The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 238

Side Story 29

* * *

Thwack!

Around lunchtime the next day, something struck Roxana as she walked down the hallway.

“What, you couldn’t even dodge that, you idiot? You’re so slow.”

A foul odor, like sewage, wafted from the thick, viscous liquid that had burst out of the round sphere and soaked her clothes.

“Hello, Roxana. You looked a little plain today, so I decided to dress you up a bit. No need to thank me too much.”

Charlotte appeared from the side hallway, tossing another round sphere, about the size of a baby’s fist, into the air and catching it as she sneered at Roxana.

It was a stink bomb, something used to temporarily drive away magical creatures at the entrance when entering the menagerie [a collection of wild or unusual animals kept for exhibition].

“Charlotte… it seems you’ve been helping yourself to the mansion’s supplies again.”

Roxana glanced coldly at the clothes dirtied by Charlotte.

“Did you miss the Punishment Chamber that much? If you wanted to go back in there, you could have just said so instead of making it so difficult.”

“Shut up, you’re nothing but a tattletale…!”

Charlotte, who had been caught using items from the warehouse without permission a few days prior and confined to the Punishment Chamber, glared at Roxana and hissed.

“And yet, you’re just lucky for no reason. I really thought you’d be disposed of during last month’s monthly evaluation, but how do you keep surviving like a leech every time?”

Still, she must have learned something from the incident, as she no longer lashed out at Roxana but instead suppressed her anger.

“Well, I don’t know how long that luck will last. I’m looking forward to this month’s evaluation too.”

Just as Charlotte was about to throw the stink bomb again, someone else appeared from the stairs.

“What the hell is that stinky smell?”

“Oh, Jeremy!”

Jeremy, who had been grimacing at the unpleasant odor in the hallway, quickly assessed the situation and scoffed.

“What is it? Charlotte, were you bullying her again? Do you have nothing better to do every day? That’s why your grades are always so terrible during the monthly evaluations.”

“How amusing. Just because you’ve been attending the Grand Banquet a little more often lately, you’re acting all high and mighty.”

“I’m not acting high and mighty, I really am great, you stupid bitch.”

Jeremy, after sneering at the flustered Charlotte, turned his gaze to Roxana in front of him.

“I don’t know what’s so fun about playing with such a simpleton.”

His eyes held even more contempt for her than they did for Charlotte.

“Hey, but why are you alone today? Where’s that leech you always have stuck to you?”

As if suddenly remembering, Jeremy’s words made Roxana flinch almost imperceptibly.

Charlotte answered instead, as if she were stating the obvious.

“Are you talking about Emily? She died a couple of months ago.”

“Oh? Really? Why?”

“She must have eaten something wrong because she killed an instructor…”

After the indifferent conversation, Jeremy finally remembered what had happened.

“Ah, I remember now… Right, something like that happened back then?”

It was Roxana, his insignificant half-sister, so he had forgotten about it, but he belatedly recalled that quite a commotion had occurred in the mansion in connection with it.

A crooked smile formed on Jeremy’s lips.

He put his hands in his pockets, stood casually, and said to Roxana.

“Wow, some people have it good, huh? They have a mother who begs for their life and a loyal pet who’s willing to jump into a pit of fire for a cheap tear.”

Roxana’s face drained of color at the sharp taunt that pierced her heart.

“It’s not like your knees wear out from kneeling a few times, and even though one pet died, there are still plenty of other dogs willing to die for you. You must not have to worry during the monthly evaluations, huh?”

However, she clenched her fists so tightly that her skin paled, concealing the turmoil in her heart.

Then, she loosened her lips into a smile, as if she hadn’t been affected at all by either Charlotte or Jeremy.

“Is that your roundabout way of saying you’re jealous of me? How pathetic.”

“What?”

Jeremy and Charlotte’s faces contorted as if to say, ‘What nonsense is that?’

This time, Roxana openly mocked them.

“Well, I guess you would be jealous. Because even if you died and came back to life a hundred times, you’d never have it. Someone who cares about you enough to sacrifice themselves so readily. How pathetic.”

Especially for Jeremy, instead of begging for his life, he only had a mother who feared him and fell to her death while running away.

“What are you talking about? Who’s jealous of who!”

“Damn it, did she eat something wrong this morning…? Do you want to die?”

Perhaps that was why Jeremy reacted more strongly than Charlotte.

The energy emanating from him became more sinister and violent.

“Oh, how scary. It was just a joke, why are you getting so angry?”

However, Roxana, seemingly unafraid, simply tilted her head, a naive expression on her beautiful face.

“If you react so sensitively, it makes it seem like what I said is true. Did I perhaps hit a nerve? If so, I apologize.”

However, the look in her eyes directed at the two of them was sharper and colder than ever.

“Anyway, too bad for you. Because no matter what, my mother can’t become your mother.”

“Hey, shut up while I’m being nice.”

“Go and ask at your dead mother’s grave. The next time you’re in danger of being disposed of, have her appear in Father’s dream and beg on her knees for you. Of course, I don’t know if your mother, who cherished you so much, would grant your wish even after death.”

“You really…!”

“Well, if you want, I can lend you one of my pets. Of course, my loyal servants wouldn’t jump into a pit of fire for the likes of you, but if you’re lonely at night and scared to sleep alone, you can hug them instead of your mom.”

Roxana finished speaking with a twisted smile and turned away first.

“Hey, don’t you stop there? Hey…!”

