The Strongest Brother Lost His Memory

The first thing that caught my eye inside the room was the massive Divine Wolf Beast.
It was curled up, fast asleep. And leaning weakly against the beast was Zahid, who slowly lifted himself up as he noticed us.
My God.

As I looked at the little Zahid’s face, drenched in cold sweat, I bit down hard on my lower lip.
He’s really… really in so much pain.
Right now, the mana inside Zahid was rampaging, making it difficult for him to even move a finger.

There were only two ways to suppress this runaway mana.
The first was through holy power, and the second was the sedatives developed by the Magic Tower.
But in the past few months, the Magic Tower had been too broke to manufacture more sedatives…

And the Temple had set conditions for providing holy power.
I slowly turned my gaze toward Zahid’s massive Divine Wolf Beast.
They told him to hand over Dyfenril’s Divine Beast to the Temple.

And yet, Zahid never surrendered the beast.
He simply endured. And endured.
That Divine Beast’s name was Fire.

A beast of flame that had protected Dyfenril since ancient times.
And in the end… Fire walks into the Temple of its own will.
Unable to watch Zahid suffer any longer, Fire eventually chooses to go to the Temple on its own.

And the one who ended up imprisoned with Fire—was me.
Only then did the Temple finally grant Zahid holy power.
Once he regained mobility, Zahid took control of the Dyfenril Duchy.
After that, he would sneak into the Temple every so often to visit Fire in secret. And that was how we became close.

Zahid pitied me.
That was why, when I asked him to look into something for me, he did it without question.
And why he told me so much about himself.

“After my parents passed, my maternal grandfather was the first to come. He used to dote on me, so I trusted him. That is… until my uncle exposed his secret dealings with the Temple and drove him out.”
Zahid had been raised with nothing but love—until he lost his parents at the age of ten.
Then, one by one, the people he trusted betrayed him.

“Turns out, he only came to hand over my Divine Beast to the Temple. Once my grandfather was out of the picture, my uncle took over as regent. He had always been kind to me, so at first, I thought I was lucky.”
Of course, that trust was shattered a second time.
Before long, his uncle was caught embezzling an outrageous sum and was expelled.

The one who uncovered that embezzlement? Elizabeth.
“And then Elizabeth… She had always found me adorable, so I was happy to see her.”
And yet, for the third time, his trust was crushed.

By that time, the Magic Tower had also stopped producing sedatives, forcing Zahid to endure his mana overload without relief.
“She was the absolute worst, using my marriage prospects for her own gain. But… that was probably the most painful time of my life.”
Zahid was currently living through that most painful time.

I took a step forward. Then another. Slowly approaching the young Zahid.
In my past life, when I had been locked away in the Temple’s underground prison—
There had always been iron bars between us.

To see him without the cold metal dividing our view, to see his face and entire body clearly, felt new.
“…Who are you?”
Zahid gasped for breath, eyeing me warily.

Our eyes met.
Zahid…
At last, I had found him.

My heart pounded wildly.
The young boy’s face kept overlapping with the image of the grown Zahid I remembered—
The man who was more than two hand spans taller than me, who had always looked at me with gentle eyes, soothing me with his words.

And then, just like that, the memory of the day he died surged back into my mind, squeezing my chest tight.
 
****

That day had been just another ordinary day in prison.
Thunk.
The sound of a meal tray dropping into the feeding slot echoed through the cell.

I crawled over to check how many pieces of bread there were.
“…Unbelievable.”
When I turned around, a massive wolf, shackled in restraints, gazed at me pitifully.

I shrugged and held up the bread.
“…It’s two again.”
“Grrr…”

[Frustration.]
The wolf, who had been watching me expectantly, let out a heavy sigh and slumped onto the ground.
“Woof! Woof!”

[Disappointment. Anger.]
My assigned task was to communicate with the Divine Beast.
For that purpose, the Temple had subjected me to various experiments.

They were excruciating, but not entirely in vain.
Because of them, I had learned to understand basic communication.
I held out both pieces of bread to Fire and said,

“You can be disappointed and angry all you want, but this is all we have.”
At that, Fire looked at me and barked.
“Woof! Woof!”

[Rosie is hungry too.]
“Oh, me? I’m fine.”
I picked up the milk bottle and spoke casually.

“My stomach suddenly hurts, so I don’t think I can eat. You can have it all.”
Then, to cover up the sound of my growling stomach, I gulped down the milk in one go.
Fire let out a small whimper, giving me a knowing look, but I just smiled.

“Zahid’s coming today, remember? I’m sure he’ll bring some food. So I’m really fine.”
I set the now-empty milk bottle on the ground and curled up, watching Fire devour the bread.
…Wait, do wolves normally eat bread this well?

Or was it fine because he was a Divine Beast?
I should ask Zahid later when he comes.
Ever since I met him, I had been counting the days, carving tally marks into the stone floor with pebbles.

“Wait for me, Rosie. No matter what, I’ll bring down the Temple. And I’ll make sure to free both you and Fire.”
For three years straight, he had come without fail every full moon, whispering that same promise.
And today was the night of that long-awaited full moon.

Then, I heard footsteps approaching.
“…Huh?”
The steps were slower than usual.

A sense of dread shot through me, and I jumped to my feet.
The closer the footsteps got, the stronger the stench of blood became.
And then—

Zahid appeared, dragging his blood-soaked body toward me.
“Zahid!”
“Woof! Woof! Woof!”

My heart dropped.
“…Take this.”
Zahid, his face utterly wrecked, shoved something through the iron bars.

“It’s a Sacred Relic. The Temple’s treasure—the one that can turn back time. I stole it.”
Only then did I realize why he looked like this.
He had stolen a Sacred Relic.

Just how much danger had he put himself in?
“Ray and I… in the end, we failed. Even the Noart Count Family has fallen. Now, there’s… no one left to stop the Temple.”
His hoarse voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t have holy power, so I can’t regress. But you… You have at least a little. You should try.”
The relic fell to the ground with a hollow clunk.
“If you succeed in going back, live freely.”

Blood continued to pour from his body.
“See the ocean you always wanted to visit. Now that you can read, go to the Academy, make lots of friends…”
His ragged voice barely strung the words together.

“…Oh, and save your brother. The one you love most in this world.”
“You, Zahid? What about you?”
I was already crying.

Even Fire was whining in distress.
And yet, Zahid only smiled faintly.
“The younger me… He won’t trust anyone. He’ll hate everyone he sees. Don’t look for me.”

His eyes were full of loneliness.
And I realized—he was dying.
“I don’t regret anything. Even now, on the brink of death, there’s nothing I feel I’ve lost. My life… It’s just been exhausting.”

His body crumpled.
“Zahid! Zahid—no…!”
I reached through the bars, but I couldn’t even hold him.

“…Ah, maybe just one thing.”
His weak voice trembled.
“When you cry… I wanted to let you lean on my shoulder.”

Because of the iron bars, we had never even once sat side by side.
“I wanted to get you out of here, no matter what.”
He coughed, spitting out blood.

“Not this dark, suffocating prison underground. But at the highest steps of the Temple… I wanted us to sit there, side by side, for a long time.”
Even in the shadow of death, his face remained unbearably beautiful.