Youngest on Top - Chapter 233

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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 233

Reyarsha.
That name sounded utterly foreign and strange to my ears.
Until just moments ago, I was called by that name, yet it felt oddly discordant now.

“Reyarsha.”

Perardin Noishurael Duke called me again.
His voice carried more force than before, more desperation.
Unmistakably clear, as if he could never have misspoken it….
His blue eyes fixed upon me without so much as a single blink.

“Ah…. W-well, first we should verify—”

I averted my gaze without realizing it.
My palms had grown damp for some reason, so I withdrew my hand from his.

“O-of course, the verification isn’t entirely foolproof either. But still, I’ve done all the checks I can—”
“Lesha.”

Perardin Noishurael Duke grasped my slipping hand with a grip that was gentle yet unyielding.

“I know you don’t wish to become my daughter.”
“….”
“But still, I….”

Perardin Noishurael Duke’s eyes contorted.
I stared blankly at his twisted face, as though he were enduring something unbearable.

I couldn’t read Perardin Noishurael Duke’s expression from that moment onward.
I couldn’t comprehend what that trembling meant, what that distortion signified.

It merely felt as though a blade were tearing through the depths of my chest.
A deeply unsettling sensation occasionally stirred and pierced my heart.

“…Please leave for now.”

The High Priest spoke to Perardin Noishurael Duke.
Perardin Noishurael Duke looked at me as though he had much to say, but soon rose to his feet.

“Come again.”

Speaking those words.
Admiral Ekellan called out to me.

“Saelika.”

Admiral Ekellan called out to me.
I tried to respond, but my throat felt so constricted that no words would come.
My violet eyes blurred painfully.
I should have told him not to worry, asked why he was doing this, but my lips wouldn’t move.

Admiral Ekellan watched me in silence for a long moment, then smiled.
It was the same charming, cheerful, and roguish smile as always.
But I could see it.
How much that smile was trembling.

“Rest well. And don’t dream of my dreams.”

The two of them left the room with Demian and Mikhail.
Demian and Mikhail turned back to look at me several times in that brief moment.
I tried to smile to reassure them, but I’m not sure if it worked.

“Sae.”

Randel gently stroked my back.
Only then did I realize that my entire body was rigid with tension.

“Saelika. Sae, my youngest.”

With his slow, gentle caress, the tension gradually drained from my body.
Randel laid me down on the bed and brushed my hair aside.

“…Father.”
“Yes, Father is here.”
“…”

Randel smiled warmly.
Kaiser stood firm, as if shielding me.
The High Priest’s face, which I hadn’t seen in a long time, was filled with worry.

Sirius Elder, Debon Elder.
Mogen, Derrick, and the other adults.
And.

“Fool.”

My brothers, bound by blood.

“You’re the fools. Why are you crying?”

A joke finally escaped my constricted throat.
The children laughed even as they cried.

“Sleep well now. Don’t think about anything, don’t worry about anything.”

Randel’s voice descended upon me like a soft veil.
His steady, rhythmic patting felt as reassuring as a heartbeat.
I sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.

.
.

Soft, even breathing filled the silence.
Even as time passed, Randel continued to pat the child’s body without moving.
Kaiser, seeing his face on the verge of tears, spoke.

“You told the child not to worry about anything, not to think about anything. Yet here you are, doing exactly that.”

Randel smiled.

“I’m afraid they won’t wake up again.”
“….”
“I’m so scared.”
“…So you do know fear.”

It was truly a remarkable thing to say, considering Randel’s past.
Randel let out a soft chuckle.

“Ever since this child, Sae, came to me, I’ve been constantly afraid.”
“….”
“What if this child becomes disappointed in me, hates me? What if something’s wrong with her? What if she’s been hurt somewhere I can’t see? What if she’s crying right now?”
“….”
“What if I hurt this child again?”
“….”
“Sae is far stronger and more remarkable than I am. But still, what if she doesn’t open her eyes again? I can’t shake that thought.”

A heavy silence descended upon the room.
In that moment when deep shadows fell across every face in the chamber.
The High Priest spoke.

“She’s sleeping well.”
“….”
“So everyone, brighten your faces. What would it be like if the youngest woke up refreshed from a good sleep only to see you all looking like that?”

The High Priest looked around at the Temple Priest and the priests.
They all looked unwell.
Some of it was worry about Saelika, but the toll of expending their strength to the limit earlier had been significant.
In truth, merely holding on like this was already pushing them beyond their limits.

