The Beloved Baby Priestess of the Twelve Zodiac Gods - Chapter 52

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 52
But he didn’t charge recklessly as before. He’d already felt the Priestess’s strength firsthand, and on top of that, his power had been stripped away.
‘Once I complete everything I promised her, she’ll give it back. Until then, I won’t even think about running.’
The boy ground his teeth, remembering the deal he’d struck with Yeo Ryeong.
Over these past few days, she’d taught him to read and forcibly crammed knowledge about the Twelve Zodiac Animals into his head.
Thanks to her, he’d learned that he himself was one of the Zodiac Animals—a fact he was still in denial about.
‘Once I get my power back, I’m going to get revenge on that old witch!’
But for now, he was nothing but a powerless child.
He’d promised to behave himself and had only just emerged from the cave.
And now, of all people, he’d run into this girl again.
She’d been irritating from the moment they first met.
Especially when she’d found him despite his efforts to hide his presence—he’d been so shocked.
The boy’s face darkened at once, and he let out a low growl.
“Was it you? Did you rat me out to that old hag?”
Mu Je stepped forward protectively in front of Arin.
“I did.”
The boy’s gaze shifted to Mu Je.
A refined gentleman, raised in a respectable household just like Arin.
Exactly the type the boy despised.
“Who are you?”
“Show some respect.”
“I don’t want to.”
As the boy smirked and clicked his tongue, Mu Je’s expression turned cold.
This was a boy who’d rubbed him the wrong way from their first encounter.
In that instant, a crimson gleam flickered across Mu Je’s eyes.
Feeling it, the boy clenched his fists and tensed.
Just as Mu Je’s presence began to turn vicious, Yeo Ryeong took a step forward.
“It’s all right, my lord.”
Arin took hold of Mu Je’s hand and smiled brightly.
As if she knew he was about to cause trouble.
In that moment, Mu Je’s fierce presence dissipated as though it had never been.
“Ah.”
Mu Je’s gaze settled on Arin’s hand in his.
Under normal circumstances, he would have erupted long ago.
But with Arin’s hand in his, the surge of power calmed.
After confirming that Mu Je had settled, Arin fixed her gaze on the boy.
The boy, feeling caught out, grumbled.
“What, why, what?”
And at her next words, his expression mirrored Mu Je’s earlier coldness.
“Are your injuries all right?”
The boy found Arin’s kindness bewildering.
She spoke harshly, yet her expression didn’t change—which somehow frightened him all the more.
Because it was so much like his dead grandmother.
“…It’s fine.”
The boy’s hostility melted away as suddenly as it had flared.
Arin smiled gently, taking this as a sign his anger had passed.
“Good. I was worried—I left you some salve that day.”
In truth, Arin had been eyeing the boy’s arms since the moment they met.
She’d been anxious remembering how much blood he’d lost that day.
“Did the Priestess help you with that?”
At Arin’s innocent question, the boy looked at Yeo Ryeong with a complicated expression.
“Actually, I was…”
Before the boy could even finish saying he’d been kidnapped and imprisoned, Yeo Ryeong deliberately gestured with her staff.
The boy then muttered quietly.
“Right. I’ll be staying here for a while.”
“I see. Nice to meet you. I’m Arin. What’s your name?”
At her warmhearted question, the boy frowned awkwardly.
“Rain in Mystical Darkness. That’s my name.”
It had been a very long time since he’d introduced himself to anyone.
Ever since the grandmother who’d given him this name had gone, he’d been wandering the streets.
At that moment, Arin murmured softly to herself.
“So it means ‘black rain’?”
“Yes. I was found on a rainy day.”
Originally, Woo Hyeon had no name at all.
But on the day his grandmother found him in the rain, he received one.
“A name holding memories. How beautiful.”
At Arin’s genuine admiration, Woo Hyeon didn’t know how to respond.
‘Is she always this bright? “Found,” and yet she calls it memories.’
