I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 139
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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 139
[I suspected he might have a constitution resistant to medicine, but I never imagined he’d be immune to poison as well.]
Urs stroked his chin with an air of difficulty. Luize, standing beside him, looked utterly exhausted.
“I always knew this would happen eventually…”
A bizarre mist resembling thick black rope or tentacles undulated in towering waves.
Already, both inside and outside Urs’s Cabin bore countless marks as if scraped by rope—magnificent scars left when Luize barely dragged the creature back as it desperately tried to force its way into the Dimensional Rift.
The metallic, briny stench emanating from the black mist made my nose sting unbearably. The creature’s true form possessed a metallic nature. Even though the fusion with the Lost Soul had severed, that indescribable form seemed irreparable.
[Or perhaps he simply won’t?]
Urs began grinding medicinal herbs that smelled of peppermint.
[He drank poisonous mushroom broth by the bucketful and still moves like that…. Well, considering this body once served “The End”—that which is called evil itself—immunity to poison is only natural.]
“Is the existence of ‘The End’… or rather, ‘Broken Chaos’… known in this place as well?”
[How could a lawless wanderer who roams the Cosmos have bypassed only Alfheim?]
“Ah, that’s a fair point.”
[Exactly. Chaos itself—present everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. There’s no world that doesn’t know such a thing exists. Though no one truly understands its nature.]
Urs shrugged as if he’d heard something obvious.
[About 150 years ago, this planet was half-destroyed as well. Meteors wreathed in flames fell from the sky, the ground shook so violently we couldn’t stand, and acrid smoke choked the atmosphere until we couldn’t breathe. The surviving Elves barely managed to retreat underground and endure.]
“The Age of the Blind Star, then.”
[That’s what your world calls it, apparently. In Alfheim, we call it the ‘Black Veil’.]
When “The End” fled the Absolute Abyss to escape The Stars and plunged the entire Cosmos into chaos, Rahnar was not the only planet to suffer devastation.
[When the ‘Black Veil’ lifted, I dimly suspected it. “The End” had found a place to hide. Now I see—that refuge is this pathetic young man.]
The fragmented black mist struggled to coalesce, constantly scattering apart. Within the haze, glimpses of the grotesque entity’s body bore countless scars where “The End” had torn away.
[Hmm, yet until yesterday he seemed to be holding up reasonably well. Why has his condition suddenly become so unstable?]
“Emotional distress. He believes he caused Rozentia’s death, and it seems he fears her regaining her memories.”
Luize exhaled a frustrated sigh. So he wants to flee—naturally, I have no intention of allowing that.
“He’s always like this. When frightened, he either buries things in lies or runs away. That’s how he cultivates disaster with his own hands.”
If there’s a gap, fill it. If there’s a misunderstanding, resolve it. If there’s nothing negative, simply confirm affection—isn’t that all? What good does evasion accomplish?
Urs nodded in agreement.
[So that’s what happened. I thought he was reflecting on how he’d damaged the Young Lady’s soul so thoroughly.]
“What? What do you mean?”
[Why would the Young Lady have lost her memories for no reason? She didn’t meet a proper death and was forcibly revived, so her soul’s fatigue reached its limit. During the process of healing her soul’s wounds, her memories scattered in all directions.]
“I… didn’t know that.”
[I was planning to scold whoever was responsible severely if I ever met them. Well…]
Luize swallowed hard internally. Looking at it now, the karmic debts were countless—frightening, even. From within the black mist, not even a clattering sound emerged anymore.
After a long while, a dull murmur finally drifted out.
“That’s my fault too.”
“Well, well.”
“I really shouldn’t exist.”
“Right then, why don’t you disappear cleanly right now?”
There was no response to Luize’s casual remark.
[Surely he’s not taking that seriously?]
It was at that moment when Luize felt a nagging unease. A faint sound of movement echoed from the staircase leading to the second floor.
Urs and Luize, along with the unstable black energy that had been churning restlessly within the cabin, all ceased their movements.
As everyone held their breath, the sound of shuffling footsteps began to reach their ears. It was her. Luize swallowed hard.
‘Has she fully awakened?’
Two full days had passed since Rosien Wynyak fell asleep. Urs had merely said “the time has come” regarding her, who showed no signs of waking.
