The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 2

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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 2
“No, I don’t need it.”
And I was rejected cleanly.
So cleanly that I lost my words entirely.
“Tsk….”
“Tsk?”
Leviathan flicked my lips with his finger.
“I thought you were taciturn, but you’re just a foul-mouthed brat. I was completely fooled.”
His deep violet eyes fixed on me directly. When I pouted my lips in displeasure, he seemed to interpret it somehow, deliberately relaxing the tension in his gaze.
“Suddenly the youngest doesn’t even understand what I’m saying.”
“Hah….”
Well, I was being hasty.
To Leviathan, I was merely a brat he’d met a few hours ago.
‘I got caught up rehashing the original story and did it without thinking.’
I laughed awkwardly and stared ahead. The horse carrying us was slowly heading toward the capital of the Babylon Empire.
‘But there was no choice. If I’d dawdled and encountered pursuers, everything would’ve been for nothing.’
Because in truth, I had one secret… or rather, quite a few.
“Are you actually from Iosia?”
Ouch, a direct hit.
I moved my head ambiguously. Somewhere between a shake and a nod.
My chest stung from the lie.
Of course I wasn’t from Iosia.
“So you are from Iosia. But now you’re clamming up again.”
“Ow.”
A light tap came as punishment.
“I told you not to just nod when someone asks you a question.”
“Tsk… That hurts!”
“Tsk again?”
I spun around, cradling the back of my head. When our eyes met, the handsome man with the cold expression let out a soft laugh.
“A boy like you… making a fuss over something like that.”
“…?”
Wait, hold on. Stop right there.
It seems you’re greatly misunderstanding something.
“Sir…?”
But in that moment, my words caught in my throat and I couldn’t respond at all.
‘Something feels increasingly….’
Breathing was becoming difficult.
Looking around, I easily discerned the nature of this sensation.
“…The Empire must be drawing near.”
The rapid thinning of magical energy in the air was proof of it.
The capital of the Babylon Empire was a place almost devoid of magical energy.
“Have you ever been to the Empire before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then how do you know we’re getting close to the Empire?”
“Well… it just feels like we’ve been running for a long time…”
The truth was that I could read the flow of magical energy, but I couldn’t just say that outright.
I’m a mage.
A mage from Arcadia who answered the Mage King’s call and joined this war.
The king of Arcadia sent even underdeveloped children like me to the battlefield as long as they had magical power.
At the time, other Allied Forces nations criticized Arcadia harshly for using child soldiers, but the Mage King—the hidden mastermind and corrupt ruler in the original story—wouldn’t have heard a word of it.
Of course, thanks to that, I ended up performing rear support roles like managing magical artifacts, but as the war dragged on, that issue was quietly buried and forgotten.
Anyway, I was dispatched two years ago, and I only realized this was a world from a book after spending a year on the battlefield.
‘After struggling so hard to survive, you want us all to die together?’
I couldn’t accept this injustice!
I made up my mind to stick to him like a cicada clinging to an old tree.
‘To do that… I need to hide my secrets well.’
First, the fact that I’m a mage.
Arcadia, where I was born and raised, was an extremely closed-off nation. Because of that, they didn’t permit mages to emigrate without permission.
If I got caught, forced repatriation was all that awaited me.
‘And Leviathan absolutely despises mages…”
Because of an incident ten years ago, he shuddered at the mere mention of a mage. There was no way he’d keep one by his side.
Next was my past.
I deserted the Mage Corps before the war even ended. The reason I fled was obviously to meet Leviathan in that village.
‘He probably thinks I died in that dark magic attack.’
Because of that, my identity was even more something I couldn’t reveal.
To sum it up,
‘A child soldier mage who fled Arcadia.’
…Nothing about me was normal, was it?!
And on top of that,
“A boy making a fuss over something like that.”
Well, of course…
‘I am wearing clothes I picked up from an Iosian boy, after all.’
And my hair is in this state too!
‘I didn’t intentionally hide my gender.’
I briefly considered clearing up the misunderstanding, but I decided to let it be. For someone in my position—hiding my identity and on the run—it was better this way.
Anyway, because of that oblivious hero, I’ve ended up with even more secrets to keep.
“Sigh.”
Can I really pull this off?
My shoulders drooped with worry about what lay ahead.
Whether it was from thinking so much or from the sparse magical energy around me, I felt my stamina draining away even while standing still.
‘I’m exhausted.’
I rubbed my blurry eyes with the back of my hand.
I’ll rest for now and think about it later!
* * *
Leviathan gazed down at the child’s bobbing crown.
Somewhere along the way, the child had fallen asleep on the saddle.
‘Did he tire himself out with all that chatter?’
He’d been so wary at first.
A soft laugh escaped him.
Over the brief journey, the child’s emotional walls had crumbled, and he’d asked question after question in that squeaky little voice of his.
“Sir, when we reach the capital, where do we go first?”
“The Imperial Shelter.”
“Um… couldn’t you just take me with you instead?”
‘Take him with me?’
Leviathan laughed, bewildered.
The fact that the child had followed him in the first place was absurd.
Children naturally feared him.
He was a man who’d spent ten years rolling through battlefields. Children instinctively sensed the damp, savage aura that clung to those who carried death with them.
‘This has become troublesome.’
He ran his fingers roughly through his black hair and urged the horse toward the flattest terrain possible.
‘I shouldn’t dwell on this.’
Leviathan gripped the reins tightly and forced his gaze forward.
We’d be parting ways soon anyway.
