Why Now, of All Times?
Younger sister, Yerna Darkest.
Faced with Ian's sly manner, Yerna briefly lost her words.
He had discovered a mana stone mine.
That was not the kind of news you could toss out so casually, as if it were nothing.
If anything, she would have found it harder to believe if he had been bouncing with excitement while telling her.
She had no idea how large the deposit was, or whether it would even turn a profit — but the way he spoke of it as if it were the most natural thing in the world made her suspect it might actually be enormous.
I can't believe this either.
What impressed her even more was how Ian had handled it.
Honestly, if Yerna had been in his position, she would have buried the discovery no matter what. Then the secret would have leaked, and the family would have stripped the territory from him.
But Ian's situation now was different.
"Don't tell me you deliberately went into debt with the family?"
"Hmm?"
"Don't play dumb. The fact that Father pressured you to repay Seorigol's operating funds means, conversely, that Seorigol belongs to you — not the family."
Ian smirked and gave a small nod.
"Right?"
"So that debt collection notice you're holding is the single most definitive proof that Seorigol is your territory."
Ian only shrugged, but Yerna understood.
He had planned this. Deliberately.
Thanks to that collection notice, the family could not lay a hand on Ian's Seorigol.
And what came after was even more remarkable.
The agreement with the Amelia family.
If the family ever tried to seize Seorigol by brute force, it would be no different from a declaration of war against House Amelia.
"Unbelievable."
The more she sorted through it, the more meticulous Ian's plan revealed itself to be. A situation that should have been nothing more than cooking the porridge for someone else to eat — the mana stone mine — he had completely absorbed into his own possession without suffering a single loss.
It was an event that would send massive shockwaves through the power structure of the Darkest family. And standing at the center of it was the very person she had always regarded as so pathetic: Ian Darkest.
"You... you know how to play politics now?"
At Yerna's incredulous question, Ian merely shrugged and flashed a grin.
She stared blankly at him for a moment.
In the span of a few months, Ian truly seemed to have become someone else. The old pathetic, servile self was nowhere to be found. Standing before her now was a completely unfamiliar Ian Darkest — filled with an unreadable confidence and ease.
Her gaze remained fixed on his face, but what she was actually seeing were far older memories.
In childhood, Ian had been someone Yerna looked up to.
He was different from Lionel.
Lionel put on the perfect older-brother act in public while secretly looking down on her with cold contempt. In front of others he was warm and kind; when they were alone, he treated her as if she were nothing. Unlike Lionel, who pretended to be good-natured while cleverly belittling and tormenting her, Ian — though only a bastard son — had been brilliant. At times he had even been a reliable pillar who protected her.
The Ian of those days had seemed like the only hope who might someday change this rotten Darkest family.
But as time passed, Ian grew more and more servile in his desperation to earn the family's recognition.
Pathetic.
Even when Lionel bullied him, he never fought back. Even when the family head ignored him, he only kept bowing his head.
Stupid.
Watching him behave like a slave to the family, Yerna felt her disappointment deepen.
Pathetic.
So she decided to become strong herself. Ian was no longer someone she could lean on. She would have to defeat Lionel with her own hands and take the seat of family head. The one who could raise the declining Darkest family was not the superficially polished Lionel — it was her.
So Yerna worked day and night. She took the family's finances and administration entirely onto her own shoulders and barely managed to keep the crumbling house afloat. While Lionel built his reputation outside, she quietly solidified the foundation from behind, waiting for the day he made one catastrophic mistake so she could claim the headship.
Then Ian suddenly began to shake Lionel. At first she was glad. She thought the opportunity had finally arrived. If Lionel's authority wavered, she could slip into the gap and take the seat for herself.
But Ian did not stop there.
He grew stronger, sharper, more influential by the day — as if he had returned to the self he had been as a child. And now he had brought back an enormous sum of one hundred fifty million renes, even going so far as to protect Seorigol by leveraging the Amelia family.
