Chapter 16
Chapter 16
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Empire (4)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Silvia Balthazar was seething with rage.
She had just received word that the wastrel bastard she'd assumed dead on the Northern Frontline had returned alive.
"Is it true? That bastard's come back alive?"
"H-He looks different now, but there's no doubt it's the young master."
"...You know how he came back from the dead?"
"I'm not entirely sure myself..."
"Goddamn it. I knew he couldn't have died like that. He's probably scheming some other fucked-up bullshit."
It had been eleven years since she'd last faced her blood brother.
They said ten years could change mountains and rivers, but her memories of him remained unchanged.
If anything, they grew sharper with every passing year.
And every single one of those memories was rotten to the core.
"What's that bastard's game? Why's he crawling back to the family after eleven years?"
"From what I heard, he came to see the family head..."
Her father, who had lost consciousness as his illness worsened...?
What did it mean that after eleven years without so much as showing his face, he appeared the moment her father took a turn for the worse?
What reason could the Balthazar family's sole legitimate son have for returning home at this exact moment?
Silvia pieced it together from everything she'd seen and remembered of her blood brother's past exploits.
If it was that lunatic who'd gathered whores in the mansion for nonstop orgies like they were daily meals, who'd roped other nobles into running a drug cartel—
"—Fuck, that crazy son of a bitch!"
He was planning to inherit the family when his father kicked the bucket.
That wastrel who hadn't shown his face in eleven years!
The moment that realization hit her, Silvia felt something snap in her head.
Forcing down her boiling fury, she stormed forward.
The mansion's maids had gathered around her father's room, where her blood brother had entered.
Mostly female staff; the male servants had fallen back.
Before she could question it, Silvia barged in.
"Out of my way."
No laughter or voices came from inside.
Oddly, the maids' expressions went beyond mere wariness.
Some had flushed cheeks; others fidgeted nervously, eyes downcast.
Silvia frowned for a split second.
'...What the hell? Why's the vibe like this?'
It was nothing like the wastrel's return she'd imagined.
As if he'd come back not just as a headache, but something far more complicated—
Silvia flung the door open.
The first thing she saw upon entering was a broad-shouldered man sitting with his back to her.
Muscles bulged beneath his clothes, pulsing like living things.
Gazing calmly at her unconscious father, he looked utterly out of place.
Silvia halted mid-step.
She glanced back at the servants by the door and whispered.
"...That's really him?"
A rookie maid with a suspiciously red face nodded.
"Y-Yes, that's him. The head butler said he's Young Master Ian... Right?"
Silvia narrowed her eyes, staring holes into the man's back.
It wasn't the back she remembered from her blood brother.
The one in her memory had been scrawny, untrained, without a scrap of muscle.
Was that really her blood brother standing there?
At that moment, the man spoke without turning.
"You're still alive."
A familiar voice rang in her ears.
It overlapped with the gentle tone from her barely remembered childhood and the snarls calling her a mongrel bitch to get lost.
Silvia's face twisted in fury.
"Fuck. What the hell are you?"
Her blood brother—Ian—turned to look at her.
Fierce, wolf-like eyes fixed on her.
Her scarred brother looked very different now, but faint traces of eleven years ago lingered.
More scars, but still that parasite pretty-boy face.
Squeals—not quite screams—from the female maids erupted behind her.
Silvia whipped around and glared daggers at them.
"Ah, haha... I just remembered some urgent work, so I'll be—"
"M-Me too...!"
"Let's go together!"
The servants vanished in an instant.
With the area quiet again, Silvia tore into Ian.
"What the fuck are you doing here? Why'd you come back? Why not just die out there for good? Tell me why you're here."
Ian shrugged nonchalantly.
"Just came back to check if Count Balthazar and you were still kicking."
"Don't even dream of targeting the family head. That seat isn't for trash who's been gone from the family for eleven years."
Ian stared at her face for a long moment, as if surprised.
Then he let out a smirk.
Silvia's rage surged endlessly.
"Don't you fucking laugh, you dogshit bastard. You crawl back after eleven years hearing Dad's dying, thinking you'll snag some scraps?"
