The Dutiful Kid Who Saved the Villainous Family - Chapter 137

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

Episode 137

* * *

Time had completely passed while stopping Kuken and Declan from their bickering.

Airi finally entered the Imperial Palace Investigation Office and opened her eyes wide.

This place seemed like a police station.

According to what the teachers had said during her nine-year-old Airin days, police were cool adults who caught thieves for children and also caught friends who did bad things.

So she had come with great expectations.

‘The investigation is so, so boring!’

They just had a formal conversation for about a minute and that was it.

‘Is it because Elder is next to me?’

“So, um, yes. Thank you for visiting safely, and congratulations.”

“Congratulations?”

“I’m sorry, Lord, Lord Ortejo.”

…Is Elder scary?

It was when Airi, who had puffed up her cheeks like a pufferfish, was walking through the Imperial Palace after being investigated.

Kuken and Declan, who were with her, added a word.

“You worked hard.”

“Yeah, you worked hard. If it was bad, I was going to give them a punch!”

“It’s okay!”

Anyway, the purpose of today’s visit wasn’t to be interrogated.

Airi recalled the contents of the ‘side story’ she had read after meeting the Dowager Empress.

‘There’s someone I need to find…’

As Airi looked around and wiggled her bottom with a bouncy rhythm, Declan chuckled.

“I’ll buy you meat. And I’ll put this debt on my tab. How dare they order someone’s daughter around?”

“Gasp! That’s not good. Since Grandmother collapsed, it’s natural to investigate the person next to her, that’s called reason!”

Besides, the investigation officers had listened to Airi’s words very kindly.

“I said I was a band-aid! So it’s a very, very important role, so I talked a lot, a lot!”

“Not band-aid, but witness.”

“Yes… Witness!”

Airi looked proud regardless of what it was.

She stuck out her round belly as if asking to be praised.

Declan shook his head and muttered as if he didn’t understand children’s psychology at all.

“Yeah, you did well. Anyway, let’s go eat something delicious.”

But it was right then.

As they were strolling by the lakeside, Princess Rashe hurriedly approached as if she had been waiting.

“Um… May I personally treat Lord Ortejo and Lady Airi Ortejo to a meal?”

“Ah, excuse me, but we’re busy.”

Even though he bowed his head slightly, his defiant attitude didn’t change.

It was a kind of protest against the Imperial Palace that had ordered his daughter around.

Princess Rashe, who couldn’t be unaware of this fact, opened her mouth.

“Then let me just say one thing. Lady Airi Ortejo! I don’t think badly of you, like that you knocked down our grandmother or anything like that.”

“Oh my.”

Airi’s eyes sparkled.

‘There was someone I needed to meet anyway!’

To think she’d come rolling over like this!

“Princess! Actually, I have something I want to ask you!”

“What is it?”

“Could you show me 【Princess’s Treasure Vault】?”

Princess Rashe bit her lips tightly.

Princess Rashe lowered her voice again and muttered.

“Do you even know what kind of ‘qualification’ you need to enter that place?”

Airi nodded resolutely.

“I do.”

“…You do?”

“I also know what I need to bring from there!”

Airi knew how to finish off Cardinal Ibenna.

For that, she needed to meet the Dowager Empress again…

“…Fine. If you can open the door to the 【Treasure Vault】, that is.”

Princess Rashe’s help was absolutely necessary.

* * *

From a distance, Cardinal Ibenna moved his body with a snake-like smile.

The firmly closed door of the Empress Dowager’s Palace had opened once thanks to Airi’s group.

For Cardinal Ibenna, that one time was perfectly sufficient.

He had designed it so that the Dowager Empress would fall into critical condition when she manifested her ability.

‘His Holiness said it would be fine to entangle Ortejo and the Dowager Empress like this and finish them off, but…’

The old woman’s lifespan was quite tenacious.

‘I don’t know what the Dowager Empress’s ability is, but…’

He could tell that the Dowager Empress had used her ‘ability’ on Airi.

He had a premonition that Airi Ortejo was quite a ‘special child’ as the Pope had said.

Cardinal Ibenna smiled with satisfaction for the first time in a while.

‘To handle them all at once, I’ll need to set some bait.’

His Holiness the Pope, with his obsessive cleanliness, abhorred dirty creatures coming and going.

