The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 262
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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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“Look carefully at the fourth classification list here? When you substitute Igx 3.87, Aka 163.78, and Zeta 12, it matches exactly with the regression equation you gave us.”
Owen poured out his explanation as if he might collapse from excitement at any moment.
He was so excited that his hands holding the paper were trembling violently.
Rico was in the same state.
“Honestly, I never thought this would work! I mean, finding the rift coordinates for a spell that can regress the entire world – does that even make sense?!”
“That’s what I’m saying! And with dozens of variables, just the interdimensional spaces that could be created…”
“We haven’t found the exact rift coordinates yet.”
I spoke in as calm a tone as possible.
“What we’ve done so far is just identify the interdimensional space where the rift might exist, that’s all. We can’t relax yet.”
Owen and Rico made clicking sounds with their tongues and nodded.
But the truth was, my hands hidden beneath my sleeves were also trembling.
‘…Honestly, we found it much faster than I expected.’
Interdimensional spaces are created in the world whenever high-level magic is cast.
It was a result of the disrupted causality caused by magic.
When I started researching to find Tian, the number of interdimensional spaces I had identified was roughly 80,000.
Of course, adding the coordinates newly discovered during the research process, it was much more than that.
‘But… it’s okay now.’
At least we had identified the interdimensional space where the rift holding Tian was located.
I took a short breath and spoke to Owen and Rico.
“You two should go rest for a bit. There’s going to be a welcome banquet for Sister Kanaelle and Adrian.”
Rico’s eyes widened.
“Oh! Then there’ll be the sous chef’s special braised chicken too?”
“Probably. I could already smell the food on my way here.”
Rico hurriedly threw off his research coat.
Then he whispered to Owen in a meaningful voice.
“I’m going. You should think carefully too, hyung. If not now, who knows when we’ll get to rest.”
I watched the backs of Rico hurrying out of the research room and Owen subtly following behind him.
Only after the research room became quiet did I walk to the desk where Owen had been sitting.
On the desk.
A single piece of worn parchment was pinned in place.
“…This is it.”
I traced the coordinates written on the paper with my hand and took a short breath.
‘There aren’t many mana stones left.’
There are limits to how much mana stone can be mined.
Even though we had maximized mining output over the past few months, we couldn’t even recover half of half the amount consumed during the war.
‘But we have the celestial coordinates.’
After the war ended, I visited each of the four celestial coordinates Father had marked in turn.
I had hoped that perhaps I could make contact with the gods there.
However, most of the celestial coordinates had already been completely closed.
The only place where even weak mana could be felt was the altar at Michaeliann Gorge.
“If I put in all the mana stones we have and add the amount of mana felt from the gorge…”
My hand moved quickly across the scrap paper I had grabbed at random.
Since starting the research, I had stopped the researchers from using calculation magic tools.
We had to save even the mana that went into small magic tools in preparation for any possible situation.
As a result, the mana stones in Abner Territory were actually accumulating steadily.
‘Though the researchers suffered a bit.’
My hand, which had been calculating, suddenly stopped.
I blinked as I looked at the result that had finally been derived.
“…I can open it.”
Once I found the rift coordinates, I could activate a portal from those rift coordinates to here in the Underworld.
It meant that just by opening the path, I could pull Tian out of that terrible void.
I rubbed my tired eyes and took a deep breath.
Now that it was confirmed that the portal could be opened, only one thing remained.
“…Igx 3.87, Aka 163.78, Zeta 12.”
The only result value produced by months of research.
Now I just needed to find out where exactly Tian was within this, and it would be over.
“We’ll be heading back now.”
Kanaelle bowed deeply in greeting.
Adrian followed her lead and bowed as well.
Though he was now officially Duke Hunt, Adrian maintained respectful courtesy toward the members of the Abner Family.
Sharon approached Adrian with a smiling face.
And gently stroked the child’s hair.
“If you need help, tell us anytime.”
