My father began his story.
"Well, let's see... Where should I even begin explaining...?"
"Why don't you start from the circumstances of how that person came to our house in the first place?"
My mother was visibly irritated.
I doubted this was going to be an entertaining tale.
"Right. It was after the Duke of Mistral started ignoring me... I applied for a loan from a certain noble of the Duke Association. The very same house you wiped out, family and all."
"Whoa, hold on, we're diving right into the grim reality straight out of the gate."
My old man was, well... not cut out for governing territory.
He was just moderately incompetent.
The type of guy who stayed in an organization solely because his personality was harmless despite having no actual talent.
"Just listen. So, they told me they'd lend me the money if I took a certain woman in as a side consort... That woman was pregnant after being laid hands on by a certain duke."
"Wait, am I not your kid?!"
Please don't tell me I'm a descendant of the Duke Association!
"No, you are the child of me and that woman. The thing is... sadly, that woman's child miscarried. And while I was consoling her, things ended up going that way between us."
What an utterly awful story.
Well, not that I had any right to talk given my own repeated marriage diplomacy.
Even so, he had been referring to her simply as "that woman" the whole time without mentioning a name.
It left a bad taste in my mouth.
"Why do you keep calling her 'that woman'?"
"Because that was my promise to her."
Meaning she would never come forward claiming to be my mother.
Well, whatever.
I'm sure she had her reasons.
"I heard she ran off with a man, though."
"...Ugh... Um, dear, could you take over for me?"
"Say it with your own mouth!"
Look at him getting chewed out.
"The thing is... I was delusional. Being flattered by a young woman... I got, well... carried away."
"What's that supposed to mean...? Is this a horror story?"
I glanced at my mother.
Ah, that was the face she made when she was in a foul mood.
"I... was never popular with women, you see... so I didn't realize it. I didn't realize she sought a relationship with me purely out of self-preservation."
I was rendered speechless.
Come on, old man, you'd look decent enough if you just lost some weight.
Looking back at my mother, her face practically screamed, If you say what you're thinking, I will end you.
Lips zipped.
"That woman thought that as long as she bore the duke's child, she could take over the Marquis House. Even though your mother and your older brothers were right there."
Ugh, my biological mother was absolute human garbage...
"However, the child died before it was born. So then, she feared she'd be kicked out next. That was why she bore a child with me. But humans can't live solely on cold calculations. The stress must have gotten to her. Right before she vanished, she was even calling me a toad."
My jaw hung open in total disbelief.
Stop. My faith in my own genetics was withering away.
The Child of Destiny scenario would have been vastly preferable to this.
"And so, well, that woman found another man. That led to the divorce."
"R-Right. That's several orders of magnitude more hardcore than what I'd heard."
My biological mother might just be pure evil.
"Well, of course it is! Such an embarrassing story that brings nothing but shame to this family. There was no way we could tell you when you were still a child!"
My mother was being far too reasonable here.
Whatever. As far as I was concerned, she was my real mother.
"So, what happened to that other man?"
"You crushed his entire house."
Ah, got it.
I stomped them flat without even knowing it.
"And my biological mother?"
"She will never come forward. There is no way Her Majesty the Emperor would permit it."
Which meant... Wifey knew everything all along.
Since she didn't tell me, it probably meant it was best I never met her.
If I had to guess, that woman probably pleaded with Wifey for her life and the restoration of her house. Most likely with something bordering on blackmail.
And that infuriated Wifey.
The house was abolished, and whether they existed or not, any siblings I had on that side were stripped of nobility down to commoners.
Whatever, the brothers I actually trusted were Big Brother Sam, Leonidas-kun, and my brothers-in-law Brother-in-law Thomas and Big Brother Cyrus.
And if we were talking younger brothers, I had Marma-kun.
Meeting her now wouldn't make me feel a thing.
In the end, without even knowing it, I had already executed our family's vengeance for being disgraced.
My biological mother was probably trembling in utter terror of Wifey and me right now.
If I had inherited the blood of the Duke Association, Wifey would have quietly disposed of my biological mother in secret.
Doubtless to keep me from bearing the stigma of a parent-killer.
So that confirmed I was definitely my old man's kid.
Not the child of the guy she ran off with, either.
My biological mother and her associates were probably under house arrest somewhere.
Living out the rest of their days confined to some frontier planet.
Locked away until my half-siblings, or whoever they were, drew their last breath.
It was pitiful. To the extent that I could pity a complete stranger.
