The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 257

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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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“The sky… is so blue.”

I murmured while being held in Tian’s arms.

Looking at the sky spreading sunlight, reality felt distant.

As if it had never been devoured by magi, everything was shining brightly.

Crookiatus had disappeared.

The evil dragon that had tormented the Underworld for so long had finally been destroyed.

But I didn’t feel any joy.

“…Don’t touch him.”

When Tian pressed my head against his chest, the surrounding scene finally came into view.

Dimas was crouched in front of fallen Armin.

“Don’t touch him! He’s not dead, Armin is, my brother isn’t dead… He said he’d stay by my side and help me until I became king, until he became a hundred-year-old man…”

The knights solemnly stepped back at Dimas’s expression, as if he had lost everything.

“Euriko-!!”

Not far away, another familiar voice could be heard.

Among the ruins of a collapsed building, Takai was trembling while holding Euriko in his arms.

“Euriko, no. Come to your senses.”

He murmured while endlessly caressing Euriko’s cheek.

“This little wound is nothing. So let’s stop the bleeding first, okay? If we stitch it up, it’ll heal quickly, you know best how strong Barkin’s warriors are, so please…”

His voice gradually turned into sobbing.

When Euriko wouldn’t wake up no matter how much he shook her, Takai finally began to wail.

“Please… please don’t take her away!”

He looked up at the sky and pleaded desperately through his tears.

“Not this child. Not this one, not my daughter… Please, sob, please don’t take her away, please…”

It was the miserable, fierce wailing of a beast that had lost its young.

I closed my eyes tightly.

“…Tian.”

Tian’s breath caught slightly.

“Where are Mother and Father, and Grandmother?”

“…”

“Mother and Father, Grandmother… where is everyone?”

I blankly watched as Tian’s eyes filled with moisture.

After being frozen for a long time, he slowly turned around while holding me.

Three people came into view in the distance.

The first thing I saw was Mother kneeling on the ground without moving.

Father’s back, embracing Mother, was covered with blood, stains, and dust.

“Why is everyone like that? Go tell them to get up. Take me over there. Please?”

But Tian couldn’t take a step.

Father was also completely motionless.

I felt a bitter taste in my mouth and barely managed to turn my head.

Not far away.

Grandmother was sitting alone with her back against the ruins of a collapsed building.

Her cloak, whitened with dust, was soaked with red blood in places.

Grandmother’s gaze was fixed somewhere in the air.

“…Grandmother.”

I squeezed out my voice to call her, but Grandmother didn’t turn her head.

She didn’t even look in my direction.

I said with a trembling voice.

“…It’s too noisy around here. Right?”

There was no life at all in Grandmother’s eyes.

“That’s why you can’t hear me. If I go closer and call you, you’ll get up. Everyone, everyone…”

“Annellia.”

A painful groan flowed from Tian’s mouth.

“Annellia…”

The sound of my heartbeat made my head dizzy.

Gasping for breath, I said.

“…It’s unfair.”

My eyes felt hot as if they were on fire.

None of this was anything I had chosen.

“What have I endured all this time for…”

Many people from the Empire, no, from the entire continent, spoke about me.

They clicked their tongues saying Annellia Abner never knew when to stop.

That I wouldn’t be satisfied until I had everything.

But all I really wanted was one small happiness.

“With the people I love…”

I wanted to live safely, enjoying small joys.

That was all I really wanted to achieve, so why.

Tears flowed down my cheeks.

I hadn’t won this fight.

Crookiatus had disappeared, but at the same time, I had lost everyone too.

‘Tian is the same.’

My heartbeat was getting weaker.

I couldn’t feel any of the abundant mana, and my breathing was getting heavier.

In a few minutes, Tian would lose me.

Just as I had lost my family, he too would ultimately lose me, who he said was his everything.

In the distance, I could see clouds sparkling in the sunlight.

But now I could know for certain.

My place was always on the side where light didn’t reach.

[No.]

Then a voice was heard.

