Touch My Brother and You Die - Chapter 217

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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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#217: Twenty-Three-Year-Old Rosalite’s Transformation (2)

“Surround her!”
Yet the man’s composure cracked only for a moment. In that instant, as though he’d lost everything, he immediately barked the command.
His attendants closed in around me. Some of the Maidservants who served me drew their weapons, aiming their blades at my throat. Ha. This fool. I’d suspected he didn’t trust me, but I’d armed my Maidservants as a precaution regardless. How fortunate that I had.
“Jack Brown!”
“Yes! I understand!”
Then I’d simply repay him in kind. At my command to Jack, the man drew his sword and pressed it to Lucilucil’s throat. Phew. Thank goodness I’d pestered His Majesty enough to grant my guard captain a blade. Had Jack been unarmed, the Great Largol Empire’s Crown Prince Lucius would surely have had his shoulder dislocated by now.
A blade at the throat was preferable to broken bones.
As Lucilucil fell into Jack’s grip, the Maidservants pressed forward more desperately. The chain at my neck clinked, growing hot as though burned. I must have been cut by the blade.
“I never gave you permission to leave. Surely I said as much?”
“Which is why I bid you a proper farewell.”
One should let departing guests leave gracefully. Clinging and whining made men unpopular—which was precisely why I’d divorced twice. As I spoke with calculated nonchalance, the man’s voice turned furious in a way I’d never heard before.
“This is no joke!”
Neither am I joking. I wanted to say so, but first I had to warn Jack. An Imperial Guard had already struck at Jack from behind. While Jack engaged the guard, Lucilucil, freed from the man’s blade, quickly approached and forced me to my knees.
That Jack fellow—his weapon feels unfamiliar in his hands. He can’t fight comfortably. If only he’d use proper weapons like everyone else, instead of those bizarre curved daggers and serrated blades he insists on carrying.
“Beg for forgiveness. Then I’ll overlook it this once.”
“Hahahaha.”
This man certainly knew how to joke. Even as I felt the Maidservants’ blades press deeper into my throat, I couldn’t stop laughing.
The advantage wasn’t with Lucilucil. Why? On the surface? It appeared? Lucilucil? Had a tremendous advantage?
There was something Lucilucil had overlooked. He couldn’t have known. After all, I’d never revealed to anyone except the Rocksburg people and the Magic Tower that I was a mage.
“Entity designation. Electromagnetic conversion. Manual control.”
I seized the Maidservants’ blades with magnetism and controlled them manually. The steel weapons flew freely around me, cutting down those nearby and piercing through the retreating attendants.
Forced to my knees, I rose easily and brushed off my trousers. The eerie blades dripping with crimson blood all turned their edges toward Lucilucil.
“What is this… exactly?”
“Your first time seeing magic?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Ugh, stop being so roundabout and try speaking more directly for once. You’re making me look like the insensitive one.
I sent several of the blades I controlled toward Jack to aid him, and rendered every person present combat-ineffective. Only Jack, myself, and Lucilucil remained standing, but I had no intention of harming the man.
So I would leave now. I needed to reunite with Sage. I took my first step toward my destination once more.
“Wait, wait… just wait a moment.”
As the magic’s power faded, the blades in the air fell with a metallic clang. Yet Lucius broke through and ran toward me. His clothes tore as he passed through the falling blades, his skin was cut, and even as he stumbled and rose again, the man reached out and grasped my hand.
“Don’t go. Please. I’m begging you.”
There was no strength in his grip. I could have easily shaken him off. But I didn’t. I couldn’t, more accurately—and I could have said the man broke my heart.
“Please… don’t abandon me too.”
The man collapsed to his knees. He gripped me desperately with both hands, resting his forehead against me as though in prayer.
He did not cry. He did not sob, and his expression remained unchanged. Yet from the face pressed against mine, moisture seeped forth. It was crimson. The blindfold covering the man’s vacant eyes was soaked with blood.
I had no choice. At least in this moment, the option of remaining at Lucius’s side did not exist. So I knelt beside him. I embraced the man and placed my hand against the back of his neck. Perhaps my hand was cold, for he trembled slightly.
“Entity designated. Minimum output. Release.”
It won’t hurt. I’ve grown quite accustomed to it, so I know precisely how much is enough to lose consciousness.
I confirmed that Lucilucil’s eyes had closed, then laid him down gently in place. Feeling somewhat guilty about letting such a noble body rest on bare ground, I dragged over a fallen attendant’s arm and used it as a pillow for Lucilucil.
As I glanced around searching for something to use as a blanket, Sage had already penetrated into the Crown Prince’s Palace courtyard.
“Doooooctor! Doctor! Waaahhhhh!”
“Squeeeak! Squeeeeak!”
Oh no, Papa! Why are you like this! Why are you crying! And why do you look like a beggar again!
“Grandmother! Serena, Grandmother!”
“Why Serena!”
The moment Papa arrived before me, he leaped down from Peter and pulled me into an embrace. What Sage conveyed through his wailing was news of Serena’s death.

