After finishing our meal, we followed Count Aizen’s guidance and toured the sights of the border city.
There were about two hours left until the dress uniform was finished.
The count did not waste that time.
“Academy life will be busy, but every vacation, you will likely pass through this border city on your way home. I will show you in advance some places where you can stay briefly and recover from your fatigue.”
Count Aizen began his tour, pointing them out one by one with the tip of his cane.
Yet hidden here and there were scenes that did not suit a rigid military city at all.
A charming little trail laid out along an artificial lake park.
Each tree was hung with soft mana-stone lights, giving the place a strangely romantic atmosphere even in the middle of the day.
“This is the 「Lovers’ Trail」. In the evening, the lighting mana stones turn on, and the atmosphere becomes quite pleasant. If a married couple takes a quiet walk together on the way back to their hometown after a long absence, would their cooled feelings not begin to burn again?”
“So there are soft, sentimental places like this in a military city? That’s surprising.”
When I asked in wonder, Count Aizen pushed up his glasses, his eyes gleaming.
“It is a strategic deployment.”
“Strategic?”
“The soldiers stationed at the border are full of hot blood. However, the bleak environment makes it easy for their emotions to dry up. That is why we deliberately created such districts.”
He uttered something terrifying as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“What happens if soldiers naturally meet local women, nurture love, and form families? Would their children not become the 「next generation of soldiers」 who protect the place where they were born and raised? In a sense, it is a facility for securing future military strength.”
“......”
Kara and I both gaped.
I had thought it was simply a matter of welfare, but behind it lay thorough efficiency and calculation.
Kara shook her head with a fed-up expression.
“Wow... Count, you’re scarier than I thought. Even romance was part of the calculation?”
“I will take that as a compliment. Even so, in the educational facilities, I made sure they received ordinary education. Of course, I cannot say what it is like now.”
Count Aizen smiled as if it were nothing.
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-blooded administrator who would use anything for the safety of the empire.
‘Count Aizen really isn’t ordinary. Making an enemy of this man would be exhausting.’
We started walking again.
As we walked through the streets in a cheerful atmosphere, I felt a strange prickling at my back.
Someone’s gaze.
I glanced behind me out of the corner of my eye.
I felt it from behind a utility pole.
I felt it from behind a roadside tree,
Even from behind the back of a passerby.
All of them gave off the same identical murmur.
Especially in a border city where it often snowed, the sight of a single black-haired head popping out and ducking back in was far too blatant.
Of course, it was Kairun.
Since the young lord kept behaving suspiciously, there was no way the murmuring could die down.
The brat had been following us ever since we left the restaurant.
Perhaps the escort knights had received Kairun’s strict order: “I’ll get caught because of how big you all are! Stay far away over there!”
Every one of them was following from far off, restless and anxious, while he alone was filming some clumsy infiltration action scene.
‘That’s hard to pretend not to notice.’
I clicked my tongue.
Kara, who was beside me, tilted her head.
“Huh? Isn’t that the young lord over there?”
As expected, even Kara had noticed.
But her interpretation was completely different from what I had expected.
“He’s still following us. Is he watching for a chance because he’s embarrassed to return the mask I lent him earlier? How cute.”
“......”
Count Aizen and I met eyes at the same time.
‘Your wife does not seem to know at all.’
‘Yes, it’s fortunate she’s dense about this sort of thing.’
We exchanged silent glances.
That was not because of the mask.
It was the typical clinginess of an adolescent boy unable to let go of his first love and hovering around a married woman.
Just then, Kara casually turned around.
“Huh? Young lord!”
“......!”
Her eyes met Kairun’s exactly as he peered from behind the utility pole.
Startled out of his wits, Kairun flailed and threw himself aside.
“Uaagh!”
Crash!
The place he hurriedly hid behind just happened to be a newspaper stand.
The stand shook, and bundles of magazines and newspapers came pouring down.
“Hey! I almost got caught because you came too close! Go farther away! Hide so I can’t see you at all!”
We heard him snapping at the escort knights, who had been stealthily approaching the young lord to guard him and had ended up all the way behind the newspaper stand.
Kara tilted her head and looked forward again.
“It looks like he fell... Will he be okay?”
“Leave him. He’s sturdy.”
I wrapped an arm around Kara’s shoulder and quickened my steps.
* * *
“Hoo... hoo....”
