Chapter 61
Without permission, they barged into the room, bickering and quarreling. At the sight, Esther wriggled deeper under the blankets.
‘Where did Lark and Chiffon go?’
Normally, they’d have been right beside her.
“If I could’ve done that, I would’ve long ago! The problem is that even when you’re home, you still collapse!”
Nigel was fighting. And with kids who looked about ten years old, no less.
“Heh, maybe if you behaved yourself a little better, huh? Maybe some stranger cursed you or something?”
Dylan Egbert sneered. Nigel grunted, took a step back, and scowled fiercely.
“And your behavior is any better?!”
“Hmph, ours is fine!”
“Ridiculous. Every other day, all I hear about is the trouble you lot cause.”
“Uncle Nyman, you’re noisy.”
At last, Esther poked just her face out from under the blanket.
“You! Where do you keep disappearing to all the time?! Even when I go looking, you’re never there! All you gave me was a measly three-day talisman!”
“Talisman?”
“What talisman?”
Aaron asked curiously, and Dylan’s eyes went wide too.
The two boys, who had sidled closer, also looked full of dissatisfaction.
“Uncle Nyman, you just didn’t trust me. I said I’d give you something good and cheap….”
Esther shook her head slowly.
“I trust you, I do! That’s why this time I want something that lasts as long as possible….”
Nigel Egbert pulled a chair over and sat down cautiously, looking utterly deflated, as if he’d come to seek counseling. Esther’s expression turned strange.
His body was wrapped in bandages, dark circles hung heavily beneath his eyes, and there were wounds on his cheeks—he seemed burdened with all sorts of troubles.
His eyes drooped downward; the arrogance and confidence that once filled his face had sunken into melancholy.
Even to Esther, he looked pitiful.
“So why did you always live badly….”
“…I never lived badly. I just did my best.”
“If doing your best hurts someone, then that’s bad.”
“If I’d had the leisure to worry about that, none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”
He pressed his eyelids with a tired look.
“In this family, nothing makes you worthless faster than failing to prove your usefulness. I’m the head of a household, I have a family—I can’t be nothing.”
That was perhaps the most reasonable thing he’d ever said. Esther fell silent, and so did the brothers with her.
“You don’t know how wretched it feels to be nothing. I only tried my hardest not to lose the chances I was given.”
Nigel Egbert.
He was a man of the Egbert family with nothing outstanding about him.
The eldest brother had carried his role and left early. Kaelos Egbert had shown extraordinary divine power as a child.
Second only to the Pope in holy power, and even granted authority—it said it all.
And then there was Cardem Egbert, belatedly entered into the family register. Once destined to be cast aside, even he was given a rare power and thus spared.
But Nigel Egbert was nothing.
He was never chosen, achieved nothing, had no great ability, no real talent.
Everything about him was ordinary.
Ordinary talent in swordsmanship, ordinary knowledge as a scholar, ordinary grades at the academy.
He had no divine power, no gift of speech, only slightly above-average perception.
His eye for trade and handling money was better than most, but in the Egbert family, such things were useless and considered ordinary.
Everything was ordinary.
Had he been born into an ordinary household, he might have been praised as gifted.
After all, he was always average at everything.
But unfortunately, he had been born into the Egbert family—
A place where being ordinary was poison. Where being ordinary was a sin.
Even though he was battered and bruised growing up, Nigel never managed to prove his worth.
All he could do was marry as ordered and have children.
“Truly, I’m hopeless.”
He looked exhausted.
‘If he’s hurt that much, it means he hasn’t given up moving.’
Normally, with such bad luck, anyone else would’ve cowered at home. But Nigel Egbert kept moving—whether to win recognition or just to survive.
“Hm.”
Esther stared at the space above his head.
He wasn’t born under bad luck.
In fact, the aura of wealth surrounded him.
Better to leave here and go into commerce, she thought.
Looking at his fate and the stars’ influence, he was ill-suited to remain trapped in this narrow family.
“Do you really have to be recognized?”
“What?”
“You’re an adult, Uncle Nyman. You could go live on your own. Do you really have to be recognized?”
Truthfully, his family didn’t seem all that interested in him.
It was more accurate to say he’d been cast out.
After that swindler incident, his standing had shrunk further.
