I quickly wrapped up the conversation and headed to the second floor first.
“Is this your room?”
“Yeah.”
It looked exactly the same as when I last visited.
My room and the surrounding ones were all empty, just tidied up a bit.
Maybe someone was informed beforehand, as there was now a bed and other stuff set up.
Everyone had their rooms nearby and found it fascinating, starting to come in and look around.
“… It’s so bleak.”
Lucia remarked as she looked at the room where I spent my teenage years.
Maybe she thought it resembled her own room; even I had to agree it was pretty dreary.
There were just the essentials like a closet, bed, and desk lying around.
On one wall were countless sword marks.
That was the wall where I kept track of my growth.
“Looks like it’s still here.”
“Of course, I did it every day.”
I leaned against the wall and left a new mark.
While still not that tall, I had grown compared to the marks left on the wall.
Thinking back to when I left, I figured I hadn’t grown that much.
Both my body and mind.
“I won’t be here long. I should probably leave before the meeting starts.”
“Really? You look more worried than that would suggest.”
Yeah, I was worried.
It was uncertain whether my young sibling could handle the six sly snakes who’ve aged far beyond their years, considering I didn’t want to be here at all.
Unlike our father, who ruled with the power of five pillars and immense authority, my younger sibling fell quite short.
At the very least, I had to stay until the meeting,
which made me ponder deeply.
…
I decided to go greet those staying in the annex.
I didn’t want to, but Lucia wanted to.
She said it would be rude not to greet our father, who was right in front of us.
There was no point in going with everyone, so Lucia and I agreed to go see Carlos first.
But before I could spot the target, I stumbled upon someone I didn’t want to see.
“Atlas? How did you get here?”
With her flowing reddish-brown ponytail and sapphire-blue eyes, Hera stared at me intently.
It was definitely Hera, whom I was supposed to meet later.
I intended to only see Carlos, yet here we were, face to face.
“Uh… uh??”
Lucia was just as flustered at seeing Hera.
She never expected to run into someone she knew from the Academy.
“Lucia? Oh, I see. You came with Carlos?”
Hera smiled brightly.
Seeing Lucia with me, she likely assumed I was just tagging along because Lucia was following Carlos.
I could let her continue to think that, but this seemed like a good opportunity.
“Lucia, why don’t you head on first? I think I need to have a chat.”
“… Okay.”
After confirming Lucia walked towards the annex, I confidently spoke to Hera.
“… Hera, could we talk for a moment? I have something to confess.”
“A confession? What do you mean?”
Realizing I was serious, Hera chuckled.
I wasn’t sure how she would take it, but what I was about to tell her would likely be quite shocking.
That the kind sister she thought I was, her half-brother, was actually her cousin.
But dragging it out wouldn’t do either of us any good.
I needed to spill the whole truth now.
“I know what you think of me. But… I’m not your real brother.”
Her reaction to me saying I wasn’t a biological brother was nonchalant.
She must have thought of me as her half-brother all along.
“In fact, I’m not even a brother! I’m older than you!”
“What?!”
She was surprised to hear I was older.
“My real name is Atlas Titan… I’m the firstborn of the Titans.”
“You’re the firstborn of the Titans… and older than me?”
Hera didn’t seem fazed by the fact that I was the firstborn of the Titans, but she was taken aback by me being older.
Once I revealed my age, she dropped the formalities.
I figured us being tense wouldn’t help either of us.
“Yeah, I’m sorry for deceiving you all this time, but it’s half-true to say we’re family, so I didn’t bother correcting it. We are family, after all.”
My mother is the sister of the current head of the Nemea family.
Since we are connected by blood,
“Atlas… you’re serious…”
‘Ugh… did I really anger her?’
The atmosphere darkened around Hera after hearing my revelation.
Was she angry about being lied to for months?
I thought she might curse me, and I was ready to hear it all, but Hera displayed a completely unexpected reaction.
“Try not to lie too much.”
“What?”
She dismissed everything I just said as a lie.
“Sure, I understand it can be intimidating to see your father, but there’s no need to fool yourself.”
“What are you talking about?! I’m really the firstborn here!”
Why would an outsider deny my claim as the firstborn? It sounded ridiculous saying the firstborn Titan had supposedly died while I was pretending to be him at the Academy.
But no matter how I looked at it, something felt off.
Hera showed no sign of doubt.
It seemed she had already made up her mind that it was impossible.
