LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 146
Chapter 146 Season 2 – Came to Capture My Brother
The next morning arrived.
“You, you’re…”
“You’re supposed to be… our father—no! His Majesty?!”
“Call me whatever you want—father, dad, doesn’t matter. Or should I transform into a monster as proof?”
Karune and Lyra had just regained consciousness.
They were still shocked by the reality that this trash heap of a village was the very human settlement they’d only seen in textbooks.
But what shocked them more was the human standing before them who called himself their father. No, he was their past father, and the two princesses were utterly dumbfounded.
“Th-this can’t be! A father from the past…?”
“But… the energy I felt when I was knocked out—it was definitely Father.”
“So, does that mean you both believe me?”
“We don’t really have a choice…”
“If it’s truly His Majesty standing before us, then we have to believe it.”
Karune, meanwhile, was subtly looking for a way to escape from the situation.
But now that the man before her had claimed to be her father, she found herself unable to act rashly.
Even if she tried to flee, she knew the underground village was about 1,000 meters below the surface. Now it was clear why the Empire had never been able to find the last human refuge.
“So, what are you planning to do now?”
“Huh?”
“We’re not completely oblivious. We know the reason you came from the past… it’s because of the First Princess in the Imperial Palace, right?”
“The First Princess…?”
“I mean Lady Sophia.”
“!! Sophia! Is she safe? Have you seen her?”
“Well, we are part of the royal family, so…”
“We’ve seen her… but…”
Recalling when Sophia was forcibly brought into the future, the two sisters spoke with exaggerated gestures.
“A massive festival was held across the entire Empire, bigger than anything we’ve ever seen!”
“Even during the birthdays of siblings with the Han surname or the other Empresses, the Empire never celebrated this much.”
“But when Father… no, His Majesty, entered the Empire with her, the roar of the crowd was deafening. It was truly unlike anything we’d ever seen before.”
“That much…?”
They described how the entire Empire had come out to celebrate the new Empress and the future version of Han Shin-woo.
But there was something troubling.
“There was something strange, though.”
“Strange? What do you mean?”
“The new Empress, Lady Sophia… she had shackles around her ankles.”
“…What?”
They said that all of the children who had been escorting her at the time had seen it.
Sophia, walking elegantly in her white dress, had heavy iron shackles on her ankles.
“Damn it… Sophia!”
I had known she was forcibly taken.
I had witnessed it myself until the very end.
But how could the future version of Han Shin-woo—me—do something so cruel to a woman he loved? Shackling her like that?
My fists clenched, and I felt the black energy surge from within me.
But if I lost control now, we risked revealing our location to the enemy.
So, I took a deep breath to calm myself down.
“Phew, it’s fine. I’m going to rescue her anyway.”
“Rescue her…?”
“You’re not thinking of attacking the Imperial Palace, are you, Father from the past?”
“Yeah. That’s the whole reason I came here.”
I explained my purpose for coming to the two daughters, who were now drenched in nervous sweat, and at the same time, I untied their restraints.
“By the way, that must’ve hurt. If you had wanted, you could’ve easily freed yourselves from those ropes, but thanks for waiting.”
“N-no, it’s nothing…”
“Your Majesty, are you really letting us go?”
“No, I want to keep you with me.”
“Keep us… with you?”
“You could’ve just dragged us around bound tightly, so why are you giving us a chance to escape?”
“Huh? Well…”
Is this really the kind of conversation a father should have with his daughters?
For a moment, I wondered that, but this was already a messed-up world to begin with.
There wasn’t much that surprised me anymore, so I decided to explain things to them step by step.
“What kind of father would drag his daughters around in restraints?”
“F-father…?”
“Daughters…? Are you referring to us?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I-I’m deeply honored to be called your daughter by His Majesty!”
“I will do my utmost to live up to that title!”
That wasn’t the kind of response I was hoping for…
But hearing my words, Karune and Lyra knelt on one knee, completely abandoning any thoughts of escape, swearing their loyalty as if they’d received the greatest gift of their lives.
It seemed like there was still a long way to go, but I had seen Shin-ah change, so I decided to give these two a tour of the underground village as a first step.
“Alright, let’s go then, girls.”
“Y-yes!”
“We will follow you anywhere!”
***
This happened before Karune and Lyra had regained consciousness.
By the time the Empire’s forces, acting on ‘someone’s’ information, had almost reached the time machine where Leon and his group were stationed, they had crossed over the walls.
