I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 52

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

Chapter 52
We climbed toward the Observatory together.
“Didn’t things wrap up well? You look troubled.”
“It’s nothing, just something nagging at me.”
“Is it something you can’t tell me?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
After all, I’d been planning to ask Kalien about it anyway.
If this involved the Princess of Abuye and the Wynack Family Head, wouldn’t it be most accurate to ask Kalien directly, given he was of Winyak?
“Actually, my Master told me something rather peculiar.”
So I spoke without hesitation.
“Apparently, I might be the protagonist of some prophecy that’s been passed down for about five hundred years.”
Kalien’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
A moment of silence passed before he slowly asked.
“A prophecy? What kind of prophecy?”
“That I was a princess in my past life. My brother always called me princess, remember? Turns out I might actually have been one.”
Even as I spoke, I found it amusing. I laughed with a giggle.
A princess? The image of Aselli Princess, who was likely composing love letters to Kalien in the Abuye Kingdom by now, came to mind. She was the one I’d secretly picked out as Kalien’s match.
A princess truly suited Kalien better.
“Haha…”
Kalien laughed aloud, following my lead.
But he didn’t seem to find it as hilarious as I did. His laughter sounded strained and rigid.
“Who told you that?”
“My Master.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Yes. About events from five hundred years ago, during the Age of Blind Stars.”
I explained to Kalien everything I’d heard from Regina. He listened intently, nodding occasionally as I spoke.
Meanwhile, the Observatory drew closer with each step.
I pointed at it with my index finger.
“She said there’s a portrait of that woman—the Princess of Abuye—hanging inside. Apparently, she was executed in exchange for freeing the Wynack Family Head from confinement.”
“…”
“Even on the execution platform, she never repented. That I could be her? It makes no sense…”
“…”
“Anyway, since I never knew about it until now, that portrait must have been hidden quite well. Where could it be?”
Finding the portrait didn’t take long. It hung plainly on the storage room wall at the far end of a row of telescopes.
A curtain had obscured the storage room entrance so convincingly that I’d overlooked it all this time.
Without hesitation, I drew back the drape covering the frame.
And the moment I saw the portrait revealed.
The smile faded from my lips.
“…”
It was not a frontal portrait, but one depicting a back view. A woman with luxuriant crimson curls cascading to her waist turned her back toward me.
In the distance, a gallows loomed against the backdrop.
As goosebumps threatened to erupt across my entire body, I discovered something remarkable on her left shoulder.
‘A mark….’
My spine went cold.
She bore the exact same mark on her body that I had on mine.
I unconsciously touched my left shoulder. The location and shape were identical.
Five dots arranged in a pentagonal pattern. A peculiar marking where connecting the dots diagonally revealed an inverted five-pointed star.
Could such a coincidence exist?
‘Could it be real…?’
The prophecy I had half-doubted suddenly crashed into my awareness with crushing force.
Raised in Kirges, beloved by countless stars,
One day to bring terrible chaos, and moreover, the annihilation of the Transcendent Families.
I was seized by an eerie dread.
This was a prophecy that must never be revealed to the world.
If the Transcendent Family Heads learned that I was the subject of this prophecy, they would never leave me alone. No, it wouldn’t be just the Heads who would go mad….
Would the stars themselves know of this prophecy?
The Guardian Star of Yeljewa, the “Foretelling Eye,” its precognition spans the entire cosmos. The phrase about bringing terrible chaos weighed heavily on my mind.
‘But why, why me…?’
What could I possibly do in the future to bring such terrible chaos?
Why would I….
That was the moment.
Change it.
“Wh…?”
I jolted in alarm, spinning to look around.
The strange phenomenon repeated itself.
You can change it.
What is this?
Kill her.
What exactly is….
Kill her. Now, immediately!
It was not a voice. It could not be called language. It was a tremendous resonance that struck my entire being, the very will of a transcendent existence.
My eardrums felt as though they would burst. I covered my ears with both hands and staggered.
The sword at my waist thrashed about wildly.
“K-Kalien. …brother?”
Kalien stared expressionlessly at the portrait. Despite my suffering right beside him, he did not spare me a glance.
Entranced, he gazed only at the woman in the painting.
His beautifully shaped crimson lips slowly parted.
“Rozentia.”
Rozentia. I checked where Kalien was looking, unable even to breathe.
A title was inscribed in small letters at the bottom of the painting.
[The Execution of Rozentia E. Renos]
Renos was the name of Abuye’s ancient royal house. That woman had truly been a princess of Abuye.
“Ha, so she was executed. This is… something else entirely.”
