CH 133

“SOS from the family home.”

Translated by Dawn

Edited by Dawn

“SOS from the family home.”

“Hm? This is…”

A few days after the well and bath were installed, trouble came out of nowhere. A familiar light blue piece of paper came flying to me out of nowhere. It was a letter that I had left for my younger brother Mark when I was evicted from my parents’ house in this world, the Malbert house.

The light blue paper had my magic power planted in it, and it had a function like a telegram in my previous life, which was always ready to fly to me, no matter where I was. In other words, it was that. It was a “hahakitoku, sugukaere” kind of thing.

「ハハキトクスグカエレ」is a phrase used in a telegram. This is why the sentence is written all in katakana.

Was it roughly three months ago now that I wrote a letter telling him to contact me when he couldn’t help himself in any way…? I mean, even I couldn’t hide my own surprise that it hadn’t even been six months since I was kicked out of my parent’s house yet.

“Let’s see… ‘Brother, help me, an epidemic has broken out in Malbert’s territory and father is in a critical condition. I’ve tried everything to find medicine for him, but his face is turning more and more blue day by day… If we don’t do something, our territory will be in serious trouble. Please help me, brother!!’”

I digested and scrutinized the contents of the letter in my mind, and as soon as it was finished, I screamed alone in the empty room.

“Why!? Father is going to die! Too soon, too soon. At this rate, I’ll have to move up the plan I gave Mark by about ten years! …No choice, I’ll have to go back to Malbert territory once, albeit quite early.”

In response to Mark’s SOS, I had no choice but to return to my parent’s house. If my father Randall, the current head of the family, died, my younger brother Mark would take his place as head of the family, but since he had not yet reached adulthood, there was a strong possibility that he would be given a guardian. The guardian would probably be the Count of Byreus of the neighboring fiefdom, whom my father was close to, but even so, he would be hesitant to let a noble from another family know the family’s internal affairs, no matter how close he was to the person.

There were those who would try to take advantage of this situation and take advantage of it to make a sweet deal out of it, and there were also those who would use it as an excuse to make some unreasonable demands of the family. It was a rule of thumb not to reveal important information about a family, even if they were close friends, and it was the duty of the head of a noble family.

Therefore, it was more obvious than seeing the fire that if father died now, many troublesome matters would come up, so I decided to return home this time according to my formless sense of duty to make Mark’s future bright, which I imposed on him as the head of a noble family.

“Okay, there’s a lot of groundwork to be covered for that.”

I muttered something like that and called up Mia, the head maid, and Sobas, the butler, who were in charge of the mansion. I told them that I was going to leave the mansion for a while and that I had a good reason for leaving.

“Understood. We will take care of the house while Rolando-sama is gone.”

“Please do. Right, I’ll give you this just in case.”

I gave Sobas a leather bag containing ten large gold coins in anticipation of the uncertain time when I would return to this mansion. With this amount of money, they should be able to live without any problems for about five years if they didn’t live a luxurious life. …Well, I don’t think I’ll have to leave the mansion that long.

“Then, I’ll go.”

“Have a safe trip.”

“Take care.”

I was seen off by Mia and Sobas, and as usual, I immediately flew to Malbert’s territory using instantaneous movement just outside the mansion. I’d been keeping my abilities a secret from the people in the mansion, but…it was getting ridiculous and tedious to hide them, so I might as well tell them about my powers after this one is over.

I returned in an instant from the royal capital to the nostalgic rogue village of Malbert territory, and without pausing to reflect on my feelings, I explored my surroundings. Then, it seemed to be true that an epidemic was spreading, and even though it was daytime, there were no people around, and everyone seemed to be avoiding the minimum necessary contact with others.

“Dad, it hurts…”

“Chai! You’re going to be okay, alright? Chai!”

There was a father holding his daughter, whose light of life was about to go out. I was curious, so I analyzed the body and found that it had been stricken with an epidemic disease and appeared to be in a very weakened state.

“Hey, can I have a minute?”

“W-who are you!? Where’d you come from!?”

“It doesn’t matter. Rather than that, what’s happening here?”

“I-I don’t know where you came from, suspicious boy, but I got nothing to say to a stranger!”

“What are you making a fuss about?”

While I was wondering how to talk to the villagers who were wary of my sudden appearance, a familiar figure approached me. It was the village chief of the rogue village.

“V-village chief! This kid came out of nowhere and asked me something!”

“A kid? ….!? I know what’s going on. You go and put Chai to rest. I’ll take care of this kid.”

“All right.”

The village chief, who instructed the villagers to do so, folded his knees and fell flat when he saw that the villagers were gone.

“Roland-sama. It has been a long time.”

“No need to do that. You know what happened to me, right?”

“You were expelled from the Malbert family.”

“That’s right.”

This Rogue village was also the one that suffered the most when I ran a negative campaign about being a useless son. At that time, in order to make myself appear as a bad-behaved eldest son, I had played many malicious pranks that were not against the ways of others.

That was why I must be someone the people in this village did not want to see. In fact, there were a certain number of people who stopped being harassed by me when I was gone.

“It is true that Roland-sama may have done many things to us, however, to me, you are still the son of Randall-sama, to whom I am indebted.”

“Fuu, I see. Then, tell me what happened here.”

Thus, I decided to hear from the village chief of the village that had once caused this trouble.