The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 201

How to Protect the Heroine’s Older Brother – Episode 201

Nix, now noticeably taller, glared at Roxana, who stood motionless before him, her eyes bloodshot.

There was another, more disturbing change.

It was the reason Griselda had confined him to a room warded with inscribed spells.

And the reason Nix had been hiding his appearance under a thick blanket.

“Don’t call me by that disgusting name.”

With each word he spat out through clenched teeth, fragments of skin flaked from his cracked face, as if it were breaking apart.

“I’m Nix.”

Nix’s body, which had been growing rapidly, was now just as rapidly deteriorating.

It wasn’t solely due to this current outburst.

In fact, there had been warning signs.

Starting from the first time he began experiencing Asil’s nightmares.

Roxana looked at Nix and reaffirmed her decision not to take him to her mother.

She couldn’t expose her to this side of Nix.

If she felt this disturbed just looking at Nix now, her mother wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Roxana quietly stared at Nix before slowly parting her lips.

“Yes, Nix.”

Whether she truly believed he was right, or simply wanted to believe it.

“You’re not Asil.”

She merely told him what he desperately wanted to hear.

Nix’s expression flickered for a moment.

But he quickly pulled the blanket over his head again, preventing Roxana from seeing his face for long.

Roxana left the room, leaving Nix alone.

* * *

“He kept crying even after you left.”

Griselda, still sitting in her chair, remarked casually as Roxana opened the door and emerged.

The small house wasn’t soundproof, so she must have overheard the conversation between Nix and Roxana.

If this was another attempt to gauge her reaction, or a joke to provoke her, she would have ignored it.

But Griselda was unusually serious.

“From what I observed, he’s deliberately behaving that way in front of you….”

“I know.”

Roxana curtly cut off Griselda’s words and walked past her.

A silent gaze followed her from behind.

Roxana sat down in the remaining chair, her face blank.

Bang!

“Sana, I’m here!”

At that moment, Jeremy burst through the door.

Griselda, who was behind him, grumbled, “I don’t know why my house is starting to feel more like your house.”

Of course, Jeremy, thick-skinned as ever, ignored Griselda’s comment and rushed to Roxana’s side.

“Welcome, Jeremy. Did you finish packing everything up?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

Like the other families, they were planning to return to Agriche temporarily to reorganize their affairs.

Jeremy leaned closer to Roxana and whispered.

“Orca Hyperion and Pandora Hyperion also returned to their families.”

Ah, Orca Hyperion.

Only then did Roxana recall the name she had briefly forgotten.

She had been so consumed by Nix and Deon’s problems that she had momentarily forgotten his existence.

His body had been directly exposed to the poison, so ordinary medicine wouldn’t neutralize it, and in the end, he had simply returned to Hyperion.

Still, recalling Orca’s condition, which she had vaguely heard about, he didn’t seem to be on the verge of death.

She had considered trading an antidote specially prepared by Agriche if Orca repented for his actions later, but she doubted that day would ever come.

For now, she decided to set that problem aside and asked Jeremy about something else.

“Noel Vertium?”

“Same as yesterday.”

Hearing Jeremy’s answer, she thought of Noel, lying in bed, staring blankly out the window.

Five days ago, Roxana had left Deon and Nix in the care of Sierra and Griselda, respectively, and re-entered Yggdrasil.

And she acted as if she had never left in the first place.

Afterward, she saw the fake Nix’s corpse brought by the pursuit team and shamelessly testified that it was the real Nix.

Surprisingly, Noel also agreed that it was Nix.

However, she couldn’t believe that Noel, of all people, wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the fake body of the doll he had created and the real human body that made up Nix.

For some reason, Noel seemed to have lost all motivation since waking up again; had he completely given up on Nix as well?

Or did he have other intentions?

…Maybe he knew that Nix would need him and come to him first, without him having to intervene.

“How’s that doll? Can I go inside, too?”

Jeremy, who had been watching Roxana’s expression, asked cautiously.

“No… It’s better not to.”

Roxana recalled Nix’s body, which had begun to crack like broken plaster.

Even within the healing magic circle created by Griselda, the best they could do was slow down the progression.

She wondered if Noel, who created Nix, might know the solution, so she had casually mentioned it in front of him last night.

Nix seemed unaware that Noel was alive and was visibly shaken by Roxana’s words.

But he refused to meet Noel.

Roxana didn’t bring it up again.

Her eyes lowered slightly.

That evening, when the red sunset was painting the sky, in that field she had gone to after hearing Cassis’s words.

