Chapter 124: Chocolate Cake [2]

The three siblings stopped trying to take the chocolate cake from me when my two older siblings arrived.

They were the twins I had noticed earlier, the two people who had kept staring at me even after everything returned to normal following my entrance into the hall. Their gazes had been so annoying that I had already assumed they would eventually want to cause problems.

The boy looked a lot like his sister—they were twins, after all.

He had short white hair combed neatly to the side and deep crimson eyes. He was taller than me by a few inches, but what impressed me more was his strong physical build. He had wide shoulders and a thick body that made him look like someone who spent a lot of time training.

He was Arnold Noctis Laurent, my third older brother and the one responsible for bullying Yves ever since they were young, making his life miserable within the family.

The other twin was Ana Noctis Laurent, my second-oldest sister and younger than Arnold. She was shorter than both of us, with short snow-white hair and the same deep crimson eyes. She wore a long, beautiful white dress that reached her heels.

The two of them were now standing in front of us.

Honestly, I didn’t really want to deal with them today. They could all just wait until the Rite of Passage started so I could beat their asses.

But since it was mandatory to attend this event, I guess I had no choice.

"To what do I owe your presence, my dear siblings?" I asked sarcastically without showing any change in expression.

Arnold looked me up and down slowly before speaking.

"So you’ve actually awakened and you’re no longer useless," Arnold said without showing any emotion at first.

Then an expression of pity appeared on his face.

"But it’s a shame you’re still the pathetic little brother I’ve always known. After all, a son of a concubine will never be a true Laurent."

I heard some chuckles from the crowd watching our exchange, while others covered their mouths as they whispered crude remarks.

Despite all that, I still didn’t say anything.

Asencio stepped forward with a frown on his face.

"Arnold, that’s not how you’re supposed to talk about someone’s moth—"

"Oh, please, cousin. You didn’t stand up for Yves back then, so what’s up with the change now? Is it because he’s awakened?"

Arnold smiled.

"So please don’t try to lecture me on what is right or wrong."

Those words seemed to hit Asencio because his expression became ashamed and his fingers curled into a fist.

Arnold had always been like this.

From the memories I had inherited from Yves, he had always seen him as inferior because Yves’ mother was a concubine—the only concubine of the King of the North, at that.

To him, Yves was someone who wasn’t supposed to exist in this family.

He was a stain on the family.

Yves had been bullied a lot when he was younger, but by bullying, I don’t mean just calling him bad names or excluding him.

No.

He did much worse.

He beat Yves until he fainted. Even when Yves begged him to stop, Arnold never pulled back his fists.

He broke Yves’ bones over and over again.

Sometimes... he would even heal Yves just to beat him again.

Such behavior made me disgusted.

I hated bullies.

I was a victim of one too.

What right did someone have to harm their own sibling just because he was born from a concubine?

There was still blood between them, even though they were only half-brothers.

Even though I couldn’t feel Yves’ emotions through his memories, I could imagine how it must have felt. It must have hurt immensely knowing that your own family, specifically your siblings, didn’t like you.

But the thing I detested the most was that no one did anything for Yves.

Not his older siblings.

Not his cousins.

Not Ezio.

Not even his own father, who was the family head.

He always used to say that if a Laurent child couldn’t stand up for themselves, then what was the point of being born into this family?

They’d be better off dead.

That was harsh coming from a parent.

No child deserved to hear such cruel words.

But that was simply how things worked in this family.

If you were weak, you were useless.

And if you were useless, you would be trampled on.

I thought that maybe, despite all of that, his mother would be the one to comfort him.

But my hopes were crushed.

She was a bitch who only cared about having the attention of the family head, and when she discovered that Yves couldn’t awaken, she no longer spoke to him.

This made me sick to my stomach.

It made me so sick that I wanted them all to be wiped from the face of this world.

But I didn’t need to do that.

I would make them pay by proving them wrong.

I would show them that Yves had changed, and the first step would be winning this Rite of Passage.

And Arnold?

A beating was coming for him.

I would break every single bone in his body until he begged for mercy.

That, for sure, I would do.

"How have you been, little brother? I’m pretty sure it was very lonely living alone in that mansion. I’m shocked that you didn’t kill yourself. You always looked so depressed."

