WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Malfoid
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◈ I Don't Need a Family ◈
Episode 38
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The one who plunged the main house corridor into silence in an instant was the eldest young lord.
He had appeared without a sound and made everyone shut their mouths.
Still, it was not strange. This was the main house, after all, and it was only natural for Gillian, one of its residents, to be walking around.
The Ashwilt main house was as large as the entire Mage Tower, and this commotion was happening in a remote area where important people did not even set foot.
Still, if your luck was bad, something like this could happen. That was life, was it not?
Like getting struck by lightning on your way home, or having your heart pierced by a hunter's stray arrow.
Everyone there felt as if they had been struck by both lightning and an arrow at once.
Their attacker was someone they feared even more than a god.
A god would not punish them merely for slandering the young lady they served, but the young lord before them was another matter.
He had always been strict and sharp, but the unusual force of his presence made the onlookers feel as though their minds had frozen.
“Y-young Lord Gillian...”
Someone nearly dared to call out to him without thinking.
If not for the heavy air pressing down on their chests.
“Come forward before I find out who said such a thing.”
The young lord spoke softly, in a voice that closely resembled Duke Ashwilt's.
Of course, if no one came forward, he would surely find them in the most terrible way they could imagine.
But who would dare step forward?
Not before a young lord who had his father's exact temperament but far less control over it, like a ticking bomb.
Gillian Ashwilt was, in short, Arion without forgiveness.
Young enough that, whatever he did in a fit of passion, he might do it several more times over.
They might have stepped forward and begged mercy before the Duke, but not now.
Being hanged after being caught by the imperial guards would surely be less brutal than being torn apart by a swamp crocodile!
The Duke, at least, acted within the bounds of reason.
But Gillian inspired the fear of coming face-to-face with a wild crocodile.
Gillian did not give them enough time to gather their courage.
His cold mind made decisions faster than their weak hearts could.
“There is no need to ask. Everyone here must be complicit.”
“W-we aren't...”
In the suffocating air, which seemed twice as dense as before, one of the annex maids clumsily opened her mouth.
“We aren't!”
And her choice was the right one.
When they woke after briefly losing consciousness, the only ones left unharmed were those from the annex.
* * *
“Eek! L-let go of me!”
“Do you know who I am? I am your superior!”
“P-please spare us, Young Lord Gillian!”
Knights of the ducal house dragged out those who had crouched low and clung to the floor.
Yes, knights. Knights who had never learned so much as a single spell.
For the people of the main house, nearly all of whom were mages, it was enough to make them weep.
People without abilities, the thoroughly inferior sort who somehow looked ridiculous even while armed and wearing swords, were laying hands on them.
Yet they did not dare resist.
Young Lord Gillian stood at the center of it all, barely suppressing his anger as he stared at the ground.
‘How dare they.’
How could people like them dare?
Had they insulted Vivette, my precious little sister, whom even I could not bring myself to treat too harshly?
Even he had never dared utter such vicious words.
Even if everyone else in the world fell into ruin, she alone had to be happy.
It was true that she had suffered greatly over the past few years because he had held her back to control her.
He had been an unskilled older brother. He had used more force than necessary, and that had made things hard for her.
But he could say this much with certainty.
Not a single word or action had come from malicious intent.
Harsh words may have slipped from his mouth, but even then, his affection had never cooled.
Not when she annoyed him, not when he felt as though he would die because his powerless little sister was so pathetic, and not when he wondered how he could avoid her persistent displays of affection.
Not once had his love for her left him.
It had merely been buried deep in a dark, gloomy valley.
It had not been visible, but it had never been absent.
The affection remaining in his chest twisted and burrowed within him, causing unbearable pain.
Perhaps it was House Ashwilt's terrible chronic flaw that their hearts could not become their actions at once.
Even now, it remained unchanged.
“Take them away. Gather them in front of the entrance for now. I need to discuss their punishment with Father.”
“But, Young Lord, it is raining heavily outside!”
“So what?”
“...Pardon?”
“What does it have to do with me if those things get rained on, become soaked through, and come down with pneumonia?”
What mercy could he possibly have left for them?
The consideration he had not even been able to give Vivette once.
As he turned sharply to enter his study, a pitiful gaze caught his eye.
It was a familiar face. Gillian remembered that it belonged to a maid who had worked in the annex.
She was probably the one who was often scolded in the main house.
Only then did he realize that the gaze did not hold a plea, but resentment.
Why had he stepped in only now? Why had he not recognized it sooner?
Those pure, innocent eyes reminded him of someone so strongly that he squeezed his own shut.
A mist-like guilt settled faintly over the entire estate.
He would feel it wherever he went, until his memories of her had worn away.
And Gillian knew better than anyone that he would never forget Vivette.
* * *
A knight order clad in gleaming golden armor lined up before and behind the people.
The sky had partly cleared, and the rain had stopped pouring, but the main house staff were already miserably soaked.
