Trudge, trudge. With powerless footsteps, Diana walked down the corridor after leaving Rodrick’s room.

“Hey.”

She bumped into someone, but Diana wasn’t in the state of mind to care.

“Diana!”

A hand grabbed her shoulder tightly. Lifeless pink eyes slowly looked up.

“What, what happened?!”

Blinking a few times, Diana came to her senses.

“Ah, elder brother.”

Nathan was looking down at her with an angry face.

Her hair was drenched in sweat, and her pale face was full of tear stains. On top of that, her thin nightgown was in a tattered state. It looked as if she had been forced upon.

A raging inferno began to blaze in his red eyes.

“……”

“I’m tired. If you have something to say, later… Elder brother?”

Without a word, Nathan passed by Diana and took angry strides in the direction she had come from.

Bang−! The door opened as if it would break, and the gaze of the man resting inside shifted to the door due to the excessive mana recoil.

“Hey, you son of a bitch!”

Nathan exploded with tremendous killing intent and grabbed Rodrick by the collar.

“Elder brother!”

Before she could stop him, Nathan’s fist drove into Rodrick’s face. Thwack− The punch landed squarely on his already swollen cheek.

“I didn’t think you were like this. I trusted you as a comrade who shared life and death. I didn’t care even if you went berserk with bloodlust.”

“……”

“But not my younger sister. You bastard!”

However, Nathan’s fists were no longer allowed. The man with one cheek swollen like a balloon tightly grasped Nathan’s fist.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying though?”

“Ha, what?!”

Nathan’s lifted lips trembled with rage.

“Let’s talk after you get hit a bit.”

“……”

His blue eyes turned not to Nathan, but to Diana. They seemed to be asking her to explain what was going on. Diana let out a deep sigh.

“Stop it. Elder brother.”

Diana grabbed his arm with bulging veins, but Nathan didn’t let go of Rodrick’s collar.

“I don’t know what you’re imagining, but Rodrick didn’t do anything wrong. So stop.”

Are you saying that after seeing the state you’re in! Nathan glared at Diana, gritting his teeth.

He swallowed his frustration at seeing Diana take Rodrick’s side to the end. Nathan roughly released his collar.

“I’m greatly disappointed by the etiquette of the North.”

Thorns pierced his restrained voice. Nathan grabbed Diana’s wrist and turned around.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait. Elder brother.”

Nathan ignored Diana’s words and led her out of the corridor towards her room.

“Pack your bags right now.”

“What?”

“This is no longer a place to stay. Let’s leave.”

“Elder brother.”

“No. Just quickly change clothes. I’ll buy you the rest of the necessary items.”

“Nathan!”

Nathan looked unstable, greatly agitated. He seemed to want to get out of this place he perceived as dangerous as soon as possible.

“Calm down. Not now. Where would I even go?”

“Anywhere! It’ll be better than here.”

“Elder sister?”

Noel, who had been sleeping quietly on her bed, woke up at the loud noise. Nathan’s gaze turned to Noel.

“Hey, kid. You change clothes too. We’re leaving together.”

Noel, who had been rubbing his half-open eyes while squirming, flinched. Seeing Diana’s state, he ignored Nathan’s words.

Noel hurriedly got up, crawled down from the bed, and tightly grasped Diana’s skirt.

“Elder sister! What happened?!”

No, why was everyone overreacting like this? Diana placed her hand on Noel’s head and gently smiled as if to reassure him.

“Nothing happened.”

“Liar.”

“Huh?”

The child’s voice was too soft to hear. Noel fiddled with her hand for a moment, then suddenly ran out of the room without a word.

“Noel!”

“Where are you going? Quickly change clothes.”

She tried to catch Noel, but Nathan grabbed her wrist. She didn’t understand why this elder brother was acting like this. Her head was already a mess, driving her crazy.

“Where would we even go if we left? We can’t go straight to the family either?”

“I have a residence in the West. Let’s go there. I’ll take care of the family and come back. Stay there in the meantime.”

“You want me to run away like you, elder brother?”

Nathan’s body, who had been heading to the dressing room to pack clothes himself, stiffened.

“What did you say?”

“Yes, you didn’t run away, you abandoned the family. How are you, who did that, going to step up and resolve this?”

He had certainly used military service as an excuse to abandon the family and wander around.

Nathan always felt uneasy, as if he had also abandoned his young sister who remained at home.

His two elder brothers, blessed with abilities, had built their own power and lived well, but the youngest was different.

So he thought that just as he had become fed up with the family, abandoning everything and leaving, Diana had turned her back on the world and lived only inside the mansion.

“I’ll somehow.”

His mouth felt dry, and words wouldn’t come out. Regret and guilt seemed to weigh down on his tongue like a heavy weight. At that time, should I have taken you with me?

“You can’t even solve my current physical condition, elder brother.”

They were harsh words, but true.

“I can solve it if I stay here. I can find a way. It won’t take long. I’ll leave then. Okay? Elder brother.”

Seeing Diana gently holding his hand, Nathan bit his lower lip hard. He couldn’t bring himself to more strongly insist on leaving. How could I win against you?

“……”

“But, elder brother.”

