Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 158

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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 158

But there was one thing—just one thing—that the villainess had failed to anticipate.
The theatrical stage she had abandoned was slowly drawing its curtain, and the man she had released from her grasp was…….

* * *

Raymond did not love Princess Titania.
It was supposed to be an immutable law.
When she grated on him like a splinter in his heart, when mere thought of her sent fury surging through his veins, when he trembled and begged forgiveness—her mere existence drove him to madness. And Raymond, who had spent a lifetime commanding his own emotions, found he could not endure it.
If only she had been nothing to him. If only he could have simply ended it with contempt, dismissing her as vermin, everything would have been different.
Even though she had tried to harm the family he held most dear, Titania had truly done her utmost. A woman who had never properly wielded a sword endured even on the crumbling frontlines of a world falling to ruin.
By rights, then—if she were truly a member of the Castrain Family—she should have earned fair and proper treatment as a comrade, at least once. She had done the work it demanded.
But when it came to Titania, he lost his reason. He could not judge fairly. Like a three-year-old child.
A princess, raised in comfort, yet wherever she went, people and Magic Beasts fell dead. Several times she came close to death herself. Her basic needs—food, shelter, clothing—remained inadequate. Even as Raymond grew exhausted and felt himself crumbling under the weight, she simply asked him to believe, just once more. To let her live until the appointed time…….
Why?
What was this “appointed time”?
Raymond wanted to believe that the woman’s musings—she who laughed on the verge of tears—had become something trivial to him. He wanted to believe that when that time came, whatever she did would have nothing to do with him.
He had to. Even as things shattered and crumbled, as the future became invisible.
Even as he reached a point where there was nothing left to lose, he had to. Because he was Raymond.
It was impossible…….
So this could not possibly be some trivial emotion.
Even those who had been superior to Titania, kinder than Titania, died far more pathetically beside her. Raymond had endured all of it.
So, therefore…….
Even if this eyesore of a woman had vanished with a smile and left no parting words, he should have remained unmoved. He should have.
All the death and resignation and screams and agony and countless unbearable experiences he had spent so long accumulating—to have them undone by the loss of a single woman. And not even her loss, but her heart, burdened by such a past—he could not confess that this had shattered him.
Because acknowledging it, truly understanding it, would mean complete collapse.
Because he could no longer endure. The thing he had instinctively turned from, deliberately ignored—it had become.
This could not be love. Something so destructive, so base, so suffocating.
This could not be such a feeling. Something so terrifying, so terrifying it strangled his heart.
Why, why so much?
A scream he could not voice aloud strangled his throat. His tongue hardened, his breath choked. He kept seeing things that were not there. Someone, someone kept. falling away before his eyes…….
Every time he confirmed it, his arms would…….
‘Wow, brother. I think I’m really going insane.’
Lisianthus’s eyes burned with flames—not metaphorically, but real fire. His expression unsmiling, Lisianthus held Raymond back as he seemed ready to hurl himself off a cliff.
It lasted only a moment. Any longer, and he would have burned away Raymond’s clothes and flesh. Besides, he could not even approach anyone but Raymond.
Lisianthus was now less a person than an incarnation of flame. By his mere existence, he incinerated Magic Beasts. He could not draw near the living, could not sleep or eat. When the fire within him—burning something invisible beneath his skin—finally went out, that is when his breath would end.
Lisianthus confirmed that Raymond was standing, though unsteadily, and laughed. As he laughed, acrid smoke poured between his lips.
‘Well, I can see that much. At least Titania didn’t lie to us.’
‘…….’
‘So then. From your perspective, that’s good news, right? According to what Priest Illian’s disciples were guessing—anyway, the conclusion is everything will turn out fine.’
A childlike giggle escaped Lisianthus, his eyes bright with madness, like sparks that could burn an entire barren mountain.
‘I wish I’d been the one there instead of you…….’
Raymond understood instinctively that Lisianthus was jealous—that he was jealous of the Raymond who had been there in that moment when Titania fell.
Like a petulant child, Lisianthus continued speaking, continued sending up sparks from his mouth while his flame-like Hair Strands undulated in the air, somehow not igniting completely.
‘…….’
‘That girl really hates showing weakness to anyone……. Of course, whether she dies or disappears, she’d hate showing that too. So if I’d held her and burned away with her……. it would have been fine.’
‘…….’
‘Ah, you think she’d hate me chasing after her? You say you hate it, but now you’re saying such things? Ha-ha, ha-ha-ha…. Brother, you too. Being alone is lonely, after all. At least one person should remain to watch over her grave…….’
‘…….’
‘Brother. You’re not thinking anything foolish, are you?’
Fire that burned even its own soul as fuel laughed at Raymond.
Ah, Raymond understood. His younger brother was……. strangely similar to himself. Perhaps, quite possibly. This brother too might have had his suspicions.
Perhaps that was why, without the slightest hesitation, he had chosen a path that might help them deal with Magic Beasts for now, but would inevitably consume him in flame.
Responsible as Raymond was, yes—he could not abandon everyone and leave. Perhaps Lisianthus was thinking he could, in his own way, follow Titania’s end soon enough.
Without difficulty, Raymond could imagine his younger brother, curled at Titania’s feet like a faithful hound following his master, crumbling to ash.
Not even hollow laughter came. Lisianthus whispered quietly.
‘Don’t do that, brother. We’ve already been cowardly enough…….’
‘…….’
‘How are you planning to save her anyway? ……Wait, hold on. Brother. Don’t tell me.’
The flames in the air hesitated, wavering. For the first time since his body had become fuel for fire, Raymond saw Lisianthus’s face go pale.
‘……Are you insane? That’s not what I think it is, right?’
Raymond could not be satisfied with playing the role of a loyal dog guarding Titania’s grave.
He could not be content with merely retracing her vanished traces, telling himself “this was the end everyone wished for,” and accepting resignation. He had thought, countless times—tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times. And he had reached a conclusion.
Yes. It was not love.
If it were love, he would never think of destroying the future someone had built at the cost of everything, and then forcibly saving her anyway.
If he truly cared. If he truly loved. If he truly treasured her.
‘Not yet.’
Raymond whispered flatly.
‘She said everything isn’t finished yet. …Which means there’s still something that can be changed.’
Raymond’s eye, dim as tarnished copper, slowly began to shift.
Yes. Perhaps this time, he would actually lose his temper. Perhaps he would draw a sword and threaten to kill her.
He might ask why she was doing this now, when they had never been lovers, when they didn’t even love each other. A man who had spent his life turning like a machine for his family and his empire—why commit such an irrational, idiotic, impossible madness?
But it did not matter.
Even if she came to slice his throat and pierce his heart, he felt he could smile with joy.
Yes, he would welcome that instead. All that was necessary was that she lived. That she existed completely. She did not need to love him…….
Raymond felt his mouth twist—deeply, bitterly—into a smile. Unable to laugh, unable to cry, unable to rage, his face like a mask cast in tarnished bronze suddenly bloomed with a smile like blood pooling in the heart.
So Raymond Oberon El Castrain admitted to himself that he had gone completely mad.
……It was a variable no “Titania” could have foreseen.

* * *

The man, completely mad, had made a decision: to sever the string of the Contract binding the villainess.

* * *

-Contract holder? Contract holder……? Contract holder, you’re there, aren’t you……?
‘What is this. Calling out so desperately as if my consciousness were on the verge of slipping across the far bank of some distant river. Huh? Where am I?!’
A strange…….
No, not a strange ceiling.
I blinked stupidly until my senses finally returned. The sword’s voice rang out clearly in my mind.

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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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