“J-Jeremy! Calm down! If you touch her now, you’ll end up in the Punishment Chamber again!”

“Damn it, she doesn’t have anything special, so why is she acting so annoyingly?”

The sound of decorations breaking and shattering in the hallway echoed behind Roxana.

The smile had vanished from Roxana’s face as she ignored the raging Jeremy and walked on.

Jeremy might not have known, but what he had said earlier had not only touched Roxana’s sore spot but had also pierced it perfectly.

So Roxana had simply returned the favor.

She quickened her pace toward her room, trying to erase Jeremy’s words from her mind.

* * *

“I don’t know if time is passing quickly or slowly.”

That night, Roxana was talking to herself again in front of the unresponsive toy.

She wondered what it had done in her absence; the tip of the toy’s finger was skinned, with red droplets of blood.

“When I was waiting for the day I could bring you here, one day felt like a year… But now that I’m aware that I have to take the monthly evaluation again in a few days, it feels like a month has passed like a day.”

A quiet voice, well-suited to the dim night, spread faintly in the dimly lit room.

“Isn’t it strange? The monthly evaluation is something I experience every month, but it’s still scary every time. You know, I’m really not good at anything.”

Roxana, who had been bandaging the toy’s injured finger, gently raised her head.

“You know, right? When we ran into each other during the last monthly evaluation.”

However, there was no response this time either.

The boy’s face, shadowed by the light, was as still as an endless deep sea.

Roxana smiled faintly, holding his hand, which she had just finished treating, with a little more force.

“Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t remember.”

Roxana, who had gotten out of bed, put away the items she had used for first aid and returned.

Opening the drawer of the bedside table next to the bed, she took out various types of medicine.

“Charlotte and Jeremy are right. The reason I’m alive today is purely thanks to other people.”

A white, pretty finger slowly wandered over the glass bottles filled with pills of various shapes and colors.

“I was lucky, if anything. But…”

“…”

“Would I be too bad if I said this?”

Then, the movement of the finger that had been creating shadows suddenly stopped.

“I’m not happy about any of that.”

Roxana vaguely thought of her dead brother.

Even though it had only been five years since, the time she had spent with him felt like a very distant past.

After Ashil was disposed of, Roxana was terrified and stayed locked in her room for a while.

She couldn’t do anything because of the suffocating fear.

If her mother, Sierra, hadn’t forced her out and pushed her into the training room, she would have certainly not escaped punishment.

When Roxana was fifteen years old, when she was about to be disposed of because she failed to pass the final monthly evaluation of the year like Ashil, Sierra clung to Lant and pleaded, barely saving her.

And two months ago, which was brought up in the conversation with Charlotte and Jeremy…

Clatter.

Roxana took a handful of pills from the medicine bottle and poured them into her mouth.

Not satisfied with that, she poured pills from another bottle and swallowed them all.

After putting the medicine bottles back in the drawer and turning around, she saw that the boy’s golden eyes were quietly watching her.

In fact, it was inaccurate to say that he was watching her.

After all, the light in the boy’s eyes was extinguished, and he only seemed to have turned his head in response to the clattering sound.

But Roxana smiled and explained to him.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep with just the sleeping scent tonight.”

“…”

“It’s a little earlier than usual, but let’s go to sleep now.”

Soon after, the light that had been cast in the room dimmed even more.

Roxana, who had been tossing and turning after lying down next to the toy, fell into a deep sleep from the effects of the medicine.

About three hours later.

Cold sweat began to form on the forehead of Roxana, who was lying curled up.

Roxana, who was moaning softly as if having a nightmare and trembling convulsively, eventually took a deep breath and jumped up.

“…Hah! Hah…”

Rough breathing scattered in the darkness.

After a while, her rough breathing seemed to have calmed down to some extent, but Roxana, who had woken up, did not immediately lie back down.

Sitting still on the bed, she got up and headed for the display cabinet located in a corner of the room.

Roxana knelt on the floor and took out the box that had been placed in the bottom shelf, in the deepest part of it.

Roxana stared at what was inside for a long time after opening the lid.

Then, after a while, her slightly trembling hand finally moved.

She took out what was in the box, hugged it to her chest, and buried her face in it.

“Emily…”

The tattered clothes were what the servants of the Agriche wore.

Whether she hadn’t fallen asleep in the first place, or whether she had woken up because of Roxana, the boy’s quiet eyes in the darkness quietly captured the white, huddled figure under the moonlight.

Some more time passed, and Roxana climbed back into bed.

However, she did not lie down in her original spot but snuggled into the boy’s arms next to her.

At that moment, whether it was a reflex to the sudden contact, the body that touched Roxana flinched and shook slightly.

Roxana hugged him even tighter.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

After a while, a small whisper flowed from her lips.

As if she had never whispered the name of the dead in a frail voice, a clear voice without trembling scattered over the boy’s chest.

“I don’t want anything from you. So…”

The gazes intertwined at the closest distance ever. Red eyes, shining with a mysterious glow even in the darkness, stared straight as if to swallow the person facing them.

“Just stay by my side like this.”

Until I die.

Roxana, who whispered as if engraving it deep into the boy’s heart, tilted her head and pressed her lips against his left cheek, which was disfigured by burns.

A soft and careful kiss melted into the moonlight.

As always, Roxana’s toy made no promises to her today either.

Still, she was not refused even to be held in his arms, so Roxana buried her face in the boy’s chest and took a deep breath of his clear scent.

For some reason, she felt that was enough for now.