Rather Than The Son, I’ll Take The Father

Where he was led as if possessed, there was a very small spirit.

Regen saw a spirit in the form of a scorpion that he had only encountered in books.

However, the spirit was not speaking as a subject.

Using the spirit as a means, someone else was speaking.

[“If you have such a fun life without me, I’ll want to be mean because you’re cheeky.”]

Regen stepped back little by little without realizing it.

As time passed, this voice became terribly disdainful.

“Who are you?”

The man gave an answer only when Regen asked for the third time.

[“Someone who doesn’t want you to know who he is?”]

There was power in the man’s voice.

It was a force that Regen could not resist.

“So…… sorry.”

So Regen instinctively said he was sorry. He wanted the man to just let him go.

Regen thought he shouldn’t have found the spirit.

He shouldn’t have listened to this voice.

He shouldn’t have even come out of the castle.

However, he felt a strange feeling where it felt like he might not have been able to escape even if he had not came out. The man chuckled as if he felt Regen’s fear.

“Originally, sister-in-law was the target, but there’s no helping it. Can you do something fun for me too? If I made you the best, shouldn’t you be useful?”

He didn’t want to.

Even though he didn’t want to, he couldn’t even imagine disobeying it.

The umbrella fell from Regen’s hand.

***

I lay on Shaula’s bed and wiggled my feet.

“Shaula, try an acrostic poem with Maevia.”

“What is Mayvia?”

“……My name.”

“Ah really? I thought it was the name of the hero Evie.”

Whoa! Acckk!

“This is crazy! You know about that too! Erase it from your memory right now!”

I was overcome with shame, lost my temper, and rushed to Shaula.

“Your Grace, wait a minute! It doesn’t even hurt me at all!”

“Forget it anyway!”

“How can I forget such a funny thing!”

It was time to grab the giggling Shaula by the collar and hypnotize her.

Suddenly, the view out the window was strange. At some point, the rain had stopped and an unidentified fog was covering the sky. It was a terrible feeling.

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“Hey, Shaula, look at that.”

I let go of Shaula’s collar and glanced out the window.

She didn’t even smile and had a puzzled expression on her face.

“Hey, why is it so foggy?”

It was so white that I could barely see the scenery, as if we had entered the clouds.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“I’ll have to think hard to reach a conclusion.”

Shaula said so, but she took her greatsword.

Shaula’s bedroom was located on the first floor, just like the other knights’ rooms. Although the scenery was now hazy, it seemed that the fog had increased its power and could get foggier.

But, strangely, none of it penetrated through the cracks in the window.

Is it magic? Or something else?

In any case, it was by no means an ordinary fog.

I took Shaula out into the hallway.

I was going to find Aedis first, but I saw Mrs. Theresa heading to the castle gate with a nervous look.

“Theresa?”

“Your Grace!”

She came straight to me. I looked up and saw that her face was very pale.

Why does it feel so ominous?

“What about Regen? Weren’t you together?”

Theresa shook her head.

“I’m also looking for the Lord.”

But I had clearly seen Regen go out.

……There was nothing good about delaying.

“Shaula, go get Aedis. He is especially deaf inside the castle, so you have to go find him yourself.”

Even if I had told the other employees to go to Aedis, it would have been difficult for them to speak to him properly.

Shaula paused.

“What about Your Grace?”

“I’ll look for Regen.”

“Alone?”

“I will accompany her.”

Even at Mrs. Theresa’s words, Shaula’s face did not relax. It was natural. For Shaula, whether I’m going alone or accompanying Mrs. Theresa, it made no difference.

It was a waste of time to explain, so I waved my hand and said.

“It’s okay. My husband said that…… he won’t do that, but he’ll protect me.”

Shaula’s eyes narrowed, perhaps because the credibility of my words was low.

“I’ll just go after Your Grace goes out.”

In front of the castle gates, some soldiers were pacing.

“Your Grace!”

“Open the gates.”

The faces of the soldiers, who had been agitated, turned a different color at my command.

“…B-but”

“It’s okay, open it.”

When I ordered again, the soldiers reluctantly opened the door.

However, the fog just flew in front of the door and did not come in again.

It was like it couldn’t even get in through the cracks in the window.

