The way to Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother - Chapter 41

[Note: Remember, this is rated 19+ years in Korea. Please only read if you can stomach the horror genre]

I passed a hand over my face before I left my room, changing my solemn expression to a cute pout. My eyes blinked slowly to exhibit my long eyelashes. Today, I was acting as a young lady who was reluctant to go to class.

My education was a formality now. In front of Dion, I had done something almost unspeakable to gain Lant Agriche’s favour. The final test my father gave to all of his children before he involved us in his criminal activities. Instead of manipulating men as a succubus or working with weapons and poisons as in the past, my education now revolved around meeting the vassals loyal to my father and meeting high-ranking officials in the organizations controlled by the Agriche. Overall, the internship approach was a headache. I had to be a regal Agriche who couldn’t be disgusted by meeting slum lords who owned whorehouses, and giggle when the men bragged about their most effective torturing methods, such as dunking a captive in warm water for twelve hours, before prying the loosened skin from the captive’s body, thereby making the equivalent of a bloody snakeskin.

The wind made my hair and dress flutter behind me as I made my way outside.

The looming thought of death didn’t always motivate me. Sometimes, I wondered if living this life was worth the struggle for a slim chance of leaving this hellhole. Ultimately, this feeling would pass. A bird would look at me through my window, or I would see a messenger from another family that was unsullied and naïve concerning Lant Agriche’s influence. I would then carry on as before, playing faces and etiquette; any act that would help me survive in this world.

I curtsied when I saw an unwelcome sight.

“Sana, I see you’re here,” Maria smiled.

The woman in the ridiculous light purple dress with puffy sleeves and a matching parasol was Dion’s mother. Combined with her outfit, her short brown hair, purple eyes, and heart-shaped face made Maria look like an overgrown doll. Her mannerisms were perfect. The epitome of a thoughtless noble lady with a murderous streak. Lant Agriche’s third wife. The cannibal.

“Mother, good afternoon,” I said. Out of all my stepmothers, she was the only one who I called “Mother.” She had insisted on the pet name since I was a child, as if hungry to replicate the same close-knit relationship between us, as I presumably had with my biological mother.

I usually avoided this madwoman whenever possible. Besides being unpredictable, Maria’s hobbies made me sick.

“You’re getting prettier and prettier every time I see you,” her tone shook with wonder. Her honest and childish comment bore no ill will against me. For whatever reason, this freak admired me because of my beauty.

I wanted to frown and flip the finger to the original author of this story. How could she make the most emotionally deranged and difficult woman in this book have Dion for a son? How fair was it that both of them were psychotic and obsessed with irritating me, albeit in their own respective style?

While Dion was a loner who never showed emotion on his face, Maria was an open book who commonly had a slew of servants following her. While we stood on the garden path, a few maids were behind us now, their hands held together in front of them, heads submissively bowed.

When I was younger, Maria’s light and bubbly personality unnerved me, as if I instinctively knew the woman had a screw loose. Now I knew it wasn’t just one screw. She was missing stacks and bowls and crate boxes of screws. I still didn’t understand how she got dressed every day, or was impressed with any maid who had the guts to help Maria dress. The third wife went through her maids as if she were killing flies. I hardly remembered any of the maids here from a week ago.

“Your mother Sierra has a gift of never aging, yet is still the most beautiful creature I know. I have a feeling, Sana, that you’ll be more beautiful than her someday,” Maria said.

“I don’t think I look extraordinary.” My eyes softened and I gave her a humble smile.

“Not extraordinary?” Maria murmured. “I wish I knew the words to describe your beauty.”

She twirled her parasol around on her shoulder. The sun glinted off the vinyl material. “What a nice surprise to see you,” Maria continued. “Why don’t we have a cup of tea in the garden?”

[Ch 9. Korean Translation:  “What a nice surprise to see you,” Maria continued. “Why don’t we have a cup of tea in the garden?”]

While her comment sounded natural and light-hearted, I had learned to keep my guard around her. Her bipolar symptoms and innocent appearance still didn’t hide the fact that we were in Lant Agriche’s domain, and Maria excelled in this environment. If my mother vomited or fainted just from seeing some of our trained monsters eat humans, Maria enjoyed tasting the victims’ flesh—sexually, eating meaty chunks of the man or woman. She enjoyed all sorts of debaucheries.

I had only witnessed the cannibalism in-person, since Maria was a lady. She would never undress outside or do something unsightly to annoy Lant Agriche (my father didn’t mind an open relationship, as long as his wives took care of their public appearance).

But I had seen semen and other traces of sexual activity on corpses after Maria had finished with the once-live captives. The cadavers had been essential for my anatomy lessons. I preferred warm corpses that hadn’t gone into rigor mortis yet to test my poisons and antidotes thoroughly, instead of using live victims. Since Lant Agriche handled the disposal of his dead prisoners himself, Maria was only too happy to share as many bodies for testing as I wanted.

Maria was quite short. My eyes glazed over her head as she continued talking. I recalled one of my most vivid memories with her….

——

Should I kill this slave and give you something to play with? Maria had laughed when I was eight years old.

Since the beginning, I didn’t want to come with her but the lady had taken my hand and led me to the gardens as if she was a professional kidnapper.

A naked man was now lying in the garden with an open chest wound. His ribs had been ripped outward to show his heart beating in his bloody chest. Behind us, a maid was vomiting on all fours and the guard who had ripped the toy’s rib cage apart had dropped his dagger on the floor. He was shaking with tears pouring down his sweaty face, shocked by how far he would go to obey the Madame’s orders.

Learning is such fun, isn’t it? Maria had said.

Griselda, my older sister, had dropped by half-way through the lesson. Her fingers were itching to take notes. She was several years older than me and interested in amputating limbs and replacing them with enhanced prosthetics, or metal arms and legs. She was the upcoming doctor in the family, if you wanted to describe her politely. Anything about the structure of the human body excited her.

I can show you the disposal room sometime, where I take some of the dead bodies to be incinerated. Maria was leaning forward and dabbing her handkerchief on my face. Some blood had gotten on me during the operation.

I was smiling back at the woman, pretending to be excited at seeing a man warbling on the ground, crying in a foreign language to be killed already. The toy with the open chest wound was still alive.

I wanted to tell the victim that at least he could die outside. Maria abhorred the dungeons because the draft and mold didn’t suit her taste. Most of our toys never saw daylight again once they entered the domain of Lant Agriche, since only Maria insisted on playing outside.

Are you hungry, Sana? I can pick the flesh off the bone of a toy and feed you! Maria had offered.

——

I focused on Maria again when the conversation sounded like it needed a response from me.

“Should I also invite Dion to our tea party?” Maria said as an afterthought, as if she had suddenly remembered having a son.

I wanted to clap my hands. Dion and Maria were too different to have much in common, and although they didn’t particularly enjoy spending time together, Maria did try to pay attention to her son every year or so.

She’s someone who deserves a reward for being a good mother, my thoughts dripped with sarcasm.

“All of you kids are so busy these days,” Maria sighed. “It always takes an effort to see you all together. I’ll send a maid to fetch him.”

Translator’s Note: This mother fits Lant Agriche well, I think, except maybe a bit too crazy. Loool, everyone in this family is messed up. As Simba would say, “Slimy, yet satisfying” – The Lion King

[The web novel and webtoon don’t always say the same thing. In these scenarios, I stick with the web novel translation / context].