Kairun lay buried in the spilled pile of magazines, panting harshly.
His heart felt like it would burst.
He had almost been caught.
No, their eyes had met.
He had been caught.
When her sapphire eyes turned toward him, he thought his mind would go completely blank.
After dismissing even the escort knights, Kairun was monitoring Varg’s group alone.
His purpose was only one thing.
‘A weakness.’
To find proof that that giant of a man did not suit Kara.
‘That man isn’t my ideal. There’s no way. He’s only big, but he must be a dull savage, a barbarian outsider. Miss Kara will be disappointed soon enough.’
Kairun desperately denied reality as he waited for Varg to make a mistake.
And the opportunity came.
Varg was walking and laughing with Kara when his foot caught on the edge of a paving block, causing him to stumble.
“Whoa there!”
It was an utterly foolish mistake.
Kairun’s eyes flashed.
‘That’s it! Did you see that? That stupid movement! He’s only big; his lower body is weak! Far from being a warrior, he’s just a big fool who can’t even control his own body!’
The youngster cheered inwardly.
A warrior who roamed the rugged terrain of the north would never trip on flat ground like that.
That was proof he had no fundamentals.
‘Miss Kara must have lost all affection after seeing such a pathetic sight!’
However.
“Puhaha! 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 brightly, enjoying the situation instead.
Far from losing affection, her gaze practically dripped with honey.
A small mistake had instead become a spark that made her smile.
“......Huh?”
While Varg laughed awkwardly, Kairun stared blankly down at the spot where Varg had slipped.
One paving block that stuck out in particular was cracked wide open.
The moment Varg stepped on it, the stone had failed to withstand his terrifying weight and pressure, screaming as it shattered.
‘What... is that?’
A body that turned even a single mistake into a weapon.
Kairun imagined what he would have done if he had faced the same situation.
He probably would have snapped angrily at the escort knights, complaining that it hurt.
‘Damn it…’
Just then, Kara looked at the cracked paving block, smirked, and whispered into Varg’s ear.
“My, my husband is overflowing with strength. Honestly... It’s a shame we have to accompany the count until we reach 「Aizenguard」 today. That strength should be used somewhere else.”
“Ahem! Hm! I can hear you both.”
Count Aizen, who was walking ahead, cut in with a cough.
He pretended to be dignified, but spoke with a meaningful smile.
“Still... I have arranged for the carriage to the estate so that only the two of you may ride together in privacy. Perhaps because I am getting old, I am tired and would like to travel separately in comfort.”
“Oh! As expected of you, Count!”
Kara blushed and clung to Varg’s arm.
“......”
Kairun sat collapsed in the pile of magazines, staring blankly at the sight.
A private joke between the two of them.
The sticky gazes they cast at each other.
And a perfect world with not even a single millimeter of space or gap for someone like him to enter.
“......”
Despair once again covered Kairun.
His ideal 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, even without anyone directly trampling it down.
* * *
At the promised time, our group arrived once again at the clothing store 「Closer」.
Inside the store, it was as quiet as the night before a storm.
The head tailor and the staff stood there with hollow eyes.
Their fingertips were ragged, and the skin beneath their eyes was blackened.
‘I’m sure they didn’t even stay up all night, so why are their eyes…’
Even so, their eyes alone were shining.
Like artists who had poured their souls into their work, right before presenting their masterpiece to the world.
“It is complete.”
Closer, the head tailor, removed the black cloth with trembling hands.
There was clothing there.
No, it was something too imposing to be called clothing, and too alluring to be called armor.
I entered the fitting room and changed.
I threw off my shabby hood and put on the black dress-uniform jacket made from 「Behemoth Leather」.
Sssrk.
The moment the leather touched my skin, a thrill unlike static electricity ran through me, as if my flesh were tightening.
It felt cool, yet the instant it reacted to my body heat, it warmed.
Like the skin of a living creature, it naturally clung to the grain of my muscles.
“Hoo....”
I stood before the mirror.
When the tailors gathered around and even slicked back my tousled hair neatly with pomade, a stranger stood in the mirror.
The tight black leather wrapped around my massive muscles like armor.
The Behemoth leather, which gave off a faint red sheen whenever I moved, exuded overwhelming pressure and sexiness at the same time.
The simple barbarian was gone, and the ruler of the north stood before the mirror.