“If you’re so worried, isn’t there something the youngest always says?”
“….”
“Roll as much as your anxiety.”
“…!”

A spark of light returned to everyone’s eyes.

‘Somehow they’re more energized than when they were told to go rest.’

The High Priest let out a hollow laugh.

“Now go recover your condition. So you can roll properly in optimal form.”
“Yes, High Priest!”

The children answered loudly.
The adults quietly followed behind them.

The High Priest shook his head as he watched their retreating figures heading off to recover.

‘I wonder how the youngest managed to raise both the children and the adults like this.’

* * *

“…Perardin.”

Admiral Ekellan called out to Perardin Noishurael Duke with a worried expression.
He didn’t seem to be in his right mind at all.

“Did you see it just now?”
“….”
“Right after she woke up, she was so calm, but the moment she saw me, she tensed up.”

Saelika, surrounded by the temple people, had seemed at ease.
But the instant their eyes met, everything changed.

Those eyes looking up at him, pale and frightened.
Her tail trembling uncontrollably as she tried to lift it, her lips unable to form proper words.

“That bold child who always spoke her mind.”
“….”

Saelika was always bright, cheerful, and confident.
Those unfamiliar with her thought of her as carefree and unscathed, a child raised with nothing but love in the temple.

“…I knew that child was covered in wounds. I knew she was the type to bleed profusely yet claim it was nothing serious.”
“….”
“I thought it truly was nothing. I knew she was a child who couldn’t even care for her own wounds.”

Reyarsha.
That name made the child’s body stiffen.
She was already thinking of being abandoned.
Imagining the worst case instead.

A child insensitive to wounds, unable to properly see them, was so frightened that she reacted this way—.

“I made her that way.”
“….”
“I made it so difficult for her to even grasp an outstretched hand.”
“Ardin.”
“Do you remember what that child heard?”

Admiral Ekellan immediately understood what Perardin Noishurael Duke was referring to.
It was a scene he, too, had been chewing over day after day like a living hell.

“Perardin Noishurael Duke trusts me completely. You saw it just now, didn’t you? I’m so, so, so much more precious to him than someone like you.”
“….”
“Will Perardin Noishurael Duke really trust you?”
“…!”
“You kidnapped me, didn’t you? And because you were so jealous of me, his own daughter, you even stole the power of mythology.”
“….”
“Admiral Ekellan must be completely fed up with you by now, right?”

Saelika stood there without any rebuttal to those words.
I don’t know how much my heart ached watching through the crystal.

Please get angry.
Tell her to stop spouting such nonsense, curse her, spit at her.

But Saelika did not get angry.
She did not deny it.
Rather.

“I’m used to being hated anyway. It’s not like it’s anything particularly special.”

She agreed with Shuellina’s words.

“…It would have been better if that child had resented me instead.”

Such bat-like affection—I would reject it, say I didn’t need it.
If only she had hated me and never been wounded.
Then my heart wouldn’t feel like it was rotting away, shattered beyond repair.

“Even in that situation, she thought of me. Of us. Even as she was being torn apart.”

“Admiral Ekellan was truly wonderful to me. There were times I found him bothersome, but truthfully, I was never really bothered.”
“Perardin Noishurael Duke… he accepted me exactly as I am.”

Gathering together those faded, warm memories.

“Admiral Ekellan still has nightmares. He thinks I don’t notice when he hides it from me.”
“When he looks at you, Perardin Noishurael Duke’s eyes are… so sorrowful.”
“As if you were a shard of glass. Just looking at you cuts and cuts, yet he cannot tear his gaze away.”

That child saw only the wounds of others.
Even the moments when they themselves were wounding that small child.

“I… what am I supposed to do for that child now? I have no idea. Even breathing beside her feels like a sin. But without being at her side, there is no meaning to living.”

Admiral Ekellan gazed quietly at Perardin Noishurael Duke.
This was the first time he’d seen him like this.
That arrogant, reckless man who once held the world beneath his feet—to see him so unstable.

But then, what could he expect?
He himself felt his insides being carved away with each breath, as if his very breath were a blade.

“…What else can we do? Collide, shatter, and even if we end up in the next world because of it.”
“…”
“We must apologize to that child.”
“…”
“Even if we’re not forgiven, even if she grows sick of our apologies and turns away from us entirely.”

The Admiral’s violet eyes grew still.

“We must show her that she deserves to be loved.”

Perardin Noishurael Duke, who had been quietly observing the Admiral, offered a faint smile.

