Family Feud and the Meddlers (7)
Turning back the clock slightly—to the moment right after the explosion.
“What the hell happened?!”
“It’s an explosion! There’s been an explosion!”
“Put out the fire, quickly!”
The inside of the mansion had literally turned into complete chaos. This was a place packed with the oh-so-precious members of the Midas bloodline. Even a simple kitchen fire would have caused pandemonium, but a sudden bombing? And the site of the incident was the room of the newly appointed head of the family, no less.
The moment they saw the head of the family collapsed inside the smoke-filled room and the silver-haired girl clutching him while screaming in despair, everyone’s minds went utterly blank with confusion.
“Wh-where’s the culprit?! What were the guards doing?!”
“Well, you see…”
The first thing they did was look for someone to hold responsible, but even that proved difficult in this situation. When they had first been invited by Bern Midas, the members of the Midas clan had already suspected that something major might happen inside this mansion. Even if that weren’t the case, some of them were the type who casually exchanged assassins or poisoned wine with one another as if exchanging pleasantries. Showing up completely defenseless was out of the question, so each of them had brought their own personal guards—though they couldn’t be too blatant about coming to fight, so most had brought five or fewer.
Contrary to expectations, the succession ceremony had proceeded peacefully, yet the guards remained. As a result, the security system inside the mansion had become an incredibly complicated and bizarre mess. To put it more bluntly, it was an absolute disaster. Armed personnel openly roaming the mansion were simply assumed to be someone else’s guards, and there was no one in charge to control them all.
That left only the guards Theo himself had brought, but they were nowhere to be seen. All that remained were the fallen head of the family and, beside him, his younger sister who appeared to have been injured as well. In the end, the only person they could question was the head’s younger sister—Fiore.
“J-just a moment, Lady Fiore? What on earth is going on here? How did the head of the family end up like this…!”
The oldest man among the gathered clan members stepped forward as their representative and questioned her. Having already received satisfactory promises of position and profit after a long consultation with Theo Midas, he was one of the people who would be in the most trouble if Theo were taken out like this.
At the man’s question, Fiore lifted her moist, trembling eyes to look at him. The tragic atmosphere reminiscent of a heroine from a stage tragedy, combined with her overwhelming beauty, caused several of the watching men to unconsciously swallow.
“I-I don’t know. I came to greet Brother Theo before going to bed, but suddenly the ring…”
Ring?
The moment question marks popped up in everyone’s heads, Fiore suddenly looked startled. She hurriedly pulled off the ring on her finger and threw it away. The sight of the thrown ring rolling under the sofa was burned clearly into the eyes of everyone present.
Then—
KA-BOOOOOM!
With a deafening roar, a massive explosion erupted from beneath the sofa. People jumped back in shock, letting out short screams, while the guards rushed forward to shield their employers. But that only lasted a moment.
“…………”
In the silence where not even a breath could be heard, everyone’s gazes silently turned to their own hands. The fallen Theo Midas. The explosion. The ring. It was a crystal-clear, real-time presentation that even a five-year-old could understand at a glance.
Some of the people who had survived the cutthroat environment of the Midas family proved they possessed the necessary judgment and instincts—those who lacked them would have died long ago—by frantically ripping off their rings and throwing them away. Others had their guards forcibly remove the rings from their dazed masters and toss them aside.
The rest, who had been a step slower to grasp the situation, tried to remove their own rings—but at that exact moment…
Ziiiing—
The rings began to resonate.
The change was dramatic. The people who had been about to rip off their rings in panic suddenly froze with vacant, soulless expressions.
“What are you doing?! Take that off right now—!”
Slap!
A crisp smack rang out as the guard trying to remove his master’s ring was struck across the face.
“What do you think you’re doing?! How dare you lay a hand on it?!”
“Huh? But, sir…”
The master was huffing and puffing with rage, while the slapped guard looked utterly bewildered. The confusion wasn’t limited to the guards—everyone around them was equally stunned.
“No, it’s dangerous! Take it off immediately!”
“I can’t do that! How can you ask me to treat the precious ring that symbolizes our family so carelessly?!”
“Didn’t you just see the ring explode?!”
“That’s… well… anyway, I can’t!”
Those who had already removed their rings, or the guards who had never worn one to begin with, demanded that the others do the same after witnessing the scene. But those still wearing the rings refused to budge. What was even stranger was that the people stubbornly resisting couldn’t provide a clear reason for their own behavior.
It’s important, so I can’t take it off. No, I must not take it off.
Even after watching a ring explode right before their eyes, they simply shook their heads, driven purely by emotion. The others could only look on in bewilderment.
And then—
“What is all this commotion?”
That man finally revealed himself.
Bern Midas.
With the current head of the family unconscious, the appearance of the man who currently held the greatest influence caused the crowd to split apart like the Red Sea, opening a path for him. Bern Midas looked at them with an expression that suggested this was only natural, then entered the room. When he saw the collapsed Theo Midas, he frowned.
