Chapter 125
The cardinal’s eyes widened in shock.
He stared at the scene before him, his gaze filled with disbelief.
The pure white blade was infused with divine power.
A low hum filled the air as the divine energy surged in an instant. Seeing this, Cardinal Milliod cried out in horror.
“S-Sir Hailon, what on earth are you doing all of a sudden!”
Instead of answering, Hailon fixed a cold stare on Milliod.
Under that piercing gaze, Milliod trembled violently and blurted out an unsolicited defense.
“He was a heretic, but! He came to me and repented.”
Now fully reborn as a new man, Milliod fervently defended the individual.
“He once lived in the underworld, but he made tremendous efforts to become a father his child could be proud of, and now he lives more devoutly than anyone…”
Cardinal Milliod rambled on, spittle flying from his lips.
To summarize his lengthy excuse, it boiled down to this: through extraordinary paternal love, the man had overcome his heresy and come to worship God.
And amidst this chaotic situation hurtling toward utter pandemonium.
Cheshire felt her mind go blank for a moment.
‘That man is my real dad?’
The chances that Cardinal Milliod had truly found her biological father were zero.
If that were the case, Kierne, the master of the underworld, would have located him long ago.
More decisively, Cheshire wasn’t simply an orphan abandoned at an orphanage.
‘I’m Lichesia.’
Unaware that the witch had disguised herself as a baby to hide, the cardinal had concocted this ridiculous charade.
His clumsy performance was entirely tailored to some nameless child left at the orphanage.
“…”
Cheshire stared blankly at the man in front of her.
She had imagined meeting her real father before.
In her fantasies, the reunion with her biological dad wasn’t a pretty picture.
Because her mother must have conceived an unwanted child.
Having endured horrific suffering in the lab before becoming pregnant, her mother would have hated both Cheshire and her father deeply.
So, if she ever met her real dad.
Cheshire planned to chop him up with an axe herself.
Just to make him feel even a fraction of the pain her mother had suffered, and the pain she herself had endured.
She had imagined grabbing the fleeing coward, throwing him into a hellish prison, and turning his incoherent excuses into nothing but agonized screams bursting forth.
But a reunion like this—she had never imagined it once.
Not a father who screamed and ran away at the sight of her, but one who wept and said he had missed her…
“Oh God, thank you. Ah, oh God.”
The man shed thick tears, laughing through his sobs.
He looked at Cheshire with eyes brimming with utmost joy.
The sight was so convincingly real that, even knowing it was fake, she found herself scrutinizing him again.
As Cheshire examined him closely, her vision suddenly went dark.
“Don’t look.”
Kierne had covered her eyes with his hand.
He wrinkled his nose in extreme dissatisfaction, pouting as he spoke.
“Chesha’s dad is right here.”
Then, he whispered intimately into her ear.
“That’s a fake.”
She wanted to tell him she already knew, but held back, afraid it might seem suspicious.
While Kierne earnestly lectured that the guy was a phony, and even if he were the real dad, Chesha should like him more anyway.
Cardinal Milliod somehow succeeded in getting Hailon to sheathe his sword.
Or rather, he thought he had succeeded.
After hearing the cardinal’s long excuse, Hailon put away his holy sword and reached for the Chains of Condemnation.
The clinking of chains made Cheshire grip the iron bars.
“Stop!”
At Cheshire’s cry, the sound of the chains ceased.
Hailon slowly turned his head to look at her.
Cardinal Milliod, who had come to threaten Count Basilian but hadn’t even managed to utter a word to Kierne yet, broke out in a cold sweat as he glanced over.
Kierne also sent a steady gaze her way.
“I want to talk to him alone.”
At Cheshire’s declaration that she wanted to speak one-on-one with the man impersonating her father, Kierne immediately flipped out.
He shook her gently in disbelief.
“Alone? Just the two of you? Why? For what? What are you going to talk about?”
While Kierne threw a tantrum, Hailon quietly scanned the man up and down.