“Listen up, everyone! Our target is Prince Leon, the one who inherited the Han family name! Stay sharp and prepare to fight!”
“Yes, sir!!”
“To think we’d be ordered to capture Prince Leon…”
“Ugh… I just hope I don’t die.”
“But he’s one of us, from the Empire. Do you really think he’ll kill us?”
The Empire’s soldiers—people recreated by Han Shin-woo—had bodies that resembled animals, like furries, or were human-like monsters, similar to Ria, beings who were no longer human.
The current Empire, the only nation left on Earth, was made up of about 1 million of these hybrid beings.
And in the brief history of the Empire, the first prince to betray his father, Han Shin-woo, was Leon.
His betrayal had long echoed through the Empire, and now, 100 elite soldiers had been dispatched beyond the walls to capture him.
“Everyone, don’t be too tense. Even if Prince Leon has betrayed the Empire, he’s still our family. He wouldn’t attack us so easily.”
“Exactly! Do you really think our brother would go so far as to kill us, just because he’s betrayed the Empire?”
“N-no, of course not, Your Highness!”
“Ha… it’s such a hassle to send all of us just to capture one person.”
“Hey! Half-sibling! If you’re upset, why don’t you get off?”
“As if you wouldn’t grab me right away if I did…”
Currently, the Empire’s elite soldiers, each equivalent to at least a B-rank Hunter, were being led by three royals.
“Ahh~. Even in the early morning, the outside world is beautiful.”
Leon’s younger sister, the fourth child of the Empire, Cria.
“I don’t see what’s so great about being out here…”
The ninth child of the Empire, Kartina, Cria’s younger sister.
‘Damn it… I’m busy taking care of Mom, but they want me to clean up after their mess…’
And finally, the tenth child of the Empire, Han Lightree, the first son of Riverine, the former puppet master of the Monster Group.
These forces, powerful enough to conquer any developed nation before humanity’s downfall, were now moving to capture just one person.
Dragged into this mission against his will, Lightree grumbled incessantly, but his face grew solemn after a moment.
“Everyone, stop!”
“Huh? What?!”
“Hey, half-sibling… Are you really going?”
“N-no! Lightree, without you, how could we possibly capture Brother Leon?”
“Damn it, that’s not the point! Something massive is heading our way—something other than Prince Leon!”
“Huh…?”
“Something’s coming… our way?”
It was the early morning.
Even the monsters that normally ran rampant outside the walls were asleep at this hour.
In this tranquil time, if something or someone were approaching, they would’ve heard it by now.
“I don’t hear anything…”
“Our mother is Empress Ria, so we have some monster blood in us. We can see just as well at night as during the day.”
“Right! So if even we can’t see anything, there’s nothing there! Are you just making excuses because you don’t want to go?”
“Hey, you two, shut up. I’m trying to figure this out.”
“Shut up?!”
“That’s so rude! How dare you talk like that? You were born after us, remember?!”
As Kartina yelled noisily next to Lightree, he quietly closed his eyes in concentration.
But when he opened his eyes again—
“It’s up there!”
“Yeah, it seems so!”
Cria finally noticed, too, as she looked up at the night sky lit by moonlight.
There, standing atop
a half-collapsed skyscraper, was a figure watching the Empire’s forces as they approached the time machine.
“Is that… a human?”
“A human?! Like the ones we read about in books?”
“Wait, hold on… that face looks familiar…”
The figure with blood-red eyes and a black cloak was leaping toward them.
“No way, is that Katarina?!”
“Katarina… the one in the textbooks, the human His Majesty killed himself?”
“Damn it, looks like Prince Leon’s teamed up with something impossible.”
“Brother, are you insane?!”
In an instant, the three children of Han Shin-woo watched in shock as Katarina, the leader of the Monster Group, descended toward Lightree.
She drew her sword and clashed with his rising uppercut.
Clang!
The impact was overwhelming.
Although Katarina hadn’t come to kill, she was still surprised that she was knocked back into the air.
And in that brief moment, on the battlefield, a second’s hesitation could decide life or death.
“Kartina!”
“I know, Sister Cria!”
The two daughters of Ria quickly reacted, throwing chains toward each other, binding Katarina tightly.
Satisfied that their opponent couldn’t escape—
“Tear her apart.”
“Got it.”
Rip.
They tore Katarina clean in two.
At the same time—
‘Hmm~ So this is what it feels like. Interesting. Now, let’s ‘reset’ this.’
Time rewound to a few moments earlier.