The Baby Sprout Who Bloomed in the Villain Duke’s Family - Chapter 71

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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 71
An Imperial Decree cannot be defied.
The Emperor’s messenger, too, cannot be ignored.
‘I see what his intention was in sending him.’
No matter how precious the Emperor’s messenger was said to be, regardless of rank, Kalid could read the intention behind why the Emperor Oulon had specifically dispatched someone as low-born and low-ranking as Daybon to Claudian.
Emperor Oulon was making it known that Pluto’s position was worth exactly that much.
Or rather, Pluto already knew as much—this was a message sent to Kalid Claudian himself.
That was why Kalid had said nothing in particular.
But this was going too far.
There had been a time when not only the Emperor’s messengers, but everyone who set foot in Claudian held their breath like hunted prey before Kalid Claudian.
Those days when Kalid Claudian, utterly inflexible, obeyed whatever the Emperor willed.
The Emperor had used him to consolidate imperial power, and in that process, no small number of people had been purged. That was why Kalid was called the villainous duke.
But whether because people increasingly regarded Clover as Claudian’s weakness, or because he had taken Pluto under his wing……
Now and then, fools like the Daybon before him appeared, lacking all judgment. Kalid paid them no mind.
It was only natural—gather a hundred sheep and one will inevitably lack fear of dogs and bolt from the flock, thrashing about.
That was a fault of the sheep, not a failure on the dog’s part, so Daybon’s flailing about here, ignorant of the world, was no fault of Kalid’s.
When Kalid gazed calmly at Daybon, the panicked man’s eyes darted between Clover and Kalid.
His face seemed to scream, ‘How in the world is the Duke here?’
“Y-Your Excellency?”
“I will lodge a formal objection to the Imperial Palace regarding this matter.”
“Your Excellency, that’s not it!”
“You called my child weak and useless.”
Kalid’s eyes flashed bronze in the light for an instant.
“In my own home.”
“Your Excellency, you are laboring under a misunderstanding!”
An Authority Bearer and their Summoned Creature can freely share what they see and hear. Even those who were not Authority Bearers knew that much.
Yet Daybon, who had momentarily forgotten even this simple fact, launched into a confused defense.
“By Imperial Decree, I was to test the Authority of the Second Prince, but when His Highness refused and the young lady suddenly rushed in, I was startled and merely…….”
Clover, listening quietly to Daybon’s explanation, squeezed Pluto’s hand tightly.
“I said I didn’t wanna, and you just started yelling.”
“But that——”
“And you’re yelling again…….”
As Clover and Daybon’s voices rose, Kalid, feeling a headache coming on, gestured for Daybon to close his mouth.
“What exactly were the Emperor’s orders?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Speak.”
“That is to say, to examine the condition of His Highness the Prince and, should his Authority seem abnormal, to measure it as well…….”
“Does his Authority appear to you to have grown further?”
Kalid tilted his chin toward Pluto.
At the end of his gaze, Pluto breathed laboriously, his face flushed red from fever.
“Does his condition look fine to you?”
“That is…….”
“And when he said he did not wish to do this, you could have found another way—what gives you the right to coerce him?”
As Daybon found himself at a loss for words, staring at Kalid, the Duke tilted his head slightly.
“There is more. And what has your coercion of my daughter to do with any of that?”
“……!”
“How you have treated children elsewhere, I do not know, but in ‘my home,’ such conduct is forbidden.”
Kalid gestured.
“A pity you did not know.”
In that instant, the North Wind’s messenger rushed forward with a savage gust and subdued Daybon.
“P-Please, Your Excellency!”
“You will be confined in the Underground Prison until a reply comes from the Emperor.”
Daybon might not have known it, but Kalid was fairly certain that the official records of the Imperial Palace would show no entry of Daybon’s visit to the Claudian residence.
Oulon handled everything related to Pluto informally, keeping no official record.
Which meant it was highly likely that even the credentials of “the Emperor’s messenger” were merely dressed up to look presentable.
And if Kalid’s suspicion was correct, Oulon would abandon Daybon the moment Kalid raised an objection.
After all, an unrecorded messenger, dispatched in a fine carriage with two palace soldiers attached—that was all there was to it.
Perhaps sending a subordinate was itself intended to allow for this kind of severance if trouble arose.
So Kalid did not hesitate for a moment in confining Daybon.
