The Hero’s Brother Is Bound To Be Depressed

258 – World Line

I only lost consciousness due to Ilia’s punch, but there were no other injuries, but since Roel was sitting on the bed, I decided to sit on the bed a little longer.

Roel smiled softly and looked at me for a moment. She feels like her face is stinging for no reason due to the emotions filled with those gazes. Roel broke the silence with a slightly subdued voice, as if choked by her emotions.

“really… long time no see.”

From Roel’s perspective, I suddenly disappeared and suddenly reappeared after 5 years. He must have been missed and curious about many things. I thought that if it were the Roel I knew, he wouldn’t have hesitated to search the continent to find me who suddenly disappeared.

“Yeah, no big deal… “There must have been.”

As I was trying to say something formal, I changed my words after realizing my missing left arm. As if that was funny, Roel laughed and held my hand.

Roel’s eyes seemed to be slightly shaking as he looked at me. Roel, who was biting his lip slightly, looked like he was about to shed tears at any moment. At first she thought the emotion in that gaze was the longing of being reunited with her sister.

However, it was only after continuing to make eye contact that I was able to fully interpret the emotion. It’s such a heavy feeling of guilt. A feeling of guilt that cannot be shaken off without the forgiveness of the person involved.

I felt uneasy and uncomfortable for no reason, so I pretended not to notice and averted my gaze. I glanced at Raelan, who was sitting next to her, and saw that she was watching our conversation with an expression of interest on her face. Normally, it would be polite to quietly leave room for brothers who have been reunited for the first time in a long time. Raelan and Konrad didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving me and Roel alone in the room.

“There were so many things I wanted to say to you… Because we didn’t talk to each other much in the past. I regretted it later, wishing I had been a little closer to you… I should have taken care of you more… .”

Seeing Roel mumbling something between lamenting and talking to himself made me feel like the atmosphere would become heavy, so I made a joke.

“If you were my older sister instead of my older brother, we might have gotten along better.”

Roel smiled bitterly at my playful tone. He must have noticed that I was trying to avoid serious conversation. Roel, who was contemplating what to say for a moment, asked in a voice full of worry.

“… Are you feeling okay? “I think my head is still injured.”

I took a shot at this. I answered with a smile.

“Surprisingly, both are fine.”

When I raised my arms and showed off my arm muscles, Roel looked relieved. Five years have passed, but in Roel’s eyes, she still seems to be just a younger sister that I need to take care of. Since I’ve never been anyone’s older brother, I couldn’t understand the feeling of concern for a guy with a dark skin under his chin.

When the sound disappeared in the room for a moment, silence fell as if it had been promised. Even Roel, who enjoys talking to others, seemed to be carefully considering what to say to me. I rubbed my eyebrows as I watched Roel open and close his mouth several times and make a difficult expression, and then suddenly muttered a thought that occurred to me.

“What about Luna?”

If things had gone as they should have while I was gone, Luna’s family would not have been able to avoid tragedy. Wondering if something had happened to Luna, she looked at Roel out of fear, as if urging her to answer.

But strangely, Roel tilted his head as if he didn’t understand my question.

“… “Luna?”

This time I was confused. Five years may be a long time, but it’s probably not the time to completely forget about your brother’s girlfriend, whom you’ve talked to several times. It’s not an appearance you can easily forget.

“My girlfriend. Luna Grace, first year student at the Department of Magic.”

When I said this as if it were absurd, Roel laughed as if he had just heard a joke.

“What kind of girlfriend are you who only knows Ellie? “You couldn’t have dated me without my knowledge, right?”

“What is that… .”

A strange feeling passes through my mind. For a moment, goosebumps ran down my back. I realized the feeling of incongruity late. Yes, the conversation felt a little oddly disjointed from the beginning. It wasn’t simply because five years had passed.

Raelan treated me like I was seeing him for the first time, and Roel didn’t know Luna’s existence… And what Conrad told me was that the dead person came back alive and well. All of those things were clues to the identity of the sense of discomfort.

Could it be that this place… No, let’s not judge hastily. To confirm, I spoke, trying to suppress the anxiety and excitement burning in my heart.

“The second grade triathlon that my older brother participated in… “What was the result?”

