Ch.72Past (2)

Father ‘Hugo de Alzar’ and Mother Bella first met when Father was on his knighthood journey.

In his youth, when Father was full of vigor, he apparently dragged along the librarian as his companion and stirred up trouble throughout the neighboring territories…

During this time, Father supposedly accumulated quite a considerable amount of embarrassing history.

Not only was he filled with the vigor and confidence of youth, but he was also deeply immersed in ideals of chivalry and noblesse oblige, causing all sorts of incidents.

Most notably, with the reasoning that “fighting is bad,” he barged into a territorial conflict that had nothing to do with him, caused a commotion, and somehow actually managed to prevent a real war.

Then there was the time he saw dwarven war machines powered by steam engines and runes, mistook them for monsters, and charged at them with just a spear. As it turned out, they were actually cultist dwarves, which somehow led to our family receiving technology transfers from the Dwarf Kingdom.

Beyond that, whenever he heard rumors of monsters appearing somewhere, he would immediately rush to exterminate them, or he’d coincidentally meet some legendary druid and receive magical equipment as gifts.

“…Really?”

“Yes, that’s how it was. I was rather young back then.”

Father was so embarrassed while revealing these facts that he smiled awkwardly, suggesting that back then, he truly lived like a protagonist from chivalric literature, doing whatever he pleased.

…Looking at his current serious and taciturn demeanor, it’s hard to imagine him that way.

Anyway, in his youth, Father was completely absorbed in playing hero with the full support of Grandfather, who has now passed away. Even Father admitted that although the results of his actions might have been good, what he did was essentially reckless mischief.

However, there was one thing Father didn’t dismiss as mere “youthful indiscretion,” and that was his first meeting with my mother.

“Your mother… was originally a descendant of the old Baron Colland.”

“…The baron from before it became part of the Lur Barony?”

“Yes. And at that time, she was set to marry the Baron of Lur, and in that situation, your mother and I met by fateful coincidence.”

According to Father’s additional explanation, he was spending his time “playing the righteous knight” when he happened to discover a carriage under attack and rescued it…

“Was Mother in that carriage?”

“…Yes. She, your mother, was incredibly beautiful.”

Father, upon first encountering Mother—who was traveling to marry into the Lur Barony—fell in love at first sight, proposed to her on the spot, and then they eloped…

“…What? They eloped?”

“Yes, we did. At that time, I was truly young, full of vigor, and a greenhorn who knew nothing of the ways of the world.”

Mother, who was about to become part of an unwanted marriage, didn’t particularly feel love for Father at the time, but she chose to flee with him because marrying the Baron of Lur seemed worse than death.

The Baron of Lur was notorious for forcing people, even free citizens, to work as miners in his territory’s high-quality iron and coal mines.

Additionally, he was rumored to go through multiple women daily and exercise the right of first night, with such an extensive history with women that people wondered if he was a cultist of “lust” or “pleasure.”

Naturally, this madman raised an army after throwing a fit over having his future wife (to-be) taken from him, and in this process, Father returned to his territory to join the war and came to realize the reality of the situation.

This was because the chaos caused by the lunatic Baron of Lur was beyond what could be considered normal.

“…Did many people die?”

“Yes, they did. Many died, were injured, were wounded… People who didn’t need to die perished because of me. My father—your grandfather—beat me nearly to death.”

Typically, territorial wars are large-scale duels fought over territories or interests.

Therefore, unlike the total wars that K-humans from my past life might imagine, territorial wars in this world are closer to actual duels fought with agreed-upon numbers of troops at designated locations.

Since most conflicts arise from overlapping interests or economic foundations, there’s usually little civilian damage, as there’s no reason to harm the people who are both the subjects of these interests and a kind of “property”…

But from what Father says, the previous Baron of Lur seems to have been no ordinary madman.

He hired low-quality mercenaries and used his men-at-arms to plunder villages at the territory’s borders, ignored pre-war agreements by forcibly conscripting residents to inflate his forces and use them as meat shields, and more.

Even by the standards of the Frankish Kingdom lords, who are considered somewhat violent and extreme, he was excessively reckless—no, beyond reckless—an evil leader who committed many problematic acts.

To put it bluntly, the Baron of Lur’s subordinates who survived the war were dragged to the Frankish Kingdom mainland and executed as expendables to restore public sentiment. How bad must it have been for nobles to be treated this way?

The damage to the territory from the Baron of Lur’s atrocities and rampages was so severe that even though Father somehow absorbed the Lur territory, it was apparently in an unacceptable state.

Anyway, after the territorial war between Baron Lur and Baron Alzar ended with Father leading the incorporation of the Lur Barony into the Alzar Barony.

“Um… so, Father, you’re saying you got married just like that?”

“Yes. Shamefully, at that time… your mother and I truly fell deeply in love.”

Naturally, Mother and Father, who were the cause of all these events, fell in love and married, and around that time, Grandfather died due to old age, and Father inherited the territory…

“And this time, except for my father’s passing, was probably the happiest time of my life.”

“…Father. Are you alright?”

“…Yes, no. I’m not sure.”

As Father said, he was living a perfect life as a winner at that time, but the situation was already gradually declining.

Mother, who was frail, continued to deteriorate during pregnancy, and after giving birth to me, she lost her life before the priest on standby could reach her within ten seconds.

Of course, knowing the truth, I’m almost certain that “Gluttony” was behind this, but anyway, this event seems to have created the workaholic, taciturn father I know today.

And as he told me this story, he showed a strangely depressed appearance, which made me feel tension gradually rising within me.

‘…Will it be okay?’

Actually, I had originally planned to tell Father directly about Mother’s identity… or something similar.

Even if it strained our relationship or caused problems, I thought it was a matter of trust that should be maintained between family members… but the moment I heard Father’s words, I changed my mind.

I realized that this fact should never be revealed to Father, who had barely overcome the emotional wound of losing Mother.

The moment I harbored such thoughts, my intuition began to stir fiercely and intensely, constantly sending warnings.

Father already looked somewhat anxious while speaking, and if in this situation he were to learn that Mother was actually “Gluttony” when she gave birth to me, and that we don’t even know when she became “Gluttony”…

Considering the common sense of this world, which is strangely exclusive and hostile to cultists and their associates, in the worst case, there’s a possibility that Father might kill me and then take his own life.

‘…I’ll keep quiet.’

So as I firmly closed my mouth and resolved to live as if dead for the time being, Father suddenly opened his mouth.

“Well, since we’re on the topic, there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

“What… is it?”

A sudden sense of unease and warning from my intuition. Though clearly different in direction from warnings about life-threatening enemies, this warning simply meant that something I would dislike was highly likely to happen.

And this warning from my intuition became reality in a not-so-pleasant way…

“Actually, our family has received a marriage proposal.”

“Eck.”

The crisis my intuition had been warning me about was that neighboring noble families had sent marriage proposals for me.