There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 19

Well, to be honest, this is a first for me too.

A first for a family meeting, yes, but it is the first time I have ever wanted to snap the lifeline of someone with a face that is one hundred percent my type. If you know that I am generally a person who goes soft in front of a face that suits my taste, you would understand how serious this resolution is.

I am the kind of person who would even dote on a jobless loafer who whines for pocket money, just because his face was my type. Of course, that guy became trash the moment I found the next man with a face to my liking.

Anyway, out of all the men I have ever met, the one with the face most to my taste is none other than Ryuseong.

‘Right, let’s just kill him!’

My mental state has been ground down to the point where I am attempting to escape reality by fantasizing about things like ‘99 Ways to Murder Ryuseong’.

That is how utterly ridiculous the dinner scene unfolding before my eyes was.

“Here.”

“Ah, thank you.”

“Ahem, hem. This dish is quite delicious.”

“Oh, is that so? Hoho, since it is the day my son is returning home, it was made with specially ordered spices……”

Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

Ryuseong, bowing his head as he pours water for a scion of the de Millang bloodline?

A scion of the de Millang bloodline, smoothly thanking Ryuseong?

As if that were not enough, the leader of the Hanra Sect telling the lady of the de Millang house that the food is delicious in a gentle tone?

The lady of the de Millang house shyly whispering to the leader of the Hanra Sect about the recipe?

Characters, just how far are you going to break……?

‘This is all your fault, Ryuseong!’

When I thought that all this trouble started from the moment that bastard Ryuseong could not eat his dalgona, a sudden surge of irritation washed over me.

So I picked out only the mushrooms and beans that I do not like and placed them on Ryuseong’s plate. While my mother, father, and the Hanra Sect’s leader were alternately looking at us with very tense expressions—why?—Ryuseong calmly looked down at my plate.

And then he glared at the clean and neat bowl containing a few pieces of salad and beef soup as if it were utterly unpleasant, before placing a whole steak, dripping with juices, on it.

No, this bastard!

“I was eating meat this time. Why on earth are you interfering with my meal again without permission.”

“Where was the meat on your impoverished plate?”

When I ignored all etiquette and tapped the soup bowl with a ting ting, that bastard Ryuseong snorted. Is this bastard really trying to pick a fight with me? He should be applauding my challenge of eating beef soup after much deliberation, but instead, this bastard even used his parents to snitch on my eating habits.

“Do you know why this human is acting like this? Whenever he tries to eat something, he just picks at the lettuce and stops, so I am concerned it will become a nutritional problem.”

“Oh, yes. Our son does not eat much, does he? He says he does not like the feeling of having something in his stomach…… It is a relief that our Ryuseong is taking good care of him.”

What? Mother, since when was he ‘our’ Ryuseong…… I was looking at my mother in a daze, completely dumbfounded, when from the seat next to me, my father, with a somehow gentle and relaxed gaze, spoke kindly to Ryuseong.

“It is because Cassis has many bad memories associated with meals. It will be safe at the academy, so please take good care of him.”

“……I will.”

No, when did you even meet this guy to be entrusting me to him like that?

Am I the only one who is dumbfounded? When Ryuseong nodded with a serious expression, everyone except me entered a haha hoho mode. God dammit. Even the Hanra Sect’s leader was looking back and forth between the two of us with a somewhat pleased expression, muttering nonsense like, ‘He is not bad looking for him…… no, he is bad. But then, the kid likes him…….’

‘Everyone, please come to your senses.’

This bastard Ryuseong does not like me!

Thinking about it made me feel even more wronged. After making me spend so many lonely nights by myself, huh? To the point where I wanted to post a ‘Cassis de Millang Seeks One-Night Stand Partner’ ad, and yet he is going through with this family meeting so properly!

What the hell is he thinking!

‘Of course, if I posted a ‘Cassis de Millang Seeks One-Night Stand Partner’ ad, I would probably be beheaded by the de Millangs for defamation…….’

Fortunately, I do not have a hobby of getting beheaded, so the ad was not posted. Just then, an attack came at an unexpected timing.

“Anyway, Cassis. You have to eat well. Otherwise, mom will be upset.”

“……Yes, I will try.”

“Could you show me that effort starting from now?”

“……”

……Wow, the gazes of the adults, strongly insisting that I start trying right now, are intense.

Well, from an adult’s perspective, if I do not eat well despite not having an eating disorder, I suppose they could be worried. The Cassis de Millang from the original story was also a light eater, almost like me, so I just acted as I usually did, but somehow, was I worse than the original?

‘Except for the personality. Except for the personality.’

Anyway, seeing as the original Cassis had bad memories associated with meals, I wonder if he was poisoned or something. I do not have anything like that; I am just a person who really dislikes feeling bloated, so I do not know what to do.

“I will just have one piece.”

“Go ahead.”

Ryuseong said that, then cut the steak in half, casually put a piece so large I wondered how it could even fit into his own mouth, and offered the remaining half to me.

……Are you crazy?

“Does that size look like ‘one piece’? Mr. Ryuseong, has something happened to your head?”

“Before something happens to my head, it looks like something will happen to your body, so shut up and eat.”

“Hah……”

We are genuinely fighting, but why are the adults looking so pleased? Is this what they call a generation gap? Are our generations so different that they cannot understand our true feelings?

