Youngest 212
by CristaeEpisode 212
Ch. 22
“What are you staring at?”
The man spoke.
Deep within the dark cave.
White cream was smeared at the corner of his smooth lips.
As I watched his red tongue lick away every last trace, I murmured absently,
“…It’s all smashed up, but you eat it anyway.”
“What does appearance matter?”
Bathed in moonlight, the man’s eyes shimmered in a strange blend of gray and blue.
His hair looked like the blue-black night sky.
Just as I’d pressed a dagger to my throat, ready to end it all—
“If you’re going to die, go farther away to do it.”
He’d spoken abruptly, like an ambush. Before I knew it, he was asking for the cake box I’d dropped on the floor. That brief interruption delayed my death.
“…Why are you trapped in here, anyway?”
“Took you long enough to ask.”
Clink—the chains shifted.
The man’s wrists and ankles were bound with thick shackles.
His hands seemed relatively free, but the shackles on his ankles were fixed to the cave wall, leaving him a very limited range of movement.
“Guess why.”
He twisted his lips in a long, crooked smile.
“Forget it, I’m not that curious.”
“Ah, really.”
His voice was listless.
“If you’ve lost interest, just leave.”
That was my intention anyway, so I started to rise.
“Let me warn you.”
“……”
“You won’t die so easily with that little dagger.”
He spoke with idle detachment.
“What do you mean?”
“With a blade that short, you’d have to stab deep and hard to really die.”
“……”
I stared at the dagger’s stunted tip.
Then Leviathan Zevert… just how violently did he stab himself?
I looked down at my hands, as brittle as dry twigs.
“You’re right.”
With such feeble hands, I couldn’t even die on my own.
“Then… why don’t you kill me?”
“……”
“In exchange, I’ll let you out of there.”
At this, the man laughed, scratching at his neck.
“That’s impossible. You have no idea how complex the sealing formula on my shackles is…”
“It would be for you.”
“What?”
“But not for me.”
“……”
A penetrating gaze bore into me.
He sat on the floor; I stood—our eyes met at a diagonal.
Ruby!
Just then, I heard a voice from nowhere. My knees buckled.
Suddenly, it felt as if water flooded my ears. The stench of brine filled the air from somewhere.
Rubian!
Bubbling, bubbling.
What is this?
“Cough, cough!”
I pushed myself up on trembling palms, coughing hard.
“Just give up. You look like you’re about to die anyway.”
Instinctively, I looked up—only to find his beastlike eyes filling my vision.
In those blue-gray irises, an unfamiliar hunger flickered for a pulse.
“Haa…”
Wiping my lips, I muttered,
“It’s just… because I’m low on mana.”
My vision spun dizzyingly. Arching my back, I said,
“If I just stop my time magic, your chains would be easy to—”
“…Time magic?”
His voice turned unnervingly chill.
He stretched a hand through the bars. My wrist was suddenly caught in his grip. I felt like prey before a predator.
“You… can control time, can’t you?”
Swish.
My eyes fluttered open.
“……”
Familiar patterns across the ceiling came into view. This place…
‘The ducal residence in the capital.’
For someone who’d just nearly drowned, my body felt astonishingly light. But the moment I turned my head, my vision spun.
A fit of coughing seized me.
“Cough, cough!”
“Ruby, sweetheart!”
The hurried figure rushing to me, face ashen, was my grandfather.
“Hazel! Borvel!”
He called for the servants, and the hallway erupted in commotion.
“You scoundrel!”
A large, warm embrace swept me up.
By the frantic, desperate strength of those arms, I was reminded just how much time had passed.
“How, how long—”
“A week!”
A wave of dizziness struck me.
“Ha… Finally, you’re back to yourself! Were you hoping to send your poor old grandfather to an early grave, eh?”
“Grandfather…”
My voice was barely audible, yet he responded immediately.
“Yes, yes. Let me check your temperature…”
“Where’s Father?”
He exhaled deeply and finally laid me on the bed.
“Leviathan has been by your side all along. He only left at dawn to the front. He made sure you’d recovered himself before going. The southern front is worsening by the day.”
“And… Kal…?”
His head dropped heavily.
“Yes.”
I clenched my jaw.
Perhaps this was for the best.
‘There’s something I need to confirm.’
“Where’s Mother?”
As my tight throat eased, my voice grew steadier. Cool reason flowed back as well.
“Rosetta is outside the city, interrogating the mages. She’s trying to learn what they know of the magical beasts in the south.”
So that left only Grandfather here.
