How to Spend a Holiday (7)
The Master had spoken. Seize the Midas family.
Absorbing them—free from the tangled webs of noble interpersonal relationships yet possessing vast financial power and manpower—would benefit the Order’s future. At the Great One’s command, the faithful moved, and the operation proceeded smoothly. They exploited the Midas family’s chaotic succession structure. They recruited a successor candidate rich in greed but poor in ability, turned him into a puppet, and took the family for themselves.
The role assigned to her was to eliminate the other competitors so the puppet could rise as the head of the Midas. For her, it was laughably simple. She had been born with genius talent, then honed it within the Order until she obtained the qualities of an illusionist. The power to show illusions unlike reality. The power to manipulate sound. Once she had even gained a partner capable of shattering any physical barrier with ease, nothing could stop her.
Just a little further. Just a little more, and the goal would have been hers….
“Looks like you’ve come to your senses.”
“......”
Natasha, one of the Order’s devotees and the assassin who had been slaughtering Midas blood relatives, kept her mouth shut and scanned her surroundings. A sealed room with no proper windows, only a ventilation shaft too narrow for even a small animal and an entrance positioned far from the chair she was bound to. The restraint around her neck apparently interfered with mana control; any attempt to cast a spell caused her power to scatter uselessly. The lack of visible external injuries suggested she had avoided losing limbs to frostbite or dying on the spot, but in her current situation that was no comfort at all.
She had been captured. By a handful of brats, no less.
Suppressing the guilt of failing the Master’s orders and the burning hatred for the children who had interfered, Natasha glared at the middle-aged man whose features resembled the boy she had seen right before losing consciousness.
“Ha! You piece of—”
Thud!
Crash!
Her venomous retort was violently cut short. The silver-haired woman standing beside the middle-aged man had slapped her across the face without warning. Still tied to the chair, Natasha rolled across the floor, unable to hide her bewilderment. Why? If the woman had at least been insulted first, she could have understood, but she hadn’t even finished speaking.
“What the fu—”
That insult never left her lips either. The silver-haired woman who had kicked her now held a dagger to her throat. Those cold eyes, utterly devoid of emotion, froze Natasha in place. Then the middle-aged man’s voice reached her ears.
“I dislike wasting time. I also dislike pointless conversation.”
Bern Midas continued in the same cold tone.
“From now on I will ask you several questions. Answer truthfully.”
A perfectly standard interrogation opener. But Bern added a few more words.
“Of course, you are free to remain silent. No, let me be honest. I would prefer you drag this out. Feel free to waste time with useless drivel.”
His words contradicted what he had just said. The true intent behind them sent an instinctive chill down Natasha’s spine.
“Incidentally, your colleague’s mouth was extremely tight-lipped. I was quite satisfied.”
Thump.
Two lumps fell in front of the collapsed Natasha. The moment she realized they were a pair of human arms—and that their thickness and size matched her frequently seen partner—she stopped breathing.
“You people have inflicted tremendous loss on me. In other words, you owe me a great debt. I do not mistreat those who show willingness to repay what they owe. It would only come back as my own loss. However, I feel no lingering attachment toward those with no prospect of repayment. Such debts are already dead money. If the money will never be mine anyway, there is nothing I won’t do. On the contrary, it helps preserve my mental health.”
Overwhelmed by the quiet madness in his voice, Natasha still clenched her teeth. Her faith in the Master and devotion to the Order gave her courage. She shouted as if thrashing against her bonds.
“Don’t bluff! If we don’t open our mouths, you’ll never find out who commissioned this incident!”
This time her words were not interrupted by violence. She finished the sentence completely. This was proof the other party was still willing to listen, she thought, clinging to a sliver of hope. If she could just buy time, the Order would surely send rescue—
“The client? You mean Xavier?”
The name left his lips so naturally that Natasha’s face went slack in shock. Bern Midas spoke to her again.
“The moment I received custody of you lot, I immediately summoned all my children. There was no need for a long conversation.”
