I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 7

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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 7
It took mere seconds for the entire plan to be completely overturned.
Originally, I had intended to bring along the obedient heir and even create a harem for him, hoping to placate the stubborn artifact that refused to listen to reason.
But the prospect of leaking information about the sacred artifact to Owen Wynack—a threatening transcendent—made me deeply uneasy, so I had settled on the heir as a second choice instead.
If the boy was virtuous and timid, I could surely manipulate him into keeping quiet about the artifact’s secrets.
And if all else failed, I could simply erase his memories and send him back, or so I thought…
I had misjudged. This creature was a serpent with a blackened heart.
Regina’s voice cut through the air with razor-sharp precision.
“Whatever we may be hiding, nothing will fall into the hands of someone like you!”
“That’s not for you to decide, Regina Kirges.”
“How dare you—!”
Regina’s Planetarium bloomed wide open. A massive hemispherical expanse of translucent cosmos descended above her head, and simultaneously, a colossal crimson sorcerous array erupted behind the boy.
The lethal incantation Regina had unleashed was mere moments from striking Kalien down.
‘I’ll suppress him until he’s combat-ineffective, then rummage through that skull of his to uncover whatever schemes he’s hiding!’
But in the next instant, Kalien’s form vanished without a trace.
“?!”
In his place remained only a crescent-shaped trajectory of brilliant blue—the arc left by a blade drawn from its sheath, slicing through empty air.
Almost simultaneously, murderous intent descended directly behind Regina. Her eyes snapped wide open.
‘When did he get behind me—?!’
Sorcerers were notoriously weak in close combat, but this speed was simply impossible. The boy pressed his face close to her ear, his voice dripping with delight.
“You’re going to die soon anyway, so what’s the harm in going a little early, Kirges?”
His pupils narrowed to slits, those blood-red eyes ravenous as they bore down upon her.
‘I’m going to die.’
The blade’s tip, aimed directly at her throat, descended without hesitation. Her entire body erupted in goosebumps.
He truly intended to kill her here. A transcendent. The very head of the Kirges Family!
‘This is absurd, Owen! This makes no sense whatsoever!’
It was the precise moment shock flooded across Regina’s face.
An alien presence registered in her senses.
Mana erupting dynamically, spreading outward in all directions.
Another transcendent was nearby.
Regina barely completed her defensive formation, crying out in desperation.
“Whezel—!”
“Big brother—?!”
But a clear, melodious voice beat her to it.
Kalien’s blade, which had been about to pierce through the defensive formation and strike Regina’s neck, wavered and hesitated.
“Kalien! Are you here?”
The voice that suddenly rang out was quite loud. It belonged to a young girl.
Regina found herself forgetting her dire situation, swept up in a strange sensation.
‘This voice… somehow it sounds familiar…’
“He’s not here, Family Head! What’s going on?!”
What a disgrace to the beast! The moment the grumbling voice registered in my sensitive hearing.
The cold murderous intent directed at Regina vanished without a trace.
Yet even as I withdrew the killing intent, it was already impossible to retrieve the blade that had burrowed so close to her vital points.
However, the blade never carved a wound into Regina’s neck. Kalien bent the sword sideways with tremendous brute force. Then he simply released it.
The blade, its trajectory shifted by a hairsbreadth, sliced through empty air and flew beyond the darkness.
‘He… he just threw the sword away…?’
Discarding a weapon like that—what kind of abrupt tactical shift was this?
Whezel’s mana still lingered near the drainage system entrance leading to ground level.
The voice of anxious muttering continued to drift down.
“Maybe I should go deeper inside. Family Head, let’s go down below.”
[Am I your pet? Don’t order me around.]
“You drove me all this way without a word, and now you’re being difficult. If you won’t go, I absolutely won’t come down!”
[This little… cough. Don’t… don’t strangle me. How does something so tiny have such strength!]
I needed to call out to Whezel somehow, but for the first time in ages, I found myself unable to open my mouth.
The boy had sent the crescent-shaped blade energy meant for my neck flying into the wall instead.
The drainage system beneath our feet split silently.
The ground twisted, and the bodies of thirty fallen knights collapsed helplessly into the sewage-filled drainage below.
All traces of battle vanished in an instant.
As I barely climbed onto the fractured, warped debris, I could see the boy roughly pulling out the Imperial Guard Commander, who was about to sink into the sewage.
The blade had already settled obediently into the scabbard hanging at the boy’s waist.
“I didn’t expect you to come along.”
Kalien muttered quietly and kicked the jacket he’d dropped onto the floor. The jacket too disappeared into the flowing sewage.
Kalien unfastened a couple of shirt buttons with quick, hurried movements, then glanced up at me. His hands moved as though he were being chased by something.
He was calculating how long it would take for the unexpected intruders to descend from the sewers entrance to this point.
‘With Luize Whezel there, it shouldn’t take more than three minutes.’
I felt a chill as I met those crimson eyes fixed upon me. I had an instinctive certainty that this boy was already considering how to dispose of me.
Soon after, the Wynack Heir, possessed of an almost angelic beauty, pulled his lips into a smile.
“Shall we make a promise, Kirges?”
* * *
Kalien grasped the nape of the Guard Commander he’d just fished out of what was essentially a cesspit of a sewer, moving with light steps.
The muscular knight, far larger than him, was dragged along lifelessly.
‘A sacred relic that Wynack failed to find exists in the Delpiam Imperial Palace.’
The purest power of the stars. The foundation of the Transcendent Families’ strength.
Yet in Delpiam, the sacred relic left by Wynack’s star had been secretly smuggled away…
Dangerous fascination rippled within Kalien’s crimson eyes.
‘What form does it take? The legacy left by the star.’
Mine.
A faint, not-yet-extinguished madness flickered within those crimson pupils.
That sacred relic belongs to him. It has been decided that way since the distant past.
An explosive power of the stars that effortlessly transcends human superhuman ability.
Surely that too would be beautiful and lovely.
Once I obtain the sacred relic of Wynack Castle, sweeping away the remaining four Transcendent Families would be child’s play.
Mere imagination set my blood ablaze. My heart thundered against my ribs as though it might burst free.
“Ha….”
I stopped in place, cradling my face in one hand. Whether laughing or weeping, I couldn’t hide the twisted expression contorting my features.
“Ahahaha.”
Between my fingers, crimson eyes gleamed with an otherworldly radiance.
How long I had waited for this day.
‘Just how much time has passed….’
Yet that alien madness swiftly composed itself.
With senses ten times more acute than ordinary people, I caught every movement of the one lingering above me with crystalline clarity.
“…She came quickly.”
As I conjured the image of that strawberry-blonde hair rustling about busily, my lips curved into a vacant smile.
Everything beautiful and lovely belongs to me.
I straightened my expression and drew myself upright. Then I raised my left hand to my lips.
Around the ring finger and wrist of my left hand, pristine white bandages remained utterly unmarred despite a full day of chaos.
I stopped not far from the entrance and lifted my gaze.
Looking up at the small ventilation shaft leading to ground level, I whispered softly.
“Rosien.”
My voice dripped with honeyed affection.
I could vividly sense the child above, who had been fumbling about in conversation with someone, suddenly go still.
Beneath the bandages wrapped around my left ring finger, the sorcerous runes inscribed into my very flesh flared crimson.
A serene smile bloomed across my lips—a face even my father Owen had never once witnessed.
An innocence that made the danger all the more profound glimmered in my eyes.
“I’m here.”
The sorcery of Kirges manifested.

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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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