The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 54

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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 54
“……haha.”
Back at the Imperial Palace, Ian carefully unwrapped Tiel’s gift, and a soft laugh escaped his lips.
The gift box was as large as Tiel herself.
Yet what lay inside was astonishingly small.
Everything else was merely padding to protect that one tiny object.
Ian held Tiel’s gift in his palm and gazed at it quietly.
‘Yes! When we meet next time, please tell me if you liked the gift!’
Did he like it?
He could answer without a moment’s hesitation. What Tiel had given him was——
A small Holy Artifact that resembled her own self, capable of shining with light all alone.
‘Where could she have found it?’
Likely one of the Holy Artifacts the Asterian Family possessed. Or perhaps they had procured it for her……
But even if Cassius or Alpheus had obtained it, it was Tiel who had conceived of this gift.
Of that he was certain.
“Tiel is……”
The only person who had ever entered his Subspace.
Ian did not carelessly invite people into his Subspace. That was only natural.
There had never been anyone close enough to permit such entry, and to Ian, the Subspace was a dark part of himself he wished to show no one else.
And so it was.
No light within the Subspace could illuminate its surroundings.
Candles extinguished the moment he carried them in, and Holy Artifacts that supposedly gleamed even in darkness lost their radiance the instant he brought them into that space.
So Ian had abandoned all attempts to bring light into his Subspace.
The only consolation was that moonlight seeped in faintly from somewhere.
But even that faint moon-glow could barely illuminate the place.
Ian’s Subspace was vast, and dark, and also……
Lonely.
He had brought Tiel into such a place. What he’d been thinking at the time, he couldn’t say. It seemed he’d done it almost thoughtlessly.
And Tiel must have realized there——
That no light could live and breathe within that darkness.
‘Tiel is herself made of light.’
So she would have grasped it without anyone needing to teach her. That light could not live in Ian’s Subspace.
That was why she had prepared such a gift. He could well imagine what had moved her heart as she prepared it.
Iandros gripped the Holy Artifact in his hand.
The small, perfectly round sphere—much like Tiel’s own head—shimmered ceaselessly, unrelentingly, just as she did.
He gazed upon the Holy Artifact in his palm.
‘In any case.’
It would only fade if he brought it inside.
And it would never shine again. Wouldn’t it be better to leave it by a window instead?
Ian’s eyes went dark and vacant at the thought.
He found he could not bear to watch even Tiel’s gift lose its light.
No one knew what thoughts moved through Ian as he regarded that mansion where no amount of effort could kindle a flame.
No one knew what he had surrendered within that darkness……
And that surrender had filled him with a deep, preemptive dread.
It was a gift from Tiel. To take such a precious treasure into that place and rob it of its light—he found he could not accept it, even unto death.
Then.
Shimmer!
Tiny fragments of light within the Holy Artifact collided, bursting forth with greater radiance. Iandros blinked.
It was a brilliant light—bright enough to illuminate an entire dark room.
Yet it did not hurt his eyes.
The light that resembled Tiel wrapped around everything like an embrace, and so……it did not hurt his eyes.
And more than that.
Shimmer——!
As if consoling him, bidding him not to fear, it shimmered ceaselessly in his palm. Warmth seeped through the gaps between his fingers in an endless stream of light.
“Hahaha……”
Ian laughed. His voice carried something like relief.
The action of one comforting his own fear.
Could it be that even this matched hers? As if Tiel herself had……separated the very light from her own hand and given it to him.
His resolve hardened. Ian held the Holy Artifact tenderly, then released it.
As his hand swept through the air, his Subspace materialized before him.
The boy stepped forward hesitantly—differently from any time before——into that darkness.
Tiel’s gift came with him, held carefully in his palm.
The pitch-black Subspace brightened for a moment. But only for a moment.
“……As I thought.”
The Holy Artifact began to lose its radiance slowly. It was no different from the others.
The other Holy Artifacts Ian had brought in before initially blazed with light, then gradually dimmed.
He closed his eyes. It had been a fool’s errand. He should never have harbored such hope in the first place. He knew that much.
