Chapter 14
Swish.
I straightened my bent knees and slowly rose to my feet.
It was nothing more than the simple act of standing up.
But that one simple act pressed heavily down on the air inside the restaurant.
A colossal shadow rose into the air.
Over the table.
Over the chairs.
Over Kara.
Eventually reaching Kairon and enveloping the young master's entire body in its overwhelming mass.
“......!”
Kairon's gaze traveled from my waist to my chest, then continued much farther upward until it reached the tip of my chin.
Eyes he could only meet by tilting his head back so far that his neck must have ached.
My shoulders were broad enough to block Kairon's view, and my downward gaze was as cold as the perennial snow atop a snowy mountain.
It was as though a massive mountain range had risen before him.
“Th-that barbarian—no, Revered Person...!”
The escort knights instinctively placed their hands on their sword hilts and tensed.
Even then, Count Eisen did not forget to stay alert.
Clearly, these were the young master's personal guards.
They looked well trained.
Cold sweat began to trickle down Kairon's cheek.
I scratched the back of my neck and looked down at Kairon.
My gaze landed on the crown of the boy's head, far below me.
‘Seeing him like this... he's really small.’
Kairon was seventeen years old.
Considering he had not finished growing yet, he might even have been average among his peers.
It was only because he was being compared to Kara, who happened to be tall even by the original story's standards.
To make matters worse, he would end up being tall once he finished growing.
‘But I've just grown too big.’
A height nearly two meters.
And a body that grew even larger whenever my blood began to boil.
At three, I had slit a wolf's throat with an ax.
‘Of course, even now, I have no idea how I managed to do that.’
At eight, I had slit a snow bear's throat alongside a wolf.
Before reaching adulthood, I had carried my father, who was even bigger than me, in my arms like a princess while sprinting through a snowfield where the snow sank deep, all while being struck by arrows.
After that, I fought on the brink of life and death against barbarians like myself in the war with the Blood Fang Tribe.
In front of this unreal, muscular giant, tempered—no, forged—by surviving all that, even the tallest person was bound to look like a child.
All the more so if it was a young master who had not finished growing.
I did not even feel the need to exert any strength.
Simply by standing there, I was making the boy before me feel the 「Impassable Wall」.
Kairon's red eyes shook violently.
A confused gaze filled with fear, bewilderment, and misery at his own smallness.
Seeing his expression, my lips began trembling like mad.
‘No. I can't laugh here. It wouldn't look cool.’
To hide my trembling lips, I sharply turned my head away and bit them hard.
Kairon flinched, his shoulders trembling.
He seemed to have taken my action as indifference—or contempt.
“......Let's go.”
Kairon's voice trembled faintly.
The young master could no longer look at me or Kara.
He simply dashed out of the restaurant as though fleeing.
“Y-young master! Please come with us!”
The flustered escort knights hurried after him.
Bang!
The restaurant door closed, and silence settled over the room again.
In the spot where the minor commotion had swept through.
I could not help snickering as I listened to the footsteps receding beyond the closed door.
That was when it happened.
“Ah, my mask.”
Kara muttered impassively.
Her gaze was not on Kairon's already vanished back, nor on me.
She was scanning the empty floor.
“Granny Baba gave it to me... Where did it go?”
She had definitely taken it off and handed it over when Kairon coughed earlier.
She had not gotten it back.
More precisely, Kairon had taken it away.
He had clutched it tightly, as though carrying off a trophy.
‘Look at this guy.’
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Was he planning to take even a trace of the woman he'd fallen for at first sight?
Or had he been so flustered that he had run off with it without thinking?
Either way, Kara had no interest in the matter.
“What the heck? Looks like that little brat took it. What a shame.”
Kara shrugged without a trace of regret, then turned and looked up at me.
Her eyes held not even a speck of curiosity or regret regarding another man.
They were filled with nothing but concern and affection for me, her husband.
The original's 「Fated Love」 had merely been Kairon's one-sided delusion and tragic unrequited love.
I could confirm once again that Kara had not the slightest romantic feeling for Kairon, either in the original story or now.
“Varg, are you all right?”
“Huh?”
“You bit your lip so hard earlier because you were angry. It's bleeding.”
Kara cautiously reached out and brushed over my lip.
I must have bitten it too hard while holding back my laughter.
A red bead of blood formed on the tip of her white finger.
“......”
Kara stared at that bead of blood for a moment, then, with a strange expression, brought it to her lips.
Smack.
She licked my blood and smeared it across her own lips.
My red trace stained her lips like lipstick.
“......Kara?”
When I called out in surprise, she smiled bashfully and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“It tastes like blood.”
She rose onto her tiptoes and kissed the spot between my cheek and ear.
Smack.
A soft, warm sensation.
And a quiet voice whispering by my ear.
“You don't have to be jealous. Don't worry. Noona only has eyes for you, our Varg.”
My heart dropped with a thud.
She really was my wife.
Although I pretended to be calm on the outside, Kara had already noticed that I was bothered inside by that little brat's appearance.
So she was confirming it through her actions like this.
I tightly embraced Kara around the waist and whispered by her ear.
“I know. I'm the same.”
We stood that way for a while, feeling each other's warmth.
I could no longer feel the eyes in the restaurant.
At that moment, it felt as though there were only the two of us in the world.
“Ahem, ahem!”
Of course, that was only until a tactless throat-clearing reached us.
I let out a sigh of relief and sat down.
