The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 258

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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 258
* * *
At that very moment.
“I’ve drawn the magic circle. Let’s go!”
Rubian had completed the formation leading to the Underground Palace.
But ever since then, Kalid hadn’t moved a muscle. More precisely, not since hearing what happened in the Tower from Rubian.
“…A soul, you say?”
“Yeah. My soul apparently slipped away somewhere and came back. I just explained it.”
“….”
“Come on, why are you like this? I know it’s shocking. …Don’t tell me an ancestral spirit possessed you again.”
In truth, Rubian had expected Kalid to respond with his usual indifferent expression—either seething with rage or hurling curses at the Mage King.
But he seemed strangely flustered instead.
“Why are you silent again?”
“….”
Even as concerned blue eyes drew closer, Kalid couldn’t easily suppress his turmoil.
The voice of the Dragon God echoed in his memory from long ago.
“The price of touching a human soul shall be severe.”
“Will you abandon infinite memory thus?”
Yes.
That was it.
Since childhood, he had feared that in his forgotten past….
He might have touched someone’s soul.
But what if that….
“Kalid?”
“…Wait, just a moment…. Ugh.”
Had been Rubian’s soul?
“Did I….”
“Kalid!”
“Did I steal your soul?”
In that instant, Rubian froze solid. Leviathan and Rosetta, who had been watching nearby, did the same.
A sickening wind blew from somewhere.
“…What did you say?”
Thump.
Thump, thump.
A heartbeat of unknown origin filled her ears. And then.
Found it.
Thump!
The black mist that had been dimly draped across the surroundings pulsed violently once.
The mist that had been spreading thickly gathered toward one point as if possessed of will, then began to swirl like a small tornado.
A deafening crack! Dry lightning struck down. In the sky, ash-gray storm clouds churned in an ominous vortex.
Show them the time they have hidden away.
Powerful mana surged throughout the entire Royal Palace.
Rubian recognized the nature of this mana.
“No…!”
Before she could even widen her eyes and attempt something in haste.
Fwoooosh—!
An enormous light consumed everyone in an instant.
* * *
It began in the Cave where Kalid had been imprisoned.
The shackled Kalid opened his eyes that had been closed.
‘Someone has come.’
It was a night when an unusually piercing moonlight poured down.
‘A human who broke through the barrier seems to have wandered in by mistake…. But why is the Dragon God’s power so quiet.’
At that very moment, a small silhouette wavered.
‘A woman?’
Before he could even recognize who she was, something gleaming with silver light flashed.
It was a short sword.
“Hey.”
Kalid spoke without thinking.
Silver hair carelessly draped down, pallid cheeks, a gaunt frame that looked pitiful.
Most striking were the two eyes that had dimmed into lifelessness.
A life devoid of any will to live, merely existing while waiting for the day breath would cease.
Kalid felt something like déjà vu.
The woman was like….
himself before he was trapped in this Cave.
‘Ah.’
Now that I think about it, I was waiting for something….
What was it.
“If you’re going to die, go somewhere far away to do it.”
“….”
“The stench of rotting corpses is unbearable.”
Such words spilled out before he could stop himself.
All the humans who had wandered into this place by mistake until now had been harmed by the Dragon God’s mana.
But today the Dragon God was quiet, and Kalid felt a clarity of consciousness he hadn’t experienced in some time.
‘…Anyway, this woman came here to die.’
Would there be any meaning in letting her escape like this.
That was the moment.
The woman slowly turned her head to gaze at him. Just as he thought it would be difficult to look away, their eyes met.
‘Pure white, like the moon.’
The hood pressed deep by the wind was lifted away, revealing cascading brilliant silver hair that shimmered.
The woman seemed to have all emotion stripped away, her expression utterly blank. But Kalid understood that this emptiness was merely a shield to endure profound sorrow.
He knew because he wore the same one.
‘…So she’s wounded someone with that dagger.’
He deduced this from the blood staining the cuff of her sleeve.
‘If I let her go as she is, she’ll die somewhere else.’
Thump.
