Chapter 15
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Sibling Affection
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“Sibling affection is quite good.”
The words tossed out amid that frozen silence were spoken in a low voice, but they reached Charlotte's ears clearly.
It was a silence so profound that no one dared even open their mouths. Even the tiniest sound was impossible to miss.
‘……What’s that?’
All the nobles' reactions so far had been ones of pleasant surprise. They were taken aback in a good way by this new side of Isaac, who had always seemed aloof and unapproachable. It wasn't negative at all.
That in itself proved how favorably everyone viewed House Setia, which commanded two prestigious knight orders in the Kingdom of Cheiker, and how much they expected from it.
The fact that they paid such keen attention to the odd behavior of Isaac, who was all but confirmed as the heir.
Yet the clear voice she'd just heard carried a hint of mockery.
Still cradled in Isaac's arms, Charlotte craned her neck and looked around.
‘Over six feet tall…… or was it more like 190 centimeters? Anyway, being held isn't great, but the high vantage point is nice.’
Charlotte inwardly expressed her envy not just for Isaac's muscles but his height as well, while scanning the vast ballroom with her eyes.
It didn't take long to spot the culprit.
In this ballroom where everyone else was desperately trying to stand out, he was the sole outlier— a black-haired boy sitting with eyes utterly indifferent to the crowd.
The boy she'd thought looked far too weary for his young age when they met before.
A child whose gaze commanded attention in an instant, beautiful like a doll.
His hair was like polished ebony, his skin like fine white jade, his lips red as plum blossoms. If the men of House Setia were strikingly handsome enough to dazzle the eyes, this boy was so lethally beautiful that it made him seem fragile.
It was Prince Joseph.
Their eyes met as Charlotte turned toward him.
As if recognizing her, Prince Joseph met her gaze without flinching, his expression inscrutable. But the exchange was fleeting.
When someone approached Joseph and spoke to him, he quickly averted his eyes elsewhere, as if hiding his glance.
‘Joseph, so you were at the palace ball! But that vibe…… what’s going on?’
Cradled in Isaac's arms, she froze in bewilderment.
Just that brief eye contact had set the energy surging wildly inside her.
The sensation resembled the thrill of facing a master martial artist.
She hadn't felt it during their first meeting.
Probably because back then, she lacked even the bare minimum internal energy to sense someone else's.
‘……That kid’s energy is so thick it’s nauseating. Can he even handle it at his age?’
It was like the internal energy of someone from the unorthodox sects.
The heart methods of the unorthodox schools, designed for rapid accumulation, ran energy backward—employing bizarre techniques the orthodox schools would never use—to build power quickly.
The advantage was becoming a master in no time……
The drawback was……
‘……Joseph, if he keeps going like that, he might suffer Qi Deviation.’
But as far as she knew, no one in this world— this place— understood how to cultivate internal energy.
How on earth had he abused his body to end up like that?
He was still so young, yet……
Charlotte narrowed her eyes, lost in thought.
‘The book mentioned he fell ill unusually often. Sometimes in so much pain he lost his reason, even collapsing during tournaments. And when the Kingdom of Cheiker was attacked, he went to the battlefield and collapsed…… so that was it?’
She'd thought it was some other chronic illness.
Not that his energy flow was in such total disarray.
In that state, he couldn't wield a sword properly.
No, worse— the more he tried, the more agony it would bring.
Even in the unorthodox sects, cultivators started with strange demonic arts to build energy quickly, then later switched back to proper orthodox methods.
If the accumulated energy wasn't pure, the body would break down with continued training.
He seemed to be in a similar state.
If the energy felt from this distance was already that messed up……
‘Good thing I came all this way. No idea what's really going on— I need to meet him in person and talk.’
As Charlotte glanced back at the third prince, she let out an inward sigh.
‘……Oh no.’
While she sorted her thoughts, the third prince— who had been sitting in such plain sight— had vanished somewhere.
Charlotte's playmates. The kids in Lancelot's group were also right there at the scene of the spectacle.
They came from decent noble families, after all, and many had to attend the royal ball to show their faces.
Those playmates who knew Charlotte best were even more shocked than the adult nobles, chattering away at ten times the volume.
“……Heavens. What did we just hear?”
“Hey, Lancelot. Charlotte's with Isaac, right……?”
“It's not about them being together— it's that Isaac apologized. To Charlotte, of all people.”
“How is this even happening?”
“……Hey, not sure exactly, but don't you think you should apologize to Charlotte too, Lancelot?”
Lancelot clamped his mouth shut and glared murderously at each whispering child one by one.
But before snapping at them for their nonsense, he had to make sense of the even more absurd situation first.
‘……What the hell is going on?’
No matter how furiously he racked his brains— the sharpest among House Setia's side branch— no plausible answer emerged.
Who was Charlotte, anyway?
She was the plaything of Lancelot's group, a total outcast no one welcomed anywhere.
House Setia couldn't even use Aura, and they'd practically disowned her. For her, it had been a blessing that they'd deigned to play with her at all.
……Until now.
That had been the case until now.
And now, Isaac— who wouldn't know a joke if it bit him— was saying something like that?
‘……Why?’
Why would he?
As Lancelot drowned in turmoil, his pupils shaking uncontrollably, his oblivious friends crowded around, pouring out more chatter.
“We haven't seen Charlotte since she fell in the water last time. Something must've changed during that……”
“I heard the minor house lord was looking into what happened back then.”
“……What? We didn't do anything wrong.”
“Yeah. She fell in on her own, we just……”
The kids' voices wilted as memories resurfaced of how they'd laughed uproariously even after learning she'd nearly drowned.
“But if anyone's really at fault, it's Lancelot.”
“Right. He threw the stones too……”
“She didn't actually get hit, though, so it's fine.”
“……Still, thinking back, it was a weird incident. Is Lancelot weak or something?”
Lancelot bellowed at the kids mumbling their nonsense.
“What the hell are you all saying? Have you lost your minds?”
Only then did the others finally notice his glare and shut up.
“Don't you know…… who I am? I don't know what happened between Charlotte and Isaac, but it'll be temporary. You all know how she lives in that attic, right?”
The kids exchanged glances after hearing Lancelot out.
“You're not wrong……”
“But from the moment she started talking down to you, didn't she seem…… like she had some backing?”
“Maybe her abilities suddenly awakened or something?”
“Whoa, that actually sounds plausible. How else could she…… crush that stone?”
Lancelot yelled again at the two who'd uttered those last words.
“Plausible? Plausible? Have you all gone insane?”
But unlike usual, when they'd instantly play dead at his words, they were too busy watching Charlotte and Isaac to even focus on him properly.
Lancelot clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘Unbelievable…… abilities awakening out of nowhere? It's my fault for hanging out with these lowborn idiots who don't know the first thing about how ducal talents are inherited.’
It was proven from a very young age.
What wasn't there didn't appear, what was there didn't vanish. It was set in stone.
Even with him from House Setia's side branch, the son of Duke Cyan, and the daughter of Marquis Tantinus— a house said to rival House Setia— in the group, for this nonsense to come up was pathetic.
‘I was planning to put Charlotte in her place sometime anyway……’
He couldn't fathom how the mood had shifted like this, but if he didn't step up now, they'd start doubting his own skills. No choice.
Lancelot lifted his chin and declared,
“I'll look into it myself.”