Touch My Brother and You Die - Chapter 78

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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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Let’s go home.
Right now.
We have to get home immediately!
I threatened the sailors who’d accompanied me to the Island, swearing I’d have them set sail at once even if the boat capsized on the way, then chased after Rosalite Rocksburg’s Mark Two form sprawled on the floor to find the Crown Prince.
I didn’t care whether ghosts existed or not, but I couldn’t spend another moment in a villa with a serial killer.
Yesterday’s incident was one thing, but the fact that a victim had appeared despite organizing groups and deploying them suggested this was likely someone the killer knew. Moreover, the fact that they’d managed to seduce a single woman despite everyone being on high alert suggested the perpetrator appeared remarkably harmless on the surface—and might even be someone I knew.
I didn’t care whether Sadako and Marbas existed in this world or not, but Demian and Ji Young-min terrified me. Those two looked so harmless, then they’d stab you in the back and chase you down with a knife. A double attack of betrayal on both mind and body!
As I ran with my ears covered searching for the Crown Prince, Lucius seemed to be laughing behind me with an “ehehehe,” but I didn’t care—I just wanted to get the Crown Prince and go home.
“Here it is!”
“Wait, Rocksburg Young Lady! This is not the time!”
Mark Two had buried her head completely in front of the room guarded by two Maidservants, so I started running at full speed.
The Maidservants must have spotted me coming, because they immediately formed a defensive formation to block my charge, but I skidded to a halt, feinted left, then pivoted sharply right, slipped past them, and threw the door wide open.
The scene inside came into full view.
“…!”
“Ugh!”
Theodore lay on an enormous bed. And on top of him was Irene, her body pressed against his. The Imperial Princess appeared to be engaged in some kind of intense play—she’d bound both his arms to the bed and was straddling him, her hand clamped over his mouth, while he thrashed about, his eyes glaring at me as if something was desperately urgent.
“I can explain….”
Had I walked in at another terrible moment…? Or was it…?
Remembering several previous occasions when I’d opened the wrong door, I slowly turned my head and began backing away.
I was thinking of just leaving the room and taking a two-hour corridor walk before returning, when Aster suddenly sprang from his position and bolted forward.
“So you’ve finally revealed your true colors!”
…What?
As Aster seized the sword hilt that Jack had confiscated and wielded it like a club, charging into the room, Theodore’s complexion brightened instantly and the Imperial Princess leaped from the bed.
I had no idea what was happening. Wasn’t anyone going to explain?!
“Young Lady! It’s magic!”
Huh? What?
“Rocksburg Young Lady! Are your eyes merely decorative?!”
If it had only been Aster speaking, I might have thought he’d developed another habit of biting people indiscriminately, but since the Crown Prince himself was now reproaching me, I had to snap to attention.
Magic, and eyes as decoration? Visual distortion? Wait—distortion? If that’s the case…
On a hunch, I slapped my own cheek hard, and suddenly my vision cleared. I witnessed a grotesque form and sensed an unpleasant mana.
If what I was seeing was real, then I’d been cheerfully conversing and dining with someone wearing that since the first day I arrived on the Island.
“Aster! The face!”
“Understood!”
The moment the attack order came down, Aster rushed toward the Imperial Princess as if he’d been waiting, swung the sealed scabbard that wouldn’t open at her, knocked her down, and reached toward her face.
As Aster grasped the Imperial Princess’s face and tore at it like ripping fabric, her facial skin peeled away to reveal the face of an Unknown Woman beneath.
“Damn it! Just a little more!”
A little more of what? Attacking the Crown Prince?!
“To meet Theodore! I even got blood on these hands!”
So she really was planning to attack me! That would have been quite the blunder… or rather, it wouldn’t have been!
I’m sorry, Your Highness! Even if she’s some unknown woman from who knows where, if a royal heir came from it, wouldn’t that be acceptable in its own way? I only thought about it for one second! Just one second! Really, truly one second!
“Ugh. What is that? Facial skin?”
Ah, so that was the source of the smell Aster complained about when first meeting the Imperial Princess.
Considering the magic unraveled after just one slap to the cheek, she couldn’t employ high-level mental manipulation. It appeared she could only wear the facial skin of someone she wished to impersonate and create confusion in her target—she had killed the Imperial Princess, flayed her skin, and treated it with chemicals.
Right. I had already noticed this morning that the woman’s face was distorted, hadn’t I? Even then, I felt no sense of wrongness.
Now that I’ve experienced it myself, I understand—mental manipulation magic seems incredibly useful.
“So that’s how it was.”
Lucius, why do you keep inserting yourself? Withdraw before you get hurt. I don’t want our family’s foundation uprooted, you know?
“The women who died yesterday and today. They were the Eighth Princess’s personal maidservants, weren’t they? She disposed of them first to prevent her identity from being exposed.”
“So the investigation yielded no results?”
“Of course not. Not until we discovered the second woman.”
“Why that woman?”
“Did you forget? She was the maidservant belonging to the Eighth Princess who was searching for someone named Angela yesterday.”
“You certainly remember women’s faces well.”
“Take it as a compliment.”
In my haste to rush over, I hadn’t thought that far. Certainly, if that grotesque corpse with the twisted neck was the woman I saw yesterday, I could reach the conclusion that the smaller corpse was Angela.
“So my sister died without even knowing, and I’ve caused trouble. If I subdue her like this and hand over her identity, according to imperial law…”
“Kill Aster!”
Don’t be ridiculous. If I hand this woman over to you, who knows what cunning scheme you’ll use her for next.
Even I briefly considered she might be useful if handled properly, but someone like you would extract every drop of value far more skillfully than I ever could.
“But I handed over Ram Bart—isn’t this too much?”
“If Lucius still needed that girl, don’t you think she would have arrived in one piece? Don’t take credit for it.”
“Yet you’re making good use of what I no longer needed.”
“Yes, she’s working well at our printing house.”
“The printing house?”
Why is that woman at the printing house?
While Lucius spoke in a dazed voice, Aster subdued the Unknown Woman and snapped her neck in one swift motion.
After confirming the woman’s broken neck hung limp and her breathing had ceased, Aster reported the completion of my order, then immediately raised an angry voice.
“That’s why I said there was a strange smell!”
Aster let out a sharp cry, and her expression crumpled as tears welled up in her eyes. Because I hadn’t believed her, she was so aggrieved that she crouched before me, sobbing uncontrollably. I set aside my argument with Lucius and patted Aster’s back.
“I’m sorry. I thought you had picked up a bad habit again…”
“I told you! I said it clearly from the beginning!”
“You’re right, you’re right. I was wrong. It’s all my fault.”
As I held Aster close and comforted her, Lucius seemed to lose interest in picking a fight and quickly suggested we leave for the surface, departing immediately.
And just as Aster’s sobs began to subside with hiccupping sounds, we were about to leave the room to prepare for departure when a voice we had completely forgotten echoed from behind us.
“Hey.”
I turned to see the Crown Prince was still bound to the bed.
“Wouldn’t you untie this before you go?”
“You don’t even have the strength for that?”
“Given my frailty, I fear I cannot attend the matchmaking that Rocksburg has arranged.”
“You are perfect in every other regard, so lacking in strength is hardly a concern.”
I urged Jack to quickly unbind him, then hurried my departure, hoping he would take notice of Princess Natalie of the Nimerunia Duchy, whom we had recommended.
Though the wind had not ceased entirely, the weather was far more temperate than it had been that morning.