Roel’s face hardened at my unexpected question. Roel let out a long sigh, washed his face, and exchanged glances with Raelan for a moment. Roel looked at me again with a complicated expression and said with a bitter smile.

“Of course I won. But now that I think about it, everything seems to have gone wrong since then.”

At Roel’s words, I unconsciously grabbed the blanket.

“I won… ?”

“… huh. “Thanks to the alliance of other academies, we struggled but eventually turned around.”

My heart is beating like crazy. In the triathlon I experienced, all participating academies were ‘joint winners’ thanks to my intervention. However, Roel in front of me says he achieved a comeback victory in the triathlon. The flow is different. There is only one thing that can be explained. This is the moment when incredible doubt turns into certainty.

Raelan, who had been watching silently from the side, probably interpreted my frozen expression as not believing Roel’s words, and opened his mouth.

“In triathlon, the winner did not change until the emperor reformed it. It is true that Transcendence won the 31st Triathlon held in 622 Imperial Calendar.”

Somehow, I feel like my stomach is overflowing with emotions. Roel quickly noticed that my expression had become serious and asked with worried eyes.

“Ross, are you okay?”

I looked at Roel’s hand, which was holding mine as if he would not let go of me. It’s a hand covered in scars and calluses. I looked up and made eye contact with Roel. I finally found out. What did the guilt in those eyes mean? His head spins rapidly. The clues are combined to reveal a single picture. I mumbled the thoughts in my head as if I were spitting them out without realizing it.

“… “You killed me.”

Roel’s body flinched greatly at those words. Roel’s hand holding my hand is shaking slightly. Tears welled up in the blue eyes looking at me.

A single teardrop flows down my cheek. Roel, holding back the tears that flowed, struggled to spit out a few words.

“… Yes, I want you… You who were my younger brother… With my own hands… .”

Roel couldn’t bring himself to say that he killed me, so he fell down and shed tears. I sighed at that sight. Only now did I realize what Raelan meant by the word July.

“That’s why Raelan asked if it was July. “Because he thought that I, who had been killed by his brother, had been brought back to life.”

This world is a place where all the efforts and connections I made do not exist. The reason is simple. Because this was a world where the ending was reached according to the original flow of the novel.

In the novel, Ross, who sold his soul to the Demon King as an unclean artifact, died to Roel in July, just before summer vacation began. Raelan guessed that the demon king had died, freed his soul, and was resurrected. Naturally, he thought that my memories would stop in July, when I was killed by Roel.

It was natural for Raelan to say that he had never had a conversation with Navier. Ross, whom I did not possess, was a complete loner with no friends, so he had never even had a conversation with Navier, even though they were in the same combat division.

The excitement of coming to another world line with the new magic that suddenly appeared in Fatulga’s magic book was momentary, and I suddenly came to my senses from the contradictions that ran through my mind.

“But if this place had gone as it should… .”

Without realizing it, I shifted my gaze to Roel’s missing left arm.

“There’s no way he lost his arm… ?”

The story ends with a happy ending as Roel, who believes that the hero’s harem has no choice but to win, kills the final enemy, the Demon King. There was no reason to include the main character losing an arm when he no longer needed trials. At the end of the novel, unlike the miserable reality, a happy reward must await.

But Roel lost his arm. Ilya lost an eye, and Raelan calls Roel master. The swirling sky and the fact that the World Adjuster was with Roel was strange. Clearly, some variable has arisen that deviates from the original flow.

“Bro, what on earth happened…?” ? The devil… Did you kill him?”

At my question, Roel managed to stop crying. After taking a moment to catch her breath, Roel raised her hand to wipe away her tears and answered.

“Yes, the Demon King is dead. Ellie restored the collapsed eastern border with magic… .”

I could see that there was more to Roel’s trailing speech. Maybe Ellie is the problem. As I looked at her as if urging her to explain, Roel let out a deep sigh.

“But the world will soon end.”

“what… ?”

The death of the devil is the salvation of the world. That was the cliché of warrior stories. However, even though the final enemy, the Demon King, is defeated, the world is destroyed… ?

“Why is the world being destroyed when the Demon King is dead?”

In response to my question, Roel bit his lip so hard that it bled. Roel, whose face was contorted not from the pain of her lips but from the pain of her heart, finally opened her mouth with a miserable expression.

“The leader of the Chaos Cult who died with Bella… “He was resurrected.”