The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family

Episode 82

Ah.

The space within Ian’s dimension warped again, leaving Thiel and Ian in an empty, pitch-black void.

Thiel sat in the darkness, lost in thought, replaying the scenes she had just witnessed.

‘What did I just see?’

It seemed like she had seen Ian’s past memories… or had it been an illusion?

‘No, it can’t be an illusion.’

This was Ian’s spatial dimension. It wouldn’t create hallucinations for someone inside without the dimension’s owner consciously willing it. And Ian was unconscious, so…

What Thiel had seen was likely not an illusion but fragments of Ian’s past.

As she carefully brushed Ian’s hair back, she blinked slowly.

‘I ended up seeing something I shouldn’t have…’

Ian is going to feel terrible about this.

Thiel made a silent vow to herself. She would never speak of what she had seen here, not to Ian or anyone else.

She couldn’t risk stirring up Ian’s painful memories when she wasn’t even sure what she had seen.

‘Let’s just forget it.’

The small girl nodded firmly to herself, gently lifting Ian’s head and resting it on her lap. She sat like that for an indeterminate amount of time.

“…Why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

Thiel blinked, her voice carrying a tinge of worry.

Ian needed to regain consciousness so they could leave this place. Yet there was no sign of him stirring.

With the darkness surrounding her, Thiel couldn’t even tell how much time had passed. Everything looked the same.

She tried illuminating the void using her ability, but the surrounding darkness was endless. It truly felt like an empty, infinite space.

‘Nothing here…’

Reluctantly, she withdrew her light. She had to conserve her strength—there was no telling how long it would take Ian to wake.

‘I’m hungry…’

Her stomach growled faintly. The confined space was starting to feel suffocating. If Ian weren’t with her, she doubted she could endure it at all.

After a long while of sitting quietly, she decided to check on Ian again, lighting her hand slightly to examine his condition.

That’s when she noticed it.

‘…What is that?’

There was something strange near Ian’s neck.

A swirling black smoke, as dark as the void itself, seemed to be gathering there, coiling around his throat like a noose.

Startled, Thiel placed her small hand on his neck.

As soon as her hand touched the smoke, it recoiled, retreating and gathering in a tight cluster as if avoiding her touch.

‘What on earth is this…?’

Before she could process it, the black mass abruptly lunged toward her.

Thiel froze in shock, unable to pull her hand away, her palm still resting on Ian’s neck.

A cold, dreadful sensation crawled up her wrist, making her face turn pale. It was the same sickening feeling she had experienced before—in the streets and from Ian himself. This was the third time now.

Biting her lip, Thiel clenched her eyes shut and cautiously used her ability.

The black mass recoiled violently at the light emanating from her hand. It writhed and twisted as though in agony before finally letting out a faint hiss and vanishing completely.

For something so ominous, it had been surprisingly easy to deal with.

Thiel opened her eyes wide, staring at Ian’s neck as she reached out to touch it again.

‘It’s… gone?’

It had disappeared so easily. If that was the case, she wondered if she should have tried using her ability back at the carriage.

Back then, the black mass had hardened whenever she touched it, but now it had scattered and burned away the moment it saw light.

Thiel blinked, surprised at how anticlimactic it all felt.

Then she noticed something else.

“…What is this?”

Carefully running her fingertips along Ian’s neck, she found a mark left behind.

It was shaped like a fish, glowing faintly. Even when Thiel extinguished her light, the mark shimmered softly in the darkness, drawing all attention to itself.

Startled, Thiel tried to rub it away, but the mark wouldn’t budge.

Instead—

“…Huh?”

The void around them began to distort, rippling unnaturally. Startled, Thiel instinctively hugged Ian tightly.

The space twisted again, flipping her perspective. For a moment, everything seemed to turn upside down, and her vision went black.

* * *

“Is there truly no way?”

Alpheus asked, his expression heavy as he looked at Wilhelm. The Emperor shook his head slowly.

“…There is no such way.”

Only the owner of the spatial dimension could open or close it.

This was why the ability to create a spatial dimension was considered the most powerful and dangerous in the empire. Once something entered the dimension, it could not be retrieved without the owner’s consent. And no one could forcibly extract anyone who had hidden themselves within it.

Alpheus, Cassius, Emperor Wilhelm, imperial knights, and the heads of Wolfgang, Iker, and Arne all gathered at the spot where Iandros had been moments earlier.

The head of Nestrian was notably absent.

“We can’t just sit idly like this,” Cassius said in an unusually calm tone.

“And what do you propose we do? We lack the means to reopen that dimension,” someone retorted.

“We must search for a way. Perhaps something in the imperial archives could provide a solution.”

Though Cassius’s voice was steady, everyone present could sense the storm of emotions he was suppressing.

No one dared to provoke either Cassius or Alpheus.

It was understandable.

After seven years of believing their daughter and granddaughter to be dead, they had lost her again in an instant.

Though everyone in the room debated how to rescue Iandros and Thiel, they all knew there was little they could realistically do.

The heads of Arne and Iker were not grieving; the children weren’t theirs. They felt sympathy as parents but also relief.

‘With the child who possessed the light ability gone…’

Asterian’s potential for greater power was now curbed. Though it was unkind to think, perhaps this was for the best.

Or so they thought—

Bang!

Instead of the deafening explosions they expected, a light popping sound echoed.

Everyone in the room, heads bowed as if they bore the weight of guilt, jerked their heads toward the source.

Thud!

From a small, rippling distortion in the air, two figures tumbled out, rolling across the floor.

Thiel was cradled in Iandros’s arms. Despite being unconscious, Ian had instinctively protected her, leaving her unscathed.

“Ow, ow…”

Thiel rubbed her head, wincing as she sat up. Shadows loomed over her, and she looked up to see a crowd of adults staring down at her.

“…”

“…”

“Uh… hello?”

She gave a small, polite bow, her voice tentative.

Cassius, his expression rigid, stepped forward with long, determined strides. Without a word, he picked up his daughter.

Thiel froze, squeezing her eyes shut in fear. She braced herself for the scolding she was sure was coming.

She couldn’t argue if her father was angry—after all, she had thrown herself into danger against her family’s wishes to save Ian.

But Cassius didn’t scold her. Instead, he held her tightly in his arms, as if he had been waiting for years to do so.

For seven long years, he had been unable to hold her. The absence had left a stone-cold weight in his heart, a fear that had threatened to crush him.

When she vanished again, that fear returned, suffocating him.

Though Cassius said nothing, his embrace conveyed his emotions clearly. Thiel felt as if she could hear his thoughts, the unspoken words flowing to her like a whisper.

The small girl carefully wrapped her arms around her father, returning the embrace.

“Father.”

“Yes, my daughter.”

“I’m sorry for worrying you. I won’t do it again.”

“That’s enough.”

Cassius said no more, and neither did Thiel.

The other adults, sensing the weight of the moment, refrained from intruding on the silent exchange.

Wilhelm stepped forward, his gaze settling on the unconscious Iandros. He bent down, gently lifting the Crown Prince.

“What are you waiting for? Move the Crown Prince,” Wilhelm barked at the imperial knights.

The knights quickly bowed and approached, carefully taking Ian from the Emperor’s arms.

Wilhelm’s eyes lingered on Ian’s face for a long moment as if committing the peaceful expression to memory.

He didn’t look away until Ian was placed into the carriage by the knights, ready to be transported back to the palace.