There was no reason for Oulon to abandon Claudian over something so trivial. It was punishment for a crime committed within his own residence—no cause for hesitation whatsoever.
What mattered was that ‘special quality’—he was a low-ranking official sent to look after a forsaken prince.
“Your Grace, Your Grace! I was sent by His Imperial Majesty!”
“Then I shall have you detained and lodge a protest with the Imperial Palace. How to proceed is entirely up to His Majesty’s discretion.”
The moment the Duke of Claudian finished speaking, his knights entered the room.
The instant they seized Daybon by both arms, the legitimacy granted by the Emperor’s emissary and the absurd confidence that His Majesty would surely choose him over Pluto melted away like snow before flame.
“This cannot be! His Majesty already approved……!”
“Did His Majesty permit me to let him run wild in my own residence?”
“That is…….”
“Take him away.”
Daybon, deeply flustered by Kalid’s resolve, spoke while looking at Pluto.
“This is all because that boy defied the Imperial Decree……!”
“…….”
“Hah…….”
At Daybon’s words, every person in the room frowned deeply.
Only then did Daybon realize his blunder, and his mouth snapped shut.
Who didn’t know that Pluto had been treated worse than a dog by the royal family?
But if that prince was outside the Imperial Palace, the treatment ought to have been different. He was, after all, the Emperor’s blood.
Inside the palace, any manner of handling was permitted; but to treat him this way outside it was to add to the Crime of Insulting Royalty.
Reckless and foolish.
A junior official who’d only recently entered the palace seemed unable to distinguish between what should and should not be said, even as matters had spiraled to this extreme.
“Tsk…….”
It was just as Kalid was about to silence Daybon’s mouth by force.
“……were you going to?”
A small voice spilled from Pluto’s lips—the boy who had kept his head bowed all this while.
In an instant, every eye turned toward Pluto.
Pluto’s pupils trembled.
This was the first time the boy had spoken up in any matter touching the Imperial Palace.
Until now, a single phrase—”the Emperor’s orders”—and he obeyed without will, like a puppet on strings.
So it was inevitable that both Pluto and Daybon were astonished.
To Daybon, the boy seemed a stranger; to himself, Pluto was just as strange.
Pluto felt as though his throat might close off entirely in the next moment.
Barely a word.
What escaped his lips didn’t even form a complete sentence before scattering—merely a fragment—yet it felt as if he’d committed some grave transgression.
‘Why make me do something I don’t want to? You’re a bad person.’
But he couldn’t stay silent.
Remembering the small child who’d burst from beneath the bed to stand in his stead, to defy for him—all the more so, he couldn’t.
Even Clover, a complete stranger with no connection to Pluto whatsoever, had stepped forward for him.
Pluto could not remain idle.
He could not live like this anymore.
Not anymore.
The boy with black hair and violet eyes that gleamed ominously continued speaking, his face flushed with emotion.
“……If no one had come, were you going to wring my Authority out by force, the way they did in the Imperial Palace?”
“……!”
“Hold my limbs and torment me until I use my Authority?”
“No, that’s…….”
“While threatening to burn the last memento mother left behind if I refused?”
Tears began to fall steadily from Pluto’s eyes.
Silence flooded the room.
***
Emperor Oulon wants Pluto dead.
At the same time, he has quietly wished that all the Empire’s subjects regard the young boy as refuse—and if that is impossible, that at least within the Imperial Palace where he dwells, they might do so.
For that reason, beyond the sight of Empress Dowager Anernia, Pluto received treatment so harsh it was scarcely believable for one of royal blood.
Yet Pluto had never spoken of it to anyone.
Even when the palace handmaidens, the palace servants scorned him.
Even when men like Daybon occasionally came to test his Authority, forcing him to do things he despised.
The prince only ever held his tongue, as if he had been trained to do so from birth.
That must have been why.
Why Daybon now stared at Pluto with such a startled expression.
As tears fell in torrents from Pluto’s eyes, the heat that had been roiling and warming his entire body seemed to surge all at once into his eyes and hands.
“Pluto…….”
The instant Clover called out carefully to Pluto.
One of Pluto’s Summoned Creatures—a sword—shot forth from nowhere, its massive jaws snapping wide open to clamp down on Daybon’s torso.
“Ugh—gaaaah!”
The beast of death, now grown to a size incomparable with before, lunged at him without warning, and Daybon shrieked in panic as its teeth sank into him.

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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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