Chapter 60
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: New Family - 2
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The bratty twin sisters, scratched by my provocation, came challenging me to a duel.
Of course, since I had zero martial prowess, it was decided that one of my subordinates would stand in as my proxy for the duel.
I wondered if Count Mikhail, the family head, might step in to stop it midway, but instead, he permitted the duel.
However, it was postponed to the training grounds the next afternoon.
Both I and my subordinates needed time to shake off our fatigue.
As I headed back to my room for some solid rest, Count Mikhail suddenly summoned me to his study.
It seemed he had something to say to me regarding the new family.
This would be my first real conversation with Count Mikhail, who was to become my birth father, so I felt a bit tense.
Would he realize I wasn't actually Heinz Altesia?
What would happen to me if he discovered the truth?
As all sorts of worries swirled in my mind, I found myself arriving at the family head's study before I knew it.
"Just a few days ago, you were the one handling affairs here..."
The place was more familiar to me than my own bedroom, yet today it felt strangely alien.
I knocked awkwardly and asked for permission to enter.
"Come in."
Only after his voice came from beyond the door did I finally step inside.
In the short time I'd been away, a mountain of work had piled up.
Count Mikhail was steadily going through the backlog, handling it all with a calm demeanor.
There was none of the lighthearted air he'd shown when greeting me earlier.
"I'd love to sit down and chat after so long, but with all this work, it might be tough."
"No problem at all. If anything, I'm sorry—I ended up dumping work on you that I should have handled myself, my lord."
"...Who would've thought the day would come when my reckless boy calls me 'my lord.' You've changed so much, you feel like a different person entirely. I never knew you had this kind of talent in you."
Count Mikhail picked up two sheets of paper and showed them to me.
They were performance reports on the sales of Elixirs and Arachne silk.
This meant he'd grasped that I'd started these new ventures.
There was a high chance he knew about the elf migration and the beastkin slaves too.
"Do you think I'm not Heinz Altesia?"
"No. I raised you without a mother from infancy—how could I not recognize my own son's face and doubt him?"
"I see..."
It was bittersweet. I wasn't the Heinz he knew.
I wanted to tell him that his son no longer existed in this world.
But the genuine affection in his eyes for Heinz made the words stick in my throat.
I was afraid of the future that would unfold if I spoke the truth.
"You must have gone through something incredibly tough to mature like this. Even if you've forgotten your past entirely and become a completely different person, you're still my son. That fact will never change."
"Yes..."
"More importantly, I'd like your thoughts on the new family. Those new little sisters of yours must have really gotten under your skin, huh?"
"I'm fine. I can just see it as their cute way of playing around."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"You've spent all these years looking after me alone, so it's about time you found your own happiness too, Father. That said, it would've been nice if you'd given me a heads-up before bringing home the new wife and sisters. That's the part that stings a little."
I still didn't have enough of a bond to fully see Count Mikhail as my birth father.
But as the father who'd lost his son because of me, I genuinely wanted him to be happy.
I hoped he'd move on from Heinz and build a new family, enjoying real happiness.
"There were unavoidable circumstances that kept me from telling you in advance..."
"What on earth happened?"
"Hmm, I suppose it's fine to tell you now, as you are."
Even though we were alone in the study, Count Mikhail suspiciously glanced around.
Confirming no one else was there, he whispered quietly.
"Your new stepmother and sisters were slaves until just recently."
"Father, you must've been that desperate for a woman..."
"Th-that's not it! Don't jump to conclusions—hear me out!"
Count Mikhail began explaining what had happened in that foreign land.
The vast desert kingdom of Azat.
Dispatched to the kingdom to pioneer new trade routes with the Empire and deliver the Emperor's letter, he'd arrived enduring scorching sun and stifling heat. There, he held talks with the current king of Azat and sealed the deal.
The problem was that the king took a particular liking to Count Mikhail, dragging out his return schedule far beyond imagination.
"Word spread throughout the kingdom that His Majesty favored me, and soon enough, various nobles started inviting me over. Being competent is a real hassle sometimes."
