* This is an interlude. It has nothing to do with the main story.
It was prepared separately from the daily updates of the main story.
This is where I explain why the "wives of the Successive Heads" don't appear.
* On a separate matter, I'd like to apologize for a race that appeared in the story.
Even though I didn't know at the time, I used a race whose copyright is held by H*tt in the story.
I am deeply reflecting on this.
I have changed H*tt to Gnome.
Thank you very much for pointing this out in the comments section. I also apologize for the trouble I caused.
—Chapter One—
—Encounters with the Successive Heads inside the Jewel—
Having ended up staying at an inn in a post town, I followed the voice I heard from the Jewel and stepped outside my room.
Looking around, I found a chair set out in the corridor.
I sat down in it and decided to kill some time.
(Lately, I've been feeling awfully worn out.)
I lost to my younger sister Ceres and was kicked out of House Walt, my family home. Now, I'm being helped by my former fiancée, Novem.
(I'm so sleepy...)
I settled into the creaky, poorly made chair and simply closed my eyes.
"Wake up, you bastard!"
"Huh, ah, wh-what!?"
Hearing the shouting, I opened my eyes and looked around.
It was a round table with a large, blue, spherical stone set into its center. Fourteen chairs were arranged around it in the same fashion, with men and women seated side by side.
Only at my spot was I sitting alone, with no chair prepared beside me.
Across from me sat a man wearing a beast's pelt over his head—clearly some kind of barbarian-style getup—who was glaring at me as he spoke.
"Those dead-fish eyes of yours! I can see them just going all droopy and listless… You call yourself a man of House Walt? Listen up—House Walt's whole selling point is wildness—Oof!"
A woman in her late twenties drove her fist down onto the man in his thirties who had started bellowing, shutting him up with a single blow.
Everyone else around the table watched the punched man with indescribable expressions.
Holding his head, the man looked at the woman.
"L-look, this was just to put a little fire in our descendant, okay? I'm not seriously angry or anything like that. …I'm not."
The woman with wavy brown hair tied in a ponytail grabbed the man by the collar and drove a solid punch into his gut, silencing him once more.
(…Wait, what is this?)
Then the woman who had been sitting beside me stood up and threw her arms around me.
"You've grown so much… Laiel, do you remember me?"
Looking at the woman, I was stunned. Stunned because she looked exactly like my grandmother. Yet she appeared to be in her late twenties.
And my grandmother had already passed away.
"Huh, but… how can that be…"
As I stood there flustered, the ponytail woman looked at me and laughed.
"Hahaha, aren't you just adorable. I never imagined my descendant would turn out to be such a handsome young man. Well, well—to think someone like you could be born into House Walt."
Then the woman who had been hugging me—the grandmother figure—glared at the ponytail woman.
"…Just a moment. Laiel carries my blood. That means he's of the legitimate royal lineage. You may act high and mighty, but what is the wife of a mere Knight Baron doing here?"
The woman with the ponytail shot back, veins bulging on her forehead.
"Excuse me? Don't you get cocky with me when you're younger than me. In case you don't realize, none of the people here would even be gathered if it weren't for me? Come on, you lot—say something, won't you?"
With that, the ponytail woman turned to the couple standing beside her. Looking more carefully, all of them appeared to be married pairs.
The man dressed as a hunter spoke up.
"Well, that is… Mother, let's calm down, shall we? See, even our descendant Laiel?—he looks uncomfortable."
But the woman was having none of it.
"I've been wanting to say this for a long time, but—"
The woman with long, straight green hair who stood next to the hunter-clad man spoke while touching her hair.
"—Mother-in-law's soup is always way too salty."
…What was she even talking about?
Her words didn't connect to anything, yet the green-haired woman wore an expression as if she had finally gotten something off her chest.
The hunter-clad man hurried to smooth things over.
"Hey, that's not it. This isn't the time or place for that kind of thing!"