I started explaining that I was the Titan, but Hera had a simple reason to clarify why I couldn’t be.
“That’s not possible. The firstborn of the Titans… died a long time ago.”
That was a shocking truth I had never heard before.
“What?”
I felt as if the ground had crumbled beneath me.
My mood soured.
The incident Hera spoke of was this:
Apparently, after I ran away, these despicable humans held my funeral without my permission.
There was a reason I couldn’t go by the name Atlas Titan at the Academy.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t use the Titan surname.
Because Atlas Titan had already died.
“Atlas?”
But Hera, upon revealing this fact, noticed something strange in my expression.
I was certainly failing at masking my feelings.
“Atlas, are you okay?”
Hera reached out to me with a concerned look.
I dodged her hand and dashed out towards the main building.
‘What on earth is going on? Me… I’m supposed to be dead?’
…
It hadn’t been long since I left, yet I returned to the office to find my younger sister, Metios.
“Did you need to talk to me separately?”
“Yeah.”
Did Metios know about this?
Of course, she must have known. She probably told me to use our mother’s surname because she was prepared for it.
It had been wrong for me to use the Titan surname anyway, but maybe it was for the best that she simply wouldn’t.
“Little sister, I discovered something quite interesting recently.”
“You discovered something interesting? What is it?”
The important part was that they held a fake funeral for a corpse that doesn’t even exist.
“I saw Father alive.”
“You must be dreaming. Our Father has passed away.”
“That’s exactly why it’s interesting.”
I had never seen the corpses of my father and mother with my own eyes.
If they held a fake funeral once, it was not unreasonable to do it twice.
This lent credence to the idea that the image I had seen of my father tied to a demon was real.
He must have been underground, hiding out after casually announcing that he was dead.
“Ever since I saw that, I can’t stop thinking about it, and I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“You’re having nightmares, so it’s no wonder you can’t get decent sleep.”
Even after mentioning I had seen Cronos alive, Metios showed no change in expression.
“So, here’s the thing…”
“….”
As I hesitated, for the first time, Metios’s aura shifted.
She seemed to envision what I might be planning to do.
“Brother, no matter what, I can’t allow it.”
Even if she didn’t say it outright, through our conversation, Metios was firmly refusing my proposal.
“Little sister, I’m not asking for permission. I’m here to inform you.”
But I wasn’t there to seek permission.
I was informing her to prepare herself.
“Brother…!! Are you out of your mind?! You want to dig up the grave… That’s blasphemous!! No matter how much Father has wronged you, this is going too far!! This is disrespectful to the dead!!”
“What’s wrong with digging up a corpse of someone already dead?”
“?!!”
Metios gasped in surprise.
“I’m not listed in the family registry anymore, so what’s the problem with that?”
“W-How do you know that?!”
For the first time, I saw Metios bewildered, as if she couldn’t understand how I knew that.
It seemed they had hidden it well until now.
The funeral must have been small since it seemed no one was present, and a few houses from the Blade Mountains appeared to know but never spoke of it to others.
And… they held a funeral but didn’t even put up a tombstone.
That’s why I felt nothing strange when I went to pay my respects last time.
“Were you really trying to hide that?”
“Ah… no.”
Right, this wasn’t Metios’s fault.
It must have been Cronos who did it; Metios couldn’t have done anything about it.
Being absent from home, rarely communicating, and abandoning Titan to live in the capital as a knight, I was practically dead.
Having lived with the family skeletons since childhood, many must have assumed I was dead without needing any explicit confirmation.
Metios’s eyes darted around, as if she wanted to defend herself.
But how could she explain what Cronos had done?
She couldn’t possibly comprehend the true meaning behind her father’s actions.
I turned my back on Metios, intent on digging up my father’s grave.
I came solely to deliver that message.
After gauging the timing of when to do it, hearing the recent sounds made it seem certain.
I didn’t care if what I had seen wasn’t real.
I was fine with whatever lay buried.
I longed to see my father’s face again.
“Brother, please wait…!!”
Just as I was about to head out, Metios sprang up in protest.
But I had no intentions of stopping.
If I didn’t finish this properly now…
-Thud
In that very moment, a noise like something collapsing echoed.
“?!!”
I turned around in shock to find Metios, who had been rushing towards me, collapsed and lying still.
“L-Little sister!!!”
My head went completely blank.
Just as I was about to dash out of the mansion, I found myself cradling the fallen Metios in my arms.
