Chapter 73
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: My Son
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Agram picked up the teacup, then set it back down.
There was still tea left, but he had no desire to bring it to his lips.
This wasn't a place to linger in the first place.
He was the head of the Argent Family, the ones who gripped the continent's underbelly, and time was a resource to be used only when necessary.
Even his children, hailed as the next heirs, always kept a step back when speaking with him.
Lowering their gazes, choosing their words carefully, waiting for permission.
That was the order that reigned in the Argent Family.
But what about now?
A being who wasn't even direct lineage.
A child who couldn't even properly claim a spot on the family's official registry, and yet here he was, sitting in this reception room, wasting time on account of that kid.
This in itself was already unprecedented.
Of course, it hadn't felt this uncomfortable every time he'd summoned Lucas Argent until now.
That boy had occasionally produced unexpected scenes, leaving a rare spark of interest in his parched emotions.
That's why he'd watched, and that's why he'd called him in a few more times.
But this scene was different.
This wasn't mere interest, nor something to dismiss as a variable or a prank.
Someone was casually laying their hands on the order the Argent Family had built over long years.
That fact alone was enough to make this situation thoroughly unpleasant for Agram.
'Lucas Argent... So in the end, you're just a disposable piece.'
What kind of family was the Argent Family to begin with?
Generation after generation, they'd made slave trading and backroom deals their trade, forcing even those who called themselves evil to bow in fear.
They were the ones who had shouldered this world's darkness.
And on the opposite side of that darkness stood those who called themselves justice, meddling in the Argent Family's affairs at every turn.
Among them, the Raltos Family was the most irritating name.
In other words, they were like water and oil.
Beings that couldn't mix, and shouldn't mix.
Usually, it was simple.
But.
The head of that Raltos Family had come in person, declaring he would take away a bastard with only half a bloodline.
And furthermore, that bastard himself was trying to crawl into their fold because of his current predicament?
It made no sense.
'This is an insult to the Argent Family!'
Until now, it had been neglect.
There had been interest, variables, and occasionally something worth watching.
But this was different.
Handing over the Argent Family's order, their very name, to outsiders.
That fact alone was crime enough.
An insult to the family.
Agram's judgment was already made.
Summary execution.
No procedures, no excuses needed.
That was when it happened.
"For your information."
Alain's voice pierced the brief silence.
"The reason I'm offering to become young Lucas's guardian is quite simple."
Agram's gaze turned to him for the first time.
The head of Raltos.
The man who never lost his smile, even before a dark family like theirs.
"Truth is."
His smile widened just a fraction.
"My daughter rather fancies young Lucas here."
Silence.
"What?"
"...Pardon?"
Every calculation in the reception room went awry with that one sentence.
"W-What did you just say?"
Words stuttered from Agram's mouth for the first time.
The head of the Argent Family, who dominated the continent's underworld. The great villain said to have emotions worn away to nothing.
Even he was so stunned that he failed to immediately grasp the meaning of what he'd just heard, to the point he didn't even realize it himself.
"...Say that again."
His voice was low, but the pressure it carried was far from light.
Yet the response remained unchanged.
"My daughter."
Alain was still smiling.
"Misha. The girl has fallen head over heels for Lucas here."
"Is that... truly the case?"
In that instant, every order that had settled over the reception room shattered to pieces.
"No, before that—"
This time, there wasn't even time to catch his breath.
"The head of one of the Four Great Families, handing over his one and only beloved daughter to a mere bastard?!"
The other children wore faces of shock as well.
Misha Raltos.
The sole figure in the Raltos Family poised to succeed Alain as the next head.
And a child born unable to walk from birth.
Agram knew that fact better than anyone.
Because the Raltos Family was one of the Argent Family's adversarial forces.
Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will win a hundred battles.
Not just Agram, but his father before him, and generations prior—the Argent Family had deployed every means of surveillance, infiltration, threats, and lures to bring down the Raltos Family.
That's why he knew.
Even their internal affairs.
Alain Raltos.
The man himself had been born with a frail body.
High-ranking mages' healing spells, temple priests' blessings and prolonged prayers, elixirs brewed from rare herbs—every possible treatment had been tried.
Yet the root of his physical frailty had never changed.
This world's medicine and faith had both thrown up their hands.
In other words, it wasn't an illness, but a congenital constitution.
And in noble society, that judgment was clear-cut.
Constitutions were likely to follow bloodlines, and bloodlines determined a family's entire future.
Thus, being born with a weak body wasn't personal misfortune.
It was closer to a flaw etched into the family's record.
That's why Raltos was always a target of wariness.
Suitors fell into one of two camps.
Those who shunned mixing blood out of fear, or those who approached to swallow the family whole, deeming they wouldn't live long anyway.
Amid such choices, Alain had gone without a spouse for a long time.
Even after coming of age and graduating from the academy.
Then he met a woman.
Someone similar to him—or perhaps even more short-lived.
