She had wanted revenge, but before she could retaliate, she had gotten sick. Once Fake Dad had found out she wasn’t well, he’d stopped visiting altogether, so she’d been unable to get even. In the end, she’d developed a mental illness as well and passed away.
Even as a child, Falman had done everything he could to take care of her. Somewhere along the way, he’d learned the truth about his real father and what Fake Dad had done to his mother. From that moment on, he swore he’d get revenge on Fake Dad.
“Still, with all that, it’s kind of a miracle he turned out as well as he did.”
“Well, it would be a stretch to call him normal, but it’s pretty surprising that he didn’t drag Henri and the others into it,” Albert chimed in, still sulking a little.
He had a point. Given everything that’d happened, nobody would’ve blamed Falman if he’d wanted to take down the entire Gloriosa family. But in the end, he had only targeted Fake Dad, sparing the rest of the family as much as possible. That was definitely unexpected.
“Actually, he admitted that for the first few years after being taken in, he had fully intended on getting revenge on the entire Gloriosa family.” Viscount Abyss said, pausing his chat with Primera to join our conversation. “Apparently, Henri’s mother was always kind to him, and when he saw little Henri clinging to her for comfort, it reminded him of himself and his own mother. That’s what drove him to come up with this plan instead.”
“The power of a mother’s love...” Primera said.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” Viscount Abyss said. Up until now, he’d had a stern look on his face, but the second Primera had chimed in, his whole expression softened. He turned his back to Albert and me entirely.
“Albert, why don’t we leave this to Primera and go get ready for our trip?” I suggested.
Since the viscount was ignoring us in favor of Primera, Albert and I made our escape, heading off to prepare for our departure coming up in two days.
“We don’t really have much to prep, but I guess we can at least go pick out some souvenirs,” Albert said.
Even though Albert was still pouting a bit, I took him out to town. We spent about three hours picking up souvenirs and stocking up on our supplies. Primera was waiting for us back at the estate when we returned, angry about being left behind. Apparently, after we had left, she had gotten stuck entertaining Viscount Abyss. Gramps had shown up after that, and she’d ended up being their conversation partner for hours. To make matters worse, somewhere along the way, the conversation had shifted from Ceruna’s wedding to her future wedding, and for some reason, Viscount Abyss had started spilling the beans on all sorts of embarrassing stories from when she’d been little.
The viscount must’ve realized he’d made her angry because he had left before we returned. Gramps had taken the chance to slip away too. And since both of them had bailed, Primera had been left with no one to vent her frustrations to until Albert and I got back, which had just made her even angrier.
“Hey, Albert. You two aren’t gonna see each other for a while soon, so why don’t you spend some quality sibling time together? I’ll go make the rounds and say goodbye to everyone,” I suggested.
“Wait, Tenma!”
“There’s probably a bunch of stuff about the Sanga family and the duchy you don’t want outsiders hearing, right? No need to hold back with me gone. Later!”
I gave Albert a shove towards Primera. He tried to run back towards me, but Primera had already grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Come on, Tenma! Let’s go!”
Before Albert could yell for help, Amur grabbed my hand and bolted out the door, dragging me along. Cain, Leon, Jeanne, and Aura all slipped past Albert and Primera as well, making their escapes.
Once we were all gathered just out of sight of the front entrance, I noticed two people were missing. “Hey, where are Kriss and Leni? Don’t tell me they didn’t make it!”
“Kriss is holed up in her room, cuddling Shiromaru. And Leni—”
The second Amur said Leni’s name, she popped out of a bush nearby.
“I’m right here,” Leni said. “I was just standing a bit farther away from everyone at the time. I thought it would be rude to run past them, so I slipped out the window instead.”
“Gramps made a break for it early. Kriss is off in her own little world, but at least everyone’s accounted for.”
“Um, Albert’s still trapped, though...”
“They’re just having some good old sibling bonding time, Leon. Don’t you dare interrupt them.”
“If you’re so enthusiastic about it, why don’t you go ask if they’ll let you join in?”
“I wouldn’t interrupt family time like that! Don’t want to stick around and risk getting dragged into it!” Leon protested.
Yeah, right...
Still, if we kept hanging around here, there was a good chance we’d be spotted. I was perfectly happy to follow Leon’s lead and head back out into the city—using the back door, of course.
And so we left Albert to fend for himself while we wandered around Gunjo City, enjoying some shopping and street food. But when we got back...
“Tenma, listen! My brother’s the worst!”
The minute I walked into the door, Primera latched onto me and started venting. It seemed like whatever anger I’d sensed before we escaped had been unloaded entirely on Albert, so at least I was only getting her complaints now. That being said, after listening to her for a while, I started feeling the urge to go yell at someone—at Cain, Leon, Amur, Jeanne, Aura, and Leni, to be precise...