Shaula reached out her hand without hesitation and fanned the mist.

“I don’t know why it suddenly appeared, but it’s just a fog.”

“Don’t close the gates until everyone outside has come in. Shaula, you hurry up too.”

After asking the employees, I stepped outside.

A cold, damp touch wrapped around me like a snake, but it didn’t harm me, as Shaula said.

From time to time, checking to see if Mrs. Theresa was following along, we traced Regen’s path.

In fact, waiting for Aedis to come was the safest and most reliable solution.

But the person involved was Regen.

If I could go out and find it quickly, even if it was only a few minutes, then of course I should.

I hope this was the right direction.

The surroundings were completely opaque white, so it was fortunate that we didn’t bump into the wall or fall.

Before long, even Mrs.Theresa, who was walking just a step or two from behind, disappeared.

Still, I kept walking.

“Lord!”

Even my voice felt like it was engulfed in the fog, so I raised my voice even more.

“Lord! Regen!”

It was around the time that I couldn’t even guess whether I was walking straight or not. Suddenly, a particularly faint part of the fog stood out.

As I risked a fall and ran, I saw a boy crouching on the ground like a hedgehog.

“Lord!”

Regen flinched when I called in a voice that was strangely mixed with worry and relief.

I wanted to make sure that Regen was okay as soon as possible, so I did not slow down, but Regen raised his head.

His face was covered with tears.

“Don’t come.”

“…Lord?”

Regen stretched out his hand towards me.

The small and precious hand, the cold hand, was suddenly stretched out toward me.

The moment he cut through the air, dozens of pieces of ice shaped like a spear fell to the ground, blocking the space between me and Regen.

Each ice spear was over 2 meters high. Some of them reached up to 5 meters.

“You can’t…… heup, you can’t come.”

Regen squeezed his other arm tightly with his hand that had made the ice spear.

Reddish smoke was rising from his other arm. Regen was desperately trying to keep the arm from touching the mist as if it was a seed of disaster. I thought I knew what Regen was in.

“I see. I will not go.”

I said to Regen, who shed tears every time he blinked.

“I’ll wait until Lord says it’s okay to approach.”

In 〈Esmeralda’s Crescent Moon〉, Regen once showed symptoms similar to now.

It was when he asked Gilbert, who became emperor, to return Maevia.

When Gilbert first tried to kill Regen.

At that time, Regen in the novel awakened and went rampant.

But that was never a good thing.

Even though that power had saved him from Gilbert, it was an event that shredded his heart.

“Your Grace……”

Aedis showed no sign of coming.

As if noticing who I was waiting for, Regen’s eyelashes trembled.

“Father can’t come.”

“……”

“He’s not coming.”

“……”

“Because he knows I can’t handle it.”

If it is like 〈Esmeralda’s Crescent Moon〉, this fog is nothing more than a barrier created by Regen.

People were free to enter and exit.

However, it was different from the barrier that exists to protect something, this barrier works in the opposite way.

For ‘now’, it was nothing more than a starving beast that could devour Regen at any time.

However, even if it works in the opposite way, the essence is that it is still a barrier in the end, so if the barrier is overloaded by someone else’s intrusion, the damage goes back to the caster, Regen.

Bringing Aedis into the barrier would be a much bigger burden than bringing thousands of ordinary people into the barrier.

Aedis is too strong to help Regen.

In 〈Esmeralda’s Crescent Moon〉, Aedis was not by his side when Regen ran rampant.

Regen in the novel collapsed only after exhausting all his magical powers and stopped running rampant. And he didn’t wake up for days.

“……Well. Then Aedis will understand that this is an unavoidable situation.”

I took the bottle out of my arms and drank the blood of the beast inside.

I squatted and looked at Regen.

The eight-year-old boy let out a wheezing sound and wept incessantly.

I said calmly to reassure Regen, who was afraid of everything.

“Lord.”

“……”

“I may not be the perfect person to be Lord’s stepmother.”

“…”

“Certainly, I am not friendly with children. I also sponsored an orphanage in the capital for several years, but not a single child liked me.”

“…”

“Lord is the first child I’ve ever liked.”

Regen bit his lip hard, and he turned his head away from my gaze.

Nevertheless, I continued to speak slowly.