Chapter 223. What Were They Like? (1)

Translator: Lili

Weekly Chapter 3/6

“…”

The moment he saw the child’s face, Kiehlermann found himself speechless. Beneath the tousled blond hair, there was pale, smooth skin that resembled polished pebbles. His flushed cheeks, reddened from the cold, and faintly colored lips stood out. Even his eyelashes were white. The child, a young boy, looked like a fairy crafted from a handful of snowballs and a hint of silvery sunlight.

Kiehlermann recognized this elegant, beautiful face. It was the face of someone he knew well—the face of his wife, a fallen daughter of a once-prominent ducal family, with whom Kiehlermann had once been married. This boy resembled her so completely.

“I am…”

The boy from his childhood—Aaron Henriad.

“I am your grandfather.”

Kiehlermann spoke with an unwavering, confident voice, free of doubt.

He led the child out of the forest. After taking off his coat and draping it over the boy, they exchanged a few words. When Kiehlermann asked about the scar on the back of the boy’s neck, the child answered calmly, recounting what he had experienced.

After hearing everything, Kiehlermann pulled the child into an embrace. A deep, guttural groan, as if pierced in his core, escaped from his lips.

“I’m sorry…”

The child didn’t seem to understand why he was apologizing. Kiehlermann didn’t explain. Being a magician, just like Aaron, the boy would understand on his own as he grew.

Honor always had a cost—Kiehlermann knew this well.

And even knowing it, he had acted as he did.

Time passed, and Kiehlermann, now with hair as white as snow, had gained more honor and power than he ever imagined. The Henriad Family, once grinding grain at a mill, had risen to the highest echelons of Euspolia.

They had even produced two S-class magicians. One of them, and the only living descendant, was the boy. He was currently investigating something in Logwin—a development that could prove ‘fatal to magicians’.

But Kiehlermann sometimes wondered if he already knew what was most fatal to magicians.

— What caused that scar?

Walking through the winter forest long ago, Kiehlermann had asked the boy.

— My father’s love.

What was most fatal to magicians, Kiehlermann thought, might just be their honor.

***

The person Edwin hired was exceptionally skilled. They gathered information from whispers between people and from written records, assigning probabilities to the truth of each piece and presenting a clean, refined report.

Before long, Edwin learned that the imprisonment orders for Augwell’s ‘Mini Cat’, ‘Jackie’, and ‘Sugar Girl’ were highly likely to have been forged. He also found out that while Mini Cat’s whereabouts were unknown, Jackie and Sugar Girl had already been released.

Although the investigation into their current whereabouts would take more time, this was enough for Edwin. He pieced together several facts to arrive at a near-certain conclusion.

Edwin deduced that the trio were agents sent by Euspolia. Having obtained information about the developments in Logwin, Euspolia had targeted the most accessible entry point—Shushu.

If that were the case, the attractive half-cat currently living at Shushu’s house was highly likely to be one of them as well.

Edwin’s face twisted into a terrifying grin as he imagined tossing the golden-haired man lounging around Shushu’s house in his mind.

If it were up to him, he’d storm in immediately, grab the man by the hair, throw him out the window, and dissolve him in a vat of chemicals before dumping him into the sewers. But Edwin had refrained from preparing any chemical barrels for one reason: a rare moment of empathy.

Edwin knew Shushu. He knew how her entire life had been overshadowed by her mother. Being the daughter of the renowned genius Garnelly, Shushu had been burdened by expectations and deeply wounded by the disappointment of those around her. Edwin had seen it with his own eyes—Shushu preparing for chemistry and math competitions she didn’t care about, tears streaming down her face.

Back then, Edwin had been indifferent to Shushu’s efforts. But now, it was different. He thought about how Shushu would feel upon discovering that the people she cherished were only after her mother. Imagining the pain it would cause her tore him apart so much that he had even told Rimel to keep this information secret for the time being.

It was complicated. While he was relieved that Shushu would never end up with that man, he felt guilty for withholding the truth, knowing how devastated she would be if she found out she had been used.