He’s My Real Brother, Duke Chapter 132

Brunhilde was short in height, but he had a strong body with well-developed muscles, so how could such a small, skinny woman drag him along so easily? 

 

Before he had time to question it, he was already being carried deeper and deeper into a strange, unknown forest.

 

“What the hell?”

 

He heard the woman whimper sweetly against his ear.

 

“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?”

 

Brunhilde mumbled through gritted teeth, trying to clear his hoarse voice.

 

“You’ve hit… me so ignorantly on the… nape of the neck, dang…”

 

As if she hadn’t heard him, the woman set his sleeping bag down with a grimace. Before long, she had reached her destination.

 

In pitch blackness, Brunhilde’s sleeping bag was flipped open.

 

Outdoors, under the stars.

 

In his field of vision, a small, blond, green-eyed woman with a slender, unscathed white hand raised to her mouth and laughed.

 

“I was as careful as I could be!”

 

The sight of her smiling filled Brunhilde, who had been stiffened into a sleeping bag, with a cruel horror.

 

‘Do demons laugh when they kill people? Anyway, it must be something like that.’

 

“Wait.”

 

Brunhilde squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, and looked at the surroundings. 

 

Around her were three hunched-over old men who seemed to be worshiping her. 

 

They, likewise, had their grim gazes fixed on him. While he checked the surrounding atmosphere of them, the woman rummaged through her pockets, apparently finding what she was looking for.

 

“Ah, I found it. The first thing to do is… first is to tear his mouth.”

 

The girl reached for the knife and grabbed it. 

 

He was a knight, and he’d seen plenty of knives, but he’d never seen anyone handle one with such sparkling eyes and such an innocent expression. She held the blade straight to his tied mouth.

 

“What the hell…did you do…”

 

He couldn’t finish the sentence. The horror of the situation was so overwhelming that it took all his strength to control his bleeding.

 

“Oh, I’m not ripping your mouth open, I’m just giving you a little bit of a cut.”

 

She sounded innocent, but he knew that this woman was a fearsome kidnapper.

 

‘She must be a cruel warlock, or a demon disguised as a human. I must alert my fellow knights to this fact…!’

 

He glared at the woman, his pupils clouded over. 

 

The woman looked at Brunhilde with a piercing gaze and smiled, as if she didn’t care.

 

Blonde and green-eyed.

 

Blonde, green-eyed, innocent, and lovely-looking woman…

 

‘I’ve seen her before. Who is this woman?’

 

“Hey, I’m not the bad guy…”

 

At that moment, Brunhilde chuckled, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth where the knife had touched him.

 

“Uh, is something wrong?”

 

She muttered innocently, her eyes wide. 

 

A cloth-covered hand wiped the corner of Brunhilde’s mouth. Brunhilde tried to recall the woman’s name, even as he coughed up an endless amount of blood.

 

Meanwhile, the woman took a small piece of jewelry from the three elderly men, brought it to the corner of his mouth, and said.

 

“Ah, take it.”

 

He swallowed the solid gem, and finally, her name popped into his head.

 

“Yo, your… As… tel…”

 

With those words, he blacked out.

 

With the fact that her name was Astel, and that she was His Highness the Duke’s ward, firmly engraved in his mind!

 

🐾

 

“Abduction successful!”

 

I clapped a few times in joy. The eldest of the three Venom brothers grinned widely and said.

 

“Kidnapping, you sound like a villain.”

 

Shaking my head, I carefully wiped the sweat from Brunhilde’s forehead with a handful of cloths.

 

Wiping the blood from the corner of Brunhilde’s mouth, I soaked it up with a sheet of my own supposedly homegrown poison detector.

 

“It’s definitely a demon poison, I think they used the venom of a kraken, a sea monster.”

 

Kraken were giant octopus monsters, known for their powerful venom in the ink they spewed.

 

“That’s a pretty dangerous venom.”

 

“Well, it’s not just Kraken venom, it’s a combination of things… It might work as a temporary cure…”

 

I shook my head, remembering what I’d seen in the original.

 

The first thing I’d give him was an experimental dose of the potent drug.

 

The three brothers understood my unspoken instructions and poured the reagent into his mouth.

 

The results are still uncertain, but the bluish tinge has disappeared from his lips.

 

Clenching and unfolding my hands in trepidation, I spoke.

 

“There are only a few things we can do in the future, but…”

 

I counted the seconds.

 

From what I’d seen so far, the crown prince was a hot-tempered, inferior being whose patience could easily run out.

 

“I want you to develop a definitive cure as soon as possible, and I want you to harvest as many of the little hassium buds as you can. Covertly.”

