The Youngest Hides a Lot - Chapter 308

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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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Side Story, Chapter 34
Then, suddenly, my back convulsed.
“Fa….”
“…?”
“Waaaaaah-! Ugh!”
“Whether it’s a resurrection or a hatching, could you please keep it down?”
“Ugh…!”
“You almost fell.”
The child gasped, covering her mouth.
Rolling her eyes as she tried to make sense of the situation, she caught sight of the man standing before her and flinched in alarm.
“…! Y-you, you, you! Put me down!”
Leviathan deliberately adjusted his grip on the squirming little one, holding her more firmly.
“Kid. Do you know that man?”
“I know him very well….”
“Don’t tell me it’s that deadbeat father who abandoned you….”
“-then it’ll be a real disaster, so please don’t say things like that. I have a different deadbeat father!”
“…?”
“What’s wrong, Leviathan?”
“I just felt like someone spat in my face.”
“…?”
Rubian hastily offered an explanation.
“Well, I mean. What I’m saying is. He’s just an older brother I know! There, satisfied? Completely safe!”
Given the age difference was roughly two to two hundred years, it wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
“So then, I’ll just follow this brother…!”
“What are you talking about, kid?”
Leviathan held Rubian firmly in place.
“The people you know best are always the most dangerous.”
“…That’s not true.”
Wow, is he a mind reader? How did he figure out he’s my boyfriend?
“Enough. I’ll take you both to safety. Come on. You too, Rosetta.”
“Got it. I’ll clear a path.”
“No… I meant for you to carry the child.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll clear the path.”
“Oh.”
Rubian blinked, watching the two of them move with such natural coordination.
‘Wait?’
Was something… working out well?
Now that I think about it, my body isn’t transparent either.
Am I finally on the fast track to being born?
‘That meant….’
Rosetta had made the decision to leave the Mercenary Company. I wasn’t sure of the exact method, but Leviathan would likely assist her.
‘Hmm.’
I pondered for a moment.
Kalid was on the verge of exploding ahead, so there was no time for lengthy deliberation.
“Uncle.”
“What.”
Whisper, whisper.
“What?”
“Listen, just listen.”
….
I hurriedly whispered something into Leviathan’s ear. His brow furrowed with grave concern.
Seizing the moment his grip loosened, I hopped down to the ground.
“Ugh, so dizzy….”
“Are you alright?”
Just as I stumbled and nearly fell, Kalid rushed over like lightning and caught me.
“You really…. Sigh.”
He dropped to his knees and pulled me into an embrace. His massive hands trembled as he held me, unable to grip tightly enough.
I gently patted Kalid, who seemed to have completely lost himself.
I could certainly understand why he had grown so suddenly and violently….
I could feel his mana raging like that of a beast.
It was clear that when Kalid lost me in the landslide, he had unleashed his mana explosively, and in that process, his body had undergone a transformation.
‘Phew. I need to do one last thing.’
“Well then, thank you for saving me!”
Whoosh.
I took Kalid and left that place immediately.
* * *
A few days later.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!
A group of Knights cut through the darkness.
With the massive moon as their backdrop, they advanced without hesitation toward Biltain.
Under the Crown Prince’s command, the purge of the massive criminal city had begun.
Leviathan naturally led the charge. His objective was, of course, the annihilation of the illegal assassination mercenary guild located in Western Biltein—the Thunder Wall.
The midnight assault was sudden, and therefore successful.
“Ahhhhh! We’re under attack! We’re under attack!”
“What’s happening!”
“Commander! We’re under attack! We’ve been caught by the Crown Prince! It’s, it’s Zebert…!”
“What? Zebert?”
After the hunt, Leviathan had gone into seclusion.
As if he had lost his life in the landslide.
The Crown Prince and Ballock conspired to spread rumors as if some calamity had befallen the Zebert Duchy.
Thus, the Mercenary Company Commander believed Leviathan’s assassination had succeeded.
It was exactly as Rosetta had reported.
Which is why I never imagined the young lord of Zebert would launch a surprise attack on me in the dead of night like this.
“So it was here.”
Leviathan gazed at the towering wall, his teeth grinding together.
I had searched inside this wall countless times while looking for the missing Rosetta.
But I had only thought it to be an abandoned ruin untouched by human hands.
‘To think they hid a hideout beneath the ground….’
Apparently, there existed an underground bunker beneath this place, tunnel-like in structure.