Before they had even dried beneath the sunless sky, Duke Ashwilt's furious voice made them shudder once more.
“I will tell you what punishment awaits you.”
His thunderous voice struck the courtyard.
“No matter how many years you have worked here, you are all dismissed. There will be no farewell, severance pay, or letters of introduction, and no honor in your dismissal.”
The Ashwilt Estate was one of the finest positions many mages considered an honor.
Losing that position alone was like losing the goal of one's entire life.
Those of maidservant or attendant rank and above had even refused offers from the Mage Tower, Mage Association, and Academy to enter this estate with ambition.
If they had wished, they could have made a great mark on the history of magic.
But they had not.
They had cast aside the chance to reach higher from the shoulders of giants and settled here, devoting all that time to belittling the young lady who ranked lowest in magical ability.
And now it was time to pay the price.
“T-this is absurd!”
Perhaps trusting in their numbers, which reached into the hundreds, one attendant cried out.
“Even Your Grace cannot force this! How can you so easily dismiss this many people...!”
There was not even a breeze, so his ragged cry reached the Ashwilt family standing atop the stone stairs.
The Duke answered indifferently.
“You think I cannot?”
“Y-Your Grace! No, Brother!”
The attendant crying out was nearly fifty.
He had been one year below Arion Ashwilt at the Academy.
That was why he was the only person among them who could even show Arion his displeasure.
He was someone familiar to the entire family, whom Harris Ashwilt jokingly called Uncle Max.
“This is truly wrong! You call it dismissal, but people's livelihoods depend on this. How can you speak of it so easily?”
“Well said.”
The Duke sneered, his facial muscles twitching.
“I also wish it could end with merely losing a job. A job? Are you sad because you lost your work? Is your heart breaking? You have lost your jobs, but I have lost my daughter. Shut your mouths before I make you lose your daughters as well.”
The attendant fell silent at the direct threat, cowed by the Duke's much harsher attitude than expected.
But inwardly, he was resentful. He felt as though he could oppose him, yet could not.
Erenston differed from the rest of the Empire. Even employers would be criticized for dismissing people carelessly, and they could not freely beat their servants.
It did not violate Imperial law in any major way, but that was the atmosphere of Erenston society.
Under magic, all people were equal. It was a transitional society where the class system still lingered ambiguously.
That was why they could behave without restraint.
They slandered and subtly looked down on the powerless ducal daughter as though she were a commoner.
The ducal daughter had never grown angry, but if she had, that would have been an employer's tyranny.
The tyranny of those above was worse than the rudeness of those below, because it was an abuse of power. That was the prevailing atmosphere throughout Erenston society.
But an atmosphere was only an atmosphere.
It meant nothing to someone who did not care.
Though he knew that well, a tearful plea still slipped from the attendant's mouth.
“You are too cruel. There are household heads here who must feed their families...!”
The Duke did not so much as blink at the earnest plea of the Academy junior he had known for so long.
Neither did Harris, who had called him uncle, nor Gillian, who had shown him a measure of respect.
Appealing to the emotions of these wretched people had been impossible from the beginning.
House Ashwilt only considered matters after being shown the gains and losses.
“What will you do if you dismiss hundreds of people and leave the main house empty?”
“Is that what concerns you?”
The Duke trudged down the stone stairs. When he reached the middle, he curled his lip in mockery, as if making a final declaration.
“Do not worry. You were never such valuable people in this house.”
“!”
“Cleaning and sweeping the entire house... You did not truly believe that hundreds of people were necessary for that, did you?”
Why else would mages be mages?
If it were made up of true elites alone, one mage could easily replace a hundred servants.
The rest were merely surplus staff.
A low chuckle escaped him, the same sort once directed at Vivette when she had been mocked as useless.
“You were only ornaments, filling this house and elevating the fame of me and my blood relatives.”
“...”
“When servants gathered to uphold House Ashwilt's authority forget their place and insult the ducal daughter, is there any reason to keep them?”
The Duke went back up several steps and proclaimed,
“Do not think dismissal is the only punishment I will impose. You will find no employment anywhere in Erenston, you will not be able to buy goods produced by House Ashwilt, and you will not be able to form marriage ties with anyone connected to House Ashwilt.”
They had only two choices left.
They could remain in Erenston, treated as less than human and living lowly lives, or leave the region.
Neither would be welcome.
If they could not find employment, conduct business, or marry in Erenston, where ability and effort were valued, they would receive treatment similar to what Vivette had received.
As useless people who were no help to their households.
Even if they left Erenston and lived elsewhere, they would receive the same treatment Vivette had.
A mage in a village of ordinary people.
They would be treated as strange and remain outsiders until death. Just like that woman, Vivette Ashwilt!
The faces of those who were about to suffer the same fate as the woman they had mocked all their lives turned the color of dirt.
It was the end of peace.
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