I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 84

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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 84
While Rozentia leveled sharp accusations at the Wynack Family Head, I remained transfixed behind the bars.
I understood at once why Kalian had dreaded this place, why he hadn’t followed me inside.
Had I been in his position, I would never have wished to reveal such a sight to anyone.
“….”
My grip tightened on the iron bars. Should I simply turn back?
‘No. I still need to confirm this.’
My deliberation was brief. I turned away from the visions of the past that continued to unfold before me and pushed open the prison door wide.
* * *
While Rosien traced the remnants of her past life in the underground, Kalian ascended the hill where the execution platform stood.
Beyond the dome, dark blue waves rippled. An anglerfish with a lantern upon its brow traced elegant curves, brushing against the translucent barrier.
Kalian, who had long maintained his silence, murmured as though speaking to himself.
“Is it truly acceptable to show Rosien her past?”
The memories of Lozietti and Rosien were continuous, but Rozentia’s were not. There was no way for human strength to mend broken recollections.
Yet of course, a Star could make anything possible.
【Do not worry, my incarnation. This makes us even, does it not?】
The Broken Chaos gently patted his shoulder.
【I am showing her only what you yourself remember, so have no fear.】
“What if she comes to regard me with horror?”
Kalian could not predict Rosien’s actions in the slightest.
What result would that intricate circuitry within her small mind ultimately produce?
At the very least, she seemed to know that Kalian Wynack’s true identity was Karga, the Wynack Family Head who had escaped this detention camp five hundred years ago. From the faint glimmers of fear I occasionally witnessed when she looked upon him, it appeared she already understood that the “crimson-eyed monstrosity” was his true form.
That was why she had scolded him severely yesterday for forcing a kiss upon her.
Yet today, the reverse had occurred—she had kissed him first.
Then, abruptly, she declared the need to recover Rozentia’s memories and descended into this deep sea. She had made it abundantly clear that she already knew he was “Karga.”
‘I cannot fathom what she is thinking….’
Even now, in this very moment of revealing her ancient past, Kalian repeated his regrets dozens of times over.
The Lost Soul clicked its tongue in disapproval.
【Poor Karga, you understand your beloved Rozentia even less than I do. Or have you truly forgotten all human emotion?】
“What are you saying?”
【This ‘pretty shell’ will no longer win her heart. Its charm has worn thin.】
“…Already?”
Was that merely a decade’s worth of effect? Kalian sighed.
【What else can you do? Now you must show her your depths.】
The black shadow whispered seductively, tapping his cheek. Where the Broken Chaos touched Kalian’s cheek, it split open as though skin were peeling away.
“Stop. Do you know how difficult it is to maintain this appearance?”
Kalian irritably restored his left cheek. This face was a masterwork he had painstakingly crafted to recover his original form.
Even after being reborn anew, he had taken special care to preserve his true visage, refusing to forget what he once was.
The cheek soon became smooth again.
The Lost Soul giggled.
【Well, if I can’t seduce her with a pretty face anymore, I’ll have to maximize her sympathy instead. Make her see you as utterly pitiful.】
“Until now, she’s been seeing me as nothing more than a trembling rabbit, it seems.”
【It’s different. Your tragedy operates on an entirely different scale, Karga.】
“….”
【Honestly, who wouldn’t pity you? A wretched scapegoat who never fulfilled his role before being betrayed. Even Owen Wynack looks at you with pitying eyes.】
“…You think Rosy will too?”
【Rozentia has a tender heart. She’s full of compassion. No matter how many times she’s reborn, that nature will never change.】
Now that I thought about it, there was merit to those words.
It was far better for Rosien to regard him with pity than with fear.
Kalian sat with his arms draped over his knees, staring intently at the entrance to the detention camp where Rosien had vanished.
“…Rosy, you’re getting exactly what you wanted—I’m baring my ugliest depths for you.”
I’m exposing the most hideous version of myself down there, piece by piece.
The scene Rosien was witnessing now was from before he escaped this place—when he was nothing but a lump of flesh rolling through the underground facility, his limbs severed.
Before he made a covenant with Broken Chaos and was reborn in a new body. It was also the day he first met Rozentia Renos.
Would this memory actually be effective?
Once she saw all of this, how would she look at him?
Rosien remained in the detention camp for an extraordinarily long time.
