The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 220

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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 220
Kalid furrowed his brow and tilted his head.
What was he saying? He hadn’t planned to go to the Mage Kingdom without Rubian, had he?
“Don’t confirm anything first. Just… just stay still, please.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, sir.”
“I can’t let you bear this burden alone…”
Then, a brief tremor erupted from deeper within the cave.
“Duke Zebert?”
Whoosh, boom! A dull roar echoed through the walls.
It seemed a demon beast had been lurking inside the cave after all.
“Kalid.”
Leon gripped his sword tightly.
“We have no time to waste. Let’s find the exit quickly.”
The two hurried to gather the child and climbed back up to the cliff.
The girl, who had been sobbing, could barely speak as she struggled to process the shock that what she’d received was a self-destructing magical artifact.
“That… that cave has an illusion spell layered over it…”
“You don’t seem nearly capable enough to cast magic over an entire cave like that.”
When Kalid spoke coldly, the child hesitated and stepped back before speaking again.
“A high-ranking demon beast sleeping in that cave uses illusion magic. I only dragged it to the entrance… and the deeper you go, the higher the mana concentration will be.”
Leon, who had been listening quietly, stepped forward.
“Illusion magic preys on people’s weaknesses, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah… most of the time you can overcome it by realizing it’s fake and breaking through, but… if the demon beast attacks in the meantime…”
“Then there’s nothing His Grace need worry about.”
“Really…?”
“Because he is not weak.”
Leon stated it plainly.
* * *
Leviathan cut down the surging demon beasts without hesitation, as if fulfilling a promise.
‘Such a demon beast was sleeping here.’
The children could have been hurt.
With a sinking heart, he trudged through the cave shrouded in black mist.
“Sigh…”
He wanted to escape this place quickly and meet either Rubian or Rosetta. And he wanted to confirm something.
Crunch—the note crumpled carelessly in his hand.
Whimper… it hurts…
Fleeting illusions appeared and vanished, trying to ensnare his steps.
For instance, an image of Rubian falling and crying.
Ah, Father…
The face of young Void, trembling in fear and running away from him.
You truly don’t understand me, do you.
Like the back of Liam’s figure as he carelessly touched books and slammed the door without even mixing words with me.
Rosetta’s departing form, Father losing his robust appearance and languishing in sickness, Mother falling asleep like death after a long battle with illness….
They all touched something deep within me. Moments that hurt to witness, that frightened me, that filled me with regret.
‘So this is what illusion magic feels like.’
Leviathan swung his sword again, erasing the fakes.
“…Hah.”
Overcoming the disheveled Rubian from the battlefield, the one staring up at me, had been the most difficult.
Yet he pressed forward, dispelling the darkness that clung to his ankles with sticky persistence.
Squeak squeak—Kalid’s squirrel wriggled on my shoulder as if cheering him on.
When a fork in the path appeared, it scurried off somewhere and pointed to the left passage.
“You’re the best-behaved one here.”
Leviathan followed the squirrel down the left path. The aura unique to demons felt increasingly stronger.
If he defeated the high-ranking demon guarding this cave, he would likely find the exit there as well.
【 How does it feel to have been robbed without knowing you were robbed. 】
Along with the contents of the note, countless thoughts spun in circles.
‘Robbed…, he said.’
Throughout his entire life, there was only one thing he had been robbed of.
He gasped for breath and clenched his left chest. Inside lay a locket containing a portrait of baby Rubian and another locket holding a family photograph.
An ominous premonition crawled up Leviathan’s spine.
He didn’t know what to hope for.
Should he hope that my child is alive, or should he hope otherwise because that would be too cruel.
He didn’t know.
‘For now…. I’ll keep going.’
His footsteps did not stop.
“Squeak!”
Then a growling sound echoed. The squirrel on his shoulder suddenly bolted away.
Sparks ignited in Leviathan’s eyes.
A demon.
The moment he adjusted his grip on the sword.
Drip.
The sound of a water droplet falling from the ceiling.
His eyelids reflexively blinked once.
“…Huh.”
Then a cozy Dining Room spread before his eyes.
“I’m pregnant.”
A woman with luscious pink hair spoke. It was a scene that felt familiar.
Leviathan furrowed his brow and lowered his gaze.
Why do I have a fork and knife in my hands. Where’s my sword.
“I’m carrying a child.”
“….”
“You and our child.”
Thud-thud-thud! He jolted upright.
‘Cursed welcome magic…’
It seemed to be dredging up memories from the past and displaying them.
From the context, this appeared to be the moment when Rosetta first told Leviathan she was pregnant.
Perhaps because we’d entered a place where a high-ranking demon dwelled, everything felt startlingly vivid and real.
“I love you, Leviathan.”
Plink.
Another water droplet fell.
Like a blink of the eye, the scene shifted in an instant.
“I’m going to visit my family home for a bit. Father isn’t feeling well, they say.”
Rosetta was packing her belongings.
Her rounded belly, swollen with life, was beautiful and precious to behold.
Leviathan looked down at his own hands again. Both were now empty.
Yet the sensation of feeling the first kick remained vivid.
What should these hands do now?
“I was wrong.”
I should apologize.
