Roxana
Chapter 50
Chapter 50
The Way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother
Chapter 50
* * *
Rustle!
“Found him! It’s an intruder!”
Lant Agriche turned toward the direction of the noise.
“Did you find him?”
He anticipated that he would soon capture and kill that Pedelian rat, but what appeared before him was not an intruder.
“Uh, that is……”
Kyyak!
Caught in the trap was a Karantul cub. It seemed to have escaped from the breeding pens during the previous commotion and remained hidden inside the mansion until now.
Even young, a monster was still a monster. Though caught in the trap, the young Karantul thrashed violently, spraying venom.
Lant Agriche’s face crumpled furiously.
“It seems a monster triggered the barrier, not an intruder.”
Indeed, it had felt strange that not even a single strand of hair from an intruder could be found despite turning the mansion upside down.
Yet to think that the thing causing such an uproar throughout the mansion in the dead of night was merely this worthless beast.
“Bring it alive for now,” Lant ordered irritably.
Noticing his foul mood, his subordinates quickly stuffed the young Karantul into a sack.
To verify whether this truly was what had triggered the mansion’s alarm, it had to be brought alive to the site where the spell circle had been drawn.
They tossed the sack containing the young Karantul before the statue in the first-floor lobby.
At once, the piercing, deafening clamor that had been ringing in their ears ceased.
Lant Agriche spat a curse between his teeth.
“Is what’s inside there the intruder?”
Just then, Roxana appeared upon the stairs.
The stairway leading to the upper floors had not been lit, leaving the space where she stood cloaked in shadow.
White moonlight filtered through the window behind Roxana’s back.
Standing on the landing, Cassis Pedelian stood half-hidden behind Roxana, still bound by the leash.
“Yes. Nothing but a worthless—”
Rustle!
Just as Lant Agriche opened his mouth, the sack on the floor convulsed wildly.
Whatever was trapped inside struggled as if trying to break free, and finally succeeded in tearing open the opening.
“Is that so? Then I suppose I should give it a welcoming gift.”
The moment the creature inside the sack sprang out, Roxana smiled and yanked the leash held in her hand.
Flash!
It was at that exact instant that red butterflies swarmed upon the person collared by the leash.
Hundreds of Poison Butterflies materializing out of thin air devoured Cassis Pedelian.
Crunch, munch!
Craaack!
A chilling, horrifying sound reverberated through the mansion.
“Ugh…… Aaargh……!”
The butterflies devoured their prey bit by bit as it writhed in ugly agony, screaming out in torment.
Cassis Pedelian’s body, smothered from head to toe in butterflies, swayed before collapsing to the floor.
Everyone stared at the spectacle before them, utterly dumbfounded.
Crunch, snap……
In the spot where intermittent groans had echoed for so long, only the mangled remnants of what could no longer be called a corpse remained.
The flesh-stripped body soon lost all recognizable shape, reduced to blood-drenched fragments of bone.
It was a scene so excessively cruel and shocking that, once seen, it would be seared into one’s memory, impossible to ever forget.
Drip, drip.
The people on the first floor gazed blankly at the thick, crimson fluid slowly trickling down the stairs.
Soon, however, having swiftly finished off their prey, the butterflies relocated one by one and devoured every last drop of blood that had spilled across the stairs without leaving a single trace.
Thus, the site where the butterflies had feasted was left astonishingly clean, devoid of any mark whatsoever.
“Oh dear. It wasn’t someone from Pedelian after all?”
What suddenly broke the suffocating silence was an exquisite voice tinged with faint disappointment.
Only then did the onlookers draw in a sharp, collective breath.
Lant Agriche was equally stunned. Following Roxana’s gaze, he lowered his head.
His eyes caught the monster struggling, its torso stuck in the opening of the sack.
Seeing it, Roxana furrowed her brow and spoke as if lamenting the waste.
“What a pity. I intended to gift the intruders the sight of the master they searched so desperately for dying right before their eyes.”
The butterflies scattered across the floor took flight into the air once more.
They glittered mysteriously beneath the moonlight before vanishing one by one at Roxana’s command.
The human body that had been breathing and alive just moments before was now gone without a trace.
Yet on Roxana’s face, as she looked down at the empty space with lowered lashes, there was not an ounce of guilt.