He had no use for unnecessary feelings.
Yet somehow, his eyes kept drifting to that bouncing crown.
The round cowlick was on the right side.
Leviathan swore he’d never seen such a small cowlick before.
His grip on the reins tightened.
Damn it.
That’s rather cute.
* * *
After a good sleep, I felt much better than before.
Hmm, my body is adapting to the mana shortage too! Excellent!
The sir had been strangely fixated on my head this whole time, insisting I sleep more.
“Am I a newborn or something? Sleeping all day long…”
Wait.
That’s when my head suddenly snapped around on its own.
‘This mana!’
“Sir!”
The moment I cried out, black magical beasts burst from the grass.
“Eek!”
“Don’t move. Keep your eyes closed.”
A firm hand stretched out almost simultaneously, covering my eyelids.
The man holding me tightly in his embrace drew his sword with measured control—a speed so devastating I couldn’t even tell when he’d unsheathed it.
Shing.
I stared blankly through the gaps between his fingers as black demonic blood scattered like autumn leaves.
‘Now it really hits me.’
The continent’s greatest swordsman, the man closest to the legendary Sword God, the head of Zebert—the prestigious sword family that ruled the Northern Region.
Even all the superlatives of strength weren’t enough; he possessed wealth, honor, and beauty besides—a perfect overpowered character standing right before me.
“Are you alright?”
The man asked, flicking his sword clean.
“Ugh… blood…”
It splattered everywhere.
Demonic blood has such a stubborn stench that won’t wash out easily. Ugh, how depressing.
My words trailed off, and the man carefully set me down on the ground.
“You look a mess.”
We were both drenched in demonic blood.
“Ugh…”
“We’ll reach the Empire’s border soon, so just bear with it.”
The man barely found a clean section of his own clothes and scrubbed my face vigorously.
“Ow! It hurts!”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
Looking ready to spit and scrub even harder, I hastily fled.
Vinegar water with moonflower herb soap is the perfect solution for removing demonic blood stench.
‘I’ve become completely filthy.’
Swallowing a sigh, I sniffed at my own body, then felt a gaze from above my head.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“…You.”
When I turned around, my eyes met his as he sat heavily on the ground, staring at me intently.
Perhaps because of the blood splattered on his face, his violet eyes seemed unusually dark, carrying an unfamiliar strangeness.
“Why don’t you cry?”
Unsure what he meant, I just blinked while he rested his arm on his knee and propped his chin on his hand.
“Come to think of it, you’ve never cried.”
Even when looking at me.
‘Huh.’
I felt as though ice water had been dumped over me. Now that he mentioned it, I recalled that in the original work, all the children who first saw him burst into tears.
Ah, how troublesome.
Of course, I did tear up when I saw Leviathan.
Out of sheer joy.
But I’d never felt fear. After all, he was the protagonist, the hero who saved this world.
Did I not look like an ordinary child?
“You didn’t seem particularly frightened just now either.”
“That’s because….”
“Because?”
“I was actually scared. But crying doesn’t really change anything, so….”
I blended truth and falsehood in equal measure.
Memories of crying? Honestly, I have very few.
If crying solved problems, I’d cry. But most problems weren’t solved by tears.
Not in my previous life, nor in this one.
Wouldn’t it be better to dust myself off quickly and focus my energy on solving the problem rather than waste time crying?
Yet Leviathan seemed displeased for some reason.
“Who told you that?”
“Huh?”
“That crying doesn’t change anything.”
“M…mother?”
In truth, there had never been anyone I could call mother in any lifetime, but I brushed it off vaguely.
Leviathan’s Adam’s apple bobbed heavily as he stared at me. It seemed as though he had something to say but swallowed it back.
“Holding things in for too long becomes an illness, you know.”
“Ow.”
The man tapped my nose lightly.
“Tsk, it’s already turning red.”
Rub, rub. His clumsy touch continued.
That warmth seemed to ripple outward like waves.
I felt something indescribable wash over me. It was the first time an adult had told me not to hold back.
“Let’s go. We’ll arrive soon.”
After hastily cleaning ourselves, we mounted the horse again.
Clop, clop. The horse trotted at a different pace than before.
Not knowing where another dark creature might emerge, the man held me even more firmly than before. That solid embrace felt like a remarkable sanctuary.
The wind swept swiftly across my cheek.
A crimson sunset spread overhead.
Whoosh, whoosh. Trees brushed past, and somewhere a bird fluttered away.
The acrid stench of blood that assaulted my nose persisted, yet suddenly…. Very suddenly.
I felt peaceful.
Drenched in blood, and yet peaceful. How absurd.
“Hey, the monsters won’t come out anymore?”
“No. I’ve killed them all.”
“You’re really strong, sir.”
This Leviathan, who brought me this peace.
He must have suffered for ten years. I could barely endure two years….
“Thank you for saving me, sir.”
“….”
“War, too… you’ve worked hard. It must have been difficult all this time.”
So please, don’t die, sir.
“Thanks to you, we have peace.”
You deserve to enjoy this peace longer than anyone else.
* * *
And I deserve it too!
“Ugh! So loud! Give me back my peace!”
I clamped my hands over my ears.
“What is it. Don’t act like you’re fresh from the countryside.”
The Empire’s capital was like a birthday cake!
Boom! Bang bang!
Celebratory cannons erupted without pause.
Crowds chattering loudly, musicians pouring out frenzied melodies, children laughing and running about, merchants hawking at the top of their lungs….
My eyes were practically spinning in my head.

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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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