Chapter 20
It Was a Critical Hit
SMACK!!
A sharply echoing slap. And… a split second later, what I felt on my cheek was heat rather than pain.
“Brother?!” “Dearest brother?!” “Lord Kaiser?!”
Multiple voices called out to me all at once.
The pain arrived a moment later. Seeing the delicate, slender hand of the person standing before me, and noticing a tiny smear of red on her ring, I realizedāah, that stinging pain must be from the ring catching my skin.
Her hands and shoulders trembled faintly.
“Mother!!”
His eyes burning with a scorching rage, Garnest grabbed his mother’s hand just as it was being raised again.
“Don’t, Garnest.”
I gently caught the hand he had instinctively raised and quietly shook my head, causing Garnest to wide-open his eyes in shock and bite his lip.
“It will be terrible if your hand swells. Get something to cool it immediately. It seems my stepmother’s nerves are highly frayed. Please brew some tea for her.”
I gave a meaningful look to my stepmotherās maid, who hurriedly bowed and led my stepmother away to her room. I watched the woman leave, her back supported as she allowed herself to be led away in a daze without offering any resistance.
Immediately after that, I received a thoroughly exaggerated amount of medical treatment. They cooled my reddened cheek, and since the spot where the ring struck had slightly peeled and bled, shrieks of horror erupted from the surrounding servants.
No, really, it’ll heal. A tiny scratch like this will heal in no time, so please don’t mourn so loudly.
“Dearest brother’s face is…!!”
It took quite a while to soothe Beatrix, who had burst into tears, calm down the panicked servants, and reason with Rif and the others, who were still radiating fury.
By the end of it, my cheek was completely covered by a massive piece of gauze. No matter how you looked at it, this heavy-duty bandaging was entirely disproportionate to the actual injury…
“Garnest.”
When I called his name, Garnestās shoulders flinched as if he were being scolded, his anxious posture looking somewhat similar to his mother’s… I offered him a gentle smile and spoke.
“Shall we talk for a bit? Come with me.”
The place we headed to was the study.
“Have a seat.”
When I gestured toward the opposite sofa, Garnest obeyed meekly, his expression lacking its usual vigor.
“It has been a while since we talked alone like this.”
“…Brother, …I am so terribly sorry!”
He lowered his head with such force that I could see the golden whorl of hair at the crown of his head. Despite the situation, a wave of fondness washed over me. It was a whorl of hair I had constantly looked down upon since we were young. Right now, I am still the taller one, but as his height crept closer to mine, my line of sight had shifted. Surely, he will overtake me before long.
I couldn’t help but feel deeply nostalgic about how truly large he had grown.
“Raise your head. Why on earth are you apologizing, Garnest?”
“Because…! Mother did that… and in the first place, it happened because of what I said…”
“No one is at fault here. That is why you mustn’t be so angry with your mother.”
“But still!!”
“Garnest.”
“…”
When I quietly called his name, Garnest fell silent, and I smiled at him, saying, “Good boy.”
To say my cheek, which was pulsing with a faint throb of pain, didn’t hurt at all would be a lie… but at the end of the day, it was just the delicate hand of a woman completely estranged from physical violence. Compared to my dragon-slaying master, this was a mere graze. If anything, I was more worried about whether she had hurt her own hand doing something she was completely unaccustomed to.
Perhaps because her nerves were on edge today, my stepmother had been incredibly combative. I had been deflecting it effortlessly as I always did, but Garnest was the one who couldn’t stand by and let such insults fly. I messed up; I should have at least changed locations. Taunted by her own beloved child, my stepmother had flown into a rage… and the result was that delicate hand swinging down upon me, the root cause of it all.
“Your mother truly treasures you and Beatrix, you know.”
“Even so, that does not give her a reason to disparage you and resort to violence, Brother.”
“True, violence is wrong. But Garnest, your own hand moved instinctively in that moment too, didn’t it?”
“That was…”
“I am not blaming you. You were trying to protect me, weren’t you? Your mother didn’t mean it that way either, I am sure. After she struck me, she was more shaken than anyone else.”
She must be a person entirely unacquainted with violence. If only her eyes had been filled with pure malice, I might have been able to get angry too.
“Even if you are in the right, Garnest, your mother doesn’t have the emotional capacity to listen right now. When her heart is already weak, being blamed by someone she holds dear will only drive her further into a corner.”
At my lecturing words, Garnest hung his head deeply.
His tightly clenched fists looked painfully tense, so I stood up and sat down right next to him. I placed my hand over his clenched fist and gently pried it open, revealing the deep marks left behind by his nails digged into his palm. I gently caressed it with my thumb, praying for the marks to fade even a little bit.
