Youngest 219
by CristaeEpisode 219
A short while later.
Leviathan rubbed his weary eyelids.
Seeing the children gathered in small groups at the cave entrance, crying as they looked at him, he felt a fatigue he hadn’t known before settle over him.
“Hey, don’t cry. I told you not to cry, didn’t I?”
The girl who seemed the most composed among them spoke, hands on her hips.
“Look. They’ve all sheathed their swords. They have no intention of attacking us.”
“Sob… is, is that really true?”
She appeared to be the leader of the group. Perhaps twelve years old.
Leviathan, watching the children slowly regain their composure and the silver-haired girl sitting atop a rock, looked on with a heavy heart.
“But, but the magic stones are all broken now, so when can we go back?”
“Just hang in there. The order to return will come soon. So don’t cry. Okay?”
‘Dammit.’
Leviathan wiped his face again.
He tried not to, but he couldn’t help seeing an echo of Rubyian’s childhood in this girl.
He imagined Rubyian wandering the battlefield must have looked just like that.
Scared himself, yet, hiding her fear, taking care of the other children first, soothing them even as she trembled.
‘You bastard.’
If the Mage King had been here before him, he could have given him the most agonizing death.
As he fought to quell his rising anger, Leon returned with Khalid, carrying the packs from atop the cliff.
In their hands were simple provisions and water.
“Wow.”
The children, evidently starving for some time, shoved jerky and dried fruit Leon handed out into their mouths, their faces smudged with soot.
The leader girl stood, fruit in hand, uncertain and awkward, until after a moment, as if making up her mind, she approached Leviathan.
“Mister.”
“…Yeah.”
“Are you going to kill us?”
At her clear voice, the children eating paused, their movements halted.
“No.”
“Then are you going to imprison us?”
“Hah, no.”
“…Then?”
“I’ll wash you, feed you, and let you sleep. You little ragamuff—”
Leviathan rubbed his eyes again.
“All of you, the little ragamuffins.”
Again, Rubyian came to mind, unbidden.
At his words, the children who had been whimpering with tearful eyes burst into tears once more.
“Uwaah!”
This time, their tears seemed to flow from relief.
“B-but we did something bad… We hid in a big barrel all the way here and broke that thing…”
“Who told you to do that?”
A hesitant boy muttered, fumbling his words.
“…O-our king…”
“Our father.”
The leader girl finished, cutting him off. Leviathan sighed deeply as he looked at her.
“You…”
“Hey. You haven’t become the ‘Eighth’ yet, remember?”
The boy glanced at Leviathan timidly, chiding her.
“He said, if we did this well, he’d let me! Then we wouldn’t have to sleep in dirty places! We wouldn’t have to eat gross things anymore! I promised I’d do the same for all of you!”
“…”
“We’d really, truly live well, even without illusion magic!”
“B-but I think this is tasty enough… Don’t you?”
“Guess so…”
The children began nibbling on food again.
“This is madness, truly.”
Watching them, Leviathan ran a rough hand through his hair, then turned to the knight at his side.
“…Kal. What do you think?”
“That girl—the one over there—her magic power is quite strong. I suspect she set up an illusion spell deeper in the cave. It would be best not to go any further inside.”
At Kal’s flat reply, Leviathan got to his feet.
The rocky cave was much deeper than it appeared from outside. Staring into that pitch darkness, he let out a deep sigh.
“Leon, look after the children. We need to get out of here for now and make a plan.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leon and Kal began lifting the children, one by one, up the cliff.
Only the wary girl remained.
“Hey, captain. Come here.”
Leviathan grasped her sleeve. Honestly, having raised four children around that age, handling her was easy.
“L-let me go! If I follow you, I’ll become a fugitive mage!”
“Go ahead, then. Be a fugitive. The kid I knew did it at ten.”
“Oh…”
That subconscious gasp reminded Leviathan that, indeed, a child is a child. He let out a short laugh.
But just as he was about to scoop her up, she edged further back into the cave. Her dark eyes fixed intently on him.
“S-so then… does that mean you’re the Duke Zevert? The father of the ‘Seventh’… is that right?”
“Yes. I don’t know anything about any ‘Seventh,’ but I do have a daughter named Rubyian.”
“…”
“What. What is it?”
At his curt question, the girl pulled a crumpled slip of paper from her clothes.
“It’s nothing. I was just told, if I ever got caught by the Duke, to hand this over.”
Told to hand it over?
By whom?
Leviathan unfolded the note.
As if on cue, blue magical writing shimmered into view.
< How does it feel to have lost something and not even realize it? >
“What is this…”
Leviathan’s brow furrowed deeply.
Before he could say anything in reply, more sentences began to appear on the paper, one after the other. His eyes raked over the message as if to tear through it.
< The one who is always losing has always been you. >
< From eighteen years ago, not once have you ever triumphed over me. >
< Soon, you will know. >
“You… bastard.”
Then, in an even, almost calm voice, the girl spoke.
“Sorry. I’m scared of being a fugitive mage too.”
She fumbled in her pocket, pulling out a small orb.
“Guess I’ll be going now. They said I could use this if I met you, Duke Zevert. It’s a teleportation artifact.”
Seeing her smile, buoyed by hope, snapped him fully alert.
A teleportation artifact?
In this world, there’s no such thing as—
“I’ll come back for the others later! I-I have a father now, too…!”
“No!”
Bang!
A tremendous explosion erupted inside the cave.
He barely managed to snatch the self-destruct artifact from the girl’s hand and throw it aside before it could go off—but he couldn’t avoid the blast altogether.
“Kyaa!”
As the ceiling of the cave began to collapse, rocks tumbled down toward the girl. Without a moment’s hesitation, he dove, shielded her, and pushed her toward the cave entrance.
Rumble—crash—!
In an instant, a torrent of rocks blocked his sight.
The boulders and gravel pounded his body, but compared to the shock of what he’d read on the note, right before the artifact detonated—
This was nothing.
The very last message that appeared:
< Once again, you will be taken from, and be forever defeated by me. >
What could that mean?
The words scoured his mind in chaos.
Eighteen years ago.
Taken from him.
…
What?
“Damn it.”
Khalid clicked his tongue as he stared at the blocked cave entrance. Beside him, the girl was whimpering in fright.
“S-sorry…”
“Ha, quiet now.”
At his cold, cutting words, the girl clamped her mouth shut. She’d thought the Duke Zevert was the scariest person in the world, but now, she realized this man was the one to fear.
“Is it possible, Khalid?”
Leon was checking the children for injuries as he spoke. Kal let out a sigh and shook his head.
“If I try to blast it open with my magic here, I won’t just bring down the cave—this whole cliff will collapse.”
It was then that a noise came from deeper inside.
“Kal, can you find another exit?”
“Duke? Are you all right, sir?”
“Ah… Well.”
Hearing his voice, clearly unharmed, Kal and Leon both breathed short sighs of relief.
“I’ll look. If the cave is this large, there should be another exit somewhere.”
A squirrel, popping up out of nowhere, scurried into a crack between the rocks.
“Good. And Rubyian…”
“Yes?”
The thick rock wall made the voice barely audible.
Was it just the muffled sound, or… was the Duke’s voice trembling?
“Could you contact Rubyian for me?”
“That’s easy enough, but why…?”
The Duke spoke with pauses, as if to steady his breath.
“Tell her… her father’s coming for her. Just a moment.”
“…”
“Just tell her to wait for me a little while.”