When the House’s Youngest Son Turns Into Trash
“So our little darling wants to become a dirtball now?”
“Hey, old man. Are you really my father? My dad’s the kind of guy who’s stuck in the Magic Tower longer than he ever is at home, you know.”
Watching his youngest son spout drunken nonsense, the marquis closed his eyes.
“Lord Tamer, I’m sorry you had to see such an ugly sight. It’s shameful, but this is my son’s-”
“Then why’ve you gone all wrinkly, huh? You’ve turned into a bent-up old fossil in just a few years, so how’s a son supposed to recognize his own fatherrr?”
The marquis’s eyes snapped open. Even Ho-yeong flinched at the force of it.
Character stats increased! Ashk Iolid’s combat stat has risen sharply.
The last thread of reason he had been gripping by sheer paternal restraint snapped.
“You worthless brat! Why do you think your father has gotten so old? Because of who, exactly? You miserable little wretch... A good-for-nothing son like you needs to be beaten senseless until he comes to his senses!”
Ho-yeong tried to hold him back with both arms, but the marquis shook him off.
Whoa. How is the old man suddenly this strong...?
Ho-yeong startled, wondering if Burning Blood Droplet had activated on the marquis.
“You pathetic fool. The most pathetic fool in the world! Is there no one here? Nail shut this bastard’s door, so he can’t keep stabbing at the hearts of his parents and siblings!”
The marquis started hammering Garza with the staff he’d been carrying.
“Please, calm down, Marquis. You’ll break something if you keep that up.”
“A fellow like this needs his leg bones broken before he learns anything!”
No, the problem is if the staff breaks. If that thing gets smashed, we can’t get back to doing the quest.
I don’t care if a few bones in this spoiled brat’s body get broken. But if he gets beaten to death, that’s a problem. At this rate, the marquis is going to pass out before long, too.
Ho-yeong quickly signaled to Rosta.
“Please stop your father. At this rate, someone’s going to die.”
“Father! Please, compose yourself. It’s disgraceful to Lord Byeonbangbaek. Think of Mother, who has passed away.”
Only after his daughter seized his arm in tears did the marquis finally rein in his rage.
“Huff... huff. Yes, you’re right, my daughter. I brought Lord Tamer here to make that fool into a proper man, so I should endure this. As you say, for your mother’s sake as well.”
“Please sit for a moment and calm yourself.”
Rosta settled her heartbroken father down.
Then she lifted her younger brother, who had collapsed from the drinking, and got him upright.
“Garza, please, come to your senses. If Mother saw you now, she would never rest in peace. I’ve brought someone who can restore your magic.”
The sight of the sister tending so devotedly to her youngest brother moved Ho-yeong. He, too, had three younger siblings to take care of.
That’s really touching... But now that I think about it, why wasn’t the marquis’s wife brought back? Was she also someone who had already died once and been returned?
While Ho-yeong was tilting his head in confusion, Garza finally came to.
“Ugh... my back. What the hell, who’s the old woman? A new maid?”
Even his own sister, however, he failed to recognize. That was only natural, really, since he could barely recognize his father.
“Ugh. I told them not to bring in some decrepit maid like this. And why’s this old lady talking about our mother? Come to think of it, old lady, you kind of look like my mom... hic.”
“...Old lady?”
Rosta’s tears, which had been streaming nonstop, came to an abrupt stop.
“Yes, old lady. Looks like an old maid who never got married, too, so if your face isn’t pretty you ought to at least wear makeup-”
Smack.
Garza’s head nearly twisted clean around.
“...Princess?”
“...Rosta?”
“...Young lady?”
The others watching him all froze along with him.
“Garza, look at you. So your sister looks like a maid?”
With one hand gripping her brother’s throat, Rosta used the other to slap his face mercilessly.
“You bastard! Your sister works herself to the bone day and night taking care of you, and you call me an old lady? You filthy little shit, do you want to die? Want me to send you to join Mother? Yeah, maybe that’d be better than living like this. Die!”
