The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 260

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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 260
Kalid returned to the past through regression magic.
He coerced the Dragon God into transporting him to the location where Duchess Zebert’s carriage accident had occurred.
Clatter, clatter! Whinnnnng!
‘Damn it.’
From atop the cliff, what I witnessed was a carriage already beginning its runaway descent.
‘Why now of all times.’
Had I traveled further back, I could have prevented the accident entirely!
But there was no time for hesitation.
Glancing at the opposite cliff, I discerned the silhouettes of mages peering downward, their bodies cunningly concealed in shadow.
Were these the Mage King’s children that woman had spoken of?
‘First, Third, Fifth….’
Kalid swiftly buried myself in the shadow of a tree.
They were all disguised as ordinary villagers.
‘So their plan is to approach as witnesses once the carriage overturns.’
After that, they would move Rosetta to a pre-arranged cottage, induce premature labor, and swap the infants.
This was a remote, deeply secluded valley.
How long would it take for Leviathan to arrive after hearing news of the accident here?
Certainly not as swiftly as those mages watching from above.
‘…I had always wondered where they obtained the dead infant.’
Kalid caught sight of another heavily pregnant mage glimpsed through a window and understood. It was a sordid affair.
In the previous life, this plan had likely succeeded. The Mage King would have swapped the dead child with Seventh, taken her to the Mage Kingdom, and raised her as his puppet.
‘First, I must save this woman called Rosetta Zebert.’
I mobilized my mana.
Blue mana surged across the earth. A portion of it shot skyward toward the north.
“Who goes there!”
At that moment, a mage standing some distance away cried out.
“This mana is…. What is it?”
I instinctively recognized that the man draped in a black robe was the Mage King.
Kalid suppressed my mana and concealed my presence, burying myself deep behind a tree. Fortunately, the Mage King did not appear to have detected me.
“Damn it!”
Sensing that his plan to steal the child had encountered an obstacle, the Mage King swiftly altered his resolve.
‘As I suspected from the beginning…. I sense mana from that unborn child in the womb. It clearly possesses extraordinary power. So this mysterious force appearing to protect the child—could it be?’
He could not easily discern Kalid’s aura, fused as it was with the Dragon God.
Had it been a mage, at least the aura of a stigma would have been perceptible.
Since even that was absent, Kalid was an unknown entity that inspired dread in the Mage King.
Thus he believed the child within Rosetta’s womb was manifesting a subtle ability, as though blessed by divine grace.
‘Originally, I intended to end this here and steal the living infant….’
But if I cannot seize that power.
‘I must kill them all.’
I’ll eliminate Rosetta and that baby as well.
I cannot allow Leviathan to gain any more power.
A crimson aura of murderous intent surged forth.
Neeeigh!
The maddened horse rounded the corner sharply, and the carriage, unable to overcome its momentum, flew over the Cliff.
Below lay a bottomless Valley.
Kalid poured his power recklessly into the earth, moving it.
Thanks to that, the carriage’s tumbling speed decreased and Rosetta seemed safe, but that wasn’t the real problem.
“No.”
He instinctively sensed that the baby’s soul within Rosetta Zebert was on the verge of annihilation.
In other words.
A brush with death itself.
‘….’
There weren’t many spells Kalid had learned by glimpsing the Dragon God’s memories.
Excluding petty low-level magic, there was perhaps only oath magic and familiar magic.
Kalid hesitated no further.
‘Even if I lose everything with this single spell.’
If I can save you, that’s enough.
The price of touching a human soul would be severe. Would I surrender the infinite memories like this?
I felt the power within me writhe roughly.
“I have no regrets. I’m willing to die forever like this.”
This wasn’t a renunciation of life like before.
It was another way of living that I had chosen.
Blue mana surged upward.
A colossal magic circle materialized beneath the carriage.
The Mage King collapsed and, like someone half-mad, crawled toward the edge of the Cliff.
“Impossible, this… this can’t be happening….”
A sphere of light wrapped in blue radiance shot up into the sky.
The surroundings turned pristine white, and a gentle breeze blew from somewhere.
In that moment, Kalid smiled slightly.
‘Hello, it’s you.’
A soul as weak and tender as a newborn creature.
My savior.
If only we could have grown together from the beginning.
But I know this is an excessive miracle. So I prayed earnestly.
“Whether you’re a Goddess or a Dragon God…. I have a favor to ask.”
My consciousness flickered on and off.
From the backlash of casting the spell, my memories…. Like pages of a book turning blank, they began to scatter one by one. Perhaps I was dying.
“I’ll give everything I have, so please send that child to a safe place and protect them.”
Please.
Please.
I repeated the words over and over, my voice trembling slightly.
“Please give that child a future where she can be happy.”
