The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 234

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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 2
Thender was different from Cornelia.
He did not run.
Thender Buchanan Nestian remained in the grand mansion of the Nestians.
Though not in his study, as it turned out.
The Asterian knights found him in a room deep within the Nestian Mansion.
It was a room Tiel had never seen during her entire stay at the Nestian Mansion, and it was also the second-finest chamber in all of Nestian.
“This is…”
Tiel learned of this room’s existence for the first time that day.
Compared to any other chamber, it was incomparably vast, and strikingly beautiful, as though the former mistress had adorned it with great care.
At the same time, it was meticulously maintained, and the air carried the faint scent of fragrant tea.
It was so pristine, as if its owner might return at any moment.
Moreover, if the room’s mistress had favored the color blue deeply—and she clearly had—then the curtains, the bedding, the smallest ornaments, all were a single, consistent shade of blue.
The figure of Thender sitting alone in this blue-appointed lady’s chamber looked profoundly out of place.
He did not belong in this space at all.
At least, not in Tiel’s eyes.
In that moment, a small question took root.
Why was Thender here, and not in his study? Surely he must have known that the Asterian black leopards were coming to punish Nestian.
Thender had not been hiding. The door had not been locked when the knights found him.
Then Tiel’s gaze drifted, almost without thinking, past Thender’s shoulder.
And she understood why.
“That is…”
Beyond Thender’s shoulder hung a large portrait.
The portrait of a girl with flowing silver hair and eyes that gleamed a deep blue.
In the painting, the girl was running with a gentle, loving smile.
The moment Tiel’s eyes met those in the portrait, she knew.
‘This is Mother’s room.’
That this was the chamber of Rena Nestian.
Sometimes, without anyone telling you, you simply know.
Tiel let her golden eyes sweep slowly across the room, then turned her gaze to the weathered face before her.
“Head of Household.”
A knight commander standing behind Tiel and Cassius called softly to her.
Tiel nodded.
“Wait here. My father and I will handle this.”
The Asterian knights could not approach Thender.
Rowen no longer used her Ability, and Cornelia’s Ability had been meager and weak enough to subdue without difficulty, but Thender was another matter entirely.
He was the Head of Household of the Nestians, the master of the Snow Leopards, and among all Beast-kin currently living, he stood among the top five in strength.
For ordinary Beast-kin without Abilities to recklessly rush at Thender and attempt to restrain him would be to court grave injury.
And so they remained behind Tiel and Cassius, waiting quietly and obediently.
Tiel signaled the knights to wait a moment, then gazed steadily at Thender.
Thender, for his part, sat on the bed in a daze, staring back at Tiel.
‘He looks exhausted.’
The terrifying grandfather who had never once seemed worn was now breathing heavily, aged before her eyes.
Tiel watched him calmly.
He appeared both like a man who had surrendered and accepted defeat, and like one who yearned desperately for another soul.
‘Is he longing for Mother?’
That must be it.
This moment—this was the last moment Thender Buchanan Nestian could remain within the mansion as its master.
And Thender understood this well.
To spend such a moment in his daughter’s room, in Rena’s room…
‘He must be missing Mother.’
This old Duke still sought her shadow. In this empty chamber whose mistress had departed so long ago.
And as that truth crystallized, Tiel found her understanding of Thender slip further away.
‘If you loved Mother that much, why did you hate me so desperately?’
I am your daughter’s child. I carry the blood of Rena Nestian, whom you loved so dearly. I am her flesh and blood.
So why were you so disgusted by me? Why did you hate me so?
There was a time she had wondered this.
That she was a child born by killing her mother, and therefore deserved to be hated.
That she was unworthy of love.
But now she understood. There is no such thing as a child unworthy of love in this world.
The strangeness lay not in the child who was born, but in the old man who despised her because his daughter had died giving birth to her grandchild.
All children, from the moment they enter this world, must receive love without condition.
It was a duty and a right that all children possessed equally.
Thender Buchanan Nestian had trampled on Tiel’s right and wounded her soul.
