The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 178

Protecting the Heroine’s Older Brother – Episode 178

* * *

Nix wasn’t immediately returned to the room where he had been imprisoned but was instead kept in a waiting room next to the assembly hall.

He sat blankly, replaying the earlier events in his mind.

It had been a long time since he had seen Noel’s face.

Although it hadn’t been that long since they parted ways in Vertium, it felt like an eternity had passed, perhaps because it was the first time he had been away from his master, Noel, for such an extended period.

Perhaps that was why Noel seemed so glad to see him.

However, Nix’s face was not bright as he recalled what had just happened.

“Nix……!”

“Nix! Where are you trying to hide Nix again! Nix is my doll, he’s mine!”

“Give Nix back to me……!”

It was strange.

Noel was calling out for him so desperately…….

Yet, Nix felt a sense of revulsion at the sight of him.

Noel looked strangely different from how he remembered.

He had always looked worn out when he stayed up for days making dolls, but this felt different.

Nix even sensed a kind of madness in Noel as he reached out to him.

Was it too much to imagine that Noel’s hand wouldn’t welcome him with an embrace but would instead tear at his skin?

Perhaps it was.

Noel would often smash the dolls he made without hesitation when he was upset, but he was still fond of Nix.

Perhaps that was because Nix was an irreplaceable doll.

In any case, Noel had never shown that kind of violence towards Nix.

Rather, it was fair to say that Nix’s role in their relationship was to torment the other.

Nix had hated humans ever since he first opened his eyes in Asil’s body through Noel’s doll magic.

It was a loathing akin to inflammation.

Even so, Nix had always felt a dirty sense of discomfort at the fact that he, too, was an imperfect being, half-human.

So, he would often tease Noel as if it were a mischievous prank, and Dante was wary of Nix because of it.

Nix’s attempt to get Roxana Agriche into his hands in Vertium was not out of loyalty to his master, Noel.

Nix intended to ruin Roxana at the moment Noel reached the height of his happiness, frustrating him.

But Noel was too foolish to even notice Nix’s animosity, which he faced every day.

But what was that strange appearance from earlier?

His stomach churned as he recalled Noel’s eyes, gleaming with an inner light.

Besides, why wasn’t Dante with Noel?

“Arise, doll of Vertium.”

At that moment, the henchman who had been guarding Nix said, tugging on the chain.

It was after hearing something from someone outside.

Nix’s fingertips trembled, wondering if he was about to be taken back into the assembly hall, but fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.

Seeing that they were leaving the waiting room and returning the way they had come, it seemed they were heading back to his room.

Nix was relieved, and he frowned, not understanding himself.

“Hey, walk a little slower.”

He snapped at the henchmen walking ahead of him, as if trying to make up for the humiliating sight of cowering before Noel in front of the many people in the assembly hall.

But it was no use.

It was Pedelian’s henchmen who were guarding Nix today.

Perhaps another family would have shown him some consideration, but Pedelian’s henchmen were all bleak fellows who seemed to have blue blood flowing through them, and they wouldn’t listen to reason.

Nix furrowed his brow irritably.

But the moment he turned his gaze forward again, he discovered a man standing at the end of the dark corridor…….

Nix’s bluff quickly vanished without a trace.

Thump!

His heart plummeted to the bottom in an instant and then began to beat wildly out of rhythm.

Was he seeing an illusion again this time?

But it wasn’t.

The man standing silently like a black, withered tree, staring at Nix with frozen red eyes, was definitely Deon Agriche.

Clang!

Nix stopped walking without realizing it.

“What is it?”

The Pedelian henchman turned to him and pulled the chain in his hand as if urging him on.

But Nix didn’t budge from his spot, as if his feet were nailed to the ground.

His heart was pounding like crazy. His spine was chilling as if all the blood was draining from his body.

Before those eerie red eyes, Nix had once again become a weak beast facing death.

“Nix.”

If someone hadn’t broken the dense air, Nix might have suffocated.

Tap.

The person who approached with small footsteps was Roxana.

She was wearing the same black clothes as the man who had been in Nix’s sight until just now, and she was looking at him with cold red eyes that were no less intense.

But the moment he saw her, Nix felt as if he had tasted a drop of rain in the desert.

