The Worst Choice (Revised)
What is this?? I've never seen a crest like this before. This is... a potion... and a hand??
It wasn't a crest representing the elements, nor did it look like one meant for guarding anything.
...Did I just fail the gacha?
Still, did this body have talent after all? Two or more crests had manifested, so... I hurried to look up what they meant. Two had to be better than one.
"I'm fucked..."
Yeah. Truly, thoroughly fucked.
The potion, it turned out, was the crest of Alchemy, and the hand the crest of Creation. Both were abilities with absolutely no use in combat — talents suited to a production class rather than a fighting one. In a land where monsters burst forth without end, where Gates opened at all hours and battle against monsters was a fact of daily life, they were talents with no use whatsoever.
And in practice, that was exactly why most people scorned the profession. No production class could matter in the middle of ceaseless warfare. At best, its bearer could brew a healing potion or two — and even that, weighed against the time it consumed, was far outdone by simply bringing a priest along. In the time it took to create anything, pouring mana into the edge of your blade was infinitely more efficient in a fight.
Of course, handled cleverly enough, success might still be possible. But it was a talent that made climbing the social ladder a damned hard road. And he'd drawn it here of all places — the Reinhardt family, the house the world called a family of knights.
I'll have to report to the Duke tomorrow... and what am I supposed to do about the look on Mother's face...
No. This couldn't stand. I had to find a way.
I tried to start sorting out how to salvage the mess right then and there, but contrary to my intentions, my eyes slowly began to fall shut. I'd guzzled down far too much mana and slipped into a state of mana exhaustion.
Ah... wait. If I fall asleep like this, I'm seriously—
Someone once said that the weight of one's eyelids is heavier than a thousand pounds. That saying, as it turned out, was dead true.
The next morning, I had to seek out the Duke and report the previous night's results. Naturally, I had no idea where in this sprawling mansion he might be, so I asked a maid scrubbing the staircase.
"The Duke is in the drawing room, young master."
The drawing room — a chamber ordinarily built for receiving guests. It was furnished more antiquely than anywhere else in the house, so I found it without difficulty, and now I stood directly before its door.
A door with an unmistakably old-fashioned pattern and a golden handle — beautiful enough to have stepped straight out of a fairy tale, so lavish you could tell at a glance how much money had been flung at it.
"Father... it is Jenison. I have come to report that my crest has manifested."
Knock, knock—
I stood there and stated my reason for coming, and before long the door opened of its own accord.
Creeeeeak—
"...!"
In that instant, a savage pressure rolled over me, one that made my body flinch all on its own. Though it was morning, the curtains had been drawn and not a ray of light entered the room — and within that darkness, the doll-like figure of the Duke slowly took shape.
The Empire's traditional military uniform, hair and beard gone snow-white. The rugged muscles and old scars covering his body somehow made his frame seem larger still — and by comparison, my young head bowed automatically. This head of mine, which I had hardly ever bowed in my life, save for when I'd been a slave.
"So... the crest appeared...?"
Stacks upon stacks of documents sat before him. Without lifting his eyes from the papers in his hand, he posed the question with perfect composure, and his gaze was steeped in indifference.
...He truly was, in every respect, not a good father. I don't know whether that was just me failing to adapt to aristocratic society, but at the very least, in the twenty-first century a father like that would have made the news. Under a headline like "The Father Who Never Gave His Child a Single Ounce of Love."
...By the way, how do I break this to him?
For the record... he was extraordinarily blunt and severe. And he carried immense pride in his family. In other words, once he laid eyes on my crests, he was a man who would absolutely not stay quiet.
"Speak. Why can't you talk?"
Still, there was nothing for it. I had to tell him. I couldn't lie my way out anyway — the thing was stamped right there on the back of my hand. My last pretext for falsifying anything had vanished.
"My crest... has appeared."
"Which crest?"
"...A potion. And a hand."
"...What?"
Less than a second passed before a killing intent that nearly stole my consciousness seeped out of the Duke, and this body, still so young, laughably came within a hair of fainting on the spot. From that single flash of killing intent alone.
"I'm sorry..."
But thanks to that, one thing became abundantly clear: the Duke was in an exceedingly foul mood.
The Reinhardt family I had been born into was a distinguished house among distinguished houses, one that had produced countless knights each worth a hundred men. Their territory pressed close against the Monster Forest, so their knights were steeped in combat experience. My elder brother Allen, with no rival among his peers and already at the level of a Junior Knight. My younger sister Aria, whose elemental magic was said to rival even the Renuiel Ducal House. And beyond them, a great many capable retainers besides.
And from a family riding so high, a desk-job alchemist had appeared? From his own bloodline, at that? Honestly, I couldn't blame him — in an aristocratic society like this one, the Duke's fury might well have been only natural. Every noble I had ever seen had prized honor above life itself.
