“How did you even know about that…?”

Anthony’s eyes flashed sharply with suspicion.

“……”

Kasha simply stared at him silently. Facing those clear eyes that held no direct accusations, Anthony unwittingly lowered his head first, finding it difficult to meet her gaze.

The memory of killing a person for the first time.

It shattered his soul much faster and more effectively than he had thought.

It seemed to be from that very moment. The moment he twisted the neck of that mother while listening to the cries of the innocent girl. From then on, his emotions lost control and completely broke down.

From that moment, even the fear of becoming a Mein and the slightest sense of guilt towards his family all withered away within his soul.

He tried to focus solely on his goal.

The desire to become stronger, to become an unrivaled being who needed no one’s help by becoming stronger than anyone else.

That’s what brought him here. To the battlefield where he might have to face his elder brother one-on-one. Into the devil’s crucible where he had to tear people’s flesh and break their bones.

‘So… I won’t be swayed by the likes of your tongue, Kasha Lyuschino.’

Anthony gritted his teeth and repeated inwardly.

That woman had gotten on his nerves from the moment he first saw her.

‘You don’t resemble him, but… unlike Leon, you are very caring, Anthony.’

Those clear and distinct eyes that gazed at him as if understanding his twisted interior. The transparent afterimage of that vivid pink unpleasantly lingered on his retina for a long time.

That wasn’t all.

Despite being the one who broke the seal on the demon stone and the main culprit behind this situation, she always pretended to be righteous and just, which he also disliked.

Persuading his dull and rigid elder brother and making him act like a woman-crazed person, and smiling so innocently while looking at that elder brother.

Even the clear and pristine singing voice she had at the royal picnic grated on Anthony’s nerves terribly.

What he disliked most was the fact that she was by Leon’s side. He really hated that, enough to make his stomach churn.

Then Kasha spoke again.

“I know. In your own way, you wanted to protect your family.”

As always, her face was serious and her tone was calm. Despite being in the grip of the world’s strongest Mein, her unwavering face, as if she knew no fear, was terribly unpleasant.

“…Don’t talk nonsense.”

“That’s why you were so angry with me back then, right? Because it seemed like the Osilote family had once again gone against Nigel’s whims after I killed the viscount.”

“……”

Anthony bit down hard on his molars.

How did that woman know all of that?

And how much of the truth had she revealed to Leon?

Surely she wouldn’t have spilled the beans about him breaking the seal on the demon stone.

‘There’s no way. If he knew that the one who broke the seal on the demon stone that cursed him was that woman, with his personality, there’s no way he’d still be dealing with her.’

The Holy Knight Leon he knew was that kind of man. A man who was terribly rigid and knew no path other than the righteous way.

If only his elder brother hadn’t been so stiff-necked with Nigel in the first place, he wouldn’t have been cursed like that. So, in a way, it was also his elder brother’s responsibility that everything had gotten so tangled up.

When he first heard from Nigel that his elder brother had been cursed, he was also genuinely enraged. But Nigel’s ensuing temptation was too sweet.

‘Don’t worry, Anthony. When I ascend the throne without incident, I’ll immediately lift the curse on your elder brother as well. Then, it will be you, Anthony, not Leon, who will be the hero to raise the Osilote ducal family. As my right-hand man.’

Of course, he didn’t completely trust Nigel. It’s just that his temptation, promising that he could be reborn as a strong person and escape this weak and tedious body, was too intense.

It was the desire he had cherished all his life, having always been treated as a burden.

‘Seriously, how long is Leon going to come and pour his holy power into Anthony every single day like that?’

‘If it weren’t for the holy power he wastes like that every day, he might have been chosen as Lady Larisa’s successor at the temple long ago.’

‘It’s like pouring water into a bottomless pot anyway, since he can’t even function as a person…’

Even when Anthony grew a bit older and began refusing Leon’s holy power and attending the temple himself, people always treated him like a leech sucking on Leon’s blood. The same went for his parents.

‘That’s enough, get up, Leon. Didn’t you say you had to go to the slums today for relief activities?’

‘…Anthony is sick. I can’t go with you today, Mother.’

‘You, really…! Knowing that I can’t heal all those people alone! You can just send Anthony to the temple! How long are you going to let him treat you like a holy power pouch!’

‘The one treating me like a holy power pouch is you, Mother.’

‘Wh-what did you say?’

‘Take the healers from the temple with you to the slums. Unless you’re doing this out of greed to raise your reputation by parading me around.’

‘Leon!’

‘Saving my younger brother is more important to me. I’ll do volunteer work after that.’

Watching his elder brother wither away day by day from the curse was, of course, a sufficiently painful thing.

