Monopoly.
A board game created at the request of a high magician from the Astron Magic Tower at the academy.
It was even adopted as an event in the academy’s gathering, where Roderick came in second place.
Because of that, students flocked to the board game club.
And above all, it was the board game where Roderick and I made a promise to play again.
“I freed the dwarves… or so.”
“It’s supposed to be a secret, but I have to tell you, brother. You’re the future head of the family, after all.”
“…………”
“Brother?”
“…It’s my turn.”
The way Roderick approached the board game was quite different from how he was at the academy.
Roderick, who had been acting and deceiving me, worried that I might aim for the head of the family position.
When his act was finally exposed, he pointed his magic at me and declared he couldn’t trust me.
After that, whenever I persistently followed him around to play board games, he looked utterly baffled.
Roderick, who was my older brother and family, but in reality, no different from a stranger.
Unlike during our academy days when he reluctantly went along with it, he was now playing Monopoly with a bit more seriousness.
As he rolled the dice in his hand…
“…I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Huh?”
“When I saw you with the dwarves, I accepted that fact. I told you, didn’t I? I think you’re a genius.”
“Wasn’t that just lip service?”
“That part was sincere. Your genius just wasn’t in magic or aura. I don’t know what you thought, but I acknowledged your abilities.”
“…………”
“Rather, that’s why I was even more wary of you. With your abilities, your genius, and your connections, becoming the head of the Byron family would be as easy as twisting a child’s wrist.”
“Brother, you’re called a genius magician.”
“That’s all it is. My own incompetence? The head of the family isn’t a position appointed based on that. Just the fact that you have connections with an archmage is enough for you to become the head.”
“…………”
*Clatter.*
Roderick rolled the dice. He couldn’t buy land and had to pay a toll fee.
As he handed me the fake money, he looked somewhat pitiful.
“After you left, saying it was urgent, I desperately tried to find out about you.”
“…………”
“To me, you weren’t a younger brother but just a strong competitor for the head of the family position. I tried to find even the slightest weakness of yours, but…”
It was futile.
My brother was smiling bitterly.
“You befriended Knight Roland, the grandmaster at the Arkhé Magic Tower’s Bang tournament, and according to you, you even got acquainted with that beggar archmage and the Master Astron.”
“…Brother.”
“If they just said a word in support of you becoming the head, it would be more than enough. And then, I lost track of you. At the time, I was puzzled.”
It was around the time I went to the dwarf village.
From my brother’s perspective, it must have seemed like I suddenly disappeared.
Everyone around me knew, but my brother wasn’t part of that ‘everyone.’
“And do you know what I felt?”
“…………”
“Relief.”
The luck of a competitor who had become insurmountable suddenly disappearing.
Roderick let out a brief sigh of relief, and then…
…immediately felt intense self-loathing.
“It’s funny. No matter how much we lived like strangers, we’re still family. Brothers… and yet…”
“That’s…”
“Only then did I realize. What difference is there between me and my mother?”
Mother.
The person Roderick had muttered about at the Academy.
A name that was almost taboo in the current Byron household.
“You know about Mother’s end, right?”
“…Of course.”
“Mother was assassinated due to the succession struggle in her maternal family.”
Mother, who was the third daughter of the humble Uren Baronet family in the countryside.
She married my father, William Byron.
Back then, the Byrons were still a baronet family.
“Later, the Byron family was recognized for Grandfather’s achievements and elevated to a barony. And Mother, being the third daughter, suddenly rose to a high position even within the Uren Baronet family.”
“…………”
“But Mother had no interest in the Uren Baronet family. None… but even so, she was poisoned by other family members who saw her as a threat.”
Because they suspected she might interfere in the succession process of the Uren Baronet family.
Mother was killed by her own sisters.
I heard it happened less than a year after I was born.
‘And after that…’
The Uren Baronet family was nearly wiped out by my father, who used all his connections and gold in his fury.
At the time, the Byron family was a rising star, favored by the Emperor, while the Uren Baronet family was a minor house in the boonies of the west. That’s why it was possible.
My brother was telling the story.
“Kyle, power… the position of the family head is like that. Even family becomes a target, seen only as an obstacle. I learned that clearly from Mother’s death.”
That’s why my brother always kept me at arm’s length.
Because he lost Mother due to the struggle for the family head position.
I was only a year old, but my brother was seven. It must have been a lifelong trauma.
“But… but instead, I was becoming like that baronet family that killed Mother.”
“…………”
“If I felt joy, relief at your disappearance… how am I any different from those who killed Mother?”
“Of course.”
“There’s no difference. No difference at all.”
*Crunch.*
The sound of dice being crushed in Roderick’s tight grip echoed.
At the same time, he clenched his teeth so hard it seemed like blood might flow.
“…I was so confused, I wanted to deny myself. That’s why I volunteered to go north as a student.”
“North? You mean the monster-infested mountains?”
“I slaughtered, exploded, and killed countless monsters there. I tried to ease my confusion that way. It was a stupid thing to do.”
“………”
“In the end, I couldn’t resolve anything and was aimlessly heading back home… when I met you. Even then, I hid my true feelings.”
“True feelings?”
“I should have asked about your disappearance before the Third Prince’s matter. But it felt like it would remind me of the relief I felt, so I couldn’t bring myself to ask.”
And then Roderick…
Suddenly played Kyle Galli with a dwarf.