Kalien pressed a hand against his forehead.
“I’m hearing this for the first time.”
“Kalien…”
“I thought she had simply fled.”
That wasn’t what mattered now. My throat constricted. My legs gave way beneath me, and my body crumpled to the ground.
‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe…!’
A blinding flash erupted from the sword hilt at my waist. My hand moved of its own accord, drawn like metal to a magnet, and grasped the Great Annihilation. My body had completely betrayed my will.
Terror consumed me.
Kalien’s eyes remained fixed upon the portrait.
I barely managed to squeeze out words from my throat. I thought I had spoken, but I heard nothing from my own ears.
“Ugh… ahhh…”
I was making the sounds of a beast.
Even that alone sent searing pain through my throat. Only then, as if awakening from a long dream, did Kalien slowly blink his eyes.
The moment he turned to face me felt like an eternity.
“…Rosy?”
At last, Kalien noticed me collapsed on the floor. He cried out in alarm.
“Rosy! What’s wrong?”
Tears streamed from my eyes, the whites now webbed with burst capillaries. My stomach twisted violently, and bitter gastric fluid surged up to the base of my throat.
No—not gastric fluid. As I retched it out, I saw it was a clot of blood.
‘Blood, blood…’
No. From the viscous blood, I could feel the power of the Resurrection Crystal seeping through with such intensity that even I could sense it.
I lifted my head with dread. Kalien stared down at me, his eyes wide.
The sharp, metallic scent of blood saturated the air densely.
The will of the star struck down upon my crown like lightning.
Now! Kill her!
In that moment, Kalien gently cupped my ears with both hands.
“Don’t listen, Rosien.”
“O-older brother.”
“You don’t need to listen. Shut out your senses.”
I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut. I fought to expel the blessing of the star that had always filled my body and to sever my five senses.
Kalien wrenched the Great Annihilation from my grip and hurled it far away. The Planetarium too vanished into the void somewhere.
Then Kalien wrapped his arms around me. One arm encircled my waist while his other hand firmly supported the back of my head.
“Now, let’s breathe properly. I’ll count for you.”
His calm whisper tickled my ears.
“Breathe in, one, two, three…”
I barely managed to breathe in rhythm with his counting. I didn’t even realize I was clinging to Kalien with such force that my knuckles had turned white.
“Now exhale, Rosy. Deeply. That’s right.”
After repeating this several times, my twisted organs gradually began to unwind.
The pain vanished as swiftly as it had arrived.
Instead, a heavy drowsiness pressed down upon my mind like a suffocating weight.
No more strange sounds reached my ears.
Just now, I had been crushed beneath the ‘presence’ of something several dimensions above. A star from somewhere in the Cosmos had surely tried to make direct contact with me.
‘This is insane—I don’t know which reckless star you are, but if you keep this up, I’m going to die…!’
Before long, my body returned to its normal state as if by miracle.
The crystal embedded within me was finally fulfilling its purpose.
Kalien ran his hand down my back and spoke in a lowered voice.
“What did you hear, Rosy?”
“…How did you know I heard something strange?”
“You said so yourself. That you heard something odd.”
“I did…?”
Had I? It seemed my inner thoughts had spilled from my lips. I shook my head vigorously and pulled away from him.
“No, it’s nothing. I didn’t hear anything.”
“….”
“Nothing happened….”
This was not something I could carelessly speak aloud. It was the utterance of a star, after all.
A star is an entity that must never be doubted or defied. Yet irreverently, a lingering unease remained.
Judging by how the Sacred Relic “Great Annihilation” vibrated frantically, the star that had tried to contact me was undoubtedly the “Judge of Darkness and Chaos.”
Kill!
What on earth was I supposed to kill?
* * *
After laying the Young Girl to rest in the Whezel Mansion, Kalien returned to the Kirges Observatory.
He had tried to soothe Rosien as he laid her down, but she had turned ashen and could only shake her head repeatedly. One cannot carelessly speak the will of a star aloud.
Yet it was not difficult to guess which star had approached her, or what it might have whispered.
“The Omniscient Word Sorcerer.”
He gazed up at the night sky studded with hundreds of millions of stars.
“Or perhaps the Judge of Darkness and Chaos?”
Both were likely. This Observatory of Kirges was the conduit through which the Omniscient Word Sorcerer gazed down upon Rahnar. That creature had lent its eyes to the Judge of Darkness and Chaos.
Either way.
“How dare you.”
Kalien’s lips twisted, and his voice erupted with fury.
“How dare you lay hands on what is mine?”
Then a torrent of vicious curses—ones he had held back the entire time before Rosien—came pouring out.
“What gives you the right to touch Rosien? You sent a divine message? Before my very eyes?”
The pupils in his crimson eyes narrowed dangerously, black and void of all reason.
Rosien had nearly died in this very place mere hours ago.

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