When he embraced her from behind, she shot him a sharp glare.
“You understand, don’t you? I told you—Del is just my friend. He came to congratulate me on the pregnancy, so I took him out for a meal, and you treated me like that all night long? Really?”
“You were pregnant, so I didn’t really… fuss that much. Fine. I understand.”
Leviathan raised the white flag obediently, then paused and slowly ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.
“But why do you keep calling him by that nickname?”
“Heh.”
“He has a long, perfectly good name—Delibiuos.”
Rosetta let out a hollow laugh.
“You just answered your own question, didn’t you? Because it’s long!”
“…”
“See? You’re not sorry at all. Get away from me.”
As Rosetta waved her hand dismissively and tried to move away, Leviathan pulled her close again.
“No, I am. I mean it.”
“Why don’t you just lock me in the castle then? While you’re at it, replace all the servants with women.”
“I didn’t know that would… work.”
“You’re impossible.”
Rosetta casually shut the trunk lid with her foot. Her maidservant, who had been waiting outside, effortlessly hoisted the mountain of luggage.
“Anyway, I’ll be back. Keep the demon subjugation clean. …Don’t get hurt.”
Before long, Rosetta was already aboard the carriage.
With demons appearing frequently in the Northern Region, his wife had been startled awake countless times these past days, her nerves frayed. The constant tension had made her belly contract more often.
In the end, Leviathan moved up the spring subjugation campaign, and Rosetta decided to recuperate in the surrounding territories during that time.
Fortunately, word came that her adoptive father was ill, so the Western Region became her destination, killing two birds with one stone.
“…Yes.”
I nodded, and the carriage departed.
Leviathan stared after it in a daze.
‘Don’t go.’
It felt as though someone was screaming those words.
‘Don’t let her leave!’
At that voice crashing down like thunder, he bolted forward and brought the carriage to a halt.
“Rose, Rosetta!”
“Leviathan?”
“Don’t go. Please. Please, don’t go.”
“Why? You’re…. You’re sweating.”
Rosetta opened the carriage door with a startled expression.
“Send a letter to Father. This doesn’t feel right. Whatever happens with the demons, I’ll eliminate them all. You’ll be safe inside the Castle. So please.”
“….”
“Don’t go.”
“Leviathan.”
“Don’t go. I’m begging you.”
Please.
With a thud, Leviathan dropped to his knees before the carriage. Rosetta, startled, descended using the footstep the Attendants had brought.
“I…understand. I won’t go. So please, get up. What are you doing?”
Feeling her gentle embrace around me, I squeezed my eyes shut.
‘Thank goodness.’
Thank goodness….
Drip.
Somewhere, the sound of a water droplet fell. I didn’t notice it.
Childbirth was agonizing.
Simply tumbling down a staircase, or being slashed by demon fangs, or having someone beat me mercilessly with a club—any of that would hurt less than this.
The anxiety and dread made my heart feel like it would burst from my chest. Not just my mind, but my entire body ached.
If I was suffering like this, what must Rosetta be enduring?
Leviathan paced the Reception Room, trembling violently.
Beside him, Ballock sat crumpled on the floor, his spirit completely drained. He had exhausted himself demanding that his daughter-in-law be saved.
‘This doesn’t seem right.’
My wife suffering like this—it’s fundamentally unjust.
With reason completely shattered, Leviathan was about to leave the room without knowing what to do when—
“Y-y-y-your Majesty!”
Adolf came rushing in, his hair completely disheveled.
“It’s born! She’s born!”
“What!”
Ballock sprang to his feet.
Then.
Waaaaaaah!
A lusty newborn’s cry, arriving as though on cue, shook the entire Duke’s Mansion.
“Ha…!”
Leviathan stumbled slightly before rushing toward the Birthing Chamber.
He caressed Rosetta, drenched in cold sweat, whispered that he loved her, pressed his lips to hers, and held back tears that kept threatening to spill.
Then he met the child wrapped in swaddling clothes.
“You see? A very beautiful young lady, sir.”
“Ah….”
There lay a wrinkled little creature, its eyes not yet fully open.
So small.
…And rather ugly.
Leviathan thought without realizing it.
Yet how strange it was.
In merely this fleeting instant, he had come to love someone so completely.
That such a being could exist in this world.
Just then, the baby’s eyelids fluttered open.
“My, she has inherited Rosetta’s beautiful blue eyes perfectly.”
At the Maidservant’s words upon glimpsing those barely-revealed eyes, Rosetta, who had been attended to from afar, murmured.
“Then, Rubian….”
“What did you say?”
Leviathan drew close and caught her whisper.
“If we name her Rubian…. You’ll be there too.”
His wife’s face, smiling faintly as she gazed upon her own violet eyes.
I see.
Then your name must inevitably be Rubian.
“Your Excellency, would you like to hold her?”
“…Me?”
He checked whether his hands were clean. Why had he thought they were stained with blood?
‘I wasn’t even slaying demons.’
Shaking his head, Leviathan carefully received the baby.
“Rubian….”
The warmth and weight of this small, delicate being were extraordinary.
“Our Rubian.”
Leviathan’s world turned upside down.
If this were a dream, he did not wish to wake.

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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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