As I sailed back to the mainland, I suddenly felt a pang of regret. I had hastily killed that mind-control mage out of fear that the First Prince would claim her, but it would have been better to negotiate, extract information about her backer, and then execute her.
In my own judgment, that woman appeared to have no backer whatsoever, but it had been necessary to reassure the Crown Prince.
The very existence of a woman willing to risk death itself, staining her hands with blood, murdering an innocent Imperial Princess, and wearing her flayed skin—all for a rendezvous in bed with the Crown Prince—and the fact that such a woman had deceived everyone and presented herself as a matchmaking candidate, must have struck Theodore with immeasurable terror.
I could not fault him for refusing to meet with women under the pretense of this matchmaking. Indeed, the moment His Highness set foot in Bienar Harbor, he had instructed me not to even mention the word “matchmaking” for some time.
This is going to earn me another scolding from Father when I get home.
Steeling myself, I returned home, and as expected, Father subjected me to endless nagging. I knelt on the floor of his office and wrote ten pages of a reflection essay.
After my thoroughly filled ten-page reflection was inspected, I immediately stormed into the Royal Palace Diplomatic Administration, overturned every desk, and submitted a memorial to the King denouncing those who had allowed Lucius Aidemorque to pass through as a porter, recommending their one-year salary reduction.
Not long after news of their one-year salary reduction reached me, word arrived from the Empire that Nicole Tianuus, the mother of the current Fourth Prince Nerva Tianuus Largol, had passed away.
I wondered why Lucius had traveled all the way to distant Aleine, but it seemed he had come to fabricate an excuse lest suspicion fall upon me.
Thinking that this would surely bring a storm of blood to the Imperial Court, I clicked my tongue. Since I had some acquaintance with the Fourth Prince, I sent him a letter of condolence for his mother’s death, and to the First Prince Lucius, I sent merely the words “Congratulations” written on parchment by courier.
A month or so later, when I had already forgotten about the letter I had sent, a letter arrived at the Duke’s Residence addressed to the Duke’s heir—the Rocksburg Duchy’s successor—containing words I could not decipher, along with a single silver spoon.
It must have been poison. What a despicable bastard.

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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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