The Notorious Upstart Family's Youngest Son (1)
Among the many citizens of the Spero Kingdom, very few held a favorable opinion of the Midas family. Fifty years ago, during the great war in which the four kingdoms fiercely competed for dominance over the continent, the Spero Kingdom was defeated by the Barhart Kingdom. The royal family’s members were wiped out, leaving only a handful of women and children alive.
The young king of Barhart married one of his own relatives to a surviving princess of the Spero royal line and installed him as the new king of Spero. Thus, the once-proud kingdom with its long history was reduced to a mere vassal state of what had now become the Barhart Empire.
The proud nobles of Spero rebelled against the invaders and the puppet royal family they had essentially stolen, but not every citizen shared their sentiment. Noden, the founder who had revived the Midas family, was one such person.
At the time, Noden was nothing more than a commoner with neither wealth nor title. One day, while working as a prospector, he succeeded in discovering a new vein. After the new royal family took power, they had issued a law granting prospectors who reported such discoveries five percent of the profits from the developed mine as a stake. In practice, however, this rule was almost never properly observed.
Unlike the old royal era, when mine ownership was fully recognized by the local lord, the new regime required thirty percent of mining profits to be paid as tax. If the discoverer’s share were also recognized on top of that, the lord’s income would shrink considerably. Fearing that the lord—who already had a poor reputation—would refuse to offer proper compensation, Noden chose not to report the vein to him. Instead, he informed an official dispatched by the new royal family to inspect the territory. The revelation caused an enormous stir.
The scale of the discovered vein was unprecedented, and what lay within it turned out to be magic stones—minerals valued far higher than ordinary precious metals. But more than anything else, the investigation revealed that the local lord and several anti-royal faction nobles had known about the magic stone vein for some time yet had deliberately concealed it from the new royal family.
The new king of Spero flew into a rage. The families involved were completely destroyed. In a single stroke, Noden became a tycoon who surpassed even most nobles and was granted the surname Midas by the king himself. At the same time, he was branded an enemy by a great number of Spero nobles.
Knowing full well how much he was hated, Noden Midas refrained from excessive luxury and contented himself with a comfortable life that remained as inconspicuous as possible. His son, however, Bern Midas, scorned his father’s caution as mere cowardice.
Unlike his father, who had merely clutched most of the fortune in his hands, Bern used that wealth as capital to plunge into commerce. Once his businesses gained a foothold, he extended his reach into moneylending as well, aggressively expanding his assets. Yet Bern’s excessively ruthless and vicious business practices earned widespread resentment. People denounced his family as upstarts lacking any refinement whatsoever.
And that reputation extended all the way down to his children.
“……Wow. Hated by the nobles as traitors who sold out their country to the Empire, and cursed by the citizens as a family of wicked merchants. All that’s missing now is a good-for-nothing heir to stand in the protagonist’s way as the perfect villain.”
Or perhaps that condition had already been fulfilled. After all, among Bern Midas’s many children, quite a few seemed to carry dirty rumors almost as bad as their father’s.
Shaking my head, I turned toward the mirror sitting in one corner of the room. Golden hair that somehow evoked a sense of frivolity rather than nobility or elegance. A young boy with a small frame and a face full of sarcasm stared back at me from the glass.
Chrome Midas.
It was the second name given to me after I died in a traffic accident in my previous life, and it also belonged to the character I had set as the Greedy Prodigal template in the game I used to play—Planetarium.
“If I had to get isekai’d, why couldn’t it have been something cool like the Unknown War Ghost or the Heir of Red and Blue Blood? Why this of all things? It would’ve been way easier to handle a character I’d already cleared instead of one I just started.”
Even as I grumbled, I knew I was being greedy. A second chance at life in the form of reincarnation after my previous existence had ended so abruptly and unfairly? That alone was an overflowing amount of luck. On top of that, I had been born into a wealthy household in a fantasy world where the class system was alive and well and human rights were basically nonexistent. I didn’t have to worry about my next meal. Ever.