Black mist spiraled and converged toward a single point. Golden hair gleamed brilliantly between the swirling haze. As if unwilling to show her a disheveled appearance even in death, the young man who had been neatly restored stepped out from the mist.
“Luize.”
Kalien called to Luize in a low voice.
“Go to her.”
His tension was unmistakable. Kalien lifted something he had been holding in his hand.
“And take this to her as well.”
The necklace string of Rosien Wynyak’s Planetarium hung long beneath his hand. As Kalien pushed the disc, no larger than two finger joints, upward with a sharp motion, the Planetarium’s lock began to gradually disengage. Intricate orbits centered on Rahnar emerged across the previously plain surface.
“You could open it? I heard the Planetarium won’t open unless it’s the Sorcerer themselves.”
“Because I’m an Elixir.”
The object left Kalien’s hand and flew toward Luize.
“Her strength is my strength, and it works the other way around too. Take it to Rosy. She’ll need it.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“She said something like beings like me should just disappear.”
Kalien glared at Luize with sharp eyes. But soon he sighed softly and gestured.
“Go up quickly. I can feel her condition isn’t good.”
Luize clicked his tongue and climbed the stairs. A woman with disheveled red hair was gripping the railing, her face deeply contorted in pain.
She turned to look at Luize at the sound of his presence, her hand roughly rubbing her neck. Her complexion was pale and her lips were cracked.
“Sister, are you alright?”
“….”
“They said you were dreaming, so we didn’t wake you and just let you rest. How’s your body? Do you remember anything?”
Rozentia’s answer came only much later.
“…Of all the dreams I’ve ever had….”
She rasped out the words with a rough, breaking voice.
“That was the worst scene.”
* * *
“Tell me how you got him out of this place.”
Though I had steeled myself and willingly surrendered to the Transcendents, reality proved far harsher than I had anticipated.
Captured at Casanos Harbor, I had been confined in some inn for several days before being dragged back down to Riltear Island. And now I was cast into the prison dungeon where Karga had been held.
“The Princess isn’t a Transcendent, so no matter how you dispelled the barrier, how in the world did you manage to get Karga out of here?”
A sharp pain spread through my elbow and back where I had struck the stone floor hard. I steadied my breathing and glanced around the empty dungeon.
‘He escaped safely, then.’
For some reason, the momentum of the Transcendents toward me felt unusually intense.
The Transcendent Family Heads stood before the prison door with piercing eyes.
Among the enraged Transcendents, there was neither a representative from Abuye to defend me, nor even the Wynack Family Head who had tacitly approved my actions.
It turned out that Father had, to some extent, abandoned me the moment he learned of my transgression. On the very day I left the Royal Palace, he had sent word to the Transcendent Families, confessing everything.
I repeated the same words consistently.
“I don’t know. I only opened the door here!”
The interrogation proceeded exactly as I had anticipated. My movements over the past year and a half were laid bare piece by piece, and my charges accumulated one by one.
“Then why did you open the detention facility’s door, Princess? For what purpose?”
“Because I didn’t want to get married.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“If I told you the real reason, would you show me leniency? You wouldn’t.”
Of course, such a defiant attitude hardly helped in determining my sentence.
It didn’t take long for me to realize the Transcendents couldn’t extract Karga’s whereabouts from me. My trial opened three days after being dragged down to Riltear.
“The crime of recklessly entering a place strictly forbidden by international law, the crime of aiding the escape of an experimental subject detained in the Riltear Detention Facility. And thereby sowing the seeds of discord in Rahnar once again.”
I glanced nervously around. I wished everything would end quickly. The deep sea surrounding the underwater island remained eerily silent.
‘He must have completely returned to land, right?’
If he were to appear here during the trial, it would be absolutely catastrophic.
“Come with me.”
If only he hadn’t said those words, I wouldn’t be worrying like this.
The cold verdict continued relentlessly.
“And even now, the crime of showing not a shred of remorse for your actions.”
A sense of déjà vu kept scratching at the back of my neck. A chill ran down my spine.
I barely heard the frigid words of judgment falling upon me.
‘No, don’t come!’
Something approaches from beyond the dark blue waters. Something, rapidly, without hesitation….
“We judge that all these crimes cannot be pardoned by anything other than death.”
‘If you come now, what will become of me!’
“I hereby sentence Rozentia Renos to death.”
The cold verdict fell like a blade splitting my skull.
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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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