The Cowardly Baby Saint Sees Ghosts - Chapter 21

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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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# Episode 21.
It was the last sentence that stayed with me.
Spoken in such a chilling voice.
So tenderly.
“Don’t listen.”
“Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby.”
“Don’t listen!”
I gripped Demian’s hand hard, tears streaming down my face.
“That wasn’t meant for Your Highness.”
“……Like this.”
A small voice.
Demian’s.
“If I just fall asleep like this…….”
He was only seven years old. A young prince haunted by spirits like these, holding his breath to survive among people trying to drag him down from his position of power.
I found myself speechless.
The words left unspoken cut too deep.
The pain was too much.
“No. No matter how hard it gets, not this.”
“…….”
“This is just giving up. This is losing!”
Demian’s fingers gripped my hand with the faintest pressure.
There was still something there.
Demian’s will—it was still there.
Before I could even react, water that had been silently pooling on the floor surged upward.
Small toys rose from the water.
A wooden horse. A cloth ball. A rusted silver bell. A single baby shoe.
Things the woman had lost, no doubt.
The woman’s eye sockets turned toward me.
“You…….”
The woman’s hand reached toward me. Frozen, I could only watch it come.
I should have pushed back. I should have run.
Should I call Liam?
No. Liam can’t see her.
That’s when Cheese leaped forward.
“Shriek!”
As Cheese clawed at the woman’s hand, a shriek tore out like nails raking across a chalkboard.
“……!”
The tremendous Sound Wave Attack sent me staggering.
In that moment, something hard caught against my fingertips from inside my pocket.
The Vision Protection Glasses.
An item I’d obtained during the Camilla incident.
Glasses that made spirits appear cute.
I pulled them out.
My hands were trembling. Should I wear them? Wouldn’t it be less scary that way? My Fear Gauge is charged anyway.
……No.
I looked at Demian.
His pallid face looked ready to collapse at any moment.
He must be seeing and feeling all of this.
Once his Holy Power filled, he’d be able to sense spirits too.
“Your Highness. Wear these.”
I placed the glasses on his face.
A faint glimmer of light returned to Demian’s eyes.
“…….”
He held his breath. What form did the woman take through those lenses?
I was curious, but I didn’t ask.
I simply waited for his breathing to return.
His complexion was still ashen, but his eyes remained open.
“Baby.”
“I am not your child.”
Then who? Who? Then who?
Demian stared directly at the spirit, his voice grinding out like stone on stone.
“I am the crown prince of the Empire. Demian Belium. I am not someone you have the right to torment!”
The woman’s arms fell completely away from Demian. Seizing the moment, I pushed all my Holy Power into her at once.
“Shrieeeeeeeek!”
With a sound like tearing fabric, the black water plunged through the floor in an instant.
“My baby!!!”
Countless shards of mirror trembled violently, then stilled.
Demian slumped against the chair, and I sank down onto the floor.
My legs had gone weak.
“Hah…….”
Demian looked at me, still wearing his Vision Protection Glasses. They’d slipped slightly askew.
“You’ve saved me again, Holy One.”
I managed a nod.
“You endured it well.”
“…….”
“Truly.”
Demian closed his lips.
Then, from the end of the hallway, a lullaby drifted out again.
It wasn’t over.
I let out a weary sigh, my face twisted.
“It hasn’t vanished yet?”
“Spirits have conditions for achieving enlightenment. I think she’s searching for her baby.”
Demian was silent for a long moment.
Beyond the lenses, his ruby-red eyes trembled violently.
“Liam.”
“Yes, Holy One.”
“Could you investigate the Imperial Palace Annex? As quickly as possible?”
He must have been curious about what Demian and I had discussed, but he gave no sign of it.
“Find out if a woman who lost her baby was ever here.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Liam closed the door and seemed to depart with the palace knights.
“Achieving enlightenment,” Demian murmured.
He let out a hollow laugh.
“Is this what you’re always seeing?”
“…….”
“Despite how frightening it must be.”
“I’m satisfied as long as Your Highness survives.”
Demian fell silent.
“Why do you keep―”
Surely when you grow older, you’ll kill me.
This is insurance against that.
‘―I can’t say that.’
“Right now, that’s not what matters. If we let the spirit escape like this, Your Highness will be in danger again.”
“…….”
Demian released a heavy sigh and staggered to his feet.
“Fine. Even if it costs me my life, I’ll destroy that thing completely.”
The confusion that had clouded his eyes had transformed into a thick, deadly intent.
……Wait, is this exorcism, not achieving enlightenment?
Is that the same thing?
Demian’s eyes were cold and vicious. But the problem was the trembling hands and lips drained of all color save a sickly purple tint.
