Chapter 34
“Then... shall we hear what you have to say?”
I dragged over a chair and sat down with a thump.
But the instant my bottom touched the seat, I sprang back up like a snow hare spotting a snowfield fox.
“......!”
For an instant, Count Eisen’s chilly spectacles flashed before my eyes.
『Mr. Varg, when meeting someone of higher station and taking the time to introduce yourself, you must stand up and straighten your body so that your entire figure can be seen without distortion before speaking.』
Of course, he was probably asleep right now.
『And when sitting in a chair, do so without a sound, keep your upper body straight, and gently direct your gaze at the other person. Do not plop down. Mr. Varg, in particular, has an exceptionally large build, so please take even greater care.』
‘That was close.’
Since she was the heroine of the original novel, I had overthought things and made a mistake right from the start.
If Count Eisen had seen me like that?
‘I’d have been assigned remedial basic etiquette training... I’d gone and finished all that, only for my opponent to be an imperial princess....’
I cleared my throat and corrected my posture with the most elegant, demure movements I could manage.
“Ahem. My apologies.”
Glancing to the side, I saw Kara struggling to hold back laughter, her shoulders shaking.
Her eyes, blue like a snowfield viewed from an angle, sparkled mischievously, as if finding me adorable.
‘That look... that look....’
I could tell exactly what she was planning.
She was probably planning to tease me mercilessly in bed tonight, telling Yeppi, “Our daddy did this today~”....
‘Seriously.... Before we had Yeppi, I used to give her a thorough scolding at night....’
Swallowing my regret, I politely bowed toward the imperial princess sitting carelessly on the bed.
My thoughts had gotten a bit long-winded, but anyway.
If the other party came wearing a mask, then it was only polite for me to respond with the mask of formality.
“I formally present my greetings.”
I used the deepest, most courteous voice I could manage.
“I am Varg von Wintersword, son of Gorgon, chieftain of the Norhaim Winterclaw Tribe, and husband of Kara von Wintersword.”
The instant my introduction ended, Elysia’s golden eyes flashed.
Clap clap clap!
‘Huh? Applause? I only introduced myself.’
Elysia clapped like a seal on the bed, making a huge fuss.
“Ah! I heard about you! From Mrs. Wintersword earlier!”
The imperial princess looked up at me with the expression of a fangirl receiving a celebrity.
“I heard you two were childhood friends who grew up together in the snowfields? Oh my, that’s so romantic!”
“......”
“After passing through those childhood days when you didn’t see each other as man and woman, realizing during adolescence that you were attracted to each other... and eventually falling in love! Eee! It’s just like something out of a novel!”
Elysia cupped her flushed cheeks with both hands and squirmed in delight.
She was unmistakably a romance-novel enthusiast.
There was so little trace of an imperial princess’s dignity that I wondered whether it had ever existed in the first place.
Elysia kept pouring out words, apparently unable to calm her excitement.
“That part was especially wonderful! The part where Mrs. Wintersword 『 saw her husband lying collapsed in the forest and, intending to make him her man, carried him off like a rabbit.』”
Then she gave a thumbs-up toward Kara, who was sitting beside me.
“A fateful first meeting followed by a kidnapping marriage! Northern romance really is fiery! It was my lifelong dream!”
“Ahaha... Well, yes. It was rather fiery. And fateful.”
Kara sweated nervously and glanced at me.
The way she avoided my gaze and pretended to be distracted made it clear she was quite embarrassed.
‘Yes! I’ve got something to tattle to Yeppi about.’
But I filed Kara’s embarrassment away as material for tattling to Yeppi and soon focused on the contradiction in Elysia’s words.
‘Come to think of it, that doesn’t add up....’
Just moments ago, she had said the romantic part was how we hadn’t seen each other as man and woman in childhood.
Yet in the very next sentence, she was moved by the story of Kara carrying me off to make me her husband when we were young.
She said we hadn’t seen each other as man and woman, but Kara wanted to make me her husband at first sight?
That was a contradiction that made no logical sense.
I mean, Kara, I keep telling you, please stop lying about our love story....
‘Maybe innocent Alina wouldn’t notice, but there’s no way the imperial princess, who had survived all manner of hardships, could miss this contradiction.’
I stared intently into Elysia’s clear, sunny golden eyes.
