I Became A Squirrel Seeking For The Villain Chapter 117

After the Medes family meeting, Yohan boarded a carriage to the Duke of Hyrad’s residence, escorted by Yurika.

 

Duke Medes, Oscar’s awakening was a shock to him as well.

 

But even more shocking was the gratitude he expressed afterward.

 

Not only did Oscar behave as though he truly acknowledged Yohan as family, but he also offered sincere advice.

 

Telling him to live for about a month without using magic was a suggestion that carried the weight of long experience.

 

Yohan had never before experienced an adult in his family giving him such advice.

 

Maybe that’s why the strangely warm atmosphere of that living room lingered in his mind.

 

In fact, he didn’t expect Oscar to be so kind to him.

 

It was because Oscar had shown so much hostility towards Yohan when he was a tiger.

 

Yohan had even thought it wouldn’t be strange if Oscar cursed him out and threw him out on the spot.

 

Well, it wasn’t as though Yohan alone had been disliked—Roymond was also disliked by Oscar—so Yohan bore no particular grudge over it.

 

After all, if there were a man shamelessly hovering around the daughter of someone he loved, Yohan suspected he wouldn’t have wanted to let that man live either.

 

After meeting Oscar face-to-face, Yohan found himself overwhelmed by a strange emotion.

 

His world was all about Yurika, but it felt like Yurika already had a perfect world.

 

And within that world, Yohan felt like nothing more than a foreign object.

 

Just like when he was a child growing up between Tezen and Ella.

 

“Your father won’t even worry about you.”

 

Throughout his childhood, Ella had told him that again and again.

 

“That’s because to the Hyrads, children are nothing more than tools to carry on power. That’s why your father rushed into marrying me and having Tezen—he thought he’d be dragged off to war any moment.”

 

Every time that happened, the boy Yohan’s eyes would turn pitch black.

 

Ella was now locked in the underground prison, she could no longer poison him with her words.

 

But his childhood had been different.

 

The things she had said in pain and bitterness were carved deep into his bones, still painfully vivid.

 

“In any case, having two children increases the odds of producing a decent wizard. That’s the only thing that matters to Hyrad. Ever since I sent a letter saying you were sickly and lacked magical aptitude, your father doesn’t even ask about you anymore.”

 

When Yohan first heard about the history of the Medes, he was a little shocked.

 

They kicked out Baron Artae, claiming they couldn’t use their descendants.

 

If it were Hyrad, they would have stepped forward and pushed their own children away.

 

And yet Medes had gone even further—researching ways to suppress magical power so they could live as ordinary humans, eventually passing that life on to their descendants.

 

It was a choice made not for the family’s power, but genuinely for their children’s happiness.

 

Because Hyrad had walked the exact opposite path—and because Yohan had known only that kind of household—it felt all the more unfamiliar.

 

He had always wondered why Yurika was so devoted to her family.

 

In the end, the Medes family lost her.

 

But now, he thought he understood, at least a little.

 

Even though it was just their first time meeting, Yohan could see Oscar’s unconditional love for his daughters.

 

Is that natural for Medes? Is that kind of familial love passed down through blood?

 

Though the family was often judged weaker than Hyrad in many ways, Yohan found himself wishing that, if he were ever to build a family, it would look like that.

 

“You won’t be able to have a normal family either. If you love someone, even more so. You know what happened to your mother, don’t you?”

 

Every time Yohan visited the underground prison, Ella’s words followed him like a curse, clinging darkly to his heart.

 

But while he sat in the living room, holding his place as a member of House Medes, not one of those gloomy words had crossed his mind.

 

Yurika, who remembered him saying, ‘Being a wizard feels like a curse,’ earnestly tried to help him.

 

Oscar, who sincerely worried about him and offered advice.

 

He was simply too grateful for both of them.

 

Of course, now and then he still caught glimpses of the tiger’s gaze that seemed to say, “I can’t give my daughter to a vicious wizard like you.”

 

And then—

 

The carriage suddenly came to a halt.

 

Yohan frowned slightly when a servant cautiously knocked on the door.

 

“Your Highness.”

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“A child suddenly handed this note to us and disappeared… We thought you should see it yourself.”

 

Yohan took a small note from the servant.