For that, he had incurred a sin that could never be forgiven in all his days.
Tiel, who had been watching Thender quietly, slowly opened her mouth.
“Is there anything you wish to say to me?”
The old Duke, who had been staring at his granddaughter, shook his head slowly.
“No.”
It was an answer very much like Thender.
He did not ask for forgiveness, nor did he rage that she was to blame for all of this.
He simply turned his head to gaze upon Rena Nestian’s portrait. The girl who no longer existed in this world.
“Do you wish to see Mother?”
Tiel asked.
“Yes.”
Thender answered.
Tiel exhaled sharply, then fixed her gaze on the back of Thender’s head, her eyes utterly steady.
And she spoke with absolute clarity.
“But Mother will not wish to see you.”
……
“Because you wounded me. Because you hurt me and committed wrongs upon me that cannot be undone, Mother will not wish to see you.”
Her voice no longer sounded like that of a child.
Not the voice of a frightened girl, nor the voice of a granddaughter desperate to be loved by her grandfather.
“Where in this world is there a mother who wishes to see the man who wounded her beloved daughter…?”
……
“You have committed an unforgivable sin against me, and though I would forgive everyone else in this world, I will never forgive you.”
This was the voice of Tiel.
“There must have been a better way. There must have been something better than locking me in an attic. I will not forgive you for turning away from every single one of those paths.”
The voice of the Snow Leopard, Tiel Asterian, who had grown tall and matured into a woman.
Thender listened to Tiel’s words quietly, then nodded.
“……Then that is as it must be. You are Rena’s daughter, after all.”
Tiel answered at once.
“It is not because I am Mother’s daughter. Thender, what you have done is something that deserves no forgiveness from anyone…”
……
“I will not forgive you even in death. But the moment I leave this mansion, I will cleanly forget everything you have done to me…”
Tiel’s golden eyes shone.
“Because I will no longer allow you to hurt me.”
Then the old Duke spoke slowly.
“You escaped my control long ago. You became someone who no longer bears my wounds.”
Tiel answered with equal slowness.
“No. I carried those wounds for a very long time afterward.”
Why do the things we experience in childhood never fade easily, even in adulthood?
Why can they be hidden, but never fully healed?
Tiel had feared the Nestian Mansion for a long time. This remained true even after she met her family in Asterian.
Thender, as a fragment of childhood memory, had wounded her throughout her entire life.
But Tiel would no longer live that way.
She did not wish for Thender to meddle in her life, to continue shaping it for the rest of her days.
“If I forget all of this, you will lose your chance at forgiveness from me forever. I will no longer dwell upon the abuse you hurled at me…”
Tiel’s gaze turned toward the portrait beyond Thender’s shoulder.
For a moment, she was seized by the illusion that the girl in the painting was smiling brightly at her.
She tore her eyes from Rena Nestian’s portrait and looked at Thender once more.
Thender, too, had turned his head to look at Tiel again.
The gaze of two Snow Leopards met.
“Thender Buchanan Nestian.”
Tiel’s lips moved slowly.
“You are finished now.”
In that moment, a cold wind slipped through the half-open window.
The frigid breeze that had swept across the vast Snowy Field of Nestian passed across the cheeks of those within the room.
***
Though Nestian had committed a grave crime approaching Treason, the reason Asterian, rather than the Imperial Palace, was able to dispense judgment was simple.
It was an unwritten law that a family’s affairs were resolved within the family.
And so Tiel Asterian, Head of Household of Asterian, arrived at Nestian with her knights and apprehended the guilty.
They would stand trial.
And the probability of their being ‘safely’ released at that trial could safely be called zero.
Thus, the line of Nestian was now completely severed.
By the greed of Thender Buchanan Nestian.
After Thender had been led away without resistance, Tiel remained in Rena’s room and slowly looked around.
Rena’s chamber was so meticulously maintained by Thender over the years that not a speck of dust settled on the display cabinet.
Then, as Tiel examined the cabinet, she stopped short.
“This is…”
Tiel’s round eyes widened.

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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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