Roxana
Chapter 34
Chapter 34
How to Protect
the Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 34
* * *
Truly, what wretched taste they all have.
I watched the exchange unfolding before my eyes with sheer boredom.
“Your toy looks rather tempting. Why don’t you trade toys with me for just a day?”
“I don’t know, doesn’t sound very appealing.”
“Then let’s make a bet. We pit our toys against each other, and the winner gets whatever they want.”
“Fine. That actually sounds fun.”
My two half-brothers chatted over their respective toys inside the birdcages before striking up an absurd wager.
At their gesture, the man standing by the birdcages sprang into motion.
Immediately after he manipulated a mechanism, the iron door connecting the cage-like enclosures swung open.
The man in the right cage was the first to move. With his hands and feet bound, he staggered through the open doorway.
He panted raggedly, as if pumped full of stimulants.
With blown pupils and a wild, blue glint in his eyes, he was clearly in no state to be reasoned with.
Like him, every single captive locked within the iron bars was visibly broken in one way or another.
The people of Agriche called all of them toys. And they truly treated them not as human beings, but as mere objects.
This was true for those displayed in cages, as well as the woman outside whose face was mutilated with cuts.
Even now, they were setting up people in cages like fighting dogs in a pit, pitting them against one another for sport and wager.
“Who do you think will win?”
“Hmm, my bet’s on the brown-haired one.”
“No way. That one’s out of his mind on too many drugs. Look at how he’s stumbling.”
“At that level, he probably can’t even feel pain. Wouldn’t that give him the advantage?”
Those gathered around the table began laying bets among themselves on who would triumph.
Above, sunlight filtered through the glass in dazzling, shimmering rays, while beautiful flowers bloomed in every direction, intoxicating the senses with their fragrant perfume.
The people seated among them looked every bit as innocent and pure.
As if there was nothing strange about the gruesome spectacle unfolding inside this greenhouse.
The clash inside the cages had devolved into a vicious brawl.
The more blood spattered within and the louder the agonized groans echoed, the more delighted the spectators became.
I felt vindicated in having sent Mother out of the greenhouse. Faint-hearted as she was, witnessing this would have surely made her collapse.
However, they never got to see the outcome of the match.
“It’s an emergency!”
It was because of two men who came bursting into the greenhouse, panting frantically.
Their appearance was disheveled. Their faces were swollen as if they had been beaten, and boot prints marked their clothes where they had taken heavy kicks.
One appeared to have a shattered right hand, while the other clutched injured ribs.
Maria, the host of the tea party, cast a sharp, frigid glare at the culprits who dared disrupt her pleasant afternoon.
“What is this racket? What on earth happened?”
“Lady Roxana’s toy has escaped!”
A low murmur rippled through the room.
Every gaze in the greenhouse snapped toward me in an instant.
“My toy picked the lock on his own and escaped from the room?”
Amid the piercing stares fixed upon me, I asked in a calm, measured voice.
“No. We entered the room to bring him to the tea party, but he slipped past us and fled.”
“To bring my toy to the tea party?”
The moment those words left his mouth, the man snapped his jaw shut, realizing his slip of the tongue.
“By whose authority?”
I set the teacup in my hand down onto the table and traced its curved rim with a fingertip.
“I do not recall giving permission. Are you telling me that you took it upon yourselves to bring my toy here without my consent?”
A hairline fracture bloomed across the porcelain beneath my touch.
Clear amber liquid seeped through the spreading cracks.
Crack!
A breath later, the cup shattered completely, its porcelain fragments blooming across the saucer like broken petals.
The men blanched, turning ashen pale under my gaze.
Before anyone realized, the greenhouse had fallen so deathly still that one could hear a pin drop.
“T-That is, well…”
“We were told that Young Master Deon gave the order… So we assumed Lady Roxana had granted permission as well…”
Yet that pathetic excuse proved to be their definitive undoing.
Deon’s name being brought up here was certainly unexpected.
Even so, there was no lie written on their faces.
Maria parted her lips as if to speak, but I was faster.
“You take me lightly, don’t you?”
Hearing my voice echo softly through the greenhouse, the men gasped in terror.
They trembled violently under the chilling aura rolling off me.
As the saying goes, when whales fight, the shrimp get crushed; those caught in the middle invariably suffer collateral damage.
