The Oracle of the Villainous Baby - Chapter 43

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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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Chapter 43
“Bunny, you’re not going to back out of the marriage, are you?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Roel laughed brightly and scooped Bunny up, pulling her into his embrace with a swift motion.
The sight of a nine-year-old holding a four-year-old looked somewhat strained, but there it was.
“Yes. Bunny keeps her word, such a wonderful….”
Bunny swallowed hard.
“…human. Boss, Bunny’s.”
Bunny, having successfully lied and called herself human, rubbed beneath her nose with a soft motion.
“Right, you’re Bunny. And I’m Roel. From now on, call me Roel.”
“Noel.”
“No. Ro.el.”
“Mm. No.el.”
“Well, the pronunciation isn’t familiar yet? It’ll become natural as you hear it more.”
The language he’d heard earlier—something like the Demon Clan tongue—had sounded quite distinct.
‘So Bunny must be a Demon Clan member, after all?’
Her speech was oddly halting, her grammar incorrect, her word order askew.
Most peculiar was that strange language he’d heard before.
Yet it was somewhat curious that she possessed none of the characteristics typical of the Demon Clan.
There was something else that seemed odd.
If she could summon a Divine Beast, that meant she possessed divine power—but how was that possible?
Black hair and crimson eyes.
All Demon Clan members bore that ominous coloring. Moreover, they were infinitely vulnerable to divine power.
Yet the fact that she was living within the Udiah Duke Family Estate, surrounded by barriers of divine power, meant that divine power had no effect on Bunny whatsoever.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
After all, he had already decided to become hers.
Tens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times he had wished for it.
If someone could free him from that hellish torment, he would do anything.
That day, when Bunny appeared, it was like salvation to him.
Whether she was a Demon Clan member or not didn’t matter. What mattered was the single fact that Bunny had saved him.
He had been saved.
In that cold, chill, eerie, endless Abyss whose location he didn’t even know, he had simply wandered and drifted endlessly, unaware of the pain in his legs.
Even in sleep, that place was hell, and when he opened his eyes, reality was another hell.
Cursed, he had lost the blonde hair and golden eyes that symbolized the Royal Family, and people kept their distance from him, avoiding him.
As if he carried a plague, they shunned him, rejected him, and looked upon him with cold eyes.
He knew. Everyone thought of him as someone with a terminal diagnosis, someone who would soon die.
He knew. The Emperor, Abamama, had already brought a cousin to the Imperial Palace to replace him.
Abamama is the Emperor.
An Emperor who cannot exist merely as a parent to one person.
He understood it was an appropriate measure. Yet despite that… the fact that everyone treated him as dead while he still lived turned his insides over again and again.
I knew.
I knew it all.
Roel—I had been living each day waiting only for death.
Yet the moment that small, warm hand touched me, all the pain I’d endured seemed to vanish like a dream.
Or rather, it felt as though it were being pulled away into somewhere else.
At the end of that hellish Abyss, Roel beheld something.
In the midst of that desolate Abyss—empty and dark as if it held only solitude, despair, and the frigid breath of hell—there stood a woman, radiant and luminous, commanding and serene.
Jet-black hair.
Crimson horns jutting upward from her head, bent at an otherworldly angle.
Massive wings unfurled behind her back.
And eyes gleaming with a deep, brilliant pink.
Could the Demon King’s form, spoken of only in whispers, truly look like this?
Roel found himself unable to tear his gaze away from that beauty—the only radiance in the darkness.
‘Who is she?’
The moment that thought crossed my mind, the woman’s gaze met mine.
She reached out her hand, and I felt the ground beneath me crack open as I plummeted downward.
As I fell through that bottomless chasm, I witnessed something.
“I just… I just wanted to be happy too. I just wanted to be loved. You said you’d protect me, but… why am I… why, why, why am I…?”
A young girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen, stood alone in what appeared to be ruins, her face expressionless, her eyes vacant as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Her hair was half-darkened to a deep blue-black, while her eyes shimmered with a pink hue that rippled like water.
