I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 8

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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 8
Luize Whezel. The Whezel Family Head ran with the grace befitting a jaguar.
He’d searched the entire Delpiam Capital since dawn to find Kalian Wynack, and just moments ago, he claimed to have faintly sensed Wynack’s mana downstream from the Delpinu River.
So we’d galloped all the way here, and I gazed down at the jaguar I was riding with eyes cold as ice.
“Since when do jaguars have such poor senses of smell?”
[Stop spouting nonsense. If you’re going to interfere, get down.]
Luize Whezel was irritated.
Was he sulking just because I’d ridden him a bit roughly?
“You’re certainly narrower-minded than the previous Family Head…”
[What?]
“It’s nothing.”
Kirges and Whiszel both had roots in the same Delpiam Empire, so we encountered each other far more often than other Transcendent Families.
The previous Whezel Family Head’s transformation was a lion, and while he never showed particular interest in me, there were several times he let me ride on his back. So it’s certain I never made a bad impression on him.
He favored Alpien over me, but he only ever let me ride on his back!
Ah, I missed seeing the Family Heads after so long. How were they all doing since my death?
I wondered if my mentor, Family Head Regina, was well and healthy.
“…Sigh.”
I sighed as memories of the past surfaced. This wasn’t the time to be lost in old nostalgia.
I gently scratched the black jaguar’s neck.
“Try tracking again, Family Head. If he’s not here, we head straight to the Delpiam Imperial Palace. The palace is the more likely candidate, not here… huh?”
A sharp, tingling sensation shot through my left ring finger like static electricity. The incantation’s activation words resonated through my mind.
[Rosien.]
Kalian calling my name. The location information from the activated incantation flowed vividly into my consciousness.
It was directly below us.
I abandoned all the thoughts I’d been dwelling on and slid down from Luize’s back.
Then I leaped down into the dark sewers entrance below.
* * *
“How old are you to get lost in the capital’s sewers?!”
I found Kalian a short distance from the sewers entrance, and the moment I saw his state, I unleashed a torrent of scolding.
“Where did you sell off your guards? And the Wynack Heir wandering a foreign land alone? What were you thinking?!”
Of course, it sounded even stranger that the Wynack Heir would need guards in the first place, but Kalian was a special case.
My older brother still needed a guardian!
Kalian, overwhelmed by my intensity, began to look uneasy.
“I’m… I’m sorry…. Rosy, were you very worried?”
“Is that what you call an apology?! How in the world did you end up down in this drainage system?!”
Even in the Slums where I’d crawled around until I was nine after my reincarnation, the stench was never this bad!
“Are you alright? You’re not hurt anywhere?”
Fortunately, Kalian appeared unharmed on the surface. His clothes were disheveled compared to when he’d left last night, but otherwise nothing…
I stopped mid-thought and gasped.
‘Wait. Isn’t that the most important thing?!’
His jacket had vanished—given to who knows whom—while his shirt hung askew with its hem jutting out from his trousers, a couple of buttons torn clean away.
His hair was disheveled as though someone had deliberately mussed it, leaving it in complete disarray.
What’s more, his deep crimson eyes were filled with unstable energy, and the skin beneath them was flushed red as if he hadn’t slept a wink.
I grabbed Kalian’s sleeve with an anxious heart.
“What happened from last night until now?”
“….”
“It’s alright. Tell me. I won’t say a word to anyone.”
Kalian simply gazed down at me without answering.
I waited patiently. Even for a beloved younger brother, such matters wouldn’t be easy to discuss without hesitation.
At least, not assuming something truly terrible had been done to him.
It was several minutes later when Kalian slowly opened his mouth.
“He grabbed my arm without permission, so I firmly refused. I told him I didn’t like it.”
“And…?”
“But he wouldn’t stop. He kept dragging me down to this desolate place. So I struck his vital point.”
Exactly as I had instructed him to do.
Kalian glanced down at the Knight collapsed at his feet.
“And then he ended up like this….”
He was absolutely pulverized. My expression naturally darkened.
I’d been wondering whose brat had been lying there sprawled out, but he was an attempted sexual assaulter!
Kalian hesitated before continuing.
“I managed to knock him down, but he just wouldn’t wake up. And I had no idea how to get out of here…. So I was waiting for someone to come.”
