Chapter 125
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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Chapter 125
Holy power infused the pristine blade, gleaming white as fresh snow.
As the sacred energy surged forth in an instant, Miliod cried out in alarm.
"W-wait, Lord Hailon, why are you suddenly doing this?"
Rather than answer, Hailon fixed Miliod with a glacial stare.
Trembling beneath that piercing gaze, Miliod blurted out a defense no one had asked for.
"If it's because I'm a dark mage, then yes—I was once a heretic, but I've repented!"
Miliod earnestly defended the Blond Man, insisting he had been completely reborn as a new person.
"I've made painstaking efforts to become a father my child could be proud of, and though I once lived in the Underworld, now I serve with more devotion than anyone else..."
Miliod rambled on, spittle flying from his lips.
In essence, his lengthy excuses boiled down to one claim: through great paternal love, he had overcome his heretical past and come to revere the divine.
And as the situation spiraled toward utter chaos.
Chesa felt her mind grind to a halt.
'This man is my real father?'
The probability that Miliod had genuinely found her biological father was zero.
If he had, Master Kieran, who ruled the Underworld, would have discovered him long ago.
Most crucially, Chesa was not simply an abandoned child left at the Orphanage.
'I am Lichesia.'
Unaware that a Fairy had transformed into an infant and hidden herself, he had orchestrated this pathetic performance.
His clumsy act was surely tailored entirely to some nameless child left behind at the Orphanage.
"..."
Chesa stared blankly at the man before me.
I had imagined the moment of meeting my real father.
In those imaginings, the reunion had never been pleasant.
My mother must have conceived me unwillingly.
Having suffered terribly in the Laboratory before bearing me, both my mother and I would have harbored deep hatred for my father.
So when I met him.
I had planned to cleave him with an axe myself.
So he might feel even a fraction of the agony my mother endured—and that I endured.
I had fantasized about dragging the fleeing wretch back, throwing him into the Illusion Realm, and making agonized screams burst from his lips as he spouted pathetic excuses that rang hollow.
But I had never imagined a reunion like this.
Not a father who screamed and fled at the sight of me, but one who wept because he wanted to see me...
"Thank you, God, oh, thank you, God."
The man wept and laughed simultaneously, tears streaming down his weathered face.
He gazed at Chesa with eyes brimming with unmeasurable joy.
His performance was so convincing that even knowing it was false, I found myself studying him again.
As I scrutinized him carefully, my vision suddenly darkened.
"Don't look."
Kieran covered my eyes with his hand.
He spoke with evident displeasure, his nose bridge crinkling in irritation.
"Chesa's father is right here, you know."
As I spoke, I whispered discreetly near her ear.
"That one's a fake."
I wanted to tell her I already knew, but I held back, fearing it might seem suspicious.
While Kieran earnestly murmured his speech about how that man was a fake and that even if he were her real father, Chesa should love him more instead.
Miliod had somehow managed to get Hailon to sheathe his sword.
Or rather, he thought he had succeeded.
After hearing the Cardinal's lengthy excuses, Hailon sheathed the holy blade and reached to draw the Chain of Condemnation.
At the metallic clink of the chain, Chesa grabbed the iron bars.
"Wait!"
At Chesa's cry, the sound of the chain ceased.
Hailon slowly turned his head to look at Chesa.
Miliod, who had come to threaten Count Basilian but hadn't yet managed a proper word with Kieran, stared with cold sweat dripping down his face.
Kieran too sent a piercing gaze her way.
"I'd like to talk with him alone."
At Chesa's words about speaking one-on-one with the fake father, Kieran immediately fell apart.
Disbelieving, he shook Chesa frantically.
"Just the two of you? Only the two of you? Why? How come? What could you possibly need to discuss?"
While Kieran threw his tantrum, Hailon quietly scrutinized the man from head to toe.
He was searching for a pretext to lock him away in the Heretic Inquisition.
Before Kieran and Hailon could tear the man apart, Miliod hastily stepped forward to attempt mediation.
"First, let's give the child and father time to talk. Perhaps we should step aside and discuss matters separately."
"...What did you just say? Father?"
Kieran pounced on Miliod like a predator, tearing apart his words.
"Nothing has been confirmed yet, so please refrain from using uncertain titles. It's not good for the child's emotional well-being."
"Well, he's certainly the real father though..."
Miliod, about to add a lengthy explanation, fell silent under Hailon's menacing stare.
"In any case, I think that would be best."
He hastily retrieved a key and opened the prison door.
Count Basilian had been imprisoned by order of the Holy King.
Yet Miliod released Kieran from the cell without the slightest hesitation.
As though he had already received permission from the Holy King.
I could roughly grasp what was happening.
The Holy King and Miliod were in league together.
'The reason the Holy King desires me... is it to obtain a new experimental subject?'
It was nearly established fact that the Holy King and certain Cardinals were the ones conducting experiments on Fairies.
Yet strangely, no Fairies could be found within the Holy Empire.
They had only discovered masses of demonic beasts.
The aura felt far too different to suggest that damaged Fairies had transformed into demonic beasts.
'It seems like some essence of Fairy has been mixed in though...'
To uncover the truth with certainty, I had to locate the laboratory at the heart of this matter.
While Chesa fell into contemplation, Miliod pressed Hailon and Kieran to leave.
Despite his urging them to depart, neither showed any inclination to move, but Chesa shoved them out regardless.
After the commotion subsided, I found myself alone with this charlatan claiming to be my real father.
"...."
The Blond Man surveyed the prison cell with an awkward stance.
Leaving him to squirm uncomfortably, I crawled onto the sofa and sat down.
Then I pointed sharply at the spot across from me with my finger.
The Blond Man seemed somewhat flustered but sat where I indicated.
It was the Blond Man who broke the suffocating silence first.
"I'm sorry."
I regarded him with an expressionless face.
He seemed slightly taken aback by my unchildlike demeanor, but he continued speaking.
"I never abandoned you. I've been searching for you all this time."
He drew a deep breath.
With tear-filled eyes, he whispered desperately to me.
"Your mother and I both love you, Chesa...."
Long ago.
If I had heard such words during my innocent childhood, growing up unknowingly in the Orphanage, I would have been truly moved.
It was something I had desperately wanted to hear.
I wasn't the only one.
All the children at the Orphanage shared the same dream.
That their parents hadn't abandoned them but lost them, and through miraculous effort, they would be reunited.
Had I been an ordinary orphan, I would have fallen completely for this Blond Man's paternal performance.
There was only one thing Miliod, despite his thorough preparation, had not anticipated.
That Chesa was not actually a child.
"Could you call me father...?"
Watching the Blond Man ask carefully, I blinked my eyes.
Then I suddenly opened my mouth.
"Old man."
"...?"
I furrowed my brow sharply at the Blond Man, whose eyes had gone wide.
"Want to die?"
"Wh, what...?"
"Stop spouting lies."
I leaped from the sofa onto the table.
Planting my feet firmly, I reached out my hand.
A long axe appeared alongside flower petals.
The Blond Man's eyes widened to their absolute limit.
Coming from the Underworld, he could not possibly be unfamiliar with my axe.
"You've seen it before, haven't you?"
"Th-that... that fairy's...?"
"It's my mother's."
"...?!"
Using the flower as a crutch, Chesa toddled forward toward the Blond Man, axe in hand.
"If you lie to me again from now on..."
Before his eyes—pupils trembling with terror—she swung the axe.
With a sharp crack, the blade buried itself in the table.
As splinters erupted upward, Chesa delivered her warning with chilling menace.
"I won't make it fun."
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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