Interlude 5: Glen

After bringing Chelsea back to her room, I headed to the royal castle to go talk to my brother.

Directly after the incident, I used my Sage-level [Appraisal] on Chelsea’s sister Margaret. Using enough mana to exhaust me, I wanted to see everything she was hiding, and whatever she didn’t know, either. The results showed something I needed to report to my brother.

I straightened myself up as I got to my brother’s office door, and gave the knights on either side of it a signal with my eyes. The knights gave the warm wooden door a light knock, and another knight peeked out from inside. Once he saw my face, he got permission from my brother to let me in.

“Oh, Glen. It’s been a while since you’ve come here.”

“Your Majesty, I—”

“I’ve told you, just call me ‘Brother’ here! Do-over!”

“I’m glad that you’re in high spirits, brother...”

My brother miiiiiight just have been the King of Chronowize. He was a very capable king, and I had no worries about his reign. I respected him a lot as someone who would keep the peace and lead our country in a positive direction. But still, I wasn’t very good at dealing with him...

“Yup, you really need to call me brother! Having my cute little brother call me ‘Your Majesty’ all the time since you were little just makes me wanna throw all my work away!”

The reason was simple. I was a proper adult, turning eighteen this year, but he still doted on me like a child and called me cute. No man would be happy being called cute at this age! And please, don’t talk about throwing out all your work just because I didn’t call you brother!

His brotherly love is just way too much! While I sighed, he just smirked.

“So something must’ve happened for you to come here to talk to me. I’ll hear you out, so sit down.”

I did as he asked and sat on the sofa, while he sat on the one across from me.

“It’s about the girl with the new Skill I’d told you about...” I said, dropping the polite act. “We’re still researching it, but I’m sure it’s something that’ll be a great boon to our country.”

“I see.”

“Her Skill is something that’d be a huge loss if anything happened to her, but before she came here, she was abused at home.”

My brother perked up at that. “Nobles were abusing their child, even when the birth rates are this low?”

“And she has a twin sister, who’s been raised with love.”

“That’s suspicious.”

“Furthermore, just a bit ago, that sister who came to the Institute as a control trainee tried to attack her with a fire giant. Tris and I stopped it before it could get to her, of course, so there were no injuries.”

“Tris? Ah, you mean Tristano Forium, the eccentric son of Marquis Forium, with the three Skills.”

I nodded. Contrary to how he looked, Tris was amazing enough for my brother the King to know him by name. But I’d leave aside that for now.

“That girl must really have hated her sister to summon a fire giant and attack her as a control trainee.”

“They’ve got her restrained with a simple Mana Sealing Bracelet for now. But I appraised her closely after that, and learned something strange...” I took a deep breath before continuing: “They’re listed as twins on the Noble Registry, but their birthdays are different. It also showed that they’re sisters from different mothers.”

“Ah, falsifying records to the Noble Registry is a grave crime in our country,” my brother laughed.

“By the way, the sister’s mother is Marquis Ackroyd’s illegitimate child.”

“Marquis Ackroyd is just teeming with illegal deeds, too... That’s perfect.”

“I say we leave the sister hanging, call Baron Eucharis and his wife here, and use all of this to drag Marquis Ackroyd out. How about it, brother?” I suggested with a grin.

“Alright. Looks like things are gonna get fun. Do what you want.”

“Thank you!” Having my brother’s—rather, the King’s permission—I started thinking about what I could do.

“Before you leave, I just have one question for you, Glen.”

“And what would that be?” I said, going back to using polite language in my desire to get going.

My older brother stayed silent for a moment, looking serious, before continuing, “Why are you so interested in this Chelsea girl?”

“I’m...” I trailed off. For some reason, I couldn’t answer.

“Do you pity her for having been abused? Is it because her Skill will be a boon to us? Or is there some other reason you’re interested?” he said, breaking into a grin.

When I first met her, she was much smaller than other girls her age, and emaciated. I was angry when I realized she’d been abused, and I pitied her from the bottom of my heart. When I saw her Skill create a seed, I was excited at the possibilities. I really worried when she collapsed after depleting her mana. And after that, I fed her delicious sweets to grow her mana pool... And saw her smile. I felt bad for her when I learned she wasn’t even allowed to smile.

If she was left with her rotten family, I knew they’d use her. And that’s why I worried. ...Is there some other reason I should be concerned?

“Hmm, looks like you don’t realize it yet. You can answer me later.”

While I was thinking, my brother kicked me out of the room.

＋＋＋

The next day... I was worrying from the get-go, even though it was a day off. I still had no response to my brother’s question.

I tried wandering my room, sitting on the sofa, or on the side of my bed... After doing a bunch of things I usually wouldn’t do, I pulled a notebook with a lock out of my drawers. Inside, I had written about Chelsea in a language nobody else knew...Japanese. I flipped to the page about the day she first made a seed by only seeing the plant in a book.

[It’s possible for her to make any seed based on details she sees in a book. It could be used to grow medicinal plants unavailable in our country, or forbidden poisonous plants, extinct species, and even legendary plants. Next, we’ll research if she can make fictional plants.]

Reading it over and over, I just sighed. With Chelsea’s Skill, she could make any seed she wished for. If she ever made a seed that could spit poison or something, she could easily destroy a country. There’s no way I could ignore someone like that.

From her personality and actions, I could see that Chelsea wasn’t a bad person. Really, she had a brighter personality than you would expect someone who had been abused her entire life to have. She was open-minded, as well. But what I was really worried about was her abusive family. From what I’d learned of them, there was a chance that Chelsea may make a ‘bad seed’ because of their abuse. Which meant that my next course of action should be destroying them.

Just as I’d told my brother, I would leave her sister hanging for now, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to have them all killed, I’d have her family properly punished. What if I just brought Chelsea to our side anyway? I thought. I could either make her a proper Royal Research Institute researcher and separate her from her family, or have a noble family I trusted adopt her. Then, I could crush the Eucharis barony without having to worry. It would be a good idea to let Chelsea in on this.

And with that, I decided to arrange a tea party with Chelsea on the afternoon of our day off.