Chapter 15: The one decision I don’t regret.

I decided to side with the King’s Brother in the study, and I think that’s the best decision I’ve made since coming to this world.

It was fortunate that I acted before the King’s Brother knew my weakness.

This peculiar constitution seemed perfect for getting caught up in conspiracies.

Especially the kind where I could see hidden magic without exception.

One might think that since he knows I have ability, all that’s left is to live well, but no way. If I acted arrogantly without any foundation, I would be sent to the execution ground immediately.

The fact that the King sends a spy with a national treasure to the King’s Brother, who quietly stays in seclusion, just because he has powerful pheromones, makes it plausible enough.

It seems my employer didn’t really just stay quietly in seclusion, but what’s important is that he appeared to do so outwardly.

It means the King suspects him even without any justification.

“I need to alter the butler’s memory. There’s no need for him to remember that you are insensitive to pheromones.”

When the King’s Brother’s permission was granted, I sincerely bowed my head to him.

“Just make him remember that the reason you could approach my room during the Rut was because you are a fearless fool. Which is a fact not entirely wrong.”

At the following words, I had no choice but to lift my bowed head abruptly.

Though I bowed my head again soon under the gaze looking down as if asking if I had any complaints.

“Stop acting like a clumsy servant and lift your head.”

“The fact that I appear rude is because you wish for it, Duke. Is it not?”

The King’s Brother did not answer.

It was as good as an affirmation.

It felt like returning to daily life from a gloomy world where conspiracies were brewing.

I chuckled without realizing it.

The King’s Brother clicked his tongue again seeing me like that, but eventually, his lips also curled into a smile.

“Then focus on mana again. It makes no sense that you can’t even start a fire with your talent.”

With a smiling face, he became a tiger teacher.

I had to burst out orange and red flames until my mana was completely squeezed out.

“You’re too greedy. Abandon the thought of raising the temperature and maintain it stably.”

When I thought about not overflowing the amount of oxygen I injected as the King’s Brother said, the fire on my palm just flickered out.

I couldn’t get a sense of exactly how much mana to use.

Eventually, I was exhausted and lay down on the floor.

Sticking flat to the floor like melted wax in front of the employer sitting with his eyes wide open was disrespectful even to my own thoughts, but it was unavoidable.

I really had no strength to sit.

“It’s been over two months since you started mana breathing, right?”

“Yes…”

I answered with a voice that was dying like a precarious candle flame about to go out.

I couldn’t make a loud sound because I couldn’t put strength into my stomach, and if I answered loudly with all my might, it was clear he would squeeze me again asking if I still had strength left to make a voice.

“Your mana amount is about enough to run out after shaping fire ten times.”

For a moment, I tried to lift my head in anger but stuck back to the floor.

The tiger teacher really intended to squeeze my mana out to the bottom.

“What level is my talent for magic?”

Still, I had to satisfy my curiosity.

Isn’t it enough to make the mistake of taking a genius as a standard because I didn’t know the average just once?

“I think you can do it one more time.”

Damn it.

“No, I can’t. Really.”

“Even if there is a person with a knife in front of you and the only means you can resist with is magic, will you say you can’t?”

I closed my eyes just like that.

I forcibly pulled up the speck of mana that seemed stuck to the bottom of a soy sauce dish.

Unfortunately, the King’s Brother’s point wasn’t wrong.

I had to know my limits exactly.

But do I really have to create fire on my palm?

Would a villain kindly wait for my hand swinging honestly?

I gathered mana below my solar plexus.

It wasn’t just mana that was squeezed out from the bottom.

My mental strength also reached its limit.

In my blank mind, an image of a giant robot spewing fire from its chest came up.

I saw it because of my older brother who was an ‘insider’ liberal arts student but a geek for old animations.

How much he liked cartoons that came out even before he was born.

Recalling the image of the giant robot exhilaratingly burning enemies, I shouted the activation word.

【Ignis.】

The flame from my chest, far from burning the enemy in one go, just showed precarious sparks that couldn’t even burn firewood and flickered out with a piff.

My consciousness also went out.

****

I was standing in a dark room.

I definitely fainted while trying to manifest magic, so where is this?

It was a narrow space incomparable to the King’s Brother’s mansion or the splendid banquet hall.

The display cabinet filling the wall was full of blue cat robots made in various sizes and materials.

Even on the TV, which was the only thing lighting up the dark room, the blue cat robot was visible.

Singing a lively and hopeful song that didn’t match my brother’s gloomy atmosphere.

I see. This is a dream.

I realized.

It was my older brother who liked the blue cat robot.

