The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 16

Usually, someone pretending to be unconscious would inevitably show some sign, no matter how hard they tried, especially at this close range.

At the very least, there’s a difference in breathing between someone who’s conscious and someone who’s not.

But Cassis didn’t show any of those telltale signs, so I naturally assumed he had really fainted.

Even now, he was lying quietly with the same shallow, steady breathing as before, his eyes closed.

I observed Cassis for a while, but nothing changed.

So, I started to get puzzled.

If Cassis had regained consciousness, I wondered if he could really hide his agitation this well. He hadn’t even twitched. In fact, he could move his head even while truly asleep.

So, was it just my imagination?

Still, I didn’t completely dismiss my suspicion and looked down at Cassis’s face.

Hmm. Well, just in case, should I lay some groundwork, considering the possibility?

“…It’s kind of funny to say this to someone who’s unconscious.”

I spoke softly, as if talking to myself.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them earlier.”

If Cassis was really unconscious, that was fine. And if he was just pretending, that was also fine.

“But I couldn’t step in at that moment.”

Of course, it would be better if he could hear what I was muttering now.

“But that won’t happen again. Now that you belong to me, no one else can touch you carelessly.”

In this family, reputation was more important than one might think.

So, from now on, even Lant Agriche couldn’t treat Cassis, who had become my ‘toy,’ as he pleased like before.

I gently stroked Cassis’s hair again.

“I’ll definitely get you out of here.”

It was more like encouragement to myself than a word to Cassis.

Could I really get this person out of Agriche safely?

The question I had asked myself countless times since meeting Cassis resurfaced in my mind.

Of course, no one knew the answer.

* * *

Meanwhile, as Roxana suspected, Cassis was not unconscious at that time.

To be more precise, he hadn’t fainted in the first place.

“His shoes are dirty.”

After declaring that Cassis would belong to Roxana, Lant Agriche called a nearby subordinate.

“Clean them.”

“Yes, Master.”

The man who rushed over immediately knelt down and wiped Lant Agriche’s blood-soaked shoes with his sleeve without hesitation.

He looked more like a well-trained slave than a subordinate.

Cassis, who was lying on the floor, watched the scene with disgust.

Then, after Lant Agriche left, he pretended to lose consciousness, unable to bear the pain.

“Young Lady Roxana, what should we do with the toy?”

“Take him to an empty room in my property [estate].”

Immediately after the familiar voice rang in his ears, two burly men approached and grabbed Cassis’s arms, dragging him away.

Cassis relaxed his body and lowered his head, pretending to be truly unconscious.

“What exactly is this toy that the Master personally hunted down and beat to a pulp like this?”

After moving some distance from the initial location, the man on Cassis’s left opened his mouth, lowering his voice as if curious.

From his words, it seemed rare for Lant Agriche to personally hunt someone down and *touch* them like this.

The man on the right clicked his tongue and replied.

“Forget it. It’s better for people like us not to be too interested. Either way, once they come to Agriche in this state, they can’t leave alive.”

Then, the first man nodded in agreement and fell silent.

Perhaps because they firmly believed that Cassis was unconscious, the two men didn’t pay much attention to him.

Cassis continued to pretend to be unconscious and identified the location from the previous spot to the current one.

He needed to know in advance where he would be taken and what the structure of this mansion was like.

Then, if he had the chance now, he was thinking of attempting to escape, even if it meant taking some risks.

But Cassis couldn’t help but hesitate.

Even in his injured state, it wouldn’t be difficult to deal with the two men next to him.

But he couldn’t be sure if he could find the exit and escape properly afterward.

Besides, his vision was still not fully recovered, so his field of vision was definitely narrow.

If it were poison instead of magic, he would have recovered faster.

If he carried out his plan in this state, he would be caught again before he could even leave the mansion.

Cassis realized the recklessness of his plan, but he couldn’t easily give up because he couldn’t be sure if he would ever have such an opportunity again.

“By the way, isn’t this the first time Young Lady Roxana has owned a toy?”

“He’s probably the luckiest bastard among all the toys ever. If he had belonged to another young master or lady, he would have been dissected within a few days and fed to the hounds.”

Then, Cassis briefly recalled the person he had met earlier when the name suddenly entered his ears.

Roxana Agriche.

When Cassis first learned that the girl who came to the underground prison was Lant Agriche’s daughter, he couldn’t help but be a little surprised.

But soon, after learning the truth, some of his questions were resolved to some extent.

Betrayal was out of the question. He didn’t feel deceived either.

Those feelings were only possible between people who trusted each other.

Rather, it felt like the fog in front of his eyes had cleared.

Yes, it was much better than when he had to constantly harbor vague suspicions because he couldn’t know the identity of the person approaching him. Of course, other questions arose after that.

The girl said it was pure goodwill, but Cassis was neither naive nor foolish enough to believe it.

“I will train him well so that you won’t be disappointed.”

“I will protect you until you safely escape from this place.”

Only Roxana would know which of the two was the truth.

At that moment, he sensed the presence of another person in front of him.

Cassis closed his eyes again and quietly focused his mind.

“Oh, hello, Madam.”

The men holding Cassis’s arms flinched and greeted her.

Madam?

Cassis frowned slightly at the unexpected appearance of the person.

Come to think of it, he had heard that Agriche had a large family.

Unlike Fedelian, where there was only one mistress, he vaguely remembered hearing that Lant Agriche had taken in more than ten women as wives.

It seemed that one of them had appeared before Cassis now.

“That child… is he dead?”

Following that was a voice that felt so weak that it was hard to believe she was a member of Agriche.

The voice that pierced Cassis’s ears was subtly trembling, which may have made it feel even more so.

She seemed to have mistaken Cassis, who was pretending to be unconscious, for a corpse.

Well, Cassis was covered in blood to the point where he could be mistaken for a corpse.

It was also because he had met Lant Agriche a little while ago, but he had been soaked in blood even before that.

“No, he’s just unconscious.”

“But what brings you here, Madam, when you should be in the East Wing? Did you come to see Young Lady Roxana?”

The men didn’t explain Cassis’s condition in detail and changed the subject.

It seemed they were reluctant to show Cassis’s appearance to the woman in front of them.

Judging from the woman’s reaction earlier and the men’s attitude, it seemed that the woman was not used to seeing blood.

More than that, didn’t they just say Roxana?

Cassis recalled the name that had just been uttered by the man.

Then, is this person Roxana’s mother?

“I heard Sana has a toy. Can I see it too?”

“This is Young Lady Roxana’s toy.”

“This child?”

A toy. It was an unpleasant term to hear again.

The woman raised her voice as if she was a little surprised.

She probably couldn’t believe that the boy in front of her had become Roxana’s toy.

“Then, did Sana make this child like this?”

She asked back as if she couldn’t believe it.

“No. It wasn’t Young Lady Roxana, but the Master…”

The woman let out a shallow breath at the following answer.

Although he couldn’t directly see her expression, Cassis thought that she seemed relieved at the man’s words. The strange tension that had been felt earlier gradually disappeared.

After a while, light footsteps approached Cassis.