Paradigm Parasite

Chapter 123: "Candidate"

[Other Pov]

There are currently five remaining candidates.

Ben, the eldest son.

He is strong in business relations, frequents the store often, and is said to have good connections, so there is a high possibility that he arranged the above-mentioned people. He is also said to have often said that he would be the next head of the family.

Adolfo said that he was often sarcastic and looked down on other people.

The second son, Grim.

He helps out with the staffing business and is familiar with the dark side of the family, so it is thought that he knew about this incident in advance. He is the next most suspicious after the eldest son, since he is also involved in the same business and must have subordinates who are free to do as they please.

His mother is also different from hers, and their ages are far apart, so their contact with each other is thin and unknown.

However, he is said to have a dark atmosphere with few words.

The eldest daughter, Ettore.

She is widely known for her friendships, and is often seen walking around town with several members of the opposite sex.

She is also a half-sibling of Ettore's, so they don't have much contact with each other, and they don't know much about each other's personality and character.

Pasquale is the second daughter.

She is a studious person and has already attained the rank of 3rd grade public official and is currently studying to move up to 2nd grade.

She is a good friend of Adolfo's because she often helps her study for the public examinations, and Adolfo says that it is hard to imagine her taking part in this event because of her calm personality.

Adolfo, the third daughter.

She is the one in front of me.

They are siblings, but some of them have different mothers.

Ben and Adolfo are siblings, but all the others seem to be different.

I would like to add that the 10 girls who were eliminated are not their siblings, but their relatives.

"First, just to confirm, the most suspicious person is the oldest son, Ben, right?"

"Yes. Ben, your brother, is ...... a man of means..."

Adolfo nodded with a complicated expression.

Her distrust of her family is evident in her inability to say that she is okay with her other brothers and sisters.

"I see. It might be better to consider at least all of them as enemies?"

"...Yes. That's right."

"I ask you, how do you intend to deal with your brother and sisters?"

I ask how we would neutralize them if they were implicitly hostile to us.

It is better to clarify this early on.

Adolfo seems to be aware of the intent of my question, and her gaze wanders as if searching for an answer.

"I know it will be a burden to ...... Heidi-sama, but I don't want to do anything that will kill my brother and sisters if possible. So..."

"I get it. Then catch them and lock them up somewhere until the time period expires. ...... Oh, by the way, I didn't ask you when the due date is. When is it?"

"Three mornings from now."

Three days...in the morning, that's practically two days and a bit.

I think I can manage that long.

Let's put the tired Adolfo to bed for now.

"I understand. Let's rest for the time being, and we'll talk about the details tomorrow. I'll stay up, you rest."

"Well..."

"It's okay. But you never know what might happen, so keep your weapon handy and ready to use when you wake up."

Adolfo was about to say something, but nodded and went into bed.

"I'd like to thank you for your help today. I'll look forward to working with you again tomorrow."

"Okay. Best regards. I'll be watching over you, so you get some rest."

She smiled a little and closed her eyes.

It wasn't long before she fell asleep, and she was already starting to sigh in her sleep.

Well then.

I take out the stiletto I used during the day and remove the vial from my luggage.

I carefully open the lid and place the tip into the bottle.

This poison works well, but once it is used, it must be re-prepared, so it is basically disposable.

This time, we were lucky enough to retrieve the bottle so we could reuse it, but it might be a good idea to have a spare ready.

After a brief maintenance of my equipment, I spread out the tools I had taken from the people I fought on the table.

Four daggers. They are ordinary ones with no particular features, but they are well made and seem to be worth a good price.

There are many magic stones. At first glance, all of them contain magic such as flashing lights, smoke screens, and other disturbance-type magic.

Finally, bracelets. It is a simple and rugged piece of jewelry, but it seems to be sturdy.

Perhaps it was the effect of this that made him disappear?

I tried to use it, and it is true that it can make me disappear, but I have to constantly feed it with magic power to maintain invisibility.

Moreover, its fuel consumption is poor. Fatigue comes over me even though I only used it for a short time.

...Not very useful, is it?

I'll wear it just in case.

I didn't have time to strip the armor, so this is all I got.

It's a waste, and if I sell it, it will add up to a little ...... ha!

...What was I thinking?

For some reason, he appeared in my mind and whispered, "Of course we're going to strip the attackers of their stuff, aren't we?" He's whispering to me.

No, I shouldn't do that. I had recently come to think that it was natural, seeing him stripping the night burglars who attacked us in the wrong way.

At first, I admonished him, "No, I shouldn't do that either," but since he was giving me half of the money from what he sold, I felt it wasn't good to just take what he gave me, so recently I've been helping him strip the clothes off.

Thanks to this, I've become less reluctant to strip others of their clothes.

What am I thinking!

I nodded ...... as I saw the numbers of the street money and equipment cost fluttering around in my ...... brain, no matter how much of a scoundrel I was dealing with, taking someone else's things.

...Yeah. I guess it's okay if they are bad guys, right?

They originally came to take our lives and things, and they can't complain if they try to steal from us, can they?

...... can't say...right?

Let's switch.

First, let's talk about the remaining candidates Adolfo mentioned.

Optimism is dangerous, so I should assume that all of them are up for it.

