I Became the Youngest Sister-in-law of the Ruined Reverse Harem’s Male Leads - Chapter 207

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

#. 02

Edgar, deep in peaceful sleep, had a dream.

Unlike his sweet reality, Edgar’s reality in the dream was hell.

His brother Marius, who had started a war driven mad by love, Leopold who chose death when the love potion was neutralized just like Marius. And the blood-thirsty mage Francois.

Edgar, only a fifteen-year-old boy, could neither stop them nor help them.

“Because your sister broke the power of the love potion…!”

The first day he went to find the girl trapped in the tower, Edgar shouted while throwing Leopold’s suicide note at her.

The next day he asked the girl.

“How does it feel to read the suicide note?”

All he could do was hate someone and pour out his resentment, filled with indignation over the ruined reality, but that was too pathetic a choice.

He knew it himself. That he was doing something so childish.

But Edgar felt like his chest would burst and kill him if he didn’t do this.

It was Leopold, not the unpredictable Marius who could go anywhere.

Leopold Baltrahen, who seemed like he would always be in one place, who showed him where to go and gave stability just by existing, solid like the ground where one could put down roots.

That brother had chosen death himself. Edgar found this fact so absurd he couldn’t bear it.

“…How does it feel to see me as a prisoner?”

When he met the eyes of the girl who answered his question with a question.

And the moment he was left speechless by the girl’s question.

Edgar had no choice but to lower his head in shame.

The frightened girl was much smaller than Edgar.

Her thin shoulders, her clearly sickly complexion, her expression soaked in sadness told him exactly the depth of misfortune that had befallen the girl.

Just as Edgar had no involvement in all this tragedy happening, the girl had done nothing wrong either.

He still hated the girl, but he knew she was the biggest victim of this situation.

After that day, Edgar began going in and out of the tower, avoiding the mage’s eyes, without even knowing why.

“Did you come to say mean things again?”

“No.”

At first, even he didn’t know the reason. He just felt like he had to see the girl who was more unfortunate than himself.

So he looked at the girl in a daze from the death of his brother who had been like a father.

Her face was equally pale. She had no color at all, to the point where it wouldn’t be strange if she died at any moment.

What a miserable sight. And yet I still hate you.

Edgar, who had returned to the Imperial Palace, went to find the girl again the next day.

Looking again, the shadow of death cast over her face was quite thick.

I hate you because you’re miserable. Because you make it impossible to hate you completely.

Edgar went to find the girl again with unchanged thoughts.

“Ugh…”

The girl was groaning in pain with a fever. Yet the mage didn’t bring her a single medicine.

He must have been too busy enduring his own deteriorating sanity to pay attention.

Edgar, looking down at her face covered in cold sweat, heard a call flowing out between her dry, cracked lips.

“Protagonist’s Older Brother…”

Watching anxiously as she called for family while unconscious, he suddenly realized something strange.

Usually people call for their mother, but this child didn’t do that.

Edgar, who had sent medicine through a maid, looked into the girl’s background.

Her parents had died early and she had been raised by her siblings.

Edgar was the same. His only family were his brothers, so he was suffering more than anyone from Leopold’s death.

So the next day, when he saw the girl still suffering from a low fever despite taking medicine, he thought for the first time.

Pitiful. A little, just a little pitiful.

Then he saw the girl clearly. She had lost Edith because of Leopold, was captured as a prisoner in a distant foreign country and confined alone in a prison without bars, and was younger and more fragile than Edgar.

‘Fragile… indeed.’

Yes. She was too fragile. Heartbreakingly so.

“This is medicine to boost your body’s strength. It would be troublesome if you died, so take it and endure.”

As the girl began to seem pitiful, his hatred also faded as time passed.

One day, two days, three days, four days… time flowed endlessly.

During this time, the mage still came to threaten the girl.

“Use your ability! Draw out a more proper ability!”

“I, I, I can’t do it.”

