episode_0036

[Big trouble, big trouble! You have to get up, get up!]

Julia, who was trying to sleep in bed, suddenly had to open her eyes because the spirits around her were making a lot of noise.

“… Be quiet. What’s going on that’s making such a fuss?”

She was still half-asleep, and asked the spirits in a still sleepy voice.

[Julian! Julian is back!]

Julia’s eyes lit up at the news that her twins had returned from their expedition.

“Really? I’m glad you came back safely.”

I never felt lonely when I was alone in the dark.

The past few days have been so lonely that it’s been hard to bear.

That’s when she got to know the warmth of someone she didn’t know before.

It was because Julian was with her almost every day, leaving her with no time to feel lonely.

“But didn’t Julian bring a stranger? Why, a black-haired boy… .”

At that moment, when Julian, who had boasted that he would bring Eugene, was trying to confirm through the spirit whether he had kept his promise.

Step by step – step by step –

Outside the iron gate, the sound of someone coming down the stairs, the only passage leading to the secret room, could be heard.

‘…Julian?’

For a moment, I thought Julian had come straight to where she was as soon as he returned… but that anticipation soon turned to caution.

Because the footsteps that were getting closer were not the footsteps of Julian that she was familiar with.

That was something I had heard before, when I shared a sense with a spirit… yes, it was the sound of shoesteps.

Squeak-!!

Now I could hear the familiar sound of the iron door opening.

“You’re alive.”

The person who appeared behind him was an unfamiliar person.

A face that makes you wonder if her twin brother Julian will grow up to look like that.

The face that Julian had once brought her a photo of and shown her when she had wondered about the existence of parents.

“Let it follow.”

Her father, Jace Dustin, who had just met her in person, coldly told his daughter, who was frozen in surprise.

“Julian is dead.”

***

Julia came out of the underground cell where she had spent her entire life for the first time since she was born.

However, she was dragged out by force, not of her own will, but by the hands of others.

But none of that mattered to her right now.

“Hey, hey! That thing you said just now… Was that a lie?”

Because I heard that Julian, of all people, had died.

…because it was a story that I couldn’t believe and didn’t want to believe.

What is Julian to Julia?

He is her twin brother.

He is the benefactor who found her when she was living alone in the darkness.

Although he didn’t say anything, he was a mental pillar that supported my heart.

That such a being had disappeared from this world without warning? That was an act that could not even be taken as a joke.

“… There’s no way Julian could have died. Why? Why would that happen?”

That’s why Julia had to constantly ask about her brother, even though she was being dragged around helplessly like a puppet.

But for now, the only thing that could answer that question was to grab her wrist and silently climb the stairs.

Julia gritted her teeth and screamed in frustration at the cold look.

“Please say something! Ah, Dad-!!”

As soon as the word “dad” came out of her mouth, Jace Dustin’s steps as he was climbing the stairs for the first time suddenly stopped.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Huh…?”

“I am not your father. To me, there is only one child I can call Julian Dustin.”

He stared straight ahead without even turning his head, and his father’s cold words denied his very existence.

“Then, I…?”

Even though he knew that he, as her parent and head of the household, was the person in power who had locked her in the underground room, she couldn’t help but ask that question.

“You are a person who does not exist in our family.”

“Don’t call me you! I, I have a name too!”

“Name? No, you weren’t given a name.”

“No, Julia… there’s a name called Julia Dustin.”

“That’s just a name my deceased wife gave me. It was something I never agreed on.”

And who gave you permission to use Dustin’s last name?

“… … .”

There Julia was left speechless.

From the fact that he was abandoned in the basement, he could tell that he was not needed by him.

But still, there was a glimmer of hope.

There must have been some other circumstances.

I’m sure he’ll come pick her up later with Julian.

In fact, she might be in love too.

“Stop making noise and start moving your feet.”

… but I guess it was all in vain.

After that, Julia didn’t open her mouth and just followed the path she was taken by, and entered a room.

“Ahhh…!!”

There she saw a person who looked exactly like her, lying on the bed with a face completely drained of blood.

Dealing with spirits meant dealing with nature. And nature was a symbol representing the overflowing life force.

That’s why I could tell.

The fact that there is no life left in Julian now, that he is truly dead.

