The Baby Fairy Is A Villain [EN]: Chapter 98

Kieren stared at Cheshire’s hand for a long time.

Of course, the vanished mark didn’t reappear.

He gently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.

As he did, he murmured to himself.

“Why isn’t it reappearing…”

His hand continued to rub, unwilling to stop.

Only when Cheshire’s skin turned red did he finally come to his senses and pull his hand away.

Kieren slowly closed and opened his eyes.

The light in his red eyes, visible beneath his eyelids, was so strange that Cheshire felt nervous.

She was a little afraid of how he would react.

He had recklessly released a fairy.

Even a fairy for whom Cheshire had provided a means to escape at any time.

The great disasters that had occurred when she briefly escaped from the Basilian family in the past flashed through her mind, and she felt a sense of despair.

Sensing the need to be more proactive, Cheshire took the initiative to appease Kieren.

“Chesha no do queen.”

Fortunately, Kieren’s gaze softened slightly.

He hugged Cheshire and whispered.

“…You mustn’t use the fairy’s power in front of others. Never.”

He warned her several times that she had to be careful because everyone coveted beautiful and precious things.

Only after receiving a firm promise from Cheshire did Kieren let out a long sigh.

It wasn’t a sigh of relief.

Kieren pressed his lips to Cheshire’s cheek and murmured softly.

“I’m worried. Cheshire is always so kind to the weak.”

Cheshire thought it was absurd.

‘Me, kind-hearted? What are you talking about!’

But she couldn’t argue.

Kieren, with his faint smile, looked so lonely.

“But Cheshire…”

A gloomy voice, like a rainy day, hung like a dark cloud.

“Think of Daddy as pitiful too. Okay?”

***

“…”

Hailon frowned slightly.

He felt the sensation of the Chains of Judgment [magical bonds used to restrain powerful beings] breaking.

“Sir Hailon?”

The Holy Knight cautiously called out to Hailon.

Hailon nodded silently.

The Holy Knight quietly lowered his gaze and began to purify the traces of heresy with divine power once more.

He was checking and purifying the place where the fairy had appeared, along with the Holy Knights.

Daren, his adjutant, examined his complexion and asked in a low voice.

“Has something happened?”

Hailon paused for a moment, lost in thought.

Judging from the state of the mana [magical energy], it was a fairy who had become close to heresy.

Having captured her, the proper procedure was to take her to the Holy Empire for interrogation.

But the fairy, who had been bound by the Chains of Judgment, had been released.

It couldn’t have been the work of Count Basilian.

He would have killed the fairy, not cut the chains and set her free.

The flowery spectacle that the small child had created came to mind.

The petals scattered throughout the twisted mana…

Recalling the miracle the child had performed, Hailon uttered briefly.

“Execute her immediately.”

“…Pardon?”

Daren stared at him with eyes that seemed to say, ‘Are you out of your mind, killing a fairy we’ve worked so hard to capture?’

He couldn’t bring himself to say it, and only let out a hollow laugh as he gritted his teeth.

“The Holy King has already been informed. We really can’t get away with this this time. You’ll definitely be ‘educated’…”

Daren’s voice trembled slightly.

But unlike him, who was filled with fear, Hailon dismissed it nonchalantly.

In order to protect the child who had released the fairy, the easiest way was to claim that he had executed and annihilated her.

If the child could be safe.

He could pay any price, even education.

The problem was the information they should have obtained from the fairy.

Since he had entrusted the interrogation to Count Basilian, he would have extracted all the necessary information.

Even what the fairy didn’t want to say.

The only question was whether he would transparently share the obtained information with Hailon.

They were in the same boat, but they were by no means trustworthy partners.

Hailon quickly finished the purification work and returned to the inn where the child was sleeping.

However, he didn’t go to find the child.

Instead, he went to see Count Basilian.

The Count was a sight to behold.

“…Oh, who is it?”