"What do you mean! I could never finish saying it back then, so at least let me say it here! You're just as much to blame for never telling her that this so-called 'House Walt flavor' tastes bad!"
The ponytail woman glared at the hunter-clad man and the woman beside him, snapping her fingers.
"Oh my… So that's what you thought. How hurtful. Crussel, go tell the woman who makes that watery soup the truth."
It seemed the ponytail woman was the hunter-clad man's mother. She looked slightly younger than him, which made for a peculiar sight.
The grandmother who had embraced me explained things to me.
"It must have been tough, Laiel. But it's all right. Everyone standing here—they're the ancestors of House Walt… I don't think they're particularly useful, but they all possess Skills, so they should be able to help you."
And then, the grandfather—who looked like a younger version of himself—stood up and addressed the grandmother.
"O-hey! Don't go saying things like that! Many of the Successive Heads were well-versed in martial arts. If you're going to say that, then..."
The one who had objected to the grandmother was a woman sitting beside the man who had been adopting a "not my problem" attitude.
She rose to her feet beside the small man and looked our way.
"Even if you call it the royal family, you're the root cause of all this, aren't you? Listen well, Laiel. The Jewel that woman brought with her when she married into the family — that's the root cause of everything."
The "not my problem" man nodded slightly beside her.
"...That's right. I mean, calling it the royal family and all, how should I even put it..."
I couldn't make sense of any of it and looked around at everyone.
(Um, I don't understand.)
The carefree-looking man was mediating between the ponytail woman and the green-haired woman.
"Grandma, Mom, that's enough. Right? I'm asking you — please."
When the two reluctantly backed off upon hearing that, his wife spoke up.
"You always smooth things over like that... You really are resourceful, aren't you? Even though Marks suffered because of you. Right, Marks? He goes and takes such a feisty little shrimp of a bride, and then Fredericks turns out all twisted..."
The man wearing glasses was breaking out in cold sweat, completely flustered. The small woman slammed both palms on the round table and shot to her feet.
"How annoying! I did my best as a viscount's daughter, you know! What's that supposed to mean?! What do you mean Fredericks is twisted?!"
The man who had been playing it cool was now panicking.
"Mom— Mom, please stop! Hey, Dad!"
A man who could stand up to his father with confidence — but the one called "glasses dad" could only say:
"What do you expect me to do about it?! I can't go against either of them, so you smooth things over like your old man did!"
"Don't screw with me, you lousy old man!"
Once they started going at it, the small woman similarly locked horns with the other woman in an all-out brawl.
I turned my gaze toward a large, wild-looking man.
But he had made himself small, sitting in a chair and fretting over the woman beside him.
The beautiful woman with golden hair and blue eyes wore a dress and gave off a somewhat cold impression.
"How noisy. Honestly, this is exactly why I can't stand provincial nobodies out in the sticks."
"Hey, I've given you a perfectly comfortable life. No need to talk like that—"
When the wild-looking man said that, the woman glared at him.
"Stop being so noisy, you liar! What do you mean you fell for me? Keeping other women besides me... And on top of that, you just did as your father told you and took in more women without a second thought... You have no spine at all!"
The wild-looking man sent a pleading look toward a small-statured man.
"...I told you to take concubines, but that was only in case you couldn't produce an heir. There was no need to go out of your way and take on so many, but you—"
When the wild-looking man hung his head, grandfather spoke to the woman.
"Mother, perhaps that's enough. Laiel is watching, you know."
The woman looked toward me.
I tensed up and straightened my spine.
"My, you really are cute up close. I'm sure you'll be a heartbreaker, unlike this one here. Do me a favor, Laiel... don't grow up to be like him, okay?"
She fixed me with eyes that had lost their luster, and I found myself nodding over and over.
My grandmother pulled me into a hug and spoke.
"Anyway, Laiel, about Novem—"
"Huh, yes?"
"Doesn't something seem off about her? It's this feeling... a woman's intuition is whispering to me."
