Chapter 623: The Head Has To Be Responsible
I was munching on my breakfast with everyone when Mary came up to me and bowed.
“We have finished the interrogation, Young Mistress.”
“Interrogation? Oh. You mean of Crystal’s family?”
“Yes, Young Mistress. Would you like to see them?”
I tilted my head at her, “Eh? Right now? Err… Sure?”
Mary turned around and clapped her hands once, prompting several people to file into the room, all of them with their heads down.
The first thing I noticed was that all of them seemed to be completely fine except for two guys who looked like they got beaten up pretty badly. They were also the only two that were bound with ropes and gagged amongst the entire group.
Crystal and her sister came in after them, both of them looking quite worried for some reason.
The group of people then arranged themselves in a single file before suddenly falling to their knees and pressing their heads against the floor, the only ones who did not were Crystal, her sister and the two guys who were beaten up.
“Please forgive our impudence, Mistress!!”
…
Err… What?
I looked at Crystal, wondering if this was some kind of initiation ceremony that she made up that I didn’t know about.
But from the look on her face, I had a feeling that it wasn’t.
I turned to Mary instead but found that she had returned to Mother’s side, which meant that I was supposed to deal with this on my own.
Well… Easier said than done…
I turned back to look at the line of people still kneeling on the ground, “Umm… Sorry but can someone explain what is going on?”
Crystal was the one who stepped up to answer, though the worried look on her face still remained.
She gestured to the two men at the end, “Mistress… We found out yesterday that the two idiots over there were the cause of this misunderstanding.”
“Umm… Ok… So what is going on exactly?”
“They wanted to take over the family and saw me as an obstacle to their plans. Thus, they tried to get rid of me and intercepted my messages to make sure none of them reached them…”
Err… That wasn’t what I was asking but good to know? I was referring to why they were all kneeling on the ground genuflecting to me…
Still, what she said caught my attention because I have a question…
“What even was their plan in doing this? What were they trying to achieve?”
Crystal fidgeted slightly, “Umm… They knew from the intercepted messages that I was under your care… They were hoping that… If they were to… To… To…”
She started trailing off, as though she was deathly afraid of what she was going to say next.
I did notice that her eyes kept darting towards Mother’s and the other girls’ direction, though Mother was the only one amongst them who seem to be paying more attention to the food in front of her than Crystal herself.
Odeta growled at her, “If you’re going to say it, just say it.”
Crystal gulped, “Umm… They thought if they managed to get the family to hurt Mistress… You might get pissed and… Dispose of me…”
I blinked at her a few times before blurting out, “Are they idiots?”
Crystal winced slightly, “I… I have no excuse for them, Mistress.”
I wrung my hands, “Why would I even hold you responsible for this? They are the ones that are plotting against you. And even if I didn’t know that they were intentionally doing this, I wouldn’t have went after you since you have been trying to explain to them, right? This is such a shit plan.”
Like seriously, if they still insisted on doing this despite Crystal telling her family about her situation, then I would be placing the blame on the family instead of Crystal. Perhaps at most I would ask her to explain why this was happening but I wouldn’t just hold her responsible for this without knowing the full story!
And wouldn’t it make more sense if I went after the family instead of Crystal? This feels like they’re just creating more problems for themselves…
It’s almost like they thought I was some kind of tyrant or something…
I then gestured to the people still kneeling on the ground, “So what’s wrong with them? Why are they kneeling like that?”
This time, it was a middle-aged man who spoke up and I realised it was the leader from back then by his voice.
“Please forgive us for attacking you, Mistress!! We were truly led astray by those two bastards of a son and ended up offending you because of that! If you wish to punish someone, please just punish me as the family head for my incompetence in teaching my sons!”
I tilted my head, wondering why he would still assume I wanted to punish them. But before that…
“Sorry, but how should I address you?” I asked.
He pressed his head against the ground even harder, “My sincerest apologies, Mistress! It would be my honour if you could just simply refer to me as Patis!!”
Patis huh… Alright then…
I pointed at the two guys who were beaten black and blue, “Haven’t they already been punished already? I mean… Is that not punishment enough? They look like they were beaten until next week… What happened?”
Crystal made a face, “Umm… I apologise Mistress… But because my family is not exactly that well connected before I came here… They were not aware of the existence of the Nilm Family… Even when they heard that the Nilm Family was sheltering me, they thought that your family was just any other noble family that one could find inside the Lehcarouc Kingdom… It was only yesterday did they know the extent of the influence and power your family holds…”
Ah… Ok… Now I kind of understand why they were acting like this… And also why Mother was acting disinterested in this…
I’m pretty sure that if I was actually hurt during our confrontation, Mother would have definitely mobilised every resource she had to take revenge on their entire family…
But because I have placed them under my protection, Mother was allowing me to do with them however I saw fit.
Well… I would say that those two guys were just jealous of Crystal’s position as an Off-Worlder and probably felt that they had no chance to gain any position or power because of that and wanted to try and change the status quo.
Patis then added, “After Crystal has enlightened us on who exactly we had tried to offend, we had to beat them to confess to what they have done and to make them understand the extent of their treasonous actions!”
Ok… Doesn’t that mean you’ve already punished them anyway? So why are you still asking me?
I shrugged, “In that case… Since this is more of an internal family problem and I wasn’t really harmed in the first place, I will just leave it to you guys to decide how to deal with this.”
All of them looked at each other before all eyes went to Crystal, which basically told me who the real leader of the family was from that action alone.
Her jaw seemed to clench before she gave a small nod.
Oh good, seems like they have agreed that this case is closed. Now let’s all just get back to eating ok? I’m sure you’re all hungry since you must have been–
My train of thought was interrupted when Patis stood up and went towards the two brothers, both of them looking up at their father with wide eyes while they seem to be screaming into the cloth that was tied around their mouth.
Patis stood before them and shook his head, “For the continued survival of our family, I will have to ask that the two of you face the consequences of your actions. Know that as your father, I shall bear the burden of knowing that I failed to properly educate you and thus, I shall be the one to correct this error of mine.”
Huh… Sounds so serious… Is there really a need for all this just to free them?
He then reached his hand out and Crystal handed him a dagger, which I had presumed was going to be used to cut the ropes until Patis took a step forward and stabbed the knife into one of the son’s abdomen.
Without missing a beat, he pulled out the knife and stabbed it into the other son as well, letting both of them drop to the floor as they started to bleed out.
The two brothers groaned and struggled against their bindings to no avail, both of them already knowing that their fates were sealed.
The others of the family simply watched the entire thing without batting an eye, none of them even crying out or reacting to the death of two of their own at the hands of Patis.
Even Crystal seemed to be quite nonchalant about it, almost like this was something that was expected to happen.
…
Ok, I was most definitely not expecting that…
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