Touch My Brother and You Die - Chapter 2
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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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Regardless, what mattered now was keeping Lion alive past twenty. Once I saw him find a good match and survive past that threshold, I could bury myself in the Magic Tower and spend my life living an exhilarating magical existence with my Mentor. Who could have predicted I’d fall out of a novel and discover my true calling?
I rescued Lion from my Cousin, showered him with affection, and devoted my spare moments to advancing my mana circle while systematically eliminating every threat that came his way. The key was maintaining distance. The boy was so kind, so beautiful in appearance, so beautiful in his actions that it was harder not to grow close to him—but I managed it somehow.
I became the bare minimum of a good older sister. When he brought new boyfriends, I’d say, “Yes, love well.” When he brought new girlfriends, I’d say, “Yes, love well. I’d be so happy if you got married.”
And so, by chance, I found myself meeting a good man too. Surprisingly, he was the same man I’d decided on in my second cycle and matched with Lion. It seemed I would marry after all. Fine then—let my brother find happiness and let me find mine too.
Since it was a double celebration, I proceeded with wedding preparations to handle both Lion’s and my own marriage in one ceremony. As I examined several dresses with their hems finished, deciding which design to wear on the day, Lion entered my room without knocking and suddenly flew into a rage.
Bewildered, I watched as he extended his delicate hands, grabbed the lemonade beside me, and downed it in one gulp. Then he coughed blood and died. It was poisoned.
【Cycle 12】 had begun.
What poison?! I’d cleared every trivial obstacle imaginable, and now I had to worry about poison too?!
Furious, I sought out Lion the moment I regressed and demanded why he was born with such a fragile body that he’d die from poison, then wept bitterly. Lion, not understanding why I was doing this, simply begged forgiveness, insisting it was his fault.
Stop being so unnecessarily kind, you fool! You idiot! You’re breaking my resolve!
What good was it to rage at a child who understood nothing? It only left me feeling hollow. After crying and pouring everything out, I steadied myself and resumed my plan to let Lion enjoy his natural lifespan.
I dealt with my Cousin, blackmailed my father, made Lion a true member of the Rocksburg Duchy, built up his poison tolerance, hired teachers to teach him combat, and since I couldn’t watch him constantly, I rarely let him leave the Mansion—and whenever he seemed overconfident, I personally struck him down with lightning magic.
My schedule was so packed that I couldn’t let him pursue romantic relationships, but perhaps that was fortunate. Since Lion’s love life didn’t become complicated, he passed twenty more smoothly than ever before.
Lion grew steadily, becoming twenty-one, then twenty-two, then twenty-three, yet he clung to my side like a burr and wouldn’t let go. In any case, three years had passed since that fateful twentieth birthday.
I thought we were safe by now.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I became excited and decided to cast off every constraint and shackle in this world and go find my own happiness.
I was the sole legitimate heir of the Rocksburg Duchy, the successor, the Kingdom’s merciless winter plum blossom, the young lady of the silver lightning—in short, I had many strange titles—and I threw the succession to Lion and left home.
Worried my father might chase after me, saying I’d completed his successor education only to try to eat without working, I avoided the Kingdom’s Magic Tower entirely and headed beyond the Mountain Range that cuts through the Central Continent, toward a hidden realm.
The original Magic Tower my Mentor had told me about in my eighth cycle. It was called the True Magic Tower. Apparently, the Magic Towers in each country were merely branches, and all the high-ranking mages in those towers were graduates of this True Magic Tower. Few knew this fact, and almost no one sought it out—but I arrived with papers I’d secretly reorganized over time and knocked on the True Magic Tower’s door.
Since few people lived there, my case went straight to the upper echelons, and the True Magic Tower Master herself came down to review my achievements and papers. I barely passed and was allowed to reside at the True Magic Tower, spending my days in training, research, rejection, paper revision, rejection, paper re-revision, rejection, and final paper revision.
Magic training is so fun!
I lost track of time researching lightning magic. The True Magic Tower Master mocked me for abandoning my Duke title and family to grovel in the True Magic Tower and practice magic, but I didn’t care. It was wonderful.
I had cast off every constraint and shackle in this world and found my own happiness. This was my true calling. Even as I repeatedly performed like a bear and faced rejection, grinning all the while, the True Magic Tower Master called me mad and gave up on me.
Several years passed like that.
I barely entered the third circle, celebrated excitedly, and collapsed in exhaustion when a fellow student shook me awake. A fourth-circle flame wind mage had a serious problem, and someone was looking for me.
I had no one who would seek me out, and I didn’t understand why finding me would be connected to something serious, so I thought it was nonsense and tried to go back to sleep. But the man said I’d understand if I went, and he suddenly scooped me up and started running.
I wanted to sleep more, but the moment I arrived at the True Magic Tower’s central hall, I was wide awake.
My younger brother Asterion, surrounded by a violet aura, and the eighth-circle elemental master True Magic Tower Master were destroying the True Magic Tower while fighting.
What is this? The genre’s completely different. I’m scared….
Is this really a BL novel? It is, right? That silver-haired beautiful man over there slashing through bookshelves with his sword, shouting for me to come out—that’s Asterion from “Asterion of the Blue Starry Night,” right?
Watching Asterion, whose shoulders had broadened and whose height had grown impressively compared to my memories, standing there as a silver-haired beautiful man, felt utterly unreal.