"Well, you see, she chose to come with me. And besides, I haven't even decided what I'm going to do from here on out, so..."
"Then there's nothing to worry about!"
Grandmother pulled away from me and spread both arms wide.
"There are fourteen people here! Their Skills and applied Skills add up to a total of forty-two Skills, all belonging to Lyle! If you want, we could even try taking over a country? I can't stand the current royal family, so I'll lend you my full support. Won't you, dear?"
Grandmother looked at Grandfather, who averted his gaze.
"W-Well... I suppose one or two countries could be taken rather easily... but there's the matter of history, and righteous justification, and all that..."
At Grandfather's mumbled words, Grandmother placed a hand on her hip and, from who knows where, produced her favorite fan and flicked it open.
"What's this? With all the Walt men here, you can't even steal a single country? Honestly, how pathetic. The successive heads of House Walt, hailed as the strongest in Banseim, and this is all you can manage?"
Then a man clutching his stomach in a barbarian-style outfit stood up.
"W-Wait a second. Look, right now she doesn't have a single soldier to her name, so how exactly are we supposed to pull off country theft..."
I expected some surprisingly reasonable pushback, but the men turned out to be remarkably passive.
"Yeah... I don't want to agree with the old man, but picking a fight with an entire country is a bit much..."
"It sounds like a hassle. How about we just run off somewhere and start fresh—build a new settlement?"
"Oh, I'm really good at making money, you know!"
"Let's raise animals, animals!"
"Look, I was wrong, so just forgive me already!"
"I used to be an advisor to the royal family, you know!"
He was the only one who kept groveling to his wife, showing no interest in country theft. However, the wives of the other men had a different opinion.
They were all for war.
"I love it! My bloodline bringing down Banseim and reaching the royal family... Count me in!"
"If we use everyone's Skills here, it should go surprisingly fast, don't you think?"
"She worked her way up from Knight Baron all the way to a Count's house, so skipping a few steps and going straight to the royal family is fine by me. Actually, you know what? The royal family can just disappear. My husband's death was absolutely that bastard's fault… So what if he introduced me to my husband? Then he dumps all the responsibility on me and bolts…"
"That's right! We'll show those annoying royal descendants what we're capable of!"
"Do you have any idea how much my husband endured… I'll never forgive Ceres for ruining House Walt like that! And the royal family abandoned every surrounding noble — I don't have even a shred of loyalty left toward them! Darling, you need to do your best here."
"…This might be just the right outlet for stress. You'll do it, won't you, dear?"
"We have connections with quite a few houses, you know. There are plenty of nobles who hold grudges against the royal family. Don't worry — we'll hand over the throne to Laiel as a gift."
Even if she said she was giving it, it wasn't something he wanted in the first place.
"U-Um… I can't even beat Ceres, though…"
At that moment, a man with a wild appearance spoke up.
"That's why you're so pathetic— Oof!"
A ponytailed woman decked him and shut him up, then the women launched their campaign to persuade the husbands.
They used sweet talk, threats, and relentless nagging until they wrung out the men's approval.
All I could do was watch it unfold—
Grandmother spoke.
"Come now, Laiel… shall we begin stealing a country?"
"U-Um—"
That was when I heard Novem's voice.
"Laiel-sama, you'll catch a cold sleeping in a place like this."
Novem had washed her hair and dried off in the room, and now she was gazing at me with concern.
With tears in my eyes, I threw my arms around Novem.
"L-Laiel-sama, what's the matter?!"
I spoke to Novem, who was panicking.
"What should we do, Novem... I've ended up having to steal the kingdom."
"...Huh?"
Even Novem was rendered speechless by my words.
How did you like it?
This story isn't going anywhere. Fourteen people inside the Jewel. With that many in there, the main plot can't advance at all! And forty-two Skills is way too many to handle. From the very start, Laiel is already in an overpowered state!
Maybe someday I'll write a version with just the wives in the interludes.