However, he was not aware of himself.

Roxana’s gaze slid to the man standing at the end of the corridor.

Two pairs of red eyes met in the air.

The man’s face, which had been frozen without warmth while facing Nix, slowly began to crack.

Deon, who had been standing motionless for a while, finally disappeared as if melting into the darkness.

“Why are you trembling?”

Roxana, who had been quietly gazing at the empty space for a moment, turned her gaze to Nix.

Roxana’s face was cold without expression, and the voice that reached Nix’s ears was the same.

“Why are you so afraid of him?”

It was a voice that completely excluded emotion.

Perhaps that was why it felt like reassurance that there was no need to be afraid of Deon Agriche at all.

Of course, Roxana’s words were by no means meant as such a kind consolation.

“Don’t get me wrong, Nix. That’s not your emotion.”

Roxana denied the fear Nix felt in an icy voice.

Surprisingly, those words pierced his heart more deeply than any words Roxana Agriche had ever said to Nix.

In an instant, he felt inexplicably suffocated.

“Don’t imitate Asil in front of me like that.”

Nix looked at Roxana’s face, which was coldly reciting, with an even more blank expression than before.

“Because it’s so disgusting and repulsive that I want to kill you.”

It was as if… a thorn soaked in poison was digging into his heart.

So Nix couldn’t say anything to the person in front of him.

…It was strange.

Noel, whom he had seen in the assembly hall, was just as strange, but *she* was even stranger.

Since some time ago, his stomach had been strangely stinging whenever he thought of this woman.

But he couldn’t figure out why.

The Pedelian henchman, who had been quietly waiting beside him, grabbed Nix again.

Nix followed him, holding his confused insides.

He couldn’t turn around to look at the woman standing behind him, afraid that his stomach would ache again if their eyes met.

* * *

It was late at night when Cassis and Roxana met alone.

“Cassis.”

Cassis, who had quietly entered the room, closed the door and stood there, silently gazing at her.

Roxana also quietly stared at Cassis, then got up from her seat and walked towards him.

His face, faintly tinged with moonlight, came into view.

Seen up close, Cassis’s eyes felt low and sunken.

Soon, a slightly cool hand touched Roxana’s cheek.

The movement of lightly stroking her profile and then slowly sweeping across her cheek was cautious and gentle.

Roxana looked into Cassis’s face. It was clear that he had the events of the day at the assembly hall in mind.

Perhaps he was pitying her and feeling sorry for her.

In the past, she would have been displeased with that.

But now, she thought it wasn’t so bad.

If Cassis had a heart that felt sorry for her, he wouldn’t be able to easily abandon her no matter what happened in the future.

Roxana tilted her head and leaned her face deeply into Cassis’s hand.

“Cassis.”

And she looked up at his eyes and asked in a whisper.

“Where… did you go last night?”

There was no change in the face she met, as if he hadn’t heard her voice.

But soon, the hand that had been moving on her cheek stopped.

Cassis’s lips, which had been tightly closed, finally opened slowly.

“To the monster habitat.”

It was a desolate voice, unlike the gentle touch.

Roxana felt it too. But without showing it, she raised her hand and gently covered Cassis’s hand that touched her cheek.

“Will you tell me what you saw there?”

“What you…”

Cassis looked down at Roxana, who was pulling his hand and burying her lips in it.

“Tried to show me.”

His mood had been somewhat down since dawn.

He didn’t know what to define this complex emotion as.

He was angry at himself, and he was angry at Lant Agriche, who was already dead.

And just a little bit, he seemed to be angry at the person in front of him now.

But the emotion towards Roxana was overwhelmingly different.

Even this morning, when his frustrated heart swelled the most, it was like that, so there was no need to say it now.

“Was it when you went to the monster habitat alone to feed the poison butterflies a few nights ago?”

A sparse voice was recited quietly.

“The reason why monsters flocked to the vicinity is because of that stone.”

It was in the form of a question, but it wasn’t a question.

“You’re the one who brought it to the habitat.”

Cassis was already convinced.

At that, long golden eyelashes fluttered down, tickling Cassis’s fingers, and then lifted again.

“What are you going to do if I say yes?”