Chapter 26

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter Title: Super Shy Kid Looking for Dad - Chapter 123

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‘A child who awakens mana in a Holy Knight family is irreverent.’

It was a fact everyone in the Order knew.

But even they had overlooked one thing.

Where those irreverent children ended up going.

Edmund, Leonardo, and Alexander didn’t know either.

About their one and only little brother.

Not until Theseus became one of those ‘irreverent children’.

“Ugh... hngh. Tesetan, it’s okay. It’ll be okay...”

Leonardo still remembered it vividly.

The sight of the Holy Knights prying four-year-old Theseus away from his mother and dragging him off.

“Mother! Father—!!”

His little brother thrashed about with all his tiny might.

The more he did, the more mana surged erratically from his small body.

The Holy Knights slapped a seal on Theseus without a moment’s hesitation.

“Ah—!”

The child writhed and screamed.

But the knights just stared down at him with emotionless faces.

Once Theseus collapsed from resisting, the Holy Knights finally hoisted him up like a sack of luggage over their shoulders.

“We’ll see you after the ‘purification’ is done.”

With that, the door slammed shut.

In the mansion plunged into heavy silence, their mother let out a scream-like wail.

Valentis held his crumpling wife tight, his knuckles white from clenching his fists so hard.

It was the day Theseus, born with mana in the noble Lumen household, was dragged off to the Central Continent under orders from the Order.

Theseus didn’t return until two months later.

He came back noticeably thinner than when he’d left the mansion.

“Mother, Father... brothers...”

“Tesetan!”

Eleonora crushed him in a desperate embrace.

“Tesetan, my baby, ughh...”

Theseus looked utterly exhausted.

His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollowed out—who knew what had happened to him on the Central Continent.

But the child tried to reassure his family instead.

“I’m okay, Mother. They said I’m all purified now, it’s okay...”

No more mana leaked from the boy’s body.

That mana which had suddenly begun erupting irregularly some time ago.

From the day he returned, Theseus took to his bed.

And he hardly ever got up again.

A quiet, gloomy pall hung over the mansion.

The air was frigid, and a deep shadow lingered over their mother’s face in the brothers’ memories.

“How could I be fine...? My baby’s hurting, crying in pain—how could I...!”

“Eleonora, please...!”

“It’s because of us. If I hadn’t been a saint who manifested unprecedented holy power. If you hadn’t been Duke Lumen, then Tesetan, our Tesetan...”

Their mother was out of her mind.

Every time she saw Theseus in agony, she crumbled.

“Purification, they call it. Putting a horrific seal on the heart of a child this tiny and calling it purification...”

The brothers only learned later.

What the Order had done to Theseus on the Central Continent.

They had placed a kind of divine seal on his body.

To keep the mana from bursting outward.

To make it pile up layer upon layer inside him.

Without a care for the torment it caused the child.

But if there was any silver lining?

Not long after, an unexpected miracle occurred.

“...Mother.”

“Tesetan!”

Theseus, who had only been lying there suffering, began miraculously regaining his strength.

The boy started getting out of bed and going about his daily life.

He laughed like he had before being dragged to the Central Continent, played pranks on his brothers.

“Father, I wanna do it too!”

Before long, he was even stepping back into Valentis’s training grounds.

Eleonora found some stability seeing Theseus seemingly healthy again.

No more muffled sobs at night, no more skipping meals for days on end.

Edmund, Leonardo, and Alexander thought.

That happiness had finally returned to the mansion.

That from now on, everything would be fine.

They simply didn’t know.

That Theseus’s pain was still there.

That the suppressed mana piling up inside him was growing more intense by the day.

That he was just enduring it all in silence, like the child he was.

...

They truly had no idea.

“Huh?”

Tiye stood in the grand central courtyard of the Lumen mansion, her eyes going wide.

‘Carriage Uncle and Lantern Uncle?’

It was because the two men greeting her right in front of her were familiar faces.

They seemed just as shocked.

“Ah...”

On the day of their arrival.

Alexander, who had treated Tiye’s knee injury in the carriage, approached with a dazed look.

“Nice to see you again. I’m Alexander Lumen.”

Tiye swallowed hard.

‘Lumen?’

Here, family names came after the given name.

Which meant Carriage Uncle shared the Grand Commander’s surname.

And he’d said the Grand Commander had four sons, so...

“Grand Commander’s... son...?!”

Alexander folded his green eyes into a pretty smile.

“That’s right. I’m the third son of the Lumen ducal house.”

Tiye, whose mouth had fallen open wide, whipped her head around.

Next to Alexander’s left stood the father-son duo from the Lantern Festival.

“Uncle too, Grand Commander’s son?”

Edmund extended a hand to Tiye.

“As you can see. Edmund Lumen.”

Tiye hesitated before lightly grasping Edmund’s hand and shaking it.

At that moment, the butler standing behind the young masters stepped forward to guide them.

“Please, come inside. The Grand Commander is waiting.”

Tiye glanced back at her unit members before cautiously stepping forward.

Basto, Veil, and the other mercenaries followed behind.

Passing through a lavish corridor, they arrived at an enormous banquet hall.

The table, big enough to seat at least two hundred, was already laden with all sorts of food.

And at the head of that table.

“It’s been a while, Commander.”

Valentis rose silently from his seat.

Tiye gulped at the weighty presence he exuded, even on second sight.

In the meantime, the butler pulled out a chair next to Valentis, the seat closest to him.

“This way.”

Tiye shuffled over hesitantly.

Then carefully climbed onto the chair.

A thick cushion had already been placed on it, high enough for Tiye to meet everyone’s eye level.

“The rest of you, over here.”

Basto and the mercenaries settled in a row to Tiye’s left.

Soon the three Lumen young masters took their seats opposite, and Valentis spoke.

“You’ve done well. No incidents on the journey from the Demilitarized Zone here?”

Tiye’s eyes widened.

‘No incidents...!’

The child hurriedly raised one hand to speak about Caldenbine Ridge.

But Basto gently caught her hand under the table.

Tiye realized.

‘Oops.’

The Lumen ducal household, Grand Commander included, didn’t know Tiye was a child.

She’d spilled her secrets in the Demilitarized Zone and used Sanctity of Oblivion to erase the Grand Commander’s memories.

So for safety’s sake, Tiye should hold her tongue as much as possible.

As expected, Basto spoke up in her stead.

“We stayed in a village called Caldenbine Ridge for about a fortnight.”

“A fortnight?”

“Yes. We got tangled up with rebels who’d usurped the local lord’s position.”

“And yet you crossed the Ancient God’s border right on time.”

But Valentis gave a curt reply before turning his gaze back to Tiye.

“Commander, you look a bit taller than last time.”

Tiye’s eyes bulged.

Taller!

The praise made her so proud and happy as a kid that her resolve to play the Commander flew out the window.

Tiye bounced in her seat without thinking.

“Really? Actually, Tiye’s been eating a ton lately...”

“Ahem!”

At that instant, Veil let out a loud cough.

Tiye snapped to her senses and clamped her mouth shut again.

‘Oopsie!’

She’d slipped up again!

Ever since they got a base and tasted freedom, Tiye kept forgetting she had to act like the Commander.

Tiye glanced nervously at Valentis and babbled on.

“E-eating... so maybe my head got a little fatter on top...?”

But then.

Valentis set down the napkin he’d been holding on the table.

Then calmly surveyed the banquet hall.

“I’d better address this now, or it’ll just keep happening.”

His gaze settled back on Tiye.

“Commander. Sanctity of Oblivion doesn’t work on me.”