The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 164

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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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Patricia Melgon glared fiercely at her restless father.

And she shook the animal excrement she had just received from the hunting ground manager.

“This is why I said I didn’t want to come. It’s already annoying enough having to sleep in the forest for over a week, and now I have to be covered in this filth!”

“Patricia, you don’t have to be covered in it, just sprinkle it around where you’re sitting…”

“So, anyway, I’m not doing it!”

Patricia’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“Who was it that forced me to come when I said I didn’t want to in the first place? It was you, Father, wasn’t it? So just do it yourself!”

“But Patricia, Her Imperial Majesty the Empress…”

“That damn Empress, always the Empress.”

Patricia lowered her voice and moved closer to Baron Melgon.

“Do we really have to go this far because of one request from the Empress? This blessing festival sacrifice hunt or whatever, only you need to participate, Father! Why are you forcing it on me too!”

Baron Melgon wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

“Patricia. Our family is currently barely hanging on at the edge of the imperial capital…”

Melgon was once famous in the imperial capital for having good financial resources.

But that was past glory, not the present.

“You know how difficult things have been for our family since the previous baron’s time. For us to be invited to this hunt is itself a tremendous honor…”

“Since when did you care about honor and such things?”

Baron Melgon closed his mouth.

“You’ve never let me live like a noble, but now you want me to act like one?”

“Patricia…”

“Grandfather ruined the family with gambling. Mother ran away. And the father I have left doesn’t know how to make money or deal with people.”

Patricia’s eyes gleamed fiercely.

“Status and everything else aside, it would be a hundred times better to just go live in the countryside. Do you know how much I’m looked down upon even by the kids in the same neighborhood?”

“…”

“Those kids wear different dresses every single day. They take violin lessons, dress up prettily from head to toe, and live luxuriously. But what about me?”

Patricia lowered her voice.

“I’m a noble, unlike those kids I’m truly noble by birth! Yet I’m treated worse than Duke Abner’s daughter who was supposedly born a commoner!”

“…”

“If I had known it would be like this, I should have left home when I was young. If I had become an orphan instead, I might have been adopted by a place like the Abner family!”

Baron Melgon’s expression darkened.

Patricia looked at the baron with contempt.

“Father, you’ve never done anything right. Using the excuse of being beaten and raised by Grandfather, you couldn’t properly lead the family, and you let Mother run away too, didn’t you? The only person left around is me!”

“…”

“If it were me, I would have quickly overcome such pain! Coward.”

Just as Patricia was about to pass her father and enter her tent.

“I-I’m sorry… Patricia.”

Baron Melgon desperately grabbed his daughter’s wrist.

Patricia slowly turned around with a frown still on her face.

“Father is, Father is truly sorry. Give me a chance to make things right.”

“Make what right?”

Baron Melgon hurriedly put down the luggage he was carrying on his shoulder.

“Her Imperial Majesty the Empress sent a gift when she invited us. It’s a weapon you can use.”

What emerged from inside was a longbow engraved with splendid patterns.

“This is a blessing festival for the future prince to be born, isn’t it? This hunt is the process of catching the sacrifice to offer at that blessing festival.”

“…”

“Her Imperial Majesty seems to want not only adults but also children to participate in this process. I don’t know why, but it apparently has meaning for Her Imperial Majesty…”

Patricia quietly looked down at the longbow.

A body that appeared to be made of fine wood at first glance.

A glossy string and arrows that seemed to be made using peacock feathers.

“Just participate with this. Just show yourself participating in the Visual Orb, okay?”

“…”

“Her Imperial Majesty even bestowed a weapon to encourage participation, so if you don’t take part…”

“Ha, fine. I got it.”

Patricia picked up the longbow as if giving in reluctantly.

“I’ll do it. I just have to do it, right?”

A bright expression spread across Baron Melgon’s face.

“Really?”

“…I’ll just hold this and pretend. Really just pretend!”

“Yes! Even if you appear in the Visual Orb just once, it will prove that House of Melgran still has the Empress’s support…”

“Other families might help us too. Like sponsoring me, for instance.”