He wondered if she was deliberately teasing him, but her expression suggested otherwise.
“Do you live here too? I heard not just anyone can enter this place.”
“No. I come and go from my home.”
“What? A weakling girl like you just walks through that enormous Mystical Barrier?”
Woo Hyeon stared at her as if astonished.
He grew cautious, wondering if she might be stronger than she appeared, when Arin produced a Lotus Token.
“I can enter and leave with this.”
Woo Hyeon’s gaze fixed on the token.
‘If I steal that, I could escape from here…….’
Staying in this place wouldn’t bring him any good anyway.
No matter how safe it was, he carried misfortune with him wherever he went.
‘Once I find the strength, I’m leaving.’
Accustomed to isolating himself rather than harming others, Woo Hyeon watched carefully where Arin kept the Lotus Token.
“Let’s head inside now.”
After that, Yeo Ryeong and Arin entered a room to train.
Left alone, Woo Hyeon was about to do the homework Yeo Ryeong had assigned when Mu Je spoke up.
“You reek of something putrid and foul.”
At the blunt accusation, Woo Hyeon’s brow furrowed.
True enough when he’d been wandering the streets, but since arriving here he’d been washed how many times by Yeo Ryeong—the smell comment stung.
Woo Hyeon sniffed at himself and replied irritably.
“I bathed this morning too. Are you mocking me as a beggar now?”
“Not that smell. Your particular energy is repulsive.”
Mu Je covered his nose with his sleeve as if he couldn’t bear it.
A Zodiac Animal’s aura could be so filthy.
It seemed his Spirit Core had deteriorated badly from being neglected so long and misusing the Zodiac Animal Power.
Mu Je stepped back further and warned him.
“If the Priestess hadn’t stripped your power away, you’d have gone into Rampage long ago.”
“What are you going on about, you pretty boy?”
“While you’re here, stay quiet and then leave. Better yet, don’t let me see you.”
Mu Je said what he came to say and left.
Woo Hyeon spat at the spot where Mu Je had vanished.
“Insufferable bastard.”
* * *
Deep into the night, Hong I Jin remained in the Study Room.
‘You truly didn’t know that Miss Arin was registered as an adopted daughter of the Gold Tiger Clan?’
‘That girl was taken away by the Priestess. The Gold Tiger Clan and the Priestess are close, so it seems the child was entrusted to her care.’
He’d dismissed Hong Hyeok Jae’s questions as trivial, but the more he turned it over in his mind, the stranger it became.
Do Gyeong couldn’t possibly have been ignorant that the girl was a half-baked Zodiac Animal incapable of Recovery.
‘What exactly is he plotting?’
Three years ago, when Jin Gyeong had come to him claiming to be at death’s door, he’d turned him away coldly, and their friendship had effectively ended.
For three years after, they’d had no contact, and yet Do Gyeong suddenly appeared with the Priestess and took Arin away—could that truly be coincidence?
The inconsistencies didn’t end there.
‘For the sake of his adopted daughter, he personally opened the Gold Tiger Clan and held a reception. I learned of it there.’
So he wasn’t merely taking her in—he was cherishing her.
Hong Hyeok Jae had recounted how devoted Do Gyeong was to Arin, describing in detail the humiliation he’d suffered at that gathering.
In ordinary times, he would have shared in the outrage at Hong Sa House being slighted.
‘What fine tastes he has. He means to raise my daughter as his own.’
She might as well be the enemy’s daughter. Had it been him, he wouldn’t have even kept her as a servant.
Hong I Jin found that aspect of Do Gyeong truly distasteful.
Unlike him, who’d endured fierce succession struggles, Do Gyeong was an only child with formidable natural power.
So never having faced his position in peril as Hong I Jin had, he moved through life with perpetual ease and struck at his aims without hesitation.
There had been moments when Hong I Jin found that admirable, but those days were long past.
Hong I Jin withdrew Arin’s letter from the study drawer.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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