“Here, drink this and calm yourself.”
“Hic… sniffle.”
I positioned Peter in front of the Guard Barracks to retrieve Leon, then seated Papa on a shaded bench and brought juice and pastries. Leon and Jack were delighted, wagering over who could knock down more approaching guards, and in the meantime, I learned what Papa had endured over the past week.
First, Pope Joraab and the Heresy Leader were the same person. The Pope had undergone identity laundering through Celin’s power and had served as Pope for generations, but when Celin performed a magic reset, she reverted to her original face and could no longer enter the Joraab Temple.
The only authority remaining to that grandmother was her identity as the Heresy Leader. In any case, this was something to be settled later, and the most crucial matter was what changes would occur in the contract due to Serena and Celin’s deaths.
“Serena said that even with bad luck, only one more sacrifice would be needed going forward, yes? What exactly does that mean?”
“That is… I know Celin no better than Grandmother does, so I can only speculate. But resetting dark magic must mean that Celin is also relinquishing the realm over which her magic held sway.”
When Celin made the new contract, she must have used mana existing on Earth—or some form of energy. My prediction proved correct. If I, being heterogeneous, could not detect it, that would have been the only means.
Then the Sword’s new contract, or as Lam put it, the rebooted Sword, could no longer influence this entire planet.
Judging by how the Pope found her true face, at least Largol does not fall within that range.
If Leon were to die by some chance, I would become the battery that turns back time according to the contract that has not disappeared. And a new successor would come. That successor would experience sixteen-year-old Rosalite Capo. It was evident that Asterion and Rosalite, directly connected to the contract, would return to their past bodies.
The contract was made with Earth’s power, and I, having become a battery, am also of Earth’s origin. Perhaps the successor Rosalite might retain no memories and repeat time knowing nothing at all. In a way, her circumstances would be better than mine.
And regarding the range—this is, in a sense, the most important part.
“If I may ask, how extensive might be the realm that Celin did not relinquish?”
“The precise extent we’ll have to confirm by taking your family’s cotton candy and checking, but the minimum is just your creepy younger sibling and the Doctor alone. And the maximum is probably…”
“The maximum?”
“Rocksburg Mansion.”
Goodness.
If we’re unlucky, our home becomes a cursed mansion with time spinning endlessly. Serena had been away from Aleine with Celin when the Sword rebooted, so she had realized they would fall outside the regression range and forced her self-destruction.
This grandmother. She kept insisting she knew Celin best of all, yet during the Celin crisis meeting, she just kept her mouth firmly shut.
Always deciding alone until the very end, abandoning the few, prioritizing only the greatest number. Her stubbornness is quite something.
“Take heart. Those who have departed have departed, and the living must continue to live, must they not?”
“Sniff… Doctor, Doctor…”
I heaved a deep sigh and offered words of consolation to Sage, whereupon Papa burst into tears again in my embrace. I had nothing more to say, so I patted Sage’s shoulder instead. When caring for Aster and Mother, I would have needed to keep my wits sharp, so perhaps he never properly mourned.
I had not known Serena for long, and though she was kin to the man who ruined my life, even I felt bitterness in my mouth and heaviness in my chest. How much more must Papa be suffering. And he was already such a sentimental man.
“But then, where are the Duchess and Aster? And the Fourth Prince?”
“By the way, where are the Rocksburg Duchess and Aster? What about the Fourth Prince?”
“Ah…, that’s….”
What is it? What’s bothering you, old man?
Boom!
Papa had been holding me close with his face buried in my shoulder, so I was thinking of grabbing his collar for once in a while, when a dull roar erupted from far away. It came from the direction of the Joraab Temple. Something was rampaging toward the temple.
“Aster fell for that trick about getting food and let the Pope slip away!”
“Aster Browwwwn!”
This brat! How could you let the most dangerous person in the world right now escape just because of some food!
“Jack Brown! Jack Brown! Hand over the gas mask! The one with the telescope lens—give it to me now!”
“What’s the matter, sir!”
What do you think? Your sister caused another disaster because of her appetite, you fool!
I pulled the lens of the gas mask Jack handed me and observed the temple. An elephant. A colossal monster in the shape of an elephant was demolishing the entire village, and around it were two figures flitting about like fleas. Probably Mother and Aster.
“Lightning magic doesn’t work on that thing, so useless me came to ask you! What do we do now, Doctor!”
I don’t know, why are you asking me that!
I scratched and tore at my head in utter desperation. Should I flee? No. Even if I retreat to Aleine, the situation won’t be resolved. All I’d accomplished so far was that thanks to Serena’s sacrifice, I could end the Celin crisis with the sacrifice of just one successor. Perhaps if that creature exhausts my battery, the Requiem of Destruction will finally come to an end.

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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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