The imperial princess was still smiling, her eyes curved at the corners.
Her exclamations were clear and guileless, as though they came straight out without passing through her brain.
But they looked different to me.
‘This woman is deliberately playing along.’
Even though she knew there were gaping logical holes in the love story Kara had excitedly told her about us,
she was intentionally pretending not to notice, matching our rhythm and livening up the atmosphere.
It was an advanced social skill: accommodating the other person’s mood while lowering their guard.
The perceptiveness hidden behind that airheaded mask was extraordinary.
‘As expected... the protagonist is different.’
I matched the mood with a friendly smile.
“Haha, my wife seems to have exaggerated a little. The truth is, I was the one who begged. I pleaded with her to marry me.”
“Oh my, really? I thought you were such a dependable husband, but you were the one begging?”
“Haha.... Well, I was the younger one, after all.”
Warm, convivial laughter passed between us.
The atmosphere seemed to indicate that her wariness had eased somewhat.
I did not let the opportunity pass.
It was time to get to the main point.
“I’m so relieved that you’re safe. If something had happened to Alina—or Your Highness... It makes me shudder just to think about it.”
“Yes... It’s all thanks to you, Sir Varg. You’re my lifesaver.”
Earlier she had called her Mrs. Wintersword, but this time she mentioned my name, Varg.
What was she calculating now?
“It was nothing.”
I paused for a moment, then sharpened my gaze.
I subtly mixed in a hint of Count Eisen’s piercing look.
“But, Your Highness, may I ask you something?”
“Yes?”
“How did you come to be in this Eisengard territory?”
I drove the question straight in.
That was the privilege only someone of my status—a barbarian, a member of a people held in awe—could claim.
This was the northern Grand Duchy of Northgard.
It was true that the climate here was closer to cool than the harsher cold of Norhaim or the borderlands, and it was spring now, to boot.
But that still was not somewhere an imperial princess would come alone without an escort.
Of course, “couldn’t get an escort” would be more accurate.
At my question, Elysia’s smile faded.
A very slight pause.
Until just now, when she had been airily commenting on Kara and my love story, there had not been even the slightest pause between her words.
I recited the answer to myself.
‘An academy admission recommendation letter.’
No central noble would write her one because of the power struggles within the Imperial Family, while the other feudal states might be even more dangerous than Norhaim.
No matter that she was a bastard, she was still of the Imperial bloodline.
In the end, she had come to obtain a recommendation from the northern grand-ducal family, which was close to the Imperial Family yet no less prestigious than the other feudal states.
And the link was Count Eisen, the grand duke’s closest confidant and a man who insisted on clear logic.
‘Should I tell her honestly? Or conceal it?’
I intended to decide how to respond going forward based on her answer.
Elysia fiddled with the pillow before opening her mouth.
“Ah~ Well, you see.”
After a short pause, Elysia smiled with her eyes again and spoke in a carefree voice.
“Once I enter the academy soon, I’ll be stuck there without a break until vacation, you know?”
“That’s right.”
“Since I’m about to enroll, the people around me finally loosened the restrictions a little and gave me some freedom. I came out thinking I’d take a trip around the Empire, and then....”
The imperial princess scratched her head and gave an awkward “Hehe.”
“You know, the romance of travel! Freedom! Things like that? I heard the northern snowscape was so beautiful, so I came to see it and ended up getting lost.”
“......”
I stared at the heroine.
‘A lie.’
As expected, she was hiding the truth.
The trip was an excuse; what she really wanted was the recommendation letter.
She came to see the snowscape and somehow ended up in a kidnapper’s den?
The fact that the kidnappers had specifically targeted Elysia meant her route had already been exposed.
If she had merely been a tourist, they could not have targeted her so systematically.
Elysia still did not trust me—or us.
She was calculating that we might turn our backs on her the moment she revealed her weakness: that she had no recommendation letter.
‘As expected of the original heroine. Her survival instincts are excellent.’
She pretended to be innocent, but was protecting herself more thoroughly than anyone.
She was not someone who would trust easily.
‘Even so, I wanted her to be honest with me.’
I secretly let out a small sigh through my nose, nodded, and pretended to believe her.
“Ah, so you were traveling. The northern snowscape is beautiful, to be sure. You were unlucky.”
