The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 272
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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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Lasandra slowly opened her eyes.
The void that had been endlessly spread beneath her feet began to collapse.
Ulgen’s form appeared in the air.
[Lasandra, don’t do this, let me find another way…!]
Ulgen looked as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
But Lasandra showed a relaxed smile.
[Lord Ulgen. I was being sincere.]
[…What?]
[When I said the Heavenly Realm doesn’t suit me.]
Ulgen bit his lips.
[Lord Ulgen, you know, don’t you? Where I started from.]
[…]
[How I climbed up to here.]
An orphan with no name, no family name.
She was a baby abandoned in a garbage dump right after birth.
The one who found and took her in said this.
That it was a miracle she had survived for two days in a place teeming with pig entrails, flies, and maggots.
He gave Lasandra a name.
It was roughly made up after ‘Casandra’, the most popular prostitute in the back alleys at the time.
[Lord Ulgen. I liked my name. Even after I grew up and learned that my name was made after a prostitute’s name, that never changed.]
[Lasandra…]
[Having such a name, living as a human being. That’s better than rotting away with pig carcasses on a pile of garbage.]
The one who took in Lasandra was a beggar who wandered the alleys.
He was rough, a man who squandered all the money he earned begging on alcohol, but he was a decent guardian.
He always left enough money to buy food for Lasandra’s share.
[I was always hungry. Really, it was such a wretched life that it made me nauseous. How can a growing child survive a day on half a stale bread?]
A hollow smile flowed from Lasandra’s lips.
[So I always searched through the incineration yard. Sometimes there would be rotten food. The funny thing is, I wanted to fill my stomach even if I’d be sick for five days after eating it.]
But then she discovered unexpected things.
The various paths of the incineration yard also led to the back alleys of the bustling marketplace.
Because that was the only place to dispose of garbage from the marketplace.
All sorts of items gathered at the incineration yard.
From unused clothes, rusty kitchen utensils, the food Lasandra had been searching for so desperately, to magical research equipment and half-burned academic materials.
[A child who couldn’t even read spent all day clinging to those things, understanding them. And eventually even creating them.]
A strange light appeared in Lasandra’s eyes.
[That whole process was thrillingly fun for me.]
At that time, humans possessed magical power in their bodies.
However, basic knowledge and training were needed to utilize the magical power they possessed.
Therefore, noble children and royalty who received higher education naturally wielded better magic than those who didn’t.
But they weren’t satisfied with that.
[The problem was that sometimes dried-up corpses would be dumped in the incineration yard.]
As she grew up, Lasandra naturally learned.
That some of the high-ranking people would buy the insignificant lives from the back alleys for pocket change.
And after extracting magical power from them, they would dump the emptied bodies in the incineration yard.
Of course, learning this didn’t change much.
She was already struggling just to take care of herself.
However, things changed when she discovered a familiar face among the discarded corpses.
[They did that to him too.]
The one who pulled her out of the pile of filth swarming with flies.
“Don’t starve. Whatever it is, eat even if it’s as small as rat droppings. You must never get used to hunger.”
The one who, even when completely drunk, left her share of money every day.
[I never called him that, but he was like a parent to me.]
Ulgen was silently looking at Lasandra.
[I gathered evidence for half a year and reported it to the Imperial Court.]
The day after discovering the man’s corpse, Lasandra created her first visual orb.
And she began filming the incineration yard all day with a battery made from her own magical power.
Dozens of corpses dumped every week and the faces of those who disappeared like fugitives after dumping the bodies were recorded.
After three months, their backers began to be revealed.
After four months, she could deduce the identities and residences of those behind them.
That was the information she had gathered.
Lasandra organized everything into documents, then sent them to the Imperial Court with copied visual orbs enclosed.
But those arrested weren’t the nobles who had captured and killed innocent people.
It was Lasandra herself.
[They said they could kill me for attempting to blackmail nobles, but they’d spare me because my talent was too valuable to waste.]
They wanted more magical devices from Lasandra.
They were also curious about how she had contained the magical power extracted from bodies into batteries.
Whether she could activate magic without magical devices.
If she could, they also asked how far it was possible.
Lasandra realized.
Perhaps the way to repay her debt to the deceased man might be within the Imperial Court.
