The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 94
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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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Ancient documents discovered at Southern Fortress of Jedo… Confirmed as ancient magic materials
Academic world celebrates ancient document excavation, owner is Abner Princess?
100 years of stagnant excavation research, House of Abner brings it to an end
I hummed as I set the newspaper down on the research room table.
Owen pushed a chocolate toward me.
“Congratulations, my disciple. The entire Empire is quite stirred up.”
“It’s nothing much.”
We were having a conversation in the Abner Manor Basement Research Lab for the first time in a while.
“But I do feel good about it.”
“You should. That document you so desperately wanted to read in your past life, right?”
I nodded.
As expected, the ancient document contained information about various ancient magic, especially regression magic.
Information I couldn’t see even though I wanted to in my past life, but this time I could get it directly into my hands.
“But you immediately handed that document over to the Magtop Lord?”
“Yes. He’s the chief researcher!”
“Tch. I’m the joint conference chairman but I feel like I’m being pushed down in rank? Of course, I already took a rough look at it.”
I simply ignored Owen’s words and started sipping my chocolate.
‘Owen will just have to deal with being disappointed.’
Theo was the very person who wrote a thesis on regression magic based on that document in my past life.
So I gave the document to Theo as soon as I reviewed it.
There were several parts that were difficult for me to understand.
‘Regression… I understand that it was magic forbidden even in ancient times due to its high mana consumption.’
I couldn’t quite understand the part about ‘temporal rifts occurring in the subject at the moment of activation.’
Just in case, I asked Theo about ‘temporal rifts’ too, but his answer was puzzling.
“Think of temporal rifts as voids created when the timeline becomes distorted.”
“Voids?”
“Yes. Literally spaces of nothingness where nothing exists.”
According to Theo, regression was a type of destructive magic that forcibly distorted the timeline.
Because of this, a long wait was necessary until a stable timeline could regenerate after regression.
The subject would wander through the rifts that occurred during that time…
‘He said it was an infinite void so dark you couldn’t see an inch ahead.’
It was terrifying just to hear about.
Drifting through an empty black space for what felt like hundreds of years.
“But how does the Magtop Lord know that?”
“…I speculated. Based on information I already knew.”
I nodded as if that made sense.
And wondering if there might be more that Theo could discover, I handed the ancient document over to him.
Theo gladly accepted the document and said he would investigate it himself.
I stirred my chocolate with a teaspoon and muttered.
“But why didn’t I have any rifts?”
My regression didn’t have those ‘rifts’ that should have inevitably accompanied it.
I just drank cold coffee, my heart stopped, and when I opened my eyes, I had returned as a four-year-old at the orphanage.
‘Maybe I should just consider it a good thing.’
Whatever it was, being trapped in a place called the void for a long time would certainly be painful.
That’s when it happened.
“Didn’t someone intervene in your regression?”
Owen, who had been folding paper airplanes with a bored expression, said.
“Basically, high-level magic creates a dimensional space upon activation. If you can enter that space, it’s also possible to shift the coordinates of the rift.”
Owen was right.
Theoretically, within the dimensional space created by magic, rifts could be pulled this way and that.
“If something like that happened, it would make sense that you didn’t encounter the rift. Think of it as the rift bypassing you.”
“Oh…”
“Of course, from your perspective, since you never entered the rift, you wouldn’t be able to feel the long time that passed within it.”
Owen placed the completed paper airplane in front of me.
Then he crossed his arms and added one last comment.
“But wait, no. Now that I think about it, the conditions don’t match.”
I pondered those words and nodded.
“That’s right. The ancient document said rifts have strong suction power.”
“It also said they only gradually disappear when there’s a medium.”
In other words, someone must endure the time of patience within the rift.
Otherwise, the regression wouldn’t be completed perfectly.
“This is really strange. Could it be that I experienced it but can’t remember?”
“Well, that’s possible too.”
But both Owen and I were left with some puzzling aspects unresolved.
While we were both lost in thought and the research room was quiet, a soft knock came from the door.
“Come in!”
As soon as I answered, Miel appeared.
“Oh, Miel?”
However, Miel’s expression didn’t look good.
“Um, Young Miss…”
“Yes?”
Miel approached and spoke calmly.
“I think you need to come see something for a moment.”
Even Owen stared at Miel as if asking what was wrong.
Miel spoke in a completely subdued voice.
“Um, Young Master Jayden has…”
“…”
“Found the daughter of the late Lady Isabel…”
Isabel’s daughter?
If it was Isabel’s daughter, she would be Grandmother’s biological granddaughter.
The cocoa cup slipped from my hand.
Owen, with his quick reflexes, caught the cup so the chocolate didn’t spill, but there was no time to feel relieved about that.
“Oh, I see.”
I calmly stood up from my seat.
“Let’s go.”
And I stepped out of the research room.
I could feel Owen and Miel’s anxious gazes following behind me.
The large meeting hall, which was usually kept locked and rarely used, was bustling with countless people.
I had to push through the crowd for quite a while before I could enter.
All the people here were Abner’s vassals or branch family members who had come from distant places.
“I’m, I’m scared. Senia wants to go home…”
Then, among them, a small, young voice could be heard.
Soon after, disheveled silver hair came into view.
A girl about my height was standing in the middle of the meeting hall, looking around nervously.
Someone across from her asked the child.
“Seniana. Tell this person what you told me. Go ahead.”
“Se, Senia is….”
The frightened child’s gaze turned somewhere.
Reflexively following the child’s gaze, I saw Grandmother there.
The child called Seniana opened her mouth with tears welling up.
“I lived with just my dad in a house in the forest in Otium….”
“What did you say happened to your mother?”
“Wh, when I was little, she passed away not long after giving birth to me….”
“Right. You said you have keepsakes from your deceased mother.”
At those words, people began to murmur.
I could feel Miel’s hand, clasped in mine, tense up slightly.
Seniana rummaged inside her small child-sized cloak.
Then she pulled something out.
“That is…!”
Several retainers who quickly approached to examine the object exclaimed.
Some ladies covered their mouths.
But I remained frozen, my gaze fixed not on them but on Grandmother.
Grandmother’s violet eyes, usually filled with composure, wavered like reeds in a storm.
“Mo, mother treasured this letter like a precious thing….”
What Seniana held out were several sheets of old letter paper.
“She said it was from someone precious and that she had to write a reply someday… My father who passed away a few months ago told me… *sob*, *waaah*!”
Unable to finish her words, Seniana dropped the letter.
The papers fluttered down to the floor.
As if entranced, I stepped forward one step at a time.
I could feel Grandmother, as well as Jayden, with whom I’d barely exchanged proper words, watching me.
I picked up the letter with my small hands.
Isn’t it time you came home now, Isabel?
I apologize for treating you coldly.
It’s true that I tried to overprotect you because the timing wasn’t good.
But couldn’t you understand this mother’s heart a little?
Someday when you have children too, you’ll understand my feelings.
So please come back.
It was a letter in Grandmother’s own handwriting, seemingly written not long after Isabel had left the manor.
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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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