Chapter 16
A thick cloud of hazy dust billowed up, scattering with the snow on the ground in the northern wind.
The forms of two men who had tumbled across the rough carriage road slowly emerged.
“Ugh....”
I swallowed a groan and slowly pushed myself up.
Fortunately, the fellow in my arms seemed unharmed.
Whether from the impact or the fear, he merely stared blankly up at me.
“Are you all right, Young Master?”
Only then did his eyes refocus at the sound of my voice.
Kairon stared up at me with his mouth hanging open.
A face covered in dirt.
Disheveled hair.
The brat who had been burning with pathetic jealousy toward me until moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, his eyes held a shock bordering on awe.
It was understandable, considering I looked quite a mess.
“Whew.”
I rose to my feet and dusted off my clothes.
My back was burning.
It was only natural: just before the carriage hit him, I had shielded him with my body and rolled across the ground with my back against it.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the back and shoulders of the black Behemoth dress uniform I'd just had fitted were in a pitiful state.
The hide had been scorched and torn by frictional heat, revealing the reddened flesh beneath.
‘What a waste. It was expensive.’
They had given it to me for free, but it was still hide worthy of a national treasure, wasn't it?
“Y-Young Master!”
“Lord Kairon!”
Just then, the escort knights came running from afar, their faces pale with terror.
People came rushing out of the clothing shop after hearing the commotion.
“Aaaagh! My masterpiece! My Behemoth!”
Surprisingly, the chief tailor was the first to rush over.
He seemed to have no concern whatsoever for Kairon's safety.
He screamed as if he had lost a child, staring only at my torn back.
“Do you know what kind of hide this is?! I poured my soul into it!”
The tailor rushed behind me and grabbed hold of the tattered hide.
I awkwardly scratched the back of my head.
“Ah, well... things got a little urgent. Do I need to pay for this?”
He had loudly claimed it was free, but I had turned it into a rag within five minutes of receiving it, so I couldn't really say much.
Just as I was wondering whether I should tell him to charge Count Eisen....
“Pay for it?!”
The tailor widened his eyes and shook his head.
“This is 「Behemoth」! This hide won't be defeated by damage this minor!”
“Huh?”
“Look closely! This is the majesty of our family heirloom!”
He rummaged around inside his coat and pulled something out.
A sprayer with a small glass bottle sloshing with purple liquid.
And a small mana soldering iron.
Hiss-!
When he sprayed the liquid over the torn area, smoke rose with a sour smell.
It was a mana extract prepared at a specific concentration.
Then, the moment he pressed the heated iron against the damaged area—
Sizzle-!
“......?!”
Along with the bizarre sound, an unbelievable sight unfolded.
The torn, split edges of the hide began to writhe as though they were living creatures.
The black hide stretched on its own, twisted together, and smoothly sealed itself as if melting into the heat.
Kieeeeeee-!
‘Hmm? What was that? I could've sworn I heard a scream...’
The scratched surface peeled away like shed skin, revealing glossy new hide underneath.
In just ten seconds.
My back had been restored perfectly, as though the uniform had just been made.
“Huh....”
I couldn't close my mouth.
This wasn't repair.
It was regeneration.
“...Is this really clothing? It's not some living monster... right?”
The tailor answered with a crazed smile.
“Something dead yet alive—that is Behemoth! An immortal suit of armor that never decays and regenerates when it reacts to mana of a specific concentration! At last, it has met its master and awakened its abilities!”
He stroked my back, overcome with emotion.
To be honest, it was a little creepy.
The scream I'd heard when he burned it with the iron still echoed in my ears.
But no one around us reacted at all.
‘Could it... have only been audible to me...?’
After the bizarre sight, the escort knights and Count Eisen, who had only now come to their senses, approached.
Click.
The captain of the escort knights knelt before me.
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
His voice was trembling.
The heir to the Grand Ducal House had nearly died at the Empire's border, far from home.
If I hadn't saved him, every one of them would have lost their heads.
“If not for you, we would have had no face to show our lord! We will never forget this favor... for as long as we live!”
“Ah, well... it's fine. Someone was about to get hurt. I couldn't just stand there and watch.”
I waved it off casually.
Then Kara came running through the crowd.