Leon was truly a difficult elder brother to hate.

Always taking care of his younger siblings more than himself and not hesitating to sacrifice, a figure more like a father than their actual father.

The problem was that such an elder brother shone too brightly.

The day after he, born with a weak and pathetic body, failed the academy exam due to being unable to overcome a summer cold, Leon entered the Holy Knights at the youngest age.

Amidst the congratulations and praise pouring out toward his talented elder brother, he didn’t even have time to grieve his own failure. If he did, he would be stigmatized as a wicked younger brother who was jealous of his elder brother’s achievements.

So he had no choice but to wait. For his time to come someday. To stand tall as Anthony Aranias, not as Leon’s younger brother.

If only Leon had given up on him, he might have been able to become twisted to his heart’s content.

Because Anthony Aranias was not a sacred person like Leon. He never wanted to be like that anyway.

He was always jealous of Leon while being grateful for his sacrifice. He hated his elder brother who was too outstanding and always made him look relatively more incompetent.

Yet, he was sick and tired of his elder brother’s love and sense of responsibility that made it impossible to fully hate him.

‘Don’t blame me too much, elder brother. It’s only natural that I take after Father more than you.’

Anthony looked down at Kasha with a bitter smile.

“Yes, that’s right. Your and my elder brother’s methods were wrong. For the Osilote ducal family to survive, we shouldn’t confront Crown Prince Nigel, but wisely pledge loyalty to his side. Justice? Injustice? Where is such a thing? Surviving, winning, that’s justice.”

“……”

“This time, I will become justice. I’ll raise the ruined Osilote ducal family with my own strength. Even my elder brother in his cursed state won’t be able to stop me.”

“You are truly foolish.”

“What did you say?”

“The one you should turn against is Nigel. Not Leon, who has protected you all your life.”

“Shut up!”

“You can never become justice. You won’t be able to raise the Osilote ducal family either.”

“…What do you know to keep talking thoughtlessly like that? Are you still looking down on me?”

Anthony frowned fiercely and grabbed Kasha’s neck again. However, Kasha looked him straight in the eye without a hint of fear and clearly retorted.

“Because that power is not yours.”

“…What?”

“You know it too. That it’s the power of a demon. That you’re merely borrowing that power at the cost of someone’s sacrifice… That curse can come back to you at any time and destroy you!”

“Shut up!”

Anthony spat out a curse as if chewing on it and put more strength into the hand gripping Kasha’s neck.

“I will never succumb to some curse. That curse… I’ll just leave it to that person to suffer through it as much as they want!”

That person deserves to suffer like that anyway.

He added with a snicker.

Kasha’s face began to turn pale again. She moved her mouth as if in pain.

‘No. Things are never that simple.’

Opus was an incomplete demon stone from the start. During the unsealing process, it cracked and some of its power was lost and became unstable.

That was probably why Nigel handed Opus over to Anthony.

He must have chosen the most useful toy that was easy to handle and didn’t matter if it broke, because using an unstable demon stone himself would be unpleasant.

‘Due to that instability, the curse will also progress faster. The sacrifice you created will soon die, and that curse will return to you.’

In the past before the regression, despite defeating the Holy Knights in the Holy Mother War, Wolfbane dies not long after.

It was because as soon as the sacrifice disappeared, he was quickly engulfed by the curse of madness.

In that situation, there was no way Crown Prince Nigel would continue to help him. As if he had been waiting, the crown prince orders the capture and execution of the Mein.

Mein Wolfbane, or rather Anthony, meets a miserable end, surrounded by thousands of imperial troops, and the crown prince becomes the hero of the empire.

Because Nigel kept his identity a secret until the very end, Anthony died as Mein Wolfbane until the end. Without even being able to say a final goodbye to his family.

Leon from before the regression also never found out until the end that Wolfbane was Anthony, so he considered his death fortunate. To him at the time, Wolfbane was just the enemy who annihilated the Holy Knights.

Nigel had truly cruelly destroyed a family.

‘Please stop here, Anthony.’

When her voice could no longer come out of her throat, Kasha pleaded with her eyes.

‘This path only leads to destruction.’

Seeing the tears shimmering in her eyes, Anthony frowned. Her tears were unpleasantly grating on his nerves for some reason.

That wasn’t all. He had felt something strange even when he first strangled her earlier, but now it was even more noticeable.

‘The strength in my grip is fading.’

He felt as if Mein Wolfbane’s superhuman strength was helplessly leaking out somewhere, like alcohol in a cracked jar.

‘What’s going on…?’

That’s when it happened.

His senses, expanded to a range beyond human, detected an ominous energy.