Family Feud and the Meddlers (3)
Goldius Domain. This place in the southern reaches of the Spero Kingdom carried a long and tangled history.
The original lord of Goldius had been a baron, a fervent supporter of the old Spero royal family. When the kingdom fell to the Barhart Empire and a new royal house rose with their backing, he refused to accept it. He plotted the restoration of the old dynasty and the destruction of the new one, quietly gathering strength alongside like-minded allies. To fund his anti-imperial activities, he ruthlessly exploited his own people. He knew about the magic stone mine within his lands but deliberately concealed its existence.
Revealing the mine at that point would only have enriched the new royal family. More importantly, magic stones held value far beyond currency—they were strategic resources. He intended to keep the mine as a hidden card for the full-scale war to reclaim the kingdom that he believed was coming.
In the end, the baron’s plan collapsed. No matter how deep his patriotic zeal, to the people of the domain he was simply a greedy man who squeezed them dry without giving anything back. A handful of old friends and elite retainers educated in loyalty to the old royal house stood with him, but their numbers were pitifully small. Ordinary soldiers and the lower ranks felt nothing but resentment.
The troops assigned to guard the mine were lax at best. In the midst of those sloppy defenses, a miner who discovered the vein realized that reporting it directly to the money-blinded lord would earn him no proper reward. Instead, he informed an official of the new royal family. What happened next was well known to everyone.
The Goldius lord and the nobles who had joined his scheme were crushed beneath the new royal family’s iron fist. The miner who had revealed the mine received the Midas name, yet was branded a traitor to the old dynasty and a sell-out. The Goldius Domain and its attached magic stone mine became direct territory of the new royal house.
And now, decades later, countless carriages were converging on that same ill-fated land.
“If someone saw this, they’d think some big shot was throwing a banquet.”
In the unnecessarily grand mansion at the heart of Goldius Domain, I watched the procession of carriages through the window and muttered sarcastically. Fiore set a teacup down in front of me.
“In terms of actual influence rather than title, he really is a big shot. Just look at this, for example.”
She ran a fingertip lightly along the rim of the cup. The tea set, imported from Morian, was elegantly colored, and the delicate fragrance rising from it proved its supreme quality. The furniture in what was supposedly just a guest room was also far too luxurious and extravagant for its purpose.
“People call us rootless upstarts, shameless lowborns, and heap all kinds of abuse on us, but notoriety is still a form of fame, isn’t it? If the Midas family had truly been nothing, we never would have drawn this kind of attention in the first place.”
She had a point. If the Midas family had been powerless, no amount of quiet support from the new royal house would have let us survive while tearing into the old royalist nobles, running a loan-sharking business that bled people dry, and still maintaining our reputation. Even though it was business-related, the fact that Theo Midas—one of the heir candidates—had sat down face-to-face with Marquis Magnus, one of the kingdom’s most powerful nobles, said everything.
Just as Fiore said, while we lacked titles, the power the Midas family wielded could already slap most nobles across the face. The academy was an exception, of course. It was a crucible of connections; no mere rich merchant’s son could throw his weight around in a place where imperial and royal family members walked about as students.
“Still, wasn’t this supposed to be a gathering of our blood relatives? I knew Bern Midas wasn’t exactly restrained below the waist, but he has way too many children.”
“Not all of them are siblings. There will be people like Miss Ligret—guards and personal attendants. Spouses and children of the blood relatives may have come along as well.”
Spouses I could understand, but children? That seemed a bit… fast. Some of them looked well into their mid-to-late twenties.
Just then the door opened. Theo returned with a somehow exhausted expression, accompanied by Ligret—who I had sent with him as a bodyguard—and Dorf, who had tagged along.
“How did it go, brother? Did you get a look at the face of the guy who started this mess?”
Theo shook his head at my question.
“No matter who I asked among the servants, they all claimed not to know where he was. The innermost room looks suspicious, but the layers of guards made it impossible to get anywhere.”
“If you’d left it to me, I would’ve opened a straight path.”
“No, that’s… a bit much.”