But just because you know it in your head, whether you can just accept it is a different matter.

“Julian-!!”

So, at the moment when I was about to move to approach him.

“Catch him.”

Before she entered the room on Dustin Garju’s orders, the servants who had been waiting inside subdued her.

“What, what are you doing! Let go of me!”

Of course, Julia struggled with all her might… .

There was no way she, a mere child, could withstand the power of several servants.

Of course, unlike ordinary servants, Julia knew how to manipulate spirits… .

I just couldn’t bring myself to think of using spirits as weapons to attack people.

“Get out of the way! Julian! My brother…!!”

Dustin Garzhu approached her as she lay on the floor, subdued, shedding tears that she didn’t know when would start flowing.

“From now on, you are the successor to our family, Julian Dustin.”

“What are you talking about! I’m Julia! Julian, not my brother!”

“No, this medicine will turn you into Julian.”

A suspicious vial is thrust in front of her.

“This is a potion that suppresses the growth of the body as much as possible. If you start taking it now, when your female features are not prominent, you will be able to fool the eyes of those around you.”

I made it in preparation for an emergency, so I hoped it would never be used… but in the end, this is how it ended up being used.

While he loved his son, his thoroughness in preparing for a possible death for the sake of the family’s survival was almost madness.

“Open your mouth.”

Honestly, Julia, who was still unfamiliar with the ways of the world, couldn’t understand what that meant.

However, I could tell that taking that medicine was definitely not a good thing for her.

“shi, I hate it!!”

That’s why I rebelled and kept my mouth shut.

“There’s nothing I can do. Then I’ll force you to open your mouth.”

This time, he forced the servants who had been holding Julia down to open her mouth.

Jace Dustin took a pill out of the bottle and popped it into her mouth.

“Gulp!”

He nodded in satisfaction after checking that the medicine had gone down through the movement of the throat and thoroughly examining the inside of the mouth.

“Please continue taking your medicine regularly. Otherwise… .”

He leisurely put the medicine bottle back in his bosom and instead took out a dagger and showed it to me.

Choaaaak-!!

He instantly cut off the heads of all the servants who were holding Julia down with a dagger wrapped around an aura.

“… Huh?”

A spurt of red liquid poured down over her head, and soon after, a bundle of corpses with their heads and torsos severed fell to the floor.

Towards Julia, who was frozen in place and could only make a dumb sound at the terrifying sight she was seeing for the first time since she was born.

“Every time you refuse to take the medicine, I will force my servants to feed you the medicine, just like I did just now, and then I will kill them.”

Because we can’t leave a witness who knows the secret.

It was your fault that they died just now, and it will be your fault that they die in the future.

Beyond the irrational, Dustin Garzhu pushes through ridiculous logic without changing his expression.

“Okay, choose.”

Are you going to be Julian Dustin and make other people miserable in the future?

Or, will you become Julian, the successor to the Dustin family, purely by your own will?

“By the way, you have no choice not to become Julian. Unless you take your own life.”

But don’t think you have the right to take your own life so carelessly.

“… Why? You said with your own mouth that I’m not your child, so you have no right to order me around.”

“That’s true. But I saw it when I went into the underground room earlier. It was decorated quite splendidly.”

“… Huh!?”

“I don’t know how he noticed your presence, but… Julian, that kid must have been moving steadily.”

I did something useless.

The head of the household looks at his son lying on the bed with a pitiful gaze.

“That, that! Julian is not bad!”

“Yeah, that kid is not at fault. But he suddenly expressed his intention to join the Daeseolsan cleanup unit.”

Are you really not involved in that child’s death?

“Huh…?”

It wasn’t because I met you that Julian ended up in such a miserable state.

She couldn’t bring herself to answer that reproachful question.

As he said, it was as if my brother was going to risk his life for her.

“So what are you going to do?”

I wish you would take personal responsibility. That would reduce disappointment.

“I, I… .”

In the end, the path she could choose was the one decided from the beginning.

Julia lowered her head helplessly.

[Kick kick… This looks good.]

In her ears, she heard something she hadn’t heard in a long time since she met Julian.

[I told you, he’s going to make you miserable.]

That voice, full of laughter, was heard again.