“Like I said earlier, I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“I’m a pathetic older brother who felt relief at my younger brother’s disappearance, and that younger brother… actually came back after making friends with someone over a board game.”
“……!”
In that moment, memories of the Academy flashed through my mind.
Roderick’s sneer and laughter at the idea of becoming friends through something like a board game.
But without realizing it, I had shattered his words head-on and returned.
“I talked to a dwarf. Just that alone gave me a glimpse of how much they hate humans. I’d heard rumors about the Dwarf Village, but… hearing your story made it clear.”
“Ugh.”
“I don’t know what happened there. But a dwarf named Charlie mentioned a board game called Tumbling Weapon. You really… crossed the wall of hatred through a board game.”
Ah.
So that’s why Roderick.
“He didn’t want to admit he was wrong. It was an ugly struggle. That’s why he suggested playing a board game with the dwarf. He wanted to deny that they became friends through something as trivial as a board game by using that very board game.”
“………….”
“In the end, it just fizzled out.”
If they had just played the board game normally, Roderick might have rationalized it.
Even if Kyle did, I still can’t become friends through something like a board game. In the end, I wasn’t wrong.
But because Kyle Galli ended in the form of cheating.
Roderick couldn’t even rationalize it.
‘What Roderick was angry about there.’
It wasn’t anger at the cheating itself.
It was anger at the reality where he couldn’t even rationalize, at the board game that ended ambiguously.
“And now, I have no choice but to admit it.”
“……Admit what?”
“I’m not fit to be the head of the family. A guy like me, with all these suspicions… I can’t lead the Byron family.”
So he came to a conclusion.
If he couldn’t let go of the suspicion that Kyle was aiming for the family head position.
Then he, the pathetic one, should just give up the succession.
“Become the family head, Kyle.”
“Brother.”
“I’ll… handle the dirty work of the family with this magic.”
“No, brother.”
“That’s the right──”
“No, no. Brother? I don’t want to.”
“………What?”
“I’ve said it so many times at the Academy, haven’t I? I don’t want to be the family head. Making board games is way more fun than being the head.”
He hasn’t been listening to me at all.
Roderick, who had been blankly blinking for a moment, soon twisted his face.
“Nonsense.”
“Why is it nonsense? Want to play another 24-hour board game with me?”
“………….”
“Even if I became the family head, do you really think I’d stay quietly in the Byron family? Really?”
“………Probably not.”
“Right, so if you’re going to act as the proxy head anyway, it’s better for you to be the head from the start.”
“But…….”
“Why are you being like this when you’re usually so decisive? Ah, you said my reputation as a board game creator was a burden, right?”
Well then.
“I’m going to create a board game room this time. I’ll give you all the rights to it.”
“Wha, what?”
“If my reputation is a burden, then you can just use it to stand above it, right? A board game creator younger brother handing over the rights to his brother, the family head. It’s a solid story, isn’t it?”
“………….”
Of course, like with Stella’s exclusive rights, I’m not handing over all the rights.
But just handing over the rights to the board game room is similar to declaring politically that I’m under my brother.
At least to our father and the vassals, it’s enough.
That should be enough. No matter how close I am to the Archmages, in the end, it’s my father and the vassals who decide the position of the family head.
‘I’ve always wanted to open a board game room whenever I got the chance.’
At the same time, it could also be used as a political move to firmly and unequivocally pass on the position of the family head.
By having me, who gained fame through board games, transfer the rights to a space filled with those very board games to my brother.
In a way, it’s similar to my brother, a Magician, transferring the rights to his magic workshop to me.
Anyway, there’s no way my brother wouldn’t understand that.
That’s why he’s making that dumbfounded face.
“What the…”
“Do you believe my sincerity now?”
“……”
“You still doubt me?”
“No… no, I don’t.”
Feeling both hollow and relieved.
Roderick smiled at me for the first time.
“Sorry. For being such a brother.”
“I’m the one who should be sorry. For being such a sister.”
After laughing for a while, my brother soon rolled a dice that was so crushed it had cracks. Of course, it didn’t roll properly.
“I lost at Monopoly. I got cleaned out by the toll fees anyway, and I barely have any land left.”
“By the way, brother? Doesn’t this mean I was right after all?”
“About what?”
“That you can get closer through board games. In the end, you trusted me because of board games, right?”
“…Yeah, you’re right. Damn you, sis.”
Even as he grumbled, my brother seemed to have let go of a lot of his worries.
Watching him tidy up the Monopoly board while muttering, I got up from my seat.
“It’s getting late, so I’ll head back now.”
“Going to bed?”
“Yeah, I still have 9 years and 364 days left to check on the engineering stuff.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but anyway. Ahem!”
“……?”
“Sleep… well.”
It might have been the first time my brother ever said that to his sister.
His awkward farewell naturally brought out a wry smile.
Can we start building a ‘family’ bond from now on?
Instead of responding, I waved my hand and was about to leave the room.
“Oh, right.”
“Huh?”
“When I freed the Dwarves, I had a private audience with His Majesty the Emperor. He said he could make our family candidates for Count or Duke. But I refused.”
“…………What?”
“And Sally became a half-human, half-dragon. You know about her engagement to Leisha, right? Oh, was that still a secret?”
“………….”
“Anyway, now you can rest easy and sleep well!”
“…How am I supposed to rest easy after hearing that, you brat!! Explain in detail!!!”
