89 – Father-in-law, please give me your daughter – 7
At dinner time, Count Gracia, who always had a quiet and intimate meal with his wife, changed the atmosphere at the table recently. Was quite satisfactory. Before Hestia entered the academy, the three of them ate together, but Hestia also wasn’t the type to talk a lot when eating, so it’s been a long time since meal times have become so noisy and chaotic, but at the same time friendly. Once upon a time, he was probably the first since he and Neil Bass were children.
Actually, it wasn’t just meal times that changed. The entire castle of Count Gracia was buzzing. The cause is clear. A few days ago, after Hestia’s friends, who were supposed to stay for a week, came, the castle changed quite a bit.
Of course, Cordelia used to come here from time to time before, but when she was an outsider among her family and enjoying vacation among her friends, she was a completely different person. The Count had thought Cordelia to be quite a bright child before, but now he came to think that she was a bright child without any countermeasures.
Besides Cordelia, the newly introduced daughter of the Baron Adamas family was also quite liked by Count Gracia. Her fact was that there were all sorts of outrageous rumors about her. Besides, he too believed the rumors at first. No, it wasn’t actually a rumor, it was a story that spread like an established theory among the nobles. A story like a third-class love story in the middle of the street, in which the crown prince turned his attention to the daughter of a baron and proceeded to break off the engagement with the daughter of Duke Cordelia.
However, I had to check all the information myself. When she first saw her Lily, she looked at her with quite disbelief, but Cordelia and Hestia were her villains who, according to her common sense, seduced her crown prince and led to the ruin of her own engagement. Can’t you treat me as a friend? Besides, she was a kind girl who seemed quite distant from such a femme fatale and could talk well.
Of course, there was one unlucky, arrogant, and unwelcome guest, but once they were accepted as guests, there was no point.
Actually, when asked why he had been quiet for a while, and then acted like this when Hestia changed his mind, the Count was honestly a bit lost on what to say. He respected Hestia’s choice and didn’t say anything in the meantime, but when she suddenly turned her mind 180 degrees, she started to worry again. Maybe something is being tricked, what the hell happened. Count Gracia could not take his eyes off Michael with suspicion. Of course, the Count was also unfamiliar with Mikhail, and every time he couldn’t find any sociability, and he showed indifference to those around him to the extent that he wondered if he was ignoring himself.
Do you see that kind of person suddenly changed? The Count snorted. He is a count who has been running the guild for a long time and has seen many people. In his view, people were not rewriting. Very occasionally, there are cases where people change after going through a really big event, but I don’t remember hearing anything like that happen to that kid.
To tell the truth, people really did change, but Count Gracia had no way to know about it, and Mikhail couldn’t explain it himself, so his disbelief was unavoidable.
The Count decided to get rid of the trouble of his future son-in-law, and recently saw his younger brother, another cause of uproar here and there in the castle. He’s not exactly his brother, but his nephew, but anyway, that thunder naked guy had an accident yesterday too. He is the younger brother who has been the exact opposite of himself since childhood, but I don’t know how he doesn’t change at all even when he gets older. He shook his head wildly.
“Brother? Do you have any concerns?”
Nilvas, who saw that, spoke in an incomprehensible tone. He swallowed some of the bread he was eating and buried it. I know it’s rude to look at a person’s face, but the count couldn’t hold back the sigh that burst out. When will that guy grow up?
Still, he wasn’t immature and pathetic, so he stood out in the martial arts, and when he found a good wife somewhere and succeeded in getting married, the count said that his younger brother would finally grow up to be an adult. The problem is that even after getting married, not much has changed.
The count stared at his brother’s face before saying, No matter what, he’s not in a big accident, he’s not a bad guy, and he’s not so ugly that he can’t even take care of himself. Wouldn’t he be someone who could be a bit of an asshole.
“No, just eat.”
“It’s bland.”
Yes. Because he’s not a bad guy.
At that time, I heard the voice of the cheeky kid I had been ignoring.
“Father, do you have any uncomfortable places?”
“Who is your father!”
“If you are Hestia’s father, what is the difference between you and my father?”
The Count screamed with a feeling close to an automatic reflex. I didn’t spit it out after thinking about it, I spit it out as soon as I heard it and thought about it later. What is this shameless bastard talking about? The Count laughed out of his spirit. Who the hell is your father?