The man who had first spoken to Fiore opened his mouth toward Bern.
“Head of the family… No, Bern Midas! What the hell is going on here?! An explosion?! Did you gather us all here with this in mind from the very beginning?!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb! The rings you gave us exploded, and now this mess has broken out—and you’re pretending you know nothing?!”
“……”
At the man’s words, Bern Midas stared at him silently. His eyes were ice-cold, containing not a shred of paternal affection. It was not the pathetic look of a defeated man who had been smiling foolishly and offering up his liver and gallbladder for the past few days. This was the face of the man who had once stood at the pinnacle of the Midas clan. The speaker unconsciously swallowed.
“The rings exploded, you say. Then why are those ones you threw away over there perfectly fine?”
When Bern pointed at the pile of rings stacked in the corner, the man hesitated for a moment. Someone else spoke up in his place.
“If you’re controlling them, you could fake that much easily!”
“Fine, let’s say that’s true. Then let me ask you something else. Was Theo’s injury also caused by those rings?”
“Yes!”
“Did you see it yourself?”
“That’s…”
The man couldn’t answer properly. In truth, no one in the room had actually witnessed Theo being attacked. They had simply inferred it naturally from Fiore’s subsequent actions and the exploding ring.
“The explosion just now was loud enough to echo throughout the entire mansion. If such a blast had come from the ring he was wearing, there’s no way Theo would still have a recognizable body. Isn’t that obvious?”
There was no flaw in Bern’s logic. In reality, the explosion that had injured Theo had not come from a ring, and in Fiore’s case, the ring itself had never actually exploded. She had simply planted an Attribute Stone she had borrowed in advance beneath the sofa and staged the whole thing.
But—
“If Brother Theo had been wearing the ring when it went off, that would have been the case! It exploded while he had taken it off, so I was somehow able to heal him!”
The fact that no one had seen Theo get attacked also meant there was no one who could see through Fiore’s lie. The guards who should have been stationed by Theo’s side had already left the area after hearing Fiore’s instructions. Most of them were already acquainted with her, and before arriving at the mansion, they had been told in advance to follow Fiore’s or Chrome’s orders in an emergency. If the mind-controlled Theo had given them new orders in advance to refuse such requests, Fiore would have found another way—but fortunately, that hadn’t happened.
“How… How could you do something so cruel?! He’s your own son! Did you want power so badly that you had to stage this entire farce and kill your own child with your own hands?!”
Fiore’s tearful condemnation, spoken in a voice close to a scream, caused a painful ache in the chests of most of the people present. If they had calmly analyzed the situation, they might have noticed quite a few holes in Fiore’s story. But in this place, remaining calm and rational was nearly impossible.
The head of the family had collapsed. An explosion had gone off right before their eyes. And his younger sister was denouncing their father, branding him the culprit. The barrage of shocking events had weakened their reason, and before such weakened reason, Fiore’s performance was practically violent.
People are drawn to beauty. People feel sympathy for victims. People feel the urge to protect the weak. At this point, which side was logically correct no longer mattered. The atmosphere in the room had already completely shifted in Fiore’s favor.
Even if she hadn’t experienced the tragedy of losing everything, even if her demonic talent hadn’t fully awakened—had it not been for the foreign element called Chrome, she would have been called the Saint of Schemes. The moment she was given a stage to manipulate people, the outcome had already been decided.
Bern Midas, who had maintained a cold expression ever since entering the room, seemed to realize this as well. For the first time, his face twisted.
“…Very well. It seems I’ve lost the war of words. I had hoped to take all of you if possible, but…”
The next moment, everyone who had failed to remove their rings gathered around him as if pledging allegiance.
“What nonsense is this!”
“How dare you try to pin such an absurd crime on Father!”
“What are you doing?! Subdue that wench immediately!”
The guards who couldn’t properly grasp the situation still could not disobey their masters’ orders. They drew their weapons, and the others, sensing the threat, either backed away or drew their own. These were the people who had removed their rings and regained their senses, along with their guards.
“What are you saying?! Didn’t you hear Bern Midas admit to the crime just now?!”
“Do not insult the head of the family!”
“The head of the family is Theo Midas! Not that man!”
“Protect the head! Subdue those traitors!”
Ziiiing—
As if there was no longer any need to hide it, the rings blatantly emitted light and sound, revealing their power. The eyes of those wearing them were equally devoid of sanity.
The problem was that the number of people who had lost their minds now made up more than half of everyone present.
I managed to turn some of them back to our side before the opponent could intervene, but this is still dangerous… Those two had better not be late.
Facing the tense situation, cold sweat ran down Fiore’s back. At the same time, the faint upward curl at the corner of her mouth went completely unnoticed by everyone.
Even by Fiore herself.