“Is that all? Nothing else happened?”
“For now.”
With those words, my soft jelly of a brother pulled me into a tight embrace. Then he giggled and rubbed his cheek against the top of my head.
“I had no idea how much time had passed, and I was so worried. But then I heard your voice, Rosy. I called out just in case, and you really came?”
“Of course. Didn’t you say I’d come if you called?”
“Yeah, thank you. My treasure. There’s no one but you who comes to find me.”
That’s right. You have no one but this older sister.
I patted him gently with a sigh, and the Knight sprawled at our feet writhed with a pained groan.
I looked down at the trash who had nearly devoured Kalian with utter contempt.
From the uniform he wore and the brooch pinned to his chest, it was obvious. I’d even seen him on our first day arriving in Delpiam.
He was the Imperial Guard Commander of Delpiam.
Kalian pressed close to me and whispered softly.
“I did the right thing, didn’t I?”
“Of course. You did well, brother.”
Now it was time for cleanup. That was my responsibility.
I suddenly pointed at the entrance with my finger and let out a sharp cry.
“Oh, what’s that?!”
“Huh? What is?”
While Kalian’s gaze was drawn elsewhere, I swiftly inscribed a rune mark on the man’s forehead.
“Rosy, there’s nothing here?”
“Oh, I must have been mistaken.”
Fine, that’s the end of it.
I yanked the needle from the clock and dragged Kalian Wynack by the hand.
“Let’s go now. Someone else will come collect this old man.”
“Is that so? But he’s an Imperial Guard Commander, so we should at least send him upstairs first….”
“That’s no knight at all. If we go back right now and report that the Imperial Guard Commanders tried to harm the Wynack Heir, who do you think gets destroyed?”
There was no need to worry about Delpiam’s opinion, but if we carelessly touched this and he ended up missing, it would only leave me feeling uneasy.
‘Owen told me to behave myself.’
So I behaved—by simply placing a suggestion on him.
The effect would be certain, so he’d never dare approach Kalian again!
I hurried along with Kalian. I couldn’t leave our soft, gelatinous boy in this cramped, filthy place reeking of stench any longer.
“Come on. Let’s get back and wash you with warm water, then rest properly….”
[Playing around, are we?]
Before I could even finish speaking, Hilnandjo’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
The beast’s body, hidden in darkness, revealed itself beneath the faint lamplight. In the blink of an eye, its form transformed.
A young Family Head with black, coarse hair and dark skin—Luize Whezel—glared at Kalian.
“The aura of Wynack is vibrating so intensely from deeper within. And you claim nothing happened? At least say something that makes sense.”
The aura of Wynack?
I reflexively turned my head. Deep into the sewers.
“Ah….”
I’d been so focused on Kalian that I hadn’t sensed it—I let out a bewildered groan.
There truly was something faintly perceptible in the darkness.
“It seems like… sword energy?”
When I unconsciously murmured and looked up at Kalian, I noticed his crimson eyes, fixed upon Luize Whezel, had hardened into complete emotionlessness.
“…!”
Chills ran down my spine without my knowing.
Sword energy. The signature transcendent ability of Wynack.
It was Wynack’s unique aura—channeling stellar essence into a blade and amplifying it into a new energy called sword energy.
While Wynack’s disciples could obtain it through effort, the results of post-acquired mastery paled in comparison to the power manifested by the blessed direct descendants of Wynack.
In other words, the Family Head of Wynack and his heirs were the most proficient with sword energy across this entire Continent.
Owen naturally possessed it, and Kalian Wynack also knew how to wield sword energy.
So there was nothing strange about him using sword energy against the Delpiam Imperial Guard Commander.
Yet this sudden hollowness creeping up the back of my head….
‘Kalian, why does your expression look like that?’
Faced with Kalian Wynack’s emotionless countenance, I found myself at a loss for words.
He was always a boy who wore a smile in his eyes or at the corners of his mouth.
Either his eyes were smiling, or his mouth was smiling, or both were smiling.
At such times, I would sense that calling him the incarnation of an angel wasn’t merely an embarrassing overstatement.
But now, I couldn’t even attach that sacred epithet of “angel” to him, not even as an empty phrase.
I never knew Kalian could look at someone with such a menacing gaze…?

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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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