Chapter 33

“Rian!”

Kaion only came to his senses after hearing his younger brother’s hoarse voice. He hastily rose and shouted toward the corridor outside the treatment room.

“Bring the physician! No, fetch the priest and the magician! Quick! My brother has woken!”

With a clamour, the empire’s top physicians, who had stood by Rian for months, flooded into the room at the news. They looked at the awakened Rian with expressions mixing horror and exultation.

“Oh, gods… it’s a miracle!”
“His pulse is stable. The flow of mana is also… no, what on earth is this…?”

Archmage Velleius detected the mana flowing from Rian’s body and doubted his own eyes.
It was on a different plane from the mana he’d known before, deep and potent, like a vast abyss yawning beneath a placid lake, an alien force beyond any established Magic system’s explanation.

While the medical staff moved busily, Rian’s gaze was fixed on only one person: Kaion.

“Brother… it’s been hard for you, hasn’t it?”

At his brother’s first worried words, Kaion felt the emotions he had held back surge up.
He sank down beside his brother’s bed and gripped his hand tightly.

“If you… if only you wake up, I’ll be fine no matter what.”

Rian slowly raised his upper body instead of answering—movements that no one would believe of a man who had lain inert for months could do. He opened his hand and looked at it. The skin was still pale, but beneath it something writhed with a power incomparable to before.

The battle with ‘The Devil’s Tear’ had destroyed everything in him, yet simultaneously created something new. His mana core went through cycles of destruction and regeneration and was reborn into a wholly new structure from before. The scientific knowledge from his previous life and this world’s Magic had at last fused perfectly within his soul and flesh.

After the medical staff withdrew, leaving the two of them alone in the room, Kaion calmly recounted everything that had happened while his brother slept: the family’s elevation to count, their father Aaron’s activities in the nobles’ council of the capital, the Dawn Guild we sponsor taking root in the empire’s economy, and even the new threat detected in the monster forest.

Rian listened to everything quietly. His eyes did not flicker; he analyzed and reassembled every piece of information.

When the report ended, Rian climbed down from the bed and walked to the window.

“Marquis of the Reinhardt family and Valois Family. We cut off those two heads, and now snakes with dozens of tongues have come to drink that blood. You and Father must have suffered a lot.”

He turned to Kaion and spoke with a worried look.

“Now that you are the closest person to the Crown Prince, all threats will be directed at you. That’s what worries me most.”

“I’ll be fine. As long as you’re by my side.”

Rian smiled faintly at Kaion’s sincere reply.

“All right, brother. Now that I’m back, I’ll clear every shadow behind you. You just need to shine highest and most brilliantly in the world of light. That’s the surest way to protect our family.”

His words carried, no longer commands but deep trust and affection for his brother. He picked up Kael’s report that lay beside him. It concerned the monster forest.

“Mass deaths of low-tier monsters, a malevolent aura… it seems an uninvited guest has come to the forest beside our estate.”

A chilling smile touched Rian’s lips.

“Interesting. While I slept, some fool has wandered into our house uninvited.”

The room’s air chilled at his words. The aura Rian emitted was no longer that of a thirteen-year-old boy; it was the absolute presence of an ancient predator just awakened from the abyss, starving.

“Brother, tell the Emperor this message from me. Say I wish to return briefly to the estate in a few days. That I need to recover, and above all, I cannot bear not seeing Mother and Lily.”

“Rian, your body is still…!”

As Kaion tried to stop him in worry, Rian took his hand and spoke softly.

“Don’t worry, brother. I know my body best. And when a hunting ground is left unattended too long, stray dogs begin to run wild. I must go myself to show them who the true master of that forest is.”