The Way To Protect The Female Lead’S Older Brother [EN]: Chapter 53

How to Protect the Heroine’s Older Brother – Episode 53

Fontaine asked the question thoughtlessly, then immediately frowned and shut his mouth. He realized it was a foolish question.

Roxana tilted her head, looking at him as if to ask if he really didn’t know.

*Damn it.* I wondered why it was so strangely quiet around here.

He felt stupid for thinking this silence was simply a characteristic of the forest on a snowy day.

“You’re out here feeding your pets, living the good life. You could get all the poison butterflies’ food you need at the mansion.”

Annoyed, Fontaine picked a fight with her, as if to vent his frustration.

“My poison butterflies are picky eaters. They said they were tired of the same old food, so I came out for a change of pace…”

Roxana didn’t bat an eye and instead smiled.

“Why are you so angry?”

Roxana approached Fontaine silently.

Perhaps it was her silent movements, or her unrealistically beautiful face, but she somehow exuded an aura of being something other than human.

Fontaine watched Roxana approach and almost took a step back.

He had traveled to many places outside the mansion for family business and met many people, but he had never seen a woman like Roxana before.

In fact, Roxana’s beauty was at a level that made it impossible to compare her to anyone.

She had been stunningly beautiful since she was a child, but Roxana as an adult was, in a way, terrifying.

One would think he would be used to Roxana by now, but in the face of her ever-renewing beauty, the word ‘adaptation’ became meaningless.

Whenever Fontaine looked at Roxana, he couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine.

Roxana possessed a beauty with such terrifying destructive power.

*No, but can that really be expressed with the word ‘beautiful’?*

In Fontaine’s mind, the woman in front of him was already a disaster in and of herself.

Before he knew it, Roxana had closed the distance to just a foot away and looked up at him with a faint smile.

“Come to think of it, you haven’t looked good since we first came to the forest. Why are you so angry?”

The sweet voice flowing from close by seemed to wrap around him. He felt suffocated by her gaze from so close.

Perhaps anyone other than Fontaine would have reacted this way if they were in front of Roxana.

Suddenly, Roxana let out a small ‘ah’ as if she had realized something.

“You got another earful from Father, didn’t you?”

At that moment, Fontaine’s face hardened.

“Shut up.”

He snapped harshly. He wouldn’t have reacted so sensitively at other times, but he was in a worse mood than he thought.

However, Roxana did not flinch at all at Fontaine’s fierce demeanor.

“Father is too much… Who else works as hard for the family as Fontaine does?”

Her words, whispered as if she felt sorry for him, were persuasive.

As her red eyes took on a cloudy light, a very pitiful and pathetic atmosphere formed, as if he should comfort her immediately.

“I heard about what happened this time, too. Deon stole the credit at the end, right? Typical Deon.”

Fontaine’s momentum slowly began to subside.

Originally, Fontaine and Roxana were not close enough to have this kind of conversation. Their relationship was more distant than lukewarm.

Fontaine had been wary of Roxana, who had suddenly started to close the distance with him one day.

But that feeling had faded a lot.

“Father seems to be getting old and his insight isn’t what it used to be. I told him the other day that the opportunities he gives to Fontaine and Deon aren’t fair, and he got angry.”

Roxana was the person in Agriche who understood Fontaine’s heart the best.

Whenever she criticized Lant’s foolishness and Deon’s cowardice, the bubbling anger inside him would cool down.

Listening to her sweet voice whispering softly, the inferiority complex he had towards Deon seemed to fade away a little.

“Everyone in Agriche knows that Father favors Deon to an obvious degree. But he’s not qualified to be the successor.”

Moreover, the two had something in common.

It was that they both hated Deon very much.

The fact that the discord between Deon and Roxana during their first joint mission last year had led to infighting was well known.

So much so that Lant never gave them any work that would overlap their paths again.

That was also why Fontaine didn’t greatly distrust Roxana.

In his eyes, Roxana was just a clumsy girl who was still immature in controlling her emotions.

“Surely none of the brothers want to follow Deon. Who wants to be a dog licking his feet under a dictator? You never know when you’ll get kicked to death.”

In any case, the animosity Roxana showed towards Deon was so clear that it felt like he could grab it in his hand right now. Fontaine liked that quite a bit.

