The Successor Race
A quiet sip of tea.
Across a small tea table, Viscount Ahental, Messi, and Ereb sat in spare company, the pleasant banquet long over and the house sunk into the dead of night.
The viscount set down his cup and began with his second son.
"Ereb... do you remember the first time you said you would explore the ruins in the Forest of Resentment?"
"You were furious with me."
"I was. It came out of nowhere. Until then, I didn't even know there were ruins there."
Neither had Ereb. Looking back, he had merely taken the bait of a trap Ayres had laid—and Ayres had only found the place while hunting for a death pit in which to bury his younger brother. In a way, it had been coincidence stacked upon coincidence.
"At first I tried desperately to stop you. But I knew your stubbornness well. You were going to do as you pleased no matter what I said, so I decided that if that was how it would be, I would support you—so that at least you would be moving under my protection."
"Without your support, Father, it would have been hard."
"I'm glad you think so. But in the end you went and found your own way, didn't you? When I heard you'd made off with Frox's scrolls, I thought I might collapse."
"...I'm sorry."
"You've always done the thing first and apologized after, ever since you were small. You haven't changed a bit."
The viscount let out a hearty laugh at his son's apology.
"But it was that nature of yours that let Erena be healed. And as head of this house, I am grateful that you even brought back materials on ancient magic that will become a great foundation for the family."
The viscount's gaze turned to Messi—a bond they never would have formed if the second son had not gone to the Forest of Resentment.
"Thank you."
At the viscount's sincere words, Ereb bowed his head.
"I'm sorry I started with harsh words after you'd come such a long and arduous way. Your decision was right after all."
The viscount's voice paused, then went on.
"Now tell me, Ereb. Not just the family—the people of the City of Ahental all know of your achievements. You must want something."
He had felt it from the moment they were asked to take tea together at this hour, apart from the rest. Ereb knew his chance had come. He swallowed dryly and laid bare the grand dream he had been carrying.
"Yes. I thought as much. Just like your brother."
The viscount was not so oblivious that he had missed the struggle running beneath the surface between his sons. He knew, too, that it was no close contest—that it had been a one-sided dominance by the eldest.
I had thought that wasn't so bad, either...
And so he had gone on watching, and doing nothing. Power struggles between brothers were common as rain in noble houses; so long as they did not go as far as killing each other, he had considered it acceptable. When one of them won, he had planned to provide the loser with some foundation to go on living, and hand everything over to the victor.
He had assumed that victor would be his eldest, Ayres. He had even been gradually delegating the lord's authority, stepping through the proper procedures—when all at once the second son had come bursting out like an awl from a pocket.
"But, Ereb. Isn't it already too late for you to inherit this family's entire web of power? The headship of House Ahental... requires political shrewdness."
"Where do you think the strength of House Ahental comes from? Money? Of course there was a time for that. But our family has been a house of founding merit, laying year upon year, for over three hundred years now. Three hundred years ago it would have been nothing but a nouveau riche's money games—but if you keep that up for three hundred years, do you know what it becomes?"
He had not asked expecting an answer from his second son. But against every expectation, Ereb replied as if he knew it well.
"Power and cartels, Father."
"...If you know that, then you understand this seat is not an easy one. Against men who will not accept even the slightest loss, you must know how to distinguish what to give and what to take. But you... lack that ability."
"Do you believe Elder Brother could do it?"
"Ayres, at least, would not take a loss. Of course that boy's shortcomings are clear enough..."
The viscount smiled, bitter. That look said he knew Ayres's worse nature as well as anyone.
But Ereb's answer had already been decided.
"If Elder Brother can do it, then so can I."
A resolve never to fall behind his brother burned in his son's eyes.
Yes... how was he supposed to stop that stubbornness of his.
"And with this guy Messi, we'll make it work somehow."
"Haha. So you don't even bother hiding that he's your man in front of me now. Still, he is a benefactor to me and to this house—use honorifics in public."
The viscount turned his eyes to Messi.
A private audience had been requested. Ereb quietly rose and left the room. Now there were only the two of them.
"Did Sir Messi teach that boy?"
Coming in with a thrust from the start.
"No. He seems to have realized a great deal on his own."
"Haha. The boy carries himself like a different person before and after the Forest of Resentment. How could that be his own realization alone?"
The viscount laughed as if he knew everything. Even so, Messi would not officially admit it. There was a world of difference between a man who woke of his own will and changed, and a man changed by a hand working behind him.
"Ereb has found someone beyond his station. I suppose it's all that boy's fortune."
"You flatter me."
The viscount drank his tea, gazing at the full moon hung in the night sky. Then he spoke again.
"Sir Messi is now a benefactor of our house, and of mine. So tell me what you want. Don't think of projecting your desires onto Ereb."
"Project? There's nothing of the sort. Becoming the head of the house is the young master's own goal and ambition."
"However it may be, the reason you want to help that boy's ambition is because there is something in it for you, is it not? So I am telling you to speak. You are already my benefactor—there is nothing I could not give you."
"If you wish it, there is no reason I could not speak. But those words sound rather as if you mean to grant it yourself, and that I should take my hands off the young master."
The viscount let out a long breath.
"That's right. I am not a man who wants discord. Until you appeared... the board was tilting toward Ayres."
"But in a mere handful of days, the second son's name is on every tongue in the territory. Well, if one dismisses that as a light matter, it amounts to little. But a boy who couldn't even manage that until now is showing an entirely different face in just a few days. Going forward, there will be those who place their hopes on Ereb, and they will try to line up behind him. When that happens, the family will split in two, and an irreversible struggle will be a certainty."
The viscount did not want a fight between brothers. Was it because he had seen perfectly sound houses ruined by the quarrels of their children? Or was he hesitating at the thought of blood spilled between brothers?
From where Messi stood, Viscount Ahental was a man who would worry about the latter. On the surface he made political choices, and he cultivated the image of a man more concerned with the former...
But he had never become that kind of man. And so Messi decided to apply a little shock.
"Did you know, Viscount?"
"...?"
"The young master did not find the ruins in the Forest of Resentment by his own power."
"Then who told him?"
"The First Young Master did. Why do you suppose he did that?"
Messi did not need to explain further. The viscount was a man who would understand from those words alone. As expected, he grasped it. His face went pale.
"Already—far earlier than you think—the fight that spatters blood has begun. The line you were so worried about was crossed some time ago."
"Ayres, that boy..."
"That isn't all. The young master hasn't particularly brought it up, but... he went through even worse in the Forest of Resentment."
Messi laid out what had happened in the forest. The falsification of the Sky Castle's records. Roud's betrayal.
The viscount, who had been listening quietly, asked in return.
"What is your intent in telling me this only now?"
"Because now you will believe my words a little. As you said yourself—I am a benefactor, am I not?"
"So... you want me to punish Ayres? For trying to throw his younger brother into a death trap?"
"Not at all. What I want to say is that the blood feud between brothers started long ago. And the young master's ambition is now bound directly to his survival. It is too late to stop."
The viscount seemed to be thinking it through again. If the situation was already that far gone, his own reading of it had been dangerously naive. He had been tapping the tea table with his fingers; the motion stopped.
"You must have had something in mind when you brought this to me. What is it you want?"
"I want the young master to fight from a position at least equal to the First Young Master's."
"...How?"
"And put both of them up as candidates?"
"Right now they are only competing in the shadows. So most people do not even consider the young master a candidate. Therefore, if he becomes an official one..."