"Orion."
My mother's cold, rigid voice pierced the heavy silence, directed sharply at my brother.
"Yes, Mother."
"Do you realize the gravity of what you have done?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me... what was your mistake?"
"I... drank a little of your private brew without permission."
«Pffft!»
A stifled laugh escaped Eunbin beside me. My brother lifted his head to glare at her in annoyance, but Mother's terrifying aura immediately pinned him back to the floor, as if the gravity of the entire world had concentrated on his back.
We were currently in the lower hall of "Raven Heart," where my mother's great throne resided.
Three full days had passed since the storehouse incident, and only now had my brother awakened from his alcoholic coma. Every day he spent lost in sleep only served to fuel my mother's resentment and stoke her anger toward him—which is exactly what led us to this dire situation.
Mother had summoned us all the moment he woke up, to bear witness to the punishment he was about to receive.
At the moment, she sat atop her throne, freezing my brother with a gaze as cold as the depths of the ocean, while he knelt on one knee, trying to pull himself together.
At first, he gave her the look of a "drenched puppy," and for a second, I could have sworn my mother's heart had softened and she'd decided to go easy on him.
Well, that belief held firm until that fateful moment; when my brother let out a resounding belch, a direct result of everything he had devoured and guzzled three days ago.
"Ah... when will all this end so I can get back to my novels?" I thought with a sigh.
What terrible timing! I had just reached the climax where the "Northern Duke" finally confesses his feelings to the heroine. Damn you, my cursed brother, why did you commit such a folly at this exact moment?
"Do you have any excuse to offer?" Mother asked in a voice that signaled impending doom.
Hmm... this is your last chance, brother. Use it wisely to lessen the sentence. However, what came out of him was the last thing anyone would expect in such a formal setting.
"Burp..."
Before Mother could utter a single word, Orion suddenly leaned forward and vomited right in front of her throne.
"......"
"..."
"....."
"Pffft! Hahahaha! Hahahaha!"
Eunbin burst into uncontrollable laughter, while Jet muttered something incoherent about her desperate desire to vanish from this place immediately.
And for the first time since Hel woke up, she didn't say we were all going to die. Instead, she whispered in a funereal tone: "He's going to die... he's definitely going to die. I saw him drawing his final breath in my vision."
Well, at that moment, I couldn't help but agree with her.
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Thick steam rose from the waters of the hot springs in the Jade Castle, while the sound of laughter echoed amidst the mist and warm water.
Orion, our hero whom fate had dragged from our world into this hell called Shadow Slave, was floating in the water like a forgotten piece of cork. He rested his small ten-year-old head against the marble rim and closed his eyes, trying to reclaim the fragments of his dignity that had been scattered along with those wine bottles.
The moment he opened his eyes, he found himself facing the "Legendary Scene."
A few meters away, his adoptive sisters—the terrifying daughters of Ki Song—were relaxing as if they were on a school retreat.
He saw Eunbin, her jet-black hair floating around her like octopus ink, while the rest of the sisters shared jokes and banter left and right. Naked bodies? Yes. Divine beauty? Absolutely. Did his heart flutter? Not exactly.
"Good grief... the hack who wrote this scene should be prosecuted for excessive cliches," Orion thought, struggling against the urge to laugh out loud.
In his past life, he used to read "Isekai" stories and categorize them by their level of absurdity; now, he found himself the protagonist of one.
"I am the lucky protagonist with a harem of beautiful princesses in the hot springs!" he mocked internally, imitating the voice of a trashy narrator. "I'm just missing the cheap shock and a nosebleed to be complete as an icon for lost Otakus."
But in truth, in his own strange way, he loved them deeply as real sisters, despite knowing full well they were capable of crushing him in the blink of an eye.
The sound of their delicate "feminine" discussion reached his ears:
"I'm telling you, Eunbin, that Fallen-rank beast had a liver that tasted like dirty socks!" Hel shouted, waving her hand in the air.
Eunbin replied, wringing out her black locks: "At least it didn't try to swallow you whole like that Aster Clan agent did last week. Those people have a weird obsession with ambushing in swamps... the smell is still stuck to my armor!"
Orion chuckled to himself: "What poetic dialogue... bitter-livered monsters and swamp-scented spies. Where is the romance in this cursed world?"
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From another corner of the pool, Eunbin suddenly stopped talking as she watched her little brother. She exchanged looks with the other sisters, their faces etched with confusion and pity.
"Do you see him?" Revel whispered to Eunbin, nodding toward Orion, who was staring into space with a foolish grin, shaking his head as if hearing a joke only he could hear.
Eunbin said, raising her left eyebrow: "Yeah... it seems our little brother has completely lost his mind. Look at that stupid expression on his face; he's laughing to himself as if he's planning to conquer the world, or maybe imagining himself the hero of one of those fairy tales he tells."
Jet laughed softly: "With the amount of alcohol he gulped down, I highly doubt he'll regain his senses in the coming weeks."
Eunbin sighed in pity, moving a bit closer to him: "Orion, little one... are you okay? Why are you smiling like an idiot? Have you started seeing imaginary Nightmare Creatures in the steam?"
Orion replied, submerging his head under the water to escape their gazes: "It's nothing, sister... I'm just thinking that the author of this moment deserves a reward for sticking to the classic tropes!"
The sisters left Orion drowning in his little "madness," exchanging laughs at his expressions, agreeing on one thing: their little brother had lost a piece of his mind after the punishment he received from their mother.
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Author's Note: "Hello everyone! How are you all doing? This marks the final chapter of Orion's daily life; the next chapter will take us straight into the First Nightmare. If you're enjoying the story, I'd truly appreciate your support through Power Stones. We also need a few more Reviews to enter the rankings, so please consider reviewing the novel if you can. Have a great day, everyone!"