A shadow fell over the carriage.
The “Norheim Wall”—a structure where human skill had been laid over the bones of nature, an entire massive mountain range carved through to make a tunnel.
We passed through the tunnel in the belly of that colossal mountain.
In the darkness, the carriage skis rattled noisily, scraping over the stone floor.
And a short while later.
Fwoosh—!
Dazzling light poured in from the end of the tunnel.
At the same time, the fierce, knife-like wind that had been pounding our ears died down as if it had been a lie.
At last, imperial territory.
We had entered the border region of the Grand Duchy of Northguard.
“Phew... Now I feel like I can finally live.”
Count Eisen, who had been crumpled in the opposite corner, let out a long breath.
Thanks to the wall blocking the north wind, the temperature inside the carriage seemed to have rapidly stabilized.
Eisen tried to peel off the fur clothes he had bundled himself in.
But.
“Ugh... Hup... urk!”
The cramped space.
The mountain of luggage boxes piled on his knees.
And the bundles of baggage packed tightly on either side.
With not even enough room to pull out his arms, he wriggled and struggled on his own.
He looked like an overturned crayfish that had failed to shed its shell.
“W-would you like some help?”
“N-no! Ngh... I can do it... myself... ugh....”
The proud administrator strained until his face turned bright red, and at last succeeded in taking off one layer of fur clothing.
Kara and I gazed at him with pity as he sweated buckets, then turned our eyes out the window.
“......”
It was unfamiliar.
The world unfolding outside the window was completely different from the North I knew.
If Norheim had been an irregular and majestic land of snow-covered mountains shaped by nature, this was a world where everything had been tailored for efficiency.
Rectangular stone buildings aligned as neatly as if measured with a ruler.
Street trees planted at regular intervals.
Guards patrolling in orderly ranks.
As befitted a military city where the border garrison and the families of knights lived, suffocating practicality and discipline ruled here more than splendor.
‘So this is the imperial border. Straight-edged to the point of boredom.’
The air was different from the free snowfields.
The Empire was vast.
Once I entered the Academy, the place where I would live would probably have scenery as new as this.
And as time passed, though it was now blocked by a massive wall, a day would come when freely going back and forth through that tunnel would no longer be anything special.
When that time came, this place would also be the foundation on which we, and our child, would live.
Just then, Kara, who had been studying the view outside, showed an unexpected reaction.
“Oh... It’s better than I thought.”
“Better? Isn’t it too rigid?”
“No. I thought imperial bastards only liked empty formalities, so every building would be dripping with useless jewels and decorations. But there’s no excess here. It has only what’s necessary.”
Kara’s eyes sparkled.
From a warrior’s perspective, she seemed to rather like the structure of this city, which maximized efficiency in both defense and daily life.
“The roads are wide enough for chariots or cavalry to charge through, and the buildings are arranged so they create blind spots for one another. Whoever built this put some real thought into it.”
At her praise, Count Eisen, who had been sorting out his shed layer across from us, pricked up his ears.
Adjusting his glasses, he cut in with a deliberately refined voice.
“Unfortunately, the place where you two will be staying is not this border region. I plan to escort you a little farther inland, closer to the capital, to my territory.”
He said “unfortunately,” but the corners of his mouth were twitching and rising uncontrollably.
He looked extremely pleased.
“What is it? Did something good happen?”
When I asked, Count Eisen opened his mouth in an excited voice, as though he had been waiting for it.
“In truth, this city was redeveloped some twenty years ago. At the time, under His Grace the Grand Duke’s orders, I personally designed and supervised it.”
“Ah, you did, Count?”
“That is correct. As you can see, the width of those roads was calculated so that in wartime, even if four carriages passed at once, no bottleneck would occur. And the placement of the buildings blocks the north wind while maximizing the amount of sunlight that enters....”
Count Eisen pointed out the window with his finger and began enthusiastically boasting about the city.
“Do you see that drainage channel over there? That was not made carelessly, either. In an emergency, melted snow can be used as firewater, so the slope was adjusted accordingly....”
His usual cool-headedness was nowhere to be seen.
Like a child showing off his toy blocks, his eyes shone as he spoke passionately.
And Kara, listening to his explanation, also nodded along with interest.
“That makes sense. It’d be advantageous when defending. As expected, Count Eisen, you have a good eye.”
“Hahaha! You flatter me, Miss Kara!”
A warm and friendly atmosphere.
But as I watched them, my expression stiffened strangely.
‘What the hell? Why are these two getting along so well?’
For a moment, a peculiar emotion stirred in one corner of my heart.
Now that I thought about it, when the original novel was being serialized, there had been comments like that in the comment section every so often.
『Honestly, ditch the clunker male lead and go to Mercedes Eisen.』
『What does the age gap matter? Count Eisen would make Kara happy.』
『Author, please, give us the Kara X Eisen route ㅠㅠ』
The supporters who paired Kara with Count Eisen, one of the few characters who sincerely worried for her—also known as the doomed-ship investors.
Back then, even I had agreed, thinking, “True, Eisen is a hundred times better than that bastard Kairun.”
But now that my wife was sharing tastes with another man—though he was old enough to be her father, he was still another man—I felt strange.
‘Is this jealousy?’
An unnecessary sense of crisis rose within me.
I stealthily tightened my grip on Kara’s hand, which had been resting on my knee with our fingers interlaced.
Her warmth came through my palm.
‘She’s my wife. Give up on your dreams.’