“Varg!”
She immediately ran her hands over me from head to toe, examining me.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere? Blood? Bones?”
“I'm fine. The clothes are sturdy enough that I don't even have a scrape.”
“You idiot!”
Smack!
Kara slapped me across the back.
“What were you thinking, throwing yourself in front like that?! What would our baby and I do if something happened to you!”
Her voice was angry, but tears brimmed in her blue eyes.
I smiled reassuringly and stroked her head.
“You're right. I'll be careful next time. But I'm really tough, you know.”
“Shut up!”
Kara buried her face in my chest and let out a sigh of relief.
Count Eisen, who had been watching us, took off his glasses, wiped them, and approached.
His face was pale too.
“Phew... If the Grand Duke's son had suffered an accident at the Empire's border... It's horrifying just to imagine.”
He put his glasses back on and looked at me with sincere eyes.
“Mr. Varg. You saved the Empire. No, you saved all our lives.”
Amid the praise, gratitude, and commotion.
There was only one person.
Only Kairon remained silent.
Sitting on the ground, he stared blankly at me.
As though the surrounding noise had been cut off, his gaze remained fixed solely on me.
* * *
His head was buzzing.
What had just happened didn't feel real.
The solid, massive embrace that had shielded him when the fear of death descended.
The shiver that ran through him as he watched that back scrape across the stone road.
And the composure with which that man now smiled calmly while worrying about the price of his clothes.
Everything was a shock.
‘......’
Kairon placed a hand over his chest.
His heart was pounding like mad.
It was different from the flutter he had felt when he saw Kara from the café terrace earlier.
If that emotion had been possessiveness and curiosity....
Then this feeling was....
Overwhelming.
And ‘admiration’.
A massive shift in values was taking place inside Kairon's mind.
To Kairon in the original story, an ideal type was clearly defined.
‘Someone strong and noble who can protect me.’
Suppressed beneath the pressure to be perfect and his father's shadow since childhood, he had unconsciously yearned for a 「strong figure」 who could protect him.
In the original story, that figure had been Kara Winter Sword.
He had become obsessed with her after falling for her strength and martial prowess.
But now.
That ideal had split in two.
‘Miss Kara is still beautiful... and noble....’
Kairon's gaze shifted from Kara, whose eyes brimmed with tears as she worried about her husband, to Varg, who stood solidly protecting her.
‘But... the embodiment of my admiration, the true strength I want to reach, is that man.’
The attitude of saving his life without seeking praise.
Overwhelming martial power, with kindness hidden inside it.
A model of the 「Complete Man」 he had desperately wanted to become, but could never be.
The realization struck like lightning.
“I... I wasn't in love with Miss Kara.”
He muttered as though entranced.
“I... wanted to become a warrior like that.”
The moment he realized that what he had thought was love was actually ‘admiration’ for strength.
And the arrow of that admiration shifted completely from Kara to Varg.
Kairon's eyes changed.
The childish gaze burning with jealousy and envy disappeared.
In its place were the sparkling eyes of a boy gazing at his idol.
That was when it happened.
“Y-Young Master! P-please kill me!”
A blood-covered man broke through the noisy crowd and threw himself face-first onto the ground.
It was the carriage driver who had caused the accident.
Blood flowed from his split forehead, but he paid it no heed as he repeatedly struck his head against the ground and begged.
“I... I was blinded for a moment... Sob! I've committed a crime worthy of death!”
“You madman!”
One of the escort knights, unable to contain his fury, drew his sword.
“Because of you, the Young Master nearly died! I'll cut off your head...!”
“Stop.”
A cold voice halted the knight's sword.
Kairon restrained his escort.
“Young Master? But this man...!”
“Put that sword away. That's an order.”
Kairon brushed the dirt from his coat and approached the driver.
Then he placed a hand on the trembling driver's shoulder.
“Raise your head.”
“Sob... Y-young master....”
“I saw it. You turning the reins at the last moment. This accident happened because of my mistake in the first place.”
Kairon's gaze was unexpectedly calm.
“If you had kept going straight, you would have hit the citizens nearby. I saw you turn the carriage toward the wall to protect them until the very end.”
“......!”
The driver's eyes widened.
