The Eldest Daughter Walks Down The Flower Path - Chapter 112
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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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The Eldest Daughter Walks the Path of Flowers Episode 112
Year 480, autumn of the year when Eve Russel was eight years old.
That year, there was the ‘Visitation Ritual’.
This ritual had been secretly passed down through the House of Russel for hundreds of years, where the head of the Russel family would visit the forbidden zone at the center of the Monster Forest to check on the changes in ‘Chronos’ sleeping beneath the Makai Tree.
Of course, visiting the forbidden zone was extremely dangerous.
Without the devices arranged by their ancestor Berard Russel, the House of Russel might have faced extinction long ago because of this ritual.
Berard Russel left two devices for his descendants.
The first device was a secret passage connected to the forbidden zone.
In the past, this secret passage extended much closer to the estate, and various spells were cast upon that passage.
However, due to a great earthquake several hundred years ago, parts of it were damaged beyond repair, and what remains now is merely an underground passage.
And the second device was a spell inherited through the bloodline of descendants.
[‘If there is no change in Chronos, the guardian of the forbidden zone will not attack anyone from the House of Russel who has golden eyes.’]
It was hard to believe that such a powerful spell could be inherited through bloodline.
However, at least according to records, no one from the House of Russel had ever been attacked by monsters during the visitation ritual, so Berard Russel’s spell seemed to still be effective.
Since those with golden eyes were essential for the visitation ritual, it was perhaps natural that golden eyes became a condition for being the family head.
However, this created another problem.
Initially, that spell was certainly created by Berard Russel to protect his descendants.
But as golden eyes, an extremely physical trait, became the condition for being family head, many things began to change.
Only God knows how much blood was shed within the House of Russel over golden eyes.
There were cases like this:
When there was an intelligent older brother without golden eyes and a younger brother with golden eyes who was clearly unfit to become family head.
This was the story of Gideon Russel and Noah Russel.
According to family rules, the position of family head went to Noah Russel, but Gideon Russel could not accept this.
He waited.
Until Eve, who had golden eyes, was born.
Afterward, Gideon executed Noah with his own hands and ascended to the position of family head.
However, the curse of golden eyes did not let Gideon go.
Gideon ultimately failed to have a child with golden eyes.
Gideon’s wife, Hailey Russel, could not accept the fact that Eve, not her son Ashton, would eventually become the family head.
‘I can’t stand it anymore!’
In the maddening mist of the forbidden zone, Aunt screamed.
‘The Countess’ position belongs to Gideon, and the heir to succeed Gideon is my son Ashton! Eve Russel, you must disappear!’
Aunt pushed him, and he fell into the pit.
In terrible fear, he had to make a choice.
He grasped Chronos, which emitted a five-colored radiance, and desperately prayed.
‘I want to live…!’
Life is always overturned by such choices.
It is ultimately one’s own choice, and bearing the price for it is the weight of life.
Eve Russel thought that weight was what he, who had returned alive from the forbidden zone, had to bear.
Radis probably felt the same way.
And she was enduring her fate far more admirably than he was.
Radis looked back at him with a calm face as he despaired.
Her black eyes held the gaze of someone accustomed to the heavy weight of life she carried.
Radis sent him a faint smile, then turned and began descending the stairs leading to the Archives.
Eve Russel could no longer bear it.
So he blocked the Emperor’s path and said.
“You cannot do that. Do it to me instead. I will receive the gias.”
At his words, Emperor Claude’s steps stopped.
“Young Marquis, do you know what you’re saying? You, a marquis, would receive gias for the sake of a mere retainer?”
Eve Russel nodded.
“Yes.”
It was the clearest answer of his entire life.
Since he had brought her to this place, he could not torment her further.
If this was all he could do for her, he was confident he would never regret sharing her burden for the rest of his life.
The Emperor of the Empire asked.
“Why?”
Cruelly, it was only through the Emperor’s cruel question that Eve Russel could finally realize his own heart.
‘I, I love Radis…’
Noticing his lips trembling, the Emperor burst into laughter in his face.
“Kahahaha!”
Before Eve Russel’s eyes, his beard shook wildly.
