Touch My Brother and You Die - Chapter 49

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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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I desperately wanted to ask what kind of curse required fifty years of austerity to lift, but I held my tongue—I had no desire to be expelled from the Temple. Before I could voice my question, the Fourth Prince kept jabbing me insistently, preventing me from speaking.
Ten minutes had already slipped away due to the commotion. With only twenty minutes remaining, I would barely have time to state my business and receive the certificate.
“I apologize for my disheveled appearance, Your Holiness. I have many questions regarding my curse and the austerity required, but I’ve come today on different business.”
“It seems there is no matter more pressing than your curse… but very well, let me hear what brings you here.”
The High Priestess had sensed my curse the moment I entered the Capital and expressed concern that I might be in grave danger. However, since the Princess’s matter was more urgent, I decided to prioritize her situation first.
What could be worse than death? I had endured far worse fates than that, so I could bear even this.
“This is an assessment from the Royal Physician of the Alein Kingdom, and this is the progress report on the Princess’s eye condition.”
I handed over a document—the Royal Physician’s assessment, flawlessly translated into Imperial, from thirty years of medical practice and ten years of healing magic—through the High Priest and waited for the High Priestess to review it thoroughly.
Wearing magnifying spectacles, she read slowly through the entire document over the course of ten minutes before offering her response.
Phew—I had nearly run out of time. For once, I felt genuinely grateful to the Fourth Prince.
“I apologize. I am familiar with Macaon of the Alein Kingdom. If even he has abandoned the case, I fear I can offer little assistance.”
“Is the Princess’s condition truly so severe?”
“No, rather… if I possessed the ability to cure intractable diseases, I would have already accepted substantial donations and cured Kaina Chatel’s diabetes first.”
How strange—Father says exactly the same thing.
I briefly wondered whether Luke’s father’s diabetes had become so famous, then reminded myself of the time constraint and prepared the documents and pen.
Since I had harbored no great expectations for the High Priestess, I had already prepared a certificate stating that she could not cure the Princess’s eye condition. I intended to obtain only her signature and comments in the blank spaces.
“You certainly make efficient use of your thirty minutes.”
“This thirty-minute audience may be the only time in my life I see Your Holiness, so I must make the most of it.”
“You could see me for fifty years if you practiced under my guidance.”
“I shall remain cursed, if you please.”
Fifty years in a single cycle—even living once through such a span seemed unreal, so I declined the austerity. Since some time remained, I decided to ask one final question.
“Forgive my presumption in declining Your Holiness’s kindness, but could you tell me the nature of this curse?”
“I cannot give you a definitive answer, as I have not observed it closely… but yes, it is a curse of a nature where death is not the problem.”
Death is not the problem? Is there something in this world more terrible than the sixteen-year-old Rosalite’s Danse Macabre of Ruin?
Even as I shook my head vigorously—refusing to believe it, clinging to the pride that my misfortune was the greatest in all the world—I had completed my thirty-minute audience and was preparing to leave when the Fourth Prince arrived with Aster before the High Priestess, leaving me no choice but to watch.
The man asked the High Priestess’s permission and requested a moment to observe. He raised his right hand toward Aster, who stood far above him in station. It seemed like some sort of oath, which puzzled me—until I heard the Fourth Prince actually speak the words of swearing an oath, and I could not contain my shock.
“Before the High Priestess and in the name of the Zoraab Deity, I swear: I shall make Aster my Empress without fail. Please wait for me just a little longer!”
He spoke in Imperial, which Aster could not understand, making his sincerity all the more apparent.
I knew he favored our Aster greatly, but marriage? You’ve only known her for a week! Did you ask your parents’ permission? Is courting someone on sight an Imperial tradition?
“Miss, what is he saying?”
Aster, bewildered and lost, looked to me for help, but the Fourth Prince threatened me with his fists, so I said nothing. Besides, I had never intended to explain anyway. He would be someone with whom we had no further connection—why invite stress by translating?
Once we returned to the Kingdom, I would send word to the Fourth Prince’s Palace that Aster had died.
I let Prince Nerva’s solemn oath pass through my ears unheeded and returned to the Imperial Palace. I had gathered the Emperor’s edict ordering the Third Prince’s return, the diplomatic treaty we had negotiated, and the High Priestess’s certificate confirming she could not cure the Princess’s condition. Now all that remained was to pack and go home.
I had considered taking a day or two for sightseeing once my mission was complete, but keeping Aster in the Empire any longer seemed likely to cause her distress. For her sake, returning to the Kingdom seemed wisest. The soldiers of Noctram and I would need to remain vigilant regardless—prolonging our stay would only accumulate fatigue.
When I announced our swift return to the Kingdom, the Fourth Prince wailed for Aster as expected, and the First Prince sent me a letter expressing his disappointment. His disappointment ran so deep that Lucius himself walked to the Imperial Palace’s main gate on the day of my departure to bid me farewell.
His smiling goodbye filled me with ominous foreboding, but even more ominous was when he pressed a note into my hand, insisting I read it on the journey.
The note contained—

B2
□□■□
□□□□

There was a cryptic marking, but no matter how long I stared at it, the image made no sense whatsoever, so I decided to abandon my attempt to decipher it.

