The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 109

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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 109
That madman. Even in that state, he doesn’t let out a single groan.
In the end, the Emperor took a step back.
If the Mage had truly intended to infiltrate the Duke’s Residence… it would have been a catastrophe.
But there’s no evidence. He’s dead.
‘The most troublesome part is that the Mage died on my land.’
The Emperor exhaled a long breath and gripped his forehead. Leviathan glanced back at him as he walked.
“It seems Arcadia has conveniently gained a perfect excuse, Your Majesty.”
“What nonsense… utter drivel.”
“A Mage who targeted a noble’s life, failed, and self-destructed.”
“…Tsk.”
“It’s all a matter of presentation, isn’t it? I understand it’s your specialty.”
That hero bastard. I’ll really kill him.
The Emperor clenched his fist internally.
“Well then, I shall take my leave… I trust you won’t insist on having the cloak returned.”
Thud, thud. The Duke’s broad back receded into the distance.
“Wait… Wait!”
The Emperor forcibly swallowed his seething breath.
“Your Majesty, shall we stop him…?”
A scoff burst from the Knights’ question.
“Stop him? Who. You? That monster?”
“Then….”
“Sigh.”
His teal eyes darkened with resignation.
“Ron.”
At the brief summons, a masked shadow stepped forward.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Everything that happened here—keep it silent. Handle it quietly. I’ll write to Arcadia myself.”
He paused, then added.
“Especially ensure no word leaks about the Duke’s daughter.”
The Duke’s daughter of Zebert, whom the Tracking Mage harbored suspicions about until her death….
‘If it becomes known she was here, the Mage Kingdom will turn its attention to us again.’
The Emperor rubbed his brow against the sudden headache.
Something feels wrong. As if I’ve taken on something terribly troublesome… that sort of feeling.
“Your Majesty. You mean to bury all of this?”
“The Duke’s daughter is a legitimate citizen of the Babylon Empire.”
The image of the mother and daughter bickering side by side came to mind. Along with the bright, pure face of the child.
“Shouldn’t we protect her? From external threats….”
That Duke bastard.
This is why he made me sign those documents.
“Whether it’s Arcadia or anything else, that’s what I mean.”
The Emperor drove his point home with a sigh.
* * *
I opened my eyes not long after.
I had drifted into a light sleep due to the sudden mana depletion and the herb’s potency, but the moment Kalid shared his mana with me again and the dream ended, I snapped back to consciousness.
The instant I blearily opened my eyes in bed, I bolted upright and ran.
Late at night.
The Duke’s Residence was in complete chaos.
“What do I do….”
Tears streamed down my face.
Raw, exposed skin. Blood flowing from an arm.
My lips trembled involuntarily.
“There you go making that ugly face again. Who brought her here?”
“Blood…. There’s so much blood….”
Father regarded the wounded arm with casual indifference.
I could only stare at that wound helplessly, weeping.
Borbel, hastily summoned from sleep, calmly applied hemostatic powder and wrapped the bandage.
“Still, it could have been worse.”
Mother spoke while tidying up the blood-stained clothes.
Though she appeared composed, her face was deathly pale—she too had been greatly shocked.
“If the explosion had been dodged any slower, the injuries would have been far more severe.”
“The timing… was quite fortunate.”
Father muttered while glancing at me.
“Sob. Father’s arm….”
“Ha. Why did you even wake up in the first place?”
Father poked my forehead gently.
“Go back to bed quickly.”
In truth, I barely heard the voices around me.
I knelt on the large sofa in anxious distress, my eyes fixed solely on Father’s arm.
‘Father is injured.’
When the explosion occurred from the self-destructing magical artifact that Fourth had shattered, Father instinctively threw himself forward to shield me.
Sharp branches and decorative pieces flew about wildly—he had clearly been cut by them.
“What do I do….”
“Rubian, if anyone saw you like this, they’d think Father was dying, wouldn’t they?”
“I hate that word… dying…! Waaah.”
The tears I had been holding back burst forth.
Father, Mother, and everyone else in the inner chamber visibly panicked.
Regardless, I wailed openly.
I hadn’t cried this hard even when my secret as a girl was revealed….
Right now, I simply needed to cry.
In the dream.
Father’s pallid face, dying before my eyes, kept overlapping in my mind again and again.
“I understand. I understand, so please don’t cry. Father is really fine.”
“Rubian? Borbel said so himself. It’s nothing serious.”
“Yes, yes. Of course, Miss. This is hardly worth mentioning compared to what the General has endured.”
The adults fidgeted, trying to comfort me.
But like a broken faucet, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Father lifted me with one hand and sat me on his lap.
“Rubian Zebert.”
His deep voice calling my name.
Only then did my focus sharpen, and Father’s face came into clear view.
‘My name….’
I hiccupped and slowly became aware of my surroundings.
Mother’s worried face, Borbel at a loss for words, Hazel, Adolf the Butler.
And Father gazing down at me with grave concern.
‘Reality….’
I realized the truth belatedly.
Now, bearing the name ‘Rubian Zebert’, this was my reality.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and answered.
“Yes, yes….”
“Why were you crying so miserably? Did you have a bad dream?”
My head nodded frantically up and down.
It was an absolutely, terribly bad dream.
In the dream, Father was killed by a Mage… and that Mage was….
“I was scared, so scared. Really….”
I threw my arms around Father’s neck. His warm hand brushed down my back.
“What’s with this cold sweat…. Borbel.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll bring some calming herbal tea right away.”
Borbel hurried out of the Reception Room with the Maids.
I kept my eyes tightly shut, retracing the dream.
A dark night. The Kingdom Mage Order’s Mage, alone with Father.
She had a small frame, a thin voice, and branches of the World Tree extending down to her forearms.
Beneath the faint moonlight, her eyes revealed a vivid crimson color.
A puppet of the Mage King, bearing no name, merely….
Seventh.
That was what the Mage was called.
‘That was.’
I bit my lip.
‘The original me.’
Not an extra with only a single line of appearance. I simply hadn’t remembered myself.
I shook my head frantically.
‘No. That wasn’t me!’
I quickly wiped away the tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Rubian, what’s wrong? Look at Father. Don’t bite your lips.”
My body went limp. Father gently cupped my cheeks and examined me carefully.
“What kind of nightmare did you have? It was just a dream. It’s not real, so pull yourself together, alright?”
His steady voice conveyed the words I desperately needed to hear.
That’s right. It wasn’t real.
It was merely the original story’s progression—now erased.
‘Because I changed it.’
I was no longer the Mage King’s Seventh. I had escaped from him long ago and become Rubian Zebert, who received the castle of Zebert.
A completely different outcome from the original Seventh, who never managed to escape the Mage King’s grasp.
“Father, blood….”
Yet the sight of red blood still startled me.
I thought Father was dying….
With tears streaming down my face, I carefully reached toward Father’s bandage.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to touch it, my fingers trembling uncertainly through empty air.
“It’s alright. It’ll stop soon. As long as you don’t cry.”
“I won’t cry….”
Meeting his gaze, Father pulled my head against his chest with one arm.
“Phew. Thank goodness you weren’t hurt. Really.”
A long, relieved sigh dispersed into the air. I felt the strong, steady heartbeat against his firm chest.
I listened to that rhythm quietly.
‘That’s right. This is reality.’
The regular pulse quickly calmed me.

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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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