“Still, the Poison Butterflies had been begging to eat my toy for some time now, so I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
Resting a red butterfly upon her fingertip, Roxana smiled coldly, spine-chillingly beautiful.
“Besides, I recently acquired a cute new pet, and I was growing tired of playing with such a low-grade toy anyway.”
The moonlight shining behind her cast a white silhouette around her slender frame.
“Ha……”
From the mouth of Lant Agriche, who was uncharacteristically lost for words, a low chuckle escaped after a moment.
“Ha…… Haha……!”
The laugh grew louder, soon transforming into uncontrollable madness.
“Yes, a fitting end indeed for that Pedelian rat vermin……!”
His red eyes gleamed as if intoxicated.
As if branded onto his retinas, the scene he had just witnessed remained burned vividly in his mind.
It replayed over and over inside Lant’s head.
“To think of such a thing—as expected, Roxana, you never fail to exceed my expectations!”
The fact that Richel Pedelian’s son had met such a miserable end, devoured before his very eyes without a single scrap of bone left behind, seemed to grant him immense ecstasy.
“What a true pity today’s intruder was not Pedelian’s dog! Yes, I should have shown Richel Pedelian his son dying right before his wide-open eyes instead. Why did I never think of that until now?”
“Even so, he was quite a strong human, so he must have served as fine nourishment for my Poison Butterflies. Wouldn’t you say it was an honor far beyond what a wretched Pedelian descendant deserved?”
“Yes, you are right. It was an end far too generous for that bastard.”
Forgetting his foul mood from earlier, Lant Agriche nodded with a venomous grin at Roxana’s words.
Roxana smiled along with him before whispering in a gentle, melodic tone.
“Speaking of which, the hour is quite late. Please go in and rest, Father. Having been woken in the middle of the night, I find myself fatigued as well.”
“Indeed. You should rest as well.”
Still wearing that beautiful smile, Roxana turned and ascended the stairs.
* * *
“My Lady.”
Having carried out her mission precisely as Roxana had instructed, Emily was waiting in the room.
All of the commotion just now had been engineered by her.
“Well done, Emily.”
At Roxana’s praise, Emily bowed her head slightly.
“As commanded, I shall ensure no one enters your room from this moment on.”
With that, Emily quietly withdrew.
Before Roxana could take more than a few steps after the door closed, she collapsed onto the floor, clutching the sofa.
“Ugh, cough…… hack.”
Without fail, dark red blood spilled from her lips.
Yet perhaps because her body had been restored by Cassis’s ability, there were no signs of losing consciousness this time.
The pale hand gripping the sofa’s armrest trembled faintly. Roxana gasped for breath through the blood.
What she had unleashed moments earlier were not the Slaughter Butterflies, but the Illusion Butterflies she had hatched first.
Although she had tested them on Charlotte previously, this time required crafting a far more elaborate illusion, so Roxana could not help but be tense.
For this day, she had openly flaunted the presence of the Slaughter Butterflies before everyone while secretly raising Poison Butterflies endowed with hallucinatory power behind the scenes.
Because Cassis had to die before everyone’s eyes.
For Cassis to escape Agriche lands safely without pursuers, and for Roxana to avoid punishment for failing to prevent his escape, news of his disappearance from the mansion could not reach a single soul.
Even so, she was relieved that the butterflies had grown so well in accordance with her wishes.
Was Cassis safely making his way out of the Black Forest by now?
Feeling a sharp, tearing pain in her gut as if raked by vicious talons, Roxana coughed up another wave of blood.
She had attached Slaughter Butterflies to the Pedelian retainers stationed in advance.
She had also stationed butterflies at the entrance of the secret passage leading to the Black Forest, so they would be able to assist Cassis.
Having diligently fed them monsters for some time to whet their appetite, they were certain to perform their duty flawlessly.
Then, suddenly, a faint, brittle laugh escaped Roxana’s lips.
Cassis truly remained consistent to the very end.
Even looking at how he had gone out of his way to heal a mere minor burn mark.
Recalling the eyes that had met hers at the very last, her heart settled into a quiet calm.
Perhaps she simply wanted to believe it so, but……
Somehow, she could not bring herself to believe Cassis would die in that forest.
“Ha…… Haha…….”
At last, intermittent laughter leaked through Roxana’s blood-stained lips.