 

“Hassium’s buds?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“That has nothing to do with the cure.”

 

“Yes, it does.”

 

“It’s urgent that we develop a cure. We don’t know when they’ll start using a variation of their venom, and we need to be prepared for that.”

 

Remembering what I’d seen in the original, I shook my head.

 

“No, this is more important than a cure, and I need you to trust me.”

 

I puffed out my chest as boldly as I could, just in case they couldn’t believe me, and shouted.

 

“Because I’m the boss here!”

 

I wondered if this was a strange thing to say to older, near-grandfatherly people, but to my relief, their expressions changed, and they nodded seriously.

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Then we must follow the captain’s orders.”

 

The three of them nodded in unison with serious expressions.

 

…I think I might have been teased a bit!

 

That was the moment.

 

The first one, who had been looking pensive, finally nodded.

 

“I understand what you mean.”

 

The other brothers looked at him in confusion. But the first member of the brothers didn’t explain, just looked at me and smirked.

 

“I’ll start by harvesting the sprouts of hassium.”

 

‘It worked!’

 

I exclaimed, clasping my hands together in front of me, and they burst out laughing in unison, as if they thought it was cute.

 

🐾

 

After that, a week went by.

 

The vanguard had finally reached the place where the real Demon War would be fought, the territorial waters of Devly.

 

It was freezing cold in the far northern part of the country. With the weather like this, it would be better to get rid of them quickly, but the war would not be able to begin immediately.

 

The demons showed no sign of leaving their hiding places in the frozen waters. Still, it bought us time.

 

Before the war, the development of a cure and the treatment of the poisoned patients had been quick.

 

It became my routine to kidnap and treat knights every night, including Brunhilde.

 

Fortunately, most of them were in the early stages of being poisoned, and the effects of the chronic fatigue that weighed them down and the blue color of their lips quickly improved.

 

Today was no different.

 

Deep into the night, the three brothers were very busy.

 

The first went to collect hassium sprouts at my order, while the others continued to develop the cure smoothly.

 

‘It’s been a week, and it’s finally time to start baiting Cornwall and the Crown Prince.’

 

With the spies being taken care of one by one, they were getting pretty tired of it by now.

 

‘Now it’s time to drive them out on a limb.’

 

To that end, I decided to travel to the capital’s busiest place today, Arvent Square.

 

Luckily, the artifact appraisers Warret and Knox had collaborated to create a traveling wagon, and I was on my way to the capital within seconds of leaving the barracks.

 

Unfortunately…

 

“What a crappy place to land!”

 

…I didn’t take the correct coordinates, so I landed on my butt in the bushes by the square!

 

Patting myself on the back, I pressed my robe deeper into my body and crept back into the square.

 

Furthermore, I soon found myself in a darkened area, all the daylight’s hustle and bustle gone.

 

The marbled pavement of Arvent Square was carved out of a hill, with a forest surrounding it.

 

A brick wall surrounded the square, and vendors’ stalls lined the perimeter of the wall, making it feel a bit overwhelming.

 

I walked towards the clock tower in the center of the square.

 

“That’s quite a lot of flyers…”

 

The outside walls of the clock tower and the brick walls were covered with promotional flyers from the vendors in the square.

 

‘I’ll tear them all down and replace them with mine.’

 

One task for the day.

 

To meticulously paste hundreds of these flyers, clutched tightly in my arms, away from the eyes of the guards patrolling the square.

 

Of course, I couldn’t do it by myself, so I had to enlist the help of the tools Warret had given me.

 

I held the adhesive tool in one hand and the flyers in the other.

 

Pressing the switch on the surface of the tool firmly with my thumb, I flicked the flyer into the air like a dart.

 

The flyer then stuck itself to the outside wall.

 

“This is why tools are for humans!”

 

After only five minutes of using tools, the flyer was neatly stuck to the wall.

 

‘Mission accomplished.’

 

I grinned with immense satisfaction and swung around.

 

But just then.

 

“Hey, over there.”

 

There was a flash of white light in front of me. I could see a guard with a lantern in his hand heading my way.

 

‘Should I run?’

 

There was no way I could use my transport tool right now. If I ran, I’d arouse suspicion.

 

‘At least until tomorrow, I can’t do anything to arouse suspicion.’

 

Then I have no choice but to bump into him.

 

A very tense moment. I pressed my robes deeply into my arms and pressed down hard on the voice-altering tool in my pocket.

 

The voice modulator had several voice versions.

 

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

 

…This familiar voice!

 

‘It’s the crown prince’s voice!’

 

In the back of my mind, I remembered Warret handing me the tool and laughing. I figured he had some sort of gadget that could be utilized in any situation…!