I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 137

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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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Chapter 137
The two who had gone to deliver medicinal herbs to the Lower Village returned to Urs’s Cabin only after half a day had passed.
Rosien slept soundly in the arms of the one who held her.
Kalien laid her down on his bed, then without lingering in that space any longer, abruptly retreated into the adjacent room. No sound of movement emanated from within for a considerable time.
When Luize finally burst through the door, he discovered Kalien curled up alone on the bed, his form hunched and small.
“Why are you so gloomy again?”
A familiar situation. Luize frowned with displeasure.
“Did Sister reject you?”
“…”
“So she doesn’t love you anymore? That’s good news, at least.”
“…”
“Or are you ill? Is something wrong with your body?”
Luize tapped his shoulder repeatedly before losing his patience entirely.
“Why do you keep doing this? Stop crying and speak, you fool!”
Even when Luize pressed a handkerchief into his hand, Kalien made no move to wipe his tear-streaked face. Only after a long while did he murmur in a voice thick with emotion.
“I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what? That Sister will come to hate you?”
The round golden head shook from side to side.
“Then what is it?”
“Rozentia loves me.”
Luize’s expression immediately turned sour.
“So you’re crying tears of joy? Moved to tears? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Something like that…”
“How pathetic.”
Luize’s eyebrows twitched relentlessly, as though he might burst into curses at any moment. Kalien, reading that transparent disdain, couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh.
Of course, tears were not falling merely for the “pathetic” reason Luize had articulated.
It was hardly strange that Rosien or Rosien loved Kalien. The girl who had grown up at his side since childhood undoubtedly loved him.
He had made it so.
Had he not deliberately feigned weakness and charm, employing every despicable tactic to brainwash her into loving him?
But Rozentia loving Karga was an entirely different matter.
He despised the wretched creature he had been in those days. Even after being reborn through the power of the Lost Soul, the days in the detention camp that refused to fade were the most shameful of his long existence.
Yet here was a woman claiming to have loved him in that wretched time.
It was both profoundly joyful and terrifying.
Kalien, who had been staring blankly into empty space, suddenly came to his senses.
“I want to leave, Luize.”
“Why?”
“Right now, I’m so incredibly happy. I want to take this feeling with me as it is.”
“If you’re not trying to brag, then speak plainly.”
“…Now that I think about it, there’s so much I don’t know about Rozentia. Including one very important fact.”
“…?”
“I don’t know what happened to her after she opened the prison doors and left. Or rather, I don’t even know why she suddenly burst through them as if something was chasing her. The truth is, I know very little about Rozentia.”
“…And?”
“I know she didn’t regret stepping onto the Execution Platform. But could she truly have harbored no resentment toward me? No, logically speaking, that’s impossible. If she dreams of the day she died because of me, she won’t be able to care for me the way she does now. So what am I supposed to do….”
Kalien, who had been rambling incoherently for some time, suddenly fell silent. He abruptly rose to his feet and began pacing frantically around the room.
“What do I do? The Elixir’s effects are gradually recovering. Should I leave before it fully returns? Luize, is Manyeon’s portal we came through still active?”
“Barely. But you’re really going back to Rahnar? Right now?”
“Yes. Rozentia is dreaming right now. I have to leave before she wakes up, before she learns everything. If Rozentia looks at me with resentment, then I….”
Kalien stared down at his fist, which had clenched without him realizing it. His parted red lips slowly pressed together.
Standing motionless like a plaster statue for a moment, he very slowly curved one corner of his mouth upward.
“I might truly want to end everything, Luize.”
Luize finally noticed that vacant, unfocused gleam in his eyes, and his entire body erupted in chills.
This was beyond the limit. The accumulated spiritual exhaustion had finally crossed the threshold into critical territory.
The moment his judgment crystallized, Luize immediately seized Kalien by the collar as he tried to dash toward the door.
* * *
‘I’ve fallen asleep again.’
Just moments ago, I seemed to be on Lilac Hill, yet as always, I found myself within a dream.
I stood once more in the office I had seen in my previous dream. Excitement burned through my chest like wildfire.
Beyond the desk sat my Father, his face twisted in fury.
“You heard me clearly, Rozentia.”
The voice that crashed down upon me was more chilling than any blade.
“Once Riltear is destroyed, nothing will remain but the ruins of the prison. An ordinary human like you won’t even be able to approach it. So never set foot near that sea again.”
“You intend to… destroy Riltear?”
“It seems Father’s words went in one ear and out the other.”
My Father glared at me, struggling to suppress his rage.
Only then did I understand the identity of the sharp emotion that was mercilessly scorching my heart. It was anger.
“Why did the Transcendent Families suddenly make such a decision? I thought they had left Riltear abandoned all this time.”
“I requested it of Wynack. Having him remain there seemed far too dangerous.”
The answer deviated not an inch from my worst imaginings. That cold pronouncement felt as though my body was being split in two from head to toe.
“Why….”
“It’s better to eliminate the source before the tail is stepped on.”
“The source?”
“Don’t play dumb!”
“If you say I’m too foolish and push me with ‘you know your own sins,’ I’ll just deny it more. Speak plainly. What exactly did you whisper into the ears of the Transcendents!”
Finally, my own fury erupted. I had matched his fire.
My Father, having lost his reason, hurled his pen and slammed his fist against the desk as he stood.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been going back and forth to the Seabed to meet Karga? You’re foolish and hopeless. You’re truly cursing Abuye to ruin!”
So I was caught after all. I bit the inside of my lip until it bled.
“Because you keep going there, we have to eliminate it! If word reaches the ears of the Transcendent Families that you’re visiting him, you and Abuye are both finished! It’s obvious that Wynack’s standing will be shaken!”
“I didn’t do anything there!”
I cried out as if screaming.
“I didn’t conspire with him either. I merely spoke with him for a few hours once or twice a month. Even then, I was the only one talking, and he said nothing to me at all….”
“That’s precisely the problem!”
Father’s voice erupted like thunder. His pallid face flushed crimson in an instant, veins bulging at his neck.
“You provided information about the world to a prisoner who should have been locked away in that detention camp forever, never meeting another soul!”
“….”
“Whether you babbled about the breakfast menu you ate today, hinted at Wynyak’s circumstances, or conveyed the state of the Continent—none of that matters. What’s important is that you went to him and spoke with him directly, you pathetic creature!”
“Why? Do you think I breathed hope into him to live?”
Was that a crime? That Karga was innocent was an open secret the entire world knew. For the first time in ages, fury surged to the very crown of my head.
If being a companion to an innocent man was a crime, then fine—I could die a thousand times over. If that was sin!
“That’s what the Transcendents fear most, isn’t it? Him recovering his humanity again!”
“Silence!”
“You’re trembling in terror that Karga might harbor vengeance. That’s why you buried him in the Deep Sea where no light reaches, cutting off all human contact. So he’d waste away alone in that darkness!”
“He was never human to begin with, Rozentia!”
Father struck his chest twice in exasperation.
“They say he doesn’t die. He was never human in the first place. They said even if his body were carved into pieces smaller than fingernails, he would still live. The personality of Karga, who was once the Wynack Family Head, died the moment the experiments began. In fact, Raylo even brought him back once using the Revival Crystal. But that experiment was something Karga himself consented to!”
“He didn’t know what consequences would follow and fell for the Transcendents’ manipulation. Do you know what we call that, Father? Being deceived!”
“Did he tell you all this?”
Now it was my turn to want to strike my chest. I stood facing an immense, insurmountable wall with no end in sight.

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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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