“Don’t worry. Rosetta will be back soon… ah, my dear, Ruby.”
His thick, calloused hand caressed my cheek. A faint touch of moisture lingered.
“Why are you crying, hmm?”
“Grandfather.”
I grasped his hand and sat up.
“Help me.”
“……”
“Please take me to Zelox.”
His thick brows shot up. He heaved a sigh and patted my shoulder.
“Rest for today, at least—”
“Now.”
“Ruby.”
“It has to be now…”
If he refused, I would go alone.
Perhaps reading my resolve, his firm lips pressed together. His neatly trimmed beard twitched with tension.
“My lady!”
The door burst open. Hazel, Borvel, and the other servants appeared.
After patting me twice more, Grandfather rose and addressed Morris, the butler, who stood nearby.
“Morris, send word outside—have the carriage prepared. We’re returning to Zelox. Leave a message for Rosetta in haste.”
“Sir? Now?”
“Tell the outpost mage to bring every acceleration device we have. Pack only the bare essentials.”
“But, my lady is still—!”
“That’s an order!”
Grandfather roared.
At that lion-like shout, everyone fell silent.
“Yes, sir.”
Hazel was the first to obey.
“But most of the knights are at the front—the remaining guards are—”
“I’ll go with her.”
The voice came from a young man stepping from the crowd. He’d clearly run all the way here, for he was uncharacteristically out of breath.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, but…”
Void sighed, casting me a sidelong look, hand on his sword.
“It’s easier to guard her than to argue her down.”
The carriage sped north at full tilt.
I had no sense of how much time passed.
Most of the way, a fever overtook me and I traveled in a medicated haze.
Every time Grandfather thundered out a command, our goal drew closer. Truly, a loud voice is great to have on your side.
Crossing the northern gates, we kicked open the gates of Zelox Castle in the dead of night.
“Whatever it is, rest tonight. Yes? You can’t do anything at this hour anyway!”
He urged me into a bedchamber with grave insistence.
When he asked why I was so eager for the north, I used the emergence of mutant magical beasts as an excuse—saying I needed to check Zelox’s wards at once.
The north, after all, was beast territory.
Grandfather didn’t bother to hide his displeasure, but seemed more or less convinced.
“Ruby, call for me if you’re going out. Promise? You absolutely must call me!”
Void said as he left the room.
I nodded meekly and waited, seated on the bed, for everyone to finally clear out.
Night deepened.
Clouds filled the sky, not even a scrap of moonlight piercing through.
‘Now.’
The Zelox estate, a second home to me.
There was not a corner I hadn’t left my footprints in. Exploring with Khalid and my brothers, I’d created secret paths and shortcuts all over.
‘I don’t need Khalid’s squirrel for this.’
Naturally.
This is my house.
Hiding my presence, I slipped out of the castle and made my way to the Zevert Memorial.
Huff, huff.
Involuntarily, my pace quickened, breath catching in my throat.
My head spun—I couldn’t tell if it was from lack of air or fear of the truth I was about to confront.
The dark, forbidding memorial grew nearer. In the distance, a dim light shone from the caretaker’s hut.
I pulled my black cloak tight and slipped unseen among the gravestones.
My feet carried me without hesitation to the small garden.
Ssss—
A wind swept through.
My cloak was torn away, and my long silver hair fluttered wildly.
“……”
There—a solitary black headstone.
I gazed at it in silence.
The grave of an infant, dead before ever receiving a name.
What are you?
What am I?
‘What am I?’
My palm pressed slowly to the earth.
Beneath it, surely, would be a sturdy stone coffin.
Months ago, I’d attended a funeral in the capital.
In Babylon, it was considered the highest respect to preserve a corpse in perfect condition.
Thus, they placed the dead in thick stone coffins with preservation mage tools.
So…
‘Though the infant died long ago…’
According to tradition, the baby’s body should remain below.
‘…If, indeed, it is truly there.’
Holding my breath, I channeled mana into the ground.
It was a searching spell, used often during ruin excavations. Despite the winter cold, sweat beaded and trickled down my brow. My lips cracked and bled from gnawing on them so often.
Blue mana coursed ever downward.
Piercing the earth, passing through soil, finally reaching the stone coffin. Vzzzz—the mana rebounded off the object and sent a vibration through my fingertips.
I focused every shred of thought, tracing the interior of the coffin with trembling mana.
A moment later—
“……”
My eyelids drifted open.
“The coffin…”
No mana was returning.
The meaning was unmistakable.
“The coffin is empty.”