The Dutiful Kid Who Saved the Villainous Family - Chapter 153
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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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Episode 153
There was still a chance.
Airi looked back and forth between the tightly closed door and Experiment Subject 110.
There was only one remaining method.
Convincing Experiment Subject 110.
‘I’m a ghost, but… I can make contact with humans!’
Airi urgently scribbled crooked letters on Experiment Subject 110’s hand.
[Mother is. Waiting outside.
Bad things. Not good.]
Though she had written that, it was nothing more than the same message as before.
She hadn’t made it visible to the eyes, just scrawled with her finger on the back of his hand.
‘Will this work?’
Would he even be able to recognize what she had written in the first place?
Moreover, she became more anxious because she couldn’t see the boy’s eyes or expression after writing the letters.
But there was nothing more she could do.
“What’s going on?”
Before she could even check his face, the High Priest appeared.
Airi looked at the High Priest’s cold expression and quickly dodged out of the way.
The High Priest kicked the boy’s body with his foot.
“Experiment Subject 110. Tell me what happened.”
The boy collapsed on the floor naturally curled up his body.
The High Priest’s cunning voice had the power to brainwash mentally cornered people.
And that small boy must already be at his limit…
Perhaps Airi would be discovered by the High Priest here and killed by the Pope.
However…
Airi squeezed her eyes shut.
At that moment, the mouth of the boy collapsed like a bug on the floor slowly opened.
“I…”
“Yes.”
“I… don’t really know.”
When Experiment Subject 110 opened his mouth, Airi was flustered.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Experiment Subject 110 was a kind of collaborator.
When children didn’t faithfully participate in ability experiments, he would punish them as if it were natural.
But…
Airi, who had been circling around like a ghost, stopped her body upright.
‘Why isn’t he reporting me? Could it be that the persuasion worked?’
Airi looked into the boy’s eyes.
His eyes were not empty like before.
Rather, they were filled with faint pain.
‘Did 110 actually want to see his mother too?’
That thought was really strange, but…
The experiment subject boys, including 110, never spoke about the little ghost they had seen.
The little ghost’s identity was not discovered by the Pope.
And from that day on, something changed.
* * *
Airi moved with pattering footsteps.
While the researchers couldn’t see anything.
The flower bed was now blooming with many flowers.
Flowers filled with hope sparkled brightly.
Of course, these flowers would have to be removed immediately before the High Priests noticed them…
Airi stopped when she saw the writing beneath the flower bed.
[Ghost-nim Fighting]
The experiment subject children must have written it!
Airi giggled softly while looking at the picture secretly drawn in the dirt on the ground.
Airi’s influence within the Papal States was gradually growing stronger.
That was, precisely speaking, from when the children’s hope began to grow.
Was it thanks to the hope that they could escape this place taking root?
The test subjects began to promise each other a future.
They started making eye contact with the people next to them.
And they began to memorize each other’s names.
“Don’t you have a name?”
“Yeah.”
To the child who had no name…
“How about Beth?”
“Beth…?”
“Yeah. It’s the name of my lost little sister.”
The eyes of the child who gained the name Beth trembled slightly.
A bright smile spread across her scarred face.
That day, the child went from Experiment Subject 107 to ‘Beth’.
Children who didn’t know their names because they were born in the Papal States gained new names…
“Beth, happy birthday!”
Children who didn’t know their birth date made ‘the first day they smiled’ their birthday, gaining a day to celebrate.
“Um, does your hand hurt?”
…On days coming out of the laboratory, they held each other’s hands.
The hope Airi had planted in the children’s hearts was growing abundantly.
No matter how much they were beaten or lost their reason, they could endure it if they had hope.
At the same time, Airi’s ‘power of salvation’ also grew little by little.
The small child Airi, who had become a ghost without substance.
This tiny baby could whisper careful comfort and hope in the children’s ears without being caught by the researchers.
“The pain will end soon.”
The eyes of the children who heard the voice of the substanceless ghost grew wide.
This place, the Papal States.
A world dominated by the Pope’s most powerful force.
A place where countless illegal experiments were conducted to inject abilities.
A place where getting beaten was routine upon waking, and where losing even a bit of rational control meant being brainwashed.
In such Papal States, harboring hope, smiling might be very difficult and perhaps useless weakness…
But the faint powers gathering one by one would surely create definite salvation and miracles.
Airi and Cookie simultaneously looked up at the status window.
Somehow the situation seemed to be changing.
[Status window of the strongest hero Airi and the ‘Guardians’!]
4-star: ‘Sacred’ Light
■■■■■
(…)
5-star: ‘Salvation’ Light
(…Breaking through the limits of salvation…)
Airi and Cookie clenched their sweaty hands.
