novelkee Chapter 186 : Chapter 186
Chapter 186 : Chapter 186
Chapter 186. Alice: Your Child Is Already This Big?
Sylvia’s large silver-gray eyes, which had been burning with anger just moments ago, suddenly widened in disbelief as she stared at the man before her, his face full of mischief. This kind of deep, boundless mana fluctuation… vast and unfathomable like an abyssal sea…
“You…” Sylvia’s voice trembled, but this time it was not from humiliation or fury. It was from shock. “You broke through? Sixth Tier?!”
Logaris looked at the astonishment written all over her little face, greatly pleased with himself. He pushed up the nonexistent glasses on the bridge of his nose, the corners of his mouth rising wildly as he fought back laughter, then nodded in a manner so smug it begged for a beating.
“Pure luck, pure luck. I was only a tiny bit faster than Your Highness.”
“Logaris!!!”
Sylvia completely snapped.
It was already bad enough that she had shrunk, lost all dignity, and was being lifted around like a doll by this bastard. But the most infuriating part of all was this—he had secretly crossed that threshold before she did.
This was a double blow. No, a triple blow.
Looking at the “silver-haired cub” in front of him, cheeks puffed up with rage yet firmly pinned in place by spatial restraint, the faint shadow hidden deep in Logaris’s eyes finally vanished completely.
He did not reproach her even once for that nearly suicidal act of taking the sword for him last night, nor did he say anything sentimental. He knew very well that if it had been him in that same desperate situation, he would have made exactly the same choice.
This was the kind of understanding they shared without needing words.
As long as she was still alive, and still lively enough to throw a tantrum at him, that was enough.
“All right, all right, enough fooling around.” Ignoring the almost fire-spitting glare in her eyes, Logaris acted like a fretful old father and gently lowered her onto the middle of the soft bed with his spatial power. Then, with practiced ease, he pulled over the blanket and wrapped her up into a silver spring roll with only her head sticking out.
“Be good and stay put. Don’t catch a chill.”
The actual harm was negligible, but the humiliation was overwhelming.
The laughter in the room instantly became even more unrestrained. Esmeralda was already laughing so hard she had collapsed onto the floor and was pounding it with her fists.
After a bout of utter chaos, Sylvia was finally forced to accept the cruel reality that she had temporarily become the “little girl version of the governor” and had absolutely no power to resist—especially now that the other party had already advanced to the Sixth Tier and could suppress her one-handed with spatial magic whenever he pleased.
She huddled in the blanket, puffing with anger, revealing only a pair of silver-gray eyes still blazing with fury as she glared at the two heartless idiots laughing their lungs out. Inwardly, she swore that once she changed back, she would dock Esmeralda’s wages for the next month down to the last coin.
Logaris stopped while he was ahead. The smile faded, and his expression gradually returned to calm.
Jokes were jokes, but business came first. No matter how warm the atmosphere was now, that name from last night—Ifreles—remained like a thorn lodged in his heart.
He had to find out what exactly was going on with this damned bloodline of his, and who that so-called “father” really was.
He thought of Alice.
That black-haired, red-eyed girl—her father was Ifreles. As “family,” she was bound to know something.
Logaris took out his Communication Crystal, rubbed it lightly with his fingertips, and sent Alectos a brief message.
【Bring Alice to the Duke’s Manor. Also notify Sir Leonard and General Victor. Emergency meeting.】
Half an hour later.
The secret council chamber of the Duke’s Manor.
It was the highest-level secret council chamber in the entire Duke’s Manor.
When Alectos, now mostly recovered, the steady and imposing Leonard, the grim-faced Victor, and the Saintess Aurora, whose arm was still hanging in bandages, pushed open the door and entered, every one of them froze on the spot.
At the head of the long redwood conference table, Logaris sat calmly with a steaming cup of black tea in his hand. Beside him sat a beautiful little silver-haired girl in a custom-made formal dress, her hair falling all the way to her waist.
