The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 214

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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 214
The harder the truth is to bear, the more calmly and rationally one must face it. I wanted to explain the situation without unnecessary words and ask for help.
But…
“I’m trying to understand the truth step by step. It seems the Mage King, to me… he… I…”
Unlike my intentions, my voice cracked and fractured, refusing to form coherent words.
“Ah.”
In that moment, I noticed the blue necklace hanging around my neck—the very thing Void had handed to me on the journey north.
The birthday gift Father had meant to give me.
As I gazed at the jewel gleaming with azure radiance, the image of Father turning his horse around and galloping toward me flashed through my mind.
Imagining how Father must have agonized over choosing this gift in secret, my heart felt as though it were being wrung dry.
“Grandfather…”
My body swayed. The resolve I’d been clinging to crumbled. I grasped Grandfather’s robes tightly, clinging to him.
“What am I, really?”
“Ru… bian…”
The Old Master’s face, which I looked up at, was utterly vacant.
His large hands held me steady, yet they trembled uncontrollably—far from their usual composure.
“I really…”
“This can’t be…”
“What if I really am that child?”
My face, reflected in those violet eyes, was completely contorted.
“What about our Mother and Father?”
* * *
Ballock stumbled forward with unsteady steps.
“What on earth is happening…?”
His thick palms wiped across his gaunt face again and again. His breathing came ragged. His eyes burned as if they might burst, and the blood coursing through his body burned even hotter.
Rubian had poured everything out as if retching, and with Void’s support, had returned to the Bedroom. Her face flushed again as fever rose. Borbel, suddenly summoned, seemed to follow urgently in her wake.
In truth, he couldn’t quite remember how that time had concluded.
He gripped the window frame, breathing heavily.
“What exactly is happening…?”
His lips trembled violently. His fists clenched so tightly they seemed ready to split.
“It’s possible that I’m the child who was buried in the Small Garden…”
Was such a thing even possible?
“Rubian really…”
The child of Rosetta and Leviathan, whom he’d thought dead long ago?
It was a hypothesis so horrifying that merely considering it made his skin crawl.
He wanted nothing more than to deny that cruel truth. Yet Rubian had continued speaking with a trembling voice, struggling through each word.
She had inadvertently used the potion twice to verify it.
There exists no child in this world who shares Leviathan’s blood—save for the infant buried in the Small Garden.
Yet even that grave, she said, had been empty…
“Hah…”
Yes, it’s hard to accept easily.
Yet all the circumstances pointed to a single truth.
Ballock slammed the window frame shut with a bang.
“This is absurd!”
The child I thought was dead—stolen instead? It was a possibility I had never dared to consider, not even once.
‘But how…’
Rosetta had clearly given birth to a dead child.
That small, cold body—Leviathan had buried it with his own hands. Ballock had been closest, witnessing the despair of both Rosetta and Leviathan in that moment.
“I… don’t fully understand what happened either. That’s why I said ‘perhaps.'”
The thin, trembling voice of Rubian echoed in my mind.
‘If that were true…’
He swallowed his anguish and sank into his seat.
‘There could be no cruelty greater than this.’
“I’ll tell Mother and Father myself. I think that would be better. Don’t worry, Grandfather.”
As Rubian spoke, the corners of her mouth twitched convulsively.
Realizing she was struggling to smile to reassure him, Ballock felt as though the very heavens were collapsing.
The word “despair” hardly sufficed.
“Who is comforting whom…?”
As the shock subsided, fury came rushing in.
The Old Master, who had been hunched over, slowly lifted his head, revealing eyes like those of a beast.
‘Who on earth…’
Who could have orchestrated such a thing?!
Creak—he slowly rose to his feet.
His mind was boiling. It felt as though molten lava was pouring through his entire being.
Vengeance.
It consumed him utterly.
Dawn was already breaking.
“Your Grace? Where are you going with that sword…!”
Morris rushed forward in alarm, approaching to check on Ballock.
The Old Master’s eyes were unfocused. Like wind itself, he descended the stairs, sword in hand.
“Your Grace!”
It was a sight unseen since that day the Duke and Duchess lost their child.
Morris urgently called for the Knights. They came running and clung to Ballock’s body, but it was useless.
“Why are you doing this? Suddenly!”
“Release me, release! I will kill them all! Even if it costs me my life, I must kill them now!”
“Kill whom, Your Grace!”
“The Mage King…!”
Ballock spat the words as though grinding them between his teeth. His eyes were bloodshot with rage.
I failed to protect that child.
And so I condemned them to wander battlefields, robbing them of the bright and warm childhood they deserved.
“Come any closer, and I’ll cut you all down!”
There was no stopping the enraged Grandfather.
Ballock fled the Duke’s Mansion like a man possessed, dragging the Knights behind him in a chain.
He had to reach the Southern Region immediately, inform Leviathan of this catastrophe, and demand answers from the Mage King—or his head would explode from the pressure.
By the time he reached the Stables.
“…Father?”
He collided with a woman just finishing tying up her horse.
Ballock’s footsteps halted as if frozen in place.
“You left me behind and just rode off.”
Rosetta pulled back her robe’s hood, her gaze sweeping across the surroundings. The ashen-faced Butler Morris and the Knights appeared one by one.
“Where are you rushing off to at this hour of the morning?”
“…Rose.”
“Is something wrong…? Huh?”
Ballock could restrain himself no longer and pulled Rosetta into his embrace.
“My dear Rose, my beautiful Rose…”
His massive hand swept endlessly across the back of her head.
As if soothing her, comforting her, asking forgiveness.
Ballock felt as though he might go mad with pity for Rosetta, who was like a daughter to him. Leviathan felt the same way.
They had lost their child once in a carriage accident, only to lose that same child again when they buried her in the grave.
“Father…why are you doing this?”
Rosetta asked calmly.
Ballock found his voice wouldn’t come.
His fiery temperament had urged him to rush to Leviathan at once and lay bare the truth.
But now, facing his daughter-in-law first, he had no idea where to begin or how to speak.
“What is this? Why are you acting as if something terrible has happened…?”
Only then did Ballock realize that Rosetta’s voice was trembling wildly.
And that his own shoulder had grown damp beneath her tears.
“…Rose?”
“Father, please.”
Now that he thought about it, why had Rosetta ridden her horse alone to the Northern Region in such desperate haste?
As if, as if…
“You. Don’t tell me…you already know something?”
“Please don’t do this. Why are you acting like something’s wrong? Please stop.”
Ballock hastily pulled her away from him.
Looking closer, her complexion had turned deathly pale, and her lips were so badly bitten they were bleeding.
“Please…”
She gripped his abdomen desperately.
“Don’t tell me I’ve lost her.”
Ballock’s hands went limp.
How could this be…? He murmured to himself for a moment.
Rosetta’s eyes blazed with sudden intensity.
Rose!
Having freed herself from Ballock, she strode purposefully toward the Memorial Garden.

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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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