A drunken voice drawled slowly.

“An Inquisitor.”

The room, lit by only one lamp, was dim.

It only faintly illuminated the interior with the help of moonlight.

Hailon, quickly counting the number of empty bottles rolling on the floor, stared at Count Basilian.

Kieren, sprawled on the sofa with a bottle in his hand, chuckled.

He took an empty glass from beside him and roughly poured some wine.

The red wine was poured messily into the clear glass.

Wine splattered on the hand holding the glass.

Kieren offered the glass with his other hand, licking the wine from the back of his hand.

“Want a drink too?”

Instead of accepting the glass offered by the man who had abandoned even the minimum courtesy, he simply looked down at him.

As if he knew he wouldn’t accept it, Kieren smiled and downed the glass himself.

Gulp, gulp, the movement of his Adam’s apple was clear.

Kieren threw the empty glass on the floor.

The glass, which fell on the carpet, made a dull sound and rolled away somewhere.

“I really wanted to kill her… but I can’t do bad things in front of Cheshire…”

It wasn’t hard to tell that the target of his murderous intent was the fairy.

“I hate fairies.”

Kieren took a deep breath and exhaled.

His chest swelled and then sank.

“Is Cheshire really Lichesia’s daughter…? I used to think, for a moment, that she, that is, Lichesia, might be my daughter? Because they look alike. But the ages don’t match.”

The rambling typical of a drunkard continued.

“But I treated her well. If it weren’t for me, she would have died in the underworld long ago. She might be able to survive on her own now, but she wasn’t like that at first.”

Hailon, who had been listening to the drunken ramblings with an expressionless face, narrowed his eyes at the following words.

“She’s a queen.”

“Explain what you mean.”

“She’s the queen of the fairies, and she’s asking to be returned to the kingdom.”

“…Are you saying the child is the fairy queen?”

“Uh-huh. Lichesia wasn’t like that, was she?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Haha, I see.”

However, there was a possibility that the queen’s power had skipped a generation and was inherited through atavism [reappearance of a trait after being absent for several generations].

Especially when considering the fact that Lichesia possessed unusually strong power.

It was when he was piecing together the fragments spat out by Count Basilian and making inferences in his head.

Suddenly, the Count burst into loud laughter and spat out a curse.

He uttered vulgar curses that only a rogue would use and muttered in a murderous voice.

“It’s the second time. It’s the second time…”

Hailon lowered his gaze a little further.

The shape of the shadow cast by the lamp and moonlight was smooth and not distorted.

“Is divine power the same? Does its power decrease when you try to do bad things to a fairy?”

“That is correct.”

The reason why so many Holy Knights and Holy Priests failed to capture the fairy Lichesia was because divine power was not fully effective against her.

Hailon, who was called the proof of divinity, also had to use more divine power than usual when dealing with the fairy.

Ironically, the moment when divine power clearly didn’t work was clear.

The moment he tried to force something on the fairy or inflict harm.

Divine power lost some of its power.

As if it didn’t allow harm to be done to the fairy.

“Magic is the same. It doesn’t work properly.”

That was already known.

Experienced slave hunters didn’t use magic when capturing fairies.

The basic principle was to weaken the fairy’s mind appropriately, weaken her power, and inflict physical wounds on her body to prevent her from moving properly.

But the following words were unknown.

“I’ve tried it myself. In the last moment, to my wife…”

Why would he use magic to force or threaten his dying wife?

The Inquisitor’s intuition sharply picked up on the Count’s words.

The Count, who was more vulnerable than usual, was spewing out words he shouldn’t have.

If he dug a little deeper here, he might be able to salvage something useful.

However, before Hailon could throw a question at Count Basilian, his thoughts stopped at his subsequent question.

“Hey, Inquisitor.”

The Count asked with a wicked smile.

“What would you do if Lichesia suddenly abandoned you one day and said she was going back to the Fairy Kingdom?”