"I have zero interest in the family head position. Like I said, I just came to check if you're alive."
"—Fuck, that's exactly the problem! What? Check if we're alive? Are you fucking advertising that you sent assassins or what?!"
Ian waved it off like she was overreacting.
As Silvia reached to grab his shoulder, venting her fury—
Something rising from his back choked the air from her lungs.
—Killing intent.
More precisely, just him turning his head had frozen the room's air solid.
It wasn't overt malice or hostility.
Just the natural aura of one who'd butchered monsters in the north and survived.
A man whose every breath carried hundreds of deaths.
It filled the room like liquid poured into a tank.
Silvia's throat clenched as if gripped by an invisible hand.
Her heart pounded wildly; her stomach flipped.
"Urk...!"
Her legs buckled; she dropped to her knees.
She couldn't breathe; coughs brought up vomit.
Tears and spit mixed on her cheeks.
Gasps of horror from the hidden maids watching.
She couldn't even lift her head.
Her body just trembled like a leaf before a beast, pathetic prey.
Ian turned to her calmly.
Emotionless wolf eyes.
Then, indifferently, he patted her shoulder with one hand.
"No need to tense up. I didn't send any assassins. No reason to. And I don't need the family head seat to begin with."
Ian left the room without another word.
As he exited, whispers rippled among the remaining servants.
"I heard he was a wastrel. What the hell happened... Is that really the same guy?"
"Doesn't look like the old wastrel at all. Did he go into secluded training or something?"
"Heard he came from the north?"
Pride, fury—all tangled emotions surged to her throat.
'...That's really Ian? How the fuck did that lunatic—'
—It flashed through her mind: the war hero returned from the north was named Ian.
And that he'd been granted a ducal title.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 'Why'd she suddenly puke like that?'
She comes charging in, drops to her knees, then barfs.
What a handful of a little sister.
'They say siblings take after each other. One's a wastrel, the other's... Fuck, bad harvest all around.'
I left the mansion and walked the streets, lost in thought.
Unlike the original story, Silvia and Tirian were both alive and well.
Tirian had lost consciousness from his illness, and Silvia was capably managing as acting head without being turned into a living taxidermy exhibit.
In the original, Tirian went mad after losing his wife to a monster and started experimenting on them.
A tragic tale of trying to revive her through monster research.
Obsessed, he gradually lost his mind, eventually turning every family member and servant in the county into monsters.
It was a side quest event in the game—inevitable no matter what.
'Has the original derailed? Nah, "derailed" doesn't feel right.'
The Emperor and Sword Saint among the major characters had drastically changed appearances.
Most key NPCs were now beauties, and the Emperor had even switched genders.
This was beyond any butterfly effect from my time on the Northern Frontline.
Factor in Balthazar still being alive, and this world might not be the one I knew at all.
But my experiences on the Northern Frontline flatly denied that.
If this wasn't the game world I remembered, then what were those monsters I fought and killed there?
Contradictions clashed, ruling out other possibilities.
What the hell was the world I'd transmigrated into?
As I pondered on my way home—
A shadow leaked from a dark alley ahead.
It flickered violently in the gloom, solidifying into form upon touching light.
A tall man in a black longcoat stepped out from the shadows.
"Duke of Valencia."
A handsome man with black-and-white striped hair stood there.
As the go-board pattern stirred déjà vu, the man from the alley continued.
"Her Imperial Majesty the Empress has completed preparations to unseal the latent blood. Proceed immediately to the palace and follow us."
Those words triggered it—I recognized the man.
This guy with the checkerboard hair was a key figure in the game too.
Walter Gernhardt.
The Empire's third Aura user and head of the Imperial Intelligence Agency.
A specialist in assassinating high nobles.
But once again, one problem—
'Why's this guy a hunk now too? What's the fucking criteria?'
Walter Gernhardt was a middle-aged man.
A tragic one with advanced M-shaped baldness.
He wasn't some young romance-novel pretty boy in the game.
This wasn't some ropan mod installed or anything.