Chapter 179
Chapter 179
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 179
Chapter Title: The Jade-Haired Intruder
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"Bro, what the hell is this kid?! Where'd you pick up this troublemaker?!"
Francesca's second son, Karum, jabbed a finger at the little boy lying on the bed.
"If this is your screw-up, how old were you when it happened? Fourteen? Or is he our family's secret bastard? Did Mom get pregnant before Kara was born?"
"Ah..., that's not a bad idea. How about we take him in as our fourth?"
"Kara's gonna be the baby."
"Then our Kara gets to be the eternal little one~"
"What kinda nonsense is that?!"
Karum clawed at his hair, staring at his utterly hopeless family.
A strange little boy with bloodshot eyes had burst into his room just minutes ago, locked the door, and collapsed. The kid had looked desperately urgent, but his vision must've been too blurred to spot Karus standing right in front of him.
Fine, whatever. Life happens—some random kid might barge in and lock your door one day.
But the real problem came next.
"Who else in our family has jade-colored hair like this?!"
Something bizarre was happening to the fallen boy.
His once-white locks were shifting into a color all too familiar.
"Where's the kid's mom!"
"No, Karum, it's not like that..."
Karus hesitated, unsure how to explain. This wasn't the first time his dear friend's hair had changed color.
'Last time, he claimed it was some magic tool's power...'
But no matter how he thought about it, this didn't feel like that sort.
"It's a side effect of the magic tool."
"...Your Highness?"
At Karus's puzzled look, Lianus emphasized again.
"This happened because of the magic tool."
"But..."
"Magic tool!"
Lianus glared at Karus with uncharacteristic ferocity, eyes wide.
"My friend excels at everything, but he slips up sometimes too."
"...Yes, of course."
That's when Cayen sidled up.
"Your Highness, if it's a magic tool side effect, let me take a look..."
"No!"
Slap. Lianus swiftly batted away Cayen's reaching hand toward Nihil.
"Cayen, stand back. He's fine."
Karus soothed the bewildered Cayen and sent him away. Then Lianus tightened his grip on Nihil's hand. It felt like if he let go, his friend might scatter like the wind.
"So it's not yours, right, bro...?"
Karum, eyeing his brother suspiciously, shifted his gaze to Nihil.
"Yeah..., aside from the hair color, he doesn't look like you at all."
Way too pretty to be bro's son. Even if the mom's a beauty, this kid's on another level...
As Karum muttered, the boy's tranquil eyelids began to quiver faintly.
"Nil!"
Lianus shot to his feet and checked on Nihil. Soon, the eyelids lifted, revealing eyes like auroras—cyan, utterly unlike his usual gaze.
"Nil...?"
Nihil scanned the room, rubbed his face, and muttered incomprehensible words. He even swiped at the air now and then, like shooing away flies.
"...?"
The stream of unknowable phrases continued sporadically, almost like conversation.
"Dear friend, what're you doing?"
Kara, who'd been watching, suddenly hugged him tight.
"Huh? I can't understand you."
At her honest words, Nihil mumbled a few words under his breath before finally speaking understandably.
"Kara, let's do the contract later."
"I'll do whatever you say, dear friend!"
"Good girl."
Nihil reached to pat Kara's head but noticed his hand was still firmly held by Lianus. He turned.
"Rian."
"Nil, you okay?"
"Yeah. Were you holding on the whole time?"
"Yeah!"
"Thanks."
Lianus blinked wide-eyed at the sudden gratitude, then beamed. Good thing he'd held on.
Nihil glanced around, spotting a boy who seemed new yet familiar.
"This the third one? The whole house is identical. Teacher, you won't lose track of any kids out there."
"Haha, family trait. So, dear friend, wanna join as the fourth?"
"No."
Nihil flatly refused and shooed away the spirits milling about in front of him.
"Haa..."
All he could do was sigh. The wind spirits' hierarchy was a total mess. How long had they been like this?
'Something felt off...'
Small consolation: only the wind spirits were this bad. Nihil rubbed his face and addressed them.
Listening to the spirits, Nihil eyed Karus suspiciously.
"Teacher."
"Yes, dear friend."
"Who's Karina?"
"My... mother."
"...I see."
So the teacher's mother was the spirit king's contractor. Bigger deal than expected.
Apparently, the king had secluded himself in shock over the contractor's death—a common enough tale. Lesser spirits even dissipated from grief.
But five years of seclusion shouldn't wreck their hierarchy this badly.
Their king rarely meddled in the middle realm anyway, and nature spirits kept things running smoothly on their own. As long as the throne wasn't fully vacant, they cycled birth and death naturally.
'Hard to buy that the king's just hiding is why they've clustered like this...'
"..."
His head throbbed. How had he ended up cleaning up after these idiots?
"You okay?"
Lianus asked worriedly as Nihil massaged his temples. Nihil stared at him blankly, then calmed himself by stroking the boy's curly locks.