“You can do it. Stop mocking me and shut up, Lazarus! Ah, I wasn’t talking to you. This is to Lazarus-“

“Sob. P-please send me home.”

On the day when resentment disappeared and pity grew like new flesh, Edgar felt deep sadness.

The girl was pitiful, and it was heartbreaking beyond his powerlessness. And he was sorry. So very sorry.

His brothers’ wrongs, the Empire’s sins, even the mage’s madness.

“What’s the reason you come every day?”

“Just…”

To watch over you.

Maybe because I’m sorry. You might be lonely… maybe because I’m worried…

Edgar, who swallowed countless words, didn’t know what to do and just repeated watching the girl like a fool and then leaving.

Even so, he unfailingly went to find the girl the next day. When such days repeated, the girl asked.

“Why did you come today?”

“…I don’t know either.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Edgar checked her pale complexion and asked carefully.

“Where does it hurt?”

“I’ve always been in pain.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know either.”

That was the end of their conversation that day.

When he returned to the palace, he recalled her thin shoulders with protruding bones.

Edgar hurriedly sought out a chef from Trobancha.

“I heard you couldn’t eat, so I prepared this.”

“This is…”

“They say this is the kind of food they eat in Trobancha?”

“There’s no poison in it, right?”

“No.”

Edgar ate a few bites of the food in front of the girl to prove it was safe.

The girl must have been truly unwell, as she couldn’t even eat a few bites of her homeland’s food before vomiting. Edgar prepared digestive medicine starting the next day.

Even when Edgar brought food and prepared warm blankets and shoes, her wariness didn’t soften.

“What’s that in your chest?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hand it over.”

“What are you saying is there?”

Edgar searched her pockets directly. The girl struggled and screamed, but she was no match for him.

From deep in her pocket came a sharp piece of glass.

Edgar felt devastated as he took the glass and put it in his own pocket.

“Were you thinking of hurting me? Do you think you could?”

“You could hurt me too.”

“If I had intended to hurt you, I would have done it already.”

“Then what? Why do you keep coming to see me? You must have a purpose.”

Purpose.

Perhaps the purpose of my coming to find you is to see that pale face.

Because I’m the only one who can see you, hurt and suffering because of adults, from a similar eye level.

“I don’t know. Such things.”

Edgar spoke while looking at the cooling food.

“Hurry up and eat. Since it’s food from your homeland, it should be better than the food here.”

“What’s your scheme?”

Since she asked about schemes, Edgar introduced himself.

“I’m Edgar. Edgar Runtvolleney.”

The girl kept her mouth tightly shut until Edgar left.

Edgar visited the girl the next day, and the day after that, every day.

Some days he brought books, some days newspapers. Other days he brought fresh fruit and quill pens.

Even so, her wariness showed no signs of disappearing. Edgar didn’t stop and continued visiting the prison with gifts for the girl.

“You seemed to need a comb. Your hair keeps getting tangled and you seem to be struggling…”

“I don’t need it.”

Though she had beautiful curly hair, perhaps due to the circumstances, the girl’s hair often got tangled.

The girl roughly accepted Edgar’s gift.

But she didn’t comb her hair in front of him. There was no word of thanks either.

She just shoved it into the drawer.

But from then on, her wariness disappeared. After she became convinced that Edgar wouldn’t harm her, she sometimes said mean things depending on her mood.

“Instead of this food, go find my older brother and sisters who I don’t know if they’re alive or dead. Oh, and for reference, our Edith lost her life because of your dead brother, so there’s no need to look for her.”

“…”

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“…”

Edgar once again reflected on his actions that day when he had lashed out in anguish over Leopold’s death.

There weren’t many days when the girl was mean to Edgar.

The girl was mostly cowering in fear of her situation, and rarely she would sob alone, then quickly compose her face when she heard Edgar’s footsteps approaching.

At such times, Edgar felt a subtle guilt and a desire to shake off that guilt.

The mage was going mad day by day, and Marius was the same.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————