Family Feud, and the Busybody Spectators (9)
The title Impostor twisted Bern Midas's face into a hideous scowl.
"You little—"
Before Bern could open his mouth to speak, Chrome cut him off with a lazy flick of his tongue.
"Let's skip the whole 'What do you mean, impostor?' 'How did you escape?' 'How dare you speak to your father that way' routine. We both know everything there is to know, so why drag this out? And that guy isn't exactly honest with his emotions, so you might want to fix that part too. Ah, but I guess you won't need to bother with acting anymore anyway."
He'd started by calling the man a fake in the crudest way possible, yet what followed was this bizarre, ambiguous tone that could have been polite or mocking. Whether he'd been struck at his core or his blood pressure had simply spiked from pure annoyance, Bern could only open and close his mouth without managing a single word.
Chrome pressed the advantage, speaking again as if pinning his opponent down.
"Who exactly are you? Why did you target the Midas family?"
"...Kuh! What nonsense are you spouting?! From the beginning, this has always been mine—how dare you say I'm the one targeting the Midas—"
"By the way, that 'Master' of yours seems to have less ability than I expected."
"What?"
For a moment, Bern Midas—or rather, the one wearing Bern Midas's face—couldn't hide his shock. What had this boy just said?
Whether he knew about that shock or not, Chrome continued in a perfectly casual tone.
"I mean, think about it. If you have something as useful as a ring that can interfere with someone's mind, shouldn't you save it for a much bigger plan? Using it just to swallow up one merchant family? Things like this usually get countermeasures prepared the moment their existence is revealed, so they should be saved for a decisive, large-scale moment. Is this 'Master' of yours just short on ideas... or wait, no. Come to think of it, maybe he simply knows his place. After all, that ring is clearly a defective product. Once it's taken off the finger, the effect resets completely. And magic users can resist it by manipulating the mana inside their bodies, so you have to capture them first, neutralize them, and only then put it on. It's seriously underpowered for going after high-ranking people. Since you can't touch the big powers, you figured you'd just swallow up some mediocre ones, climb the ladder that way, or use them to build up your own forces, right? Wow, it all fits perfectly! So this 'Master' really does know his place and is just playing around at the very bottom—"
"You bastaaaaaard!"
Unable to listen any longer, the impostor lost his mind and charged. But of course, Ligret wasn't about to stand by and watch.
A flash of light, a spray of blood, and the area below his knees was severed cleanly. The man who had lost his support and rolled across the floor glared at Chrome with murderous intent, as if he felt no pain at all.
"You! What could a worm like you possibly know about Master's grand design that you dare spout such nonsense?!"
"Oh, you mean the one where you crashed a perfectly fine martial tournament as an extra and still failed spectacularly? Some grand design."
"That was nothing but that fool Doube's mistake! How dare you compare that pathetic failure to Master when he had so many sacrifices and the power of the Newborn Tower—"
He stopped mid-sentence, suddenly sensing something was off. A martial tournament? Why had that come up here? He'd answered so naturally that it slipped out, but there was no way the person in front of him could have known he belonged to the Cult.
Unless... unless, unless.
If he had deliberately used the term "Master" to shake him, belittled Master's abilities to provoke his anger, and spoken as if he already knew everything in order to draw out information...
When he looked up at Chrome's face, he became certain his hunch was correct. The boy who had been wearing a frivolous, mocking expression just moments ago was now staring down at him with completely blank, emotionless eyes.
He must die.
No matter what, this young man had to be eliminated right here. No—in fact, everyone present needed to have their mouths shut permanently. And to do that...
The body that had been slumped on the floor suddenly leaped upward like a fish flopping out of water. Even in the face of that bizarre movement, Ligret showed no sign of panic as she moved to cut it down, but—
Boom!
No matter how skilled she was, even she couldn't react instantly when the opponent she was about to slice apart suddenly exploded right in front of her eyes.
Blood and chunks of flesh sprayed in every direction, obscuring Chrome and Ligret's vision as the surrounding scenery was painted a gruesome red.
Chrome muttered, sounding almost disappointed.
"Self-destruct?"
Ligret answered.
"Right as it exploded, something like a child's shadow burst out from the center. I couldn't pinpoint the exact location, though."
Chrome scratched his head, trying to console her as she frowned in clear displeasure at having let it escape. Honestly, wasn't this just too much? Even after realizing it was a fake, he'd expected something like a transformation ability, hallucination, or special disguise. How could he have guessed there was a separate main body inside?