I had no intention of tormenting them, but neither did I intend to meet or save them.
Even if I wanted to rescue them, the risk was far too high.
I had Wifey, our children, my retainers, and my people to protect.
My biological mother and her circle would only get in the way.
I basically understood the whole picture now.
"I see, yeah, well, man to man, I can sympathize."
"Wanting romance," huh...
I supposed a guy might feel that way if he'd been starved of affection.
"You couldn't possibly understand how I felt!"
My old man suddenly flew into an inexplicable rage.
"I've had my own share of hardships, you know!"
"Quiet! I know you've had it rough, but I won't back down on this!"
It must be his life's greatest trauma.
An unfulfilled inferiority complex, a woman who fed it, and then betrayal.
Yet to any third party, it was the completely obvious outcome.
Hearing it made me want to die from second-hand embarrassment.
As if a woman bought with money would ever genuinely fall for you!
You were being mocked as inferior to her previous man the entire time...
Ah, but saying that out loud was out of bounds.
I'll just keep my mouth shut.
"I pretty much get it. I'm going to go look after Melissa."
"Leave things here to me. Now then, dear..."
"L-Leo... h-help..."
Not my problem.
That's a matter between husband and wife.
Settle it yourselves.
Even so, the story was unexpectedly raw and messy.
Still, both of them were wrong about one thing.
I don't think my biological mother ever intended to take over a garbage territory like this.
Both my old man and my mother had it wrong... In all likelihood, that Duke Association bastard probably ordered her, "Kill both yourself and the child."
Knowing that, my biological mother aborted the baby in her womb to beg for her life.
All out of self-preservation.
And completely oblivious to that, my old man went and made a kid with her.
That noble scumbag probably assumed House Kamishiro would come back to blackmail him.
However, the woman kept her mouth shut, and they happened to find another patsy among their relatives to pawn her off on.
So they retrieved the woman from the useless House Kamishiro.
Shoving me onto House Kamishiro in the process.
Half of it was probably pure spite.
From beginning to end, my biological mother's head was filled with nothing but cold calculation and self-preservation.
What do you mean, "I've never been popular with women"?!
That trashy woman wasn't nearly that noble a creature.
The fact that she acted strange toward the end was just her breaking under the stress.
People who calculate everything are precisely the ones who are mentally fragile.
Yet because my parents were fundamentally good and decent people, they failed to see the malice behind it all.
That was most likely the truth.
Neither my old man nor my mother had even considered that possibility.
They really were thoroughly unsuited for court life.
...No... There was no way my mother didn't realize it.
She was a former court lady-in-waiting.
She must have seen right through the other party's intentions and played dumb to evade the trap.
Terrifying!
Maman is terrifying!
...We aren't even related by blood, yet our thought processes are identical.
Wait a second. The reason she made me study like an idiot with an educational robot and pushed me into the Officer Academy...
Sure, there was the mandatory military service imposed on noble houses.
...Could it be that she did it to protect me from the Duke Association?!
What if those idiot nobles from the Duke Association had a change of heart and came to kill me?!
If I was placed inside a military faction, the Duke Association's reach couldn't touch me.
The Space Marines in particular were an organization that never abandoned their comrades. Assuming you weren't an incompetent fool who got your own allies killed, that is.
At the very least, I became far too high-risk a target to assassinate.
I see... Here I was in my early twenties, finally discovering a parent's love.
The biggest victim in all this was the older brother—or older sister—who never got to be born.
What an outrageous scandal.
If the citizens of Chronos ever found out, they'd be furious.
Even I'd want to throw away the throne over something like this!
Wifey had probably understood all of that, which was why she kept it from me.
Well, setting this hellish tale aside, time to go console Melissa.
With as calm and collected a face as possible.
When I arrived at Melissa's side, Lu's mom was there.
I mean, I had told her to livestream if anything happened.
So it wasn't Lu's mom's fault... The timing of everything was just abysmal.
She was frantically apologizing.
"I am so very sorry. I have already submitted my resignation!"
"It's fine, really, I'm not mad at you. I'll make sure they reject your resignation, too!"
Melissa had no choice but to say that.
It was an accident, after all.
And right then, I, Leo Kamishiro Chronos...
Whether it was a divine revelation or some kind of prophetic message, I didn't know.
I suddenly made a choice that defied all logic.
"Hey, um, there's something I'd like you two to hear."
Ahaha! I went and said it!
Hell: "Hey, long time no see! How've you been?"