“It seems you share blood with that child after all.”
“What?”
“Rising up strong even when wounded—that’s unmistakably like her.”

“I won’t let those people be fooled by a fake like you just because you’re afraid of being hated.”

Perardin Noishurael Duke murmured, recalling Saelika’s fierce expression with her eyes wide open.

“Fortunately, she takes after her mother far more than me.”
“….”
“You’re right, Serge. There’s no time to indulge in idle regret and suffering. What matters is that the child doesn’t get hurt
anymore.”

Perardin Noishurael Duke rose from his seat.

“So we need to handle this quickly before that child wakes up again.”

The Duke’s eyes as he moved were cold and frozen with cruelty.

“Those who dared to lay a hand on my daughter.”

* * *

“Haaaaaaawn!!”

My entire body felt stiff and sore.
I stretched languidly and woke myself up.

“Why does everything still ache even after stretching?”
“Well, you’ve been lying in bed for over two weeks, so it can’t be helped.”

Ilay handed me warm water as he spoke.

“But why are the children doing that?”

Outside the window, the children were rolling around enthusiastically.
Not just the children, but the adults too.

“I’m not sure.”
“The adults are going wild too. What are they really doing? Is suffering their hobby? That’s really strange.”
“….”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s nothing.”

Ilay shook his head slowly.
As I set the water glass down on the bedside table, a bracelet caught my eye.
It was the shell bracelet of the Perardin Noishurael Duke’s daughter.

“….”

Looking at it, my heart grew complicated.

‘She left this behind because she thought I was Reyarsha. But how could that be?’

Why had the Perardin Noishurael Duke come to see me as Reyarsha?

“….”

The day I awakened from the past.
This bracelet was in my arms.

‘It seems I was sent to the past because of this.’

Even though I had held it for some time, there was no particular reaction.
But it suddenly activated on the day of the mission….

‘Perhaps it required a certain threshold of holy power to be infused.’

Something clicked into place.
In the past, I burst forth my holy power while being kidnapped.

‘My holy power must have been imprinted on the bracelet at that moment.’

In the sanctuary, I had expended a tremendous amount of my holy power to purify Misa’s blood for Shuellina….
So the bracelet must have received holy power just as intense as when I was being kidnapped in the past.

‘That’s why it activated.’

“This bracelet will protect our precious princess.”

The Duchess’s voice seemed to echo in my ears.
Indeed, this bracelet had protected me.

“What’s wrong?”
“Huh?”

Ilay gazed at the bracelet with a cool expression.

“If it bothers you, just throw that bracelet away.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then why does your face look like that?”
“What’s wrong with my face?”
“You look ugly.”

Ilay pressed firmly against my cheek.

“Ow.”
“Then make a less ugly expression.”

I brushed away Ilay’s hand and spoke.

“You said you unfolded the Sacred Scripture to wake me up, right?”
“Yeah.”
“At that time, this bracelet became the medium and gave me strength.”
“What?”

Ilay looked at the bracelet with astonished eyes.

“I told you I went to the past. I lost consciousness while fighting the kidnappers.”
“Right, you said you originally had no memory of that time at all.”
“Yeah, to be precise, before I was three years old… the age is just an estimate, but I had no memories before age three.”

My first memory as a human began from the orphanage.
Before regression, and after regression too.
Even when memories from my angel days—far earlier than that—surfaced, I had no recollection of the period from birth to age three as a human.

“So after fighting the kidnappers, I don’t know how I ended up in the orphanage owned by Parmanase.”
“Didn’t the kidnappers take you to the Parmanase Temple, and that’s how it happened?”
“No.”

I shook my head.

“When the power of our temple people was transmitted through this bracelet, my consciousness returned slightly.”

My body couldn’t move properly, but I felt it clearly.

“That’s when Misa was there.”
“What?!”
“He said he came because of a contract. What kind of contract could it possibly be?”

I couldn’t understand it.

“There’s no way he would simply kidnap me and take me to Parmanase.”
“….”
“The Parmanase temple didn’t know my identity. They didn’t even know I possessed divine power.”
“If they had known, you would’ve become a special management target and never transferred to our temple in the first place.”
“Right. When I encountered Beatrix after my return, she also seemed unfamiliar with who I was.”
“….”
“Who made the contract? A contract with the Demon King isn’t something simple. For that to be possible, at least someone like Shuri would—”

I stopped speaking.
But it couldn’t be Shuri.
Why would he make a contract with the Demon King?

—————
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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