I prayed that you would find happiness.
That you would be loved abundantly, that you could be spoiled to your heart’s content….
That somewhere, such a future existed for you.
Yes. I will make it so.
Someone answered my prayer. The voice was warm.
Not everything can be perfect, but I will protect this child. That was, after all, the promise I made with Zebert long ago.
Kalid realized that it was a fragment of the Goddess remaining within the child’s body. He could feel the Dragon God raging wildly.
Whoooosh—!
The azure radiance flashed one final time before vanishing somewhere.
All things have their season. In a safe place, until that time comes….
Kalid instinctively understood that the spirit had flown to a “safe place.”
Suddenly, a scream pierced the air. It was Rosetta Zebert’s anguished cry, her mind snapping back to reality as she sensed the loss of her child.
Urgent hoofbeats thundered in the distance, and the Mage King hastily erased his traces, concealing himself and his children.
Brilliant light flooded everything.
I was swept into a tempest unlike any before. Every nerve in my body seemed severed, and a searing pain coursed through me as if my blood were boiling.
A human who commits taboo cannot exist as human. You will suffer infinitely in eternal hell.
Another voice rebuked me solemnly.
But you….
Kalid laughed. The power that had been hiding in his shadow revealed eyes gleaming with vivid silver light.
I was no longer human.
The Dragon God’s power was opposing something. Perhaps the laws of this world, or the natural order itself.
This little one is mine. Begone.
The tempest grew even more violent.
I cannot let my vessel—the one who will complete my reunion with Wistal—be stolen like this.
Kalid felt his body being pulled into the maelstrom. The roar of the wind intensified.
I could endure no longer.
My vision turned white, and just as I thought I was clenching my teeth against unbearable agony.
All sound ceased.
“….”
I opened my eyes somewhere.
“…What is this place?”
An unfamiliar space. An unfamiliar landscape. An unfamiliar sensation….
As I instinctively tried to move my body, I heard the clang of chains.
“Shackles…?”
Looking closer, I saw pitch-black iron bars before my eyes.
Why am I trapped in such a place?
I….
Who are you?
Kalid.
Someone spoke those words. Kalid startled and whirled around, scanning the surroundings. I sensed an unfamiliar presence, but couldn’t discern what it was.
“…What is this.”
I’m afraid.
Kalid maintained an impassive expression while allowing the rising thoughts to surface without resistance.
As I drew my knees together and pressed against the wall, I discovered a small puddle of water.
I gazed at my reflection in it.
“…”
Dark blue hair like an evening sky, and grayish-blue eyes. Beneath my eyes were two small tear marks.
A young boy who appeared to be no more than ten or eleven years old.
What a cruel jest, Wistal. Is this the “future where that child will be happiest” that you envisioned?
“What?”
Kalid shook my head again.
‘This rude creature keeps whispering in my ear. Have I lost my mind?’
Or is this another attempt to escape from me?
‘Ugh, what is this.’
In this small, young body, my power becomes poison rather than strength… This path leads only to mutual annihilation.
Slap, slap.
Kalid struck my own cheeks. Then, without thinking, I moved my mana to suppress the Dragon God’s power.
I heard a grumbling complaint that I was about to sleep anyway.
‘What, if you’re going to sleep, do it quietly. Don’t frighten me like that…’
Kalid rested my cheek against my small knees.
Perhaps I had committed some terrible deed and was imprisoned here for it.
Or perhaps someone had deceived me and I had fallen into a trap.
I had already forgotten the conversation with the Dragon God. Naturally, the existence of that power as well.
All the past that brought me here, every emotion, every event I had endured—
I had forgotten it all.
All that remained was the name: Kalid.
‘If one were to compare a person to the earth itself…’
Perhaps human memory is…
Like an ornament that enriches that person’s inner landscape.
Those who possess many good memories probably carry within them something like a fertile wheat field and a brilliant flower garden.
‘Then, what am I?’
My inner world is surely a desolate ruin beyond compare.
For I possess no memories to adorn myself with.
‘…Will flowers ever bloom within me someday.’
With that thought, Kalid shook my head.
‘No. If I’m to be pierced by something, I’d prefer it to be an extraordinarily powerful blade.’
Strong and unwavering… A blade that protects something.
How wonderful it would be if such a beautiful sword were planted in my barren land.
“Ah….”
Now a complete eleven-year-old boy, Kalid gazed up at the blue sky visible between the iron bars.
Screee— A brown hawk sliced across the heavens.
Lazy, drifting clouds of white.
A desolate wind rustling through my hair.
“…Will no one come to save me.”
Kalid closed his eyes.
It was only a brief nap.
【The Sword Planted Upon Ruins】 Part 2 — End.

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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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