The Baby Sprout Who Bloomed in the Villain Duke’s Family - Chapter 40

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 40
[Yes, Clover! You have to run! When an Authority User berserks, no one can stop them!]
“B-but then what?”
Clover asked urgently.
“What happens if…?”
What happens when an Authority User berserks?
The kind and gentle Empress Dowager—what becomes of her?
Yet neither the Lion of North Wind nor Lucky could answer Clover’s question.
And in that moment.
Whoooosh.
Anernia’s mist surged forward, coiling around Clover. The Lion of North Wind crouched lower, his voice desperate. “Child, climb on! We must flee at once—!”

But then.
“Please.”
A strange voice echoed from within the mist.
“Please… help Anernia…”
The Lion of North Wind, Lucky, and Clover all froze mid-motion.
And soon after, something emerged from the fog.
Its form was—
‘This is my Summoned Being, Clover. A bit larger than yours.’
‘Wow, amazing…’
“A rabbit…”
The rabbit Clover had seen before—Anernia’s Summoned Being.
[How is this possible…]
Lucky’s voice wavered with confusion.
When an Authority User berserks, their Summoned Being should lose consciousness and resonate with the Authority User’s chaos.
So how was this Summoned Being unharmed?
Then the rabbit bounded toward Clover.
“Please, save Anernia!”
[How? How can we help in this situation? Our little one is only four years old!]
“Please, however you can, I’m begging you…”
The rabbit, composed of mist, looked unstable—as if it might scatter at any moment.
The rabbit spoke as though on the verge of tears.
“Anernia’s body is frail. She can’t sustain a berserk state for long…”
Clover genuinely wanted to help her.
The Empress Dowager, who had always been so kind and gentle.
To Clover, who had no grandmother, she was like a grandmother.
Who in this world would want to see such a person come to harm?
But what could she do?
Even her Summoned Being couldn’t withstand Anernia’s berserk state and was on the verge of dispersing.
Likely, this plea to Clover was the last thing this Summoned Being could do of its own will.
Moreover.
With mist blanketing the area, other Authority Users wouldn’t dare intrude into Anernia’s Authority Domain.
‘I want to help, I really do.’
But how?
What could Clover possibly do?
Then.
Clover’s eyes caught sight of something—a ‘smoke.’
‘What is that…?’
It was the same smoke she had seen from Kalid.
The color was different, but she recognized it unmistakably.
That ‘smoke’ was billowing from somewhere far away—where Anernia stood.
***
The unleashed Authority thrashed within her body, ransacking Anernia’s memories.
‘Mother, look at this!’
‘Mother!’
‘Mother, look at this book. They say sunflowers used to look like this long ago. Isn’t it amazing?’
And so it dragged forth a voice long forgotten.
Though so many years had passed, how could she ever forget that voice?
‘Tiaren…’
A daughter, loved beyond measure.
Anernia Soren Rosifelon, once Empress of the Empire, had borne two children with the Emperor.
A son, Weiron, and a daughter, Tiaren.
Anernia loved both children equally.
They were the apples of her eye—how could she not love them?
Tiaren especially harbored an unusual passion for the legends of the Empire and flowers of ancient times.
She gazed daily at blossoms that others ignored, wore thin the book that Elicia had gifted her, and spoke endlessly of flowers from ages past.
And every day she would tell Anernia
that long, long ago there had been an age when flowers bloomed in true beauty.
In those days, lovers exchanged flowers as tokens of affection, as did parents and children, masters and pupils—each gift laden with love and respect.
She confessed, too, that when she grew older, she wished to become a scholar of such things.
It was not a dream befitting an Imperial princess, yet Anernia supported and cherished her daughter’s aspirations all the same.
She loved Tiaren, after all.
But then.
‘Mother…?’
‘Tiaren!’
‘Mother, I’m burning. Mother….’
Tiaren, who had inherited an Authority stronger than her brother’s, could not contain it.
Tiaren had always been frail from childhood.
When a weak body harbors a powerful Authority, there is but one ending.
Death, unable to withstand the Authority’s Runaway.
Yet Anernia watched over Tiaren with particular vigilance to prevent such a fate.
She forbade the child from using her Authority and rushed her to physicians at the slightest sign of strain.
Thus Tiaren grew robust under Anernia’s protection, standing now on the threshold of adulthood.
When an Authority User reaches adulthood, the danger of Runaway diminishes considerably.
Once she came of age, Tiaren would be nearly safe.
But then.
‘No, no! Tiaren, no!’
Just before her adulthood, Tiaren could not master her own Authority—the power that burned the very earth—and it ran wild.
Anernia could not save her daughter from the consuming flames and cried out in anguish.
A mother’s anguished tears could not extinguish the fire that devoured her child.
The small hand of young Tiaren, desperately reaching toward her mother, never touched her and crumbled to ash.
Thus Anernia lost the daughter she loved.
Night after night she was tormented by nightmares.
It seemed to her that Tiaren’s death was entirely her fault.
That she had not carried her well enough, had not watched carefully enough—Anernia laid every blame at the feet of herself, the mother.
Yet she could not follow Tiaren into death.
She had a son remaining, and as Empress of Rosifelon and the highest authority in the realm, she could not abandon her post.
She was the pillar upon which the Imperial House rested—a woman who could not crumble simply because she had lost a child.
She was not free even to break.
So two months after losing Tiaren, Anernia buried her grief in her heart.
The Empire held many parents who had lost their Authority-wielding children in such a manner. Anernia was not alone in this suffering.
And so she dared not show it.
That is how she had lived since then.
‘Mother.’
Mist gathered and coalesced, taking on the form of Tiaren—whom she had longed for so desperately.
“Tiaren…?”
It moved gradually, becoming ever more precise, until now it was impossible to tell whether this truly was Tiaren or merely Anernia’s own hallucination.
The ‘Tiaren’ before her eyes turned to look at Anernia and spoke.
“Why didn’t you save me?”
“Tiaren, no—no! Mother, I…I….”
“Why did you run away instead of saving me? You saw me caught in the flames, you saw me burning! So why did you run?”
A single tear—whether phantom or true—traced down the contorted cheek of the anguished Tiaren.
“Why did you simply forget me…?”
……
“Did you abandon me…?”
Anernia felt she was teetering on the edge of madness. Perhaps she had already crossed that edge long ago.
Tiaren was already dead.
She could not possibly appear before her in this way.
Yet knowing all of this, Anernia could not tear her gaze away from Tiaren.
A beloved daughter I lost so very long ago.
Her name, buried in my chest, a word I could never summon of my own will.
“Tiaren…….”
A single bloody tear traced down Anernia’s cheek.
One tear became two, then four, then eight, then sixteen—a cascade that consumed her entire face.
“No, no, no—I didn’t abandon you. I never abandoned you! I never threw you away! I didn’t abandon—”
Anernia’s mind began to fracture, splintering into chaos. Her inverted Authority stirred within her body once more, thrashing like an enraged tide.
That Authority now moved as though it would tear her apart from within.
Yes—just as that Authority had consumed Tiaren’s small body on that day.
Anernia cried out Tiaren’s name, wailing, and felt her own end approaching.
She would die.
Here, in this place.
In the same way her daughter had died.
Yet—
In the moment she accepted her death—
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
From somewhere came the sound of hurried footsteps, breaking through the haze of her mind.
And not long after—
Tap!
The smallest warmth brushed against the trembling fingertips of Anernia’s hand.
It was the faintest, the most delicate warmth she had ever known in all her life.
And yet, at the same time, it was the clearest and most unmistakable.

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