Roxana
Chapter 62
Chapter 62
The Way to Protect the
Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 62
A sudden chill ran down his spine.
If it had been since he started gathering private soldiers, that was roughly around the time Fontaine had begun plotting in earnest to strike Lant from behind.
Come to think of it, Lant’s attitude toward Fontaine had grown noticeably colder from that point on.
Yet could Lant truly have known Fontaine harbored treacherous ambitions from that early on?
“And that is hardly all. Shall I recount every single deceit you have practiced behind my back right here and now? Did you truly believe I was oblivious to your reckless insolence?”
“F-Father.”
“How lightly you must have taken me. Tell me, did I look like such a fool in your eyes?”
Unable to contain his rage, Lant seized Fontaine by the collar and hauled him up.
A solid hand struck Fontaine across the cheek without mercy.
Lant was already on edge, his nerves frayed raw over what had happened with Cassis at the Harmony Conference.
Fontaine had practically thrust his head before a knife-sharp Lant, begging to be slaughtered.
“Bring it.”
Lant held his hand out toward his subordinate, his murderous gaze locked onto Fontaine.
A chilling, azure gleam glinted in Lant’s eyes.
At Lant’s command, the subordinate promptly stepped forward to offer what had been prepared in advance.
“Still, looking at you this time, it seems even a worthless wretch like you has at least one useful trick.”
Lant raised the keenly honed blade in his hand and asked in a bleak, chilling voice,
“Where are the Agriche soldiers you secretly siphoned off while I was away?”
Fontaine’s eyes flew wide at those words.
“What… ghk, what do you… siphoned soldiers…?”
His feigned ignorance was so plausible he almost looked like an innocent bystander completely unrelated to the matter.
“I… I know nothing of—”
Thrust!
Lant drove the blade into Fontaine’s hand without a moment’s hesitation.
“Aaargh!”
A scream tore from the man before him, but not a single flicker of emotion crossed Lant’s face.
“Indeed, my son. I did not raise you to loosen your tongue over a mere pittance of pain like this.”
Not a shred of mercy or affection could be found in the gaze fixed on Fontaine.
“Let us see if you remain silent once I sever your limbs one by one.”
Lant was truly heartless.
He never tolerated traitors, and his own flesh and blood were no exception.
As Lant twisted the blade embedded in his hand and ripped it out, another shriek erupted from Fontaine’s lips.
Roxana looked quietly down at the pool of blood spreading across the floor.
The crimson blood flowing from Fontaine, steadily expanding its domain, finally reached the tips of Lant’s boots.
Fontaine seemed so utterly consumed by Lant and Deon that he had not even realized she was present in the room.
“Father.”
So when Roxana called out to Lant, Fontaine blankly raised his head amidst his daze, as though he had heard something utterly unanticipated.
“I don’t believe there is any need for you to waste your time like this anymore.”
Hearing her words, Lant turned his gaze as well. Roxana was watching Lant and Fontaine with an exceedingly serene expression.
Looking at her face, one might have fallen under the illusion that they were standing in a spring garden rather than the Room of Judgment.
“Have you found them?”
Roxana merely smiled at Lant’s question.
In truth, it was none other than Roxana who had uncovered Fontaine’s movements through her poison butterflies and tipped Lant off in advance.
That was why Lant had kept a watchful eye on Fontaine for some time, managing to uncover every single scheme he had concocted behind the scenes.
Of course, Lant did not believe he owed Roxana any great debt of gratitude.
Even if he hadn’t known of Fontaine’s plans beforehand, he never would have imagined himself falling prey to a fledgling whelp of a son.
Still, having Deon keep watch while he was away from the mansion—acting on Roxana’s tip to suppress Fontaine’s rebellion beforehand—had been quite satisfactory in terms of efficiency.
“Well done. You handled the matter swiftly. As expected of my daughter—”
“I mean that no matter how desperately you search, what Father seeks will never be found, so there is no need to waste your breath any further.”
Yet Roxana’s subsequent words differed slightly from what Lant had anticipated.
Because her voice remained as tranquil as an unrippled lake, Lant did not immediately grasp the meaning behind her words.
“Those hounds raised through years of brainwashing to be loyal only to you—they have all become flesh and blood for my lovely butterflies by now.”
“What?”
Lant froze.
But Lant could not finish his questioning sentence. What entered his sight next was just that shocking.
Click.
The sound of heels striking the marble floor echoed through the quiet room.
Roxana took light steps, as if out for a leisurely stroll, heading toward the massive seat positioned at the front of the Room of Judgment.
