Family Issues And Research (Pt 1)

WARNING:

This chapter will be very long.

End Of Warning.

Greetings otherworldlers, this is Nar Schwarz Dolth, speaking.

Note:

Nar is his only first name.

End Of Note.

As you know, I am Irisiez's father and one of the three dukes of this nation.

My sons were all very skilled and talented in many ways, including politics. So much so that I struggled to choose a successor. However, Irisiez was different. Her talent and intellect were average and she had no talent in any form of martial arts. Her mana value was 100 times lower than the average human. Eventually, her personally regressed into one founded by an inferiority complex and resentment. I didn't give attention to make her realise she needed to change. Unfortunately, I made things worse by so. Even when my sons taunted her, I didn't do anything. Once again, due to my false assumption it was normal sibling rivalry and such. I was a negligent father back then.

One day, someone replaced my troubled daughter.

In other words, my daughter disappeared.

One of sons multiple fights went too far and my daughter had a fall. Unfortunately, I was in an urgent meeting with the emperor, so I couldn't get there straight away. Once I got home, I was informed that 'Irisiez' was asleep and her life wasn't endangered. I then retreated to my office.

A few hours after that, one of her personal maids entered my office. She then proceeded to tell me about strange behaviours my daughter had been exhibiting. From stranding up to Marvin to dressing herself. I was broke out into laughter after hearing the latter, but seeing Julie's face, it was apparent it wasn't a joke. No one - to my knowledge at least - taught her how to dress herself, so I was very confused. It was a minor fall so a small concussion and memory loss should have been the only symptoms. That's why I thought it was quite strange. Perhaps she had become a savant, I thought at the time. Just in case, it was asked for all her personal maids to keep their eyes on her. She was continuing with the strange behaviours throughout the entire day.

The next morning, Julie informed me that she hadn't returned to normal. I considered a few hypothesises. Irisiez was possessed by someone, had become a savant or was influenced by some powerful entity. I decided to find out at breakfast. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I am a soul reader. Therefore, I can read souls and auras. I can tell changes in emotions, lies and family through soul colours. For example, our family has a dark crimson aura. I decided to examine Irisiez's aura for any unusual or significant changes.

Unfortunately, what I feared the most came true.

Her family aura was ultramarine rather than crimson.

Someone had possessed my daughter's body.

Since I didn't want to panic the rest of the family, so I kept this discovery to myself. Anyways, the person who had possessed my daughter wasn't at all hostile and had a determination about her. She was quite bold and uttered weird phrases. After her speech, she helped the maids bring the food to the table, showing she wasn't all bark. With her help, the maids were able to bring the food twice as fast. The strangest thing of all was that she enjoyed it, showing a bright (genuine) smile. A strange soul indeed, I thought to myself. After that, she ate quite well and waited for my children to leave.

After they left, we went to my office. The soul wasn't as talkative as I thought, I whispered to myself. We swiftly arrived.

"Who are you?" I asked.

Surprised she answered, "I am your daughter, Irisiez Dolth, obviously you know that?"

"You seem like a different person." I replied to throw her off.

"A head injury can change a person completely." She retorted.

I decided to take a different approach.

"But it was a minor one," I said, "Anyways, I'll ignore this and ask you why you scheduled this appointment. If you don't give me a satisfactory answer, I'll have to ask for a soul examiner. I'm sure you know for what purpose."

She cast me a knowing look, as if she knew exactly what I had done.

"Before I do", she said quite calmly, "I will tell you my true identity. I am Chuiri Ajisai, an otherworlder. Back where I came from, this world was a tragic fairytale. In the other world, I desperately wanted to save the main character. And now I have the opportunity to do, I will. In order to do so, I have to have the highest position in the empire. The ruler. Don't worry, I have no intention of harming you or your family in the process. Anyways, I have to come propose some changes in my schedule to help with my goal."

Chuiri Ajisai?

An otherworlder?

This world is a fairytale?

Empress

These were a few of the millions of questions that plagued my mind.

I checked her aura.

There wasn't a single lie.

I was relieved that she wasn't planning to harm us. She was just planning to use us as a stepping stone. I was planning to support her plan so I proposed something.

"Is that so?" I said after a slight pause, "Why not become a candidate to marry the crown prince and work hard in your current lessons?"

"I plan to do the latter," she responded, "But the crown prince idea… I'm afraid will not be possible."

Oh right, her world probably doesn't have arrangements like these, I thought.

"Why is that?"

Then I got quite the unexpected answer.

"He's going to be the cause of the problem."

What problem?

Which one?

"Horan Wretaiar, the 8th heir to the throne and 3rd prince," she replied.

The genius?

The problem?

I want to know all about this.

I thought.

"Tell me in detail."

