Chapter 15
After finishing our meal, we toured the landmarks of the border city under Count Eisen’s guidance.
We had about two hours left before the dress uniform was finished.
Count Eisen did not waste that time.
“Academy life may be busy, but whenever you return to your hometown during vacation, you’ll pass through this border city. I’ll show you some places where you can stop and rest before then.”
Count Eisen began showing us around, pointing out one place after another with the tip of his cane.
Yet tucked away here and there were sights that had nothing to do with the stiff military city.
A quaint path winding around an artificial lake park.
Softly glowing mana-stone lamps hung from every tree, creating a strangely romantic atmosphere even in the daytime.
“This is 「Lovers’ Path」. Once evening falls, the mana-stone lights turn on and create a wonderful atmosphere. When couples walk together in comfort on their way home after a long absence, don’t you think even cooled feelings might flare up again?”
“A military city has a soft and romantic place like this? How unexpected.”
When I asked in fascination, Count Eisen’s eyes gleamed as he pushed up his glasses.
“It was strategic planning.”
“Strategy?”
“The soldiers in the borderlands are full of youthful vigor. But the bleak environment tends to dry out their emotions. So we deliberately created areas like this.”
He said something terrifying as casually as though it were obvious.
“What do you think will happen if the soldiers naturally meet local women, fall in love, and start families? Wouldn’t their children become 「the Soldiers of the Next Generation」 who protect the place where they were born and raised? In a sense, this is a facility for securing future military forces.”
“......”
Kara and I stood there with our mouths hanging open.
We had thought it was simply a matter of welfare, but beneath it lay thorough efficiency and calculation.
Kara shook her head with a horrified expression.
“Wow... Count, you’re scarier than I expected. Even the romance was calculated?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Still, I made sure they received conventional education, at least at the educational facilities. Though I don’t know what they’re like now.”
Count Eisen smiled without the slightest concern.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
On the surface, he was a capable and gentlemanly patron.
But within him lived the nature of a cold administrator who could use anything for the sake of the Empire’s security.
‘Count Eisen really is no ordinary man. Turning this man into an enemy would be exhausting.’
We resumed walking.
As we strolled through the streets in a cheerful atmosphere, I felt a strange prickling at my back.
Someone’s gaze.
I glanced back out of the corner of my eye.
I could feel it behind a utility pole too.
I could feel it behind the roadside trees too.
I could even feel it behind passing pedestrians.
They all gave off the same kind of murmuring.
Especially in this snow-prone border city, the sight of a black-haired head popping out and ducking back in was painfully obvious.
Naturally, it was Kairon.
The young master kept acting so suspiciously that the murmuring could not die down.
He had been tailing us ever since we left the restaurant.
Perhaps it was because the escort knights had heard Kairon’s order: “Your big bodies will give me away! Stay farther away! Hide where I can’t see you at all!”
They were all following from far away, fidgeting nervously, while Kairon alone was performing an amateurish infiltration act.
‘It’s hard even to pretend I don’t know what that is.’
I clicked my tongue.
Kara, who was walking beside me, tilted her head.
“Huh? Isn’t that the young master over there?”
As expected, even Kara had noticed him.
But her interpretation was completely different from what I expected.
“He’s still following us. Is he looking for a chance to return the mask he borrowed earlier because he’s too embarrassed? How cute.”
“......”
Count Eisen and I met each other’s eyes at the same time.
‘Your wife has no idea.’
‘Yes. Fortunately, she’s dense about things like this.’
We exchanged a silent look.
It wasn’t about the mask.
This was the textbook clinginess of a teenage boy who couldn’t let go of his first love and kept hovering around a married woman.
Just then, Kara casually turned around.
“Oh? Young master!”
“......!”
Kairon, who had been peeking out from behind a utility pole, met her eyes directly.
Kairon was so startled that he flung himself aside in a panic.
“Aaah!”
Crash!
By bad luck, the place he hid was behind a newspaper stand.
The stand shook, and bundles of magazines and newspapers came tumbling down.
“Hey! You’re too close, so you almost gave me away! Move farther back! Hide where I can’t see you at all!”
Just then, the escort knights who had been subtly approaching to guard the young master could also be heard shouting at him from behind the stand.
Kara tilted her head and looked forward again.
“It looks like he fell... I wonder if he’s all right?”
“Leave him. He’s sturdy.”
I put an arm around Kara’s shoulder and quickened my pace.
* * *
“Huff... huff....”
Kairon was buried beneath the pile of fallen magazines, breathing heavily.
His heart felt as though it would burst.