To be honest, he wasn’t saying anything particularly strange, but the count couldn’t quite accept the title of father. He was a count, so it wasn’t that he didn’t want a son-in-law like a son from the beginning. Having only given birth to and raised his own daughter, he had quite a fantasy about the existence of a son. So when his nephew Louis was born he was quite affectionate too.
But what came back? It was a cold, merciless disregard. He wasn’t the only one ignoring himself. Her daughter, whom she had raised so dearly, was also hurt. The Count was not a nice enough man to say that such a guy would come and call him father, so son, treat him comfortably like a father. That is why he behaved so coldly from the first day. If Hestia wanted it, of course he would marry her, but he had no intention of living in a relationship between an ordinary father-in-law and son-in-law. Although he himself would deny it, the count was a man who was meticulous in his calculations, befitting a man running a guild.
Anyway, as if it was worth fighting so hard, on the first day Mikhail couldn’t find a place to turn his eyes and behaved in confusion, as if he was embarrassed by the Count’s attitude. He tried hard to hide himself, but he couldn’t fool the eyes of the Count, who had gone through all the hardships. The Count saw the sight again and thought to himself of accusation.
But today, that impudent man ate something wrong and deftly countered his words with a confident attitude. The Count lost his words for a moment and blinked at Mikhail’s change, which was so embarrassing.
Did Hestia decide to help? Does she care more about her fiancé than about her father just because her head is a bit bigger now? The Count looked at Hestia with a great sense of betrayal. But as if she had no intention of saying anything, she just chewed on mucky bread.
What came back instead was a rebuke from unexpected characters.
“Honey, why don’t you listen to me at least?”
“You… !”
The count was shocked by his wife’s sudden betrayal. His head was dizzy. To think that his wife was not on her own side, but on the side of that stupid bastard. The count lost his senses for a moment, but was able to regain his senses only when he remembered that she was closer to her daughter’s side rather than his original one.
Well, it could be. The Count collected his thoughts. From the start, his wife had her own opinion, close to neutral, and she would put her daughter’s choices above all else. Depending on Hestia’s choice, it was understandable that she would say such a thing. Don’t be like that The more I thought about it, the more natural this was.
However, the additional hit that came towards him, who managed to win the mental victory and took care of his mentality, made him completely kneel.
“Brother. I think so too.”
“Nilvas! You, how could you say that… !”
It was his one and only younger brother, Nilvas. This ungrateful bastard! The Count opened his eyes wide. I think I need to rethink what I thought he wasn’t a bad guy earlier. God, how could you betray me like that? After dinner on the first day, it is not worth it that he made it on his side by feeding him expensive alcohol that he had hidden.
The Count glared at Nilvas. He, too, averted his eyes, as if the alcohol he had just drank that day was tingling. The Count couldn’t quite understand. He drank expensive alcohol, and aside from that, didn’t Neil Bass also not like Mikhail? On the first day, even before he said anything, he was Neil Bass, who asked if that unfortunate kid was Mikhail. There’s no way he would like a man who made it hard for his nephew whom he cared so much for. That he, overnight, even betrayed my older brother, and sided with that kid?
The Count felt his throat burn. I don’t know what the heck he did, but it’s clear that the cunning bastard did something. The castle, which he had considered his home ground all his life, suddenly felt like an enemy camp. When? The count who used to snort and snort when playing with his nephew Louis, but now he’s really starting to be afraid.
Of course, this was nothing more than the Count’s paranoid delusion. In the first place, it is not a problem to do with the enemy camp or the home ground. In the end, it is just a frontal challenge of a son-in-law who wants to be liked by his father-in-law. A situation close to a humorous sitcom. However, this came to a completely different meaning to the count, whose mentality was shaken by the successive betrayals of the people he trusted more than anyone else in the world – even though he only sneakily helped Mikhail. It feels like a man facing a challenge in his own castle. Doesn’t he say that there are no two leaders in a pack of lions?
It was an innocent word from a child who knew nothing that set a wedge in the count’s troubles.
“Uncle! He’s not a bad person!”
“… I get it. Let’s have a conversation.”
Even though it wasn’t really a big deal, the Count was in a pretty depressed mood.
It was a skit in a leisurely evening.