Roxana
Chapter 66
Chapter 66
The Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 66
* * *
“Damn it, what the hell is going on?”
Fontaine muttered under his breath, gritting his teeth.
The dungeon had been eerily quiet for a while now.
Even the subordinates who had been guarding the iron bars were nowhere to be seen.
Scanning his surroundings warily, he struggled to undo his shackles.
Just then, the distant sound of the dungeon door swinging open echoed through the darkness.
Screeech.
Fontaine froze and fixed his gaze beyond the iron bars.
When the figure finally emerged before him, his face twisted in disgust.
The one who had stepped into the dungeon was none other than Deon.
Standing outside the bars, Deon swept his gaze across the surroundings once.
Soon, his slow, deliberate gaze slid over Fontaine, who remained bound.
“Where is Lant?”
“Won’t even call him Father anymore, will you?”
Deon showed no reaction to Fontaine’s sneering tone.
“If he isn’t here, he must have fled.”
Fontaine ground his teeth as he spoke.
It had been barely an hour since Lant, beaten within an inch of his life in the Room of Punishment, was dragged into this dungeon where Fontaine was held.
For quite some time after that, Lant’s boiling voice spewing venomous curses had carried all the way to Fontaine’s ears, grating on his nerves to no end.
Yet at some point, the racket had ceased, so Fontaine had simply stopped paying attention, assuming the man had passed out….
Did he manage to slip away on his own in the meantime? Damn it all.
“Look here, Deon. If you used me just to take Father’s seat anyway, there’s no need to go this far, is there?”
Fontaine decided to try coaxing Deon first in order to escape the dungeon.
“I never even wanted to become the clan head in the first place. Roxana just kept whispering sly poison in my ear, so I was tempted for a brief moment, that’s all.”
When he was first dragged before Lant and beaten black and blue, he thought he was as good as dead, but the situation had taken an unexpected turn.
And from the looks of it, it didn’t seem entirely unfavorable for Fontaine.
No, rather, it was something he should welcome.
You acted so aloof and noble, yet in the end, what you wanted was the exact same thing as me.
At that thought, he felt like bursting into loud laughter to mock his half-brother standing before him.
A man driven by clear desire was far easier to deal with.
In that regard, Fontaine found the present Deon much easier to sway than the man who had never once revealed what lay beneath his calm surface.
When he was first thrown into this dungeon, he had expected at least to have his limbs impaled on stakes; finding himself merely bound like this was quite a surprise.
Of course, this was hardly an ideal situation, but it seemed he could at least avoid the worst-case scenario he had envisioned while trapped in the Room of Judgment.
“Let me out right now, and I’ll slit Father’s throat with my own hands and bring it to you. I’ve held plenty of grudges against him in my lifetime as well. So if you take over as head instead, I think you and I could get along far better than before.”
Naturally, he had no intention whatsoever of submitting to Deon or doing his dirty work.
“I’m a man who knows how to accept defeat cleanly. I will step down.”
Still, one had to survive first to plot for the future, didn’t they?
“If you wish, I’ll leave the Agriche clan and live quietly as though I were dead. If you still doubt me, I’ll even write a pledge. I swear I will never stand in your way again, so…”
However, the emotionless voice that drifted from Deon’s lips brought Fontaine’s tongue to a dead stop.
“What an absurd delusion. To think someone like you could ever be a stumbling block in my path.”
“What?”
“Just as it has always been, nothing you do will ever pose a hindrance to me.”
This bastard…!
Realizing he was being utterly dismissed even in a moment like this, sparks flared in Fontaine’s eyes.
Thick veins bulged on his forehead and neck.
Yet Fontaine fought to swallow his rising fury, squeezing out words through clenched teeth.
“Then it shouldn’t matter if you just let me go, right? If my presence or absence doesn’t bother you in the slightest. Isn’t that so? If my existence is no threat to you, what reason is there to lock me up in a cell as if you’re on guard?”
Deon said nothing.
He merely stared at Fontaine, who was frantically squirming to survive, with chillingly cold eyes.
Damn it, why is he just standing there, staring at me like that?
The longer Deon’s silence stretched, the more Fontaine’s anxiety and irritation flared.
“What is taking you so long to think about? It’s simple if you just do as I say.”
As Fontaine pressed him, Deon finally parted his lips.
“I was just contemplating whether I should open this door right now, walk in, and kill you.”
“What…?”
“Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever found you pleasing all this time.”
“W-Wait a moment…”
“Especially those eyes of yours—there were times I felt like gouging them out.”
In that instant, Fontaine realized he was royally screwed. Whatever went wrong, Deon’s demeanor had shifted without warning.
No, it wasn’t as if Deon’s attitude toward Fontaine had drastically changed.
Wearing the same cold, impassive expression, he stepped closer to the iron bars holding Fontaine.
Yet the action that followed was unmistakably menacing.
Crunch! Clang!
Without a key, Deon simply shattered the lock on the iron gate with bare force.
As if there would be no need to ever lock this door again after this moment.
“You…! Are you actually serious right now?”
Terrified that Deon truly intended to butcher him, Fontaine recoiled in horror.
Screeech!
The grinding groan of the iron gate swinging open sounded more bloodcurdling than ever before.
Deon took a single step into the cell.
His frigid gaze pierced straight into Fontaine’s face.
Wuuuuum!
At that exact moment, a deafening noise roared from outside.
Perhaps because the dungeon entrance had been left open when he entered, the commotion echoed down with tremendous volume.
It was the intruder alarm.
Deon, who had been pushing the cell door open, halted his movements.
He turned his head, casting a sharp glare toward the distant doorway.
Fontaine watched him, barely daring to breathe.
Step. A moment later, as Deon’s footsteps began to move again, Fontaine flinched instinctively.
However, Deon’s steps were not directed into the cell where Fontaine was trapped. For Fontaine, it was a stroke of miraculous luck.
Turning on his heel, Deon strode away toward the dungeon exit.
Only after Deon’s figure vanished from sight and the sound of his footsteps faded entirely could Fontaine finally release the deep breath he had been holding.
* * *
“Fuck, what now?”
Jeremy snapped his head up midway on his path toward the annex.
Wuuuuum!
The blaring intruder alarm ringing in his ears stung his eardrums.
Come to think of it, there had been a strange commotion behind him for some time.
Turning around, he saw smoke and flames billowing from one side of the building he had just escaped.
Jeremy hurriedly hurled aside the servant he had been carrying on his shoulder and bolted back along the path he had come.
That was where Roxana was.
Of course, there was no way she would be in mortal danger from a mere fire of that scale.
Yet between the sudden intruder alarm and the chaos, he had no idea what in the world was unfolding.
Which meant he had to return to Roxana first.
Unlike a few years ago, this intruder alarm seemed to be real, as armed outsiders appeared right before his eyes.
“Out of my way!”
Dodging an incoming blade, Jeremy swiftly struck the vital point of the man before him.
Normally, he would have toyed with his prey longer, but there was no time for that now.
The single thought that he had to reach Roxana as fast as possible consumed his mind entirely.
Yet in no time, a swarm of enemies converged, blocking his path and pinning him down.
Clang! Clashing!
All around, intruders and Agriche fighters were locked in slaughter, spraying blood across the ground.
At that moment, a crimson blizzard swept before his eyes.
The blood-red afterimages that streaked overhead, instantly blanketing the field of vision, caused everyone to freeze in place for a split second.
Jeremy was the first to realize that it was no blizzard.
He whipped his head toward the direction from which Roxana’s butterflies had flown.
Yet before Jeremy could take his next step, the space before him warped, and a vast abyss of darkness unfolded.