The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 223

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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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“It doesn’t matter if you’re the only one in Abner Manor. I am too.”

“Jayden-!! No, please stay conscious!”

The forest completely covered in green.

Karin’s face caught in his vision swayed hazily.

“I’m alone at Hunt Estate too. But then, if we’re together from now on, wouldn’t that work? Then neither of us would have to be alone.”

When they first met, Karin was a full span taller than Jayden.

Their birthdays were nearly a year apart, and at that age, girls naturally grew faster than boys.

“Let’s meet and play whenever we’re lonely.”

“I’m not lonely though? I’ve never once thought I was lonely.”

“Then when you’re sad or angry? When you’re scared?”

Karin was a completely willful child.

But for some reason, Jayden couldn’t win against such a Karin.

So the two met whenever they were sad, angry, or scared.

They would sit leaning against the wall and talk for hours.

Until Karin’s short hair grew to her waist, and Jayden grew two spans taller than her.

Hunt Territory and Abner Territory were far apart, but it wasn’t difficult for the two to meet.

Because at some point, Karin had learned to handle mysterious abilities.

Using a sacred relic passed down through the Hunt Family, Karin always came to meet Jayden in the Northern Forest of Abner.

Sometimes Jayden would go to meet Karin using the power she had granted him.

After Karin became Empress, it was mainly Jayden who sought out Karin… and so thirty years had accumulated.

In an instant, far too quickly.

“It’s my fault!”

At that moment, Jayden opened his eyes at the crying voice that rang in his ears.

His vision was still hazy, and he could see Karin desperately embracing his melting body.

“You could have been different! Because of me… all because of someone like me, you…!”

Karin’s hot tears fell onto the back of Jayden’s hand.

“I shouldn’t have done that to you who knew nothing. I shouldn’t have taught resistance to you who lived in resignation.”

Karin’s eyes turned toward Jayden.

“I shouldn’t have said you were the only one, asking even you to be on my side… I dragged you into my greed, and so…! I, I ruined you.”

“You never did that.”

Jayden’s lips slowly parted.

Without realizing it, he gripped Karin’s hem tightly.

“It’s the opposite. I ruined you. I was the one who said it to you.”

That to change something, you have to pay a price.

Did she think Etian really knew nothing at all.

Back then, Karin was just a child.

Her only parent was plotting rebellion within the family, and she was always exposed to the danger of discovery.

Though she pretended to be fine, acting as if nothing was wrong, she must have been afraid.

Because Karin was a clever child.

And because she grew up watching criminals being executed daily in the courtyard.

Jayden back then didn’t realize.

What effect his words would have on such a child.

Tears began to flow from Jayden’s eyes as well.

“Because of me, you reported your own parents.”

When he heard that Karin’s parents had been executed, he felt disgusted with himself.

When he heard that it was Karin who had reported them, he wanted to cut out his own lips if he could.

“The one who ruined you, that was… me!”

He wanted to die.

He could have persuaded Karin to make her parents give up their rebellion.

Or he could have quietly extracted only Karin from that dangerous family.

If only he could have overcome the fear that gnawed at his insides day by day back then.

If he could have grown up as an excellent young lord instead of Abner’s wastrel.

If he had started anew as a good son to his mother and a reliable older brother to his sibling.

“You’re the one who could have been different…”

He was a pest that gnawed at the stem of a growing young tree.

He was trash that rotted and dragged even his surroundings into a cesspool.

Just as Jayden’s hand completely melted away.

“No!”

Karin pulled his flowing form into her embrace.

“Don’t even speak such words! Who do you think I endured for-!”

In his completely blocked vision, Karin’s wailing voice rang in his ears.

“You ruined me? I became like this because of you? No, you saved me dozens of times. Every moment I wanted to die, every moment I was driven to the edge and about to collapse, you saved me!”

Karin gripped Jayden’s shoulders and met his bloodshot eyes.

“Don’t be mistaken, Jayden. I became like this purely through my own choices. And you, you…”

“…”

“You’re just someone who foolishly stayed by my side and watched over me.”

Jayden’s gaze trembled slightly.

Karin continued in a wet voice.

“People say that when I die, I’ll probably fall to hell.”

“…”

“But even hearing that, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t sad or scared either.”

Jayden stared blankly at the sobbing Karin.

Then, as if entranced, he muttered quietly.

“I won’t leave you there alone.”

A tear rolled down Karin’s cheek.

She embraced Jayden with trembling arms.

Gradually, the black liquid that had been flowing from Jayden’s body stopped.

His disappeared hand regenerated, and soon he had returned to the complete form of an adult man.

“Let’s leave. Let’s go out and be together.”

Karin repeated through her sobs.

“I won’t go to the Imperial Palace. I’ll stay by your side. Nothing matters now. It doesn’t have to be a high place. Even in filth, even in a pile of garbage, I’ll be with you.”

It was the moment Jayden buried his face in Karin’s hair.

“…Mother?”

At the young voice from behind, both their gazes turned.

“Your Highness Adrian!”

What happened next occurred in an instant.

The knight guarding Adrian reached out his arm, but the child quickly ducked and slipped from the knight’s grasp.

Then he ran toward Karin and Jayden at high speed.

The child stopped, leaving about five steps of distance between himself and the two.

“M-Mother…”

Adrian’s eyes shook unsteadily.

Soon the child’s gaze slowly moved.

From Karin’s disheveled hair to her wounded forehead, to her swollen lips and the tattered rope hanging from one of her arms.

“Mother, why…”

“Don’t come closer!”

At that moment, a sharp voice echoed through the forest.

Karin was glaring at Adrian with a terrifying expression.

“Can’t you hear me?! Get lost right now!”

Adrian’s eyes widened.

Soon, tears began to well up in his large eyes.

“M-Mother, why…?”

“Who’s your mother?!”

Everyone around held their breath at the voice that seemed to contain all the anger and resentment in the world.

“Don’t you dare call me mother with that filthy, incompetent mouth! I’ve never once thought of you as my son!”

Adrian took a step back.

Soon his small feet caught on a tree root.

Karin shouted fiercely at Adrian who had collapsed on the ground.

“I only gave birth to you to eliminate the Crown Prince! But what the hell have you ever done! You’ve never once properly done your part! Every day spent with you was sickening!”

Blue veins bulged in Karin’s hand that gripped Jayden’s sleeve.

Tears streamed down from her flushed eyes.

“So disappear from my sight! Get lost! Go away and never come back!”

“Uh, huuung…”

As Adrian began to hiccup, a knight immediately rushed over.

The knight lifted Adrian up and dragged the child away as if trying to separate him from Karin and Jayden.

But Adrian struggled and shook off the knight’s hand.

Instead, he sat down on the ground and cried out desperately.

“I was wrong, Mother! Yan was wrong!”

The hand reaching toward Karin swayed weakly.

“Yan will do well! I’ll try harder! Mother! Mother, please! Huuung, huuung…!”

But Karin didn’t answer.

She only glared at Adrian with cold eyes, her whole body rigid with tension.

“Mother! Mother!”

Finally, the knight picked up Adrian.

As he carried Adrian away, the child’s cries also scattered as echoes.

When the child’s pitiful sobbing had completely disappeared.

“Huh…”

Karin collapsed in Jayden’s arms.

Her hands touching the ground trembled violently.

“…I…”

And the next moment, silence fell over the forest at the words that came from Karin’s mouth.

“I was wrong, Your Majesty…”

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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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