The Male Lead Is Targeting Me, Not My Younger Sister - Chapter 18

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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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The Male Lead Targets Me, Not My Sister — Episode 018
Why?
That single syllable was the first thing to fill her mind.
“This bastard……!”
Clang!
Karl lunged at Ainsung.
A fierce exchange of blows ensued.
But throughout it all, Lidia could do nothing.
……Why?
In a fraction of a second.
Though it was only the briefest instant—the span of a single blink—time seemed to crawl, as if the world itself had frozen.
Crash! Boom!
An attack that had bled through the Transcendents’ defenses came pouring down upon Silvia with murderous force.
Yet Silvia remained crouched and motionless, enduring without flinching.
As if refusing to let go of what she held in her grip.
“……Silvia!”
Lidia snapped back to herself and rushed to her sister.
“Silvia, are you all right?”
There was no time to wait for an answer.
Lidia quickly embraced her sister and struggled to drag them both away.
Hurry, hurry—they had to get to safety…….
“Sister…….”
A faint voice came from her arms.
Lidia instinctively lowered her head.
“This…….”
Her sister’s pale, small hand slowly uncurled from its fist.
Clutching a pristine Yinneungseok, she grinned with childlike pride, as if seeking praise.
Ah.
Lidia bit her lip.
Fool.
With trembling hands, she took the Yinneungseok her sister offered and swiftly placed it into the glass bottle she’d prepared beforehand.
The moment she sealed the bottle completely.
Schwick!
Someone’s blade slashed across Ainsung’s throat.
By a hair’s breadth.
Scarlet blood sprayed in every direction.
Blood that was dark red and viscous—almost like a human’s.
“Haa…… Ha…….”
In the suffocating silence, someone’s ragged breathing cut through the air. One of the Transcendents, it seemed.
Yet Lidia heard none of it.
“Is it over?”
“What on earth happened……?”
“Can we leave now?”
“Please, someone do something!”
People began murmuring as they realized the situation had ended.
Yet none of them dared move carelessly.
“Lidia!”
Ricardo rushed toward her, belatedly.
But Lidia only……
“Sister…….”
……kept her eyes on the sister still cradled in her arms.
Silvia, her entire body a mass of wounds, smiled radiantly.
“I did well, didn’t I?”
An innocent, childlike smile.
The moment Lidia saw it, her throat tightened as if being strangled.
* * *
The situation was contained swiftly.
The one who had been Ainsung was named Eric Lentz.
Third son of the Baron, a man who had scarcely any presence in high society.
With this incident, Baron Lentz and his entire household vanished without a trace overnight.
According to rumor, he had been taken into custody by the Royal Palace Knights as a key witness and suspect in the incident. Thus fell one noble house of the Capital.
Yet nothing was ever proven.
The interrogation revealed only that the Baron knew nothing of his son being Ainsung, and had never once laid eyes on creatures with his own two eyes.
In the end, the case was closed, leaving only unease in its wake.
But that was far from the true ending.
For the first time, people became aware of Ainsung as an Intelligent Superior Being.
The confusion remained limited for now, as few fully grasped what had occurred. Yet in time, they would understand.
The world they had believed solid and safe was nothing but illusion.
“I don’t like it! I’m not taking the medicine, no way!”
At the sound of her sister’s whining, which came without fail as it did every day, the tendons in Lidia’s forehead stood out.
“It tastes awful, I’m telling you. I hate it, I hate it! I’m all better now, so I don’t need it anymore! It doesn’t even hurt!”
“Silvia……”
“Gulp.”
Silvia, belatedly sensing the sinister turn in her sister’s mood, fell silent.
Lidia, teeth gritted, spoke each word as if chewing through stone.
“You…… promised me, remember? That you’d take your medicine properly in the evening.”
Silvia kept her lips pressed shut while her eyes rolled about in her head.
“Did you promise, or didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s……”
“Did you, or didn’t you?”
Silvia’s courage crumbled rapidly.
“Yes, I diiiiid……”
The victor, naturally, was Lidia.
“Blegh, it’s bitter.”
Having been forced to swallow the medicine, Silvia screwed up her face in protest.
