Alice asked Cain several times, “Can I really speak honestly?” before finally giving her answer.
“Really, ugh… I shouldn’t say this about the supporting family, but they’re… bad… people.”
It seemed Alice had toned it down considerably, as it took her quite a while to choose each word.
“Even while you were staying only in your private training room, young master, every time they came they would act so arrogantly and cause trouble… Honestly, the support funding has been decreasing every year, no, now it’s every month. From what I hear from the servants working in the north wing, the financial situation seems to be getting more and more serious.”
“But looking at the interior of the main building, the financial situation doesn’t seem that bad.”
Alice answered with sad eyes.
“That’s all because the family head uses money meant for the north wing on the east and south wings instead. He says he can’t let the disciples who are being educated and trained use inadequate facilities. He also says he can’t dismiss the servants who have trusted and served the family all this time… So the money going out stays the same, but only the money coming in keeps decreasing.”
“I see.”
Cain rested his chin on his hand.
‘Blake Sears… I see him in a new light. To save money meant for himself and spend it on the east and south wings instead.’
Caring for the family’s members was an exemplary trait that a family head should possess.
However, you can’t keep robbing Peter to pay Paul forever.
If the fundamental problem isn’t solved, something will eventually go wrong.
“And above all, thinking about what happened three years ago…”
Alice spoke while trembling with anger, as if she was still furious about it.
“Three years ago?”
When Cain tilted his head, Alice’s eyes widened.
“Don’t you remember? You punched Hayden… in the face back then, young master. I still remember it vividly. You looked so incredibly cool then… Oh, of course you look cool now too!”
Alice hastily added.
“Back then you said that protecting subordinates was natural and nothing special, and that you would forget this incident even happened, so we shouldn’t worry about it and just focus on our work… You really did forget. Young master, you always keep your word… so cool!”
“Ah…”
Listening to Alice’s words, some memories of ‘Cain Sears’ from a few years ago surfaced.
—How dare you try to touch our Alice? You damned bastard! Take this!
—Aaaaah! You crazy fool! Fireball!
Even while taking the fireball with his body, Cain pressed forward to the end and finally landed a punch on Hayden.
After that incident, he had been pressured about expulsion using his inability to learn magic as an excuse.
‘I wondered why they gave me a grace period when they exiled me, but there was a reason.’
Blake Sears hadn’t wanted to exile Cain in the first place.
‘Cain Sears… so he had done such a thing.’
Though the method was a bit extreme, caring for subordinates was certainly an exemplary trait for someone who would become the next family head.
‘It wasn’t something I did, but then again, it was something I did. Anyway, it was commendable.’
On one hand, this explained Alice’s affection and loyalty toward Cain that she had shown until now.
Even though they had originally gotten along well, he had sometimes wondered if their relationship was really close enough for her to vow to follow and serve him even if he were exiled.
‘And now I can somewhat guess why even the servants were speaking ill of me or giving me unfavorable looks.’
Cain, who was already unable to use magic but was staying put just because he was a direct descendant, had coolly knocked out Hayden, who was specially favored by the head of the supporting family, and fallen out of favor; so naturally they couldn’t view him favorably.
‘If the support funding decreased further after that incident, making the family’s situation more difficult, then they would naturally resent me for causing it.’
Of course, it was the other side that crossed the line first, and everyone would understand intellectually that Hayden was in the wrong.
But if Cain’s actions resulted in reduced support and endangered the place where they lived, it would be hard for them to think favorably of it; which was unavoidable.
He had no intention of blaming the servants for such a trivial matter.
‘Of course, that doesn’t make the fact that servants spoke ill of a direct disciple disappear. When I become family head later, I’ll have to reduce the salaries of the servants who gossiped by one level.’
Having already planned out the distant future over such a trivial matter, Cain cleared his throat.
“Ahem. Now I remember. Hayden certainly did something deserving of punishment first.”
“Exactly. And when a son does something wrong first, the father should scold him as a father, but instead Family Head Bederman protected Hayden… There’s definitely a problem.”
As Alice clenched her fist in frustration, the sound of a door opening came from inside, and Nefti emerged.
“Sister, even so, he’s the head of a family that supports us, so you shouldn’t say such things loudly.”
“Is…. is that so?”
As Alice hesitated in surprise, Nefti continued with a calm expression.
“Just in case someone might hear, come inside quickly so we can talk quietly to our hearts’ content. Then I’ll join in too.”
“…”
Alice and Nefti recounted in detail the various misdeeds and misconduct that the Bederman family had committed.
“So even though half of our third-floor disciples were already out on missions, they didn’t consider that at all and just casually told us to go subjugate some monsters that appeared in the Solem region…”
“There was an incident where they forcibly bought the hide of an extremely rare snow bear at a ridiculously low price…”
Most of it didn’t stray far from what Cain had expected.
“I heard that support keeps decreasing, so wouldn’t it be better to just cut off the support entirely? Especially since they’re apparently taking things from us too.”
“Well, even though it has decreased, it seems like it’s still an amount we can’t afford not to receive. Really, they cross other lines so easily, but they know exactly how to control that particular line.”
Alice spoke with a displeased expression.
