The Person I Loved Asked Me to Die in My Younger Sister’s Place

“Brother!”

Lloyd looked up when a bright voice called out his name as he arrived at the front door of the Reuning mansion.

He saw a figure running toward him with the hem of her dress pulled up, as would be expected of a young lady her age. Just when he thought, That’s dangerous, there was a small cry and her body tilted.

Lloyd had already kicked off the ground to close the distance and catch his younger sister.

“Don’t run, Patricia.”

“I-I’m sorry! Ah, that was so close!”

Still being held, Patricia looked up at Lloyd with wide eyes and smiled in embarrassment.

And then, without warning, she stretched herself up and hugged him tightly around the neck.

Lloyd smiled wryly.

“How very ardent of you.”

“I haven’t seen you lately, Brother! As expected, you’re the most wonderful!”

“…Well, I’ll admit that my face is to your liking, but overall, I don’t think your fiance is too bad either.”

He said as he patted his sister’s back, and Patricia smiled like a young child. Even Lloyd wondered if this was how a girl who was already seventeen and had a fiance should act. Even though the Reuning family was known for its family members’ closeness to each other.

This younger sister had always been very close to her older brother, the eldest son who resembled his father very much.

Even when Lloyd told her that it was time to let go, she held on tight and wouldn’t let go.

“Can’t be helped.”

Lloyd said with a sigh and held his sister sideways, as he had done in the past.

He carried her up the stairs to her room on the second floor and set her down in front of her door. He warned her to behave and went down the stairs.

“Oh, Brother! You’ve returned.”

This time a bright boy’s voice echoed from the gallery entrance on the first floor. He came running, just like Patricia, but as expected, he didn’t try to hug him.

“What, Louis too?”

“I’ve been waiting for you, since I couldn’t find you easily. I wanted to ask you something. It’s about magic…”

Louis, who had been waiting for him for some time, began to ask questions on the spot.

Lloyd didn’t treat him with disdain and stood there for a moment talking with his brother about magic.

The Reuning family was said to be blessed with a talent for magic. Lloyd and Louis were no exception.

“——So, does that mean…you’re converging mana?”

“No. Here…it takes the form of converging and radiating at the same time. It’s hard to explain.”

Louis groaned and scratched the back of his head.

“This part is so difficult, I just can’t do it. Even though you could do it when you were my age.”

“…It doesn’t matter if you can’t do it. You should do it as you like.”

“If I do it as I like, it’ll take me a lifetime to master it… Well, I know it’s unproductive to compare myself to a genius like you who’s skilled at magic and swordsmanship, though.”

Louis looked like he was crying and laughing for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped.

Like Patricia, or perhaps even more so, Louis was straightforward in his emotional expression, and he never kept his feelings bottled up inside. Louis’s virtue was that even when he was despairing, he never acted maliciously towards others.

Lloyd secretly believed that his bright younger siblings were the true children of his richly emotional mother and the “living jewel.”

“You’re a monster, you know that?”

The voice of the man who spat that out echoed in his ears. It was the voice of the crown prince of the Marcialle royal family.

For some reason, the crown prince always looked at Lloyd as if he was looking at something hateful.

But Lloyd didn’t remember doing anything that would displease him.

While the brothers were discussing the matter as Lloyd fiddled with his thoughts in a corner of his mind, someone entered the doorway.

Louis turned his head.

“Father.”

“Oh, Louis. Lloyd’s back too, I see.”

It was the present Duke of Reuning. Lloyd answered with a short “Yes” while watching Louis look awkward next to him. As expected, he couldn’t return the same affectionate smile that his father directed at him.

Lloyd had always been told that he bore a striking resemblance to his father Bright when he was younger. But from Lloyd’s point of view, the resemblance may have been in form, but that was all. There were far more differences.

Bright looked at the two brothers directly and seemed to have an idea of what they were talking about by the way they stood there talking, and mainly by the way Louis looked at him.

“Magic again?”

His voice sounded half-exasperated. There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

The only time his generous and vivacious father reacted this way was when it was about magic.

Louis ducked his head like a scolded child and apologized.

“T-Thank you very much, Brother. See you later!”

He said quickly and hurried back to his room.

——Lloyd felt a slight bitterness in his heart at the fact that he escaped.

He heard his father’s light sigh.

“Lloyd. I heard you caused a ruckus with your magic against Arturo’s young master.”

“That’s not correct. I was asked to have a bout with him and used my magical swordsmanship to deal with him.”

“I see. But you also understand that information isn’t spread so accurately to those around you. In particular, things involving magic stand out.”

Not just swordsmanship, the danger of accidents and injuries increased when magic was involved. In general, that was true.

——But Lloyd knew that wasn’t what his father meant.

“You’re telling me not to use magic?”

“…I’m telling you not to use it except in emergencies.”

Lloyd felt a bite in his words. And his father’s face and voice became harsher.

Bright was said to be a generous and intelligent father. Lloyd thought that the only thing that makes his father narrow-minded and stubborn was when it had to do with magic.

——Was it because his father himself couldn’t use magic?

There were times when he felt such a cold sense of rebellion.

His father showed particular disapproval to Lloyd’s magic. Now, however, he has a slightly different view.

Magic was something that related to hateful memories for his mother Rosalie. Bright probably didn’t want Rosalie to be reminded of them. And his father himself had memories that he didn’t want to recall.

(…The <Black Witch> Wisteria Irene.)

A name that both my father and my mother have averted their gaze from.

Lloyd bowed to Bright lightly, shook him off, and returned to his room.