IDMWE 30

Chapter 30

“Hah, so you thought I had regressed and become that brat?”

Rigan asked, incredulous.

Leona bristled at his condescending tone.

“No! The Constellations had ‘Regression’ written on that roulette they spun last time! And he looks exactly like you… so I naturally got suspicious!”

“Where in this stupid-looking brat do you see any resemblance to me?”

Rigan looked down at the child with a displeased expression. The face was certainly similar, but the goofy smile as he snuggled into Leona’s arms was nothing like him.

As Rigan’s sharp eyes scanned the child with clear disapproval, Leona hurriedly covered the child’s ears.

“Hey! He can hear you!”

“Stupid-looking is stupid-looking. What else am I supposed to say?”

“Still, do you have to say it right in front of him?!”

As their voices grew louder, the child began to whimper.

Seeing that, Leona glared at Rigan and shouted.

“See? He’s crying because you said mean things!”

Rigan frowned.

“And who was the one shouting like a brute first?”

“Stop calling me a brute! I was top of the Swordsmanship Department, you know?”

At that, the child cried even louder.

In the end, Leona had no choice but to stop the argument and try to soothe him.

“Dungki, dungki!”

But the child didn’t stop crying easily.

“Ah, this worked yesterday. Why isn’t it working now?”

Seeing Leona flustered, Rigan snorted and began gathering ether.

“What are you doing?”

Feeling the sudden surge of ether, Leona stared at Rigan with wide eyes.

“Why should I bother catering to a brat’s whims? Just put him to sleep with a Sleep Spell.”

“What? Are you crazy? That’s an attack spell!”

Leona shouted in shock at Rigan’s words.

Unlike the sleep induction that healing priests performed with holy magic, a mage’s Sleep Spell was literally an attack spell aimed at incapacitating the enemy.

Victims of Sleep Spells often had unpleasant dreams or groaned in pain throughout their sleep.

“You’re going to use an attack spell on a child? Are you out of your mind?”

“Is that wrong?”

“Of course it is, you lunatic!”

Leona was about to launch into a tirade about what kind of twisted personality he had—

“That’s how I was raised.”

Rigan’s calmly spoken words shut Leona’s mouth instantly.

“…What?”

“From my earliest memories, whenever I whined even a little, my father would immediately cast a Sleep Spell on me.”

Caught off guard by Rigan’s sudden mention of his childhood, Leona was flustered. His matter-of-fact tone about such a serious matter left her unsure how to react.

And whether Leona was flustered or not, Rigan casually reached his hand toward the child.

“I’ve been hit by it hundreds of times, so I’m confident in Sleep Spells. I’ll make it as painless as possi—”

“Don’t you dare!”

Leona instinctively shielded the child and shouted.

“Try touching him! I’ll slam you straight into the floor.”

The room was instantly filled with tension.

Rigan paused at Leona’s fierce, determined gaze.

“Is it really worth getting that worked up over a mere Sleep Spell? I was always told that whining brats deserve to be punished.”

That was the very thing Rigan had heard hundreds of times from his father since childhood.

“That’s bullshit. All children cry as they grow up! And for whatever reason, using an attack spell on a young child is just wrong.”

Leona said in a firm voice.

“What the Duke of Clanford did to you is the same. That was wrong.”

At Leona’s sincere words, Rigan’s mouth closed on its own.

In Leona’s crimson eyes, burning with determination to protect the child against him, it was as if flames were blazing.

And over that image of Leona, someone else overlapped.

‘Did that person also make that face?’

Just as a memory he wanted to forget began to surface, Rigan quickly shook his head to dispel the thought.

Meanwhile, the child’s crying had already stopped.

In the end, Rigan dispersed the ether he had gathered for the Sleep Spell.

“…Fine.”

Rigan raised both hands to show he had no intention of attacking.

Seeing that, Leona quickly turned around to check on the child.

The small child who resembled Rigan was smiling at Leona as if he had never cried.