In the end, she might have done something meaningless.

“….”

Then, at some point, a faint sound reached her ears.

Jeremy and Griselda also seemed to have heard it, and they subtly shifted their gazes to the side.

A faint sob that seemed about to break.

Roxana closed her eyes as if trying to block it out.

* * *

At that time, Cassis was also outside Yggdrasil.

He was on his way back after stopping by Vertium to deliver news of Yggdrasil and Noel as the representative of the five families.

When Cassis had arrived, even before he could have known the news from Yggdrasil, the atmosphere at Vertium was bleak and depressed.

The people of Vertium were gathered in the detached building on the supporter’s side, and for some reason, they were very nervous when they heard approaching footsteps, but they were strangely relieved when they saw Cassis’s face.

Cassis conveyed the information about the incident to them as planned.

The people of Vertium were stunned, unable to hide their shock.

But they soon seemed to understand that Noel was capable of such a thing.

They said that Noel had even tortured them to find the person who killed Dante.

They readily agreed to the statement that Vertium would be sealed until Noel’s fate was decided.

Everyone seemed relieved at the news that Noel Vertium would not be returning for a while.

Still, after regaining some composure, they seemed worried about potential repercussions from Noel’s actions.

The detached building was soon filled with hushed whispers.

The people who had accompanied Cassis from Yggdrasil moved to their respective positions at his gesture.

Cassis left the supporter’s building and moved to the main building.

The henchmen he had placed in advance were thoroughly searching the building for any other dangerous elements, including the dolls he had seen in Yggdrasil.

“The master is out. Shall I guide you to the reception room?”

There were still dolls left in Vertium.

Other people seemed to regard them as real people.

It was understandable, as the appearance and movements of the dolls were far more sophisticated than the ones that had fought fiercely in Yggdrasil.

Still, it seemed that Noel had sent all the dolls with even a little bit of combat power to Yggdrasil, so the dolls left here didn’t seem to have any dangerous functions.

Just in case, he instructed his henchmen to reveal that all the servants were dolls and to isolate them separately.

After that, Cassis continued his search.

After checking several rooms in the mansion, unsure of what he was looking for, he finally found Dante’s body.

Dante was lying in a glass tube filled with an unknown liquid, seemingly a device to prevent decay.

Scattered around it were pieces of doll bodies that appeared to have been used in various experiments, and papers covered with magic circles drawn for unknown purposes.

“….”

Cassis’s gaze briefly scanned the surroundings before settling on the tube.

The man lying here now would never know what Noel Vertium had done in his name.

The contrast between the fragments of other dolls scattered messily in the room and the state of Dante, who was lying neatly in the tube in perfect condition, created a strange feeling.

At first, he considered examining Dante’s body and disposing of it.

But in the end, Cassis left the room, leaving Dante in the tube as it was.

On the way out of Vertium and back to Yggdrasil, Cassis stopped by the monster habitat alone.

After roughly locating and destroying the magic stones there in preparation for any possible event, he entered Yggdrasil.

“Brother, you’re here?”

Sylvia, who was moving busily, greeted Cassis.

The people of Fedelian had not yet returned to their families and were staying in Yggdrasil to care for the injured and handle the aftermath of the recent incident.

Originally, it was the servants’ job, but a large number of people had died in this incident, and the damage was so extensive that even gathering servants from each family left them with a significant shortage of manpower.

“There are a lot fewer people.”

Cassis said, looking around.

He had gone to Vertium immediately after helping the pursuit team eliminate the escaped dolls outside Yggdrasil.

Yggdrasil had become deserted in the meantime while Cassis was away.

“Almost everyone has returned to their families. Roxana left three days ago, and the leader of the Black Knights also took the remaining people with him.”

Sylvia added.

“Orca Hyperion is also gone.”

Sylvia also knew about the rumors surrounding Orca.

Although Roxana’s name wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the rumors circulating within Yggdrasil, Sylvia sensed who the central figure was.

A chill flashed across Cassis’s eyes for a moment.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Orca was already in a state where no one needed to intervene when Cassis found out about it.

Cassis easily recognized that the poison that had infiltrated his body was the same as Roxana’s.

He hesitated to interfere in a problem that Roxana had already resolved herself, so Cassis left Orca alone until he departed Yggdrasil.

He had never felt more uncomfortable with his position as an outsider in Agriche’s affairs than at that moment.

Still, Cassis knew that Roxana would soon be leaving Yggdrasil.

So he assumed he would have a chance to see Orca separately after returning from Vertium.

But he hadn’t expected her to leave so quickly.