Just as I was thinking that, the number one contender of the generation gap, that goddamn asshole, appeared. I thought I had caught a whiff of fragrant oil on the wind at some point.

“Yo-Young master! The Family Head……!”

“Family Head? It has been a long time since I passed that position down to my son.”

Someone had stepped down into the backyard.

Thump, he lands with a step so light it makes a sound like air. Thump, perhaps it is due to his mass being as light as a floating stone. A refreshing footstep that does not carelessly crush the grass was there.

The former head of the de Millang family, with the face of a young boy, was smiling whitely at us.

“It has been a while, children.”

‘……So why is my great-grandfather coming out here?’

*

Now, I, Cassis de Millang, the star instructor, will summarize the succession process of the noble de Millang family.

1. The boy-looking great-grandfather who appeared before my eyes is the former family head.
2. The former family head passed down the position of family head to his son—Cassis’s grandfather—ten years ago.
3. The grandfather did not pass down the position of family head to his son—Cassis’s father.

From the grandfather’s perspective, he had only received it a short while ago, so it is understandable that he would not want to pass it down.

However, what is annoying here is that he constantly disparages Cassis’s position as the Young Lord, using the heart disease inherited from the maternal line as an excuse.

This heart disease is something that is neither a curse nor a disease, but a difficult mixture of the curse of bloodline succession and its symptoms.

Even though Cassis had devised a way to overcome that chronic illness brilliantly with his talent alone, he is a family head who tried to keep the position of heir vacant based on uncertainty. Because of that, even though Cassis was the only direct descendant who grew up properly in a family short on heirs, he was almost unable to become the Young Lord, and the one who actively stepped forward to appoint him as the Young Lord was none other than.

“Can the Family Head not see that shining talent?”

The former family head and the current chairman of the council of elders.

Cassis de Millang’s great-grandfather.

So, in a way, one of the few backers who are friendly to Cassis de Millang is his great-grandfather.

All this information is composed of data combined not only from the descriptions in the original work but also from thoroughly digging through Cassis de Millang’s accounts.

But why is it?

‘……Why do I feel nauseous?’

Could it be because my great-grandfather was a trauma to the being named ‘Jeong Ian,’ to ‘me’?

The great-grandfather here is not that person, but perhaps just by seeing a being called great-grandfather, I…….

‘Gah. Screw trauma.’

After instantly managing my mental state, I smiled thinly and was about to rise from my seat to greet him, but he stretched out his arms as if asking me to embrace him. The great-grandfather seemed to have a friendlier attitude towards Cassis than expected.

I approached him intimately, bent my knees, and lightly hugged him. Then, a wrinkled hand patted my back.

“The wind whispered, so I came to see your face, and I found a surprising guest.”

The great-grandfather, while hugging me, spoke in a gentle voice and looked directly at Ryuseong and the Hanra Sect’s leader.

And a grand silence flowed.

“……”

“……”

……Ah, I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I did not realize.

‘Right now, the big boss of the Hanra Sect and the former big boss of de Millang have met?’

A long time passed after that, and the dizzying dinner, which I cannot remember what I was thinking, finally ended.

The atmosphere was, to say it was shitty, surprisingly calm, but, um. That is, they did not say much and just ate, considering their children’s faces.

‘I feel like I am going to get indigestion……’

You can roughly guess what the atmosphere was like, right?

The leader of the Hanra Sect decided to take Ryuseong with him. He apologized carefully and retreated, saying it would be too much of a discourtesy to even borrow a bed after showing up so unannounced, which was surprisingly unlike the leader of the Hanra Sect, who was famous for being hot-tempered. It seemed that in front of their children’s problems, parents’ tempers also changed.

However, Ryuseong, perhaps because he is a child, did not change his temper at all and, after looking me up and down with a displeased expression, said something like this.

“If you starve any more than this, you will become the principal’s peer.”

……I was going to eat well anyway, you know? What a pretty way to say I am going to become a skeleton.

Meanwhile, the former family head, who had watched the Hanra Sect leave, suddenly decided to borrow me for a moment. To be precise, he pointed me out as the one to see him off, and I was worried there might be some kind of meaningful conversation, but it ended with me holding his hand, chattering all the way to the car, giving him a hug, and then coming back.

As befitting a suspiciously dark family, I suspected they might have poisoned me or something, but for that to be true, I was too perfectly fine right now.

‘Still, just in case, let’s drink a potion.’

And so I returned to the mansion, but for some reason, my mother and father were standing at the door, murmuring, and then held their breath when I appeared. And they forced a neat smile, took my hand, and patted my shoulder.

But throughout the whole process, there was a sense of unease I could not identify.

I did not know what the cause was, but my mana tensed up on its own. To be precise, the mana in my body matched its frequency with the mana distributed in the air so that it could dominate the surroundings at any moment. I increased the compatibility between myself and every single mana particle spread all around.

They say that when mages prepare for battle, they do this to dominate the space.

I did not know I would be the one doing it.

Anyway, I spent the entire day of my vacation like that. Fortunately, that was the only time I felt a sense of unease from my mother and father, but it was still awkward to completely let my guard down, so I decided to just maintain a state of tension throughout the vacation period.

Hmm. Could this family be dysfunctional too?

My parents seemed like very good people, though……?