The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 202

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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 202
Ch. 21
The sky hung gray and heavy, rain falling ceaselessly.
That’s how I knew.
‘A dream? Suddenly?’
This had to be a dream.
I was walking through a street. The shoes, the clothes—everything felt foreign to me. Even my body didn’t feel like my own.
What is this? A possession dream?
The moment that thought crossed my mind, my reflection appeared in a puddle by the roadside.
Hollow cheeks, parched lips, eyes devoid of vitality. A face utterly devoid of beauty—and yet, strangely familiar.
A face I recognized, though it wasn’t mine.
‘It’s Seventh from the original story.’
This couldn’t be real.
Why all of a sudden?
“You there, miss!”
Someone called out to me as I drifted through the street like a ghost. I turned my head slowly. My consciousness was my own, but my body refused to obey my will.
“Take this.”
A woman with a weathered expression held out a small slice of cake to me, wrapped neatly in a box.
On the white cream sat a strawberry glazed in syrup.
Oh, I love strawberry cake! The Chef promised to prepare a large strawberry cream cake for my coming-of-age ceremony.
“Business has been slow today. Seems like there aren’t many people celebrating birthdays.”
Me! It’s my birthday today!
But the words only echoed in my mind.
My body stood vacant and unresponsive. The Baker Woman forced the cake into my hands.
I felt her gaze fall upon my hands, and she flinched in surprise.
She cleared her throat with a soft sound, then spoke hurriedly.
“If the taste is good, come back tomorrow and buy something else! The muffins are nice, and the macarons are delicious too! We’re having a sale starting tomorrow—30% off… no, 50%!”
I resumed walking.
Without a single word of thanks.
Seventh from the original story was terribly rude.
“You understand, right? You have to come buy something!”
The Baker Woman called after me earnestly, and at her commotion, a man who appeared to be her husband came out and scolded her.
“What sale? Why are you giving away perfectly good cake!”
“Well, she just looked so fragile. She seems so young… and…”
“And?”
“There was blood seeping through her sleeve.”
Ah, so that was it.
That’s why she had flinched when she saw my hands. I thought it was because of the mark.
I walked on, hearing their voices fade into the distance.
There were so many good people in this world.
I found myself thinking anew. Out of concern, I had shared my cake with a complete stranger.
Just as there exists malice without reason, so too does kindness without cause.
‘Had I known sooner, would things have been different?’
I continued walking, hoping the kind baker woman wouldn’t accumulate wealth steadily, but instead become suddenly rich overnight.
Before long, I was treading a deep and treacherous Mountain Path.
‘My birthday….’
Now that I thought about it.
‘How old am I?’
I had no idea.
Had I already come of age?
“Run away. Far, far away.”
Leviathan spoke those words and died.
Right beside my daughter’s black tombstone.
I….
When I came to my senses, I was already fleeing.
Behind my escaping form, the Duchess’s anguished screams, blood-curdling and desperate, seemed to echo.
How many days had passed since then?
‘I must return to Father.’
I repeated those words hundreds, thousands of times, yet my body refused to obey my thoughts.
My breathing came in ragged gasps. I was pouring every ounce of my magical power into preventing the stigma from spreading further.
Leviathan’s words had been true.
“Aim for the heart. Do not miss. Everything you desire lies at this center.”
A temporal magic circle unknown even to the Mage Kingdom existed within the Babylon Capital Academy.
‘Though it was crumbling to ruin.’
The Academy’s defenses, which I had fled toward from the Northern Region, were lax.
It was because the Archive Professor had recently died. I disguised myself as one of his disciples and slipped into the funeral procession. They said that after his colleagues perished and problems arose in the Ancient Manuscript Archive, he could not overcome his grief and took his own life.
I knew nothing of the truth.
In any case, I discovered books turned to blank pages, a withering tree, and a half-destroyed tombstone within that place.
Everything in the Ancient Manuscript Archive seemed beyond recovery, too far gone to salvage.
All I could do was steal the magic circle from the tombstone and flee once more.
‘A magic circle that moves time.’
Though it had grown so ancient it no longer functioned properly in the Archive, I used that circle to halt the progression of my stigma. It was possible because the Archive was saturated with mysterious magical power.
Though I had stopped the stigma’s erosion in this way.
I knew the truth. This was merely a temporary measure.
Father’s power was incomparably strong, and my stigma had already grown to cover my entire body.
How much longer could I endure in this state?
‘So I must return.’
To the Mage Kingdom.
Yet contrary to my thoughts, I found myself inexplicably continuing to climb the Mountain.
The Forest was dark.
I no longer knew which way led back. I was lost, yet strangely, wandering through this maze didn’t feel entirely unpleasant.
The slope grew steeper with each step, and a metallic taste bloomed in my throat. The cake box in my hand felt as heavy as lead.
My head spun in dizzying circles. Memories tangled together in chaotic knots.
“Even so, the world is this vast. Surely there’s somewhere to protect just one person.”
I could hold back no longer. Clinging to a tree, I retched violently.
“Ugh… haah…”
Why did Leviathan drive a blade through his own heart?
Why did he look at me—the one who came to kill him—with such tender eyes?
“I must… return to the Mage Kingdom…”
If I returned?
Knowing neither my age nor my name.
Would I simply become Father’s puppet once more, wandering battlefields or harming others, understanding nothing at all?
“Who demands such things of their own daughter? When she should be cherished and treasured above all else.”
‘Stop thinking about it.’
Please. Please!
I wiped the drool from my chin and moved forward mechanically. Deeper. Ever deeper. Where no one could find me.
I’d heard that Leviathan had lost a daughter. Perhaps that’s why he pitied me so.
How wonderful it would have been to be his daughter.
To be treasured, showered with love, treated with endless tenderness.
‘Ah…’
I stopped walking.
Before me stretched a desolate cliff.
Beneath my blood-soaked sleeve, the pink cake box hung carelessly. Its contents were surely ruined by now.
‘I’m exhausted.’
With a soft sound, I released my grip. The cake plummeted and shattered completely.
I was too weary to rise again on the strength of a stranger’s kindness alone.
The days ahead held no appeal for me. I felt no curiosity about the dawn that would come again. Only dread.
‘Let it end.’
Isn’t this enough?
Yes, perhaps fleeing like this is a solution.
‘If only I could have fled sooner than this…’
Would things have been different?
Perhaps Leviathan would still be alive.
But such speculation was utterly meaningless.
I withdrew the dagger from my bosom—the one stained with Leviathan’s blood.
So much blood had poured from his chest. I tried desperately to stop it with both hands, but it was useless.
I’m sorry. Suddenly, I wanted to say those words.
To whom? To the dead Leviathan? Or perhaps… to the Duchess, who discovered her dead husband first? To his sons? To Grandfather?
What good would it do?
‘They are nothing but strangers to me.’
I tightened my grip on the sword with both hands.
The blade flashed and reflected in the cold moonlight.
“Hey.”
A low, hoarse male voice echoed from somewhere.
From somewhere along the steep Cliff behind my back.
Looking closer, I noticed a dark Cave nearby.
“If you’re going to die, go somewhere farther away.”
Only then did I sense the blue mana I had failed to detect before. The sound of old chains dragging—*clink, clink*—reached my ears as well.
But what struck me far more intensely was.
What was revealed beneath the thin moonlight pouring down….
“I hate the stench of rotting corpses.”
The eyes of a beast.

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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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