Ana covered her mouth with her delicate fingers and laughed softly.

If Arnold was a bullying monster, then his twin was a wretched snake.

She was weaker than Arnold and never really attacked Yves physically, but she attacked him psychologically with her words.

Her best weapon was her tongue.

Everything that came out of her mouth was nothing but poisonous words.

She would spread rumors about Yves’ mother being a whore who thought she had struck gold by having a child with one of the most powerful Awakeners in the world.

She would also spread horrible rumors about Yves himself.

And, of course, Yves didn’t like what people were saying about his mother, so he confronted her.

Unfortunately for him, he was a mundane human while she was awakened.

So you can already guess what happened.

So yeah, those were pretty much the two evil little bastards I had to deal with.

I swear I was itching to punch Ana in the face, but I showed restraint.

I put another piece of cake into my mouth and only then spoke.

"It’s very pleasant to see you, my dear siblings. I appreciate the warm welcome. It has been a minute."

I turned to Ana.

"You mean my lovely mansion? It’s actually been great. I mean, I had that entire peaceful place to myself, keeping me far away from people who can’t keep their mouths shut, just like a two-copper-coin whore."

I made sure to speak as loudly as possible.

The entire hall went silent at my words as if I had just dropped a bomb in the middle of the room.

And damn, I loved their reactions.

Ana’s eyebrows furrowed, and I saw her eyes twitch at my words.

So I kept going.

"Depressed? Pfft—"

I let out a laugh, although I wasn’t laughing at all.

"There’s nothing to be depressed about when we get to live another day, every single day. So why would I kill myself?"

I stabbed my fork into my plate, only to realize there was no more cake left.

"Ah, give me a second."

Arnold’s jaw clenched silently.

That was good.

I turned around, cut another piece of cake, placed it on my plate, and walked back toward them.

"Actually, the old me probably would have wanted to kill himself, but I’ve changed. As you can see..."

I spread my arms wide while still holding the plate.

"...I am now awakened."

I paused for a moment.

"But I actually want to kill myself now after seeing your faces. I swear, it’s not a pleasant view."

Ana glared daggers at me so intensely that I felt like if her eyes could throw knives, I would have already been stabbed a hundred times.

She tried to step forward, but Arnold stopped her.

"You think just because you’ve awakened, you are no longer useless?" Arnold smiled. "Hell, you’re here acting all full of yourself when you probably awakened a mediocre Main Story. Something like ’I’m the Useless Son.’"

The crowd, which had been silent ever since I spoke, erupted into laughter.

Oh, if only they could see my System.

He would have regretted what he had just said.

"Just because you spent some time in the Lands of Horror doesn’t make you fearless. Your guardian was probably the one slaughtering all the monsters while you hid behind his back like a scaredy-cat, only coming out to deal the final blow. That’s probably how you managed to reach the Ascendant rank so quickly."

The crowd erupted into even louder laughter, and murmurs spread throughout the hall.

’Ezio, are you listening to this shit?’

’Yeah.’

"Yeah, that makes sense. That’s why he ranked up so fast," a boy said.

"Because there’s no other way he could have done it so quickly. Those lands are really dangerous, and even I wouldn’t dare go there," another boy added.

"Yeah, I don’t even know why you’ve come here as if you have a chance in the Rite of Passage," Ana said as she crossed her arms and snorted. "You should have just stayed in your mansion and never come back. This is no place for you."

The crowd kept getting louder while I simply stood there eating my cake without a care in the world.

The three siblings behind me had worried expressions on their faces.

Arnold stepped forward, leaned in, and whispered,

"You better just give up while it’s still early, or else I’ll burn you in front of everyone with my flames, just like last time."

My eyes twitched at his words, and my hands started sweating.

I suddenly remembered Sister Friede.

The flames.

My body burning alive.

The pain.

Fuck.

Not again.

Arnold’s Main Story allowed him to wield fire, and he had used that same power to burn Yves before. No one knew about it because he would always heal Yves’ burned wounds afterward as if nothing had happened.

But now I was actually pissed.

I was going to make him pay for reminding me of that.

I had been trying so hard to keep those memories of being burned alive buried, but this bastard had dragged them back to the surface.

I thought of an idea.

Over the next few moments, my voice became colder than before.

"How about we make a deal?"