"Brother."
Her personally coming all the way here meant
that she had already heard the news just as Borin reported.
"Don't even try to play dumb. I know you've heard it all too, Brother. I'm talking about Father retreating."
As expected, the response I anticipated slipped from her lips.
The moment I lowered my gaze while staring at her impassively...
Unlike her composed voice, her tightly clenched fist was trembling ever so slightly.
No matter how much she was hailed as a genius, she was still just a girl.
Maintaining her poise in the face of a crisis where the entire family might be devoured whole wasn't easy, it seemed.
Besides, the current Celine had zero experience in war, let alone actual combat—she was a complete novice among novices.
It was only natural that she was shaking.
I nodded casually, as if merely annoyed, without feigning any surprise.
"I heard. They were making a huge racket about it. So?"
"...What?"
She looked as if she'd just heard something utterly impossible.
A faint crack appeared on her otherwise unchanging icy expression.
"So...?!"
My indifferent reaction caused Celine's voice to flare up momentarily.
My laid-back demeanor right in front of the family's peril seemed to have rattled her composure.
"I told you the family is in danger. The barbarians are invading!"
"...And yet here you are, lounging around like this? Is this the 'struggling' you were talking about, Brother?"
At my flat response, Celine's brows furrowed as she snapped sharply.
'She still remembers what I said back then.'
She had perfectly recalled my words from our previous talk in the study.
I would've forgotten them by now.
Feeling a twinge of pride at my clever little sister's retention,
I merely shrugged.
"What do you expect me to do? Rush off to the battlefield right this second?"
"Of course! You're the eldest son of House Dreadnote. Have you forgotten your duty?"
"Duty, huh."
Maybe because she's my sister. She's got a way with words.
True enough, as she said, I was the eldest son of House Dreadnote.
It was a duty.
But eldest son or not,
no one in this household had ever treated me like one, no matter how far back I racked my memory.
I scoffed.
"No one's ever bothered teaching me anything like that."
At my words, Celine bit her lip, momentarily speechless.
It was the look of someone precisely struck at a sore spot.
She couldn't muster a rebuttal.
Everything I'd spat out was the painful reality House Dreadnote had inflicted on me.
Hadn't they treated me worse than some outsider?
"..."
Her silver lashes quivered.
Inside, a storm must have been raging—boiling rage at her inability to sway me,
clashing with the helplessness before an irrefutable truth.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Absorbing negative emotion 'Sadness.'] [Absorbing negative emotion 'Helplessness.'] [Absorbing negative emotion 'Self-Deprecation.'] [Authority experience has increased.]
"..."
After a long silence, Celine finally spoke.
Her voice was far lower and more subdued than before.
"Then... you're just going to stand by and watch the family crumble? You too. Like you don't care if Father or Heron die?"
Her tone now carried a faint desperation in place of anger.
It sounded almost like a plea.
Like someone refusing to let go of that final thread of hope.
Her appearance was so heartbreakingly pitiful that I deliberately looked away.
If I kept staring at her fragile form, teetering on the brink of collapse,
I might end up extending a helping hand without thinking.
Helping her wouldn't be hard, but where's the fun in that?
I wouldn't get what I had in mind, either.
'Still, gotta do what needs doing.'
For now, I had to steel my resolve.
"Dying's something I'm used to."
"What...?"
"In this mansion, I've been as good as dead even while alive, haven't I? So what's changed now?"
My emotionless reply drained the color from Celine's face.
I'd casually unearthed the truth she'd been willfully ignoring and thrust it right in front of her.
She'd always been rational, coldly logical. She had to be.
But right now, in front of me, her arguments were falling apart.
Appeals to emotion fell flat. Invoking duty was useless.
"Then... what the hell do you want, Brother?!"
Her eventual outburst was tantamount to surrender.
The prideful girl was asking me—her face on the verge of tears—what to do.
Crack!
"Rin."
As if I'd been waiting, I flung the wooden sword slung over my shoulder to the ground with a resounding thud.
The recently repaired wooden sword cracked once more at the hilt from the impact.
"I'll do what you want."
"Really...?"
Hope flickered in Celine's eyes for an instant.
To trust so readily on that single promise of aid.
Her innocence was endearing, but I kept my expression neutral as I took a step closer.
"I'll head to the battlefield. Barbarians, Imir, whatever. I'll handle them."
I drew near until I could tilt her chin up, gazing directly into her sapphire eyes as I whispered,
"But let's add one condition."
"...Condition?"
"Yeah. First, though—one question. What do you think a worthless lump like me can even do on a battlefield? You want me to go kill myself?"
Now that I wielded the Black King's power, I was confident I could take on the barbarians or even Imir.
But that was a secret known only to me.
So what made my sister think I should charge into battle?
Pure curiosity welled up.
Did she truly wish me dead? At my mocking question, Celine bit her lip and shook her head.
"...Only men can lead the family's troops. No matter how skilled I am with magic, I lack the formal authority to command knights. But you—even as the illegitimate eldest son... you can."
"Ah. So you need this useless bastard's name."
"Yes. I'll go with you. You just... stand there and pretend to command."
It was a desperate plea. She'd cast aside every shred of pride to beg me.
'So that's her angle. Curiosity satisfied.'
I smiled inwardly, satisfied, and got to the point.
"Rin. Do you know why I train with this pathetic stick?"
I nudged the fallen wooden sword with my toe.
"Because no one in this mansion will let me touch a real sword. They're terrified a bastard screw-up like me might cause an 'accident' with a blade."
My words rang true.
Evan had never once been permitted inside the armory.
The wooden sword I was using now was just the old one—snapped in two before—patched up for reuse.
"You want to send me to the battlefield? Then treat me like it first."
I locked eyes with her, piercingly, and laid out my demand clearly.
"Go to the basement of the main hall. The Family Head's private armory."
"Bring me the sharpest, sturdiest sword from there yourself. Not some training toy—a true masterwork blade Father treasures."
"What? That's... insane! Without Father's permission, no one can even touch the weapons there...!"
My demand sent Celine's pupils shaking wildly.
The Count Dreadnote's private armory—no one entered without the Family Head's explicit approval.
To her, this had to sound utterly absurd.
"Then get his permission."
I cut her off coldly.
"Or steal it yourself."
She swallowed hard at my words.
For her, it would mean flagrantly defying family law.
Something she'd never even dreamed of.
'Not my problem.'
Savoring her bewildered expression, I hammered in the final nail.
"If you're demanding proof from me, then you prove it this time. Celine."
I turned my back to her and headed for the water pail in the corner of the training grounds.
A wordless signal that our talk was over.
"You and the family—prove with your actions just how desperate things are that you need this bastard's strength."
Splash!
I doused myself over the head with the pail's water and continued.
The icy liquid cooled my sweat-drenched body, but the fire inside me burned undimmed.
If anything, the more I thought about them refusing to let me train even after my wooden sword snapped, the angrier I got.
"Until you bring that sword, I won't lift a finger. Whether the family burns to ash or a barbarian axe buries itself in your neck."
"..."
"The choice is yours."
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Absorbing negative emotion 'Despair.'] [Absorbing negative emotion 'Agony.']
"...I get it."
Celine—who had stood stock-still behind me for what felt like ages—
finally turned without another word and exited the training grounds.