The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 190

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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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Episode 190
“Gasp!”
Tiel jolted awake in that instant. Cold sweat drenched her back entirely, and her pale, wavy hair clung to her forehead, soaked.
“Miss?”
Lia, who had been dozing beside the bed, startled awake at Tiel’s movement. With a worried expression, she reached out and felt Tiel’s forehead.
“Miss, are you all right?”
“Hm? Oh, I’m fine……. But why are you here, Lia?”
Tiel accepted Lia’s gentle touch without resistance. Lia carefully wiped away the cold sweat from Tiel’s brow.
“You’ve been ill all night, miss. I’ve been keeping watch over you and tending to you.”
As Tiel listened to Lia’s words, she pieced together what she had been doing just before falling asleep.
‘Iandros took me to the Subspace.’
And after that?
Iandros had comforted her there, and she had fallen asleep lying beside him. She remembered that much. Even that he had shown her his animal form to console her…….
But since she had no memory of what came after, it seemed Iandros must have carried her while she slept and returned with her to the Eberard Mansion.
“You had a bad dream?”
Lia asked, still wearing a worried expression. Her brows were drawn down.
Tiel nodded.
“Yes, a bad dream…….”
As she answered and unconsciously lowered her gaze, Tiel noticed something near her hands and recoiled sharply with a gasp of alarm.
The blanket covering her tumbled to the foot of the bed, and Tiel’s round eyes widened enormously. Her body tensed completely as she stared at ‘something’ with frightened eyes.
“Miss……!”
Lia clutched Tiel tightly to her chest. What Tiel had spotted and feared was the black serpent that had been devouring her fish the entire time she slept.
‘Why is that here……!’
It was identical to the serpent in her dream.
It bore no difference whatsoever from the form she had seen within the nightmare.
Awakening from the dream drenched in cold sweat, Tiel had been reassured upon realizing that everything she had just experienced was only a dream.
There was no serpent trying to devour her, only dear Lia here to cherish her. No serpent, no terrifying voice tormenting her. It had to be so. It was a dream, and this was reality.
It had to be.
But…….
“L-Lia!”
Tiel cried out something close to a scream. Only when she grasped that the dream was not a dream did true terror come upon her. She felt as though the fear coiling around her throat like a serpent would strangle her entirely.
“Miss, our dear miss……. Shall I fetch Cassius? If it frightens you terribly…….”
Lia, flustered, gazed at the form of the ‘serpent’ that Tiel was pointing to. Cassius had once tried to dispel that serpentine form while Tiel slept.
But he had failed.
So fetching him would not solve the immediate problem. And yet Tiel needed a protector. Lia thought the trembling child in her arms was still like a seven-year-old girl.
Then it happened.
The black serpent that had been consuming Tiel’s fish faded away silently.
“…….”
“Miss…… it’s gone!”
Lia spoke. Tiel’s eyes widened as she scanned the room. Where did it go?
Yet the black serpent was nowhere to be seen. As if it had vanished completely…… but Tiel knew instinctively. That serpent had not vanished.
It had merely withdrawn.
No one needed to tell her. The serpent would return again. Just as it had found her in childhood, just as it had come to her now. It would find her again, whenever it wished.
It was instinct.
Tiel held Lia’s waist more tightly. Lia embraced her just as she would a seven-year-old girl still.
“Miss, our beautiful miss. Do not worry so. The Asterian will protect you…….”
Lia spoke softly, as though lulling her to sleep.
As if answering Lia’s words, the Salamander, which had been hiding and unable to emerge from beneath the blanket, pressed down by the serpent’s aura, flared with flame.
Tiel nodded, trembling still.
The sensation of the serpent in her dream strangling her throat remained vivid.
***
“I’ve looked into that serpent.”
Ferdi set down a parchment-like document before Ludian and spoke. Ludian narrowed his eyes and questioned him.
“Looked into it? How? There’s hardly a way to investigate here. It’s not as if the Everard has an Archive.”
Each family kept an Archive where they stored Ancient Books. All of their house’s collected materials were housed there.
The Archive was so precious it could rightly be called a family treasure, yet the Everard had no such thing.
It was only natural—the Everard had been exterminated and rebuilt only in this generation, in Karl’s time. So proper investigation was nearly impossible while staying in Arcadia.
If they returned to the Asterian Mansion, research would be easier. But Arcadia and the Asterian were far apart, making an immediate return difficult.
Moreover, if the Asterian withdrew entirely, including Tiel, there was no telling what Rowen might incite the Beastfolk to do. It was better to remain nearby, watch, and intervene only when she crossed the line.
For these reasons, Ferdi and Ludian remained in Arcadia unable to return. And now Ferdi had conducted an investigation despite these constraints and produced this parchment. Ludian could only be astonished.
“I asked Clemens. Arnae is closer than I thought, even if Arcadia is far. Besides, Arnae’s Archive contains vast amounts of material.”
“But Arnae is still quite distant, isn’t it?”
“Olivier helped.”
Ferdi answered straightforwardly. Ludian nodded. With Olivier’s Ability, a trip to Arnae and back in the span of a moment was hardly impossible.
“He must have had quite the ordeal…….”
But that was not Ludian’s concern. Ludian simply acquiesced and accepted the parchment Ferdi offered.
“Handle it carefully. It’s not a copy.”
At Ferdi’s words, Ludian examined the parchment. It bore the marks of considerable age, and the ancient script was written in thick strokes across a surface wholly stained by the passage of time.
Yet the ink had faded with the centuries, making it difficult to decipher. Ludian looked back at Ferdi in astonishment.
“You brought the original itself?”
“There was no time to make a copy.”
“It’s a precious document!”
“The Head of Arnae approved it. Stop complaining and read.”
Ferdi spoke with exasperation. Ludian shook his head and clicked his tongue, musing that while the world knew Ludian Asterian as a man of fiery temperament and hasty disposition, Ferdi Asterian was the one with truly hot blood coursing through his veins.
He could read ancient script well enough. Yet this parchment was so old that deciphering it was not easy. And besides.
“……What is this?”
“A serpent.”
Ferdi answered.
Ludian’s brows knitted together.
“A serpent? A serpent, then…….”
They both thought of the same thing simultaneously. The serpent that writhed above the sleeping Tiel and devoured all of her fish. The one that filled them with dread that someday it might consume their beloved sister…….
“A serpent?”
“Yes. This record concerns the ancient Evil God Orpheo.”
Ferdi answered. He moved close to Ludian and pointed with his finger to the sentence beneath the serpent’s image.
The ink was faint and the letters blurred, making it difficult to read, yet Ferdi deciphered the passage with little trouble.
“A Calamity God tamed by the Evil God Orpheo.”
Ferdi continued.
“The Evil God Orpheo tamed a Calamity God and imparted his own power unto him, bestowing upon him the name Seck. The Calamity once existed as mere calamity, but when Orpheo granted him a name, he became the Calamity God Seck. He bears the form of a black serpent and possesses neither self nor will—he is nothing more than an extension of Orpheo’s limbs.”
Ludian’s golden eyes gleamed.
He asked as if unable to believe.
“Then…… the one beside Tiel was the Calamity God Seck?”

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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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