'Should I head to the spirit realm?'
Now fused with spirits, visiting was easy. Hell, he could just beat the wind king awake.
But time flowed differently there. The spirits' "one year" or "hundred years" nonsense stemmed from that.
'What to do.'
As Nihil pondered, Lianus clambered onto the bed and whispered cautiously.
"Nil, your hair color's from the magic tool, right? I handled the explanation."
"...Yeah. Thanks."
Nihil ruffled the beaming boy's jade locks, thinking.
He really didn't want to go. Couldn't tell if seconds or years would pass here while he was gone—and he couldn't leave the kids.
"Gotta... drag out the king."
He muttered softly. The kitten and puppy seemed to mishear the target, staring with anxious eyes.
"Drag out His Majesty...?"
"...No treason."
Nihil chuckled at their innocence and called Kara.
"Kara."
"Yes, dear friend!"
"Let's prepare to drag out the king."
"Yes, dear friend!"
"Bro..., what the heck did you make that kid do?"
"Bro, even for you, this is too much."
"It... does look kinda... overkill, doesn't it...?"
Under his siblings' scolding, Karus awkwardly rubbed his face. Even they, who'd eyed the friend suspiciously at first, now gazed at him with pity.
Invited for Kara's birthday party, the dear friend had worked nonstop for three days and nights—and showed no signs of stopping.
Days entertaining the kids with bits of work in between; nights grinding away sleepless.
And that was just the start.
He'd painstakingly transcribed Mom's spirit-language letters and diaries into translations as gifts for Karus's siblings—mimicking her flying scrawl to boot!
Bam!
"Waaah, dear friend! Your hand!"
On the fourth dawn, Nihil finally snapped, slamming the desk. Karus rushed over, wrapping those tiny hands.
The desk had cracked, but he casually covered it with papers.
"If it's too tough, maybe take it slower..."
The three jade heads flinched. Didn't know the words, but it sure sounded like cursing.
"...Pardon...?"
Karus reflexively asked back, catching his adorable baby sister's name amid the alien jumble.
"Kara?"
"Ah..., yeah, she's still sleeping."
At that, the friend's eyes widened slightly as he checked outside. The sun was just peeking up.
"Wake her?"
"No."
Kids need their sleep to grow. Despite skipping his own, the friend said so and headed to the next room.
The adjacent room was packed: kids sprawled wherever after late-night play. With House Allie's only son and House Tarandrus's second joining in, it was chaos. Karus's own second brother was mixed in too, though he'd claimed early training...
Karus glanced at Karum—who was up early for dawn practice yet loitering to watch—then back at the pile.
They'd meant to move them to their rooms, but the friend had insisted it was all memories worth keeping, so they left 'em.
The friend pulled out a crystal orb and wandered the room, capturing the sleeping kids within it.
"Ah, please wipe Kara's drool before recording..."
Karus said so but only tugged the kicked-off blanket back over—leaving the drool as is.
How was their little princess even cute drooling?
"Teacher."
"Yes, dear friend."
"Gonna step out."
"This early? Where to?"
"Wind Forest."
"That's..."
Karus almost warned it wasn't called the Ghost Forest for nothing—dangerous place—but let it go.
"Take care."
"Yeah."
The friend vanished in a swirl before their eyes.
Nihil flexed his now much larger hands. The heightened view felt awkward yet familiar.
'Reforms to the most comfortable shape, huh.'
Scattering as wind and reforming had stretched him tall. And his hair—chopped short on the slave ship—now trailed the ground.
'This form after 500 years, too.'
Subjectively just months, since he'd mostly slept.
Power hadn't returned. Just a hiccup from not fully adapting to wind form.
Nihil walked on, idly wondering if Lianus would whine about why he grew alone.
True to its name, Wind Forest whipped with ceaseless gales. Yet his floor-dragging hair remained still—a jarringly serene sight.
The winds calmed at his curt command. Nihil pressed on.
Each step stirred breezes, parting fallen leaves and petals with soft rustles.
No footprints, no sounds. It unnerved him, like proof he didn't truly exist here.
First act after spirit fusion: send them home. Futile—they dispersed briefly, then slunk back.
The incessant chatter right beside him grated, but he'd endured, banking on Kara's contract fixing it all.
Until moments ago, when he'd heard the dumbest thing.
"...I have no clue why I'm doing this..."
He'd sworn off filling voids for others.
Still, the world was stable now, unlike before. Wrap it quick, get back to the kids.
Per the teacher, injuries in Wind Forest were common before. Minor slips and scrapes. But five years back, people started vanishing or suffering severe harm.
Lined up with the king's seclusion.
Issue: why seclude in the middle realm, not spirit realm?
"This guy, huh."
Deep in the forest loomed a massive spirit stone.
As Nihil stood before the spirit stone, the nature spirits around began murmuring again. Then a greater wind spirit descended to the ground, expression deeply perplexed.
At that, Nihil irritably booted the spirit stone.