He should have noticed from her gentle voice.

“I’ve been getting some spotty memories back. And it seems you know all about it accurately?”

“Huh? What, what are you talking about?”

Danger alarms went off. The women of the Beatus family are most frightening when they are gentle. Nathan felt cold sweat unconsciously forming.

“The things I can’t remember.”

She was smiling, but her eyes weren’t.

“You know, don’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re saying?”

Nathan, whose hand was tightly grasped, turned his head to avoid her gaze. Run away. I have to run away. Nathan’s flight instinct was rearing its head again.

“You told me. Asking if I was still upset with you. That I had spent some time not talking and just being blank. When was that?”

“……”

“Me. Being taken there. It wasn’t just once, was it?”

The space she had been dragged to by someone. She seemed cursed there. The markings on her back must have appeared then too.

His startled red eyes wavered back and forth.

“You remember?”

“Not everything. I don’t know what kind of place that was. I didn’t even know I had injuries on my body.”

Ha. Nathan plopped down on the bed. He had hoped she wouldn’t remember.

“I don’t know the location either. They thoroughly blindfold and block your ears when taking you, so even if you try to follow, you can’t catch up. Using some kind of magic.”

Nathan continued, cracking his stiff neck.

“You know how it is? Going there and coming back drives you crazy. In the past, I think they experimented on branch family members, but since no one came out normal, they started using only direct descendants.”

“What experiment?”

Nathan shrugged.

“Don’t know. What kind of experiment. But I do know they used mana. That too was probably used for the imperial family. That’s how our family is, right?”

The dog of the imperial family. The Beatus family’s notoriety was well-known, unlike the militarily powerful Schwartz family.

A greedy family that sacrificed anything for the imperial family to seize power.

Even in novels, they were labeled as the villain family.

“I need to meet elder sister. Or at least eldest brother.”

If it’s elder sister and brother, if it’s them, they would know for certain. About the past she had forgotten.

“Didn’t you say you can’t contact them?”

“Help me, elder brother. If you go directly, eldest brother will meet you.”

For some reason, Debir Beatus, the eldest son and mastermind of the Beatus family, had cut off all contact and wasn’t taking any calls. Even the means to reach the underworld were blocked.

“You’ll help me, right? Elder brother.”

“You want me to go meet Debir Beatus?”

“Yes.”

Seeing Nathan making a genuinely reluctant expression, Diana smiled brightly.

“If elder brother helps me, I can leave this place quickly, you know?”

“Ha, really. I’m only listening because it’s you. You know that?”

“I know. Our elder brother is the best!”

At Diana’s praise, Nathan couldn’t hide the corners of his mouth rising despite himself.

The door opened with a bang and a young child barged in. The child’s anger erupted and his form instantly changed into that of an adult man.

The man possessing Rodrick’s body looked at him indifferently.

Thump− The man’s eyebrow rose crookedly at the body roughly shoved aside. He was getting a lot of unwelcome visitors today.

“Why did you do that!”

The man pressed down hard on Rodrick’s body that squirmed at the man’s roar.

“You realize your descendant is watching this too?”

“I don’t care.”

The handsome man had a height similar to Rodrick and a slender build. His features were delicate, but his toned body was no less than that of a well-trained man.

Noel, who had returned to his original form, was using unstable power out of anger. Strands of his hair fluttered in the air, unable to fully control his power.

“Why won’t you just leave the Beatus family alone! Can’t you just let them live quietly?! You were always meddling here and there even with Angela. You were no help at all!”

The man’s eyes darkened further as he looked at the panting Noel.

“That’s why I’m doing this. To make up for it.”

“Ha, make up for it?! If you quietly absorbed the curse of your descendant and removed the curse of this family, the wound would have healed naturally. You’re the one who aggravated it!”

Noel’s straight forehead wrinkled at the man’s crooked tone.

“You can see it, can’t you? Where that child’s mana is being drained to. You need to eliminate that cause. Absorbing my descendant’s curse is just a temporary measure. Don’t pretend to care for that child.”

The man whispered quietly in Noel’s ear.

“Why, did you enjoy playing house for the first time in hundreds of years?”

Smack− Noel shoved the man’s body again. A growling beast’s sound leaked through Noel’s clenched teeth.

“You’re the one trying to use that child. To find Angela, you possessed someone else’s body, right? Wake up. Both you and she are already long dead.”

A bitter smile appeared on the man’s lips.

“What about you? The one shaken by a single portrait of Angela.”

No further words could continue. Noel’s body instantly shrank at the sound of approaching footsteps from outside the door.

Fortunately, their figures weren’t exposed as the door, which had been magically sealed upon entry, opened with a bang.

Bang− The door, which was having a rough day, opened forcefully.

“Noel. Why are you here? Come here.”

At Diana’s appearance, Noel ran towards her. Diana picked Noel up in her arms.

Approaching the man, Diana glared at him with firm eyes.

“Why were you picking on our Noel?”

“What?”

“Weren’t you arguing with Noel? It was noisy even outside the corridor.”

The man’s mood twisted as she took Noel’s side with a face resembling Angela. Ha, you’re taking this guy’s side?

Inside one body, the jealousy of two men writhed.