Chapter 13
Crack.
Something cracked near the entrance of the restaurant.
The sound came from the hand of the boy frozen like a stone statue while gripping the doorknob—Kairon von Northgard.
The young master's red eyes shook violently, as though an earthquake had struck.
And his gaze was fixed precisely on the spoon in my mouth and Kara's hand feeding me with it.
‘No way... Is that brat jealous right now?’
I chewed the stew in my mouth and snickered inwardly.
Kairon clearly hadn't even properly seen Kara's face yet.
She had her back to Kairon because she was feeding me stew, and her mask was hanging from her chin.
He was already reacting based on nothing but the atmosphere.
As expected, the original male lead's intuition was frightening.
But that was as far as my amusement went.
“Everyone, attention!”
The escort knights following behind Kairon charged into the restaurant and shouted.
“The young master of the Northgard Grand Ducal House, Lord Kairon, has arrived! Show proper respect at once!”
The boisterous restaurant fell silent as though someone had thrown cold water over it.
The soldiers who had been eating stew stared blankly at the entrance with their spoons still raised.
“What? The Grand Ducal House?”
“Why is the young master here?”
Their expressions seemed to say, What kind of trouble is this while we're trying to eat?
Some of them even set down their spoons and began awkwardly getting to their feet.
But there were still veteran soldiers sitting carelessly and tipping back their drinks.
One of the escort knights frowned at the sight and shouted.
“You there! How dare you smoke a cigarette in front of the young master! Put it out at once!”
The soldier who had been singled out repositioned the cigarette hanging from his mouth and snorted.
“Ah, smoking one after a meal is the joy of my life, so don't be so uptight. Is this some nobles' banquet hall? This is our territory.”
Fwoosh-
He deliberately blew a cloud of pale smoke toward Kairon.
“Y-you insolent...!”
When the knight reached for his sword, Kairon raised a hand to stop him.
“Enough.”
Kairon covered his nose with a handkerchief and frowned.
He hadn't expected discipline in the borderlands to be this lax.
‘Count Eisen definitely said that the soldiers of the borderlands were free-spirited, yet possessed something that warmed the heart...’
But the cigarette smoke blown at Kairon was free-spirited without being warm. It was simply rude.
Rather than anger at such brazen rudeness, he was overwhelmed by the unfamiliar coarseness of the lower classes.
More than anything... the sharp, murky air was unbearable.
But Kairon did not retreat.
His red eyes were fixed on only one place: our table in the corner.
Step, step.
Kairon strode toward us, huffing angrily.
The escort knights fidgeted helplessly, wanting to stop him, but Kairon's momentum was too fierce for them to dare lay a hand on him.
At last, Kairon stopped in front of our table.
Count Eisen, who was looking around as he tried to grasp the situation, barely registered in Kairon's eyes. Kairon glared at me and slammed his hand onto the table.
“You insolent bastard!”
“......?”
I looked up at him with an innocent expression, a spoon still between my lips.
Kairon pointed at me and shouted.
“How dare you! A mere bodyguard receiving service from the noble young lady of House Eisen! Are you out of your mind?”
‘......Pfft.’
I barely swallowed the laughter about to burst out.
Young lady?
Count Eisen's daughter?
Ah, I see.
Count Eisen was guiding us, after all.
He must have mistaken Kara for Eisen's daughter or some other relative.
Well, with a twenty-year-old woman accompanying a middle-aged count, it was an understandable assumption.
“As expected of a barbarian with no breeding, you don't even know proper etiquette! You gobble down food your mistress feeds you? Have you no shame?”
At Kairon's impassioned tirade, Kara opened her eyes wide and looked at Count Eisen.
“Count? Did your daughter perhaps come here?”
“Pardon? No. My daughter is at the estate....”
Count Eisen waved his hands in alarm, but he could no longer stop me now that the mood for mischief had taken hold.
Kairon's mistaken assumption was simply too adorable.
This brat was so blinded by jealousy that he couldn't think straight.
I grinned and opened my mouth wide toward the spoon Kara held, her expression blank.
“Aaah.”
“Huh?”
While Kara hesitated, I took the spoonful from her hand in one bite, almost snatching it away.
Then I smacked my lips and savored it ostentatiously.
“It's good. Being fed really is the best.”
“Y-you...!”
Kairon's face turned beet red at the spectacle of such an outrageous act taking place before his eyes.
His anger and jealousy were compounded by a shock even greater than the soldier's earlier rudeness, leaving him unable to speak.