Crunch, crunch— the sound of the Duke grinding his teeth.
If the truth came out, the nobles would mock the family, and beyond a doubt, so would the servants and the commoners. And my mother was a commoner besides. They would seize on that and gnaw at it without end. When a family's name stood high enough to be counted among the Four Great Families, there were always those waiting to whittle it down.
Having laid everything bare, all that remained to me was to wait out the Duke's endless silence.
The Duke thought. Of what had to be done to keep the family's honor from falling.
...For that boy to succeed by making something of those useless talents... The risk was enormous. To think such a shallow talent would spring from a family that had lived by the sword alone. Could that boy — a mere bastard son — ever deliver results worthy of his expectations? If he could, it would surely profit the family...
That was likely beyond him, judging by the boy's usual conduct.
But this was Jenison, sickly since birth. He could not even wield a longsword properly, and unlike his younger sister, he had neither outstanding mana reserves nor any talent that touched on magic. And if he staked the family on such a boy and failed?
The family's prestige would take a nosedive, without question. Everyone would sneer that a freak like that had crawled out of a house that had raised and produced swordsmen for generations.
In that case... better to lay it all at the boy's feet...
Even if he hid the boy for now, the truth would out when he entered the Academy. Discovery was merely a matter of time. A family of knights, one of the Four Great Families, had produced such a useless creature — countless nobles would pick the story apart and savor every morsel.
But... if all of it could be blamed not on the family, but on the boy alone... Not that such a child had sprung from their line, but that the boy's own qualities were, from the very start, utter garbage. If it could be pinned on the boy himself rather than on the family's blood...
As a father, it was unquestionably the wrong thing to do. But unfortunately, the Duke was not a man who troubled himself with such scruples. He had always been a noble mad with that insufferable lust for honor.
If it came to that, the family would suffer no harm whatsoever...
He weighed it: his son's reputation against his family's honor. For a man who bore the titles of both father and Duke, the question was far too easy.
"...Jenison. How old are you this year?"
"...? Ten... years old."
"Right. Then you will be entering the Academy."
"...Yes."
"Listen well. Once you enter the Academy..."
You are to become a delinquent.
At the Duke's words, I stood dumbstruck for a good while. I was busy wondering whether he was actually saying this in his right mind.
Of course, I had never expected any fatherly warmth from him. The very fact that I addressed him as "Duke" rather than "Father" was proof enough that I did not think of him as my father. And apparently, the same held true for the Duke. No man in his right mind would make such a proposal to his own son. Enter the Academy — a prestigious seat of learning — and play the delinquent. And to a perfectly lucid ten-year-old, at that.
"Forgive my presumption... but might I ask why you would give such an order?"
Inwardly, I prayed he would take it back — even if only this very instant. Still, honestly, this was not a proposal a father made to his son. Between a crime boss and his underling, perhaps.
"You don't actually think that useless talent of yours befits our family, do you?"
"...."
"That is why I give you this order. If you prove that you alone are the useless one..."
"...."
"Then at the very least, the damage will not extend to our family."
It was outrageous. Was that the sort of thing a father said? To his own child's face, no less?
Of course, I knew our family was vast and powerful enough to be counted among the Four Great Families, and that it had enemies to match. But I could not comprehend his words or his conduct at all. Perhaps he feared a blemish on his name. Perhaps he loathed the thought that such a nobody had wedged himself into the family he had built through his own efforts. But to cast out his own flesh and blood over so petty a thing — and he would have to worry about this being exposed someday, too. It was unthinkable that he hadn't considered the chance that I might one day erupt.
"...Judging by that face, you have plenty of complaints."
"....."
How could I not? My own father was disowning me. I was certain that anyone else standing in my place would have protested all the same — and just as I thought so, the Duke's mouth opened again.
"Your mother. Sariel."
"....?"
"Her health seems to be failing... Do you think she could survive out there, living in this cold?"
The expression I saw on the Duke's face that day was more depraved than any human being I had ever faced. And in that moment, I had to make a choice.
Mother had always been frail. If she were truly cast out to live in the open as he implied... something in her might genuinely break — and not merely in body.
Yet accepting his proposal filled me with dread for everything to come. This peaceful life I had finally obtained. This precious life I had clawed out for myself, enduring every agony, every persecution, every humiliation — and I was to throw it all away, all for the sake of my mother...
"...I accept, Your Grace."
"...What did you say?"
"I will do as you will. Only — let my mother go on living here."
Funnily enough, it worked. Throwing it all away, all for the sake of my mother.
...I suppose that's only fitting. A mere ten years of life. Across seven whole reincarnations, the love I had received from everyone else combined amounted to less than what she had given me in those short ten years.
It wasn't even close.