Her legs dangled in the air, unable to reach the floor. She had put on a stern little face and was sipping fruit juice in small, elegant mouthfuls.
But those eyes… no matter how one looked at them, they seemed exactly like Princess Sylvia’s.
The group looked at one another, exchanging uncertain, startled glances. For a moment, none of them even knew how they were supposed to salute.
Alice, who had come in behind Alectos, looked exhausted, with faint dark circles beneath her eyes. It was obvious that last night’s events had left her mentally drained.
But the moment she saw the little silver-haired girl, her previously dim eyes lit up at once, and the flames of gossip burst into life.
She pointed at little Sylvia beside Logaris and blurted out:
“This is… your and Princess Sylvia’s… illegitimate daughter?”
The moment those words fell, the air in the entire meeting room froze solid.
Everyone’s movements came to a halt. Leonard’s hand, which had just been about to pull out a chair, froze in midair. Victor’s instinctively straightened back turned to stone. Even the holy smile on Aurora’s face stiffened into something absurd.
Crack.
An extremely faint sound rang out. In the suffocating silence, it was especially sharp.
Everyone turned toward it.
Beside the seat of honor, a clear fracture had suddenly appeared across the surface of the poor glass cup in Sylvia’s hand.
Juice dripped through the gaps between her fingers onto the expensive redwood table, making a string of soft tapping sounds.
The silence in the meeting room grew downright bizarre.
“Ahem.”
Logaris cleared his throat, breaking the stifling stillness.
“Allow me to introduce her.” He pointed at the little girl beside him. “This is Princess Sylvia Van Astrelia. Because of the side effects of a certain alchemical potion, she has temporarily become… well, this rather spirited version of herself.”
Rather spirited.
Sylvia’s exquisitely delicate little face darkened instantly. She wanted to slam the table to assert her authority, but after glancing at her tiny, utterly unthreatening little hands, she could only resentfully place the cracked cup back down.
“This is only temporary,” Sylvia said. Her voice was soft and clear, carrying a distinctly childish sweetness, yet her tone still tried its utmost to maintain the governor’s cold authority.
Unfortunately, that appearance of adorable fury, combined with eyes that clearly wanted to kill someone yet somehow looked more like pouting, had not the slightest bit of intimidating force. If anything, it produced the exact opposite effect.
The air in the meeting room turned even stranger.
Alectos and Alice exchanged a perfectly synchronized glance. Alectos pressed his lips together so tightly that his cheeks were trembling, while Alice desperately pinched her own thigh. The two of them looked at each other, then looked away, laughter nearly spilling out of their eyes, as if they were locked in a silent contest to see who would break first.
As a guest, Leonard displayed extraordinarily refined self-control. This old lion abruptly developed a profound interest in the carved reliefs on the meeting room ceiling. Head tilted back, he stared upward in utter concentration, counting the patterns one by one as though some peerless military scripture were hidden within them.
It was, apparently, a truly fascinating ceiling.
Saintess Aurora clasped her hands tightly before her chest, lowered her head, and muttered rapidly under her breath, “Praise be to the Lord of Radiance. The Lord is merciful. The Lord is solemn. The Lord grants us peace…”
She was desperately trying to suppress that deeply impolite urge in her heart by reciting the dullest hymns from the Holy Scripture, but the faint trembling of her shoulders betrayed her completely.
The one suffering most, however, was Victor. As the Chief of Staff of the Northern Legion and Sylvia’s direct subordinate, he knew very well that if he showed even the slightest trace of a smile at this moment, his career would probably come to an immediate end.
This battle-hardened tough man now sat as straight as a ramrod, eyes fixed forward, frantically replaying every sorrowful memory of his life in his mind—from being bitten by a dog in childhood, to his first love marrying someone else, to losing a month’s wages in cards the last time he played—trying to use immense grief to fend off this catastrophic urge to laugh.