Chapter 214, None or Once (6)

Translator: Hedge

Editor: Lizzz

 

“…This is driving me crazy.”

 

Whether he was saying he didn’t like teaching someone something, or didn’t like being told not to jump to conclusions, or didn’t like saying the name with his own mouth, or didn’t like all of those things…. before he could even begin to ponder that, he was just going crazy.

 

He had been spinning round and round, and had been determined to spin alone, but when he opened his eyes, he found a boiled pea spinning right there beside him. No words were adequate to describe this feeling.

 

“I wasn’t going to say this much.”

 

He had no idea what benefit he could possibly gain from insisting on spinning alongside him, and he had the feeling that he might truly go crazy because he kept spinning with him like this.

 

Or perhaps it was like receiving a gift of Luci’s droppings, beautifully wrapped in the most expensive silk in Cyries.

 

“Older brother, why are you doing this to me?”

 

[When have we ever met before? Did I ever hit you? Did you hate getting the bell pepper that much? Why are you doing this to me?]

 

“Really… why are you doing this?”

 

Plants stared quietly at Kalian, who was speaking with his head bowed and his forehead covered, as if trying not to show what expression he was making.

 

He was holding back again.

 

There were no watching eyes around, and nothing visible to him either, so he thought he would decide this was a good chance to just kill the broomstick that seemed like an enemy.

 

But he held back again. He wasn’t even suppressing his anger, he just asked quietly in a voice that rustled like falling leaves. Asking why he was doing this.

 

Plants, who had been silently staring at the top of Kalian’s head, answered quietly.

 

“I’m curious.”

 

“About what?”

 

“Your name.”

 

“It’s Kalian.”

 

“Not that.”

 

“It’s Kalian.”

 

After this rapid-fire exchange, Plants let out a short laugh. Then he spoke in a languid voice.

 

“The bastard who knows that.”

 

And the ‘bastard’ who knew it was the one asking for his name to be confirmed.

 

[You’re determined to accept, understand, and shoulder everything alone while reeking of sour citrus, saying the stupidest thing in the world, and you think I’m going to listen to you?] He cursed for the first time in quite a while at the red-eyed bastard whose age and name he hadn’t known before and now didn’t want to know.

 

Kalian raised his head and looked at Plants.

 

Perhaps because tomorrow would be cloudy, the thin moonlight was red.

 

Perhaps because his heart was clouded, Kalian’s eyes were also red.

 

“…Ha.”

 

Plants frowned, understanding that all the profanity in the world was contained in that one short sigh.

 

“Let’s talk for a moment.”

 

Kalian, who had unilaterally conveyed his words, walked ahead with steady steps. Because he had too much to say and needed to organize his thoughts, he went to a better place for conversation, even though he knew he had been talking with that bastard all along.

 

Kalian went to a small stream not far away and plopped down on a small, low rock. Plants, who had been standing with a displeased expression, eventually chose a rock and sat down as well. Despite seeing this, Kalian remained silent and just listened to the sound of the water.

 

After quite some time passed.

 

With the older brother who ended up spinning together thanks to having a younger brother who spinned well before him, the younger brother who ended up enduring together thanks to having an older brother who endured well opened his mouth.

 

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but I’m quite skilled with a sword.”

 

Plants frowned slightly at the sensation of his perfectly fine neck throbbing and looked at Kalian. Kalian’s voice, still rustling, spread through the coldly settled forest air.

 

“I’ve cut down so many that the word ‘many’ doesn’t adequately count them all.”

 

Even before the war between Secritia and Cyries, Bern’s life had already been a war in itself, so whether he had experienced war or not, the number remained many.

 

“Ah, of course. I’ve taken many, but I’ve also protected many.”

 

The life he had protected most was Chase’s, and even if not Chase, he had protected quite many lives. Even after becoming Kalian, he had protected not only Kyrie and Hina but even Allan and Ian’s lives. Allan and Ian, although the meaning differed from what one would generally call ‘protecting,’ they were people who were living properly because Kalian was alive, so it was correct to say he had protected their lives as well.

 

“But I’ve only saved someone once.”

 

A person he saved by abandoning reason and calculation.

 

“I came up with various reasons why I should save them after the fact, but at that time, I just saved them. Because it seemed like I should save them.”

 

And that person happened to be Plants.

 

Yes,

 

It happened to be Plants.

 

Kalian, with that very Plants before him, spoke in a voice like water flowing toward the Senu River.

 

“But do you know that from the day I did that thing that happens never or maybe once in my entire lifetime, all my affairs became completely tangled? They all became knotted and entangled so much that I couldn’t unravel them into a single thread. Even until now.”