“And the starting point is pretty early, too.”
Depending on the template, there were slight variations, but players generally gained control of their character around the age of fifteen. Anything before that was only shown as background setting or a few characteristic childhood episodes in a cinematic format, making intervention impossible. But right now, my physical age was thirteen. Moreover, I didn’t just have the fragmentary knowledge a player would normally receive—I remembered everyday life in full detail. The fact that I even retained impressions of why I had acted certain ways suggested that rather than simply possessing the boy named Chrome Midas, I had been reincarnated as him and had only now regained memories of my previous life.
As I pondered what to do from here on, a knock sounded at the door, followed by a young woman’s voice.
“Young Master Chrome. May I enter?”
I hesitated for a moment, then answered.
“Come in.”
“Excuse me.”
The one who opened the door and stepped inside was a maid with short silver hair that carried a faint blue tint. The current head of the family—my father in this life, Bern Midas—was quite the womanizer, and the maids working in the mansion were all exceptionally beautiful. If I hadn’t already seen her many times through Chrome’s memories, I might have felt a little awkward facing her.
“Young Master, the head of the family is looking for you.”
“My fa—… Father is?”
I nearly slipped up but caught myself. Whether she hadn’t noticed or simply didn’t care, the nameless maid maintained a perfectly indifferent expression.
“My condition isn’t great right now. Could you tell him I’ll visit later?”
“I was ordered to bring you immediately.”
“No, what I’m saying is—”
“I was ordered to bring you immediately, Young Master Chrome.”
Look at that determination. Even a sword wouldn’t cut so cleanly. Realizing that nothing I said would make a difference, I followed her with a somewhat sour feeling.
It probably won’t be anything too serious.
An unexpectedly well-featured middle-aged man. That was my first impression of Bern Midas. He was neither the obese figure commonly associated with the term “greedy upstart” nor someone weighed down by excessive jewelry. However, his prominent cheekbones and sharply upturned eyes gave him a fierce look, and his gaze was so piercing it seemed to grate on the nerves of anyone who met it. Especially right now.
“You will accompany me on the next ‘job.’”
Without a single word of formal greeting, he stated his business the moment he saw my face.
“I’ll assign you a subordinate. Watch what he does and learn. You’ll be handling it yourself before long, so pay close attention.”
That was it. No specifics about what I was supposed to do, whether I could manage it, or what my opinion was. He had given an order, so I was to obey. A one-sided notification and nothing more.
Before I could even stammer a response, the audience was over. The cold-faced maid from earlier was waiting for me after I was practically chased out the door.
“I will guide you to Sir Dorp. Please follow me.”
“……Excuse me, but I am my father’s biological son, right?”
At my question, the maid’s doll-like, indifferent expression changed for the first time—subtly. It was the look of someone wondering, What on earth is this kid saying?
“Yes. Among the three siblings born to the head of the family and his lawful wife, Lady Roselia, you are the youngest.”
That’s a relief. For a second I thought maybe I was some kid they’d picked up off the street, given how frigid both this maid and my so-called father were acting. Speaking of which—
“Then, do you know about my siblings born from mothers other than my own? I don’t remember ever meeting them.”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot speak about that.”
“Why not?”
“I cannot tell you the reason either.”
“……”
From the maid’s attitude, I couldn’t help recalling the childhood episode of the Greedy Prodigal that I had seen in that short cinematic format.
His childhood was stained with blood and desire.
The biological mother of the Greedy Prodigal was poisoned to death not long after giving birth to him. From a young age, he himself suffered countless assassination attempts.
Even blood relatives could never be trusted. On the contrary, they were the greatest threats to his life.
The head of the family silently tolerated this infighting, intervening only when his wives or their children caused harm to the family’s interests.
Because those few lines perfectly encapsulated the kind of life I would have to live from now on.
And so the Greedy Prodigal killed everyone who ever pointed a blade at him and seized the position of successor.
It looked like my death flags had already been planted from the very beginning.