How to Spend a Holiday (2)
In the original work, The Greedy Profligate had solidified his claim to the Midas family’s successor position by ruthlessly eliminating every rival. He even succeeded in reducing the family head, Bern Midas, to little more than a puppet under house arrest. In effect, he had become the true master of the Midas clan. Since this was all background lore delivered before the player even started the game, it meant a boy who wasn’t even fifteen yet had orchestrated something utterly monstrous. In a way, it was almost admirable. Just what kind of methods had he used? Had he gotten his hands on a Death Note or something?
But the real problem, quite apart from that twisted brilliance, was that the Midas Merchant Group’s overall strength had plummeted. After all, the successor candidates had been hiring assassins and mercenaries, waging bloody wars over everything from wine and carriages to terraces, and even crushing other branches of the company to secure better performance numbers. If business had somehow continued to run smoothly under those conditions, that would have been the real miracle. Many talented people died or fled during the internal conflict, and more manpower was lost in the process of Bern’s subordinates staging their quiet coup against him. A family that had already accumulated so many grudges was bound to be attacked from outside the moment any weakness showed. The in-laws who had sent their daughters into political marriages were hardly going to sit quietly once they learned those daughters and their grandsons had been massacred.
The player of The Greedy Profligate would begin the game as the family head and immediately be forced to work themselves to death fixing all those disasters. If they tried to pursue a different main scenario like enrolling in the academy, they would still have to handle the family mess on top of it. Clicking a few buttons in a game was one thing, but I had zero interest in drowning in mountains of documents and endless overtime. So instead of reenacting the original’s massacre, I handed the entire burden over to Theo Midas, another successor candidate. Unlike me, he was genuinely eager for the family head position. He accepted my shares with an eager “Oh my,” and gave me generous compensation in return. A perfect win-win.
Yet the Theo Midas sitting across from me now looked terrible at first glance. We had arranged a private meeting because we had things to discuss, but he seemed one stiff breeze away from collapsing.
“……You look considerably thinner than last time?”
“Haha, I suppose I’ve lost a little weight recently.”
That was not “a little.” His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow, and his complexion deathly pale. The handsome face that had once been enough to steal the gazes of every woman on the street… although, come to think of it, maybe this decadent, exhausted look had its own appeal? By the time I was once again reminded of the universal truth that being good-looking is always an advantage, he continued.
“I hear you’ve been quite active at the academy lately in various ways. Thanks to that, more parties have begun paying attention to our family.”
“Are there bastards viewing us unfavorably and interfering with business?”
“It would be a lie to say there have been none at all, but that in itself isn’t particularly important. It’s hardly a new occurrence.”
I had assumed he called me here to complain that my meddling at the academy had increased his workload, but Theo Midas shook his head.
“The family’s kin are dying off.”
“…Could you explain that in more detail?”
The current head of the Midas family, owner of the merchant group, and the man who was my father by blood—Bern Midas—was a man of considerable appetites. Besides my mother, his official wife, he had kept many women, and produced many children with them. He assigned merchant group duties to those he judged useful, turning them into valuable assets, while treating those who fell short as disposable pawns for political marriages. His sons and daughters, whether they liked it or not, were forced to compete and prove their worth. The casual exchange of poison and daggers within that competition went without saying.
It was nothing new, but as expected of a wicked merchant family, their method of selecting a successor was truly something else. Most noble houses probably weren’t this ruthless. Or perhaps they went even further precisely because they lacked any real foundational legitimacy.
“In truth, the situation until recently wasn’t so bad. While others struggled to eliminate their competitors, they rarely got to absorb that influence intact. Most of it would be reclaimed by the family head, leaving them to fight over scraps. I, however, was able to obtain your full share thanks to our contract, Mr. Chrome. And though it sounds boastful coming from me, I am rather competent. If things had continued this way, I would have been in a genuine position to aim for the next family head seat. At least until very recently.”
It had begun, he said, when one of the promising candidates in the succession race met a mysterious death. That in itself was hardly surprising. As I mentioned earlier, this insane family considered it perfectly normal for successors to kill one another. But when three victims fell in succession within a single week, the story changed completely.
“I launched an immediate investigation, but found no trace of the perpetrator. Worse, new victims continued to appear even while we were investigating.”
According to Theo’s findings, the other successors had gone on high alert the moment the first three died. They had increased their guards far beyond normal levels. Yet the killings continued—as if those precautions meant nothing—without leaving behind a single piece of evidence.
