Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 126

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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 126

Brian was wretched and miserable. That wretchedness reached its peak when he was cast out of the Imperial Palace with nothing but the clothes on his back. He was the Emperor’s firstborn son—so why? Why? Of course, no courtier had informed him that being expelled only from *outside* the Imperial Palace, with all four limbs intact, was an extraordinarily lenient punishment.
In any case, Brian had never in his life tasted such humiliation. But today, to be driven out of the Imperial Palace before the nobility! To hear his bloodline mocked!
“Damn it, damn it, damn it all! That they would so disregard my words!”
“Your Highness, it is His Majesty the Emperor’s command. You cannot enter…….”
“Even you lowly wretches dare show me such disrespect now!”
Brian kicked at the shin of a guard stationed at the Imperial Palace Main Gate with the tip of his boot. The soldier, who had spoken only sense and received a blow for it, fell silent. The protective garrison that Cleo had personally assigned to Brian had been annihilated during the Demon Beast Attack Incident not long ago, so there was now no one to stand beside him.
Of course, there were servants who attended to him with absolute deference, absorbing his temperament without reservation. But following Brian as he was dragged away by the Emperor’s iron command was a task none but the most audacious would dare undertake.
More precisely: there was no subordinate with the loyalty to serve Brian faithfully enough to weather the Emperor’s displeasure.
“Well, I never expected to find you still standing right before the Imperial Palace gates, brother.”
“……Adrian.”
Brian ground his teeth. The sight of his counterpart approaching with that irritatingly cheerful smile was utterly unbearable to behold. Every detail—the meticulously groomed blonde hair, the radiant attire, the leisurely gait as though he were merely taking an evening stroll—grated on him.
“Do you have neither blood nor tears in your veins?! Using Her Majesty the Empress as bait to drag Mother and me into danger!”
Adrian, upon seeing Brian’s indignation, lifted his shoulders as if taken aback.
“What? How could that be? Even if I fall short in your eyes as your younger brother, I am not so depraved as to use Her Majesty the Empress—the one who treasures me above all others in this world—as bait. And drive you and Her Highness the Princess-Consort into danger, you say?”
“You and that wench Titania schemed it together! How could it be that in such a situation, after the Princess-Consort and Her Majesty collapsed, they could both recover so easily from eating something so suspicious? You should have requested an investigation, yet instead you brought that decrepit old fool out of nowhere……!”
“Brother.”
Adrian’s softly smiling white face drew imperceptibly closer. His pale spring-green eyes shone with the chilling brilliance of frost-bitten moss. Brian found his body stiffening involuntarily.
“It would serve you well to learn to guard your words.”
Brian despised Adrian.
True, he had been born first. He wielded the sword well, he was manly, and he threw himself eagerly into all manner of affairs. Yet somehow, his pale-faced younger brother—born merely as the Empress’s son—was regarded as the rightful Imperial Heir apparent by everyone as naturally as breathing. It infuriated him.
In truth, until now, Cleo had been so commanding within the Imperial Palace, and both Adrian and the Empress had kept themselves so scrupulously out of sight that Brian and Adrian had never engaged in open conflict.
The fine foreign bloodstock of horses, the precious handicrafts that master artisans had labored for years to perfect—whenever Brian desired something, Adrian would yield. And so Brian had come to despise him, just a little.
When Brian provoked him, Adrian did not counter—he merely smiled foolishly. Even when Adrian was insulted in ways that scraped at his pride, he would slip away with the cunning of a fox.
“His Majesty the Emperor directly stated that he would not tolerate anyone who shows disrespect to our great-aunt. And here you are, calling that elderly woman a decrepit fool before so many witnesses and listeners.”
A coward without backbone. A sycophant who merely watches the mood. A spineless creature….
Yet the figure now before him was like a fox that had swallowed a snake whole and steeled itself to hunt. His loosely curved lips gleamed like a blade’s edge.
“Perhaps. If His Majesty the Emperor had seen it, he would have said, ‘To dare speak so presumptuously of one whom even I cannot touch as I will! Are the bloodlines of the Imperial Family mere playthings?’ But I cannot be certain of His Majesty’s reaction. Shall we wager on the outcome?”
Adrian tilted his head with genuine curiosity, his voice artless and ingenuous. Brian’s neck flushed crimson as he shouted.
“You madman, are you threatening me!”
“No, that’s hardly a threat. Ha, do you truly think your dear brother could lower himself to such crude tactics as ‘threats’?”
“Even if I have stepped away from the Imperial Palace for a time, I remain your elder! If His Majesty were to learn of your disrespect toward me, he would not let it pass…….”
“That is precisely why I sometimes wonder. Did His Majesty the Emperor’s favor ever truly feel like genuine affection to you? Did you ever truly believe that no matter what happened, he would trust, love, and support you……?”