I felt thoroughly deceived.
My jaw clenched with force.
“Arrest every last one of them!”
“Yes, sir!”
Leviathan fired the cannonballs he had brought in a brilliant display, drawing attention.
Simultaneously, I meticulously examined the entrances around the wall.
“…There.”
A small mark appeared.
^o^/
Though my strength seemed to drain away for some reason, I was certain.
It was her.
“Uncle. Actually, when I was dragged away by the Mercenary Company, I overheard something….”
The voice that had whispered in my ear came back to me. An extremely cautious tone.
“Perhaps this curse….”
A sigh. White breath scattered into the air.
Meanwhile, Rosetta was rescuing the women trapped in the Punishment Chamber.
It was time to escape this wretched hell at last.
“But Captain… if you cross ‘The Wall’ recklessly, we’ll die before we can escape.”
Hazel, now little more than rags, muttered.
It seemed she had suffered greatly at the Commander’s hands.
“Hazel.”
Rosetta looked at these women and opened her mouth.
She had no certainty either, but she could not show hesitation.
“When were the bodies of our comrades who escaped across ‘The Wall’ discovered?”
“Two or three days later….”
Hazel answered with a gloomy expression.
Charred corpses, as if struck by lightning, their entire bodies burned. Their appearance was so horrifying that we couldn’t even look at them properly.
“What god takes days to punish a traitor?”
“….”
“Is this really a curse?”
“…What?”
“I mean, the Commander didn’t need time to handle it personally, did he?”
The words that Mysterious Man had spoken to me before we parted came flooding back.
“Doubt everything the Commander said. Face every contradiction you encountered, whether you realized it or not.”
“….”
“Is the curse really real?”
I must not defy the Commander’s will.
Without the Commander’s permission, I must not leave Thunder Wall.
Such was the curse.
But when Rosetta actually defied the Commander’s will and let the target go, nothing happened.
Even when that act was discovered, I wasn’t executed—only subjected to horrific brainwashing again and again.
Then… why did the Commander need to keep brainwashing me?
He could have simply activated the curse before my eyes and killed me, making an example of me.
“Can something so inconsistent truly be called a curse? Perhaps the curse was….”
Just another form of brainwashing?
“I’ll send people to investigate the magical energy around The Wall. If no magic or mana is detected at all…. Then there’s no mana field responding to the curse. In that case, fire a blue signal flare.”
Whoosh!
Rosetta stared at the blue signal flare rising far into the distance.
I didn’t know how they’d investigated, but one thing was certain.
“Nothing stands in our way.”
“….”
“It’s only a very old brainwashing. Of course, breaking free from it might be even harder than dispelling a real curse….”
“….”
“I want to find courage. There’s no point in stopping here.”
It was as much a statement to myself as anything else.
Rosetta met the gaze of dozens of women looking up at her with unwavering resolve.
A moment passed.
“We….”
When our eyes met again, each of my comrades’ faces bore a different expression.
But their thoughts were the same, and with determined faces, they grasped Rosetta’s hand.
They moved forward.
* * *
Eyes that had burned red slowly regained their blue light.
Rubian exhaled sharply, her face flushed with indignation.
“Just as I thought… there was no curse at all.”
Kalid, who had transformed back into a young boy, tightened his grip on her hand.
Carefully channeling mana into her, he spoke.
“It was just a convincing illusion.”
“This was nothing but a wall. A wall pretending to be something more—just a wall!”
Boom! Boom! A tremendous crash echoed out.
Leviathan’s ambush had clearly succeeded.
Rubian left a mark as promised so Leviathan could see it. Then she moved swiftly.
“Actually, I overheard something at the Mercenary Company—the curse might not be real.”
In truth, it wasn’t something I’d overheard. It was a hypothesis I’d formed myself while examining the Wall when I was captured by the Mercenary Company.
The inconsistent punishments.
The Wall that emanated no magical energy whatsoever.
The relentless brainwashing that continued steadily….
My suspicions had proven correct.
“Of course! Since there’s always a possibility, I’ll send this older brother I know to infiltrate. He’s a former intelligence mercenary, so he’s a master of infiltration. And he has plenty of magical artifacts. Anyway, if I’m right, it’ll go like this….”
Rubian lowered the corners of her eyes as much as possible and offered a harmless smile.
“A smiling mark on the Palace Wall!”

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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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