It was childish possessiveness, but the warmth of our joined hands melted the jealousy creeping up inside me like snow.
Kara looked at me as if puzzled by my touch, but I pretended not to notice and did not let go of her hand.
“And the fountain in that central plaza is... ahem, hmm!”
Count Eisen, who had been talking for quite some time, suddenly coughed and shut his mouth, perhaps sensing my gaze as I stared blankly at him—or more precisely, as I gripped Kara’s hand tightly and kept him in check.
As if realizing his own excessive excitement, he pushed back his disheveled hair with a reddened face.
“...I seem to have spoken too much. My apologies.”
“Not at all. It was interesting. I had no idea you made this, Count.”
“Haha... How embarrassing. Lately, after foisting most of the family duties onto my son... I suppose my mind has grown a little lax. I’ve made a fool of myself.”
He smiled awkwardly and looked out the window.
In his eyes lay deep affection and pride for the city he had created.
But inwardly, I could not help taking issue with his words.
‘Lax?’
Even though he would be well within his rights to retire and rest, he had personally come all the way to this harsh border region and volunteered to act as our driver.
And he was the same man who had personally drawn up everything from Kara’s pregnancy plan to my training schedule?
‘This man really is a terrible workaholic.’
If this was what he called being lax, just how much had he lived for work in his active days?
It was a miracle he hadn’t died of overwork in the original.
In any case, thanks to that strictness and perfectionism of his, we had safely made it this far, so I ought to be grateful.
‘Wait, now that I think about it... how did this man die in the original?’
When I searched my memories, it had not been from overwork.
While cleaning up the political conflict that the clunker male lead Kairun had created, he died after taking the blades of assassins targeting Kairun in his stead.
The tragic end of a loyal retainer.
And that death became the decisive trigger that caused the son Count Eisen had just mentioned, “Heinkel Junior,” to hate Kairun and fall into darkness.
‘Huh? In that case...’
For starters, most of Kairun’s idiotic sabotage came from the emotional insecurity of liking Kara but being unable to express it.
But now Kara was “my woman,” someone it was a sin to even look at.
My woman.
No matter how pathetic that young lord was, surely he wouldn’t covet a married woman.
‘....’
Would he?
Well, anyway, since I had removed the cause of Kairun’s sabotage, the count would not die.
His son would not fall and become a villain either.
‘Thanks to me, I’ve saved this man’s life and erased one future villain too, haven’t I?’
I had the feeling that the butterfly effect I had caused might be far greater than expected.
“Now, we will soon reach a fork in the road. From there, it is a direct road to my territory, ‘Eisengard.’”
Count Eisen returned to his calm guide mode.
But I saw it.
As he gathered his map bag, the way he secretly raised the corners of his mouth in pride.
He was not a bad partner.
Though the carriage was cramped as hell.
A short while later, the carriage came to a stop.
It was a large maintenance station located at the center of the border city.
“Please get out. In any case, if we are going to a region without snow, we must change the carriage wheels. While we are at it, let us perform maintenance here and purchase some supplies.”
Count Eisen spoke as he gave instructions to the coachman.
Like crumpled sheets of paper being unfolded, we stretched our stiff bodies and crawled out of the carriage.
“Ugh... my back.”
“I can’t feel my legs....”
As Kara and I groaned while stretching, Count Eisen looked at the cramped interior of the carriage with a grave expression and said,
“And... when we go to my territory, I will prepare one more carriage.”
“Pardon?”
“We cannot... continue traveling this crumpled. At my age, my back will not allow it.”
At his solemn declaration, Kara and I nodded fiercely, as if there had been no need to decide who would go first.
“I’m in favor, Count!”
“Me too! I thought I was going to suffocate!”
It was a moment when all three of us needed liberation.
Count Eisen pushed up his glasses and pointed toward the shopping street opposite the maintenance station.
“It will take some time to replace the carriage and arrange another. You two should have some clothes fitted at the shops ahead.”
“Clothes?”
“Yes. Unlike the capital, this is a military district where the bigger one is, the more one is respected, so it should be much easier to find large-sized clothes that fit you both.”
At his words, I nodded.
‘A military city where the bigger you are, the better you’re treated...’
Memories of my past life flashed through my mind.
Itaewon.
Or clothing stores near the U.S. military base in Dongducheon.
A paradise for giants, where sizes like 3XL and 4XL, which you could not even hope to see in ordinary stores, were everywhere.
‘So this is a heaven of big-size specialty stores. Haha, whether it’s the Empire or Earth, people live the same way.’
For me, with the physique of a barbarian, shopping here would be far easier than at some prim noble clothing store in the capital.
“Understood. Then we’ll be back.”
“Ah, Varg!”
Count Eisen, who had been heading toward the maintenance station, paused and turned back to shout.
“Comfortable clothes are well and good, but please also look for a dress uniform you like! Something suitable for your Academy interview!”
“Understood!”
We parted from Count Eisen for a while and entered the street of clothing stores.
The clothes hanging on the stalls were unusual from the start.
Shirts with sleeves as thick as a person’s thigh, enormous coats that looked like even a bear could wear them.
“Wow... Varg, look at that! It’s huge!”
Kara’s eyes went round in wonder.
“Seriously. This place is our world.”
I chuckled and opened the door of the shop that looked the largest.
Jingle.
With the bright sound of a bell, our first shopping trip in the Empire began.
“Welco—... Hrk! Barbarians?!”
It seemed things would not be easy from the very start.
Calling us barbarians at a first meeting, of all things.