Why... why of all times now?
Tangled emotions churned inside her. She was glad Ian had grown strong again — glad he seemed to have returned to the person she had once admired. But she was also afraid. Afraid that this newly powerful Ian might stand in her way.
"Yerna? Are you okay?"
She had believed the perfect chance to check Lionel and seize the family had finally come — only for an unexpected variable named Ian to appear. If he had truly awakened and clashed head-on with Lionel, the family might be swallowed by uncontrollable internal strife and collapse completely. That anxiety crashed over her.
"...Yerna, are you... crying?"
Ian's cautious voice reached her. Only then did she realize hot tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"Who's crying...!"
She hurriedly wiped at her eyes, but the tears that had already broken free would not stop.
Plip. Plip.
Thick droplets struck the dirt at her feet.
What on earth is wrong with me?
Yerna knew the answer.
She had wanted to be recognized. She had wanted the world to know that the one who could save this dying Darkest family was not that flashy surface-level Lionel, but Yerna herself. She had believed it. She had staked everything on becoming that person.
Lionel would someday take one spectacular fall, and she would seize that moment to claim the headship. That was how she had always endured.
But.
"...Why of all times now."
Yerna muttered the words toward Ian like a reproach.
That second-son bastard who had always been pathetic, contemptible, and beneath her notice — why did he have to transform so magnificently now, of all times, and plant himself squarely in her path?
Her clenched fist ached hard enough to draw blood. Worse than the pain of her nails digging into her palm were the nameless emotions boiling in her chest, twisting her from the inside.
Fist still clenched white, Yerna glared at me with bloodshot eyes. Indescribable, tangled emotions swirled in her gaze.
...This might be bad.
I felt it on instinct. Handle this wrong and my life could actually be in danger.
Yerna seemed to feel a certain satisfaction that I had changed. She would deny it, but she was not the type to wait outside for someone like this. At the same time, the thought that this changed version of me might interfere with her plans seemed to fill her with unbearable rage and anxiety.
No matter what anyone said, Yerna wanted the headship of this family more than anyone alive.
A dual dilemma. It felt like a perfect portrait of the chaos that defined the Darkest family itself — this dying, rotten house where every relationship had been twisted out of shape by the existence of Lionel.
"Someone like you, Ian...!"
Yerna finally found her voice. It shook roughly.
"When you're gone you make me worry myself half to death! And when you finally show up, all you do is act pathetic and make me despair!"
Her cry was closer to a scream.
"And then — again! Why do you turn around and appear looking so incredible that you leave people completely confused! If you fight Lionel Oppa right now, this family... this family will truly lose everything!"
I understood how she felt. At this point it was no exaggeration to say the Darkest family was being held together by Yerna alone. To someone in her position, a direct collision between me and Lionel was no different from the family's complete collapse.
"Don't worry, Yerna."
"What kind of nonsense is that! I should never have worried about you in the first place! You stupid idiot! Just stay the fool you were as a kid! You dumb older brother! I'm going to take this family! As hard as I've worked myself to death for it, I will be the one who saves this place!"
I had spoken as calmly as I could, but none of it seemed to reach her ears. I let out a small sigh and offered the one line that might actually settle her.
"Then do it. Because today, I'm leaving this family."
"You just... stay pathetic and worthless and stupid like before! Don't get in my way and— wait. What did you just say?"
"Do exactly that. Today I'm going to formally tell the family head. That I'm leaving the Darkest family."
A suffocating silence fell.
I was breathing just fine. Yerna was the one gasping.
Her face twisted through disbelief, shock, and pure confusion. Her expression kept changing as if she were swapping masks — crumpling with anger, then smiling in sheer incredulity, then going blank, then furrowing her brow in deep thought all over again.
And after a moment, she tilted her head slightly to one side and gave a reaction I had not expected at all.
"...Huh?"
It was a girlish look, as if she had not understood a single word of what I had just said.