Often when the Pope came out to the Cathedral, young priests would spray medicine or set mousetraps so that no pests would catch the Pope’s eye.

But mousetraps don’t immediately move to pounce on mice.

They only show their true worth after waiting for the mouse to run toward them on its own.

‘Don’t think this investigation will be the end.’

Cardinal Ibenna looked at Airi and Declan as they moved away.

What he had to do from now on was decided.

He smiled wickedly to himself while looking at the item he had obtained by asking the Pope.

Finally, the opportunity to accomplish the Pope’s long-cherished wish, and the opportunity to take revenge on the arrogant Ortejo had arrived.

Cardinal Ibenna fondled something in his pocket.

He intended to use the three sacred objects the Pope had given him.

‘One of these is connected to His Holiness the Pope’s life force…’

The sacred objects possessed tremendously powerful force, enough to risk danger.

“Your Holiness, if the Dowager Empress and Ortejo’s daughter were to die…”

“That too would be God’s will.”

Cardinal Ibenna’s eyes twisted.

Once this matter was finished.

He would be able to go to the Heaven that His Holiness had planned.

‘If they resist, I’ll kill them completely.’

* * *

Declan glanced at Airi.

“Daughter.”

“Mm…”

Recently.

Was it right after opening the Princess’s treasure vault?

Declan didn’t know exactly what had happened then.

But since that day, Airi had a strangely mature expression.

It would be nice if she ate delicious food every day and patted her plump belly.

Why do you have the expression of a child-adult who has suddenly grown up?

Declan muttered deliberately.

“Want to hear something funny?”

“….”

“What happens when ice cream gets in a carriage accident?”

“Umm…. Ice cream doesn’t get in carriage accidents!”

“No, it did.”

“….”

Airi looked at Declan with a suspicious expression.

Then Declan lowered his voice and said.

“Ma! Cha-ga came.”

“Huh….”

Airi didn’t laugh.

Instead, her eyes changed strangely.

“As expected, an Elder who’s twenty-seven years older than me….”

Ah, damn it.

He tried to lighten the mood but regressed from ‘dad’ back to ‘Elder’ again.

Still, he was pleased that Airi, who had been wearing an expression like she’d given up on the world in a way unbefitting a child, was now looking straight at him.

“So don’t worry too much about the Dowager Empress matter.”

When he spoke consolingly like that, Airi’s lips twitched.

But just then.

As if to disrupt the father and daughter’s touching conversation, someone knocked on the door.

“Lord Declan. It’s Raspen. An urgent letter has arrived from the Imperial Palace.”

“What is it, come in.”

With Declan’s permission, Raspen hurriedly entered the room and said.

“It says that Her Majesty the Dowager Empress is in critical condition, so Ortejo, the sword that protects the Empire, should enter the palace.”

Declan quickly took the letter from Raspen.

“Is there any sign of forgery?”

“No. None. It bears His Majesty the Emperor’s seal.”

It was a story about discovering someone with the crime of rebellion within the Imperial Palace.

‘If the Dowager Empress dies like this, Airi will….’

Though she’s currently under Ortejo’s protection, she might face more intense investigation than just witness questioning.

Just as the irritated Declan was grinding his teeth.

Airi suddenly sprang to her feet.

“Huh! You must take me too!”

“…What, why do you want to enter the lion’s den? Stay quietly at the manor. Raspen, you go out and prepare for departure.”

After Raspen, who had become a shrimp caught between the two father and daughter, quietly withdrew.

Airi made a determined expression and stamped her feet, then rummaged through the rabbit-shaped pouch she always carried.

Then she muttered.

“I need to go to the Imperial Palace now and meet the Dowager Empress.”

“The Dowager Empress is sick right now.”

“Huh, but still. I need to meet the Dowager Empress to eliminate all the Magi!”

Airi rummaged in her pouch and spread out the 【Magi Map】 with a snap.

“I’m ready to go. We must hurry!”

“Huh….”

He couldn’t say that there was no need to eliminate such trivial Magi.

Because Airi’s eyes were so very serious.

Just then, there was a rattling sound from Airi’s rabbit-shaped pouch, and Cookie poked his head out and said.

“That’s right! The child hero goes to defeat all the evil clergy who committed treason and purify the Magi! Kuhahaha!”

No, you’re the most evil one right now….

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