He had almost been caught.
No—he had met her eyes.
He had been caught.
When her sapphire eyes turned toward him, his mind had gone completely white.
Kairon had sent away even the escort knights and was watching Varg’s group alone.
His sole purpose.
‘A weakness.’
To find evidence that the huge man was unworthy of Kara.
‘That man isn’t my ideal world. There’s no way he could be. He’s nothing but a huge, clumsy barbarian—one of the Revered People. Miss Kara will soon be disappointed too.’
Kairon desperately denied reality and waited for Varg to make a mistake.
And then his chance came.
While Varg was walking and laughing with Kara, his foot caught on the edge of a paving stone and he stumbled.
“Whoa!”
It was a stupid mistake.
Kairon’s eyes flashed.
‘That’s it! Did you see that? That clumsy movement! He’s huge, but his lower body is weak! He’s a big idiot who can’t even control his own body, let alone be a warrior!’
The youngster rejoiced inwardly.
A warrior who traversed the harsh terrain of the North would never fall on a flat road like that.
It was proof that he lacked even the basics.
‘Miss Kara must have completely lost interest after seeing such a pathetic display!’
But.
“Hahaha! Varg, what are you doing? Did your legs give out? Have I been pushing you too hard lately?”
Kara’s reaction was the exact opposite.
She grabbed Varg’s arm and laughed merrily, enjoying the situation instead.
Far from losing interest, her eyes were dripping with honey.
His little mistake had instead become the spark that made her smile.
“......Huh?”
While Varg laughed sheepishly, Kairon stared blankly down at the place where Varg had stumbled.
A particularly protruding paving stone had split wide open.
The instant Varg stepped on it, the stone was unable to withstand his terrifying weight and pressure. It shattered with a scream.
‘What... is that?’
A body in which even a mistake became a weapon.
Kairon imagined what would happen if he encountered the same situation.
He probably would have angrily yelled at the escort knights about how much it hurt.
‘Damn it...’
Just then, Kara looked at the cracked paving stone, chuckled, and whispered into Varg’s ear.
“Oh my, my husband’s overflowing with strength. Honestly... It’s a shame we have to accompany the count until we reach 「Eisengard」 today. I should put that strength to use somewhere else.”
“Ahem! Ahem! I can hear everything, you two.”
Count Eisen, who was walking ahead, interrupted with a cough.
He spoke with a deliberately dignified air, yet his smile was meaningful.
“Still... I’ve arranged the carriage to the estate so that only the two of you can ride together in comfort. I’m tired now that I’m getting older, so I’d like to travel separately and rest comfortably as well.”
“Oh! As expected of you, Count!”
Kara blushed and clung to Varg’s arm.
“......”
Kairon remained seated amid the pile of magazines, staring blankly at the scene.
A private joke shared between the two of them.
The syrupy gazes they exchanged.
And a perfect world with not even a one-millimeter gap for someone like him to squeeze into.
“......”
Despair once again overwhelmed Kairon.
The ideal world had not collapsed.
Instead, it had become an even larger, sturdier wall blocking his way.
The boy’s first love withered away in the shadow of that world, without anyone even needing to trample it directly.
* * *
When the appointed time arrived, our group returned to the clothing shop 「Closer」.
The inside of the shop was as quiet as the calm before a storm.
Head Tailor Closer and the staff stood there with hollow eyes.
Their fingertips were worn raw, and the skin beneath their eyes had turned black.
‘It wasn’t as if they’d stayed up all night, so why do their eyes look like that....’
Yet their eyes alone still shone.
They wore the expressions of artists who had ground their souls into their work and were about to present their masterpiece to the world.
“It’s finished.”
Head Tailor Closer pulled away the black cloth with trembling hands.
There stood a garment.
No, it was something far too imposing to be called clothing, yet far too alluring to be called armor.
I entered the changing room.
I discarded the shabby hood and pulled on the black dress-uniform jacket made from 「Behemoth hide」.
Ssswish.
The moment the leather touched my skin, a shiver ran through me, like my flesh was being squeezed, but different from static electricity.
It felt cold, yet warmed instantly in response to my body heat.
Like the skin of a living creature, it naturally clung to the contours of my muscles.
“Whew....”
I stood before the mirror.
After the tailors slicked back even my tousled hair neatly with pomade, an unfamiliar man stood in the mirror.
Tight-fitting black leather wrapped around my massive muscles like armor.
Every time I moved, the Behemoth hide gave off a subtle red sheen that created an overwhelming sense of intimidation and sex appeal at once.