“I hope someone who can embrace us all will succeed Father. Fontaine, you could do it well enough.”

Besides, when Roxana looked at him with mournful eyes and murmured these words, he felt like he was a great person who could really live up to her expectations.

“Damn it. You’re right. If Father hadn’t always favored that Deon bastard and given me a fair chance, I wouldn’t have been pushed back like this.”

Fontaine gritted his teeth, rekindling his anger towards Lant and Deon.

He had outstanding abilities that were second to none, but neither of them knew it and even ignored him.

“Isn’t it the same for you, Roxana, who isn’t getting a proper chance? It’s already been a year since you became an adult, but you haven’t been given a single mission that would allow you to achieve any commendable results.”

Of course, the reason for this was largely because Roxana had ruined the job she had with Deon a year ago.

Since then, Lant had not given Roxana any more work that would contribute to the family.

Fontaine thought of Roxana as a pathetic and stupid girl who didn’t even know how to use the weapon she had.

To be the owner of such terrifying poison butterflies and yet be able to do nothing but act as her father’s ornament.

But on the other hand, Roxana was the only one who suffered from the conflict with Deon at that time.

As expected, Deon, as Lant’s favored son, did not take any responsibility for the matter. And this time, he shamelessly stole Fontaine’s credit.

“I can’t help it. Father likes to keep me around like an ornament.”

Fontaine clicked his tongue at Roxana’s words, which she uttered with a faint smile.

As expected, she was a stupid girl with nothing but a pretty face.

He wondered how she had managed to get good grades every month with such a harmless personality.

*Did she offer her body to the examiners?*

Well, if that was her specialty, it wasn’t against the rules.

Fontaine was already an adult when Roxana stood out in the monthly evaluations and attended the Grand Banquet.

So, as the eldest son, he had to take on family affairs and travel outside the mansion, so he had no choice but to become even more negligent in the affairs of his half-siblings, which he was not interested in anyway.

Besides, he had not attended the Grand Banquet since then.

This was because Fontaine’s abilities were not particularly outstanding.

But he was rationalizing that he had given up his seat because it was ridiculous to sincerely compete with his snot-nosed siblings.

Anyway, that’s why Fontaine couldn’t understand why the people in the family praised Roxana so much.

Since becoming an adult, he mainly lived outside the mansion, not staying in the mansion unless he was performing family duties.

This was because he hated seeing Lant comparing him to Deon at every turn.

In addition, seeing Deon’s expressionless face, which seemed to ignore him, always made his stomach churn.

So, Fontaine did not witness with his own eyes that Roxana had cruelly killed the blue-haired nobleman whom she had used as a toy three years ago, nor that she was the owner of poison butterflies with tremendous killing power, but only heard about it from other people.

For that reason, Fontaine thought the rumor was quite exaggerated.

Still, her pretty face was definitely useful, and seeing her with such a worried face made him feel a sense of pity that he didn’t even know he had.

“Are you accompanying Father to the Five Families Harmony [an annual gathering of the five most powerful families] this year too?”

“I think so.”

Suddenly, he remembered the day of the Five Families Harmony he had attended last year.

How could he forget the farcical situation in which the pretentious people who had been unlucky enough to pass by Roxana were transformed into stupid, spaced-out people? Looking back now, it was quite a sight to see.

But Fontaine was not allowed to attend the Harmony this year by Lant.

Instead, the person who would take his place this time would surely be Deon, who he couldn’t stand.

“I wanted to attend with you again this year, but I can’t. What a shame.”

Roxana smiled faintly as she looked at Fontaine, who was grinding his teeth.

Fontaine’s eyes narrowed at the whisper that contained a strange resonance. Before he knew it, his eyes were filled with subtle lust.

He had felt it since he was a child, but she was really a waste of a girl when it came to appearance.

Although half of the blood flowing through her body was the same, consanguineous marriages were said to have been frequent about three or four generations ago.

*So, if he becomes the next head….*

“Trust me. I’ll never let Deon inherit the position of successor as Father wishes.”

Fontaine boasted in a pompous manner. His eyes were still scanning Roxana intently.

Soon, the same beautiful smile as before appeared on Roxana’s face.

“Thank you. You’re the only one I can trust and rely on, Fontaine.”