“Exactly. Hoho... I’ll have to be more careful next time.”
“It’s spring in Eisengard, so there’s no snow. Though we do have a snowman.”
Elysia sighed in relief and rubbed her chest, then—
“What? Oh, right, spring... It is spring now... So there isn’t a snowscape... is there...?”
Realizing she had misspoken, she trailed off.
“But you said there’s a snowman? Mrs. Wintersword, is that really true?”
“Ahaha... There is... though I’m not sure it’s still intact.”
Then, after hearing the ‘initially contradictory statement’ I had uttered, the end of her sentence, which she had trailed off, regained its shape.
‘Now I’m sure.’
This woman was the greatest variable threatening my peaceful daily life.
It was unfortunate, but as of today, Elysia was officially my number-one person to watch....
That was when it happened.
“A-actually, the truth is....”
Elysia suddenly flushed and fidgeted with her fingers.
“Yes?”
“Actually... the trip was just an excuse....”
Though her voice was barely more than a murmur, Elysia began confessing clearly.
“I heard I needed a recommendation from a powerful family to enroll in the academy... But my background is a little complicated, so no one was willing to write one for me....”
“......”
“I came secretly because I thought I might ask Count Eisen for one... It’s embarrassing that I ended up getting kidnapped, though.”
Elysia scratched her head and gave an awkward “Hehe.”
She was being extraordinarily honest.
It was a confession of truth that came one beat after I had finished pretending to be fooled.
My thoughts began to tangle.
‘What? Why is she suddenly telling me the truth?’
She had been lying perfectly until just now.
Several hypotheses collided in my mind.
Hypothesis one.
After seeing my expression and hearing me point out the contradiction, had she thought, ‘Ah, this man saw through my lie,’ and changed tactics to earn my trust?
If so, she was a master manipulator.
She had seen straight through my psychology and naturally changed her attitude.
Hypothesis two: was she actually the airheaded type who tossed out a little white lie, then felt guilty and immediately confessed everything?
If so, she might be unexpectedly easy to handle.
Hypothesis three: maybe all of this was an advanced psychological battle meant to make me lower my guard.
Was she trying to disarm my wariness with the weapon of honesty?
Hypothesis four was....
‘Ah, this is driving me crazy. My head hurts so much....’
I was definitely a barbarian, yet I was doing nothing but thinking.
Even so, I had to keep turning things over in my head.
Because I was a father.
When I read the original novel, it had been convenient that Elysia’s inner thoughts were all described through the ‘omniscient author’s point of view,’ but facing her like this, I could not make heads or tails of the way she spoke.
‘I’m dizzy....’
I pressed hard against my temples.
My head began to throb.
I could not tell whether she was a fox, a bear, or simply an idiot.
“Ah... The recommendation letter... I see.”
When I answered awkwardly, Elysia lifted her head as though she had never been depressed.
Then, her sunny smile returned, and she turned her gaze to Kara beside me.
“But Mrs. Wintersword! Please tell me more about that piggyback confession story you mentioned earlier!”
“Pardon?”
“The one where you picked up your husband, slammed him down, knocked him unconscious, and carried him off in a bridal kidnapping the moment you saw him! I’m going to take notes while I listen!”
Elysia’s eyes sparkled as she took out a notebook and pen from the bedside table.
Kara flapped her hands in embarrassment.
“No, Your Highness. It wasn’t a throw; I carried him on my back....”
“Oh my, what a difference in detail! It’s important! So what happened? When your unconscious husband opened his eyes, what was the first thing he said? Was it ‘Where am I,’ or ‘Who are you?’”
“No... He just asked for food....”
“Eeeek! So wild! I love it!”
Elysia was making a one-woman spectacle, drumming up the excitement all by herself.
The serious atmosphere that had been building around the recommendation-letter issue vanished without a trace, and the room once again became a romance-novel discussion session.
I stared blankly at the scene.
Elysia’s impossible-to-follow pace.
That clear-eyed lunatic was dragging Kara into her whirlpool.
‘...This is bad.’
This woman was far more difficult to handle than I had expected.
The original novel’s heroine was far beyond the bounds of my expectations.
‘Ah... I shouldn’t have let Eisen go to sleep... Help me, Master....’