A new message appeared in the status window.
The meter Airi was holding in her hand also vibrated briefly.
‘The flow of fate is moving.’
At that moment, Airi was certain.
In truth, this had been a battle destined for defeat.
But now everything was changing into a winning battle.
Cookie said quietly.
“Things seem to be changing outside too.”
“….”
“The fact that so much is moving means your family is….”
Cookie’s chocolate chip eyes sparkled with deep hope.
“…working hard, trying to save you!”
* * *
Slash!
After defeating countless demons, demon blood splattered on the Grand Duke’s cheek….
“That’s the thousandth demon I’ve sent back.”
…it didn’t.
“Yes, you’ve already sent back your thousandth demon to the Demon Realm.”
After lightly counting, he casually wiped his cheek.
Instead of demon blood, sweat and tears were streaming down his cheek.
“Come to think of it, didn’t that demon say something at the end?”
“I understood it as roughly saying thank you.”
Anyone could tell it was cursing, but Raspen glossed over it appropriately.
Declan shrugged with an uninterested expression.
“Is that so? But why was it crying?”
“Tears of gratitude, I suppose.”
“Anyway…. I can’t get used to demon tears. They smell disgusting.”
Declan grumbled that troll tears were indeed annoying, but Raspen thought to himself.
‘His exterior and interior are really different.’
He was making that expression, but inside he was surely feeling quite proud.
“But how did you come up with the idea of sending demons back?”
“I don’t know where or how my daughter might be. I don’t know when she’ll come either.”
“….”
“My daughter might come back holding a demon’s hand. If her father was massacring demon friends, she’d be shocked, wouldn’t she.”
“….”
“I’m a pacifist.”
This was a statement that went beyond being a daughter fool to nearly being an idiot.
Declan carelessly sheathed his sword while muttering.
“But today is an important day, isn’t it.”
True to his words about it being an important day, a small meter in his hand was moving.
“That’s right. It’s the first day the 【Blessing Meter】 item that the Eastern Mage Tower Lord left behind has moved.”
【Blessing Meter】.
A device that shows very roughly how much magi has been purified.
Naturally, it was at a very crude level compared to what Airi, a 4-star Purification Mage, could observe.
But….
“It’s strange, quite a lot has been purified, hasn’t it? More than what we killed.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did fate change after sending back a thousand demons, or….”
Declan lightly shrugged without answering.
“I had this thought.”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t demons also a kind of sacrifice? They must have homes too, so isn’t it strange that they keep stubbornly coming out?”
“Hmm, if they’re sacrifices…. You mean demons are also being used by the Pope.”
“Right. But it’s still just speculation for now.”
Raspen was briefly impressed inwardly.
‘They certainly seemed to lack reason. Demons are inherently beings without reason, but…. they didn’t seem to have particularly high combat power.’
Still though.
Long, long ago, there was an era when demons and humans didn’t massacre each other.
Thinking by the standards of that era, Declan’s words weren’t entirely absurd either.
“I see….”
Raspen looked at Declan.
Declan’s eyes as he spoke were more mature and deeper than before.
“I’m just sending demons back to the world where they originally belonged. Well, if they come back again, I’ll have no choice but to kill them.”
Declan let out a light sigh.
“And anyway, isn’t sending them back and killing them both similar?”
That was true.
Raspen stroked his chin and muttered quietly.
“I never thought of that before, but you’re right. Not killing them might actually be better. When demon corpses remain on the ground, they rot, don’t they?”
“That’s right.”
Actually, there was another reason he had become reluctant to deal with demons.
Turning his gaze, he could see the backs of those riding horses across the plain in the distance.
They shouted loudly as if boosting the soldiers’ morale.
“We have safely sent back all the demons!”
“The number of demons we sent back today already exceeds thirty!”
The faces of the boys smiling proudly were refreshing.
They were….
‘Airi’s friends.’
Airi’s friends, and the hybrid monsters that Airi had saved from the Mage Tower.
They were Dinan, Belize, Saal, and Lireed.
“We want to help with the work of defeating demons too!”
“You might be suspicious since we’re hybrid monsters, but we won’t betray you. We can even swear an oath!”
“We also received kindness from Lady Airi. So….”
“Please, let us help!”
“We have strength too!”
They said that being hybrid monsters, they knew well how to defeat demons.
And they were truly doing well.
It meant they were skilled at dealing with demons that tormented humans while spewing evil magi.
The children Airi had saved appeared to save Airi.
Far away in the capital, Melissa Marquess and her friends were struggling hard.
At the ocean, the Milligan and Yelshanad couple were sending demons beyond the boundary.
Declan looked around at all the people on the plain.
Everyone was fighting hard in their respective positions.
For his daughter.
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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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