The Answer of Someone Who Lost Everything [1]

At a wide breakfast table, two figures sat side by side, eating their food in silence.

The first figure, a girl with shiny white hair under the morning sun and gray obsidian eyes, only ate a variety of vegetable bread and drank red tea from her cup decorated with intricate silver patterns. From time to time, the girl would cast a curious sideways glance at the person next to her.

There, sat a boy with neatly combed raven-black hair to the sides, shoulder-length, and dull violet eyes. Despite the variety of food, the boy only ate fruit and washed it down with fresh orange juice.

The longer Vierenna watched her brother Deon, the more her curiosity turned to worry. Her brother had been in this state since that day three months ago.

The awakening ritual...

A sign of hope and change in every person's life. But this sign of hope was the reason her little brother was lost.

Since that day, he had not been the same...

Or at least her memory of him...

Deon, three months ago, was always trying to pick fights with her out of his excitement for his own awakening. Vierenna didn't want to encourage his actions, but what were her other options given that he would never accept refusal.

So from time to time, she would spar with him and teach him some sword tricks.

Being the second-born of House Eirenios, it was expected that he would gain talent in both the sword and elemental magic.

And that did happen,.. partially.

But not in the expected or usual way things went.

Every noble house in the Macizar Empire extracts and retains the dead mana of the main bloodline members of the house after their death. That dead mana is re-injected into the younger generation members during their awakening rituals to ensure a prosperous future for their houses.

Vierenna, in her awakening ritual, was injected with the dead mana of her great-grandfather, her mother's bloodline. As usual, she received high talent in both the sword and elemental magic, along with an extreme talent, which was seen as latent talent.

As for Deon, he was also supposed to receive the dead mana of their great-grandfather from their father's side. But,.. that didn't happen. Mainly due to their mother's intervention in defiance of tradition.

She said, her son would receive no mana other than hers!

No one understood her words at the time. But soon they learned, that it was her way of announcing her chronic illness...

Mana decay...

A severe condition—if calling it an illness was appropriate, where an individual's mana rebels against its owner and consumes all the progress the owner has made until nothing remains but an empty corpse, neither fully dead nor fully alive.

So mainly, what mother—Viktoria de Avila was asking for, was death for the sake of her son Deon.

Deon, at her own request, remained ignorant of everything happening to his own mother. And the worst part was, that all the main family members blamed him for Viktoria's death.

During that time, he didn't understand the hatred and disdain he received from the moment of the mother's announcement. Especially from his own father.

'And I did the same,.. for a while.'

Vierenna was and would always be ashamed of how she treated her Baby Brother. She also blamed him for her mother's decision, but watching him from afar in his sorrow and loneliness, she felt guilt eating her from the inside. But despite that, she couldn't approach him... for one reason!

...She felt jealousy.

Why Deon and not me?

Vierenna wasn't ashamed of that, she went and asked her mother on her deathbed, directly. The conversation she had with her mother at that time, she would never forget. As it changed her thinking completely.

To say that her feelings of jealousy had disappeared would be a lie. But Vierenna understood a little why Deon and not her. And so, she began to approach him.

In their entire family, Deon had only his mother and Vierenna. But that was destined to change, which was the way of life.

Their mother died, and Deon became more hated.

Some main family members even discussed bypassing Viktoria's request under the pretext of preserving Tradition as were. Something they never dared in her life. But Vierenna stood up to them and reminded them of their prior agreement. She even threatened to report their disgraceful actions to the De Avila household. She stood up for her brother, and she was proud of that.

Everything went as the mother requested, and Deon received his mother's dead mana without his knowledge.

Everyone expected he would gain primary talent in the sword, followed by talent in ice elemental magic, and a side extreme talent in illusion magic,.. just like his mother.

But.. to everyone's surprise!

Deon received only one of his mother's talents.

Primary talent in the sword.

And instead of ice elemental magic or rare illusion magic, Deon had a high affinity with curse magic as a primary extreme talent as well.

From anyone else's perspective, Deon should be seen as a sought-after talent anywhere. But in the eyes of the family members,.. he was a waste. And they made sure their voices were heard.

A curse magician in no Eirenios, they said.

With words like those, Deon was no longer his enthusiastic and proud self. And his hatred turned towards himself and his talents.

Vierenna watched everything, but she wasn't able to help. She knew the truth might help, but she also promised her mother to keep it a secret, and she didn't intend to break her promise.

So all she could do was be there, beside her Baby brother.

And for three months now, she remained helpless and unable to help.

...

A faint sigh came from Vierenna's side.

She turned her head to find Deon staring out the window to the garden below, ignoring his food. She looked through the window to see what was so interesting that it took her brother's focus. But the garden was empty.

"What is so interesting?" In her curiosity, she asked Deon with a slight frown. She wanted to know.

Deon focused on her and answered indifferently. "Just, I don't know, the garden is beautiful, I guess."

Vierenna opened her eyes in shock, looking at her brother as if he were a stranger. But inside, she was pleasantly surprised, she called that an improvement.

As she prepared to say something, Deon spoke again, his gaze at her carrying caution and hidden fear. "Of course, you are beautiful yourself, but, the garden is a garden... and you are more beautiful…"

Vierenna smiled a wicked smile. Deon's current look at her was the result of forcing herself on him. In short explanation, Deon didn't want to see her either in his depression. And Vierenna's solution was gentle violence— as she liked to call it. And it worked, albeit with side effects.

Vierenna's smile widened, while Deon's face paled. He began to push himself away from her slowly, but she grabbed his cheeks with her hand. She wouldn't make the mistake of pulling his hair again.

"Is that how you think of your sister?.. if you love me just say you do." She pretended to think, while looking at Deon's face as it gradually lost its color. "I will give you the honor of taking this lady for a walk in the garden. I would say I would look more beautiful under the sunlight on my beautiful skin."

"....."

Deon remained silent.

"hmm... Do you perhaps? think otherwise."

"....."

Deon swallowed, but he remained silent.

Vierenna was puzzled by her brother's silence, as she was about to speak again. Deon pointed to her hand that held his face covering his mouth.

"Oh, this is embarrassing…" She said, but her expression remained unchangeable—exaggerated smile.

Slowly, Vierenna loosened her hand allowing Deon to take a deep breath. But she didn't let go of his cheeks that had turned red.

"I— agree.. what you said..!"

"Oh... is that so. You think I would look beautiful only under the sunlight. Are you saying I don't look beautiful now?.. or you…"

"You are beautiful at every moment and time, you are beautiful no matter what you do, just... it would be an honor for me to accompany you to the garden."

Every word of his was followed by a deep breath as if he were dealing with a bomb about to explode.

'I guess I won't make it hard for him…'

"If that's your opinion, good for you. But sharing it with your sister, I don't know about that?.. since you are so bossy today, I will entertain your fantasies." Vierenna said with a skeptical smile at Deon who looked at her with a complicated gaze.

"What a good sister I am." With this thought, she let go of his cheeks and stood up from her place at the breakfast table.

Deon remained seated with a blank look, but his trembling pupils put a smile upon a smile on Vierenna's lips.