“…Brother.”
A tiny voice that seemed on the verge of vanishing entirely. I simply waited for him to finish his sentence.
“Why… why do you never say anything back, Brother? No one has any right to disparage you like that.”
His muffled voice was desperately trying to suppress his emotions, which made the feelings hidden within completely impossible to conceal. That must be the resentment he had been harboring on my behalf for a very long time.
And for me to feel nothing but happiness even at a time like this…
“Perhaps it is because I am a cold person.”
Garnest raised his head, his eyes blinking in utter confusion.
“I am not a kind person, you see.”
“That is not true! Lord Kaiser is kinder than anyone else!”
I cut him off mid-sentence by gently patting the cheek of the brother who was so fiercely defending me.
“Thank you, that makes me incredibly happy. A single word or action from you, Beatrix, Rif, or anyone else can bring me immense joy. But you see, words from people who don’t matter to me don’t resonate in my heart at all.”
The whispers calling me ‘incompetent’ are something I’ve long grown used to hearing; they don’t move my heart in the slightest anymore.
…In fact, there are frequently times when I think I would much rather prefer to remain ‘incompetent’ anyway.
“I suppose I draw a very sharp line between those who are important to me and those who are not. Ah, that doesn’t mean I hate your mother, you know? It’s just that I have already decided how I want to live my life, and no matter what anyone says, I have no intention of changing who I am. That’s why I simply let the insults slide.”
“Do you… truly not hate Mother?”
“Of course not.”
Wait, did Garnest think I actually hated our stepmother?!
“But… Mother is always saying such horrible things… even though you are the one supporting the Ducal House, Brother.”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t understand her feelings of finding me an eyesore. But I am actually deeply grateful to her.”
“Why…?”
Seeing Garnest’s thoroughly shocked face, I was the one left surprised. Why, you ask? Well, obviously…
“Because, of course, she is the one who gave me irreplaceable younger siblings like you and Beatrix. She is the person who bestowed upon me the ones I treasure above all else.”
At this point, it wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to call her a Holy Mother!
Besides, the way she gets angry is like a young girl throwing a temper tantrum, so it’s hard to truly dislike her. Even when she hurls insults, she gets flustered right after as if realizing she went too far. She’s entirely the type of sheltered, pampered young lady whose tantrums prevent her from ever truly becoming a villain. At her core, she’s an honest person. Plus, my stepmother is incredibly beautiful, and she looks a lot like Beatrix, which makes it even harder to dislike her.
“I am well used to people talking about my lack of a unique ability, and as for the peerage, that is something I decided entirely on my own. Garnest, you might be stressing yourself out thinking that you are stealing the title from me, but my decision not to inherit the Ducal House has absolutely nothing to do with the backstabbing whispers around us; it is entirely my own will.”
“Why is that?”
“Because a peerage is entirely unnecessary to me.”
I can hardly tell him it’s just because inheriting it sounds like a massive pain in the neck…
“Right, why don’t you try helping out with my work for a bit?”
The moment the words left my mouth, it struck me as an absolute stroke of genius, and I clapped my hands together. I turned to face the startled Garnest.
“I had originally intended to wait until you entered the Higher Division, but lately, you seem to be worrying about all sorts of things, Garnest. Why not start by helping me with my work? Of course, only to the extent that it doesn’t interfere with your academy studies. I believe experiencing it firsthand will give you a real feel for it. You might find yourself interested, and conversely, if you absolutely despise it, we will just have to figure out another way.”
“Another way?”
“For instance, having Dia… marry into the family as Beatrix’s husband. If he says no… then something else… I really don’t want to leave it to our relatives, so worst-case scenario, I suppose I’d just have to inherit it myself…?”
“Brother… you truly have absolutely no intention of inheriting it, do you?”
“Yep, none at all. But I have no intention of ignoring your own wishes either, Garnest. If you find something else you absolutely want to do, as your older brother, I intend to support you with everything I have.”
“I will do it.”
Garnest stood up, looking straight at me, and then bowed deeply.
“Please let me help with your work, Brother. I look forward to working with you.”
Just before exiting the room, Garnest opened the door, then suddenly paused and looked back.
“Lord Kaiser is not cold at all. You are kinder and more dependable than anyone elseāthe older brother we are most proud of.”
His cheeks turning a tiny bit pink, Garnest gave a polite bow and departed. Watching him leave in silence, I froze with a completely blank expression before automatically burying my face in my hands and slumping onto the desk.
My younger brother is way too much of an angel!!