Across from me, Count Eisen was sighing with an awkward expression.
“Whew... I took the prank a little too far.”
“You deliberately delayed the introduction, didn't you? You noticed that I wanted to tease him.”
After seating Kara and sitting down after her, I asked pointedly, and Count Eisen adjusted his glasses and smiled.
“You noticed?”
“......”
“I've looked after him since he was little... so sometimes I feel like teasing him a little. It was the first time I'd seen him look that flustered, so I let myself get carried away.”
A playful glint appeared around his eyes.
A stiff administrator.
Of course, we had already seen each other at our worst in the carriage, but I had thought he was at least a fussy noble who valued etiquette as dearly as his life.
He had an unexpectedly human side.
‘This man secretly enjoys this sort of thing, doesn't he?’
I snickered and resumed eating.
But my heart was not entirely at ease.
I asked casually.
“But are you sure this is all right? He's the young master of the Grand Ducal House. Won't there be trouble for sending him away like that?”
“It's fine.”
Count Eisen calmly spooned up some stew.
“I was the one responsible for the young master's education. No one can object to my teaching methods. And... sometimes a shock like that is necessary.”
Deep pride radiated from the teacher's voice.
The confidence he had in his pupil.
But my expression hardened bitterly.
‘...Pride, huh.’
A memory from the original story flashed through my mind.
Even after receiving Eisen's self-assured instruction, Kairon eventually fell into the swamp of inferiority, jealousy, and obsession, abusing Kara and becoming a monster.
And the end of it all.
Eisen's tragic end: while trying to clean up the mess caused by his monster's deeds and the fallout with his political enemies, he took the assassin's sword meant for him and died.
I stared into the empty air where Kairon had disappeared.
‘The pupil you created caused your death.’
Of course, I had intervened and the future was changing now, but his nature itself probably had not changed.
When my expression darkened, Kara beside me scooped up a generous piece of meat with her spoon and held it to my lips.
“Say ah. The meat's getting cold.”
“......Huh?”
I abruptly came to my senses and reflexively accepted the meat.
The warm, juicy flavor spread through my mouth and washed away the bitterness.
Kara was looking at me with worried eyes.
‘Right. The original is only the original.’
This time was different.
I was here.
Kara was smiling.
I chewed the meat noisily and grinned.
‘Well, if he still can't come to his senses and picks a fight at the academy... then I'll have to show him the bitter taste of adulthood properly. He's still a greenhorn, so I'll let him off for now.’
* * *
At the same time.
In a corner of the alley outside the restaurant.
In a space where the escort knights formed a human wall to screen off the eyes of onlookers.
Inside it, Kairon was crouched down, roughly scrubbing his reddened eyes with his sleeve.
“Sniff... Damn it...!”
The young master was crying in the middle of the main street.
And he could not even keep the sound down.
Was it simply 「because his first love was a married woman」?
Of course, that was one reason.
But a more fundamental and agonizing sense of despair had overwhelmed him.
「The Object of Admiration」.
Since childhood, Kairon had admired the strong warriors of the North, especially the legendary chieftain 「Gorgon」.
The man who must have come closest to the 「Khan」 that Count Eisen, his childhood teacher, had always praised until his mouth went dry.
The man from the heroic tales he had heard from Count Eisen.
Massive bulk.
Strength capable of smashing rocks.
Overwhelming martial power.
That was the perfect embodiment of the 「Ideal Man」 Kairon dreamed of.
But what about himself in reality?
His height was similar to that of his peers, but no matter how much he exercised, he had a slender build that barely gained muscle.
He possessed innate talent for swordsmanship, but it was far from the 「Destructive Strength」 he desired.
But that man he had just seen, Varg.
He was the very 「Young Gorgon」 Kairon had never actually seen and could only draw in his imagination.
Overwhelming physicality.
A wild aura palpable with every breath.
And beside him was Kara, the woman he had fallen for at first sight, his ideal type incarnate.
It was a double blow.
“Damn it...!”
The 「Ideal Man」 he so desperately wanted to become had already claimed the 「Ideal Woman」 he had fallen for at first sight.
A perfect sense of defeat.
The powerlessness and inferiority he felt when comparing his small frame to Varg's massive body tore at his chest.
“Just you wait....”
Kairon wiped away his tears and raised his head.
A venomous resolve settled in his red eyes.
Was it jealousy?
No.
It was a survival instinct and a male's fighting spirit.
An instinct humans had possessed since before they could use both hands.
“I... I'll become stronger.”
Kairon clenched his fists.
Hard enough for his nails to dig into his flesh.
“And then I'll prove it. Whether that man named Varg... is truly a man worthy of her, or merely a shell with a large body.”
And whether he truly was the man who came closest to the ideal world he had glimpsed for an instant.
The boy's eyes changed.
They were no longer the eyes of an immature young master, but those of a predator that had found its goal.
The sense of defeat he felt that day would later become the most powerful venom and driving force that made him the 「Youngest Sword Master」 in the history of the Empire.
The same fate of becoming the 「Youngest Sword Master」 as in the original.
Of course, along the way, Varg would beat him black and blue and put him through the wringer countless times.
And Varg could not become a Sword Master using an ax.
Kara, his fellow competitor who used a sword just like him, would be unable to participate in the event that awarded the 「Sword Master」 title this year because she was pregnant.
In any case, the fate of becoming the 「Youngest Sword Master」 had begun to follow the same course as the original, set in motion by what happened today.