I Will Protect My Brother - 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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Chapter 63
“Mother, no!”
A voice cried out in protest, sharp with desperation.
Turning to see what the commotion was about, I spotted a middle-aged woman with chestnut hair struggling to rush toward me.
‘What on earth is happening?’
Before I could dwell on it, I recognized a familiar face in the crowd.
“Selman…?”
The man restraining the woman was unmistakably Selman, the Winyak swordsman who was practically inseparable from Jake.
“Please, calm yourself. Shh, shh. If you approach her like this, something terrible will happen. I beg you…”
“Let me go!”
The woman’s face was streaked with tears. Suddenly, everything became clear. This woman was Jake’s Mother.
‘But why is she coming after me? Or rather, why Kalian…?’
“Rosy, what are you doing?”
Kalian, meanwhile, showed no interest whatsoever in the commotion behind him. He pulled my hand toward himself.
But I couldn’t move. The woman sobbed like a wounded beast and cried out.
“Jake told me clearly. He said you’re harboring a monster in the castle…!”
What?
“He said it could devour him at any moment!”
“Mother, please. That was just a joke between us.”
I heard Selman desperately trying to placate her.
So this situation was…
‘Kalian killed Jake, and she’s screaming about it…?’
I was utterly flabbergasted. I glanced around as if seeking help.
And the gazes that met mine.
Still hostile.
‘What… what is this?’
For once, I was so bewildered that words escaped me entirely.
The people casting fearful looks in my direction—their eyes, their expressions—all conveyed the same message.
Murderer.
I tilted my head back to look up at Kalian. He stood rigid as stone, staring into some distant void.
Those crimson eyes that had lost focus for a moment were now veiled by his eyelids.
Kalian closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them and glanced at me briefly.
Then, with a gentle smile, he asked with perfect composure, as though he had heard and seen nothing at all.
“Shall we go, Rosy?”
Looking at that face, what emotion was I supposed to feel?
I don’t know. When I came to my senses, I had already wrenched my hand free from Kalian’s.
That wasn’t enough—I spun around and strode purposefully toward the gathered crowd.
“That’s quite harsh language, if I may say so, ma’am.”
I smiled gently and brushed the dust from the woman’s shoulder. She glared at me with reddened eyes.
“Y-you…!”
“My name is Rosien. I’ve been training alongside Jake’s uncle for a long time.”
“With Jake?”
“Yes. And I’ve also been overseeing his treatment. Just last evening, he was breathing perfectly fine, so has something happened since then? Selman.”
Selman, who had been fidgeting beside me, quickly shook his head.
“That can’t be. I checked on him this morning myself. He’s recovering at an unbelievably rapid pace. But Mother simply refuses to believe it…”
“I see. Please don’t worry too much. I guarantee you—Jake will be back on his feet within the next week.”
I clenched my teeth and forced my voice to sound as gentle as possible, trying my best to empathize with a mother watching her son hover between life and death.
‘It’s understandable she can’t see anything. He’s her son. If my own family suddenly fell into such a calamity, I’d be just as furious…’
But before I could fully compose myself, the Unknown Woman lashed out at me.
“You’re from Winyak too, aren’t you? A servant of monsters. Isn’t that right?!”
“Oh my, Mother!”
“I never should have sent my son to a den of creatures that aren’t even human…!”
The Unknown Woman mercilessly lit my fuse. Sparks seemed to dance before my eyes.
“Shut your mouth.”
I savagely twisted the wrist of the Unknown Woman as she tried to push me away.
“I’ll squeeze out every last drop of blood if I have to, but I’ll make sure your son recovers perfectly fine. So stop running your mouth.”
“Eek…!”
“Don’t you dare insult Kalian Wynack in front of me!”
I drove each word into her ears one by one before releasing her as though discarding something worthless.
Without hesitation, I turned away and seized Kalian’s hand again as he stood waiting blankly.
“Let’s go, Kalian.”
“…Yeah.”
I felt his gaze looking down at me. Deliberately avoiding his eyes, I kept my gaze fixed on the ground as we walked.
If I met his eyes and opened my mouth, all the rage that hadn’t yet settled would come pouring out uncontrollably.
Why do they all look at Kalian like that? As though he were something abhorrent and repulsive!
* * *
【Well, that’s only natural. Does he look like a normal human to your eyes?】
On a night when the sun had already dipped low, I pushed through the dense thicket and replied with a disgruntled tone.
“He’s not just human—he’s a Transcendent. And most Transcendents have somewhat callous sides to them. You know that.”