“Are you okay? That must have been scary.”

Whatever this child’s identity was, at this moment, she was his guardian.

Though her movements were clumsy, Leona carefully examined the child.

Watching her, Rigan wore an expression of surprise.

‘I thought she was just a klutz…’

Just as Rigan was thinking that—

The child peeked his head out from beside Leona’s turned body.

With an innocent expression, the child looked at Rigan.

Two pairs of chillingly identical blue eyes met.

And then…

*Smirk—*

‘…What was that?’

Somehow, Rigan felt as if the child had smiled at him deliberately.

Just as Rigan approached the child with a uneasy feeling to verify—

*Knock, knock—*

Someone knocked on Leona’s door.

“Lady Leona, it’s Nathaniel. Are you awake?”

Nathaniel’s voice came from outside along with the knocking.

“Ah, there’s an absurd article in the newspaper… The temple is preparing to release an official statement, and we’d like to hear your opinion as well—”

Rigan flung the door open. Nathaniel, who had been looking at the newspaper while speaking, looked up at the sound.

“I’d like to hear your— ah, Lord Rigan?”

Nathaniel looked surprised to see Rigan.

Then he glanced back and forth between Leona in the room, the child in her arms, and Rigan right before his eyes.

“Lady Leona said that Lord Rigan had regressed due to an accident…”

“Ah, well. That’s what I thought too, but…”

Leona’s voice trailed off.

“…Well, now we’re not sure who this child is either.”

With Leona’s awkward laugh, the room fell into complete silence.

“If you don’t mind me asking, is the child really not… yours?”

After standing dumbfounded for a while, Nathaniel asked Rigan and Leona several times.

Each time, Rigan and Leona vehemently denied it.

Seeing the two of them react with such disgust, Nathaniel finally nodded in understanding.

“Then for now, I’ll handle the correction of the false articles from the temple’s side. It would be best if the two of you stay with the child and gather as much information as possible.”

After Nathaniel said that and left, Leona let out a deep sigh while looking at the child.

“Hey, just who are you really?”

“Kyah! Mama!”

“I keep telling you, I’m not your mother.”

Whether Leona was troubled or not, the child beamed and snuggled into her arms.

Just as Leona instinctively caught the child and patted him at the adorable sight—

“Quite devoted to a child whose identity you don’t even know.”

Rigan sneered.

He had felt thoroughly disgusted that morning when he saw the newspaper scandal about Leona and Priest Nathaniel having an illegitimate child.

Fortunately, he now knew the article was all false, but the child in Leona’s arms still didn’t sit well with him.

‘He’s ridiculously similar, though.’

Aside from that stupid expression, the child looked so much like him that one could believe it was his own younger self.

Which only made the child’s identity all the more puzzling.

‘There’s no way Father made a sibling at that age.’

The only plausible possibility…

“It could be caused by a distortion in the axis of space-time for some reason.”

“The axis of space-time? But you just said it didn’t seem like your childhood self.”

“Exactly. Not the past—the future.”

“The future?”

Unable to comprehend, Leona tilted her head.

“Meaning, it could be our future child, as the Angel mentioned—”

*Ugh.*

Before Rigan could finish, Leona made a gagging gesture.

“…What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing. Just the thought of doing *that* with you makes me want to throw up.”

Leona said with a look of utter disgust.

“Hah, as if I’d ever want to! Who would ever want a woman like you!”

“A woman like me? What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re asking? If you were the last woman on earth, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole!”

“Same here! Even if the world ends, someone like you—!”

Just as the fight was about to break out between them—

“WAAAAAH! Leoooona! Riiigaaaan!”

A scream that could pierce eardrums came from somewhere.

At that familiar voice, both Rigan and Leona turned their eyes toward the source.

“Angel!”

Sure enough, the Angel emerged from thin air, tears welling up in her eyes.

With an explosive confession.

“I-I think I messed up—!”

The appearance of the root cause of it all.