Behind his usual indifferent expression lurked a faint sneer. The master of the notoriously vicious merchant house, feared throughout the kingdom, continued.
“Do you have nothing to say to me?”
“If you confess willingly, I may show some leniency.”
“If anything you say deviates even slightly from what those bastards already confessed and what I have uncovered, you will face the consequences.”
With those three sentences alone, he informed the rapidly paling assassin that the others had already spilled everything.
“Choosing Xavier was wise. He lacks ability, enjoys bluffing, and is fundamentally spineless. There could be no better puppet to manipulate. But his cleanup was far too sloppy. Did he truly believe no one would trace the tail back to him and turn the tables?”
“Ah… aah…”
“The worm inside has already been removed. All that remains are the outsiders who tried to tame it by feeding it honey. As I said earlier, speak if you wish. Stay silent if you prefer. Either is fine with me. Begin, Chepe.”
“Yes, Master.”
“W-wait—”
Leaving behind a scream that sounded as if it would tear her throat apart, Bern stepped out of the sealed room.
There was the correction of the permanent seat he had promised to hand to Theo. There was the cleanup of the information his children had voluntarily offered while identifying the culprit. He had a mountain of work ahead. Though he had been dragged around quite a bit this time, properly utilizing the facts he had uncovered would yield considerable profit. As an added bonus, he had reminded his increasingly willful children of his authority. That too was one of the gains.
…Of course, there was one damned son who clearly didn’t care about any of that. The boy had dumped all the remaining tasks on him, claiming he needed to attend class before it was too late, and fled. Bern frowned, recalling the face of the extremely capable yet nearly impossible to control youth.
Barhart Empire Academy. Alchemy class.
“Hmm, Midas. Are you feeling all right? You look rather exhausted.”
“Hahaha, I’m fine. This is nothing, so please don’t worry, Professor.”
“Tsk tsk. That’s why I told you not to run wild just because it’s vacation. Proper rest is necessary, but so is adjusting your schedule for the next task. Schedule management is a core virtue for alchemists, you know. Understood?”
“I will keep it in mind, Professor.”
I answered Professor Faust’s advice like a diligent model student, but inside I felt deeply wronged. Schedule management. Of course it’s important. Who doesn’t know that? But I have a mountain of things to do and only one body!
If I had actually spent the break fooling around, at least I wouldn’t feel so cheated! Part of me wanted to skip class and participate directly in the interrogation of those assassins, but both for networking and for improving my abilities, skipping as much as possible was wiser. Only if Theo’s life were truly in danger would it be unavoidable. With safety secured, abandoning the Academy for cleanup work simply didn’t add up.
“Hey, what did you all do over the break?”
“I went back to the family estate for the first time in a while. My parents loved the skincare tonic I made in class.”
“I went to the villa. Got together with friends for hunting. While everyone else was grunting and struggling with regular bows and arrows, I used magic arrows and they were all jealous.”
“I just rented a place nearby and lazed around. Back home I could never sleep in because of constant lessons and etiquette training, so spending an entire day sprawled out felt amazing.”
“Ooh, that sounds nice! I should try that next time!”
…Haha. To think I had complained about having free time with nothing to do. I must have lost my mind. After running around for four straight days with almost no sleep, the desire to actually rest when I had the chance surged up like spring bamboo.
Frowning as I headed back to the dormitory, I ran straight into Ligret and Fiore, both looking just as exhausted as I was. We stared at each other’s faces in silence for several seconds.
Ligret muttered, “Two more days off and one of us is going to end up a corpse.”
Fiore smiled. “Then it’s a net gain. We saved Brother Theo before any of us died.”
I said, “Saving a person is a good thing, but shouldn’t there be some material reward too? Let’s grab a meal on Sunday and go over the aftermath of the incident while we’re at it.”
Without needing to decide who started it, we all burst out laughing. A few students nearby gave us strange looks, but who cared? We might not have enjoyed the break the way others did, but it had certainly been a meaningful holiday.