Several more days had passed since that morning when I’d stopped by the Security Bureau early and spent time with Kalian at the tea shop until dawn.
After becoming conscious of how people looked at us that day, I began to deliberately observe my surroundings anew.
At Wynack Castle, at the training grounds, in the village—how others perceived Kalian Wynack.
Until now, my eyes had always been fixed on Kalian, leaving me no time to look around. But once I became aware of it, there were more than just one or two suspicious things.
First, Kalian had no direct aide, no dedicated servant, no maid attending to him.
There was a bell pull connected to his room, but whenever it rang, the servants would all show reluctance. I even witnessed them playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go up to the Young Family Head’s room.
Second, it was remarkably rare for anyone in the mansion to speak to Kalian.
It was only natural, given he had no attendants. Only two people ever initiated conversation with him—myself and the Family Head.
Third and finally, whenever I subtly brought Kalian’s name into conversation, everyone would awkwardly avert their eyes or change the subject.
It wasn’t as though his name was under some taboo. What kind of person was he that his name shouldn’t be spoken?
‘My soft, gelatinous darling—what is it about him that makes everyone avoid him like that?!’
Soft… Well, I couldn’t even joke about being soft anymore.
The Great Annihilation snorted derisively, as if demanding I listen.
【Don’t pour excessive affection on Kalian Wynack. Has that bastard ever revealed his power even once? Those who hide themselves so thoroughly are always rotten at their core.】
“Kalian hasn’t done anything wrong. Don’t prejudge him, please. What happened yesterday is more than enough.”
I leaped onto the slanted rock and retorted irritably.
Of course, I’d been sensing the inconsistency for some time now. My little rabbit, now grown into an adult, was neither as delicate nor as fragile as I’d anticipated.
‘Honestly, just looking at his height and build makes it obvious.’
I wasn’t short. While I hadn’t grown as tall as I’d wished, I stood above the average height for women. Yet Kalian towered over me by nearly a head and a half.
‘Besides, if he didn’t possess considerable power to begin with, Seongyeol wouldn’t have reacted so severely.’
Power and Seongyeol were proportional. Fairly enough, the stronger a Transcendent was, the greater the risk they bore.
Moreover, the strong recognized the strong.
At some point, I began noticing things Kalian deliberately didn’t display before me.
He tried his best to restrain himself in my presence, yet whenever Seongyeol surged, that weighty presence inevitably leaked through.
A grip strength that could casually snap an ordinary man’s arm with the slightest loss of control.
Honestly, if Kalian simply attended the Continental Conference properly, if he merely revealed his power to the world….
He could easily subjugate Rachnar alone.
But he hadn’t done so.
Kalian had abstained from last year’s Continental Conference.
“Strange things only happened at the conference five years ago. I don’t want to experience that again.”
“Surely… Kalian. Did that become a trauma for you?”
“Trauma? Ah, perhaps. And I even had you taken from me by the other Transcendent Family Heads.”
Until he came of age, he occasionally participated in the social functions of the Abyss Royal Court, but at some point, he ceased attending altogether.
All Kalian did at Wynack Castle was drink tea, read books in the study, and listen with a smile to my rambling stories.
Kalian’s only desire was me.
‘So his ideal type is a woman like a nun.’
How could such words—calling him a monster, saying he devours people—possibly apply to someone so devoid of greed and ambition?
The image of Kalian standing silently while listening to the slander directed at me surfaced in my mind. My heart ached once more.
‘What did that expression mean?’
It seemed as though he didn’t know how to respond, as if bewildered—or perhaps he’d heard it so many times over dozens and hundreds of occasions that he felt nothing anymore. Either way was a problem.
“So how could I possibly leave him alone… It breaks my heart, truly.”
My firm resolve kept wavering. What if I just provided it myself? An Elixir.
With an Elixir, Kalian would stabilize noticeably, and then people wouldn’t fear him as they do now.
‘For now, at the Abyss Royal Court’s ball a few weeks from now, let me make one final attempt to find a woman worthy of becoming an Elixir.’
And if that fails, well, there’s nothing to be done. As long as it’s not mutual, even a simple embrace should be sufficient to produce the Elixir’s effect.
There’s no need for such intimate contact….
If it became an inductive Elixir rather than an absorption type, contact wouldn’t be necessary at all.
In the end, I rationalized, unable to overcome my wavering heart.
‘It might be fine if I imprint it without anyone knowing. Without anyone in the world knowing.’

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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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