Ligret’s blunt remark made cold sweat trickle down Theo’s cheek. I’d sent her along because I didn’t know what might happen, but it seemed like I was only adding to his stress.
Dorf spoke up from the side.
“Among the other family members, there are some who wish to meet the head of the house, but in truth, far more are looking for Lord Theo and Young Master Chrome. How would you like to proceed?”
“Theo I understand, but why me?”
Dorf gave me a look that asked if I was seriously ignorant of the reason. Fiore answered in his stead.
“Because you’re the first Midas to become a noble. And not just in name—you hold a proper, productive domain. A noble of the Barhart Empire, not even Spero. Wouldn’t it be stranger if people didn’t try to make connections?”
“I haven’t been officially appointed yet.”
“It’s basically just waiting for the seal to be stamped. From what Lady Lyla said, it sounds like there will be a title-granting ceremony once this matter is settled and we return.”
Hmm. Honestly, it sounded like a hassle. With something clearly suspicious going on behind this incident, I’d rather spend the time on another round of investigation than deal with social nonsense.
I decided to attempt evasive maneuvers.
“Brother, I…”
Theo Midas smiled brightly and clamped a hand on my shoulder.
“Let’s go together. Dealing with the head is important, but he’ll have to come out when the appointed time arrives anyway.”
“Even so, you’re the one handling the merchant group’s work. There’s no need for me to step into something like this. It might even weaken your presence.”
It was a decent excuse even by my own standards, but Theo clearly had other ideas.
“On the contrary, it lets me show everyone right in front of them that I’m on close terms with an imperial baron. Besides, if you’re going to operate as a noble from now on, social activities like this are essential. Best to gain experience early.”
“Wait, hold on. Baron, lord, whatever—the one actually running things is someone else. I’m just lending my name…”
“Being the imperial princess’s close aide means this is part of the job too. You can’t only take the delicious parts every time.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Little brother. Will you come along nicely, or would you prefer to personally handle all the trivial cleanup work you’ve been dumping on me until now?”
“I’ll go with you, brother.”
“I am Charlotte Midas. I still remember the sight of your mother carrying you in her belly. To think you’ve grown so big already—it fills me with pride. Come, greet your nephews and nieces…”
“Tobrak Midas. I manage a minor branch of the company. It’s quite close to Lord Chrome’s Andvari Domain, so in the future I hope we can provide each other with various conveniences…”
“Ahem, hm. Listen carefully—this is a truly groundbreaking venture. If Her Highness the Princess lends just the slightest bit of support, it will be a massive success. What’s family for, after all? Chrome, if you could just say one word…”
God, I was tired.
I’d experienced something similar when we visited Morian, but back then I had been the one beating away people trying to approach the princess. This time I was the target, so the feeling was completely different. Normally, when you’re the one ruining someone else’s plans, the sheer fun of it keeps the fatigue away, doesn’t it?
People who had barely met me were suddenly acting overly familiar and chattering about all sorts of things. Honestly, about seventy percent of it was stuff I had zero interest in and zero use for. And if it had simply been useless, that would have been fine. Among them were some who couldn’t read the room and were clearly trying to deceive or exploit me.
I mentally noted the worst ones to deal with later. I wondered how these people had survived the cutthroat competition of poisoned wine and assassins, but then I realized the opposite was true. They had never possessed the ability to compete properly in the first place, so Bern Midas had thrown them away early as tools for political marriages. That was how they had survived despite their lack of insight and competence.
True to their personalities—people who would use any means to make money—they had been aggressively involved in their children’s marriages as well. The partners obtained through such political unions usually had some flaw or another: families with long histories but no money, local powers strong in one region but weak elsewhere, nobles caught with some kind of weakness. That sort of thing.
Yeah, the academy really had been more comfortable. Even if someone pulled the same stupid tricks there, the answer was always a good beating. Here, I couldn’t just punch people I didn’t like… Though maybe I could use the worst offenders as examples?
I was pondering how to handle one self-proclaimed “older brother” who was desperately trying to hide his envy and jealousy while still flapping his tongue nonstop, when—
The main actor finally made his appearance.