Roxana
Chapter 42
Chapter 42
The Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 42
As I stepped onto the last stair, Deon came into view, standing there as if waiting for me.
“I regret only hitting that face of yours once earlier.”
I said, looking at him as we faced each other once again.
“What were you planning to do if Cassis hadn’t saved Mother?”
Deon looked down at me with his usual eerily tranquil eyes and replied brazenly.
“Nothing.”
Bastard.
Looking up at the face before me with cold eyes, I swallowed the rising surge of disgust.
If there was one person I never wanted to show any emotional vulnerability to, it was Deon.
“I told you.”
Deon smiled at me. It was a chilling smile, enough to make the hair on the back of one’s neck stand up just by looking at it.
“I like watching you cry.”
As expected, no one in Agriche was in their right mind.
And among them, Deon belonged to the most dangerous sort.
“Pity.”
Keeping the hot flames writhing inside me locked away, I brushed past him coldly.
“Because that’s the one thing you’ll never live to see, not until the moment you die.”
I felt his persistent gaze sticking to my back, but I ignored it out of habit.
Somehow, the current situation made me feel slightly sick to my stomach.
Walking down the quiet hallway, I turned my head to the side.
Reflected in the window that held the night sky was my own face, wearing an expression just as chillingly cold as the one Deon had worn moments ago.
Right… This contempt and disgust were not directed solely at others.
“Yes, just as you wished, Mother, I have become a splendid Agriche now.”
“For I am a proud Agriche, and a daughter who resembles her revered father more than anyone else.”
It seemed I had truly become just like the words I had repeated countlessly throughout my life.
Before I knew it, the reflection in the glass had become someone more like an Agriche than anyone else.
“Disgusting.”
Muttering words meant for no one’s ears but my own, I turned away from the face in the window.
At that time, Cassis was trapped in the Hallucination Room.
[No… You can’t die. Open your eyes, please…]
Intermittent weeping, similar to what he had heard during the day, pierced his eardrums.
While his eyes were closed, a sight—unsure whether dream or illusion—rose into his dim vision.
The woman who had been weeping while embracing someone finally looked back at him.
She was Cassis’s mother.
His breath caught in his throat at the vivid resentment and reproach written across her tear-streaked face.
Even more so once he recognized who was held in her arms.
The blood splattered across the floor pierced his eyes with painful sharpness.
His only younger sister.
A small, blood-soaked body lay limp and motionless within the pool of crimson.
[Do you know what you have done?]
The scene shifted, and this time a man appeared, looking down at him with eyes colder than ever.
[The power you cannot control yourself is nothing short of a calamity.]
Right… This was a memory of the past that he had buried deep beneath the surface.
[Never again must you use your power for something like this.]
The day he first learned regret. Foolish as he was, he had had to swallow the poisoned chalice of despair with his own hands.
[We are the noble judges, the Pedelians. Never forget what that name means.]
A voice solid as stone weighed down on him from above.
[For those who lose their pride, there is only ruin.]
Then at some point, the voice echoing in his ears began to gradually fade.
[From this moment, I shall place a restriction upon you.]
Cassis broke free from the dream crumbling like a sandcastle and opened his eyes.
“You should sleep a little more.”
A voice, slender and clear like a gentle breeze, layered over the lingering echo of the voice from his dream.
Faintly, a gentle warmth touched his forehead. It seemed to be the touch of the person beside him.
A familiar face drifted into his hazy vision.
Even in his clouded state of consciousness, Cassis tried to turn his head away to escape the soothing warmth.
“Don’t.”
Yet a tender hand firmly checked his movement.
“It’s only an illusion anyway.”
At the small whisper, Cassis froze.
“This is the Hallucination Room. So me being here right now isn’t real either.”
Once again, gentle hands touched him. Roxana pulled Cassis’s shoulder, easing him into a more comfortable position.
Hearing her words, he felt as if this truly were an extension of a dream rather than reality.
“I think I feel a little sorry toward you right now. I thought I had forgotten such feelings long ago.”
After she spoke, a brief silence settled over them.
