Youngest 224
by CristaeEpisode 224
Ruby turned five years old.
“I hate you!”
At the sound of a loud voice from the playroom, Leviathan hurried in. A piercing wail quickly followed.
“Waaaaah!”
“Sortie, miss!”
He was in the middle of a conversation with the count in the Camellan estate’s drawing room when a maid appeared, looking troubled.
“Oh dear, it seems the princess is in a poor mood. She was playing nicely, but suddenly she pushed the young miss Sortie…”
“Waaah!”
“Don’t cry, Titi.”
Count Camellan scooped the wailing Sortie into his arms.
“Ruby, you… why did you do that?”
Leviathan sighed softly, squatting to meet the child’s eyes.
Though she seemed a little shy, he’d been reassured that she got along well enough with little Sortie.
But now, the girl was pouting, lips jutting out like a duck’s bill, breathing heavy with indignation.
“No matter how upset you get, you mustn’t push a friend. Apologize and tell her you’re sorry.”
“No! I don’t want to! I hate Titi!”
“What? You…”
He was at a loss for words.
Mischievous, yes, but generally a gentle child. Rarely had he seen her so stubborn and unreasonable.
“Count, I’m sorry, but could you give us a moment?”
Leviathan decided to take a slightly firmer stance.
Once alone with Ruby, he furrowed his brow.
“Aren’t you going to apologize? What is this behavior?”
“Uh… no. Titi is dumb. A crybaby…!”
“Look at me, Ruby. What was it that bothered you so much? You have to explain, so I’ll understand. And is it right to push someone younger than you?”
When his voice grew stern, the girl stopped jutting her lips out and lowered her head.
Plop, plop. Wet spots spread on the carpet.
The child scrunched up her face and wept silently. Leviathan wanted desperately to scoop her up, but he held back.
Just then, swallowing her tears, Ruby murmured,
“Daddy’s… nice…”
Her voice hitched with every word, filled with bitterness.
“What?”
“Daddy’s nice, but Titi, whenever she sees Daddy, just cries!”
…Huh?
“He’s not a ghost! I hate it! I don’t want her to! I think Daddy’s the very best… but it makes me so upset… Waaah, I’m so upset…”
At last, she broke into sobs.
Leviathan let out a helpless laugh as Ruby’s tears rolled and her nose bubbled with snot.
Where had she picked up the word ‘upset’?
And suddenly, he remembered how Sortie had burst into tears the first time she laid eyes on him.
He’d simply slipped away, used to such things, but it seemed to have lingered with his daughter.
“This is too much.”
How could he scold her now?
Rubbing his face, he let out a weary chuckle.
“What am I supposed to do with you?”
“Waah.”
“All right, if we’re being fair, I suppose it’s daddy’s fault this time. So stop crying.”
In the end, Leviathan drew Ruby in for a hug.
“But you still shouldn’t push your friends like that. Next time, Daddy will… um…”
“What?”
“I’ll even wear a bear costume, if it comes to that. Just don’t do it again. All right?”
He declared bravely, though he had no idea what the real problem was. Clever as ever, Ruby scrunched her brow, but nodded obediently.
“Okay…”
“So you’ll apologize to the young miss now?”
Ruby rubbed at her eyes with her little fist and whispered,
“Mm. I’m sorry.”
Smiling, he stood up. He thought to get the still-warm, tearful child some water.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you mad at Ruby? Because I cried? Because I pushed Titi so hard?”
Leviathan brushed her hair from her forehead.
“Are you upset with Daddy when I scold you, Ruby?”
“Uh-huh!”
So quick to answer.
“Because I don’t like being scared! If Daddy makes this face with his eyebrows, I get scared. When you tell me to eat peppers… and, um… when you tell me to eat peppers again!”
“Ah.”
“But… it gets better, right away! About… ten seconds? Maybe?”
Leviathan raised his brow at her outstretched hands.
He poured water from the tea table and brought it to her mouth; like a baby bird, she gulped it down eagerly.
“Ten seconds, huh? That’s the longest, scariest time in the world.”
“Ka! Really? Maybe I’ll make it a little shorter…”
A soft laugh escaped him.
After all the fuss and tears, her eyelids began to droop with sleepiness. As he gently patted her back, Ruby rubbed at her drowsy eyes.
He wiped the drops from her chin and pressed a kiss to her round crown.
“Ruby, I love you without even the slightest gap.”
Every day, every hour, every minute, every second. If he could split time even finer, he’d love her in every sliver.
Without waste.
In every moment that exists,
I will love you.
Even if we—
Even if we stray from one another, whatever may come.
“I love you, my daughter. My…”
Plink.
A drop of water fell from his fingertip to the floor.
“My irreplaceable…”
At last, he understood what the child resembled. Not a weapon, not even food.
“…jewel.”
My one and only jewel, Ruby.
“I’m sorry…”
Holding the child close against his chest, Leviathan sank weakly to the floor.
And, one more time, he whispered the name he’d called hundreds, thousands of times.
“I’m sorry, Ruby. Daddy’s sorry…”
But that wasn’t truly her name.
Just as these memories weren’t truly real.
For he had never given his daughter a name.
“Name? I picked my own, because I didn’t want to be ‘Seventh’ anymore!”
