The Baby Raising A Devil - Chapter 83
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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 83
“Mireille doesn’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t mine.”
“But you’re the only one in the castle who uses this.”
Leblaine smiled brightly as she picked up the item.
“Hair dye, I mean.”
“I don’t know what that is!”
“You don’t know hair dye? Dye, I mean dye. You really don’t know?”
When Mireille’s face hardened, Leblaine said.
“Then shall I tell you?”
“No need.”
“This is used to dye fabric.”
“I said no need─”
Just as she tried to shake free and run away, Leblaine grabbed Mireille’s hair.
“It’s also used to dye people’s hair.”
Her voice instantly dropped lower.
Leblaine looked at the trembling Mireille and spoke again.
“Like when you dyed your hair to deceive Dubbled.”
I looked at Mireille, who avoided my gaze, not knowing what to do.
That was right.
That hair, the symbol of Dubbled, was the result of dyeing.
I had seen how Mina’s hair, which was red when she dimensional traveled, grew out black. When people asked what happened, Mina said.
“I had dyed it. To be precise, it was bleaching.”
That’s when I learned. That people’s hair could be dyed too.
But even among those who hadn’t experienced Mina, there were people who knew hair could be dyed.
‘The Dollmaker.’
The dollmaker who made ball-jointed dolls often dyed hair to meet customers’ requests.
I had also specified hair color and eye color when purchasing ball-jointed dolls through the tailor, so I could easily guess that Mireille had used hair dye.
Mina’s world’s hair dye seemed mild, but our world’s hair dye was not.
It was such a harsh dye that it was only used on non-living things.
The reason Mireille kept collapsing wasn’t just because she was acting, but because she really was in poor health from dyeing her hair every time it grew.
“You found someone who resembled Lady Lisette and had them dye their hair, right?”
“….”
“Blue eyes aren’t a rare color, so you were lucky that you, who resembled Lady Lisette, had blue eyes.”
“….”
“You fake.”
“No!”
Mireille screamed as if having a seizure.
“I have the aura of Dubbled! How are you going to explain that!”
“It’s not Dubbled’s aura, but Johan’s mana.”
“…!”
“When Johan returned to the Empire, the attack wasn’t meant to take his life or kidnap him. It was to inject mana into you!”
When I shouted like thunder, the startled Mireille collapsed with a thud.
I gritted my teeth and roughly grabbed her shoulders.
“Do you know how much Father waited for Baby Bird? Do you know how much Javelin suffered to find Baby Bird, how sorry Lea felt for her?!”
“….”
“It would have been better if you were real. You should have just been a somewhat annoying Baby Bird!”
“….”
Mireille roughly pushed me away.
“I just did what I was told because they said I could live as a noble Young Lady if I went there! They said if I just dyed my hair on time, I could live in luxury for life…!”
That’s when it happened. The surroundings became bright.
‘They’re here.’
Mireille, who had become pale as a corpse, looked at the numerous employees holding torches and the people standing in front of them.
Father and my brothers, Lea, Javelin, and the butler.
* * *
As we had discussed, the butler brought people at the right timing when Mireille would confess her identity.
Since we shared the progress through the communication stone, we were able to time it perfectly.
The butler and I organized our story as ‘the butler was the one who found it suspicious, and at the butler’s request, I, who was in the room next to Mireille, monitored her.’
Mireille was immediately dragged to the castle. The terrified child confessed everything as soon as she was caught.
And we learned a shocking fact: Mireille wasn’t nine years old but twenty-one. And she was a prostitute.
She was the daughter of the inn owner couple who she claimed had raised her. Her parents weren’t really inn owners, but farmers.
Everything was done in conspiracy with her own parents.
The inn owner couple, who had been staying near Dubbled Territory to receive scraps from Mireille, were dragged in.
Tortured terribly, they foamed at the mouth and answered whatever was asked.
“Some man came to us… said he would make our daughter into a noble Young Lady….”
“Yes, yes, he said if we did as told, he would give us wealth to live without working for life… If our daughter went to Dubbled, we could also command from above the nobles’ heads….”
Father looked at Mireille, who was frozen beside the inn owner couple.
“What happened to your body?”
“I don’t know! Really! They blindfolded me and led me somewhere, and after terrible pain, I became like this!”
‘They used alchemy.’
It seemed I wasn’t the only one thinking that.
North looked at the Magic Director.
“If she was made younger through alchemy, why couldn’t the director detect it?”
“Because it wasn’t ‘maintaining’ magic to change form, but her body had already been completely transformed through alchemy.”
The Magic Director clicked his tongue and looked at Mireille.
“She’ll collapse soon even without making her pay the price.”