Character stats increased! Rosta Iolid’s combat stat has risen sharply.
Ho-yeong was genuinely intimidated by the terrifying force of it.
I thought she was a plain, kind sort of noble lady, but she’s terrifying. Worse than Her Highness the elder sister.
To think a mage who couldn’t even properly handle aura could show such killing intent.
“Old maid, is that what you said? You think I want to be unmarried? You think I don’t want to go to balls and social gatherings? I couldn’t for years because I was busy serving your useless ass! What do you mean, makeup? I’m crying just looking at your miserable face, so you think I’ve got the time to put on makeup? Fine. We’ll do makeup. Since the holy knight is here too, maybe I should make your face into makeup. Want me to burn you with magic, or burn you with holy power?”
Rosta looked around, spotted Ho-yeong’s sword, and reached for it.
“Excuse me, may I borrow that sword for a moment? Garza, you’ve had a hard time all this while. Now it’s time to split your head open a little, too.”
“P-please, calm down. Just for a moment, let’s all settle-”
“Yes, yes. We should settle properly. If I’m going to cut your throat, I need to hold it nice and steady. Thank you for the advice, Lord Byeonbangbaek, coming from a former knight. Peach, would you grab the brat’s neck for me?”
Seeing that she had completely lost her reason, even Peach grew afraid.
“This is the first time I’ve seen Lady Rosta this angry. Even when some maid spilled filthy water on the several-thousand-gold dress she wore to the Noble Assembly ball, she just smiled and forgave her...”
In the end, Ho-yeong had to use Edification to calm her down.
“Ugh. What a nasty temper, that old lady has.”
Garza staggered to his feet.
“Huh? What, Peach? You’re Peach, aren’t you?”
The drooping lids over his eyes flew wide open.
“It is Peach. Heh-heh-heh. I’ve been wanting to see you night and day. You’ve missed me too, haven’t you? Then you came because you missed your master. Let me hold you once.”
“Young master, you really are something. You fail to recognize your father and sister, who have worried about you night and day, yet somehow you know my face straight away? Master. Shall we begin now?”
Peach flashed a smile at her former master, then signaled to her current one.
“Now then, I think the guardians should step outside for a bit. Please wait outside and leave this to us.”
Ho-yeong, reading the room, quickly ushered the marquis and the second son out.
* * *
Peach smiled at Garza, who was drooling all over himself.
You want to lay hands on me that badly? Then I should be allowed to lay hands on you too, shouldn’t I?
Heh. Of course. Go on, touch me as much as you want. The one who tells the other to stop loses.
Oh? Really? Then how about this: the loser has to do whatever the winner says. How does that sound?
Excellent. On my honor as a marquis’s son, I promise it. Let’s enjoy ourselves to our hearts’ content tonight. You can even climb on top of me if you like!
You promised.
And Peach was faithfully keeping that promise.
“Knife-hand strike! Fist jab! Backhand strike! One-two punch! I’m doing this right, aren’t I, master?”
“Yeah. You’re doing great!”
She wasn’t using any kicks, only hand techniques, and she was laying them on Garza one by one.
“Aaaagh! Gah!”
It was a clear demonstration of how far her martial arts training had come.
“But Peach, aren’t you beating him a little too hard?”
Even Ho-yeong, who had initially enjoyed watching, had started swallowing dryly.
“Beating him? Whoever heard that would misunderstand me~ I’m just teaching this little wastrel some manners. Didn’t you say so yourself, master? Taekwondo begins with etiquette and ends with etiquette.”
Garza kept trying to get up out of stubbornness, but each time Peach’s fist or palm strike sent him sprawling again.
“Don’t worry. I’m not using aura, so he won’t die.”
Still smiling sweetly, Peach climbed onto Garza’s waist and pressed his shoulders down with her knees.
“You said I could climb on top of you, young master? I’ve given you exactly what you wanted.”