‘She’s enjoying this way too much.’
Savoring her victory, Lidia matter-of-factly put away the medicine bottle, then popped a sweet into her sister’s mouth.
As the candy dissolved on her tongue and Silvia began to feel better, she hummed a cheerful tune again.
Lidia watched her for a moment in silence.
If one counted attacks alone, Lidia had certainly taken far more blows. Yet in terms of actual injury, the picture was different.
Lidia had been laden with protective artifacts from head to toe.
Silvia, by contrast, had snuck out unequipped—she didn’t even have the minimal artifacts Lidia usually prepared for her.
Which meant she had taken every one of Ainsung’s attacks bare-handed.
“Hehe.”
In good spirits, Silvia gazed out the window and laughed.
The evening sky glowed with a beautiful ruddy hue.
Bandages wrapped tightly around her entire body. Her beautiful face still swollen. Bruises and scrapes visible across every patch of exposed skin……
“…… Idiot.”
At Lidia’s sudden remark, Silvia jumped and shot back.
“What?!”
“Fool. You.”
“That’s not true!”
Silvia cried out.
“I’m not a fool! I’m just as smart as you!”
“Exactly why you’re a fool.”
Of all people to idolize.
Someone like me.
Lidia moved closer and drew the blanket over her sister.
“The medicine will kick in soon. Get some rest. And don’t go stumbling around by yourself again.”
“I won’t! I know better than that!”
Sure you do.
Lidia didn’t even laugh bitterly.
After one final, careful check of Silvia’s bedside, Lidia rose to her feet.
But before she could fully leave the room, Silvia called her back.
“Sister.”
Lidia turned her head.
“Even so, I’m glad I could be helpful to you.”
The fool smiled happily.
Lidia could not smile at all.
When she stepped out into the corridor, someone was waiting at the door.
“Ah.”
Ludwig.
The master of this sprawling mansion.
After the incident concluded, Lidia had come directly here with Silvia.
He was the only person who could provide Silvia with the finest treatment, and shield both sisters from unnecessary scrutiny—from investigators, from journalists, from the machinery of attention that always followed such events.
“Is Silvia doing better?”
Lidia studied him for a moment before answering.
As always, he was disturbingly perfect—not a thread out of place.
Unlike the other Transcendents, who bore wounds both great and small from the incident, Ludwig remained entirely unmarked, as if untouched by any of it.
There were questions about that, certainly. But……
“……Yes, thanks to you. I’m truly grateful.”
For now.
At least for now, such questions didn’t matter.
Lidia bowed her head without reservation.
“I’ve owed you so much since last time. I don’t know how I could ever repay such kindness.”
When the sincere gratitude came without the slightest edge, Ludwig raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Though the moment passed in an instant.
“Do you have a few moments to spare? I’d like to discuss what comes next, if only briefly.”
Lidia’s tone had shifted to something purely businesslike as she suggested the conversation.
The two of them made their way to the study together.
While the maid brought tea, neither spoke.
Lidia spooned sugar into her cup—heaping it high—and stirred with deliberate vigor.
Clink, clink.
Time drifted through the silence.
It was Ludwig who finally broke it.
“I regret what happened to Silvia.”
At the unexpected words, Lidia lifted her gaze.
“I should have been more careful. I failed in that.”
An apology, she understood, for allowing Silvia to be wounded during the battle.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t his fault to apologize for.
At that time, the Transcendents could barely muster a fraction of their true power. And they’d had to protect civilians from dozens of Creatures while fighting under such a handicap—it was combat with a crushing penalty.
The fact that all four of them hadn’t managed to dispatch Ainsung immediately was a direct result of those constraints.
“……No. There was nothing anyone could have done then.”
Yet doubt crept into Lidia’s mind from time to time.
Really?
Had it truly been unavoidable?
Looking back, it had all been too perfectly timed. As if the world had simply waited for Lidia to secure the Yinneungseok safely, then moved exactly as it needed to.
Such a perilously close thing it had been.
As though someone had deliberately kept Ainsung alive, knowing that only his existence could maintain the Yinneungseok’s power.

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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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