"Wow, how unlucky..."
"Hm? What was that just now?"
"I said I'm proud of you, Father."
I flashed a thumbs-up to gloss over it.
Count Mikhail, thinking his son had praised him, rubbed his nose proudly with a delighted grin.
I learned then that the count's hearing wasn't the sharpest.
"Amid all that enthusiastic noble welcoming, I met Dere at Viscount Binbude Arpano's mansion."
"So, Stepmother was Viscount Arpano's slave."
"Exactly. She had quite a tragic past, in many ways."
The Azat Kingdom was barbaric in all sorts of ways.
It was a place where decent young women strolling the streets would routinely get dragged off by beggars and raped.
And the king and nobles ignored the pleas of the common folk, even ruling that pregnant victims should marry the beggar perpetrators.
As one woman's life lay in ruins, the rapist beggar went and sold his wife and children to Viscount Arpano.
"The funny part? That beggar got assassinated by Viscount Arpano without even spending the money from selling his family."
"That's beyond barbaric—it's straight-up a hellhole."
"Don't get me started. And Viscount Arpano was a pervert who fancied women with physical disabilities."
Dere and the Mess sisters were set to have their limbs severed to become part of Viscount Arpano's collection.
But the Mess sisters had an unexpected talent for combat, so they volunteered as gladiator slaves, offering to bring the viscount wealth.
In exchange, they begged him not to cut off their mother's limbs—the woman who had raised them with love.
The depraved and arrogant Viscount Arpano accepted their proposal as mere entertainment.
But as the sisters racked up victory after victory, he grew obsessed with the desire to amputate the limbs of the woman he loved.
Hoping they'd lose in the arena, he began sabotaging them in every way he could.
As a result, the sisters accumulated more and more wounds day by day.
"Dere couldn't bear to see her daughters risking their lives in those deadly gladiator matches for her sake, so she begged me to kill her. As a parent myself, I fell for her pure heart."
"So what did you do?"
"I proposed to her right there in a secluded spot, promising I'd pull her and the twins out of that hell no matter what."
"Whew!"
Count Mikhail's manly resolve drew a whistle from me.
A man's determination to save a mother and her daughters, ignoring all notions of status.
Unlike the Ketchup Young Master, there was good reason so many respected him.
"I'd devised a plan to spirit away Dere and the twins. It was all-or-nothing—one slip-up and it was over—so I couldn't tell a soul."
"That's why you didn't give me any advance notice."
Sending me a letter would've been risky; if the delivery boy peeked and snitched to Viscount Arpano, it was game over.
No delivery boy would normally read the mail, but given Azat's lawlessness, it wasn't far-fetched.
Count Mikhail nodded, confirming my guess.
"I was hesitating on the execution date, but then news of you reached me—how you'd been making waves all over the Empire. Seeing my son's proud achievements gave me the courage to launch the plan the very next day."
"So you brought Stepmother and the twins back to Altesia."
"It was eventful in all sorts of ways, but it all worked out in the end."
"Then what's with the blonde hair and tanned skin?"
"Disguises to hide that I'd stolen Viscount Arpano's woman."
Our father was a gilded sun, huh?
Count Mikhail, playing the golden sun to pull off a heroic rescue of pure love.
His tumultuous tale made me laugh even as my mind grew complicated.
My actions had triggered a butterfly effect.
Count Mikhail Altesia's earlier-than-scheduled return was my influence.
Which meant unknown variables could pop up in the future too.
"That's how I brought my new wife and daughters back to Altesia. But the twins... Viscount Arpano made them develop an extreme hatred for men—arrogant men in particular."
"No wonder they hate a rumored wastrel like me."
"It's my fault for not keeping the knights and soldiers' mouths shut. I corrected them multiple times, saying what a wonderful big brother you are, but they wouldn't hear it."
"Well, too bad."
"So, as their big brother, I hope you'll understand Mei and Sui, and embrace them."
"Don't worry. Even without you asking, I'll wrap my little sisters in love."
Of course, with the whip of love.
I was starting to look forward to tomorrow's duel.