Chapter 295
With this, his love…
Just before his parents were executed, the subordinates of his father who escaped while carrying Canopus in their arms always whispered the same thing to him, over and over.
〈Lord Canopus, you are not like those people.〉
‘Those people’ referred to none other than the Arcturus family.
The man who led that house stood backed by the support of the Emperor and trampled upon not only monsters but countless powerless people.
And within that man’s bloodline was his own older brother, who lived comfortably in the ducal estate.
The vast territory, the glory of the family spread across the Empire, the peaceful days—all of it belonged to that brother.
From childhood, Canopus had never been able to accept that.
He had done nothing wrong, and yet he was the one who had to live in hiding with remnants of the rebellion. How many times had he narrowly survived collapsing hideouts on stormy nights?
〈The bad one is that filthy bastard.〉
Why was it that the miserable life of wearing ragged clothes, assisting noble families with menial labor, and filling his head with scraps of knowledge from secondhand books—all of that had to fall solely to him?
But he had one safeguard that let him not envy that filthy-blooded bastard.
〈Lord Canopus, you’re different from those scum. You were chosen by the almighty Adamant.〉
They called him a chosen one. The way everyone looked up at him helped suppress his sense of inferiority. He was living proof that his runaway mother and the man who saved her had been right, and that he was chosen by the divine.
Thus, the Arcturus family and the imperial line, who had taken his parents from him, were evil.
But Freesia, who was also a chosen one, denied that.
The woman in his arms had her eyes closed, barely managing to let out the faintest, shallow breaths.
“Hh… ugh…”
Seeing the scratches across both cheeks, the broken wrists and legs, the fiery rage inside him dulled slightly.
“It seems I’ve really gone too soft on you, Freesia.”
“Ugh…”
“If it had been anyone else, I’d have cut off all four limbs without hesitation.”
Even though her words wounded him, he never found it in himself to strike her… So, instead, he gently kissed her trembling brow and murmured softly,
“But I can’t let this go anymore.”
“Izar…”
Pathetic. Even in this state, she still called the name of the man who had dragged her into misery. That stirred both pity and a dull, creeping jealousy.
He covered her mouth and nose.
“Mmph…!”
“Just go to sleep now.”
Freesia jerked a few times in his arms as she suffocated, but when pushed to her limit, her body finally went limp.
‘If she’s unconscious, she can’t use her powers to drive off monsters.’
It would’ve been better if he had knocked her out earlier, but it wasn’t too late now. From deep within the forest ahead, he could hear the cries and shouts of people.
No one had to tell him. He already knew what was about to happen.
“It was always going to end this way anyway.”
Canopus squinted his one good eye and curled his lips into a smile.
His bastard half-brother had arrived.
That damn mutt, who dared claim Freesia as his mate, now glared at Canopus with those beast-like golden eyes blazing with fury at the sight of the woman in his arms.
At the same moment, a rift split through the air behind Canopus, and the claw of a monster tore through.
“Come, Izar.”
He was sick of the pathetic life of being on the run, hiding in crumbling shelters under stormy skies, always evading his brother’s gaze.
If he ran away again now, the endless cycle of pursuit would never end.
So this place had to become the grave of one of them.
* * *
In his former life, Izar, unlike now, only came face-to-face with his half-brother at the very end, right before his death.
〈An honor to meet the illustrious Duke Arcturus in the flesh for the first time.〉
The bastard had arrived at the sanctuary then due to information leaked from the Temple.
A ‘place of immense magical power’ passed down through the imperial family…
After reading the records of the dead imperial grandson that the Temple had seized for themselves, Canopus successfully summoned countless monsters, then marched on the canyon palace mid-rebellion.
For Izar, it was a deeply ironic situation.
He had come to the sanctuary to guard his wife’s corpse in a safe place. Yet that very decision led him to face his half-brother.
It had become a last stand, one where he bore Freesia’s lifeless body on his back and refused to fall.
He won only because he had clung so desperately to protecting even her empty shell.
〈You’re a failure, Izar.〉
Even as he died, the Canopus of that former life had sneered at him with those words.
Though Izar had protected his dead wife…
Could that ever make up for failing to protect her while she was alive?
Bleeding, he had barely dragged himself to the underground lake where his wife slept.
〈It’s so bitter.〉
He wanted to touch her one more time before she was truly gone.
But… that wasn’t Izar’s real wish.
〈I wanted to be kind to you while you were still alive.〉
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