Adrian lowered his gaze as if embarrassed and nodded.
An unmistakable smile hung at the corners of his mouth.
As Adrian boarded the carriage, Kanaelle approached.
“Annellia, she’s really okay, right?”
Instead of answering, Sharon raised her gaze to look at the top of the West Wing where Annellia was.
During the past week that Kanaelle and Adrian had stayed at the palace, Annellia hadn’t come out of the research room even once.
She wasn’t even taking proper meals – when they brought plenty of food three times a day, she would barely empty one bowl at most.
“…Honestly, I’m worried.”
Sharon said.
Kanaelle’s eyebrows drooped.
She knew the reason Sharon was worried about Annellia.
“I heard she’s obsessed with some strange research lately.”
Kanaelle had watched Annellia from beside her for a long time.
The Annellia that Kanaelle knew was a child who, as talented as she was, also had good instincts for knowing where to apply that talent.
It meant she would never waste effort on pointless research.
“Some scholars from the Academic Society came and said that the research she’s doing is essentially meaningless.”
Kanaelle nodded.
The research Annellia was currently conducting was quite complex to summarize in one sentence.
“Finding the causality that gets disrupted when regressing a specific being to before their existence, and the coordinates of rifts created in the void during that process… something like that?”
“Right. I don’t understand what any of that means, but it was roughly something like that.”
Kanaelle narrowed her eyes.
“It is… strange indeed.”
Regression.
And rifts supposedly created by it.
These were words Kanaelle had never heard before in the first place.
It was natural for such terms to be unfamiliar to ordinary people, though an expert like Annellia might know them.
“What if, simply put, Annellia is trying to regress something?”
Sharon furrowed her brow.
Then made a hmm sound before answering.
“I’ve already suspected that too. Since she’s such a strong-willed child, I wondered if there was something she wanted to undo.”
But when I gathered the courage to ask.
Annellia opened her eyes wide and said.
“Huh? Everything is perfect right now, so why would I go back to the past? Though…”
Though she trailed off at the end, Sharon could clearly read Annellia’s expression.
“At least I’m not planning to go back to the past myself. I can guarantee that.”
“Hmm….”
The problem was that hearing a definitive answer made me feel even more troubled.
If she wasn’t trying to regress herself, I couldn’t understand why she would continue research on such a topic.
And while pushing herself to such extremes at that.
“Actually, I had Owen Dennis and Rico try to get Annellia to stop her research.”
Kanaelle’s eyes widened.
“And then?”
“The two came back together with serious faces and said this.”
“….”
“They know it sounds strange, but for some reason they also feel like this research shouldn’t be abandoned.”
In the end, it meant they couldn’t bring themselves to say a word about stopping the research.
Kanaelle took Sharon’s hand as she sighed.
The two looked up at the top of the West Wing, which was brightly lit even in the growing darkness.
“…It changed again.”
At my words, Father, who was sitting across from me, looked up.
I pushed the paper I had been looking at toward Father with a serious expression.
“The value should be constant, but the equation changes every time I calculate it.”
Over the past few weeks, I had been focused on finding Tian’s chasm in the interdimensional space.
The problem was that the coordinates of the chasm where Tian would be kept changing moment by moment.
Father muttered.
“This means the chasm’s location keeps changing.”
“That’s right. At this rate, I can’t open a portal….”
Time flows differently between the world inside the interdimensional space and the world outside.
That’s why it was important to specify exact coordinates and open a path.
“Can’t we try to predict the movement pattern?”
Father, who had muttered to himself, pulled all the result equations toward him.
Then he arranged them in a long line and busily moved his pen as if trying to find a pattern within them.
I watched him and said quietly.
“There probably isn’t one.”
I had already tried finding a pattern several times myself.
“Father. This interdimensional space doesn’t seem that large.”
When I spoke in a serious voice, Father looked up.
His face showed an expression of disbelief.
But I calmly continued with my next words.
“I’ll just go in and find him myself.”
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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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