Then Nefti added:
“And the Bederman side already has a tight grip on the distribution channels and commercial districts for regional products, so it would be difficult to view it as simply a matter of support funding. Moreover…”
Nefti’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“I understand that the family head once tried to cut ties completely, accepting all the losses, but instead they threw a fit. They said, ‘Who saved you from the brink of extinction and has been supporting you with magic books all this time, allowing you to inherit flame magic, and yet you’re being ungrateful?’… Young master? Are you alright?”
“…I’m fine. I just felt dizzy for a moment.”
When Cain pressed his forehead, Alice jumped up.
“Oh my, aren’t you hungry? Come to think of it, you should have had dinner by now! I’m sorry. Please eat quickly, young master!”
“I’ve prepared it. I’ll check if it’s gotten cold and reheat it right away.”
“Yes, thank you.”
While eating dinner, Cain organized and synthesized the story he had just heard from Alice and Nefti in his head.
‘As I thought, those guys are definitely not supporting us out of goodwill. And from what I’ve heard, it’s become very likely that they’re related to how the Sears family became flame-based.’
Judging by their claim to have provided magic books, most of the magic books currently in the east wing must have come from the Bederman family.
‘No wonder there were so many magic books emphasizing firepower just from their titles.’
Unlike the Flameforce family where Harman had been, the Bederman family pursued a method of unleashing strong firepower based on explosive mana amounts.
The Bederman family had always followed the theory that nothing couldn’t be solved with firepower, and if it didn’t work, it was because there wasn’t enough firepower.
‘That’s why they could only remain perpetual second place.’
Magic has many factors to consider besides mana amount.
Flame magic has high versatility and good combat performance, so you can extract efficiency by increasing firepower, but if you misinterpret that and think firepower is everything, you’re bound to hit a wall.
‘The fact that it worked to some degree actually invited disaster.’
If their method hadn’t worked, they would have given up early and changed direction, but since they caught up to just below the Flameforce family, the summit must have seemed right before their eyes.
But ultimately, the Bederman family couldn’t surpass the Flameforce family.
‘Anyway, the statement that they “provided all the magic books” conversely means that “there were no flame magic-related books before that.”‘
One could interpret it as the existing flame magic books being lost due to near-extinction, but Cain knew all too well that wasn’t the case.
Above all, the definitive evidence; the ice magic secret manual written directly by ‘Sein Sears’; had been found inside Cain’s training room.
Cain recalled his previous life.
‘Back then, our side was also annihilated at Heren Plains, but all the skilled followers including Desmond died as well.’
When he left for Heren Plains, his disciples’ skills had improved considerably.
It meant they weren’t weak enough to be nearly exterminated by Desmond’s followers remaining on the continent.
‘But what if someone deliberately put the family in crisis? Or left them to fall into crisis?’
At that time, Cain and all the heads of the four great families were engaged in a fierce battle with Desmond at Heren Plains.
However, the head of the Bederman family, who didn’t make it into the four great families, remained on the continent, claiming he would stop the followers who were causing chaos.
‘Even those guys couldn’t directly attack us if they were conscious of the imperial family’s eyes. But if they wanted to, isolating us would have been possible.’
Among the magic families remaining on the continent, Bederman was the most powerful.
They probably would have tried to destroy the Sears family without dirtying their own hands if possible.
‘There are various methods. They could pretend to come provide combat support to our side first while preventing other families’ approach, and provide an environment where Desmond’s followers could jointly attack the isolated us…’
Since the Sears family didn’t ultimately reach extinction, the disciples must have fought to the end and defeated Desmond’s followers.
However, they would have been in a nearly irrecoverable state, and if Bederman pretended to extend a helping hand to the pitifully surviving Sears family while actually putting a collar on them…
‘If it were another family, I might wonder if they would really do such a thing, but if it’s Bederman, they’re capable of that and more.’
Of course, all of this is just one of many hypotheses.
There’s currently no way to know what actually happened back then.
Though records that the current Cain cannot access are stored on the upper floors of the archives, he couldn’t be certain whether records from that time would be there.
‘Would the family head know? Either our family head or their family head.’
Even with all these incidents, more than 200 years have passed.
He suddenly wondered how much the current Bederman family head knew about the Sears family, and how much Blake Sears knew.
But Cain soon shook his head.
‘For now, raising the family comes first.’
And escaping from the Bederman family’s grasp is urgent.
Even if Blake Sears knew about the Sears family’s past, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone as long as they were under the Bederman family.
After finishing his meal, Cain called Alice.
“Yes, young master!”
“Alice, do you happen to know when the Bederman family’s next regular visit is?”
“Um, they’ll probably arrive as early as tomorrow. Phew, to think we have to see those people again.”
Alice’s expression darkened again at the thought of the Bederman family.
But soon, as if she had thought of something, she added with a slightly brighter expression:
“But this time, since you’ve achieved the 2nd Circle, young master, they won’t be able to say anything, right? Hehe. Maybe Hayden… will be so shocked he’ll faint. They say it took Hayden… almost two years to achieve the 2nd Circle.”
She seemed to feel better imagining Hayden fainting from shock at Cain’s rapid achievement.
“Tomorrow…”
Looking at the date, he could tell how much Blake Sears had postponed his exile until the very end.
Cain nodded.
‘First, I should take a look at the faces of the Bederman family’s descendants.’