The full mount position, pinning down both his lower and upper body, came so naturally it was almost elegant.
“How is it? Do you like it? I’m only giving you what you begged for years ago, and now you can’t even answer me, young master?”
Watching Peach rain down endless ground-and-pound, Ho-yeong started to step in, but then—
“Don’t stop. Even if you’re the master, you can’t break a promise.”
“Oh? Right... That’s right. It was a match that had to end by submission only, with no KO or TKO.”
Overwhelmed by that terrifying glare, he backed off.
“P-please stop.”
“Already? But you said you wanted to enjoy yourself all night long.”
“T-th-the... stop it. I was wrong. It was all my fault, all of it, so please!”
Peach clicked her tongue and rose from him.
“Peach, is your hand okay? There’s blood all over it...”
“It isn’t my blood, so I’m fine. But I don’t have anything to wipe it with. This room is filthy, isn’t it? Yet you made me disinfect myself every day. Ah, look, there’s something right here. This will do nicely.”
Peach uncorked a bottle of clear distilled liquor and poured it over her fist.
“This one could use some disinfecting too.”
Ho-yeong grasped Garza by both cheeks and let a little healing potion drip in.
“Apologize sincerely. Tell her exactly what you did wrong, how badly you did it, and how you’ll repent from here on out. Edification!”
“Uuugh... uuuugh. Wha... ?!”
Garza, whose lips had barely been able to move, was shocked.
Garza Iolid★★★★
[Stats | Grade | Base Value ~ Maximum Value]
Strength F: 3 ~ 5 (weakling. Still, his toughness is excellent.)
Intelligence A: 81 ~ 84
Magic D: 1 ~ 3
Charm B: 55 ~ 67
Leadership C: 35 ~ 43
Willpower C: 31 ~ 39 (Quirk: likes Peach too much)
Edification D: 11 ~ 15
Background
The youngest of the marquis’s four children, and the one who had possessed the most notable magical talent.
He had been full of wit and confidence, cheerful and kind, and had been expected to go far.
But after dying in an accident inside a dungeon, his life had fallen completely into ruin. They had recovered his body against all odds and resurrected him, but the aftereffects stripped him of his magic.
For a mage, losing magic was like a chef losing their sense of taste, no, even worse than that. For years after, he had wasted his youth as a broken man.
“Ah... ahyuh... owaaa!”
Seeing his status window, Ho-yeong let go of him.
“I... my magic’s back! Just a little, but... it’s definitely back! No way. Thank you, Hariad!”
“Hey, this punk is pissing me off. I’m the one who restored your magic, so why are you thanking Hariad? You should be thanking me.”
Ho-yeong flicked Garza’s forehead to get his attention.
“T-thank you. What my sister said earlier... that you were the one who could restore my magic... it was true. W-who are you, exactly? A saint sent by Hariad?”
“Hey, you little wastrel. Apologize before you say thanks. To Peach, I mean. What I just did was only open your channels enough to clear out the booze and get you thinking straight. Depending on how you behave from here, I can flood those channels with magic, or leave them bone-dry like a broken faucet.”
Now that he could precisely control the intensity of Edification, Ho-yeong had gained a fine touch.
“If you understand, apologize properly.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
Garza knelt and begged Peach for forgiveness. His face, already halved by a life soaked in liquor, was now swollen twice over from all the beating.
Ho-yeong deliberately didn’t heal his face, and that worked perfectly to stir Peach’s sympathy.
“Sigh... All right. For the sake of you, who are short on time, Master, and for Lady Rosta, who must have suffered terribly all this while, I’ll forgive you, Garza Iolid.”
“I’m really sorry. And thank you... From now on, I’ll do whatever that person and you tell me to.”
Major achievement [Mana the Gathering] attained! The final condition, “restore the mana of a being that had lost its magic,” has been completed, following “generate mana through Edification” and “increase mana through Blooming.”