What love and events transpired between them, even the Argent Family couldn't fully grasp.
But one thing was certain.
They had truly loved each other.
And his wife, as if on a death sentence, left the world swiftly.
Leaving behind a daughter.
That was Misha Raltos, the Raltos Family's sole heir.
A body unable to move her legs from birth.
A child born from overlapping unstable bloodlines and constitutions.
Yet Alain had not abandoned that daughter.
He hadn't hidden her or turned away.
On the contrary, he loved her excessively.
Thus, it was common knowledge in noble society that Alain Raltos was a doting father.
That's why.
The shock Agram felt wasn't mere surprise.
Handing over Misha Raltos—the cherished future head of Raltos, his one and only—to a bastard?
It made no sense.
Not politically, not by bloodline, not emotionally.
So Agram was certain.
This wasn't a joke.
Not a gag either.
It was a card.
And he was the only one here who knew its weight.
"Alain, head of the family."
His voice was low and steady.
"What connection is there between your decision to become Lucas's guardian and the noticeably improved state of your health as of late?"
"Ho."
Alain raised an eyebrow.
"What makes you think that?"
"A foolish question."
The words paused, then continued calmly.
"Your current physique is disciplined enough that even I, your 'enemy,' must acknowledge it. However—"
His gaze pierced straight ahead.
"A human's essence does not change."
It was a declarative tone.
"No matter how they struggle, a commoner remains a commoner to the end. Conversely, even rolling in the mud, a noble remains a noble."
A person's fate is set the moment they are born.
That was the Argent Family's creed, the belief that had elevated Agram to this seat.
Of course—
Very occasionally, there were those who tried to escape that order.
And even more rarely, monstrous beings who truly broke free.
The world romanticized them like a false hope, calling them.
'Heroes.'
Agram despised the word.
Yet now, on Alain's face, he glimpsed the very aura he'd loathed his entire life.
Precisely, the face of one who believed they'd been saved after a hero passed by.
So he asked.
"As expected, you're hiding something."
After a brief silence, Alain's lips curved up.
"Can't fool you, can I."
He continued lightly, as if brushing it off.
"Truth is, this young Lucas here. Still just a kid, but maybe it's the Argent blood? He handles women exceptionally well."
"Get to the point."
A low urging.
"This charming fellow."
After a deliberate beat—
"Has already gotten engaged to Princess Evelyn."
"...What?"
"......Pardon?!"
The words dropped.
In that instant.
"W-What the—?!"
"Princess Evelyn...?"
"With that bastard?!"
Voices erupted from Walter, Syl, and Seratina, only for them to clamp their mouths shut immediately.
They'd just witnessed Wolfram's forced silence moments ago.
But even amid the commotion, Agram grew strangely quiet.
No—more precisely, he'd transcended shock into a state of blank transcendence.
'The fox beastkin who felled the Black Iron Lion, the abandoned elf princess, and now beyond the Raltos heir to Princess Evelyn herself... This is no coincidence.'
Those four were of different races, origins, and statuses entirely.
Their sole commonality.
All 'women'.
In that moment, a long-buried record resurfaced in Agram's mind.
In the Argent Family's history, there was a figure whose trajectory eerily mirrored this.
The one who, in a single generation, elevated a mere slave-hunting family to one of the empire's Four Great Families.
The inaugural head of Argent, now with even his name erased.
People called him.
The Harem King.
The legend was straightforward.
He hadn't relied on martial prowess or schemes, but solely on women to build the family.
Ignoring status, disregarding differences in worth, he embraced women far above his station, and those bonds brought new bloodlines, connections, wealth, and power.
Hence the half-joking tale passed down.
That the Argent bloodline carried a talent for attracting women.
Until now, he'd dismissed it.
But.
This boy's actions were tracing that legend with uncanny precision.
"How smitten must the princess be to hand over the Water of Life on a whim with 'That poor old man~'?"
The nonchalant voice continued.
"Thanks to that, I gulped it down and got better just like this."
"...Princess Evelyn gave you the Water of Life—a treasure reserved for imperial use—for something as trivial as that?"
"Yeah. If you can't believe it, just ask your own kid."
A short silence.
The Water of Life wasn't something even a princess could dispose of freely.
Especially not to the Argent Family, branded as a dark house—that choice bordered on political self-harm.
Yet she'd given it anyway.
Not from rational calculation, but something above it.
In the end, there was only one answer.
Love.
Nothing else explained it.
And that fact applied equally to the man before him now.
A man infamous as a doting father.
Having witnessed his daughter's genuine love, he'd even set aside the family's interests.
In that moment, Agram's thoughts reached a single conclusion.
Lucas Argent.
This wasn't a card to discard.
It was one he absolutely had to hold.
Agram slowly shifted his gaze to the boy.
And declared inwardly.
'This 'gem' belongs to the Argent Family. No matter the means, I, Agram Argent, will see it protected to the end.'