The Dutiful Kid Who Saved the Villainous Family - Chapter 218

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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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Side Story 18

“Yes. Choose one of our family heirlooms!”
“Do you know how magnificent our family’s heirlooms are?”
While everyone was absorbed in showing off their own family treasures,
Airi then murmured in a trembling voice.
“Um, Grandmothers?”
“Yes, yes! You’ve decided? It’s our family’s heirloom, of course?”
It felt wrong to refuse when she saw eyes so full of anticipation, but……
Airi answered firmly.
“……Typically, no bride walks into a wedding venue carrying a heirloom from another family.”
“Right, yes. True. But our dear Airi will be the first!”
“The first? What a magnificent name that is!”
“Well, of course. My child ought to be the first, naturally!”
A hint of pride had begun to appear in the grandmothers’ expressions.
That was the moment Airi realized it.
‘I’ve stepped right into a trap.’
And quite thoroughly at that.
Airi found herself looking utterly pallid as she watched a grandmother before her proudly display an ornate candelabra.
But here was the thing.
If there was something Airi had overlooked……
it was that her “grandmothers” weren’t limited to the members of the Southern Grandmothers Who Love Airi.
As Airi stood perplexed, struggling with how to refuse the heirlooms thrust toward her by over a dozen grandmothers,
the hall’s door swung open with a bang.
“What in the world are you all doing here?”
“That’s what I’d like to know!”
Grandmother and Melissa Marquess Grandmother had walked in without hesitation. It was precisely then that a bewildered Airi blinked.
“Oh my, Marquess. Lord Yelshanad, welcome!”
It was genuinely shocking.
The grandmothers were waving their heirlooms about as though they were mere trinkets……!
Their casual attitude toward family treasures brought Airi’s mind to a complete standstill.
‘W-what is this? Are these fake heirlooms?’
……Such was her thought.
Airi squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them wide in response to their incomprehensible antics.
Presently, having apparently already grasped the situation, Grandmother and Melissa Marquess Grandmother spoke in unison.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing!”
At their sudden sharp rebuke, the faces of the Southern Grandmothers Who Love Airi grew simultaneously forlorn.
“Why, why would you say that!”
“Stop burdening our dear Airi with all this nonsense.”
Though my own grandmother is certainly an eccentric, at least she hasn’t crossed that line!
With that thought, Airi clasped her hands before her chest—only to hear Grandmother speak with grave authority.
“Airi will wear what I’ve given her. The rest of you can take your heirlooms and leave. Ahem. By the way, that was a joke.”
……The room fell flat at Grandmother’s peculiar attempt at humor.
But the grandmothers seemed utterly uninterested in her joke.
They had eyes for only one thing.
“That’s impossible.”
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime wedding! I want to leave my mark on our precious child’s wedding day too!”
At the chorus of protests from the Southern Grandmothers Who Love Airi, Grandmother snorted.
“That mark will be left by me, the ‘real’ grandmother, so hold your tongues.”
……And that single remark had struck the other grandmothers hard.
This was bad.
Airi’s eyes rolled about frantically as she raised her hand.
“Grandmothers?”
“Yes, dear?”
More than ten pairs of eyes snapped toward Airi in an instant.
Grandmother stood at the far left with a fierce expression, while Melissa Marquess Grandmother stood at the far right, her eyes equally intense.
They were utterly convinced that Airi would wear whatever they had brought to the wedding.
But……
‘I have only one body.’
So Airi squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
There was only one way out of this……
“Grandmothers. I have a good idea. Won’t you hear it?”
From the time Airi turned five until now, when she had become an adult who had made her debutante presentation, these grandmothers had always been “Grandmothers” to her. Moved by that name, the grandmothers opened their mouths.
“Of course, of course. Go on, my child. Well? Out with it.”
“My child loves this, you know? How beautiful would it look woven from this cloth patchwork as a veil?”
“Hush, you foolish woman!”
And so began yet another battle—the 101,918th war over Airi.
Airi wagged her hand emphatically and spoke with firm clarity.
“Grandmothers. Let’s resolve this peacefully, shall we?”
At Airi’s words, all eyes turned toward her.
“I will use everything here.”
There was no law that said she could wear only one old thing. But then one grandmother spoke.
“Isn’t that rather excessive?”
“I would like to use them all as decorations throughout the wedding venue.”
Airi herself knew this made no sense.
To use heirlooms from other families as mere wedding decorations—it was absurd!
So Airi hesitated, looking to the grandmothers, and spoke carefully.
“If you’d rather not, I could try to find another way……”
Then the eldest grandmother, her hair the whitest of all, stood at the forefront and murmured with tears welling in her eyes.
“How wonderful—our little one to think of such a thing.”
“……What?”
Anyone could think of such a thing.
Well, it was rather an odd idea, to be honest……
Swallowing those thoughts, the other grandmothers too began to redden around their eyes.
“……What a clever child!”
Now Airi remembered something she’d forgotten.
These grandmothers were the ones who called her “a genius!” whenever she so much as opened her mouth……
‘The old saying goes that even a hedgehog thinks its baby is cute. And our grandmothers……’
And so Airi’s wedding venue became packed to the brim with heirlooms from the Empire’s most prominent families.
Thus Airi’s wedding……
became a truly spectacular, record-breaking, ultra-luxurious affair.
And at last, the wedding day drew near—just one day away.
The wedding day itself would be……
‘the day Isadel could appear in a dream.’
……Yes, the date was set so she could witness the ceremony.
Surely, everything was perfect.
And yet……

* * *

The night before the wedding.
Even as Airi, the bride, should have been sleeping soundly, she was instead alone with Seraphine.
“Airi.”
“Mm?”
“Do we really have to get married?”
Seraphine’s expression was strange—he who always called Airi “Captain” and followed her lead.
“What? Seraphine, where is this coming from?”
“……Why?”
“Are you perhaps wanting to fall in love yourself? Because otherwise……”
At those words, Seraphine’s expression turned sullen. He gazed intently at Airi.
“It’s not that.”
“……Then what is it?”
“Well……”
Seraphine pulled Airi into a tight embrace.
“I just hate the thought of you leaving. That’s all.”
It was like the petulance of a small child. His voice grew a little quieter, as if he too recognized it.
“I know it’s childish to say.”
“Yeah, you really do sound like a child. Seraphine.”
When she deliberately said “Seraphine” instead, he made a petulant face. After a long silence, Seraphine murmured softly.
“Even if you marry, you’ll still be my sister.”
“Why say something so obvious?”
“……But then why do I feel like I’m losing you?”
Seraphine smiled briefly and brushed back her hair.
“Because we’ve been together every day, and now suddenly you’re leaving. It just feels…… strange.”
Seraphine wasn’t wrong. Airi was entering a new phase of her life.

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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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