The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 75

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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 75
“Why?”
Iandros was the crown prince of the Crasion Empire. There was no way he could be absent from an official ceremony of this magnitude.
Yet the Emperor had forbidden his attendance? Ferdi, Ludian, and Olivie’s faces shifted to confusion in an instant.
Without a word, Iandros held up his right hand.
His right hand was perfectly clean.
Clean to the point of making one wonder what there was to see at all.
And yet…….
“……Huh?”
Tiel made a small sound.
While the others could see nothing on Iandros’s hand, Tiel could see it with absolute clarity.
Something grotesquely thick and pitch-black clinging to Iandros’s hand in abundance.
“What is that……?”
As Tiel squinted and asked, Iandros looked at her.
“You can see it?”
“Yes? Yes. The others can’t see it?”
“What exactly do you see?”
Ludian’s face crumpled severely.
Olivie had already seized Iandros’s hand as if to pry it away, shaking it back and forth.
“Didn’t you wash your hand? What are we supposed to be looking at?”
“Is there something on your hand?”
As Ferdi, Olivie, and Ludian murmured among themselves, Iandros twisted his hand free from Olivie’s grip with a sharp flick.
“At some point, my Ability stopped working properly. Even when I use it, the space warps, or the entrance fails to hold—it happens most of the time.”
Iandros spoke with apparent calm, but his face betrayed no such composure.
Without thinking, Tiel gently grasped Iandros’s hand.
Yet the darkness clinging sluggishly to Iandros’s hand did not scatter at her touch; instead, it consolidated more firmly.
Startled by the sight, Tiel quickly withdrew her hand.
“I feel like I’ve seen this before…….”
Tiel murmured.
Where had she seen it? This unpleasant sensation was surely very familiar…….
“Ah!”
The girl’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly. The children who had been loudly murmuring fell silent in unison and turned to look at Tiel.
“Tiel? Do you know something?”
“Where did you see it?”
“Well, I’d need to see something to know anything.”
“Keep quiet, Ludian.”
Olivie clamped a sharp hand over Ludian’s mouth. Tiel nodded as she watched her brother silenced.
“I felt something like this before, when we were out looking at the streets together…….”
“……What did you feel back then?”
At Ferdi’s question, Tiel carefully retraced the memory.
“……?”
Tiel’s head snapped around. Her large golden eyes glinted in the darkness.
‘What was that just now……?’
She’d felt an odd presence just now.
A deeply unsettling presence. Like pulling one’s foot from a swamp—sticky, viscous, clinging……. As if the murky sensation of the mire still adhered to her ankles.
Recalling that sensation, Tiel’s body gave a light shudder.
Far more repugnant than what clung to Iandros’s hand…….
“I encountered something on the street before. It happened so fast that I didn’t know what I’d seen, so I didn’t mention it……!”
Tiel’s eyes widened as she seized Iandros’s hand and spoke.
“It’s definitely the same as this!”
At Tiel’s words, the faces of Iandros, Ferdi, Ludian, and Olivie grew grave in an instant.
“That would mean someone who’s trying to assassinate you is at this festival, wouldn’t it?”
“I thought my Ability had just become unstable, but an assassination attempt?”
“This is serious. Shouldn’t we inform His Majesty at once?”
The children each added their own remarks. Iandros nodded in agreement as well.
“Ah, if that’s truly the case…….”
Iandros’s Ability was unstable.
There had been times when his Ability wouldn’t function properly, or when it activated in an unstable manner.
But he had never felt it completely blocked the way it was now……. He had attributed it to his own Ability being unstable.
What if someone was interfering?
The situation would become grave. And yet…….
“What exactly did you see?”
At Iandros’s question, Tiel looked troubled and bowed her head deeply.
“I can’t say exactly what I saw, since I didn’t spot a suspicious person or anything—I only felt an unpleasant sensation for a moment…….”
“Why are you crushing our girl’s spirit!”