The simple barbarian had vanished, and a ruler of the North stood before the mirror.
When I pulled back the curtain of the changing room and stepped out, silence fell over the shop.
“......Wow.”
Kara blushed and could not close her mouth.
Her sapphire eyes sparkled as they traveled over my entire body.
‘He’s my husband, but... he’s really handsome.’
Her eyes said it all.
And then there was Count Eisen.
He adjusted his glasses and stared intently at me.
For a moment, a memory from twenty years ago overlapped with the present.
Gorgon in his youth.
That overwhelming wildness and charisma.
‘No. It’s more than that.’
Suddenly, a dangerous and secret thought that I had buried deep in my heart long ago flashed through my mind.
‘If... instead of returning to the Empire back then, I had stayed by that man’s side....’
If my strategic mind and that man’s martial might had combined, wouldn’t Gorgon have become more than a mere chieftain of the borderlands....
Wouldn’t he have become the 「Khan」 who ruled the entire North?
The shadow of an unrealized ambition hovered before me in the form of the young man standing before my eyes.
“Do you see? This is the masterpiece of my life!”
Closer cried out with tears in his eyes.
At his cry, the staff embraced one another, overcome with emotion.
I rolled my shoulders once.
There wasn’t the slightest discomfort.
If anything, the leather’s springiness seemed to aid my movements.
“I like it.”
When I grinned, the shop erupted in cheers.
At the same time.
Outside the clothing shop, on a street draped in the cold glow of the evening sunset.
Kairon was watching the splendid figure through the window.
‘What’s everyone so happy about....’
Then he blankly stared at his reflection in the shop window.
Short stature.
Narrow shoulders.
A childlike face, still retaining its baby fat and twisted by jealousy.
And beyond the glass, Varg was....
He was so perfect and radiant.
Overwhelming physicality and masculinity.
He was the very 「Perfect Male」 Kairon had dreamed of becoming.
‘I lost. This isn’t even a contest.’
He lowered his head in misery.
He no longer had the courage to keep watching.
The ideal world he admired was standing beside the ideal type he had fallen for at first sight.
There was no room for him to enter that perfect picture.
‘Let’s go... It’s all over.’
Kairon turned away, steeped in defeat.
At that moment.
Varg, who was checking his appearance inside the clothing shop, met his eyes directly.
“......!”
Kairon flinched in surprise, and his face flushed with the shame and misery of being caught.
I have to run.
Without even looking around, the young master blindly ran into the carriageway.
“Young master! It’s dangerous!”
The escort knights’ cries rang out from far away.
But it was too late.
Clatter!
Neigh!
A huge freight wagon that had just turned the corner was charging toward Kairon without slowing down.
The snow-covered road was slippery, and the horses were agitated.
“Young master!”
By the time Kairon turned his head, the horses’ hooves were already right in front of him.
‘Ah....’
His mind went white.
There was no way to avoid it.
Am I going to die?
Like this, so pointlessly?
After showing only an ugly side of himself to the person he loved.
He had not even returned her mask.
At that desperate moment.
Crash!
The clothing shop’s reinforced glass door shattered with an enormous crack.
Amid the shards of glass scattering like snowflakes, a black shadow shot out.
‘That idiot!’
There was no time to think.
His body reacted first.
Varg became a beast clad in Behemoth hide and leaped.
Just before the wagon struck Kairon.
Smack!
His sturdy arm snatched Kairon around the waist.
Then he flung himself toward the ground with him.
Crash!
Screeech!
They rolled across the rough carriageway.
The back of the freshly tailored Behemoth uniform scraped against the ground, sending sparks flying.
“Guh...!”
Gritting his teeth, Varg held Kairon in his arms and rolled several more times so that the boy’s head would not be injured.
‘I grabbed him too hastily, so there’s still some impact…!’
Fortunately, the wagon came to a stop with the driver’s sigh of relief, and the street instantly descended into chaos.
A moment later.
“......”
Kairon opened his tightly shut eyes.
There was no pain.
Instead, something heavy and solid was enveloping him.
The young master raised his head.
Varg was looking down at him from above, his face twisted into a frown.
“Hey, brat... Young master, are you all right?”
Smoke rose from behind him.
But the Behemoth hide wrapped around Varg’s back had held firm against the friction of the carriageway and protected him without tearing.
Fortunately, since it was magic-beast hide, it had not ripped. Only a scratch remained.
Kairon stared blankly up at Varg.
The man he had envied and hated had saved him.
With overwhelming martial power and an even more overwhelming breadth of character.
And that was why the man who was his 「Ideal World」...