 

[Lady Yurika will be loved by many people.]

 

In some ways, it was nothing special.

 

So trivial that even if they chased the child down and investigated the sender, it wouldn’t be worth publicizing.

 

But Yohan had a vague idea who had sent this note.

 

Ribena, having failed to achieve her goal during the hunting competition, must have set a trap.

 

The hidden meaning behind the note was likely this:

 

“But, Your Grace, you dislike that fact, don’t you? I know that all too well.”

 

Yohan handed the note back to the servant and gave a low command.

 

“Deliver this note to Lady Yurika Medes. Explain the situation.”

 

Even if what Rivena said was true, he had no intention of being swayed by it.

 

“Add my opinion—that this is likely connected to the next trap.”

 

Though it was, in a way, no different from revealing the ugliness of his own inner thoughts to the woman he loved, Yohan’s voice did not waver.

 

His mind was already sinking into speculation—trying to deduce the next trap Rivena and Theodore would prepare.

 

One thing was certain.

 

Yohan Hyrad was included in the trap Rivena was digging to harm Yurika Medes.

 

To be precise, it included Yohan Hyrad, a wicked wizard who wanted Yurika more desperately than anyone else and wanted to monopolize her.

 

* * *

 

Rumors of the return of the missing Duke of Medes swept the capital.

 

The details were unclear, but it was said that once he recovered his strength, he would immediately go to pay his respects to the Emperor.

 

Rivena also heard the rumor in a secret underground laboratory.

 

“Damn it….”

 

Of course, it was very bad news for her.

 

Duke of Medes, Oscar Medes, was a stark contrast to Mariel.

 

Clever and quick-thinking, his return to the Medes family was a significant burden.

 

Oscar would have already heard everything that had happened within the family. And it was obvious that his fierce pursuit would soon be directed at Rivena.

 

“If Oscar Medes wakes up, there’s no chance of winning.….”

 

Without Patre and even without the temple to support her, she felt like she was being driven around.

 

She stared at the laboratory with a devastated expression.

 

Now, the only thing she could place her hopes on was the success of this experiment.

 

It was no longer possible to conduct further experiments with Oscar’s blood.

 

“There’s nothing I can do…”

 

It was a somewhat imperfect experiment and she wasn’t even sure, but she had no choice now.

 

“I can only hope it works well….”

 

Rivena was a brilliant genius, but manipulating the variable known as time was no easy task. Never before had she faced an experiment whose results she was so uncertain about.

 

Oscar’s appearance made her already feeling anxious, anxious.

 

Rivena slowly fiddled with her experimental equipment.

 

‘There’s no time left to hesitate. If I don’t end this somehow, this time, I’ll be the one who gets caught. Even if there are parts of my experiment that don’t sit right… I have no choice but to take the gamble.’

 

Rivena muttered under her breath.

 

“Yurika Medes.”

 

The culprit who made all this so tangled.

 

“Let’s end this once and for all. Whether it’s you or me.”

 

In the end, what she had planned would become the final duel.

 

And that plan was already proceeding smoothly.

 

By Theodore, who has no doubt that Rivena’s experiment is perfect.

 

* * *

 

There was one other person who wasn’t too happy about the official announcement of Duke Medes’s survival.

 

It was the emperor.

 

Until now, he had paid little attention to House Medes. Its head, Mariel, was gentle and rarely asserted herself.

 

Of course, as one of the great noble houses, it was always on his radar—but after Roymond and Mariel became engaged, he had been fairly reassured.

 

Since it would be difficult for a member of the imperial family to continue acting as the head of a great family, he assumed that with a little pressure, the position would pass to the second daughter, Yurika.

 

Yurika was an adopted daughter. Without the legitimacy of the Medes, she could not properly lead the family.

 

The loss of power of the Medes, one of the high-ranking noble families, meant that the imperial power would soon be strengthened.

 

So he was only concerned about the Duke of Hyrad, and then all of a sudden Oscar Medes returned.

 

At a time when people were finally beginning to forget about the war, no less.

 

While the Emperor was delaying his audience with the Duke of Medes day after day, Theodore’s ban was soon lifted.

 

Because Theodore had expressed his intention to volunteer for military service on the frontier.

 

* * *