I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 63

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 63
* * *
Her breath caught in her throat.
Olivia had spent all this time hoping she would finally understand what the Lux Knight Brigade—what Aiden—was doing.
Because soon enough, it would become her task as well.
But this was too horrible.
A coppery stench assailed her nostrils. Olivia’s eyes took in the full landscape of the Stone Chamber before her.
“Olivia?”
“Sir. Right now, what is that, exactly…?”
“It seems certain this was where they conducted their work.”
Aiden’s face twisted with revulsion, yet he showed no further surprise. He examined the stone he’d taken from the mercenaries and transmitted a message outside.
“Interior secured. No additional personnel. Confirmed missing livestock on premises.”
-Good work. We’re suppressing the outer areas smoothly, so focus on gathering as much information as you can on your end.
“We’ll need personnel to collect the livestock. Send reserve forces inside.”
He spoke flatly. Only Olivia seemed shaken by this situation.
Aiden had already warned her once. What lay inside would be far more terrible than she imagined.
Olivia had steeled herself after hearing his warning, but…
“How… how could anyone do such a thing?”
Missing livestock? They’d found them, certainly. The problem was their condition—far from intact.
The blood-soaked Stone Chamber was more brutal, more grotesque than anything Olivia had ever witnessed.
Animals with torn flesh still hanging from their mouths and vacant eyes, and others that appeared ‘unharmed’ at first glance but moved with obsessive, compulsive repetition—the chamber was filled with them.
Aiden murmured to Olivia, who stood frozen in place.
“Olivia. Humans are the cruelest beings of all.”
“But… how is something like this even possible? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It could have been a brainwashing-type power. Look at this.”
Aiden approached and held the Red Stone up before Olivia’s eyes. Now she could see clearly what the mercenaries had been carrying.
“You should sense something.”
“…This is…”
“An Authority actually embedded in stone.”
Aiden let out a short, hollow laugh.
A stone containing an Authority. In other words, a stone that could function similarly to a Guardian Stone.
Olivia had seen Guardian Stones kept in the repository as a child. She pressed her lips together briefly before speaking.
“It’s not a Guardian Stone.”
“But it’s similar enough. Considering that what’s embedded here is genuine power.”
A Guardian Stone seals an Authority within it. It holds the power of the Demon King, making it not fundamentally different from a Magic Stone, but it differs in that the Authority it contains is far more potent and concentrated.
Moreover, thanks to the ancient covenant, direct descendants of the Kishier Family could even borrow the Authority of the Guardian Stone. Which meant, just as those mercenaries had…
“But, sir.”
“What is it? Something strange?”
Authorities can only be used by the Guardian Family, and if this is the Authority of Brainwashing… that belongs to the Kishier Family.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you saying… that my family’s power is connected to this?”
The Authority of Brainwashing. One of the five Authorities the Demon King once possessed—and the one humans feared most.
The Kishier Family was shunned because of that power.
Knowing this full well, Aiden was now speaking of brainwashing. Olivia’s eyes widened.
Then Aiden snapped his fingers lightly.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. I said it was similar to brainwashing, not that it was brainwashing itself.”
“But it’s the same type of power!”
“Which is why we need to confirm what this power actually is.”
At that moment, soldiers flooded in to collect the livestock.
They too grimaced at the sight, retching helplessly as they entered. Aiden quickly concealed the stone in his palm and gave his orders.
“Treat the living ones and return them to their owners. Collect the dead and bring them to the brigade headquarters.”
“Yes, sir!”
The small Stone Chamber quickly filled with people and noise. The soldiers grunted and hauled the livestock outside. Aiden meanwhile shoved the unconscious mercenaries into a corner, then struck them awake.
Before long, one of them regained consciousness. The moment he saw what lay before him, he recoiled in terror, scrambling backward.
Of course it was futile. There was only a wall behind him.
“You—who are you? What’s happening here—”
“Now I’m going to ask you some questions. You answer honestly, or you die.”
“You’re—you’re that outsider from yesterday? I knew something was off about you, cough—!”
“Why so much needless talk? Seems you still don’t grasp the situation.”
A chill crept into Aiden’s expression. He dragged a chair from the corner and set it firmly before the mercenary.
“Now. I’m going to ask questions. Listen carefully.”
“You think I’ll answer? Spit. You’re just—”
In that instant, Aiden’s arm moved like lightning. Olivia’s breath caught in sync with his motion.
But the next moment, Olivia’s world went black. Aiden had covered her eyes with his hand.
Olivia instinctively grabbed his arm, but Aiden didn’t budge.
So Olivia had to judge everything by sound alone. A moment later, she heard something lodge with a sharp crack into a hard wall.
Crack!
“Aaahhh! M-monster!”
“Me? Or you?”
Olivia’s grip on his arm tightened.
If I were just a fellow Knight, he wouldn’t act this way.
That thought crossed her mind, and she clenched her teeth.
Olivia understood why Aiden was doing this. She was his precious “little sister.”
But Olivia didn’t want that kind of relationship. She didn’t want to be someone protected in his shadow—she wanted to be someone standing beside him.
So Olivia forced his arm away.
The arm that felt as though it would shield her from everything slowly lowered as it yielded to her push.
“Ah.”
Blood trickled down the mercenary’s cheek.
Olivia followed the crimson stream flowing from the wound. At the end of her gaze stood the man who’d made it.
He regarded Olivia, who had wrenched his arm away, with a dry, parched stare.
Brief confusion flickered in his eyes. But it faded quickly.
“Ah, what a shame. Another half-span deeper and it would’ve gone clean through.”
Aiden scattered the disturbance away in an instant, immersing himself in the moment.
He retrieved the short dagger he’d thrown at the mercenary, as if to prove every word he’d spoken was sincere.
The movement was unhurried and deliberate.
As if this space were entirely separate from the bustling activity behind them where soldiers dragged livestock outside, Aiden commanded the atmosphere perfectly and smiled as he spoke.
“That stone you were carrying. What have you been doing with it all this time?”
Her head throbbed. A stone containing an Authority and the power of ‘brainwashing.’ What in the name of all that made sense was happening here? Olivia closed her eyes and opened them again, stepping closer toward the man.
* * *
The man, a member of the Red Stone mercenary company, stared blankly at the sharp-eyed man now sitting before him.
“What in hell have you done?”
At that question, the man’s thoughts naturally drifted to the beginning of it all.
The desire to rule over others is instinct. Thus the hunger for dominion is no more than humanity’s natural nature.
Before power that could satisfy such hunger, who could remain unmoved?
“H-hey, brother. Is it really okay to do this?”
“Damn it… just do what you’re told for now. For now.”
At first, they all acted reluctant. Even they possessed shallow mercy, human feeling.
But such mercy proved powerless before the tempting bait dangled before them.
“Would you believe it? A man just took a cow right before our eyes without so much as a whimper. He practically handed it over himself!”
“He doesn’t even remember. Is this power… is it really possible for such a thing to exist?”
“With just this power… we could have more than an Emperor’s authority. Really.”
A power given by the Priest. With it, there was nothing they couldn’t do. They used the people of Rochen Village to gain more power, and in the process, their humanity eroded swiftly away.
With this ‘power,’ they could accomplish anything. They could amass wealth without resistance, move people to achieve what they desired.
The feeling of having no rival. It was a freedom they experienced for the first time in their lives.

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