anxious.

“Then I’ll make money for you.”

“These days all paper money has codes, so if you carelessly make them, you become a counterfeiter.”

“Then I’ll make gems for you!”

“Bune said that when a summoned demon returns and releases their mana, such things turn to powder. What am I supposed to trust to accept gems?”

“I’ll pass on knowledge you don’t know.”

“【Repository of Information】 is Paimon’s Special Ability, isn’t it? You can only receive knowledge transfer once, right?”

I’m going to receive information about Long-Distance Teleportation Circles.

When I looked at him with half-closed eyes in a ‘don’t think about cheating’ expression, Paimon became speechless.

But he really seemed to want Johan’s Magic Stone, as he couldn’t hide his frustrated emotions while being unable to take his eyes off the Magic Stone.

Mana this pure would be hard to find anywhere. The Black Magic Stone was sparkling white like a pearl.

‘I don’t know for sure, but wouldn’t an instrument made from this produce incredibly beautiful sounds.’

Seeing how much Paimon wanted it, my thoughts seemed correct.

“Fine, then if I give you something that’s not a Special Ability and that I can’t eliminate even after I return, that would work?”

“Well, if that’s the case.”

I answered nonchalantly and was walking toward the gazebo.

A faint light like fireflies appeared before my eyes and connected like cracks.

And what appeared was…

“Who is the one that summoned us?”

I looked at Paimon.

“These people are….”

He turned his back to the three people and spread both arms wide.

“The century’s greatest strategist. A man who possesses a dictionary without the word impossible. An angel bearing a lamp. These are my familiars that I take pride in.”

“….”

“Choose. Tell me which one you want to contain in your Etoile.”

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