That seat, which resembled a throne, was a place where only the head of the family, Lant, had ever been permitted to sit.
“…What do you think you are doing?”
To everyone’s astonishment, Roxana ascended the sole throne reserved for the king of Agriche without a shred of hesitation.
“I have wanted to sit here for quite some time, you see.”
Slender, porcelain-white hands, delicate as carved pearls, gently stroked the armrests encrusted with brilliant jewels.
“I was always curious how it would feel to look down from this place.”
The words slipping from her lips were so brazenly nonchalant that Lant could not even fathom getting angry for a moment.
Fontaine was equally struck dumb.
Right now, Roxana was committing pure madness as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Then, Roxana’s crimson eyes turned once more toward Lant before her.
“Looking down from up here…”
The next moment, a smile as sweet as honey bloomed across her petals-stained red lips.
“You look rather small, Father.”
Cracks began to form across Lant’s face.
“You…”
A fierce chill swept across his face, his composure shattered like cracked porcelain.
“Are you daring to mock me right now?”
His murderous red eyes surged wildly, as if ready to tear Roxana apart and swallow her whole.
Roxana saw this and gently curved her eyes into a crescent.
“Do not be so enraged, Father.”
Her smiling face as she added, over such a small thing, was dazzlingly radiant.
“Father, have you truly never suspected it even once?”
The voice echoing inside the Room of Judgment grew softer and richer, as if whispering sweet nothings.
“That all of this was an elaborate play I painstakingly prepared just for you?”
At that moment, an unnameable dread grazed the edges of Lant’s heart.
“What does that—”
Finally, Roxana lifted the illusion that had veiled the space they stood in.
Flutter.
From the floor where Fontaine’s blood pooled, butterflies that no one had even noticed until now took flight in unison.
Whoosh!
A crimson storm swept across their vision in a flash. Immediately following it, a massive spell circle that had been hidden by the illusion revealed itself.
The moment Lant discovered it, he seemed to instantly grasp the situation he was in. He frantically tried to break away from the spot.
“Roxana, how dare you…! Kh-ack!”
But no sooner had he taken his first step than the spell circle activated. A white light radiating a holy aura detonated before their eyes.
Yet neither the conditions to trigger the sorcery nor its effects were anything close to holy.
The blood-fueled spell had been completed the very moment Lant stained himself with the blood of his son, Fontaine, atop the magic circle.
And the moment Lant, now bound to the sorcery, attempted to escape, the trigger condition was fulfilled.
Clang. An invisible trap snared its prey in an instant.
“Ugh, ke-heck…!”
Lant collapsed helplessly to the floor, as though crushed by a colossal meteorite.
An immense gravitational force rained down upon him like a bombardment.
Roxana looked down upon him with haughty, commanding eyes, like a king passing judgment on a sinner—just as Lant had always done.
“Why were you so careless before me, then?”
Even while crushed under a dreadful pressure so overwhelming he could not lift a single finger, Lant shifted his bloodshot eyes forward.
“When it was you yourself who taught me that affection and loyalty between parent and child are entirely meaningless.”
To think it was none other than Roxana who had diverted Lant’s attention to Fontaine while plotting the true rebellion from behind.
Lant could not bring himself to believe it. Yet even so, the agonizing reality did not change.
Eyes whose burst capillaries stained the whites a vivid red locked onto the true traitor.
It was a murderous gaze so venomous that if looks could tear a person to shreds, it would have done so hundreds of times over.
Yet Roxana merely smiled at the sight of him.
“Well, I suppose I did wag my tail quite nicely before Father all this time, didn’t I?”
Ludicrously, the emotion clearly etched in Lant’s eyes was a sense of betrayal.
Yet it resembled the feeling of having one’s throat bitten by a pet dog far more than betrayal by a daughter.
Of course, Roxana found it laughable either way.
“De… on…”
Astonishingly, even on the verge of being crushed to death, Lant forced his mouth open to speak.
Of course, it was merely a feeble struggle squeezed out with the last of his strength, and an immense torrent of blood—incomparable to his faint voice—spilled from Lant’s mouth.
“Kill that wench… right now…”
“Deon, come here.”
Roxana parted her lips and readily crushed Lant’s voice beneath her own.
Lant seemed to believe that Deon, standing in the distance, was his final lifeline.
But it was a foolish thought.
For if Deon had any intention of helping Lant, he would have moved long ago.
Deon was simply staring down at the prostrate Lant with cold, unreadable eyes.