‘Still, the fact he doesn’t blame me for it means he isn’t rotten to the core.’
Esther slowly blinked her eyes open and shut.
“I’ve got it!”
She clapped her hands.
“Huh?”
Nigel Egbert’s eyes widened.
“It’s your seat, your place. That’s the problem.”
Tsk, tsk.
The serious look of a man in his late twenties, listening to a five-year-old cluck her tongue, was almost comical.
“Did the Lord speak to you again?”
Well, not exactly.
But—why not let him think so?
“Yep! I know now why Uncle Nyman keeps having bad luck and getting hurt!”
“Why? What did He say?!”
Nigel thrust his face right up to hers.
“Yep, our Lord says… Uncle Nyman just doesn’t match with this family.”
“What…? All of a sudden?”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’ve lived here over twenty years.”
“…Yep!”
Esther brazenly answered. Nigel fell silent again.
“And in all those twenty years, nothing has come of it, right?”
“That’s… true.”
Her words cut deep, and Nigel had no reply.
He seemed to question whether a child could be serious, but since she had shown results before, it was hard to dismiss.
“Then… what should I do?”
Esther rubbed her chin.
“Hmm….”
She shut her eyes, pressed her fingers to her temples as if possessed, groaned theatrically—then suddenly snapped her eyes open.
“It’s here!!”
“…Huh? What is?!”
“Uncle Nyman, you must leave this house.”
“…What did you just say?”
He stared in disbelief.
“Yes, yes, I see.”
Esther nodded at the empty air.
Nigel gulped nervously, Dylan stiffened, and Aaron froze at her eerie display.
“H-hey, you—what are you talking to…?”
Dylan asked, voice trembling.
Esther suddenly turned her head.
“He’s telling you to go out and do business!”
“…Business? What nonsense is that?”
“Yep! You’ll be hugely successful if you go into business!”
With money always circling him, if he trusted his instincts, he’d do well.
But Nigel’s expression darkened.
“Someone like me, going into business? I’d just get swindled again.”
His self-esteem had hit rock bottom. Esther glanced at the empty air again.
Of course, there was nothing there.
Strictly speaking, only a tangle of star auras.
‘Still looks like the path of a merchant.’
He had the knack for it.
If he’d nurtured it earlier, he’d already have been successful. But he hadn’t.
“Forget recognition.”
Esther spoke coldly.
“Grandma and Grandpa will never understand what you did, how hard you tried, or how much you wanted recognition.”
They were never interested.
They only cared about success, and chose to sacrifice much to preserve their love.
Even if they regretted it now, even if they tried to pick up the children they’d let go—it would take time.
And the chance of regathering all of them was slim.
Nigel Egbert probably wouldn’t be able to endure that wait. So, better to give up.
“You just need to be happy. Do you really have to be recognized to be happy?”
At her words, he fell silent.
Nigel Egbert didn’t answer.
For a long while.
“Is that really what the Lord said?”
“He only said you’d succeed if you go into business.”
“…I can’t tell how old you are anymore.”
At his weary remark, Esther grinned smugly.
“Unlike you, Uncle Nyman, I’m a genius….”
“…You insolent brat.”
He slowly rose to his feet.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not taking the talisman?”
“I’ll think on it and come back.”
Nigel Egbert said calmly.
But as he left with a troubled face, he tripped over his own feet the moment he opened the door and went sprawling.
Thud—
His face smacked the floor with an embarrassingly loud sound.
“…Ow.”
“…Uncle, are you okay?”
Dylan groaned, Aaron winced and asked.
“I’m fine.”
Nigel Egbert stood up with dignity, wiped the blood from his nose with a handkerchief, and walked slowly down the hall.
‘…Hmm.’
Esther averted her eyes.
‘Maybe I cursed him too strongly?’
A faint twinge of guilt bloomed in her heart.
Not that it changed anything.
After Nigel Egbert left, Dylan Egbert lunged at Esther.
“Hey, you!”
“What….”
She replied weakly, now sprawled lazily on the bed.
“You brought another boy, didn’t you?!”
“Boy?”
Ah, he must mean Siderius.
Not exactly wrong, so Esther nodded vaguely.
It wasn’t a lie, after all.
“How could you do that?!”
Dylan Egbert shouted, face full of shock.
