The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 255

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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 255
Father stared at my lips with an intensity that could bore holes through them.
‘He’s not looking at the lips I kissed Kalid with—he’s examining the wound near my lips. Yes, that’s it, just the wound near my lips. The wound near my lips….’
Sure enough, Father clicked his tongue lightly and produced a small bandage from his pocket. Truly the preparedness of a father to three troublemaking siblings.
“Who dares touch another man’s daughter’s lips….”
*Riiip, pat.*
“How dare you…. You’ll pay…. Huff, huff, huff.”
*Riiip, pat.*
“…Mmph.”
Who puts a bandage on someone’s lips in an X pattern?
“What’s this, my hands moving of their own accord.”
In an instant, I’d become a living icon of communication failure, my expression growing somewhat exasperated.
Duke Zebert, possessed of a beast’s keen instincts, turned back toward the Tower entrance with a short sigh.
“Let’s go. Rose went up first.”
“Huh? Mmph mm hnnzz? (Mother went alone?)”
“My wife is terrifying when she’s angry.”
Father said this while staring intently at Kalid for some reason.
“What’s this, my eyes glaring of their own accord.”
“Mm’knngh nnn pprr gzzz. (Understood, let’s hurry.)”
I pushed against his broad back insistently.
Just as I was about to step through the entrance, I noticed something on the distant Tower wall.
…Wow, so that works too.
I channeled my mana lightly, and a *Kuuuung* explosion echoed out.
Immediately after, the Demon Army came surging forward from behind, sweeping through humans indiscriminately—friend and foe alike—in a pitch-black tide.
“I’ll handle this.”
Kalid drew his sword and spoke curtly.
“Please go ahead. I’ll catch up once I’ve dealt with them.”
He kicked off the ground without waiting for a response. Unable to bear the frustration any longer, I peeled off the bandage and reapplied it only to the wound itself.
“Kalid, be careful!”
Kalid glanced at me with a brief smile, then wrapped his sword in mana. His signature technique—mana infused with swordsmanship—seemed to boost his attack power by five hundred percent.
“…Objectively speaking, that’s pretty cool, right?”
“What have I raised.”
Father beside me shook his head in exasperation.
* * *
Rosetta Zebert ascended the Tower like a specter, her hair streaming behind her.
Combat mages poured in endlessly, attacking her, yet none could bar her path.
Every sense and nerve was activated to its limit. Body and mind seemed already separated, consciousness untethered from reality.
Rosetta was joyful.
At the end of this ascent.
Right there.
There was an enemy who had stolen my daughter from me.
“Get out of my way!”
She rushed forward with a harsh cry.
There had not been a single day when I did not think of this moment.
The sensation of loss was not easily forgotten. I still remembered Rubian’s quickening within me, the feeling that had always overwhelmed me.
The moment when I first truly felt the child’s existence.
I thought I had met a being worthy of pouring all of myself into loving.
Leviathan was the one who filled my empty world, the one to whom I could entrust everything.
So I resolved to share with this child the love and tenderness I had learned from him.
But that was all.
The time I could not spend caring for my beloved daughter would never return.
I could tell what phantom Leviathan had seen in that Southern Cave, even without asking.
Because I too had spent countless days imagining such things.
When the vain fantasies faded, only a bottomless void and bitter resentment remained.
“Gasp.”
At last, I reached the very top of the Tower.
Rosetta, having silenced the mages guarding the great stone gate, opened the door without a sound.
The first thing I felt was the air clinging wetly to my skin. The reek of blood came next.
It was a space far too vast to be the Tower Top.
‘Judging by all these strange instruments, it must be some kind of laboratory.’
An ominous black fog filled the interior. Though visibility was severely limited, Rosetta instinctively sensed the presences.
Ten mages hiding in the shadows.
And one particularly foul aura emanating from the deepest part of the chamber.
‘The Mage King!’
Rosetta’s steps moved without hesitation.
She swept past the tools, tables, and chairs scattered haphazardly about, mapping out the blind spots. The heavy curtains on the large windows along the walls were all drawn shut.