Those hollow eyes bore such a striking resemblance to the woman I’d seen above that…
‘I don’t want to see her cry.’
The thought seized me unbidden.
Whether it was a dream, a vision from my subconscious, or perhaps a glimpse of some future yet to come—I cannot say.
There are old tales that the Lotis Kingdom was founded in ancient times by the Golden Dragon, and that even now, the blood of that dragon flows through the veins of the Royal Family.
Because of this, there are those among the Royal Family born with the gift of Chronoscopy—the ability to perceive moments across time.
To sometimes glimpse through dreams what has not yet come to pass, or to steal glimpses of what has already transpired.
Whether this gift of Chronoscopy has awakened within me, I cannot be certain. It may simply have been a dream born from overwhelming exhaustion.
Yet despite this uncertainty, I yearned to go to that woman’s side—standing alone in that hollow place.
I wanted to comfort the weeping girl beside her, to protect the radiant smile of that small child who danced with joy at my feet. And so…
If what I saw was a future yet to unfold, then I wanted to be there beside her.
What did it matter if this small child were of the Demon Clan?
The pain and suffering I cried out for to the heavens, which no one would acknowledge, only Bunny understood.
The pleas I made even to gods I did not believe in, which went unanswered—only Bunny heard them.
“It’s okay now.”
She granted the wish that could never be fulfilled.
Without Bunny, I surely would have died. Without a miracle, there was no doubt I would have.
“Bunny.”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
At Roel’s words, Bunny blinked her bright eyes a couple of times before breaking into a radiant smile—a lovely expression that made her plump cheeks particularly endearing.
* * *
“Daddy!”
“Bunny, we should get going now. It’s getting quite late.”
Kiriel entered the room with a weary expression, his words heavy with fatigue. Something had clearly not gone well—his face was dark and troubled. Even his usually immaculate hair was disheveled and messy.
“Daddy, not all shiny and sparkly.”
At Bunny’s assessment of Kiriel’s disheveled appearance, he paused and let out a soft chuckle.
My daughter truly had a gift for making me laugh. The heavy despair that had been dragging me down lifted entirely the moment I held this soft, sweet-smelling little one in my arms.
‘Is this what raising a child is like?’
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I gently patted the child’s back a few times.
“Daddy. Bunny wants to get married.”
At the sudden, thunderbolt-like declaration from his daughter, Kiriel’s face went rigid.
“…Married? To whom?”
“To the human big boss.”
As Bunny pointed at the Crown Prince with her finger, Roel, who had been conversing with the Emperor who had arrived with Kiriel, burst into laughter.
“The human big boss wants to marry Bunny, he does.”
“…Our daughter has quite the sense of humor.”
“Huh?”
Kiriel looked between Roel and the Emperor.
The Emperor, having already heard the exchange, wore an expression of genuine delight, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Enough joking around. Let’s go now.”
Kiriel decided to pretend he hadn’t heard anything at all and turned away.
“Ah, little princess. I realize I haven’t mentioned this yet. As a token of my gratitude for saving Roel, I’d like to give you something you desire. Is there anything you’d like to have? Anything at all.”
At the Emperor’s words, Bunny’s eyes widened.
‘The Human Realm!’
Since I was destined to become a great Demon King who would conquer the Human Realm, it seemed wise to acquire it beforehand.
“Bunny wants the Hu—!”
Wait.
If I say the Human Realm now, wouldn’t that be dangerous?
If the human big boss realizes that Bunny is a great Demon Clan member who dreams of becoming the Demon King, he might try to turn me into powder.
Bunny pressed her lips tightly shut and furrowed her brow with renewed determination.
“Hu?”
The Emperor tilted his head.
As Bunny’s eyes darted about, they suddenly met Kiriel’s gaze, and she froze.
‘Bunny, be filial.’
Hmph.
Bunny grinned mischievously.
“A pretty mommy like Kiriel’s Elder Brother!!”
Bunny thrust her thumb up toward Kiriel and shouted with all her might.
Snap.
The air froze in an instant.

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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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