Had they sensed something amiss and disobeyed the command to fetch Cassis, they wouldn’t even be standing in one piece before me right now.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t dare run your mouth so fearlessly in front of me.”
Understanding their plight, however, was an entirely different matter from forgiving them.
Moreover, what they said carried the implicit insinuation that they feared Deon’s name far more than mine.
If so, it was likely because I had never slaughtered or maimed Agriche’s servants like vermin the way my other siblings did.
Even if it was merely a miscommunication and an honest mistake, committing such a blunder without verifying was entirely their fault.
“I-It is nothing like that! There was simply a misunderstanding in between… We were wrong, my lady! Please forgive us!”
Taking a toy outside without my permission—and then losing him, no less—was no small transgression.
Whether they recognized their folly or not, they begged for mercy with ghostly pale faces. Pathetic as they looked, I had no intention of letting them off lightly.
“Then why are you still standing so upright before me?”
The next moment, a dying shriek tore through the air as the man’s leg buckled.
Embedded above his knee was a blade that had been sitting quietly on the table just moments ago.
“Ugh, aaagh…”
At least he had enough sense to choke back his groans. Lowering the hand that had just flung the knife, I murmured coldly:
“If you were truly sorry, you would have dropped to your knees at once. It seems neither of you is good for anything but flapping your lips.”
Had I not been Roxana Agriche, perhaps I might have shown them clemency.
Yet I was no pure-hearted saintess; if anything, my role in this world was closer to that of a wicked villainess.
“Bow your heads. Before I sever them for forgetting your place.”
The two men prostrated themselves flat against the floor, shivering uncontrollably.
The gleaming silverware prepared for a refined tea party had transformed into weapons, carving into human flesh rather than bread.
Crimson blood dripped in scattered beads onto the greenhouse floor beneath the bright sunlight.
I took no pleasure in being branded an object of terror.
I could only think that those who derived thrill from such things were profoundly depraved.
Yet if such displays were necessary, I would perform them as many times as it took.
“What was the toy’s last known location?”
Having tasted pure terror, the answer came satisfactorily fast.
“The hallway heading southwest. Young Master Jeremy went after him.”
Deciding that wasting any more time would be ill-advised, I rose to my feet.
“Emily.”
“Yes. I will dispose of them.”
At my call, Emily stepped forward.
Knowing full well what it meant when I commanded my confidante Emily, the men cried out in even more desperate pleas, begging for their lives.
Emily stripped the glove from her right hand and advanced toward them.
Leaving them behind, I turned my attention to Maria.
“It seems our tea party ends here.”
The others who had listened to the exchange seemed to share that sentiment.
“Shall I help you retrieve your toy?”
“I appreciate the gesture, but that won’t be necessary.”
Despite my refusal, Maria uncharacteristically hesitated before pressing again.
“I don’t know if there was some misunderstanding, but since Deon’s name was brought up, it feels awkward for me to just sit by…”
Boom!
At that moment, an inexplicable roar erupted from outside.
The greenhouse, once bathed in warm sunlight, plunged suddenly into shadow.
Immediately after, a pitch-black mass slammed against the opposite side of the glass wall.
Crash! Skreeeech!
“Aaaaah!”
The guests around the table sprang to their feet in utter shock.
“What is that all of a sudden?!”
“That’s a monster!”
The creature slamming against the greenhouse glass was a monster as colossal as a house.
Apart from having four legs and a venomous-stinger tail, it resembled a spider.
The beast was called a ‘Karantul’, one of the monsters raised in Agriche’s breeding grounds.
“Madam!”
Right on cue, a woman drenched in venom staggered into the greenhouse.
Judging by her attire, she was one of Maria’s maids who had been guarding the entrance.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Rattled by the sudden turn of events, Maria’s voice was shriller than before.
“The gates to Breeding Ground No. 5 have opened! You must evacuate at once!”
Breeding Ground No. 5 was a monster enclosure located quite close to this greenhouse.
Somehow, I could not shake the feeling that this incident was tied to Cassis.
Ignoring the voices trying to hold me back, I moved toward the greenhouse doors.
I needed to see with my own eyes what on earth was happening out there.
Crash!
Skreee!
Right at that moment, a deafening screech tore through the air as shards of shattered glass and the monster came crashing into the greenhouse.