For reasons he couldn’t fathom, his heart twisted at that thought.
Why?
‘What is this feeling?’
No matter how much he pondered it, the answer eluded him. So instead, Kalid grasped at any excuse to keep her here, his actions bordering on unconscious.
In doing so, he’d become some madman fixating on a fallen cake—but it didn’t matter.
“…But why are you trapped in a place like this?”
Her voice was unexpectedly clear.
Kalid felt his heart pound even more violently.
‘…I heard her voice.’
And it was quite….
“….”
Without understanding why, he found himself speaking to her again.
The woman asked him to kill her.
In exchange, she would unlock these shackles for him.
“That’s impossible. You have no idea how complex the sealing formulas binding my chains are….”
“For you, perhaps.”
“What?”
“But not for me.”
“….”
In that instant, the woman’s eyes glowed crimson.
It was the same moment the Dragon God’s power, which had been dormant all this time, stirred and moved.
It had returned.
Returned?
“Cough, cough!”
Then the woman collapsed.
She seemed to have expended mana to analyze the structure of the shackles, and even that alone appeared to overwhelm her.
“This is only happening because my mana is insufficient. If I could just stop my time magic, your chains would be simple to….”
“Time magic?”
My body moved of its own accord. I felt my shadow writhing with unease.
‘Stop.’
The chains binding my feet stretched to their limit, and I reached through the bars to seize her wrist firmly.
Stop!
“So you can manipulate time?”
Words spilled from my lips beyond my control.
Don’t treat me carelessly.
How dare you threaten me.
Kalid used his power for the first time to suppress the dragon’s mana. It was only possible because the dragon’s mana had weakened as time passed.
The woman had no name.
She was simply called “Seventh.”
‘What? I thought she’d be as pitiful as me.’
But she wasn’t.
There was a woman here far more wretched than I was.
“You said you escaped from the Royal Palace, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why not take this chance to give yourself a decent name?”
The woman, who had been coughing incessantly, seemed exhausted and leaned against the bars of her cell.
“…Give myself a name?”
She turned her head slightly.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to. I have no desire to do that.”
“Why? Because you’ll die soon?”
Her pale hand still gripped the small dagger firmly.
“Yes.”
‘How can there be a woman so resolute like this.’
Of course, I’d never encountered such a woman before…
Kalid moved his lips and spoke.
“Like I said before, it’s difficult to die by that dagger. But… if we leave this Prison…”
“If we leave?”
“I’ll kill you as you wish. Swiftly, without pain.”
Then the woman turned her body to face me.
“Really?”
Someone brightening at the mention of being killed.
“…Yeah. So until then… don’t entertain such thoughts.”
“Alright. …I need to recover my mana quickly.”
Only then did the woman sheathe the dagger she’d been holding all along.
Then she moved sluggishly before suddenly collapsing in front of her cell.
“Sleep well then.”
“…What are you doing?”
“Recovering.”
…
“Sleep is the fastest way.”
The woman closed her eyes tightly, hands clasped before her chest, gazing upward.
“Sigh.”
What in the world is this.
Kalid stared at the woman sleeping outdoors with an expression of utter disbelief.
Her face, bathed in moonlight, gleamed with luminous beauty.
“Good grief.”
Observing her silver hair scattered carelessly across the filthy earth, he exhaled a quiet sigh and extended his hand beyond the bars once more.
“…What are you doing?”
She asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing either.”
His large, thick hand cradled the back of her round head.
He would have offered his forearm as a pillow if he could, but his arm wouldn’t stretch any further.
“I just wanted to do this.”
“…A palm pillow. That’s a first for me.”
“It’s a first for me too.”
“You’re strange.”
She rolled over to face him, and Kalid’s breath caught as he felt the astonishing softness of her cheek against his palm.
“No one has ever treated me with such tenderness.”
“…”
“It’s truly strange.”
After murmuring those words, she closed her eyes. Perhaps she had lost consciousness.
But before sleep claimed her.
That faint smile she had shown him…
Kalid witnessed it like a sudden accident, unable to look away.

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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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