“It’s a magic user. And a highly skilled one at that.”
Magic users were certainly rare, but it wasn’t as if there were none for hire. Men like Sir Kelin, who currently guarded the damned family head at the main house, moved for money. The victims’ own guards would have included such professionals, yet the assassin had broken through them all without leaving a trace. That level of skill was no ordinary feat.
“So you’ve worn yourself down to this extent out of fear that the assassin will eventually come for you?”
“If the culprit’s goal is victory in the succession war, then I am currently the most irritating obstacle.”
I nodded. No matter how capable or courageous Theo might be, he was still only human. It would be strange if he could sleep easily knowing an extremely skilled assassin might come for his throat at any moment.
I understood the feeling, but…
“But what exactly do you want me to do about it?”
Why had he called me?
Theo answered.
“You’re the one who’s been using that insane artifact called the Midas Cube to steadily drain the gold coins from the pockets of precious heirs. I thought you might be able to come up with a way to overcome this situation.”
“I appreciate the high praise, but…”
There was no evidence, no clues, nothing. Asking me to solve it out of nowhere was unreasonable. It wasn’t as if I possessed some prodigious deductive ability like the glasses-wearing boy who claimed to have an adult brain in a child’s body, or the ponytail who constantly invoked his grandfather’s name. Nor could I rely on my original knowledge as a cheat.
If I had to point to anything, I did know the location of a magical tool that could protect its owner from threats, but it was still beyond my reach. I couldn’t retrieve it for him.
When I made a sour face, Theo Midas suddenly burst out laughing.
“Haha, I’m joking. From the beginning, I accepted your shares on the condition that I would keep you from getting entangled in the family’s troublesome affairs. Dragging you into something like this now would be a breach of contract.”
He lifted the teacup from the table, took a sip, then abruptly changed the subject.
“How is Fiore? Is she doing well at the academy?”
“Of course. She’s incredibly capable. She has a way with words, gets along with people naturally, and her skill as a magic user isn’t bad either. Above all, she’s beautiful. Honestly, if she had any respectable noble surname instead of the Midas name, she would already have suitors lined up around the block. I don’t even want to think about how many people are suffering because of that damned father’s karma.”
I had deliberately spoken in a light, humorous tone to help him change his mood, but Theo only smiled bitterly.
“Her original surname was probably not Midas. Though she couldn’t have claimed any noble house’s name either.”
“Pardon?”
What had I just heard? When I turned my gaze to him, he shrugged.
“Fiore’s father is not the family head. She is my sister, that much is true, but…”
Even with the sudden bombshell, my brain—thoroughly tempered by countless K-dramas—quickly reached the obvious conclusion.
“…Your mother falsified the birth.”
“Hmm. Did you already know? Your situational awareness is so fast it’s honestly a little upsetting.”
If you have a problem with it, go complain to the industry that kept churning out one makjang drama after another, you bastard. When I simply stared at him in silence, he continued.
“Mother was one of the many women embraced by the family head. Her beauty was exceptional, so she caught his eye, but their personalities were hardly a good match. At least while she was alive, I never once heard her speak a single word of praise for him. She had another lover, and she passed the child born from that relationship off as the family head’s. It was likely for financial support.”
“And the family head never noticed?”
“He may have suspected, but he didn’t seem to care. Similar things might have happened with his other wives. In the end, the family head probably thought that as long as he obtained many useful pieces, the actual blood relations didn’t matter.”
“Among the current successors, there may be some who think that since the blood is different anyway, the other siblings can die for all they care,” he added with a bitter smile.
“Does Fiore know about this?”
“I have never said it outright. But she must have noticed already. She usually tries to hide it, but she is fundamentally so brilliant that someone like me cannot even compare.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Please do not consider that child a competitor.”
Theo looked at me with a completely serious expression, his usual playful smile gone.
“I imagined the worst-case scenario—what would happen after my death. Depending on the culprit’s or the family head’s judgment, you or Fiore might be dragged back into the succession struggle.”
“In that situation, I would already be a penniless outsider with no shares or forces left. Would they really pay any attention to me?”
“They would. The academy is that kind of place. The connections, fame, and influence you gain there can become an incredibly powerful weapon depending on how you use them. And the moment they sense you might wield that power, Fiore—who is also a ‘Midas’ and attends the academy—would inevitably become an inconvenient existence.”
“That’s quite the leap.”
“But not an impossible one.”
A heavy silence settled between me and Theo Midas.