I turned my head, hoping the sight of the True Magic Tower Master might restore my sense of reality, and there stood a beautiful woman with long black hair and a monocle, triple-casting different elements and toying with the silver-haired, dark-eyed beautiful man Asterion.
The True Magic Tower Master is so cool, I think I might faint. What should I do?
Wait, how is she triple-casting? Is it possible to think three separate thoughts at once? Teacher, you’ll teach me that later, right? Please, I’m begging you.
But this isn’t the time for this.
Understanding the situation, I called out the True Magic Tower Master’s and Asterion’s names to stop them. At my call, Lion forgot he was in the middle of fighting and turned to me with a bright smile, only to be hit by a fireball and pierced through the chest by an ice spike.
Triple casting followed by a relentless barrage of attacks. Was this truly a technique wielded by human hands?
I couldn’t help but marvel, and then I became sixteen-year-old Rosalite once more.
I had entered my 【13th cycle】. I wanted nothing more than to die.
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In my 【13th cycle】, I was a hollow shell of a person. I had no desire to make any effort. I wanted no connection with anyone. I simply existed within the Mansion, breathing and nothing more.
Because I abandoned all heir education and procedures, throwing myself into bed to count the patterns on the wallpaper, Father’s drinking increased. Though I had come to regard the Duke as my father for decades now, developing an affection deeper than my biological father ever inspired (forgive me, Korean father), without motivation, there was nothing to be done about it.
What was the point of studying? In five years, I would be sixteen-year-old Rosalite again. What was the point of making friends? In five years, I would be starting over with relationships from zero.
Every day, I lay mindlessly in bed, rolling myself up in blankets like a caterpillar, until Father had no choice but to bring Asterion into the Duke’s household and have him undergo heir education.
Lion suffered greatly in the middle of all this. Already struggling with the complications of his romantic entanglements, Father was always out drinking, and his half-sister—me—was doing nothing but imitating a caterpillar. I lay there day after day without appetite, and after going hungry for several days, Lion came to me in tears, begging me to eat just one spoonful, and fed me himself.
Such a good child, truly. If only you weren’t such a sunfish, I would have been so fond of you.
I simply let the days pass. I grew gaunt with each passing moment. Lion’s appearance, once so vibrant when he came to visit me, became unrecognizable, but eventually he stopped coming altogether. Whether he had died earlier than expected, I found myself becoming sixteen-year-old Rosalite one day without knowing when.
In my 【14th cycle】, I had lost all strength. I had lived enough. I was worried about Lion’s suffering, but I no longer had the strength to care for him. I wished I had given up sooner. If I had surrendered around the middle of the 12th cycle, Lion might have lived well without ever having to search for me at the True Magic Tower.
Still watching the clear sky as I had on that first day, I ended my own life.
In my 【15th cycle】, I had become sixteen-year-old Rosalite.
All I remembered was crying.
In my 【16th cycle】, all I remembered was crying.
In my 【17th cycle】, all Rosalite remembered was crying.
In my 【18th cycle】, Rosalite remembered only crying.
In my 【19th cycle】, Rosalite could not even cry.
In my 【20th cycle】, I sensed something strange. It was night outside, so I put on my outer robe.
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At sixteen, I had never experienced anything like this. At sixteen, I always regained consciousness around two in the afternoon in my room where the blue sky was visible. But the perspective was higher than when I was sixteen—was this just my imagination?
Ugh, my mind is all over the place!
I died from crying like a dog and then got hit by a truck, so my consciousness was completely scattered!
I patted both my cheeks sharply and searched for a mirror. There was something I needed to confirm.
“Shine for me.”
Though I hadn’t established a mana circle, I could draw in the surrounding mana to create a light about as bright as a small bulb. Lifting one finger, I walked down the familiar hallway and spotted a large mirror at an intersection, rushing toward it quickly.
Looking through the mirror, I had definitely grown compared to sixteen. The lustrous silver hair characteristic of Rocksburg bloodline had grown past my waist, and I possessed a more mature body and face than at sixteen. The brilliant golden eyes I inherited from the Duke—my father—remained unchanged.
Now that I think about it, everyone in this family has had silver hair and golden eyes for generations, yet Asterion alone had purple eyes. Did his mother’s genes work that hard?
“?”
I confirmed I wasn’t sixteen anymore and was about to go check on the others, but I found my gaze fixed beyond the window.
There was something in the Annex Building.
An strange magical aura was present.
It was something foreign that I hadn’t detected until now.
The Annex Building—wasn’t that where Lion’s quarters were? I wouldn’t dismiss anything dangerous.
Habitually feeling a surge of urgency, I started running toward the Annex Building, but then I stopped, remembering why I should be protecting Lion in this situation.
There was no reason, was there? Habits are terrifying. I no longer had any reason to care for Lion’s longevity, yet my body moved first.
But I was worried, so I had to go check.
I hopped toward the Annex Building at a less hurried pace than before. Even though it was the middle of the night, the complete absence of any human presence was strange. It was strange, but it didn’t really matter. I was already a discarded person anyway. With five and a half years of repetition and no future to speak of, I’d lose my mind eventually.
“Haha!”
Humming to myself, I sensed mana. It wasn’t the kind that naturally existed in the material world. I’d never experienced it myself, but wouldn’t a dark mage who’d made a contract with a demon or someone who used mental-type magic emit an aura like this?
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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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