The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 173

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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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Extras 02-3.

Lost in thought, I found myself wanting to explore ways to invite Maribel to the wedding.
There was a part of me that was selfish—imagining how delighted she would be to attend a ceremony His Majesty the Emperor could not—but what moved me more was seeing Casian express that unavoidable longing, saying over and over that Mother couldn’t attend either.
‘I want Casian to be happier.’
Of course, he often wore an expression as if my mere presence brought him all the happiness in the world.
But I wanted him to be even happier than that.
All the more so because I knew how tirelessly he had strived, how desperately he had lived.
At first, I’d even considered keeping it secret and surprising him.
But Casian and Maribel had already reached their own understanding of separation.
It felt presumptuous to meddle with that on my own whim.
The existence of parents—connected as it was to childhood wounds—was not something I should judge by my own will.
“I’d like to find a way to invite Maribel to the wedding. What do you think?”
At my question, he stared into space for a moment as if I’d proposed an impossible concept.
Though it was a question I’d thrown at him the moment he woke this morning, so it could have simply been that sleep still clung to him—
“…That’s a gift I never imagined.”
Casian answered by pulling me close and expressing his joy through the embrace.
After that, I called Pea and asked if it was possible.
—The fact that you two could converse with Maribel Reardon at all was itself a considerable defiance of Providence.
“So you’re saying it can’t be done?”
—You yourself remain a being that defies Providence, after all.
“Then what’s the way forward?”
The dragon’s manner of speech was still not particularly efficient, but by now I’d grown accustomed to it and found it no longer frustrating.
The small lizard then sighed softly and opened its mouth again.
—I no longer possess power of such magnitude. But if there exists something to add to, then Providence might be defied.
“Something to add?”
—Since you accomplished what he accomplished, you would not fail if you possessed appropriate strength. Would you?
I blinked for a moment, parsing the words.
It meant I could also make contact with her in the way Maribel had done.
The way the pot-stirring servant had sent a message?
But that wouldn’t allow her to participate in the wedding itself, would it?
No, wait. That wasn’t it.
“You mean—she could visit the future just as we truly went to the past?”
Pea didn’t answer, only held my gaze, but that was answer enough.
The small lizard tapped my shoulder twice and added a brief remark.
—Being one who defies Providence, I doubt Lady Gaia would wake and scold me for attempting something rather larger.
Cunningly, it offered one more hint as well.
*
After hearing Pea’s answer, my first thought turned to the Abandoned Mine that Gaia had given me.
—There now remains more power of the spirits than hers. Those children favor that place and you.
But since Pea had told me I was wrong, only one location remained.
None other than the Vault that passes directly to the Reardon line.
The Abandoned Mine I received was where Lady Gaia slept, but the Vault that Casian received gave me a feeling similar to that of the Lair of the Flare Dragon from the moment I first entered it.
When I actually brought Pea inside, the lizard’s eyes sparkled.
—Oho, some parts are lost, but it’s quite intact. In some sense, it’s far more dragon-like than my own lair, which became merely a space for my master’s selfish desires.
I’m pretty sure that’s something Pea dumped on me arbitrarily.
When I asked about it again, Pea had grumbled that for it to remain in perfect condition, the dragon’s body should never have been abandoned.
Finding it a bit unfair, I fixed the lizard with a long stare, and it merely flicked its tail while playing innocent.
“So is there anything useful here? We can’t use Lady Gaia’s Jewel anymore, can we?”
I pointed to the brilliantly radiant but now powerless Jewel, and Pea also shook its head with a regretful expression.
Though the lizard seemed to cling to it a bit, stroking the Jewel once, the facts remained unchanged.
After wandering around the Lair, Pea climbed onto the back of Casian’s hand and spoke.
—Is there nothing that calls to you?
“Something that calls to me?”
—This Lair’s master is you. I can sense Lady Gaia’s power faintly, but whether it’s merely a trace or true power itself, I cannot clearly distinguish.
“Hmm.”
Casian grew thoughtful for a moment and surveyed the Lair.
Befitting its name as a Vault, treasures were arranged throughout.
But unlike the Jewel of Gaia, nothing particularly remarkable caught my eye.
Just as I began to wonder whether I should abandon the idea of inviting Maribel altogether, Casian—who had been lost in thought—suddenly moved, his feet taking him deeper into the space.
“It doesn’t seem particularly grand, but…”
What he reached for was a single book wedged into a display shelf within the Lair.
It looked hauntingly familiar.
“…Maribel’s Diary?”
“No, it’s not Mother’s diary. I thought the same at first, though.”
Casian said so and carefully opened the book to show me.
On paper that was somewhat aged, letters were arranged neatly.
But no matter how hard I stared, I couldn’t read a word.
What was this? In the next moment, Pea let out a hurried cough and quickly scrambled up to my shoulder as though fleeing.
“Do you know what this is, Pea?”
—Ahem, ahem. I almost became a very rude dragon.
“Pardon?”
—That’s Lady Gaia’s Diary.
“Lady Gaia’s Diary?”
Pea then curled its tail and awkwardly patted its own cheek with its front leg.
What on earth was written in it that he would act like that?
While I puzzled over it, Casian closed the Diary again, and only then did Pea settle down and was able to approach the Diary once more.
—Indeed, you are truly the master of this Lair.
“Can it be used?”
—It can. But…
“But?”
—Twisting Providence once and then twisting it again—I cannot foresee what consequences might follow.
“Put it simply.”
—So a child who was already aware of your existence cannot be called forth. Being an entity that has already interfered through twisted Providence, doing so could shatter her very soul.
Sensing that a mistake in explanation would be dire this time, Pea explained with unusual detail.
“So then…”
I paused to recall Maribel in my memories.
The Maribel we had seen was always the version after she met Emperor Ernest.
But if that couldn’t be done…
“That seems even better.”
—Better?
At my off-hand remark, Pea tilted its head.
—If she doesn’t know of your existence, what meaning is there in summoning her?
It was an answer quite human in its emotion, despite the dragon saying it.
But I shook my head with a happy face.
“No, there’s plenty of meaning. And besides—”
—Besides?
“Children are meant to be a bit disobedient to their parents sometimes and do as they please—that’s what I was taught.”
It was something my beloved mother, the Countess Salice, had told me when I was around the age of entering puberty.
‘Of course, our daughter seems to cause trouble without realizing it, so I’m not too worried. If she misbehaves a little more, I’ll think to myself, “Ah, this is the joy of raising children.”‘
And because Casian Artez had to grow up too soon for the sake of survival, he had never given his mother that kind of joy.
Though it didn’t matter what his father in name thought, wouldn’t it be nice to let his beloved mother taste it a little earlier?
Without doubt, Maribel would heartily agree.
And beyond that…
‘Casian already saw me in my childhood before I even acted. He told me so himself.’
A memory that already existed in him before I even fell into the Winter Palace of the past.
And perhaps all of it—how Maribel, once a Priestess of Reardon, could leave only the faintest escape route and do such things to the person she loved—owed to a child’s clever gift, didn’t it?
When I looked at Casian after thinking that far, he was already wearing a smugly satisfied smile.
So we decided to draw Maribel—the Maribel from before she ever met Ernest Artez—into the future.

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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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