Roxana’s words were somewhat strange. What reason could she possibly have to feel sorry toward him?
If anything, because of what he had done today, Roxana might have been the one put in a difficult position.
Of course, Cassis had no intention of apologizing to her for that.
Yet Roxana remained silent for a long time afterward, and Cassis found that this stillness did not feel so bad.
Strangely, the silence was not uncomfortable in the least. A mild, soothing air seemed to ripple through the room like a quiet tide.
“Thank you for saving Mother.”
Her paused voice resumed.
“You could have just pretended not to see, but you didn’t.”
What brushed lightly against his forehead next was a breath soft as a whisper.
“If you were just a little less good of a person, my conscience would be far more at ease.”
The hand stroking Cassis’s hair soon covered his eyes.
“Rest now.”
It was a strange night. Though there were things that ought to have been said between them about the day’s events, they acted as though none of it mattered in the slightest.
“When you open your eyes again, you’ll be back in reality.”
For that brief moment, it felt as if they had forgotten even the circumstances they were trapped in—even though such a thing should never have been possible.
Cassis’s lips parted slightly, but in the end, he said nothing, letting himself surrender to the silence.
That night was strangely long, feeling as though it might never end.
- Escape, and Another Bondage
Most of the blame for this incident fell upon Jeremy.
Though he claimed to have opened the gates of the beast breeding grounds to catch Cassis, he was the one who had allowed Cassis to escape from the room in the first place, leaving him with no room for excuses.
Besides, through the butterfly I had secretly planted in Cassis’s room, I had already learned the full details of what had happened that day.
Cassis’s escape from the room was concluded to have been an unavoidable choice to evade Jeremy’s attack.
Naturally, my influence played a significant role in that outcome.
It was only possible because Lant Agriche was particularly lenient toward me after I had hatched the Poison Butterflies.
Even so, Cassis could not be left entirely unpunished, so I confined him to the Hallucination Room.
The Hallucination Room was a place remodeled for torture, where anyone placed inside was liable to lose their mind before a single day had passed.
Thus, no one considered the punishment inflicted on Cassis to be light.
Carrying a Magic Stone on my person to suppress the hallucinatory effects, I entered the room and stayed by Cassis’s side throughout his punishment.
Others seemed to believe I had entered the Hallucination Room to relish the sight of Cassis suffering, or perhaps to inflict further humiliating torment upon him while he was tormented by illusions.
Because by Agriche’s standard of common sense, that was entirely natural.
Naturally, I made no effort to clear up that misunderstanding.
Afterward, Jeremy was locked in the Room of Punishment where Charlotte was already confined.
Since Charlotte’s offense was far lighter compared to Jeremy’s, she was released a little earlier than originally scheduled.
In truth, having Jeremy locked in the Room of Punishment hadn’t been part of my plan, but opening the gates to the beast breeding ground was unquestionably going too far.
One wrong step and all of my plans could have crumbled.
So, for this once, I did not lift a finger to help Jeremy.
Perhaps thinking he had angered me, he walked into the Room of Punishment with a thoroughly crestfallen expression.
By Lant’s order, Deon departed at dawn today for the Karantul Habitat.
Before Lant Agriche, I had pressed relentlessly, demanding Deon be punished for overstepping his authority against my possession.
Since the only witnesses who could have proven his innocence were already dead, there was nothing to hold me back.
In reality, though, sending Deon to replenish the beasts in the breeding ground could hardly be called a punishment.
Having just returned from finishing a mission, he happened to be free, and there was no one more reliable than Deon to lead a hunting party to capture beasts. Thus, Lant had chosen to send him under the pretext of self-reflection.
It was a shallow move on Lant Agriche’s part, yet perhaps because I had hatched the Poison Butterflies, it was his own way of appeasing me.
Getting Deon out of my sight was enough for me, so I settled for this.
Yet when I ran into Deon right before his departure for the monster habitat, his arrogant gaze seemed to say he knew everything and was merely playing along, souring my mood all over again.
In any case, a long-awaited stillness settled over the mansion.