As always, Kalian waited for her patiently. There was nothing else he could do anyway.
Then, suddenly, Lost Soul broke the silence.
【But then again, your princess can’t leave you anyway, can she, Karga? You know this better than anyone. Despite all her doubts and questions, she regards you as…】
“….”
【A perfectly stable presence.】
“Yeah, I know.”
A faint smile played at the corners of Kalian’s lips.
“I have nothing to lose anyway.”
Whether she despised him or feared him, Rosien could no longer leave him—not by choice, not by force.
From the moment she felt security in his embrace, Rosien’s Elixir Imprinting had begun. Her Elixir was not the Planetarium. It was him.
But completing the Elixir Imprinting required her awareness.
So it remained incomplete. Perhaps that’s why this dissatisfaction gnawed at him.
‘It’s not enough. I want more, so much more.’
It wasn’t enough for Rosien to find only the comfort of being wrapped in down from him.
Now Kalian needed something deeper and richer from Rosien—he wanted to receive from her the same intensity of feeling he gave to her.
At some point, his vengeance against the Transcendents and his greed for Sacred Relics had vanished like a lie.
In truth, the Elixir itself—it didn’t matter what happened to it.
‘It’s insufficient. I want to fill the void with more.’
Pity and compassion were fine, but what he truly craved was something hotter, more fervent.
Realization was dawning on him, bit by bit.
‘Perhaps the name of the emotion I desire is….’
That was when it happened.
Footsteps came rushing upward from the depths below.
The moment I detected that sound, my heart began pounding like a madman’s. At last, Rosien had witnessed all of the past that the Lost Soul had shown her.
Was this emotion rising in my throat like bile—anxiety, or exhilaration?
No, it was closest to fear.
Kalian could not predict her reaction by even a fraction. That was why he felt afraid and anxious.
His face contorted in a way that made it impossible to tell whether he was smiling or crying.
‘You wanted all of this first.’
So look at me properly, Rosien.
Try to understand if you can. My existence, my identity, even the me that I myself do not know.
My dear Rosy, stop loving me now.
* * *
When I emerged from the underground and climbed back up to the surface, Kalian was standing atop the hill where the Execution Platform lay.
With his hands thrust into his pockets and his head tilted at an angle, he looked down at me.
“How does it feel, having peered into every corner? Rozentia.”
“…Kalian.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
We were too far apart to converse easily.
Instead of answering, I used the Planetarium as a foothold and launched myself into the air. The moment I landed atop the hill, Kalian’s expression became clear to me.
He asked dryly.
“What did the me of the past say to you? Truth be told, I barely remember any of it now.”
“….”
“Was I pitiful? Filthy? I wasn’t somewhat like a bug, was I?”
He was neither in the extreme emotional state he had been in at Abuye, nor was he angry without reason as he had been days ago. He simply wore an expressionless face like a helmet.
“Tell me, Rosien. I won’t be hurt.”
He behaved as though he were prepared not to be shaken no matter what I said.
I drew in a trembling breath. I had no desire to soothe him with measured words.
I decided to be honest.
“Your face was the same.”
Kalian hesitated for the first time.
As if he needed time to comprehend the words I had thrown at him, his eyebrows rose ever so slightly.
I continued calmly.
“You were beautiful back then too. You complained so much about it that I was steeling myself, wondering if perhaps you had been some great ugly thing in those days.”
“…Is that all?”
“I couldn’t tell from a distance, to be honest. You looked rather filthy, if I’m being frank. So I went closer to see.”
I had spent quite a long time down there.
Rozentia had visited this place a total of ten times.
She had used her status as Princess of Abuye to bribe the Wynack Family Head, and every few months she would come down here accompanied by a Transcendent.
Rozentia had grasped the iron bars, but she had not stepped inside.
But I, who was both Lozietti and Rosien, had entered.
I approached the young man with only his upper body and part of his lower body remaining, and gazed at him quietly. I saw the movement of his pupils, which had been meticulously tracking only Rozentia’s movements.
I witnessed the only moment when he, who had been thoroughly exploited and then abandoned by the world in the cruelest manner, dying in squalor, came alive.
His appearance was perfectly identical to the Kalian standing before my eyes at this very moment.
That alone was sufficient reason to have come this far.

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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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