Adrian’s face, which had been set firm as a mask of laughter, turned utterly expressionless for the briefest moment.
“The women of low station with whom I have lain—do you care when, how, or by what means they die? Your lawfully wedded wife, bound by sacred Marriage Vow, endures any humiliation imaginable—do you care? And the women whom His Majesty ‘cherishes’ are without exception either those of usefulness or extreme beauty from among women of far inferior station to his own. Does that not suggest that the moment their utility fades, they would meet a fate far more pitiful than that of my mother?”
“…Are you—surely you are not now cursing that His Majesty would one day abandon my mother? Be sensible. Even if His Majesty shows coldness to Her Majesty the Empress, he has always held Mother in higher regard than anyone! That is why he cherished me as well!”
“Ha, His Majesty the Emperor regards both his women and his sons as rivals. That is why Cleo and you possess such a fatal weakness in the form of your origins that you can never surpass His Majesty—and that is the only reason he so easily dotes upon you both.”
“How dare—! You know not your place. It is *you* who speaks disrespectfully of His Majesty, not I! Do you think I will forget your presumptuous words? I shall report every arrogant utterance of yours to His Majesty without fail……!”
Brian’s heart plummeted.
Adrian’s expression, now that he had bared his fangs, was ominous.
Adrian, who had always chosen only safe words and conduct beyond reproach—now he emerged from shadow into sunlight and revealed himself without hesitation as a predator snarling at its prey. It felt so terrifyingly sincere.
Brian had not been entirely without unease. Like a balloon that knows not how to burst, his arrogance had swelled endlessly until it shattered once during the Demon Beast Attack Incident at the Imperial Palace before, and today it shattered again into fragments. Yet he harbored not a shred of self-reflection that he himself had provided the opening.
Only the dread crept in first—the realization that his position, which he had believed unshakeable no matter what occurred, might in reality be far more precarious.
If, from the beginning, Cleo had been Empress rather than merely a consort. If the Emperor would never have shown him such contempt or mockery. At minimum, he would have maintained appearances…….
But Adrian was already being denied even that minimal decorum, was he not? That was because the Empress disrespected the Emperor and carried herself with ill grace. No matter how exalted the Empress, she ranked below the Emperor—and like Cleo, one gains actual power only through receiving the Emperor’s favor.
So then, so then….
“Stop your nonsense! Father loves and cherishes me above all! Unlike you! Unlike that wench Titania, who came back from death’s door and has now thrown herself to the front of all this commotion about drawing swords and whatnot!”
Perhaps—perhaps Brian too might be precisely the kind of disposable pawn Adrian described, one the Emperor would cast aside on a whim. Surely not?
Adrian spoke quietly to Brian, who was crying out in desperation. Like a swordsman who places his hand upon the hilt before drawing the blade—a warning.
“Frankly, since you are Cleo’s son, it is already crystal clear that you will inevitably become rivals when the Imperial Throne looms ahead—there is scarcely need to belabor it with words. Besides, I imagine you will not show your face here for some time. Since I cannot fathom what you might be doing beyond the Palace gates, permit me to offer this caution…….”
Adrian’s voice was soft. Listening to it alone, one might mistake it for a seduction—as though a beautiful maiden were inviting him to go somewhere for amusement.
Indeed, that was one of Adrian’s methods of conduct. The beautiful, kind prince who treats everyone with gentleness. One who would certainly flirt lightly with anyone, whose social bonds would surely be shallow. Hardly the type to harbor hidden blades or poison in his heart…….
Yet Adrian was one of those creatures who could smile like a flower and slit a throat in the same breath. In daylight he would hang his head shyly, like a half-opened bud, and seal his lips as though modest and demure.
“Do not entertain idle thoughts. Do not scheme to harm anyone. Do not be swept along by Cleo’s designs. If you were to abandon your frivolous ambitions and think only of living quietly, well—I could perhaps find it in myself to tolerate you.”
“…What gives you the right to ‘tolerate’ me?”
“I am a practical younger brother who has a half-brother deluded into thinking that His Majesty the Emperor is capable of truly loving and cherishing his own children as a father.”
Adrian drew his smile with a final flourish—dazzling and sweet—then waved his hand in farewell and withdrew.
Brian found the smile somehow familiar, and only then did he remember the source of that familiarity.
Titania. That wench had smiled precisely that way. Before the Emperor. A smile that appeared only beautiful and fair and radiant on the surface, yet beneath the thinnest veil lay an unbearable bitterness.

* * *

Sara was afraid.
‘Wow, I actually managed to do it.’
Even now her heart hammered wildly in her chest. Every task Princess Titania assigned was difficult. They were tasks that seemed to ask, ‘Can you do this? Can you do even this?’—yet in the end, she had done them. That was enough, surely…. Steadying her trembling legs, Sara walked quickly.

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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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