I then had the shock of my life. According to the otherworlder, my son Matthew, Irisiez and others would become involved in the prince's charades and plans and would be driven to insanity. The reason why was because they had married the last princess, Topaz Wretaiar, who happened to be the prince's primary puppet. The last princess had become immune to the prince's brainwashing after one of the 'love interests' made her realise that he was using her. This would ruin the prince's plans. He would become enraged and do everything in his power to make the princess's and the 'love interest's' lives miserable. This would push them (the love interests) to abuse the princess and become involved in her death in some way or another.

Anger and disarray began to plague the otherworlder's aura she mentioned this. From her aura, I could also tell she deeply cared about the princess. Recounting this to me without crying must have been an arduous task.

"Are you sure Matthew will be involved?" I asked.

"Unless we limit his encounters with the 3rd prince, yes."

" I see," I said while considering how to do so, "So what changes would you like me to do to the schedule?"

"Here are my plans," she said as she took out a few pieces of paper from her bag.

So she came prepared.

I went over it and it was very well done.

"I approve," I replied, "You clearly thought things out. I will notify your teachers. By the way, your classes will begin the day after tomorrow."

"Thank you," she said with a smile, "May I go?"

"Of course," I said, " It was nice to meet you, Chuiri Ajisai."

"Nice to meet you too, sir."

"Please call me Father," I voiced out, "What should I call you when we're alone?"

"Call me Ajisai," she replied, "I hope we will have a long lasting partnership. Good day."

She didn't waste one minute and left.

It was an enlightening and quite interesting first meeting.

And the second time I became associates with someone.

*****

Note:

From this note onwards, this chapter will be from Ajisai's perspective.

End of Note.

2 weeks had passed since I had the meeting with my father.

I continued to help the maids at breakfast and other tasks when I had time.

My schedule was the same as I requested. Marvin attempted to mock me again when he found out.

"The trash is studying magic now?" He asked, barely containing his laughter, "Give up. Your mana is basically nonexistent. What are you going to do? Sprinkle specs of water on us? Uuah~ I'm so scared~ I also saw you're helping out the maids now. You finally started to mingle with other trash, such a relief. You finally ******* that delusion of yours, huh? Did you honestly think you were one of us? You're nothing but useless, worthless **** that shouldn't even exist! "

I then watched as he burst into hysterical laughter.

"Is that so?", I uttered, expressionless.

Marvin processed to cower backwards, as if scared by my reaction.

"Marvin," I continued, "You don't think I can see? You're trying to cover up your own insecurities by lowering my self worth. You just want to make me feel inferior because you feel inferior. Because of the others, isn't it? They made you feel that way. There's no use denying it. I saw what the others were doing to you."

He turned pale. Marvin knew that I was right. I had had enough of his constant attempts at covering up his insecurity within his own home, where he should feel comfortable expressing his emotions.

Why did he feel he needed to hide in his own home?

Why was he driven to hurt his sister like he did?

What is going on?

I wondered.

I decided to investigate a little bit in my spare time.

And why did you go through the trouble?

They aren't even your real family.

You might be saying.

Over the last few weeks, I set myself a goal. To embrace my new family. Having good relationships with my new family members would make my time here much more bearable. Also, I believe that Irisiez thought too highly of her family. Therefore, she kept a distance from them, believing that they would only accept her if she did certain things. Her family's attitude didn't help either. They had their own (very serious) struggles and hid them with cold and aloof or overly cheerful dispositions.

All because of expectations and more expectations.

Workload and more workload.

Pressure and more pressure.

Society and society.

All because we are the Dolth Family.

The ducal family, full of geniuses.

Masters of the sword.

Masters of magic.

Expected to be perfect shields for the empire, more than all the ducal families.

This drove them to do horrible things to their kin, slowly picking their spirits apart.

What do you mean?

I had been observing him (Marvin) from afar. He showed many signs of anxiety and fear towards the rest of my brothers. For example, he would often cower and shake in front of them. He would sometimes sit in the corners in of corridors while mumbling to himself and crying. Marvin would also train for unreasonable amounts of time and looked fatigued in the morning because of it. Later in the first week, I learned the reason why.

The rest of my older twin brothers, Robin and Kenneth (Third eldest) along with Harley (Second eldest) had been harassing Marvin. From things they said, I gathered that they had been doing so for years. I also gathered that, they used the fact that Marvin wasn't as talented at accounting and other money related things as them and was not as good as using the sword as them to impose callous punishments on him. It's no exaggeration either.

Beaten with rulers.

Beaten with swords.

Beaten with fists.

Beaten with whips (metal).

Countless heart piercing words.

"Defective piece of ****!"

"A useless pig like you should drown in dirt!"

"Mother wasted her time giving birth to that putrescent mass of flesh."

"Is there a reason you shouldn't a maggot's food?"

"You breathing the same air as us is an abomination."

"You don't deserve anything."

"If you were dead, this world would be a better place."