 

It was a voice like water always flowing toward the quiet Senu River, yet the words contained within it were never quiet. They were fiercer than a downpour on a windy day.

 

Valkan, whom he had been raising well and steadily; his relationship with Beurisen, which he had been handling step by step with clear goals in mind; even his Aura, which he had kept well hidden until the time was right. Everything became tangled from the moment he saved Plants. Everything became completely tangled.

 

“My Aura was discovered, my power was discovered, and when I gave you Valkan so you wouldn’t die, Older brother, you came back saying you’d give me the Knight Order with your heart bound. I, in my own way, gave the Knight Order back to you to resolve that problem.”

 

So he tried to survive again by prodding Gray a bit, but things got more tangled because of Evan. Still, he had to pay attention to that watermelon-rind-like bastard he had kept alive first, so he did terrible things even to Chase, but that bastard fixed the bracelet on his own and sent it to Chase.

 

“Thanks to that, I can’t even smell bell peppers anymore.”

 

Not only had he come to dislike bell peppers, but he also couldn’t take his eyes off Secritia’s affairs.

 

In the end.

 

In the end, he had made it impossible to let go of Secritia.

 

Anyway, if even one thing had been properly resolved because Plants interfered, he wouldn’t say anything. Because of the matters that spread like wildfire due to that bastard’s interference, he ended up having to risk his life to capture Evan. So where else under heaven could there be another enemy like this? And he had saved such a bastard with his own hands, so his insides rotted again today.

 

“It feels like watching Luci bringing me a frog to eat these days.”

 

Hadn’t cute and adorable Luci been bringing things lately and meowing for him to hurry up and eat too? Things like a black six-legged thing he wasn’t particularly curious about, or half a field mouse whose other half he didn’t want to know the whereabouts of.

 

Right now, Kalian felt exactly like he had received Luci’s gratitude. The same word, but the gratitude was completely different from Kyrie’s heart-wrenching gratitude.

 

After pausing briefly and specifically adding, “And it’s a really lively, fresh frog at that,” Kalian continued.

 

“Anyway, what I’m saying is… until now, I’ve never resented anyone besides Serenty, but today I feel some resentment. Toward you, older brother.”

 

He had never saved anyone, but now he did one.

 

He had never resented a person, but now too, he did one.

 

“A person who doesn’t even properly know what living means said he wanted to live, so I saved my older brother telling him to try living once, but why won’t my older brother listen to what I say?”

 

Although he was asking why, Kalian looked at Plants with an even more maddening feeling because he actually did know the reason.

 

“Is it because you’re still young?”

 

“…Listening to this, it seems my younger brother is starting to bark.”

 

“I really regret not knowing you wouldn’t listen to this extent. Maybe it’s because you’re at that growing age… And I don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn either. Is adolescence always like this?”

 

“At this rate, they’ll say Chermil Palace is raising a dog.”

 

“You’re speaking at length today. Did you perhaps mature in the meantime? Knowing to consider the listener. If you’re going to be like that, don’t pick up frogs and just listen well to what I say.”

 

“Enough.”

 

At the end of this strangely connected conversation where they seemed to exchange words but ultimately only said what they wanted to say, Kalian laughed shortly.

 

“Anyway, before you said you wanted to live, you should have at least let me know that you are really damn stubborn, Older brother. So I could at least consider it once.”

 

Eventually, Plants also laughed shortly.

 

It seemed he had run out of patience but still had to treat him as an older brother, so he couldn’t draw his sword or pick up a club and would just have to bark instead.

 

“If you need someone who listens well, just go to the fifth floor. I would have said I’m not that person.”

 

“That person is scary. Where is the person who would listen to me kindly? Every time I go up, I’m busy checking if there are any traps hidden somewhere.”

 

Plants, hearing complaints about his actual older brother to someone who seemed like a younger brother but actually was one, showed a cold sneer as a response and looked around.

 

Since birth until now, he has sat in unclean places exactly three times. The first was the lawn where he had told Kalian he wanted to live, the second was by the lakeside of Chermil Palace. And the third was right now, today.

 

In the end, all because of Kalian.

 

“Don’t act like you’re the only one being wronged.”

 

While Kalian seemed to have many things to endure because he got caught up in Plants’ style of helping, Plants had gotten his clothes covered in dirt because he met Kalian, hadn’t he?

 

So it wasn’t something for Kalian alone to feel wronged about.

 

“Speak properly. Your schemes.”

 

In the forest,

 

Near a waterway difficult to distinguish as a stream or valley,

 

Plants, who had been trying hard to look into the water that was barely visible with his head lowered, just raised his head and looked at the sky. Kalian asked quietly toward Plants, who was looking up at the red moon.