Mireille flinched and raised her head.
“Collapse?”
“If one could regain youth, who in this world wouldn’t use alchemy? People avoid it only because there are dangers they can’t even attempt.”
“What do you mean…?”
“In the near future, all your bones and flesh will melt away.”
At those words, Mireille screamed as if in agony.
“That’s impossible! You’re lying!”
“How foolish.”
“Please fix me. Save me! I’ll tell you everything. Please…!”
She crawled over and begged, but there was no one who could restore her.
* * *
After Mireille’s entire family was dragged to prison, I had a conversation with the captain in the greenhouse. With my back to the captain, I looked through the glass window and asked.
“What about the retainer who discovered Mireille?”
“He’s clean. There was no one who deliberately recommended the travel destination to the retainer either.”
“So they already knew where the retainer would travel.”
“Yes.”
Then this is even more troublesome.
Doesn’t this mean there’s a spy within Dubbled?
“What’s the connection to Duke Valois?”
“Duke Valois apparently bought Mireille before. He must have liked her quite a bit, as he visited her frequently.”
I paused and turned around.
“Is that all?”
“That’s what Mireille said. There’s also the possibility that Valois used Mireille without her knowing.”
I narrowed my eyes while touching the edge of the table.
‘Either way, it means I need to make contact with Valois.’
“Good. Keep investigating Valois.”
“Yes. But there’s a problem…”
“Why? Is it difficult to investigate Valois?”
“It’s not that…”
The captain spoke with a troubled expression.
“When we brought people in to coincide with the moment Mireille was confessing, the timing was a bit off.”
“…How so?”
“Well, people heard from ‘Do you know how much Father waited for Baby Bird?'”
I, who had been extremely tense, let my shoulders drop.
That much is fine.
If it had been from before that, they would have found me suspicious, but from that point on, it can be disguised as the anger of a somewhat clever child.
* * *
Lea walked down the corridor with a half-dazed expression. Leblaine’s three maids tried to support her anxiously, but she weakly waved her hand away.
“Go and do what you need to do.”
“But….”
“I also have postponed work to do.”
“…I’ll help.”
It was better to focus on work. Rather than resenting herself for being fooled by such lies and harboring hope all night.
Lea entered Leblaine’s room. It was to tidy up the child’s sleeping area.
But.
“Why is the room….”
To others it would look fairly clean, but it was visible to the trained eye of an experienced employee.
The position of clothes in the dressing room had changed, and the interior was colder than usual.
Since Leblaine was very sensitive to cold, her maids always kept the room temperature somewhat high.
“Good heavens….”
Not only Lea, but all the maids who had been serving Leblaine had been transferred to Mireille, so other employees couldn’t attend to the details.
“Oh my, Young Lady must have caught a cold.”
“When I saw her in the evening, her voice seemed a bit stuffy too.”
In the dressing room, there were traces of someone having searched through the wardrobe.
Choosing Leblaine’s clothes was the job of Lea and the three maids. Since they all enjoyed picking out clothes for her, there must have been times when Leblaine wanted to choose her own clothes, but she would have endured it and worn what they gave her.
“She must have been cold indeed. It looks like she tried to get out thicker clothes.”
“She should have at least asked other servants.”
“Then it would have reached Master’s ears and caused trouble for Lady Javelin, who assigned us to Lady Mireille.”
“She’s a clever person, so she must have been cautious.”
While the maids quickly adjusted the heating magic tool, Lea discovered an ointment jar by Leblaine’s bedside.
“Did Young Lady get hurt somewhere?”
As soon as she asked the maids, the door burst open and Henri and Isaac entered.
“Little One got hurt?”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s ointment here.”
Henri said “Give it here” and held out his hand. After checking the smell of the ointment, he frowned.
“This is medicine used for bruises.”
“That can’t be. If she was hurt, she would have gone to the doctor.”
“No, she couldn’t have gone. If she went to the doctor, it would have caused another uproar.”
“What?”
“She must have gotten hurt when Mireille pushed her.”
The ointment had some red parts, though small. It seemed like somewhere had been torn along with the bruising.
On the bedside table were traces of a meal. While Mireille and the Dubbled people dined together, she had always eaten alone here.
Lea covered her mouth with both hands.
‘You were insane, Lea Chabanole.’
The Young Lady had a habit of doing everything by herself.
Unless it was truly necessary, she wouldn’t step forward and ask for help, and she often hid when she was sick, so he knew best that you had to watch her carefully.
Intoxicated by the joy of finding the Fourth Child, blinded by the guilt of failing to protect her, they had made a young girl who didn’t even know how to act spoiled crouch alone in such a large room all this time.
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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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