He was searching for any pretext to lock him up in the heresy interrogation room.
Before Kierne and Hailon could tear the man to pieces, Cardinal Milliod hurriedly stepped in to mediate.
“First, let’s give the child and her father some time to talk. How about we move elsewhere for a discussion in the meantime.”
“…What did you just say? Father?”
Kierne pounced like a rabid dog, tearing into Milliod’s words.
“Nothing has been confirmed yet, so please refrain from using uncertain titles. It’s not good for the child’s emotional well-being.”
“W-Well, he is definitely the real father…”
Milliod tried to add a lengthy explanation, but this time he clamped his mouth shut under Hailon’s glaring stare.
“Anyway, for now… that seems like a good idea.”
He quickly pulled out a key and unlocked the prison door.
Count Basilian had been imprisoned on the Holy King’s orders.
Yet Milliod released Kierne from the cell without the slightest hesitation.
As if he had already received permission from the Holy King.
The rough outline of the situation became clear.
The Holy King and Cardinal Milliod were in cahoots.
‘The reason the Holy King covets me… does he want a new test subject?’
It was nearly established fact that the Holy King and some cardinals were behind the experiments on fairies.
But strangely, no fairies could be found within the Holy Empire.
They had only discovered lumps of demonic creatures.
It was too different in aura to say that fairies ruined by experiments had turned into demons.
‘It feels like parts of fairies are mixed in, though…’
To uncover the truth for certain, they needed to find the problematic lab.
While Cheshire was lost in thought for a moment, Cardinal Milliod badgered Hailon and Kierne.
Even with his persuasion to leave, neither budged an inch, but Cheshire pushed them out.
After a great commotion, she was finally left alone with the father impersonator.
“…”
The man awkwardly scanned the inside of the cell, fidgeting uncomfortably.
Leaving him in his creaky unease, Cheshire climbed onto the sofa and sat down.
Then, she pointed firmly at the seat across from her with a snap of her finger.
The man looked a bit flustered but sat as she directed.
The suffocating silence was broken first by the man.
“I’m sorry.”
Cheshire regarded him expressionlessly.
He seemed slightly taken aback by her un-baby-like behavior, but soon continued.
“I—your dad—never abandoned you. I’ve been searching for you all this time.”
He took a deep breath.
With tear-soaked eyes, he whispered desperately to Cheshire.
“Your mom and dad both love you…”
A very long time ago.
Back when Lichesia knew nothing and was growing up happily in the orphanage, if she had heard these words, she would have been truly overwhelmed with emotion.
Because they were the words she had longed to hear.
It wasn’t just Lichesia.
All her orphanage friends shared the same dream.
That their parents hadn’t abandoned them but lost them, and after desperately searching, they would miraculously reunite.
If she had been an ordinary orphan, she might have fallen completely for the man’s fatherly act.
However, there was one thing Cardinal Milliod, with his thorough preparations, hadn’t anticipated.
That Cheshire wasn’t a real baby.
“Could you call me Dad…?”
Looking at the man who asked cautiously, Cheshire blinked.
Then, she suddenly spoke up.
“Mister.”
“…?”
To the man whose eyes rounded in surprise, Cheshire furrowed her brow deeply and asked.
“You wanna die?”
“Wh-What…?”
“Who do you think you’re lying to?”
Cheshire leaped from the sofa onto the table.
She planted her feet firmly and extended her hand.
An axe appeared, long and adorned with flower blossoms.
The man’s eyes bulged as wide as they could go.
Coming from the underworld, he couldn’t possibly be unaware of Lichesia’s axe.
“You’ve seen this before, right?”
“Th-That witch’s…?”
“It’s Mom’s.”
“…?!”
Using the flowers as support, Cheshire toddled forward toward the man, axe in hand.
“From now on, if you lie again…”
She swung the axe right in front of the man, whose pupils shook like an earthquake.
Thud—the axe embedded into the table.
As splinters flew up, Cheshire issued a sinister warning.
“You won’t find it amusing.”