He seemed shocked that the young master had seen through the split-second decision he had made.
“A carriage can be rebuilt, but a human life can't. Because you held on to the reins until the end instead of giving up, you prevented an even greater disaster.”
Kairon took a handkerchief from his coat and wiped the blood from the driver's forehead.
“I will not hold you accountable.”
“Y-young master... Thank you! Thank you!”
The driver sobbed, overwhelmed with emotion.
The escort knights and onlookers alike watched solemnly.
I too folded my arms and nodded.
‘Not bad.’
It was a response so different from the pathetic young master in the original that I wondered if he was really the same person.
He was still young, but the makings of a 「ruler」 were growing within him.
Having brought the situation under control, Kairon straightened his clothes and approached me.
The hem of his coat was still covered in dirt.
But his attitude was utterly serious.
Though he was still a young boy who barely came up to my chest in height.
His eyes, at least, were no longer those of a pathetic young master.
“Thank you... Varg.”
He bowed his head deeply.
“We exchanged greetings at the restaurant, but let me formally thank you again. Thank you for saving my life.”
It was a frank, unadorned expression of gratitude.
I was secretly surprised.
The proud Kairon of the original story had bowed to me, whom he had dismissed as a barbarian.
After hesitating briefly, Kairon asked in a trembling voice.
“Are you... truly the son of that chieftain Gorgon?”
There was a strange expectation in his eyes.
He seemed to want to believe that the source of my strength lay in my 「bloodline」.
In the original story, he had also often mentioned Gorgon when insulting Kara.
Because she had inherited the blood of Gorgon, a living legend of the North, she had been able to possess such overwhelming strength.
He had to believe that, or else he could never comfort his inferiority complex—born of his weakness and lack of talent, at least as he saw it.
I answered calmly.
“Yes, that's right.”
Kairon's expression darkened.
‘As expected... it's the bloodline.’
Just as the young master's shoulders began to droop, I added, driving the final nail in.
“More precisely, I'm his adopted son. My father-in-law took me in when I was an orphan. We don't share a drop of blood.”
“......!”
Kairon's eyes flew open.
“You... aren't related by blood?”
“No. I was an orphan abandoned in the snow. All I had was a single ax.”
“......”
Kairon stared blankly up at me.
It wasn't blood.
He was an orphan who had been adopted.
And yet he possessed that kind of strength, that kind of spirit.
The fact struck Kairon as an enormous shock and, at the same time, a dazzling light.
‘Then... what about me?’
That realm was so high and distant that its entrance looked as narrow as a needle's eye.
The light beyond that narrow opening was so bright it hurt to look at.
But if bloodline wasn't a prerequisite, then he could at least look toward it.
He could approach it.
Despair changed into ‘hope’.
The boy placed his hand against the wall.
And made his first handhold.
He might fall.
His body might be shattered.
Even so, he would climb again.
Varg had now become a living signpost Kairon would spend his entire life pursuing.
Hope had eased the tension in Kairon's expression.
He rummaged around inside his coat and pulled something out.
It was the crude barbarian leather mask Kara had lent him at the restaurant earlier.
Kairon approached Kara and respectfully held out the mask.
“I'll... return this. I was rude earlier, Miss Kara.”
There was no hesitation in the hand offering the mask.
‘I won't obsess over you anymore.’
It was a silent farewell and a metaphorical announcement of the end of his first love.
Kara accepted the mask with a bright smile, completely unaware of any of this.
“Oh my, thank you, Young Master. I thought I'd lost it. It's still fine even after you fell? Thank you for taking such good care of it.”
When his first love smiled brightly, Kairon's face flushed for a moment.
‘...She is still pretty, I suppose.’
An ideal type doesn't change overnight.
His pounding heart was simply a physiological reaction he couldn't help.
But Kairon hurriedly turned his head away.
This fluttering was merely a passing breeze.
Of course, today's spring breeze would return after the seasons had passed.
But the breeze he had chilled with a cold look would always blow from Norhaim.
Where the young master turned his flushed face, Varg stood with his arms folded, watching him.
Kairon clenched his fists.
He had left the flutter of unrequited love with Kara.
But the hot blood and admiration he felt as a warrior were now directed wholly toward Varg.