At the top of the castle ruins.

Someone was standing straight, gazing at Tian and me.

The moment I frowned, time stopped.

The people who had been moving around, the people crying while holding onto the departed.

Even the clouds in the sky.

With everything except Tian and me frozen, Rikentia walked down the ruins as if gliding.

[I can’t apologize. But I’ll acknowledge it. That I was wrong.]

“…What?”

[Giving power back to Crookiatus was greed. I only thought humans were insignificant…]

She frowned with one eyebrow.

[Even someone like me didn’t want things to turn out this way.]

A hollow laugh escaped me.

I was so angry I couldn’t find words to say, when Rikentia spoke.

[I’ll take responsibility.]

I narrowed my eyes.

[I’ll make it so you can turn it back.]

But at the words that followed, my heart sank.

[You’ve done it once, so you’d know. Regression, I mean.]

Come to think of it, I had completely forgotten.

That regression magic existed in this world.

[Of course, what I’m trying to do isn’t ordinary. It won’t be the same as what you experienced either. Before, only one person’s life was at stake, but what I’m trying to do now has the entire Underworld at stake, doesn’t it?]

My eyes met with Tian’s.

When I grabbed his arm, Tian carefully lowered me to the floor.

I spoke with a serious expression while being supported by Tian.

“Don’t beat around the bush. Tell me exactly what you’re planning to do.”

Rikentia lowered her eyes and tilted her body slightly.

[As you know, regression destroys existing timelines and creates new ones. In that process, inevitable cracks are born.]

Father was the first to tell me about temporal cracks.

Father said it takes time for destroyed timelines to be filled again with new timelines.

Therefore, during that period, parts of time remain completely empty.

Those empty spaces were precisely the cracks, or the void.

[While cracks exist, someone must always fill that gap. Otherwise, regression won’t activate properly.]

As Rikentia said, this space of nothingness always required someone.

It was the principle of preventing timelines from being completely twisted by blocking the void.

Usually, the existence that becomes the central axis of regression plays that role.

[The central axis of my regression will be Crookiatus.]

As if reading my thoughts, Rikentia spoke.

I frowned.

“Crookiatus?”

[Yes. My plan is to maintain the current timeline while turning only Crookiatus into a non-existent being. Then everything twisted by him will also return to its place.]

My brow furrowed even more.

Rikentia’s theory of turning back only Crookiatus’s time wasn’t impossible.

But the problem was the crack that would form in that process.

“A non-existent being cannot fill the crack.”

Rikentia nodded.

[Right. If we turn back Crookiatus’s time, Crookiatus would also have to be the one filling the crack, but…]

The moment regression activates, Crookiatus will disappear from the world.

Then the being who should fill the crack will also disappear.

The problem didn’t end there.

[It won’t be easy for someone else to take that crack’s place either. That place will probably be an Endless Void.]

I closed my mouth.

No matter how deep a crack was, it would eventually have an end.

Just like how Father endured the crack created by my regression and returned.

But the crack created by regressing Crookiatus, an absolute being, was truly close to ‘endless.’

It meant continuing endlessly, eternally.

Because the subject of regression was a god, not a human.

[At first, I tried to go in myself. Ulgen, Hegatan, and Ricaruss also stepped forward. Though they were rejected.]

Rikentia made a complicated expression.

[The Divine Dragons didn’t want to lose an absolute being over this matter. Getting permission to regress Crookiatus was barely achieved in the first place… We need another being to fill the crack.]

My eyes slowly sank.

The being who would eliminate Crookiatus and fill the temporal crack that would be created.

If only that being could be resolved, everything could be turned back.

Naturally, one thought came to mind.

‘What if I go?’

Even though that place would be an endless void of infinity.

Still, if I endured within it.

It was the moment I raised my head with trembling eyes.

“I’ll go.”

A firm voice came from behind me.

I slowly turned around with wide eyes.

“I’ll fill it, that crack.”

Tian was looking directly at Rikentia without a hint of wavering.

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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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