What Do You Mean, He Has a Child?!
The voice was as cold as if it had been dredged up from the deepest pit of hell, freezing the air inside the Graveyard of Bones.
At the same time, Estelle slowly extended her right hand toward the pursuers.
In that instant, a violent tremor shook the ground as streams of dark crimson mana erupted like an explosion.
Kwaaaang!
The entire Graveyard of Bones shuddered violently.
Creak! Creeeeak!
Hundreds—no, thousands—of faded bones that made up the floor began to assemble with grotesque scraping sounds, responding to Estelle’s mana.
Aaaaaaaaagh!!!!
From the cracks in the stone walls and ceiling, a massive skeleton army and ancient vengeful spirits poured out, screaming in agony.
“This is impossible! A necromancer?! Why the hell is a monster like that in a backwater dungeon like this?!”
“Gaaah! Get off me, you bone bastards!”
The elite assassins who had prided themselves on being the best were grabbed by the ankles by enormous bony hands surging from every direction and began to be trampled mercilessly.
“U-uaaaaagh!!!!”
When the vengeful spirits tore at their souls and poured freezing energy into them, the men screamed without even being able to swing their weapons properly.
There wasn’t even room for me to intervene with my daggers.
In just a few minutes, the overwhelming numbers and power created a perfect hellscape of the pursuers being miserably crushed.
“Uaaagh! Retreat! Everyone retreat!”
The man at the front barely managed to shout, one arm broken and dripping blood.
They no longer seemed to remember their original goal of capturing me alive.
They simply backed away to escape the horrific skeletons and began fleeing miserably toward the dungeon entrance.
“Get out…”
Estelle mercilessly sent the skeletons rampaging after their fleeing backs, completely driving every last pursuer out of the Graveyard of Bones.
Step. Step.
The screams that had filled the space gradually died down, and a chilling silence returned to the dungeon.
As the countless skeleton army crumbled away like smoke and vanished into the darkness, Estelle walked over to me.
But something grotesque was tagging along beside the child.
Clack. Clack.
It was a massive set of bones that looked like the skeleton of a giant wolf.
At a glance, it was clearly not an ordinary monster’s remains—it appeared to be the bones of an ancient magical beast buried deep within the Graveyard of Bones.
A horrifying undead creature with a skull baring ferocious fangs and blue flames blazing where its eyes should have been.
Yet Estelle was gently stroking the terrifying monster’s bones as if it were a puppy.
“Baduk, come here.”
Clack!
The monster that looked like an oversized dog skeleton came bounding over at Estelle’s call, its tailbone wagging furiously.
Watching it pant and rub its skull against the child’s small hand despite being nothing but bones nearly caused my brain to short-circuit.
“……Estelle.”
When I called her name in a groan, pressing my forehead, Estelle straightened up from her crouched position and looked at me.
Her eyes were still streaked with tear marks, but her expression had settled into perfect calm, as if she had never cried at all.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s Baduk.”
“Baduk, my ass. It’s nothing but bones—what kind of Baduk is that?”
“But it chased away all the bad uncles. Since it’s good, it’s Baduk.”
Estelle answered while hugging the ancient magical beast’s skull tightly to her chest.
I let out a long sigh at the bizarre sight of the grotesque skeletal monster purring contentedly in the child’s arms.
“……For now, unsummon it.”
At my firm command, Estelle made a sullen face and flicked her small hand.
The giant skeleton let out a reluctant whining sound before slowly melting into the shadow on the floor and disappearing.
I adjusted my eyepatch and looked down at the child sternly.
“How did you use that power? That wasn’t ordinary magic just now.”
“……I learned it a long time ago.”
Estelle mumbled in a tiny voice.
“When I was underground… I practiced alone every night in the dark. There were so many dead people’s souls there. I was lonely…”
Misinterpreting my cold silence, Estelle glanced at me nervously and fidgeted with the hem of her clothes.
“Did I… do something wrong…?”
Her pitiful eyes looked ready to burst into tears again at any moment.
It was clear she was terrified that I might think she was a monster and hate her.
“……It’s not that.”
I swallowed a dry cough, at a loss for words. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
If anything, she had easily taken care of the organization’s pursuers who were after my life, so she had helped me.
But that didn’t mean I could accept a young child wielding the power of a top-tier necromancer as normal.
Hoo…
What am I supposed to do about this?
Originally, this dungeon was supposed to be the stage where the female protagonist arrived, purified it spectacularly, and made her name known to the world.