“Your Highness.”
“Don’t try to stop me.”
“I’m not.”
He groaned low in his throat, tapping his shaking legs absently.
“Can you walk?”
“Is that a provocation?”
“I’m worried.”
“This much is nothing.”
He kept up appearances through sheer pride, but his eyes were already red and swollen from crying.
I sighed and reached out to link my arm through his for support.
Thwack—
“What, what are you—!”
“Ah. My apologies.”
Demian stammered through his words and took a step back from me.
“Don’t touch me like that without warning!”
“Yes.”
“You startled me.”
True enough—a man grows accustomed to one fright, then jumps at the next.
After being tormented by spirits for so long, sudden contact was bound to rattle anyone.
I understood his reaction.
Just then, the lullaby echoed down the corridor again.
Lullaby, lullaby, our little baby.
By now, merely hearing that eerie timbre was enough to make my entire body shake.
Demian clapped his hand over his mouth and gagged.
“It hasn’t disappeared yet.”
“I heard it too.”
“Those Vision Protection Glasses you mentioned—”
Before I could even finish speaking, Demian slid the glasses up his nose in one swift motion.
‘As if I were going to take them back.’
He looked wary, as though he thought I might snatch them from him again.
“How does the spirit appear to you?”
“…….”
Demian hesitated for a moment, then muttered something.
“Like… a doll.”
“A doll?”
“A massive doll. But you can still see the blood and fluid stains clearly, which makes it even more grotesque.”
“……I see.”
As if to prove his words, his expression had gone half-corpse-like.
“Damn. It’d be better if it looked cute instead.”
I’d discovered that half-blurred images could actually be worse than nothing.
But that wasn’t the main issue right now.
“I believe your Holy Power drained away and was suddenly refilled, binding you to the spirit.”
“……You’re right.”
According to Demian, the chills had started the moment I scattered my Holy Power during the Blessing Ceremony.
“Not long after entering the Imperial Palace, what happened before started again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know it’s not your fault.”
He whispered softly.
“If anything, I’m grateful you came so quickly.”
Without Holy Power, Demian’s body was like an empty vessel.
A living corpse that spirits craved to inhabit.
“At least thanks to you, I can be certain I’m not losing my mind.”
“Your Highness?”
“If the spirit didn’t exist, this would surely be my mental illness.”
Demian’s smile turned bitter.
His words were not wrong.
Demian had probably spent his entire life blaming himself for this.
“You’re perfectly sane, Your Highness.”
“I know. And now I’m very, very certain of it.”
His teeth ground together.
“I’m going to kill it.”
“It’s already dead.”
“I don’t care.”
The moment I was about to speak, the door burst open.
It was Liam.
His breathing was ragged, and in his hands were several worn documents and a Rusty Key.
“I found it.”
“Already?”
“Yes. One of the older Imperial Palace knights knew about it.”
Liam’s face had hardened into stone.
“Thirty years ago, the Sacred Object Storage Room in the Eastern Palace Annex was sealed.”
“The Sacred Object Storage Room?”
“Yes. A small chamber that housed the sacred relics used for imperial baptisms and memorial plaques for the deceased, I’m told. Only those with imperial blood could access it.”
Demian exhaled softly, as if he’d already known.
I watched his expression carefully before asking, “What happened there?”
“One of the royal children died in an accident.”
“A royal grandchild?”
“Yes. According to the records, it was Prince Ruel.”
At that moment, Demian’s face shifted—a look of recognition, and he nodded slowly.
“I’ve heard he was my mother’s older brother. He died in an accident when he was very young.”
“He was only three years old at the time. His health was frail, so he was recovering in the Eastern Palace Annex when it happened…….”
The lullaby cut off abruptly. Demian and I exchanged glances.
“On the night of the accident, Prince Ruel apparently entered the Sacred Object Storage Room.”
“Alone?”
“Members of the imperial family can open the storage chamber with just a touch, it’s said. Somehow he managed to get inside, but he didn’t know how to get back out.”
“You don’t mean……”
“According to the records, a nursemaid stood outside the door screaming and clawed at it until her fingernails broke.”
Liam, sifting through the documents, furrowed his brow.
“What of Prince Ruel?”
“When they found him, he was already dead. The nursemaid responsible was executed for failing to properly care for the young prince, or so the records state…….”
“My goodness.”
Of course, it was her failure to let the child wander alone like that, but still—there was something tragic about the fact that she had tried so desperately to open that door.
That was when it happened.
Demian’s face went ashen.
“But apparently, the execution was never carried out.”
“Why not?”
Demian tapped my arm and mouthed the words silently.
Could it be……that woman?
“She threw herself into a well, they say.”
“……!”
“……!”

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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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