As the atmosphere grew hostile, Count Eisen, who had finished assessing the situation, calmly rose from his seat.
Then he bowed politely to Kairon.
“I greet the young master of the Northgard Grand Ducal House. I am Eisen.”
“Ah, Count Eisen?”
Only then did Eisen properly register in Kairon's eyes, and he flinched.
“However... my family did not accompany me on this inspection of the borderlands. It seems you have misunderstood something.”
Count Eisen gestured toward us with his eyes.
“Now, you two, wipe your mouths, stand up, and show the young master proper respect.”
“Understood.”
Kara, unaware of what was going on, rose from her seat.
Since we were newlyweds, she had been so absorbed in feeding me that she had lost track of everything else, even while eating.
Before we married, when we had lived like siblings, I had been too embarrassed to accept her care even when she tried to look after me as an older sister should.
But after getting married and beginning to accept Kara's care, I had recently found myself being fed by her more and more often.
Today was no different. She had been feeding me stew without even remembering that the herbal leather mask Granny Baba had given her was hanging from her chin.
Kara turned her head to offer the proper greeting.
Then she belatedly noticed the mask hanging from her chin, untied it, and raised her head toward Kairon.
Swish.
The rough leather mask came off.
At that moment.
It felt as though the lights of the restaurant and the entire world focused on Kara.
Kara's bare face, hidden beneath the mask.
A beauty as cold as a snowstorm over the snowy wastes, yet equally clear and noble.
A sharp nose and red lips.
And the moment her mysterious sapphire eyes were revealed in full.
“......!”
Kairon's breath caught in his throat.
The fury he'd been venting only moments before evaporated.
His mind went blank.
She had been beautiful even with the mask on.
The fleeting glimpse of her face he had caught when they passed one another had been beautiful too.
But facing her bare face head-on left him barely able to breathe.
‘Ah....’
It was fate.
The irresistible magic of 「Love at First Sight」 forcibly imposed by the original novel.
Kairon backed away as though bewitched.
Thud.
He bumped into the armor of an escort knight behind him, but paid it no attention.
Only the woman before him, Kara, existed in his world.
I clicked my tongue inwardly as I watched him.
‘Look at that kid. He's completely out of it.’
I stood behind Kara and subtly bent my knees.
If I revealed the full bulk of my two-meter-tall frame, that little brat might get scared and run away.
It wasn't time to intimidate him with my size yet.
For now, it was time to enjoy the opening act of this tangled love triangle a little longer.
That was when it happened.
The smell of food filling the restaurant and the cigarette smoke belched out by the soldiers grew thicker.
In the end, the acrid air irritated Kairon's still-developing respiratory system.
“Cough! Cough! Urgh....”
Kairon covered his mouth with his hand, frowning.
He must have choked while trying to shout, because he couldn't stop coughing.
His face flushed red, and even tears brought on by the physical reaction welled in the corners of his eyes.
“Y-young master! Are you all right?”
“Open the windows! Now!”
The escort knights panicked and milled around helplessly.
Kara, watching them, toyed with the leather mask in her hand.
She looked back and forth between the mask and the coughing boy, then subtly turned her head to look up at me.
‘......’
She said nothing, but I could tell just by looking into Kara's eyes.
‘Is that child all right? Shouldn't we help him?’
That's my wife.
She looked like a cold beauty on the outside.
But inside, she was warmer and more affectionate than anyone.
And even if it was just some youngster, she was considerate enough to ask my permission first, knowing that I might feel uncomfortable seeing her hand another man something she had been using.
‘What a good girl.’
I gave her an approving look.
But it would have been awkward for me to step in personally.
He was bound to throw a fit and call it 「a dirty object handed over by a barbarian」.
More importantly, I was currently crouching for my surprise prank, so I couldn't move carelessly.
That was when it happened.
Count Eisen, who had not missed the exchange of glances between us, naturally held out his hand.
“Miss Kara, if you don't mind, may I deliver it for you?”
At the count's quiet question, Kara nodded and handed him the mask.
Eisen took a clean wet cloth from inside his coat and carefully wiped the inside of the mask.
A thoughtful precaution to remove any foreign matter that might have remained.
Swish, swish.
And, just in case, he even fanned the inside of the mask with his hand.
‘Count Eisen must have been jealous when he was young too... like me.’
While I admired the count's thoughtfulness, he approached Kairon, whose face had turned red from coughing.
“Young master, excuse me. The air here is stale, so please use this.”
