Protecting the Heroine’s Older Brother – Episode 162
* * *
“I’m going back to my room. Good night, Brother.”
“Okay, go and rest.”
Cassis parted ways with Sylvia at the end of the hallway.
Sylvia had been holed up in the library the entire time until Cassis went to find her.
It was already late at night, so Cassis couldn’t help but caution Sylvia, his heart filled with worry.
He had intended to have a more in-depth conversation with her afterward, but it was already too late.
Cassis didn’t stop Sylvia, who said she would go straight back to her room to rest, and watched her leave.
It seemed he would have to postpone talking with his sister until the next day.
After that, Cassis headed outside, intending to check on Nix.
On his way, a familiar figure caught his eye.
Cassis’s steps then turned toward the place where light blue hair fluttered.
“The White Beast Master. Are you taking a walk this late at night?”
At the casually tossed question, Orca Hyperion turned around.
He had been moving as if chasing something, but stopped when he saw Cassis.
Orca, who had reflexively frowned, soon relaxed his face and answered nonchalantly.
“Yeah, well. I couldn’t sleep.”
His hurried appearance, with a clear sense of purpose, suggested more than just a sleepless stroll.
Cassis also noticed this, but he didn’t press the issue.
However, his gaze swept coldly past the direction Orca had been heading.
There was nothing visible to the naked eye, but someone was presumed to have gone that way.
Cassis had already heard that Roxana was planning to leave Yggdrasil briefly tonight because of the Poison Butterfly [a clandestine organization].
Naturally, he wanted to accompany Roxana.
However, she refused, asking him to watch over Yggdrasil instead to prevent any possible problems while she dealt with the Poison Butterfly.
But for Orca Hyperion to be moving so suspiciously at the very time Roxana was leaving Yggdrasil…
Moreover, he was clearly trying to hide his presence.
Perhaps because his abilities were specialized for hunting monsters, it was difficult to notice when Orca deliberately silenced his footsteps like this.
“I happened to come out for a walk too. Shall we keep each other company?”
A deliberately crafted smile appeared on Cassis’s face. Of course, the underlying message was far from friendly.
“A walk alone with a man? That sounds incredibly awful.”
Orca also gave a crooked smile and paused for a moment.
His silver-gray eyes, like those covered with an icy film, watched Cassis as if gauging something. Orca soon reluctantly agreed.
“Okay, I was bored alone anyway, so that’s good.”
Orca’s voice, as he said that, was faintly tinged with the irritation and displeasure of someone thwarted.
Of course, Orca’s feelings were of no concern to Cassis.
So Cassis simply gave Orca a chilling smile.
Thus, the two ended up taking a moonlit walk together that neither of them wanted.
Naturally, it wasn’t a very pleasant time.
* * *
Nix was trapped in a recurring dream.
In it, he was repeatedly stabbed in the heart and killed by a jet-black monster with red eyes.
The dream was so vivid and chilling, so much like reality, that Nix had to wake up startled several times in one night.
The monster, initially just a black mass, gradually took on a proper form as the days passed.
Its completed form was a grown man much taller than Nix.
His heart was pierced by that hand several times.
However, the figure of the man looming like an ice wall in front of Nix also didn’t seem to be the final completed form, and he changed shape again.
Gradually shrinking and becoming younger, the man now had the appearance of a young child who seemed to be in his early teens.
However, only the outward appearance had become younger, and the red eyes, completely devoid of emotion, remained the same.
“…….”
The boy-turned-man quietly stared at Nix with an indifferent gaze, as if looking at an inanimate object.
At that moment, his left eye, which he thought had already healed, throbbed as if being branded with fire.
There was another man next to the boy.
At first, he thought there were two monsters in the dream, because the face of the man standing next to the boy was very similar to the original appearance of the younger monster.
But he was just a bit similar in appearance to the monster, not the same person.
“Deon… death….”
As the man said something, the boy approached Nix.
The aftermath was the same as in previous dreams.
The child’s small, white hand, full of scars inappropriate for his age, pierced Nix’s heart without a shred of mercy.
He had that damn dream several more times.
Then, this time, Nix’s dream itself began to change its form.
And there, Nix saw very strange things.
* * *
“…….”
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the narrow room.
Perhaps because of the repeated nights, he was quite confused as to whether he was still in a dream or not.
Nix blinked his unfocused eyes for a moment and lay still, then rolled over to his side.
He had been having various dreams alternately for some time, but at least this time it wasn’t a dream of being stabbed in the heart.
So now he didn’t have to gasp for breath and grope around his chest in an unsightly manner.
It was late at night, and the surroundings were dark.
The people of Yggdrasil seemed intent on suffocating Nix to death with confinement, not allowing him to step out of this room.
“…How did I end up like this?”
As he always did on nights when he woke up from sleep, Nix murmured, steeped in regret.
At that moment, a sharp, throbbing pain suddenly swept through him.
“Ugh.”
Nix frowned and got up. For some reason, his whole body felt sore.
Even though that damn Azure Duke had cleanly healed the wounds on his body, the terrible feeling of his bones breaking and blood vessels rupturing at that time had not completely disappeared.
But in fact, if he were to speak honestly, excluding all personal feelings, these symptoms had started after he suffered a major injury in Vertium.
Clatter.
Nix frowned, massaging his arm for no reason.
From what he overheard, the reason Nix was still unable to leave this room was that Vertium had not yet arrived at Yggdrasil.
After learning that news, Nix was filled with strong doubts.
Whether it was Noel or Dante, what on earth were they doing that they still hadn’t shown their faces? In the first place, who was it because of that he ended up like this?
Whenever he had such thoughts, Nix was tormented by a destructive urge to smash anything in a fit of anger.
However, whenever he recalled Cassis Fedelian’s cold golden eyes, the chilling feeling and the heat that had been fiercely raging inside him soon subsided quietly.
Clang.
A dull metallic sound suddenly rang in Nix’s ears.
Upon recognizing it, his gaze fell upon the shackles that made noise whenever he moved.
Nix looked down at the cold metal that wrapped around his wrist.
Suddenly, the strange dreams that had been visiting him every night came to mind.
Is that what dreams are originally like?
Even though it was clearly not something that had actually happened to him, there were often times when he had the illusion that the scenes he saw in his dreams were like memories he originally had.
So after having such a vivid dream, he often couldn’t come to his senses immediately after waking up and lay there blankly.
Clink….
Nix fiddled with the shackles.
In one of the dreams he had recently, he had unlocked something like this.
Perhaps because the dream was so vivid, he somehow felt that he could unlock it with his own hands even now.
But in the dream, Nix was putting the shackles on his own wrists and teaching someone how to unlock them.
It was a young girl with blonde hair and red eyes who looked very much like someone Nix knew.
“Damn it…. Am I going crazy?”
Nix took his hand off the shackles and leaned against the cold wall.
He felt very dirty for some reason.
But he couldn’t define what this scattered feeling he was feeling right now was.
His limbs throbbed again. His head seemed to hurt a little today.
At times like this, recalling the feeling when Sylvia Fedelian touched him outside of Yggdrasil seemed to alleviate the symptoms a little.
So Nix closed his eyes and recalled that memory.
And the next day, Noel Vertium, whom Nix had been so eagerly waiting for, arrived at Yggdrasil.