Olivie snapped sharply at Iandros, yanking Tiel into her arms.
“It’s okay, Tiel. It’s not your fault.”
“Right, he should solve his own problems.”
As even Ferdi and Ludian rushed to console the dispirited Tiel, Iandros became the very picture of a ruffian tormenting a young girl.
“What?”
“What? No! No, I wasn’t discouraged! Oh, brothers!”
“For daring to dishearten my sister, you shall never set foot in the Asterian Mansion again…….”
Ludian was overdoing it grandly when Olivie’s sharp hand came down on the back of his head with a solid smack.
“No, that’s the thing. We can’t ruin Luminarie without solid witnesses and evidence.”
Iandros was certainly right.
Luminarie was the largest festival among the Beast-people. There were countless who waited three years just for this festival day.
One couldn’t ruin the festival over something with neither proper evidence nor a reliable witness.
In the end, all that could be done was have the Imperial Palace knights increase their patrols and have Iandros exercise more caution.
“That……, what you say is right.”
“I’m not saying it to criticize you, understand? Don’t listen to your brothers.”
Iandros tilted his chin, indicating Olivie.
“Don’t listen to her either.”
The moment he said anything, they came at him like this—what could he possibly say? Iandros sighed and looked at the two Asterian brothers and the heir to Wolfgang (……).
Before Tiel came, it didn’t seem to be quite this bad, but since her arrival, the mental faculties of these three children seemed to be deteriorating somewhat…….
Tiel listened to Iandros’s words and nodded awkwardly.
And then.
“It’s because my brothers and sister care for me so much…….”
She whispered softly in defense of the three children.
At her words, Olivie could no longer restrain herself and swept Tiel into her arms, rubbing her soft crown against her own cheek over and over.
“Awww!! You’re so incredibly cute! Where did something this adorable come from? Hmm? This won’t do. Let’s go to Wolfgang!”
Cradled in Olivie’s embrace, Tiel’s cheeks flushed red as she laughed softly.
Iandros caught sight of this and smiled faintly.
When Iandros had mentioned that his Ability had become unstable, the Emperor had ordered him to remain nowhere but within the Imperial Palace.
Not content with that, the Emperor had dismissed all the attendants within Iandros’s chambers and left only the bare minimum of knights necessary for protection.
Of course, Iandros’s Ability far exceeded theirs, but even so, the crown prince couldn’t be left without an escort.
The problem was that Iandros……, couldn’t bear to be alone.
To be precise, he had once been accustomed to solitude…….
‘Iandros!’
‘What are you doing? Over there.’
‘You again? Getting sick of seeing you, honestly!’
‘You’re not even from our house, so why are you causing trouble? But yeah, you’ve got a point.’
Noisy voices.
Ever since he’d grown accustomed to those noisy voices, solitude had become unbearable.
Shut up alone in the dark, empty palace, loneliness and unease and fear came crashing down on the boy like a tsunami.
Unable to use his Ability, he couldn’t enter the Subspace to hide himself, nor could he even look at the Sacred Object Tiel had given him…….
For this reason, Iandros had disobeyed the Emperor’s command and come to meet his friends.
‘And it yielded something.’
Iandros looked at Tiel.
He hadn’t expected to gain anything, yet he had found something unexpected.
In truth, every moment spent with Tiel was a succession of unexpected things for Iandros.
From the very first moment they met, and every moment after.
Iandros loved this place.
The dark, empty Imperial Palace, the minimum of handmaidens and servants, the minimum of knights stationed…….
All of it felt like a negation of Iandros himself, making him not want to be in the palace anymore.
But on the other hand, when he came here, everyone treated the boy without reserve.
As if it didn’t matter whether he was a crown prince or not.
And more than anything, seeing Tiel’s large golden eyes gazing at him with not a flicker of hesitation……, made him love being here all the more.
So Iandros disobeyed the Emperor’s command and left the Imperial Palace.
Unaware of what consequences might follow.

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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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