 

“Aren’t you curious of what I’m trying to teach you today?”

 

“…You’ll teach me how to live.”

 

As expected, he knew properly.

 

“And you’re being this stubborn, asking me to tell you my scheming, when you know that?”

 

Plants answered leisurely to Kalian’s words, which were delivered as if he found it absurd.

 

“Anyway, my little brother will keep me alive.”

 

‘Whatever you teach, I won’t learn it this time, so you just keep me alive yourself’—that’s what he was saying. Where else in the world could there be such a nasty disposition?

 

“Your little brother, who should keep you alive, might not be there, so learn it first.”

 

At these words, Plants’ head, which had been looking at the sky, came down toward Kalian.

 

“You.”

 

Seeing the doubt in his narrowed eyes, Kalian shook his head and spoke.

 

“I won’t die. Just learn it.”

 

This was ridiculous.

 

If he wasn’t going to die, he could just teach him later, so telling him to learn it in advance didn’t make sense. In the end, it was no different from teaching him in advance in case the plan went wrong.

 

“Don’t jump to conclusions, just once.”

 

Kalian, who saw right through Plants, blocked his thoughts.

 

“Can’t you just listen to me once?”

 

Plants, who had been glaring at Kalian with eyes narrowed to the fullest, closed his eyes. He thought briefly about the other things Kalian had said today, besides the matter about not jumping to conclusions.

 

With his eyes closed like that, Plants quietly opened his mouth.

 

“…Fine.”

 

Finally, having received resentment once, he decided to set aside his stubbornness once and learn what was being taught.

 

“But. Not a frog, a snake.”

 

But he attached the condition that he would play the role of a broomstick catching snakes, not Luci bringing frogs.

 

“Yes. Please help with that matter, older brother.”

 

At the answer that understood words even Rerik wouldn’t comprehend, Plants nodded once.

 

Seeing this, Kalian smiled broadly. He was proud of himself for finally breaking the stubbornness of the pea that had been so round and round with no place to break.

 

“Ah, that was exhausting.”

 

Now that he could handle even peas well, he guessed he really had become an adult.

 

After this matter was over, he should drink with Father.

 

They said Himolika from Cyries was very delicious.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps because tomorrow would be cloudy, his back had ached all day.

 

Even though he had received proper treatment and was completely healed, his back invariably ached on days like this. Though he had lain down to sleep quite some time ago, sleep wouldn’t come at all and his back hurt, so he eventually called for his butler.

 

If he could have his way, he desperately wanted to go to the Steinitz Region and soak his body in those warm hot springs, but he was furious that he couldn’t leave this backwater place as he pleased.

 

“Are you all right, Count?”

 

The butler, whom he had kept alive rather than killed because he was so useful despite knowing that his back wasn’t the only thing that had been broken, covered his back with a heating towel enchanted with preservation magic and spoke.

 

“Keep this on for now. If you need anything else…”

 

“That’s enough, so get out.”

 

Whether it was concern welling up from sincerity or concern welling up from salary, it was concern either way, but Gray only gave an irritated answer. As if he had forgotten that he was the one who had called him because of the pain.

 

Thanks to the butler, he could at least walk properly on two feet and was able to hide the fact that he was no longer a Sword Master, so where could there be a greater benefactor, but there was no brain in the Beurisen bloodline to remember such help in the first place.

 

Beurisen people were all originally like that; the pea that caught frogs was the strange exception.

 

“Yes. Then rest well, Count.”

 

So instead of saying anything else or frowning, the butler just bowed politely and went outside.

 

Gray, lying prone and listening to the sound of the door closing quietly, made groaning sounds.

 

“Damn healer.”

 

Wasn’t this all because of that wretched healer called Malcom or whatever? If that bastard had treated him properly from the beginning, moisture wouldn’t fill between his vertebrae every time clouds gathered.

 

Making another groaning sound, Gray turned his body while adding vulgar curses.

 

“Why blame an unrelated healer? It’s your fault.”

 

Then he stopped moving, frozen in the awkward position of trying to turn his body. He couldn’t even think to pull out the sword he kept under his pillow for days like this, couldn’t muster the courage to call anyone aloud, and just stared blankly.

 

“I told you to live quietly as if dead. Yet you called my person and tried to scheme something cute, Count.”

 

Yes.

 

As if he had become a frog meeting a snake’s eyes, his entire body froze with fear embedded deep in his bones.

 

“How dare you.”

 

Kalian bent slightly to meet Gray’s eyes and smiled like a flower in full bloom.