The problem was that the final boss, Estelle, had arrived first and completely turned the dungeon upside down.
On top of that, the pursuers sent by that crazy woman Elysee had tracked my whereabouts and burst in.
Thanks to Estelle we had driven them off, but now that our tail had been caught, it was obvious that even stronger forces would come next.
I guess I need to wrap up what I’m doing here.
I began to seriously consider my options.
If I were alone, I could somehow hide and survive, but now I had Estelle by my side.
I need to move houses first.
The slum safehouse we were currently staying in had the worst security imaginable and was overflowing with all sorts of sinister energy and crime.
Such a dark environment was terrible for a growing child’s emotional well-being.
This was a child already carrying talent that carried a high risk of awakening as a villainess.
If I left her exposed to that rotten environment any longer, she might truly walk the path of destruction.
I had already saved more than enough money to last a lifetime, so I decided we should move to a high-end residential area in the Imperial Capital with good security.
“Let’s go, Estelle. We’re heading back.”
“……Yes!”
As soon as I started walking, a bright smile bloomed across Estelle’s face.
The child followed close behind me, clutching the hem of my hood tightly with her small hand as if she would never let go again.
In a grand mansion somewhere.
A woman sitting in an luxurious chair wrapped in red velvet lightly flicked her finger.
A messenger pigeon flew in through the window and offered a small tube tied to its slender leg.
Silver hair that shone dazzlingly, as if spun from silver thread.
A woman of overwhelming, gorgeous beauty like a fully bloomed rose.
She was none other than Elysee Leonote, the boss of Blood Knife, the organization that ruled the underworld.
“Hmm…”
She slowly read the note taken from the pigeon.
The note detailed the miserable defeat of the pursuers dispatched to the Graveyard of Bones, along with the information they had witnessed.
And then—
“…They found Black Jack?”
A low, seductive voice flowed from between Elysee’s lips.
“Aah…”
A faint blush spread across her cheeks.
For a fleeting moment, an unfamiliar warmth flickered across her usually cold face that only ever wore a cruel smile.
“Ahem.”
Her subordinate awkwardly turned his gaze away, as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have.
Whether he did or not, Elysee’s blush only grew deeper.
At last. At long last, she had found him.
Her heart was pounding wildly. Ever since he disappeared, Elysee’s time had stopped.
She had tossed and turned at night from betrayal, dyed the entire back alleys with blood in her rage, yet she had never forgotten him for even a single moment.
My Black Jack, whom I had taken in with my own hands and made into my entire world.
For years, the only thing that had sustained her was the obsession to seize him once more.
That terrible thirst was finally about to be quenched.
This time, I’ll clear up the misunderstanding and…
Just like before, by my side—
Special Note: Was accompanied by a child.
The moment she read the last line of the note, her brilliant smile froze solid in an instant.
“……”
Elysee’s brows furrowed deeply. A chilling killing intent swirled across her beautiful face.
“A child?”
She asked in a low voice. The hand holding the paper turned white with force.
“It… appears to have been quite young, judging by its small build. Moreover…”
The subordinate trailed off cautiously, reading the room. He was too afraid of the coming storm to continue, but knowing his boss’s temperament, he couldn’t hide it either.
“They say it had the exact same hair color as Black Jack.”
Black hair, extremely rare in the empire.
The subordinate didn’t have the courage to suggest out loud that the two might be blood-related.
His instincts were screaming a warning. The moment he uttered that word, his own neck would be the first to fly.
A sneer formed on Elysee’s lips.
“Now that I think about it, those lowly things did tend to swarm around him.”
Did he dare mix his blood with another woman and have a child? While still bearing my brand?
Or perhaps even before that.
Had he been carrying on with some wench behind her back?
“Ha.”
Either way, it was more than enough to stimulate her monopolistic desire and madness.
The very fact that something impure—not her—was mixed in was an unforgivable insult to Elysee.
“How dare…”
An explosive killing intent burst from her entire body.
The entire lavishly decorated room began to freeze over in an instant.
White frost spread across the floor and walls with cracking sounds.
When the air grew so heavy it was hard to breathe, the subordinate broke into a cold sweat and carefully knelt.
“Boss, shall I send more men? This time I’ll mobilize every elite assassin from the branch.”
“No.”
Elysee slowly rose from her seat. Her blood-red eyes gleamed with cruel madness.
“I will go myself.”