Based on the positions of everyone I've heard from, I'm going to predict the forces that are likely to be ready.

First, Ben, the eldest son.

He is the hardest to read. He is sure to have connections with various people due to his position as a merchant.

Therefore, there are too many candidates and it is difficult to know what they will bring out.

Is he simply a roughneck mixed with bandits? An assassin? Or a mercenary?

As long as his position as the head of the family is at stake, it is a must-win lineup.

Personally, I think they are mercenaries of sorts.

It's not just Adolfo we're dealing with, there are other candidates, and it's always a good idea to have quality and numbers.

Next is Grim, the second son.

He's relatively but understandable.

To be honest, I have an idea of what Adolfo vaguely described as recruitment.

Soul hunter.

The assassin guild of which the person who once controlled my body was a member.

Their headquarters must be here.

I can't remember much about the person themselves, but I do remember their actions.

As I recall, the guild's activities were funded by the royal capital.

Ostensibly, the company was dispatching personnel, mainly mercenaries, I believe.

But after they got on track to a certain extent, they seemed to be working on their own....

It is certain that the headquarters is located at least here in the capital.

Perhaps...Adolfo's house....

I shake my head inwardly. It's on my mind, but it's not something I'm thinking about right now.

...but. If my guess is correct, they are likely to send a constituent assassin.

The eldest daughter, Ettore.

We have too little information on her.

We know that she has a lot of friends, but that's all we have on the flip side.

I wonder if she'll ask her friend to be her escort?

Finally, the second daughter, Pasquale.

Since she already has the status of a public official, she should be able to move some of the public forces.

She can even move the Knights if she has a reason to do so.

Perhaps she could ask the Gnosis to dispatch a holy knight to her.

If you think of it that way, the threat level is high.

If we were to turn the tables on them, it might make our position worse.

In order of current threat level, Pasquale, Grimm, Ben, and Ettore, in that order.

If we just fight them off, we can go back and forth a little bit, but overall, the power that the country possesses is still terrifying.

If we are not good enough, we will lose our place.

Basically, we will be on the run, but either way, there are two of us, including Adolfo.

There are not so many moves we can take.

What should I do?

I was lost in contemplation, keeping an eye on my surroundings until Adolfo woke up.

"Damn! Why!?"

The man - Ben, the eldest son of the Sebatiar family - slams his fist on the desk.

The place is his room in the mansion he owns.

This time, the selection of the head of the family. I'm going to win at all costs.

To do so, he decided to prepare a winning lineup by utilizing his personal connections.

To be honest, I didn't want to get involved with these people any more than I had to, but this time was different.

Since we could not lose, it was a natural choice to play the strongest hand.

But for some reason, Darzain, the organization that we had approached, said at the last minute that they could not cooperate with us.

They said they had an urgent matter to attend to and couldn't send anyone out.

We had invested so much in them, and now they were refusing our request?

It was certainly an urgent matter, but we had given them enough food for thought that they didn't mind twisting it around.

Threatening to cut off his investment did not change his answer.

In the end, I yelled at them and left the place, and the conversation broke down.

I had to procure my forces elsewhere.

Since there was no choice, he decided to call on the mercenaries he knew well who often served as guards for the merchants instead.

Although they are skilled, they are not suitable for assassination because they are too conspicuous, and although they were not an option this time, they are much more trustworthy than the "hunters".

If it were an assassination, I should have asked the "hunters" to do it, but they are under the control of Grim.

If I rely on them, they will definitely catch me in my sleep...and I will die.

Die? Ben, the eldest son of Sebatiar?

You can joke all you want, but you're not going to get away with it.

And my father as well. What a deadbeat.

If you'd just nominated me instead of going through all the trouble of the selection process, we wouldn't be in this mess.

I'm usually the next head of the family, right?

How much money do you think I made for the family?

If you think in terms of income and expenditure, you'd understand how much you'd lose by losing me!

More than a shut-in Pasquale! More than the dark-rooted Grimm! More than Ettore, the old hag! More than the incompetent Adolfo! I, Ben, am the one who deserves to be the head of the family!

He is screaming and hitting everything around him.

He is spewing a lot of nonsense, but he knows it in his head.

He knows in his head that he is already dead.

All the mercenaries I asked to escort me were turned down.

The refusal phrase is "~ is dead, so it's a bit."

At that point, I knew what to expect.

It was the work of Grim, that mumbling, down-turned-talking, creepy brother of mine.

He should have just let me kill him, but he was so lascivious to resist me....

Thoughts that could have been filled with curses were drowned out by a knock on the door.

"Who is it!?"

There was no answer, and the door was pounded even harder.

Who is it at this hour? The servants are supposed to be resting.

Besides, there is no one in the house who knocks on the door so violently.

I have a bad feeling about this, but there is no escape.

He pulls out the sword hidden under the desk.

It is a magic sword that burns up the person it cuts. He knows what he's doing.

If it's an ordinary opponent, he should be able to push through with the weapon's performance.

He slowly approaches the door so as not to make a sound.

The banging never stops.

I grab the doorknob gently, hoping to slash at it the moment it opens.

As soon as I put my strength into twisting it, I felt a shock on my face.

Without understanding what had happened, my consciousness was suddenly cut off.