When I drew back the fitting room curtain and stepped out, silence fell inside the shop.
“......Wow.”
Kara blushed, unable to close her mouth.
Her sapphire eyes sparkled as they swept over my entire body.
‘He’s my husband, but... he’s really so handsome.’
That was what her gaze was saying.
And Count Aizen.
He adjusted his glasses and stared intently at me.
For a moment, memories from twenty years ago overlapped with the sight.
Gorgon in his youth.
That overwhelming wildness and charisma.
‘No, he surpasses even that.’
Suddenly, a dangerous and secret assumption he had buried deep in his heart long ago flashed through his mind.
‘If... I had not returned to the empire back then and had stayed by that man’s side...’
If his own stratagems and that man’s martial strength had joined together, Gorgon would not have been merely a chieftain on the frontier...
Would he not have become the 「Khan」 who ruled the entire north?
The shadow of an unrealized ambition wavered in the young man before his eyes.
“Do you see? This is the masterpiece of my life!”
Closer shouted with tears streaming down his face.
At his cry, the staff also embraced one another, overcome with emotion.
I rolled my shoulders once.
There was no discomfort at all.
Rather, there was an elasticity that seemed to assist my movements.
“I like it.”
When I grinned, the shop filled with cheers.
At the same time.
Outside the clothing store, on a street draped in the cold evening glow.
Kairun was watching that splendid figure through the window.
‘What is everyone so happy about…’
Then he blankly stared at his own reflection in the show window.
His underdeveloped height.
His narrow shoulders.
His childlike face, still not yet rid of its baby fat, twisted with jealousy.
And beyond it, Varg was...
Far too perfect and dazzling.
Overwhelming physicality and masculinity.
He was the very image of the 「completed male」 Kairun had dreamed of.
‘I lost. This... isn’t even a contest.’
He lowered his head in misery.
He no longer had the confidence to keep watching.
The ideal he had admired stood 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 back... It’s all over.’
Soaked in defeat, Kairun turned around.
At that moment.
His eyes met Varg’s exactly as Varg was checking the fit of his clothes inside the shop.
“......!”
Kairun flinched in shock, his face flushing hot with the shame and misery of being caught.
He had to run.
Without even looking around, the young lord blindly dashed into the carriage road.
“Young lord! It’s dangerous!”
He heard the screams of the escort knights who had been standing far away.
But it was too late.
Clatter!
Neeeeigh!
A massive freight carriage that had just come around the corner was charging toward Kairun, unable to slow down.
The snow-covered road was slippery, and the horses were agitated.
“Young master!”
By the time Kairun turned his head, the horses’ hooves were already right in front of him.
‘Ah....’
His mind went blank.
He could not avoid it.
Was he going to die?
So meaninglessly?
After showing only an ugly side to the person he loved.
When he had not even returned the mask.
At that desperate moment.
Crash—!
With a tremendous shattering sound, the reinforced glass door of the clothing store burst apart.
Amid shards of glass scattering like snowflakes, a black shadow shot out.
‘That stupid brat!’
There was no time to think.
His body reacted first.
Varg leaped, becoming a beast clad in Behemoth leather.
Just before the carriage struck.
Thak!
His solid arm snatched Kairun by the waist.
And he threw himself to the ground with him.
Crash!
Screech!
They rolled across the rough carriage road.
The back of the newly fitted Behemoth dress uniform scraped against the ground, throwing off sparks.
“Urgh...!”
Varg clenched his teeth and held Kairun in his arms, rolling several more times so the boy’s head would not be injured.
‘I grabbed him too hastily, so the impact is still…!’
Fortunately, the carriage stopped with the coachman’s sigh of relief, and the street instantly became a scene of chaos.
A moment later.
“......”
Kairun opened the eyes he had squeezed shut.
There was no pain.
Instead, something heavy and solid was wrapped around him.
The young lord lifted his head.
Above him, Varg was looking down with a frown.
“Hey, brat… Young lord, are you all right?”
Smoke rose from his back.
But the Behemoth leather wrapped around Varg’s back had not torn despite the friction of the carriage road, sturdily protecting him.
Fortunately, because it was magical beast hide, it had not ripped; only scratches remained.
Kairun stared blankly up at Varg.
The man he had envied and hated had saved him.
With overwhelming martial strength, and with a vessel even more overwhelming than that.
And that was why the man who was his 「ideal」.