From that day on, she devoted herself to research.
To the Imperial Court, she only threw things that would roughly appeal to their appetites.
The core technologies, the important discoveries, Lasandra kept to herself.
Since she had created everything anyway, there was no guilt.
It didn’t take long for Lasandra to devour the Imperial Court and become independent from the Empire.
The same was true for capturing the nobles who killed the man and taking cruel revenge.
Before her as an archmage, even thousands of armies were useless.
Thus, the past of being abandoned with pig carcasses seemed to gradually fade.
The hunger that had pathologically pursued her also disappeared.
Compassion and joy.
Overwhelming feelings and sweetness, such novel emotions bloomed like sprouts in her heart.
Lasandra thought.
Perhaps she too might be able to become happy.
But it was a delusion.
[When Crookiatus appeared. When people died like swarms of ants.]
Lasandra had nowhere to flee either.
The paradise she had built over her lifetime crumbled with a single gesture from the evil dragon.
Standing before all humanity was actually something she did in a fit of anger.
The Empire.
The Maritime Union across the sea.
Even the numerous principalities of the Eastern Continent eventually knelt before her feet.
Hope sprouted that perhaps she could improve the situation even against the evil dragon.
As a result, this hope wasn’t entirely vain.
Lasandra fought well against Crookiatus.
She just had to confine all of humanity’s magical power within herself as the price for sealing him.
That was something only she could have done.
When she finally subdued the evil dragon, Lasandra was also battered beyond recognition.
She instinctively realized. That she would die before long.
The price of gathering excessively great power was her life.
[Recognition my ass. What I wanted was just acknowledgment.]
Lasandra’s brow furrowed as she recalled the past.
[I didn’t need thanks for sealing the evil dragons or anything like that, I just wanted them to acknowledge whose sacrifice had made them safe.]
But what returned to Lasandra was disgrace and persecution.
All of humanity slandered her, claiming she had stolen and monopolized magical power.
They sent armies to her day after day as she grew weaker.
When Lasandra killed them all, they sent another army.
When she killed all of those too, they sent yet another army.
In the end, the world saw Lasandra as a witch.
A demon who should disappear from the world, who deserved to perish and die.
She was never able to shake off the fate of being abandoned from birth.
As time passed, only one emotion grew larger in Lasandra’s heart.
[…Boredom.]
An emotion that was neither surprising nor remarkable.
Lasandra lived stubbornly for a long time.
Despite her shortened lifespan from sealing the evil dragons, she lived with all her might.
Killing the humans who came to her filled with hatred, wanting to kill her.
Until white bones piled up like mountains around where she lived.
When she left the world, she ensured that the magical power she possessed would be passed down to future generations.
Otherwise, the released power would return to Crookiatus.
Actually, there were times when she thought about just releasing her power and dying, whether the evil dragons awakened or not.
But she couldn’t do it.
Even knowing that her descendants would be persecuted like her, she couldn’t in the end.
The moment she closed her eyes in the Underworld, Lasandra’s mind was filled with hatred for herself.
It was because she found herself unbearably stupid and pathetic.
However, the moment her soul left her body, Ulgen called her to the Heavenly Realm.
[You deserve to enjoy a little more. In the Heavenly Realm, all worries and concerns disappear.]
She thought she would forget everything that happened in the Underworld.
She thought the anguish that tore at her heart would disappear.
She thought becoming a god was the way to prove herself, and she could repay the debt she owed her descendants that way.
[But the Heavenly Realm wasn’t much different from the Underworld in the end.]
Lasandra looked away from the Void.
It had been a long, sickeningly long life.
She had possessed everything and lost everything.
Now there was only one thing she wanted.
Only one thing she could still do.
Lasandra looked at Ulgen with calm eyes.
[…I want to rest now. Lord Ulgen.]
Ulgen pressed her lips tightly together.
Soon she slowly nodded her head.
[…Yes.]
A faint smile appeared on Lasandra’s lips.
Soon a fierce light covered the Heavenly Realm.
When the light faded, Lasandra’s body had disappeared along with the Void beneath her feet.
A small breath escaped from Ulgen’s lips.
[Farewell, Lasandra.]
It was Lasandra’s annihilation, and finally, her eternal rest.
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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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