Not just his beard, but his shoulders too, and his protruding belly above his tight pants shook as well.
But despite laughing so hard his whole body trembled, the Emperor’s eyes were not laughing at all.
Eve Russel patiently waited for the Emperor’s laughter to end.
After a long while, the Emperor stopped laughing and said.
“I didn’t know you were such an entertaining person. The future of the Countess’ house looks bright.”
The Emperor stroked his disheveled beard and said.
“However, young Marquis, while I respect your youthful passion, I cannot place gias on an imperial marquis. Besides, even if I placed gias on you… it doesn’t seem like it would be very enjoyable.”
As the Emperor moved his fingers, his large rings clinked together.
“But I have a feeling that child will please me. Listen, young Marquis. I don’t know how things came to this, but do you know that my third son, that lovely Olivier who was born after devouring his mother, wants that child?”
The Emperor covered his mouth with his hand and made a muffled laughing sound.
“What kind of expression do you think that boy will make when I place gias on that child? Will he still be able to pretend to be calm then?”
Shock, disbelief, anger, and contempt appeared sequentially on Eve Russel’s face.
And finally, it became completely empty.
Seeing his expression, Emperor Claude burst into delighted laughter.
“It seems there’s more than one fish that will take the bait when I use that child as bait! Interesting, truly interesting!”
The Emperor walked unsteadily toward the stairs leading to the Archives.
A grinding sound came from Eve Russel’s molars.
He tasted blood in his mouth.
It was fishy and bitter.
It was the taste of regret.
He wanted to make that mad man taste this flavor too.
But that was impossible.
That madman was the Emperor of the Empire.
‘Was this what I wanted?’
Eve Russel felt deflated.
He thought of another madman.
His father, Noah Russel, whose face he couldn’t even remember.
He was someone who claimed letters floated in the air.
He secretly gathered mages to hold strange assemblies, and bought magical tools and mana crystals to conduct terrible experiments.
When Emperor Claude summoned the six dukes, Noah Russel was said to be passed out after drinking monster blood.
Eve Russel wanted to erase all of that.
He wanted to reclaim the title that was taken away due to his father’s mistakes.
He wanted to mock his uncle, who claimed to work for the family but had accomplished nothing with his own hands except executing his brother.
He thought that if he reclaimed the ducal seat and brought prosperity to the South, he could look at the world with his eyes held high.
He thought he would no longer have to shiver while wrapped in a black cloak.
He believed happiness would come someday.
‘But what’s the point of all that if Radis isn’t by my side?’
He covered his face with both hands.
Of course, Radis had no intention of meekly accepting gias.
‘I saw it earlier. That was also a spell technique. Just like how it shattered Lord Claudio’s sword energy, it could probably break the gias too.’
However, Radis couldn’t be certain whether she could break a spell technique that was inside someone’s body.
Moreover, Daniel’s body was in an extremely weakened state and was getting progressively worse.
She didn’t want to gamble with her teacher’s life.
‘If there’s a safe way to dispel the gias, that method would be best for Teacher.’
She decided to put out the most urgent fire first.
She planned to receive the gias to dispel Daniel’s gias, then somehow try to dispel her own using her own power afterward.
‘I should be able to do it, right?’
Radis touched her forehead with her hand.
The spot where the woman she met in the illusion earlier had stabbed still felt numb.
‘No, it wasn’t an illusion.’
That woman had definitely transmitted something to her when she stabbed her forehead.
Just then, she heard the bustling sound of footsteps on the stairs behind her.
“Oh my, why are you standing here?”
Before she knew it, the Emperor had come down right behind her.
He was breathing heavily, as if going down the stairs was very difficult for him.
The Emperor wiped the sweat from his forehead with a perfume-scented handkerchief and asked in a sinister tone.
“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re actually afraid?”
Radis looked at the Emperor with an expression that said he was asking about the most obvious thing.
‘Does this man have no capacity for empathy…?’
If things went wrong, Radis might end up having to roll around at the mercy of that evil, fat Emperor’s commands with two gias embedded in her.
There was no way she wouldn’t be afraid.
Radis nodded her head.
“Yes.”
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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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