Who has already passed away.

I sat next to my brother.

I looked at my brother’s profile, changing colors according to the TV light.

But my brother didn’t know I was next to him.

Right, this was a dream I was dreaming alone.

It was a dream I had dreamed several times already.

It was also something that actually happened.

I always regretted this day.

I tried to stop myself of this day even in the dream, but I never succeeded even once.

What are you doing? Watching that again?

The door opened abruptly and an arrogant voice was heard.

The me of that day, Han Jay, with black hair, looking young but actually older than my current body, was looking down at my brother with eyes saying he was pathetic.

That day, my brother was very depressed.

If he were an insider who couldn’t stand boredom, he should have gone to the Han River with friends he met here and there to eat chicken and beer to relieve his mood, but he was watching the blue cat robot friend who takes out all sorts of things from its pocket with a blanket over his head like a kid.

That was my brother’s habit when he couldn’t bring himself to say there was something he wanted.

Our patriarchal father hated even my brother watching animations, so it started because he couldn’t dare say he would buy a toy robot.

Not asking for money, but even when he saved his own allowance.

If my brother was caught playing with a toy robot, even the animation he barely got to watch while maintaining first place in the entire school would be banned.

After getting accepted to university, he started filling his room with various goods, but still, that habit of his didn’t disappear.

Even after becoming a master and entering the doctoral course.

I knew.

That my brother wanted to quit school.

He had once jokingly slipped to me that he didn’t even want to go to graduate school, which is basically a s*ave training center, in the first place.

But it was a story that could never be tolerated by our father, for whom lack of education was the greatest sorrow.

Our father was more proud of my brother attending the best university in our country than of himself barely graduating from elementary school, learning skills while eating humble pie and metal dust, and opening a decent jewelry shop in Jongno.

He also disapproved of me going in and out of the jewelry shop since I was young.

He scolded me, asking why I only played instead of studying.

However, I couldn’t study as well as my brother.

When I scribbled this and that claiming it was accessory design and showed him, he shouted first asking why I was doing useless things.

I didn’t conform to my father like my brother.

I registered at an art academy instead of a math academy, and when my father tore up the design drawings I drew, I drew even harder as if to show him.

When my father broke my right arm with a golf club, I held the colored pencil with my left hand.

Eventually, my father said he would hand over the jewelry shop to me, afraid that his immature late-born son might starve.

My brother wanted that very jewelry shop.

Entering the business administration department was actually because he wanted to manage our father’s jewelry shop properly.

Though it was a dream buried without even being able to mention it to our father.

If my brother said he wanted to do an IT startup, our father would have supported him even by selling the jewelry shop he said he would hand over to me.

Our father’s and brother’s dreams were misaligned like that.

My brother didn’t have the qualities of a jeweler like me.

But my brother could amazingly pick out designs that people would like.

Although I couldn’t understand my brother picking out only obvious designs.

That was back then.

Now I know. What an outstanding MD my brother was.

Watching my brother’s back covered with a blanket that day, I said.

“You inherit it, the jewelry shop.”

Unlike when I was young, after becoming an adult, I actually didn’t like my father’s jewelry shop.

Because it wasn’t a refined and dignified place.

Ah, if I had the blanket my brother was covering himself with back then, I could dust it off to the point where a dryer would be put to shame.

At that time, I wanted to become a world-class designer and jeweler.

I didn’t want to copy luxury designs or do so-called trendy designs that are everywhere no matter which jewelry shop you go to.

I wanted to create luxury goods myself.

I intended to keep my dream a secret for a few more years.

While receiving support for studying abroad costs from my father.

But seeing my brother withering day by day, I couldn’t make him wait until then.

I generously yielded what I had to my brother.

“What do you mean? What are you going to do?”

Hearing my arrogant words, my brother worried about me.

“Don’t worry about me for no reason, worry about yourself. Even if you say you’re quitting school, Father won’t let you work at the jewelry shop right away.”

“Jay.”

The emotion I felt looking down at my brother that day definitely contained a sense of superiority.

I had never been recognized by our father like my brother.

But my brother was someone who couldn’t do what he truly wanted without my concession.

Still, feeling sorry for my brother was also sincere.

“If you’re so worried about me, contribute some to my study abroad expenses. Since it seems unlikely I’ll get it from Father.”

I knew a way to make my father give up on me.

The next day, I participated in the Queer Parade held in Jongno.

Wearing only palm-sized hot pants that stuck to my body.

When the parade passed the place where jewelry shops were gathered, I made eye contact with my father who was crossing his arms with a disapproving expression.

I was a homosexual whom my father hated.