Count Eisen respectfully held out the mask.
Kairon looked up at the familiar voice despite being distracted by his coughing.
“Cough... hack! E-Eisen...?”
The escort knight reacted first.
“Ah, Count Eisen! But even so, how can you give the young master an object belonging to barbarians...!”
The knight expressed his displeasure as he looked at Kairon, who had accepted the mask, with concern.
Count Eisen shot the knight a cold look.
“They are 「Revered People」.”
“......Pardon?”
“Not barbarians. Revered People.”
Count Eisen cut him off firmly.
Then he declared in a clear voice that everyone in the restaurant could hear.
“They are the northern allies with whom His Grace the Grand Duke personally ordered us to establish relations, and warriors who deserve respect. Watch your words and conduct carefully.”
Silence.
The soldiers and escort knights in the restaurant alike fell silent, as though their tongues had been tied.
With Count Eisen, the Grand Duke's closest aide, making the matter so explicit, no one could object.
I admired him inwardly.
‘Oh... As expected of Eisen.’
Revered People instead of barbarians.
He had changed only one word, yet those who had been objects of contempt instantly became objects of respect.
The finesse to elevate someone's dignity with a single word.
He truly was the Empire's finest administrator.
The sight overlapped with a scene from the original novel <The Bastard's Snowflake Path>.
Kara being insulted as a barbarian by the grown Kairon, whose inferiority complex had driven his viciousness to its peak.
And Count Eisen directly rebuking Kairon, the son of his liege, to defend Kara and protect her dignity.
‘As expected, he's one of the few male characters I liked in the original.’
I suddenly remembered what I had said at the clothing shop earlier.
『It’s bad for prenatal education. Or you could use what that customer said earlier, 「Revered People」. It sounds much nicer, doesn’t it?』
I had used similar rhetoric back then.
Changing a word to shift the frame and calling out the other person's rudeness.
Perhaps that scene from the original had unconsciously served as a reference in my mind.
Whoosh.
When the escort knight fell silent under Eisen's pressure, Kairon, wearing the mask, mumbled and opened his mouth.
“Enough. ...Don't nag. Sir Eisen is right.”
Then he pressed the mask Kara had worn more tightly against his face.
Amid the faint herbal scent, her own scent rushed over him.
A cool yet sweet smell.
The tips of Kairon's ears turned red.
‘This is... a barbarian's smell?’
It wasn't unpleasant at all.
Rather, his head cleared and his heart began to pound.
Moreover, the one who had handed him the mask was Count Eisen.
Count Eisen, who had taken care of his every mess since he was young.
A figure like an uncle, who was easier to talk to than his father and sometimes even more frightening.
When he spoke so sternly, the young master did not yet possess the nerve to contradict him.
Hoo... hoo....
Kairon's breathing soon calmed, and he caught his breath.
Meanwhile, Count Eisen naturally introduced us as a couple.
“Apologies for the late introduction. These are members of the family of Lord Gorgon, chieftain of the Winterclaw Tribe. At His Grace the Grand Duke of Northgard's invitation, they are to enroll in the academy this year; Gorgon now bears the Winter Sword surname and has been elevated to the rank of baron.”
He opened his palm toward Kara.
“This is Miss Kara Winter Sword, Baron Gorgon Winter Sword's daughter.”
Kairon's eyes peeked at Kara from behind the mask.
‘The Winterclaw Tribe... the chieftain's daughter...’
Then she's the biological daughter of that legendary Gorgon...?
The protagonist of the heroic tales Count Eisen had told him countless times as a child.
A woman who had inherited that blood.
Curiosity and admiration, along with an inexplicable fluttering, mingled in Kairon's eyes.
The thrill of realizing that this meeting was fate itself.
But.
Eisen's hand pointed toward me.
“And this is the son of Baron Winter Sword and....”
“....”
‘Hmm?’
Was it my imagination?
I felt as though Eisen slightly trailed off when introducing me as Gorgon's son.
Still, I was grateful that he hadn't gone out of his way to introduce me as his adopted son.
And at last, the moment came to straighten the knees I had kept awkwardly bent so I could tease Kairon.
“And this is Lord Varg, Miss Kara's husband.”
“H-husband...? Her, husband...?”
Kairon's eyes shook.
Then I straightened my knees and revealed my enormous frame.
Swish-
“Eek!”
The shadow cast by my bulk fell across the black-haired Kairon's face, darkening it.
Even so, Kara's pale skin and silver hair alone remained untouched by my shadow.