“Rubian…”
“Daddy, why are you crying?”
The child, on the verge of sleep, reached to touch Leviathan’s face in surprise.
He gazed down at that bright, innocent face with a heart in tatters.
A face he knew, yet did not know.
He had never known Rubian at five years old.
He had never known her learning to walk.
Never known her fussing in a cradle, nor opening her eyes as a newborn.
He had never known.
“So this is it…”
The time he had lost.
His regret. His weak darkness.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do all this for you, Ruby…”
Drip.
A drop of water fell somewhere. Gentle, warm mana swept in like a breeze.
He had always known the truth.
That he would have to go back. This was not his reality.
And yet… and yet…
Here, he could fulfill everything he’d ever sworn he would.
He wanted to be the very first to teach her all the names of the spring flowers in bloom.
To swim together in the beautiful southern sea in summer, collect fallen leaves and laugh without a care in autumn, and—what else? In winter…
Yes, in winter he would make her a sled with his own hands. Who knew if she would grow to love sledding.
And the north would be so cold, he’d have to have the best furs sewn for her. So he’d hunt from time to time, diligently…
“Ah…”
Leviathan realized he was alone.
The warm home, the sunlight, the scenery, the child—were all gone.
He was lying on the ground, utterly alone, in an empty, hollow place.
Sorrow descended upon him like darkness.
To lose a child was to lose all the days he had ever taken for granted, never to see them come.
Only promises he could never keep remained, echoing in the void. Pain existed not as a period, but as a never-ending string, linking all his time together.
What had truly been taken from me?
As the dream ended, reality crashed in like a breaking wave.
< You will forever be defeated, robbed of all, by me once more. >
Just as the Mage King’s letter had said…
Was what I lost so helplessly, eighteen years ago—
Was it Rubian?
‘Please.’
Tell me no.
“Please!”
He cried out in the dark.
All his memories swirled together.
Memories of the Human–Dark Beast War.
The appalling dark beasts and bodies of slain soldiers. Rivers of black blood, choking smoke. A sky stained crimson and black. Screams that split the air. The searing, icy sting on his skin.
‘Because I lost you…’
Was it because of me that you ended up in that hell?
The unbearable weight of that truth made him wish to flee back into illusion.
That was when he heard it.
Daddy! Daddy!
Leviathan raised his head at the urgent, desperate voice calling to him.
Go away! Get out of here!
“Ru… bian?”
He blinked in surprise.
Come to think of it, there had been a warm, blue current wrapped around him all this time.
A gentle force, tugging him out of the illusion…
Daddy! I’m here!
The moment he realized it, the scene shifted with a snap.
It was a border town in Eosia.
The battlefield, scattered with dead dark beasts and fallen soldiers.
In the heart of that bleak hell, a child was rifling through the pockets of corpses.
That messy silver hair, ragged, filthy clothes—like arrows in his heart.
This too was one of his lingering, painful regrets.
Leviathan called out to her, as if his heart might burst. He handed her jerky and brushed the dust from her hair, and bright blue eyes looked up at him.
“Mister. Is the war really over?”
Leviathan looked down at the child for a long moment.
“Yes. It’s over.”
Then he added, throat tight with emotion,
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
I should have been the one to find you.
Instead, you had to come searching for me.
The child clung to his coat hem, desperate to follow. Staring at that small, thin hand, Leviathan could bear it no longer—he caught Rubian up in his arms.
Maybe it was all a memory the illusion spell had created…
But still, he was grateful.
If only he could return to that moment.
He’d always regretted not holding Rubian like this all the time.
He stroked his daughter’s faded pale hair, and kissed her dry cheeks over and over.
“It must have been hard, coming to find Daddy.”
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry…
And at that moment, the little body in his arms wriggled and smiled gently.
No.
That wasn’t your fault, Daddy.
A blue breeze blew.
With that soft breath of wind, the grim battlefield began to fade away piece by piece. The corpses, the dark beasts, the ruined town, the dark sky, the foul stench…
Where the detritus of the past vanished, only a brilliant and beautiful magic remained, swirling. Magic pushed away the darkness within Leviathan, flooding in and purifying him down to his core.
The child in his arms had, before he realized, grown enough to reach his chest.
‘Ah, I see.’
Now he understood.
This was a painful memory, but at the same time—
This was also where everything began.
And…
‘Rubian showed me this illusion to call me.’
To come back.
Not to lose my way.
He remembered, there was a time he did teach Rubian the names of spring flowers.
He’d splashed together in the southern sea, stomped leaves in autumn, watched his child ride the sled he’d carved every winter.
‘Let’s go home.’
He straightened from where he’d been crouched. Even though he’d been standing already, that’s how it felt.
Daddy. I came to meet you!
Before he knew it, Rubian was smiling, grown up to his chest.
Leviathan looked down at his hand.
Where it had been empty, now there was a sword to protect what was precious.
‘Let’s go home.’
So that nothing is taken away again.
So that I can protect what matters.
Though he wavers in the pain of the past, he returns to the damnable present, where love of equal weight surrounds him…
Leviathan raised his arm and swung the sword in a slow arc. There was no hesitation in the gesture that tore through and cast off the illusion imprisoning him.
“I made you wait, Ruby.”