The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 205

How to Protect the Heroine’s Older Brother – Episode 205

* * *

“Cassis Pedelian?”

Grizelda stared, surprised by the unexpected visitor.

“How did you find this place?”

Cassis ignored Grizelda and stepped inside.

“Those skilled in gathering information aren’t only in Agrische,” he said, implying his resources were just as capable.

Grizelda frowned, a little offended by Cassis’s casual remark. She’d been so focused on Nix’s situation lately that she’d neglected her own security.

The fact that Cassis Pedelian had discovered her hideout and arrived at her doorstep without her noticing was unsettling.

“Roxana isn’t here.”

*Did Roxana know he was coming?* If so, she should have warned her; it felt unfair.

“I know.”

Cassis replied curtly.

The next moment, Grizelda realized who he had come to see.

“Don’t tell me you’re here to deal with the doll?”

Cassis’s gaze landed on the door inscribed with magic.

“Then I have no choice but to stop you.”

“I didn’t come to kill him.”

With that, Cassis began to walk towards the door.

Grizelda hesitated, but ultimately didn’t stop him.

*Clack.*

Cassis’s hand turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

Inside, he saw someone huddled in a corner, haphazardly covered with a blanket.

At the sound of the door opening, the figure groggily turned his head.

Cassis’s face hardened slightly.

The scent of musk, even stronger than he had detected with Deon Agrische, filled the room with a suffocating intensity.

“You are… Cassis Pedelian?”

Nix also recognized the visitor and flinched, raising himself up. The blanket slipped down with the sudden movement, revealing Nix’s face.

Sensing Cassis’s gaze, he quickly moved to cover himself again.

But Cassis had already seen Nix’s face.

He hadn’t expected things to be this way, and struggled to find the right words.

He moved closer to Nix.

“Don’t come closer.”

Nix retreated further into the corner, snarling fiercely. He looked like a wounded wild animal, cornered and afraid.

“I didn’t come to harm you. There’s no need to be so wary,” Cassis said, repeating the same words he had told Grizelda.

Nix seemed to sense Cassis’s sincerity. He could feel Nix’s gaze quietly watching him from under the blanket.

Cassis approached Nix again, reaching out and pulling away the blanket covering his face.

As expected, Nix’s appearance was different from what Cassis remembered. The fifteen-year-old boy had become a young man who looked to be about twenty. But what caught Cassis’s eye was something else.

The face and hands of Nix, exposed from under the blanket, were cracked and crumbling in places. Above all, a terrible aura of death emanated from him.

Bending his knees and lowering himself, Cassis reached out again. The moment his hand touched Nix’s, Nix, who had been watching Cassis, asked:

“Are you going to save me?”

Cassis didn’t answer.

“Why? You wanted to kill me.”

Following the touch, healing energy flowed in. But unlike last time, it didn’t permeate Nix’s body; it scattered into the air.

Cassis’s face hardened.

Nix, who had been watching quietly, pulled his hand back.

“I guess it’s no use.”

Nix knew his condition better than anyone. His body was now so damaged that it was beyond recovery. It was only natural, since it had been a corpse in the first place.

He didn’t know why the dead body had started to grow again, but as it did, his body was rapidly collapsing.

“…Noel Vertium might…”

Cassis, who had been silent for a while, spoke again.

“…be able to fix you.”

“Can’t be done.”

Nix cut him off. Feeling Cassis’s gaze fixed on his face, Nix covered his eyes with both hands. A snorting laugh escaped his lips. He was laughing because the situation was so absurd, so pathetic.

Should he have just died that day, at the hands of Noel or Deon Agrische?

No… if he were going that far, he should have ended it a long time ago in Lant’s hands, without being resurrected as a doll.

Then, and now… all because he wanted to live. He had struggled so pathetically, just to live.

It was strange to be facing Cassis Pedelian like this today, and even stranger that Cassis was trying to save him. Clearly, Cassis’s attitude towards Nix had changed because of Roxana, because she didn’t want him to die.

The moment his thoughts turned to her, Nix bit his lip without realizing it. He couldn’t figure it out. Was he Asil, Nix, or both?

The clear fact was that he, with Asil’s memories mixed in, was no longer a complete Nix. When he saw Roxana, confused and complicated feelings burst out as if they had been waiting. These unbearable, longing, and sorrowful emotions were something Nix had never known.

Why did Roxana save him from Deon Agrische’s hands, instead of just letting him die?

But soon Nix felt self-loathing and cursed himself. *Why else would she?* It was because he acted as ‘Asil’ in front of Roxana. *Idiot. Moron.*

Nix muttered curses inwardly and gritted his teeth. *Damn it. Maybe he was being punished.* He had done so many bad things while living as Nix that he was now receiving them back like a boomerang.

When he was in Vertium, he poisoned Roxana and, not satisfied with that, tried to kill her. Thinking about it was so painful and agonizing that he felt like he was going crazy. That was definitely Asil’s emotion.

Nix wanted to be Asil so desperately in front of Roxana, but just as desperately… he didn’t want to be Asil in front of Roxana.

Because she was foolishly neither abandoning him nor killing him, and even preventing his death by inscribing magic in the room to slow down the rate of his body’s collapse.

Before he knew it, Nix was crying.

“…I’m Nix.”

He would die soon anyway.

“I’m not Asil.”

Then this time…

“I…”

He had to die as Nix, so that his second death would not be etched in someone’s heart. This too was ultimately Asil’s heart.

Now Nix really didn’t know who he was. But now, such things didn’t matter, either way.

“…I see.”

Cassis gazed at Nix, who was sobbing and shedding tears, and then quietly murmured, “You are Nix.”

But for some reason, those words sounded the opposite to Nix, just like the words Roxana had whispered in front of him not long ago. Of course, that too might just be a delusion caused by his wish.

The man who was neither a complete Asil nor a complete Nix cried, feeling both sadness and joy at the same time. He still thought of himself as pathetic, but now he thought, *What does it matter?*

Outside, there was no one who wanted to avoid hearing his cries, so he could cry to his heart’s content without worrying about the sound leaking through the cracks in the door for the first time in a long time.

And finally, he decided. His end. Let’s end it this time in the way he wants.

* * *

Some time later, Roxana and Jeremy arrived at Grizelda’s mansion where they had been staying.

Grizelda greeted them with a face that was somehow not bright. When Jeremy, who found it strange, asked the reason, she hesitated a little and said that Nix had disappeared while she had fallen asleep.

Jeremy was horrified. He had searched the surroundings of the hideout in every way but had not been able to find him. He insisted on quickly gathering people and searching the area, wary of Nix, who had gone out alone, committing dangerous acts or being seen by people from other families.

But unlike Jeremy, Roxana stared silently at Grizelda with a blank face, not revealing her thoughts. Unlike Grizelda’s words, there were no traces of anyone secretly leaving the house, and her face was faintly tinged with other dark emotions, not the embarrassment or distress of a sudden situation.

Finally, Roxana’s gaze lowered. Soon, she left a short message to Jeremy, who was trying to rush out to find Nix, saying, “There’s no need to do that,” and began to prepare to return to Agrische.

Jeremy felt both questioning and embarrassed at Roxana’s decision. However, Roxana did not seem to have any intention of reversing her opinion, and Grizelda, for some reason, did not stop her with a lukewarm attitude.

Thus, they boarded a carriage heading to Agrische that evening.

It had been almost a season since Roxana had set foot on Agrische’s land again.