What is he, some kind of black-shelled alien lifeform? Bursting out from inside the body?
With this, it was confirmed. The members of the fanatical cult he knew from the original story had been completely replaced. The existence of the "Tower" that had never appeared in the original, along with the unusually high number of changes to the cultists, all pointed in a much more dangerous and malevolent direction.
Chrome let out a long sigh. He still had several countermeasures left, but it would be best if he didn't have to use any of them.
A small shadow desperately fled the chaos that had engulfed the mansion. "He"—no, the girl who had been given the name Merak—ground her teeth in rage and humiliation.
Failing the mission entrusted to her by Master was already an unforgivable sin, yet she had fallen for the enemy's verbal trap and even leaked information about the Cult and Master. If she could, she would have loved to skin that hateful man alive and pickle him in salt, but breaking through Ligret with her own strength was impossible.
I'll call the Tower. If I just perform the Clear Mirror ritual, no matter who they are, they won't survive!
Of course, even Merak wouldn't come out of the ritual unscathed. This was completely different from Doube's attempt, which had been thoroughly prepared with abundant sacrifices. The Goldius Fief was hardly a major territory, and the number of potential sacrifices among its residents was also lacking.
Once the Tower was summoned, the girl would be unable to leave it until the ritual ended. If she couldn't gather enough sacrifices for the Newborn, the ritual would fail outright. Since there were no second chances with this ritual, Merak would never be able to obtain the power of the stars again.
Yet even knowing all that, Merak did not hesitate. Performing the ritual here would cost her the opportunity, but failing to do so and letting Chrome and his group escape would bring harm to the entire Cult. That was something she had to prevent at all costs.
At the path leading to the magic stone mine, in the heart of a ley line rich with mana, Merak took out something resembling a seed, buried it in the ground, and began to chant.
As if responding to Merak's words, the seed rapidly absorbed the surrounding mana and began to pulse like a beating heart. Filled with reverence for the immense power she felt from it, Merak stretched both arms toward the sky with eyes lost in religious ecstasy.
It was unbearably tragic and heartbreaking that this great power had to be used merely to kill a group of unbelievers, but she could not stop. Not if she was to repay even a fraction of the grace Master had bestowed upon her.
—Squish.
Just one more syllable. She only needed to utter one more syllable, but Merak could not speak it. Her mouth wouldn't move. Her tongue wouldn't move. Her throat wouldn't move.
"Ugh..."
What she barely managed to squeeze out with desperate resolve was nothing more than a leaking, meaningless noise that couldn't even be called a word. Stabbed by a knife coated in paralyzing poison, Merak collapsed like a puppet.
Beside her, a silver-haired maid quietly revealed herself. Looking purely at appearances, one might have felt pity for the small girl curled up on the ground, but there wasn't the slightest trace of compassion in the maid's eyes as she looked down at Merak.
No, far from pity, those eyes were filled with nothing but brutally cold killing intent. And why wouldn't they be? Not only had this creature forcibly kept her master alive when he had wished for death and used his corpse, it had then worn Bern Midas's appearance to commit every possible disgrace, tarnishing his honor, and had ultimately used him as a bomb.
If it were up to her, she would have carved the flesh from its toes to the top of its head piece by piece, just as it had done to her master. But she somehow managed to suppress that urge.
Chrome had asked her to stay hidden and prepare for unexpected situations while ordering her to capture the culprit alive. He himself had seemed half-convinced she might not obey and had tried to resolve things with their own power, but she had no intention of disobeying his command.
Bern Midas had acknowledged his defeat to Chrome and, deep down, had considered him his successor. Since Chrome was Bern's successor, she would follow his words as well. She had no idea how the man himself would react to this story, but worrying about their strangely twisted father-son relationship could wait until later.
She silently reached out toward the fallen Merak on the ground, then froze mid-motion.
"......"
Someone was watching her quietly from within the blowing wind, presence concealed. Their target was likely the girl collapsed on the ground. She prepared for battle, but fortunately she didn't need to draw a new knife. The moment Ligret appeared from afar, the presence that had been staring at her vanished.
They must have judged it impossible to rescue—or silence—the girl while facing two opponents and had chosen to flee. This time, she thoroughly restrained the fallen girl. She felt not even the slightest pity for the tears streaming down the girl's face.