I had overheard them saying those things to Marvin while he would silently cry. He wasn't strong enough to stand up them and Father had little to no time to listen to his cries for help.

So he endured.

Every passing day.

And then, Irisiez was born. As she grew, she became more and more pitiful and her weakness remained, even becoming more apparent. Marvin, whose spirit was in constant torment, saw an opportunity in that little girl. An opportunity to relieve his unending anguish.

That's why he bullied her like he did.

Because his will to survive was dissipating.

His cheerful facade was crumbling like moist cake.

He needed something, someone that was inferior to him.

He needed something, someone to discharge the burden onto.

Irisiez filled that role in his life.

But then, I came along.

I'm braver and mentally stronger than Irisiez and don't intend to stand around and get bullied. I also know my self worth and know that I don't deserve any mistreatment of any kind. I know my rights.

Unlike Irisiez.

Due to this, my takeover was akin to shattering all he had left.

That's why he came after me that day.

Because of his desperation.

I knew he'd come eventually.

In fact, I was waiting for this moment.

That's why I kept going a particular path for the last week.

"H-how did you know?" Marvin said, stammering excessively.

"I took a stroll one night and saw," I replied, trying my best to keep my cool, "I saw it happen again multiple times. From what I overheard, it seems like they've been doing this for years. I'm sorry you had to go through this. You must have suffered a lot because of these bastards."

After I said that, Marvin broke down and began to sob quite bitterly.

He even fell to his knees.

He poured out his heart and soul to me. He told all he had been though and the pain these events caused him. He also apologised to me multiple times.

After a few minutes, he calmed down, becoming very quiet.

"We should tell father now," I said.

He began staring at me.

His eyes were screaming for not to go and tell him.

He began shaking uncontrollably and even paler than before.

"What's wrong?", I asked.

"Y-y-you c-can't tell him," he replied, barely stringing a sentence together.

"Why?" I asked calmly.

"They're more powerful than father combined," he explained in a rushed pace, "If you do this, they'll know it was me who told you. And then, we will all die!"

"It wouldn't benefit them to kill him though," I said, "Father is valued by many in society. If someone kills him, they wouldn't let them off easily. No matter the status."

"But couldn't they do that in a less obvious way?"

"It's possible, but Father has aura detection which even extends to objects," I added, "And if you're not okay telling him, I have a slower yet equally good method of solving the issue."

"What could that be?"

"Follow me."

He followed me to the library, which happened to be straight ahead.

An unreasonable amount of books, that could fill inside 20 skyscrapers without much problems.

Bookcases taller and wider than Big Mom herself.

An almost eery silence filled the room.

The type of silence that you would be afraid to disturb.

But what does the library relate to our problem?

Let me explain.

When I observed Marvin, I noticed something.

He swinged the sword, like you would with a hammer, instead of a mix between a slash and thrust you'd expect from a sword wielder. Marvin would also twist along with those swings. He would cover this up with speed, desperately hiding that the weapon wasn't the right one for him.

I had found a book about different weapons and who should wield them. I personally found that the dagger was the best option for my type of movements when attacking. I noticed that my major flaw whilst using a sword was the way I thrusted and slashed. I would accidentally ignore the fact that the sword was long, therefore my attacks would be flimsy and inefficient.

What about Marvin?

The flail.

It looks a lot like a morning star (weapon) but has a chain in between the baton. The weak and strong can wield it. As long as you know a bit about where attacks will hurt most or knock out your opponent quicker, the flail will be very effective. Not only that, it's perfect for Marvin's type movements when attacking. Since he's a genius like the rest of the family, he'll progress very fast. Since he's already great at magic, the plan will go smoothly.

What plan?

I had already told Father about the issue with Marvin and the rest. He (Father) had planned to pretend he didn't know about the situation and listen to Marvin's more detailed retailing of the events. We knew he would be reluctant to open up to him so we came up with a backup plan. Marvin would fight the three of them (one on one) in 2 months time. Father would find an excuse to send them away during that time, whilst Marvin would prepare.

During the fight, Father would use his detection to expose their shenanigans. They would then be sent away with anti mana bracelets and temporarily exiled. If by any chance Marvin was to win at least 2 of the fights, they would be forced to go to Axtwich Academy.

Nicknamed the child's worst nightmare.

Forced to wake up at unbelievable hours.

Soul destroying lessons.

Body destroying training.

Plain food.

And the world's strictest teachers.

No holidays.

That was Axtwich.

I believed the latter would teach them true misery.

Why a duel rather than a scolding?

Because if they were scolded, they would hurt Marvin in a more secretive manner and find a way to keep him quiet. Or worse, hurt Father. If he disappeared, the mass production of modern products plan would be annihilated. Since I was weak and looked down upon, I was unlikely survive if he disappeared. I would end up dying as a street rat. And worst of all, my goal to save Topaz would be annihilated.

End of Chapter (First Part).