And yet, he had hoped anyway.
Even knowing he would be disappointed, as always.
Iandros opened his eyes quietly. He would watch through to the end as the light resembling Tiel faded away in this place.
The light dimmed. What had once blazed brilliantly enough to fill an entire room now shrank to illuminate only Iandros himself.
And……
“……What?”
Iandros regarded the Holy Artifact with confusion.
It was time for the light to fade now. Already it no longer fully illuminated even Iandros.
The fragments of light within the sphere flickered as if about to extinguish.
But they did not go out.
“……!”
He waited longer. Still the same. The light did not extinguish.
It illuminated the darkness.
It was barely a handspan of radiance, but light it was. It illuminated the darkness.
The light fragments flickered as if dying, yet they never went dark. They shone desperately, casting their glow all around.
Iandros sank to the ground where he stood. There was no one to question him. This was his Subspace.
Here, Ian had been utterly alone.
But now he was alone no longer.
Ian pulled Tiel’s gift close to his chest. The gesture looked desperately earnest. His emerald eyes caught the light and gleamed.
“It didn’t fade……”
He murmured.
The fragile light steadfastly drove back the darkness from within his embrace.
Ian bowed his head low.
His shoulders trembled for a moment.
***
“Lia, will it really be all right?”
Tiel asked with an anxious expression.
This was her tenth question, but Lia answered without a trace of annoyance, her smile bright and genuine.
“Of course, miss. He’ll be delighted.”
“Do you think so? Oh, I hope so……”
Gift-giving really was difficult, Tiel realized anew. At the same time, she marveled at how Alpheus and Cassius managed to give her gifts every single day.
“Don’t worry, miss. It’s a gift you prepared with such care. He’ll surely be happy.”
“Yes, I’ll think positively about it.”
Tiel nodded.
It truly had been prepared with the utmost care.
And for good reason—Ian was the Crown Prince of the Empire. Common, ordinary things held no use for him.
But valuable, expensive things were not what he needed either. The Imperial Palace already held all the treasures and precious objects in the entire Empire.
As Tiel pondered, she recalled the day she first met Ian.
His Subspace, devoid of even a shred of light.
That space, cluttered only with an extinguished chandelier and candles that would not burn.
The moment she remembered, Tiel knew what gift to give.
She had hurried straight to Cassius and told him, ‘I want to give something that produces light.’
Cassius had paused in thought, then retrieved a small jeweled box that had been stored somewhere in the Asterian Family’s vault.
Inside it lay a small Holy Artifact.
“It’s a Holy Artifact that produces light of its own. It’s precious—worthy of a gift for the Crown Prince.”
Tiel had taken the gift joyfully. And……
“Honestly, I didn’t think it would work,” she murmured uncertainly.
Tiel had infused the Holy Artifact with her own power, but only a very small amount.
She had wanted to pour more into it, but still unskilled in her Ability, she could manage only that much.
Yet Tiel had succeeded. Three days of unbroken effort had made it possible.
The Holy Artifact, which had already possessed its own light, now burned brighter with Tiel’s essence woven through it.
When she imagined Ian discovering the gift and rejoicing, warmth blossomed in her heart like bubbling springs.
Still, the reason she had not let Ian examine the gift immediately was——
‘There is such a thing as “what if.”‘
What if Ian did not like it?
That would be a little sad. And so she had refrained.
But now that she could not see him open it in person, a part of her felt wistful. All the more so, given how carefully she had prepared it.
‘Well, it can’t be helped.’
It was in the past now. There was nothing to gain by dwelling on it further.
Tiel knelt, opened her palms, and took a breath.
Lia, keenly perceiving that her young lady wished to practice using her Ability, had extinguished the lamps and left the room.
Tiel closed her eyes. She felt as if a warm breeze had begun to blow.
Carefully, the child exercised her Ability.
Shimmer——!
In that instant, a light brilliant and warm beyond measure burst forth from her palm.
It was light that matched perfectly the light Ian held in his embrace.
They did not touch, yet they shone as one.

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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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