The Baby Sprout Who Bloomed in the Villain Duke’s Family - Chapter 60

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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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Episode 60
“Clover, go to your mother.”
Sone set Clover down.
Clover gripped Sone’s clothes until her feet touched the ground, and only then did she reluctantly let go.
“You can go.”
Kalid gently pushed the hesitant Clover forward.
Clover took careful, tentative steps toward the great tree.
One step.
Then another.
After a few cautious paces, something drew her forward, and she broke into a run toward the tree.
For Kalid, it would have taken ten strides; but Clover’s short legs needed twice that distance to cover the same ground.
At last, with hurried little steps, Clover came to stand before the massive trunk.
‘Mother is in here……?’
Was she really inside?
Clover reached out carefully and touched the smooth bark.
The wood at the base, protected by layers of thick, hard bark, was polished so fine that even a child’s hand would not be scraped.
“Mommy.”
Clover called out softly to Elishia.
No answer came. She called again, this time a little louder.
“Mommy, Clover is here.”
The word “mother” spoken aloud for the first time.
It was very strange.
Though she’d never said it before, it felt neither awkward nor foreign—as though she’d been waiting for this moment her whole life, the word spilling from her lips as naturally as breath.
“Clover, you’re four now.”
A body so small that even spreading both arms wide would not encircle one-tenth of the tree’s girth.
A height so slight that standing on her tiptoes, she could barely touch the base.
Smaller than a young sapling, more fragile than any small creature, the little girl pressed her cheek against the smooth wood.
Thump-thump.
Was it Clover’s heart that beat, or her mother’s?
Forgetting even the things she’d come to do, Clover embraced the trunk with all her might.
“You’ve grown so much…….”
A whisper.
A rustling.
In that instant, the leaves trembled delicately, and they cascaded down over Clover’s head like rain.
Fluttering slowly, gently, they settled upon her hair and shoulders.
And in that moment, Clover felt as though a warm hand had brushed across her cheek.
‘Yes……it’s Mother.’
That was unmistakably her mother’s touch.
Clover knew.
It was something one could understand without being taught.
The child’s heart beat without pause.
***
The family watching the small girl embrace the base of the tree felt their expressions grow troubled.
“When Clover was very young…….”
Sone spoke slowly.
“Not long after Mother became the tree, she would sometimes appear in Spirit Form. I wonder if it’s difficult for her now.”
Elishia could leave the tree once she recovered enough strength.
So by rights, she should have recovered more by now than she had back then.
And she should have been able to hold Clover warmly in her arms.
But all that happened was the leaves trembled faintly—Sone’s eyes narrowed.
“Has something happened to Mother…….”
“That’s impossible.”
Kalid cut off Sone’s words sharply.
“If anything had happened to Elishia, I would have known first.”
Kalid had visited this place steadily since Elishia returned to the White Forest.
Had she faced any trouble, he could not have failed to notice.
“Still, it does worry me—didn’t you say demon beasts have been appearing more often near the White Forest?”
“That’s true. When Mother was at her full strength, the demon beasts never came this far into the forest…….”
Arwin and Demian exchanged words between them.
Yet the tree that was Elishia showed no sign of disturbance on its surface.
Still, the living things in the vicinity were drawn instinctively to Elishia’s tree, and every leaf on that massive trunk bloomed with verdant life, not a single one withered.
“Elishia will be fine.”
Kalid murmured, gazing up at the towering, magnificent tree.
‘Kalid!’
‘If I jump from up here, will you catch me?’
The girl’s laughter, bright as a silver breeze, flickered past his ear and vanished.
‘Come here. Look at me, Kalid.’
‘I’m going to jump down. Catch me in your arms—all of me.’
Before she had grown up beside him, Elishia had lived for ages as this tree’s girl, and her image wavered before his eyes now.
Each time he turned that memory over in his mind, Kalid was seized by an inexplicable, strange feeling.
“As long as I exist, nothing will ever harm her…….”
He stood a pace away, murmuring as he watched Clover and Elishia.
Then it happened.
Something he had not foreseen.
From where Clover and Elishia stood, something of unknowable form suddenly erupted from the earth.
Shrieeeeek!
And a beast’s cry—sharp enough to split eardrums—shrieked out across the air.
***
Clover had been sitting beneath Elishia’s tree, chattering away, when she noticed a small sapling that had sprouted beside it.
It was smaller than Clover herself, but its tip bore plump, ripe fruit.
“What’s this?”
When Clover tapped the fruit, Lucky fluttered over to examine the sapling.
[I’m not sure, honestly. I’ve never sensed anything like it before.]
“Never sensed it?”
[The aura.]
“Right, the aura.”
Clover drew her hand back from Elishia’s tree and reached out to touch the sapling again.
It trembled then, the whole thing shaking just as Elishia’s tree had done.
“It’s moving…….”
[…… When did trees like this exist?]
For reasons she couldn’t name, Clover felt a chill and withdrew her hand from the sapling.
She didn’t know why, but something told her not to touch it. She was backing away when it happened.
Crrrrack!
With a strange, unidentifiable sound, the sapling she had just been touching suddenly surged upward, growing.
The plump fruit swelled rapidly, cracking open down the middle, spreading wide like a beast’s maw.
What had been embedded like seeds—small and uniform—suddenly grew into sharp, enormous fangs.
“Uh—what!?”
A monster!
Startled, Clover stumbled backward, recoiling from it.
This must be the ‘Demon Beast’ Kalid had spoken of.
But why here?
‘Why, next to Mom……?’
Yet before Clover could flee or retreat, the Demon Beast lunged at the child, its jaws wide open.
It all happened in a heartbeat.
Kalid, Sone, Demian, and Arwin’s Authorities exploded outward toward Clover, but—
[Clover!]
The Demon Beast’s fangs descended with terrifying speed, faster than powers summoned from such a distance.
Even the Storm Authority that erupted outward couldn’t react swiftly enough to repel the suddenly manifested creature.
Clover, panicked, curled her whole body into a ball and shielded her face.
‘I’m g-going to be hurt!’
The sharp fangs were inches from her face.
A moment more and those teeth would carve a terrible wound into Clover’s body.
As Clover squeezed her eyes shut—
The Demon Beast cried out in agony, a long wail torn from its throat. And then, instantly, the Storm Authority wrapped around Clover in a protective embrace.
‘Dad?’
The Storm Authority had reached her faster than the Demon Beast’s fangs, and through the gaps between her fingers, Clover cautiously peeked forward.
Had Dad rushed over and saved her?
But standing between Clover and the Demon Beast was not Kalid.
Not Sone, not Demian, not Arwin.
“……What?”
Standing between Clover and the Beast was a woman wielding a Golden Longbow.
Long white cloth fluttered from her shoulders like wings, shimmering in the sunlight.
Her long green hair stirred in the wind, rippling across her shoulders.
In that brief moment, Wooden Arrows pierced the Beast’s neck, catching the pouring sunlight with a soft gleam.
From that instant, time seemed to slow.
The Beast’s gaping maw trembled.
Thud—the massive creature toppled backward, then shrank into a small sapling, just as it had appeared at first.
The woman with the longbow slung the bow across her back, then strode forward and trampled the sapling, crushing it.
Crack.
As the Beast’s breath ceased, silence fell over the world.
Clover stared, dumbfounded, at the Golden Longbow and the billowing fabric that fluttered around the woman.
That was when it happened.
The woman turned slowly to face Clover.
Sunlight poured down from above, casting her face in shadow.

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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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