Baron Melgon nodded with a bewildered face.

Patricia turned the longbow this way and that, and even tried placing an arrow on the string.

Then she shouted loudly.

“What are you doing?! Hurry up and go!”

Baron Melgon stared blankly at his daughter’s retreating figure before hurriedly chasing after her.

“…Wow.”

In the place where everyone had left.

I blinked while covering my mouth.

Patricia, was it?

‘I’ve really never seen a kid like that in my life.’

Come to think of it, I was actually hearing the name Melgon for the first time.

‘The fact that even I, who memorizes most noble families, didn’t know them…’

It meant that House of Melgran was truly a collapsing, insignificant family.

Perhaps that’s why Baron Melgon, the father, also seemed weak and powerless.

I quietly frowned.

‘What exactly is Karin Empress up to?’

She encourages hunting by giving longbows as gifts to collapsing nobles.

She mobilizes a bunch of kids for the blessing festival sacrifice hunt.

I opened my bag for no reason and checked inside again.

Then I let out a short bitter laugh.

‘This makes that ridiculous prediction seem like it might actually be true.’

I pondered for a long time before finally leaving the tent several minutes later.

Because the hunt was now truly about to begin.

Deep in the forest.

Where a tree with a rotten base had fallen diagonally.

“There are more Visual Orbs than expected. Collecting them will be quite a task too.”

At Awin’s words, Armin shrugged his shoulders.

“Isn’t it good if there are many Visual Orbs? All our active moments would have been captured too.”

Awin smiled awkwardly while looking at the wild beasts lying in a row in front of them.

They were all hunted by the two of them during their eight-hour ambush at this spot.

“…I wonder if Annellia and that annoying Crown Prince are doing well right now.”

Breaking the silence, Armin spoke up.

“I suppose so. It feels like about eight or nine hours have passed.”

“Really, thinking about how they’ve been sharing snacks and chatting together for all that time…”

Armin gripped his harpoon tightly.

“Why on earth did Annellia choose that inhuman guy? Anyone can see it would be much more fun being with me or you.”

“She said he was her first friend.”

“What?”

“That inhumane Crown Prince is Lia’s first friend.”

Armin’s eyes widened.

“What are you talking about? Was our Lia really that lacking in social skills when she was young?”

“I don’t know either. She has several friends from the orphanage, but she says His Highness Tian is her first friend…”

“…”

Silence fell between the two boys.

After a long while, Armin, who had been quiet, muttered.

“Hey, Awin. I figured it out.”

“What?”

“I figured it out. What Lia’s words mean.”

A victorious smile spread across Armin’s lips.

“I can tell she’s drawing a line.”

“Drawing a line?”

“Yeah. You’re a friend no matter what, even if you die and come back to life. You can never be anything more than that, something like that.”

Armin waved his harpoon with a smug expression.

“Our Annellia is really smart. She knows better than anyone who she should get involved with and who she shouldn’t.”

“…The word ‘friend’ is usually used in that context.”

Just as Awin, who had been dazed, nodded his head.

Rustle-

Suddenly, sounds came from ahead.

In the darkening forest, the bushes between the trees right in front of them were shaking.

“Shh.”

Armin stopped Awin from getting up. Then he slowly readjusted his grip on the harpoon.

“…It’s not a small animal. Something feels strange.”

Armin’s eyes flashed sharply, and after a moment of silence.

“Kihaaak-!”

A strange form leaped up from between the bushes.

“Get down!”

At the same time as Armin’s voice, Awin quickly ducked into the grass.

The harpoon flew through the air.

Dark red blood splattered through the air, and the charging beast crashed to the ground.

“Wait, this is…”

Awin, who had gotten up, stammered.

Blood flowed along the retrieved harpoon.

Armin looked down at the collapsed beast and muttered.

“Am I seeing things right now?”

“No… I don’t think so.”

“Right.”

A being that hadn’t shown itself once in the past few hundred years and was thought to have disappeared.

The worst life form that black magic could create, and a monster that kills people without hesitation.

“Why is a demon beast here?”

A demon beast, a remnant of black magic, lay collapsed in front of the two boys.

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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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