CH 18

Chapter 18 - "Farewell to My Brother"

~ side Mark ~

After the party in the royal capital, I came back to Malbert territory for the first time in a month.

Before I had time to feel nostalgic about my home after a long absence, I was suddenly confronted with reality.

One of the people who was supposed to be there was gone. It was my brother, Roland.

I learned this from a letter he had left in my room. The contents of the letter read as follows.

[Hello, Mark. By the time you're reading this letter, I'll have been expelled from the Malbert family. That's why I've decided to write to you before I leave.

I would like to thank you for taking care of my selfishness until now. I hope you will forgive me for forcing you to take on the role of the lord in my place.

I'm going to go sightseeing in the Kingdom of Shells and eventually visit other countries as well. Maybe I'll never see you guys again.

You've always had a sort of inferiority complex about me, but don't worry. You are a good man. You'll become a good lord. I can assure you of that.

I've done a lot of terrible things to you and the others to make you a lord. I'd like to apologize if I could, but I'd appreciate it if you could take care of it for me.

For now, I'm going to become an adventurer and earn some money. I'm still pretty confident in my skills, so the worst that can happen is that I won't be able to eat.

Oh, and as for Tanya, my caretaker, let her serve as your caretaker. I've caused her a lot of trouble.

Finally, if something happens that you can't control, write a message on the light blue paper that I put with the letter and let the magic flow. That way, it will only reach me once. Don't write anything trivial on it, okay?

Take care. Don't catch a cold, and brush your teeth.　

From Roland.]

By the time I finished reading the letter, my vision was blurred. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I couldn't help but clutch the letter I was holding.

"Brother...... brother!"

I felt as if a hole had been left in the middle of my heart by the sudden disappearance of the person who was supposed to be so close to me.

That was how big and irreplaceable my brother was to me.

While I was feeling sad over the sudden separation from my brother, the door to my room suddenly opened with a loud noise.

There she was, my twin sister, Laura. When I looked closely, I saw that her eyes were swollen as if she had been crying, so it seemed that she had also received a letter from my brother.

“Mark, brother! Brother is..!”

“Did Laura get a letter from elder brother too?”

“I don't care about that. We have to get him back!”

I responded to Laura's words by shaking my head from side to side.

That brother of mine. I was sure he already knew we were going to try to bring him back and had moved to a territory far away from Malbert.

Even if we were to go after him, it would be difficult to catch him and we would be wasting our efforts.

If that was the case, it would be better for me to fulfill the role given to me by my brother, who had been so kind to me.

“Why!?”

“Because he left here of his own free will. If he doesn't come back of his own free will, he'll eventually leave again.”

My brother thought that he had forced me to take on the role of the lord, but in reality, he was wrong.

Normally, the second son of a noble family would be treated as a substitute in case something happened to the eldest son who would become the head of the family, and in the worst cases, they might even spend the rest of their lives never leaving the house.

When I, in such a position, am accustomed to being a lord, I am indebted to my brother in a way that I couldn't thank him enough.

My brother treated it as if it was nothing, which was a bit out of sync with other people.

In order to achieve his goal, my brother abandoned his status as a noble, which was a constraint. At the same time, it seemed to be a sign that he would never come back to the Malbert family again.

However, my brother had left us a way to contact him in case something happened to us. Perhaps it was because he felt a little guilty about leaving us behind.

Therefore, the only thing I could do was to keep Laura from following in my brother's footsteps and to succeed the Malbert family as head of the family and become a great lord.

In order to repay my brother's debt for giving me everything I needed to become a lord, I didn't have time to dwell on my sadness here.

"Look, Laura. My brother gave me the power to stay alive. So I'm going to use this power to make this territory a great place. I'm not sure I can do it on my own, so why don't you help me?”

"...... I understand. But I will not give up on my brother! I will definitely have him come back one day.”

While I was slightly taken aback by my sister's unbelievable persistence, I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that I had succeeded in convincing Laura.

I also reaffirmed that I must not let her know that there was a way to contact our brother.......

"Brother Mark? Is there something you're not telling me?"

“Eh? Why do you think so?”

“Brother Mark is a kind person. He has a habit of scratching his cheeks when he feels guilty about something, you know?”

“T-that's just a coincidence. Just a coincidence.”

I didn't know that I had such a habit, and I panicked inwardly. I tried to fix it somehow, but I couldn't escape the pursuit of my sister, who became instantly sharp when it came to our brother. And eventually, she found out about the light blue paper.

"Look, Laura. This paper can only be used once. So you should only use it if you really have no choice. Do you understand that?"

“Of course I do. I would never use the only means of communication with my brother for something trivial. Yes, if I could find a way to get in touch with him, I wouldn't be doing this. Mark, there's still so much we're missing. We have to protect what he entrusted to us. To do that, we have to study!”

“...... Yes.”

I could only respond briefly to my sister's words. That was how crazy the atmosphere Laura created was.

Anyway, as my sister said, we have been entrusted by our brother. We had to work harder to protect what was entrusted to us.

By the time I realized this again, I was aware that my tears had completely receded and I was feeling refreshed.

I'll be waiting for your return in the territory where I've become a great lord and have developed the territory. Forever and ever........

This was an aside, but three days after I made that decision, Miss Lauren came to me and desperately tried to chase after my brother, just like Laura, but I had to stop her.

She shouted, "This is going to ruin my grand plan," but what was she planning?