A low, anguished moan echoed through the space.
The sound of something unidentifiable grew louder.
Rosetta’s pace quickened further.
A few mages who sensed the disturbance rushed at her, but they became nothing more than sacrifices to the crimson bloodlust she radiated.
It felt as though molten metal were boiling inside my skull. Yet my body moved with an eerie lightness. Though I seemed to be wounded in several places, that was not what mattered now.
“Gack… You… monster. Laughing even at a time like this.”
One of the mages dying in Rosetta’s grasp spoke.
“That’s right. I’m a monster.”
“Ugh!”
“But he’s a monster too, isn’t he?”
“Kgh…”
“So let’s see which of us is the greater monster.”
The Mage King sat upon a grand, sturdy throne atop a high dais.
A thin veil obscured him, revealing only his silhouette.
Rosetta laughed.
A throne in a place like this.
Did he think himself a god looking down upon the world below from here?
“Ridiculous.”
Rosetta ascended the stairs like a demon and tore through the veil without hesitation.
Three steps remained.
Then the figure of a man reclined diagonally upon the jade throne came into view, connected to countless tubes.
“….”
His veins were entirely black.
As if insects crawled within, his skin writhed and convulsed irregularly across its surface.
The Mage King opened his eyes slowly.
He twisted his lips as he saw the woman rushing toward him.
“Reckless and foolish.”
Simultaneously, a torrent of dark magic surged forth.
Before she could even evade, Rosetta found her entire body bound as if by black chains.
“To make me exert my power over a mere woman like this….”
His wrathful voice mingled with a guttural, bestial groan.
The Mage King was accepting the blood of dark creatures to transform his magic into dark sorcery.
When black blood first flowed through his veins, he had understood.
‘This is it.’
This was the power I desired.
‘It was never about dark magic summoning circles.’
This had been the answer from the beginning!
‘Half my blood remains.’
If only that remaining half turned completely black, I would become the one and only god of this Continent, of this world. The summit was within reach.
“Why aren’t you killing her immediately!”
“Yes, yes!”
As the Mage King roared harshly, four Mages nearby rushed forward.
Rosetta trembled violently as she forced herself forward, veins bulging at her temples and fists clenched tight.
Dozens of incomprehensible magic circles materialized beneath her feet simultaneously.
Just as they were about to emit light.
A curtain covering a distant window fluttered dramatically once.
“Gahhhhh!”
Blood fountains erupted from the throats of the Mages about to unleash their attack magic.
“Hazel!”
Rosetta cried out.
Then Hazel, who had climbed the Tower wall, rushed forward at tremendous speed and drove her dagger into the Mage King’s tube.
Shhhhhhh—!
“No, no!”
As the transfusion stopped, the Mage King bolted upright.
Enraged, he channeled his mana and hurled Hazel far away.
With a tremendous crash, just as Hazel was about to collide with something, the other Mercenary Maids who had infiltrated alongside her caught her with practiced ease.
That was the moment Rosetta Zebert moved.
Like an arrow, she pierced through the air and closed the distance to the bewildered Mage King’s face in an instant.
“How dare you—interfere with me again!”
Rosetta Zebert’s blade, gleaming with cold steel, touched his temple.
The black demonic blood that couldn’t enter his body pooled thickly on the ground.
‘This… damn it. Did she really break through all the Tower’s forces alone?’
The Mage King trembled as he stared at Rosetta Zebert’s pale face.
It infuriated him greatly, but it wasn’t as though he had no options.
‘Only half of it has fused, but still… the power is clearly far stronger than before…’
It was the moment he moved the writhing black mana.
Click.
“….”
What was that sound just now?
The Mage King slowly lowered his gaze. Then, with disbelieving eyes, he looked down at the metal restraint fastened around his neck.
It was a mana suppression collar.
“From now on, I’m going to kill you.”
Thud!
After forcing her enemy to his knees, Rosetta Zebert spoke.

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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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