◇ ◆ ◇

The voyage home was nothing short of serene. The sea lay calm, the wind blew favorably from the northeast, and my luggage brimmed with the fruits of this imperial visit.
Aster seemed delighted by the homeward journey as well, constantly tossing something into the sea with loud splashes and laughing heartily. It appeared to be dresses and jewels gifted by the Fourth Prince, but I would pretend not to notice. Though it was all money, if Aster needed to release her pent-up emotions this way, what could I do?
More importantly, the route from the Empire to the Kingdom at this time of year catches the wind head-on. No wonder people always arrived so quickly whenever they came from the Empire in spring.
“Hmm…”
Still, this note really bothered me. It resembled those diagrams you see when checking parking lot vacancies or selecting seats at a cinema, but surely no such system existed here.
And B2… B2…
I could only think of parking lot blocks. Turning the note the First Prince had given me this way and that, I abandoned my parking lot mind map at the elevator and studied B2 intently.
Could this possibly mean basement level 2? Where would a basement even be on this ship?
If I counted the deck as ground level and descended two staircases, the logic would roughly align, but it still felt forced. This wasn’t some escape room game, after all.
“…”
Still, I should go down just in case. My heart was racing. The Prince might have hidden a gift for me before I left for home.
“Miss, where are you going?”
“Oh, just down for a moment.”
“I shall accompany you.”
That woman certainly didn’t slack on her duties.
Aster, who had been merrily tossing objects into the sea but came scurrying over the moment it seemed I was moving elsewhere, walked three paces behind me, vigilantly surveying our surroundings.
Since we were on the return journey and I had chartered the entire ship, there were only our party aside from the crew, but her diligence was far preferable to negligence.
Descending eagerly like I was on a treasure hunt, I reached the level two decks below and saw a sight that transformed my ominous premonition into certainty. There stood cannons for emergencies and gun ports, and beyond them hung a row of lifeboats for evacuation.
Wow… there were exactly eight boats. Ha.
Damn it.
Feeling deeply unsettled, I examined the gun port in the second position from the left front, and upon discovering a piece of paper made from the same material as the note that bastard Lucius had given me, I became furious and snatched it up.
This man must really love escape room games!
“Miss, what is that?”
“Well… a threat letter?”
“What madman would dare threaten you!”
Well… the person first in line for the imperial succession?
The note’s contents were brief but carried such impact that “threat letter” was the only appropriate description.

If you make it back alive, I’ll arrange your exile. Start from the bottom.

What on earth was she scheming that she spoke of death and life? In truth, wasn’t that “curse” she mentioned simply what the First Prince had said? Since I wouldn’t meet the High Priestess unless I converted to the faith, there was nowhere to inquire, and I was at a loss.
As I stared at the note intently, pondering what danger might befall me, the ship suddenly lurched to one side with a tremendous splash from the distance, prompting me to check outside through the porthole.

Imagine, among the great powers and beings that endure to the end, there exists a survivor from an immeasurably distant age. After concealing its form and appearance before the arrival of evolved humanity, its very essence has been expressed clearly through the mediums of poetry and legend, and that existence—glimpsed like a fleeting memory—has been called by countless names: god, monster, mythological being.
– Algernon Blackwood’s “Centaur” (1911)
(H. P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu” ‘Lovecraft Complete Collection 1’, translated by Jung Jin-young (Golden Branch Publishing, 2015), p. 135)

Hahahaha, what is that! A squid? It’s a squid, a squid!
Fhtagn wgah’nagl Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl Fhtagn!
Squid-like tentacles rose and danced from the sea in the distance, so I gripped the ship’s railing and laughed hysterically. Perhaps this was my mind’s defense mechanism activating to forget the terror that would soon follow.
The tentacles, moving in a dance-like motion, approached our ship so rapidly that there was no time to succumb to fear.
I had spoken boldly as though death held no terror, but truthfully, I was terrified too. Who wouldn’t be afraid of dying? Only a madman, if such a person existed.
In that sense, I was absolutely terrified of dying right now.
I hated it.
Being devoured by a squid in the sea was utterly repugnant.
Boom.
As the tentacle finally drew close enough to the sailing ship that one of its suckers appeared through the porthole, I screamed. The entire front of the porthole was covered in suckers. They writhed.
Rosalite Rocksburg, we’re initiating emergency procedures.
“Kyaaaah! I’m sorry, Teacher! I’ll believe in Cthulhu! I’m sorry for laughing, please save me, Teacher!”

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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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