Kyren clenched his fists.
The fluttering excitement of his one-sided love had been handed over to Kara, now beyond his grasp.
But the hot blood and admiration he held as a warrior were now directed wholly toward Varg.
The gazes of the three crossed strangely in midair.
Kara was giving the boy who had returned her mask a warm, sisterly smile, as if she found him commendable.
She would never know, even in her dreams.
That just now, this boy had buried his first love for her in a corner of his heart.
And me.
With my arms crossed, I was looking down at Kyren with a subtle expression.
‘Why are his eyes like that?’
Jealousy and hostility were nowhere to be found.
Instead, what filled their place was admiration that sparkled to a burdensome degree.
It was the look of a child meeting a superhero from TV in real life.
‘...No way he’s fallen for me, right?’
Varg felt a chill run down his spine and cleared his throat.
“Ahem. In any case, I’m glad you aren’t hurt.”
I had a feeling that getting any more involved would only make things troublesome.
Wrapping an arm around Kara’s shoulders, I hurriedly stepped into the clothing store.
‘Ah, it’s prickling...’
Kyren was still staring at my retreating figure—more precisely, my back—until the very end, exhaling deeply.
As for me, I only wished nothing bothersome would happen.
But for Kyren, it was the day his world shattered and a new one opened.
* * *
Inside the clothing store, it was noisy in a different sense from the commotion outside.
“There’s still Behemoth leather left!”
Closer, the head tailor, shouted with a flushed face.
In his hands was the remaining black leather fabric.
“Just sign my receipt! I’ll make trousers that perfectly match this jacket and send them to your territory! Wearing only the top and pairing it with some other bottoms? That is an insult to fashion!”
“No, I understand the sentiment, but...”
Count Eisen fiddled with his wallet, looking troubled.
“Behemoth leather, you say. How could I possibly bear the cost of something so valuable? Our family budget has already exceeded this quarter’s expenses...”
“I told you, I don’t need money! Just let me complete my work! Please!”
“I cannot do that! There is such a thing as noble honor. How could I exploit labor for free? Not paying a fair price goes against my administrative philosophy!”
It was a tense standoff.
A craftsman who refused payment, and a noble who insisted on paying.
A strange scene where pride and philosophy collided.
Watching from the side, I clicked my tongue.
‘...This is so heartwarming it’s suffocating.’
He should just take it when the man said he’d give it to him.
But neither Count Eisen’s stubbornness nor the tailor’s madness showed any sign of breaking.
At this rate, we’d be here until dawn.
Thunk.
Just then, a heavy metallic sound rang out atop the counter.
“......?”
Count Eisen and the tailor turned their heads at the same time.
There, a solid gold signet ring engraved with a family crest had been placed.
And the one who had set down that ring, Kyren, stood there, sweeping back his disheveled hair.
“Put it on this.”
“Y-Young Lord?”
Count Eisen stepped back in surprise.
Kyren pulled the receipt toward himself with an indifferent expression.
“Not just the trousers. All the other clothes those two picked out as well. I’ll buy everything.”
Scratch, scratch.
He picked up the quill and boldly scrawled his signature at the bottom of the receipt.
「Kyren von Northguard」
The moment the name of the Grand Duchal House of Northguard was stamped onto it, that scrap of paper became as effective as a blank check.
“No, Young Master! This is far too large a sum! The Behemoth leather alone...!”
Count Eisen, horrified, tried to stop him, but Kyren snorted.
“It’s cheap compared to the price of a life.”
Without even looking back, the young lord jerked his chin toward me.
“That man saved my life. Do you think the blood of the Grand Duchal House is worth less than a few sets of clothes?”
“Ah...”
Count Eisen closed his mouth.
He was not wrong.
If anything, it would be fair to call it a bargain.
Kyren tossed the receipt at the tailor, who was standing there in a daze.
“Make the finest clothes. I don’t care how much it costs.”
“Ah... Understood! Thank you, Young Lord!”
The tailor bowed, cradling the receipt as if it were a treasure chest.
Situation resolved.
Having settled the chaos with overwhelming wealth and authority, Kyren left the store with an intentionally cool expression.
Jingle.
As soon as Kyren left, I chuckled and muttered.
“Not bad, kid.”
“But it must still be cold outside, Varg. His ears are redder than the count’s.”
Kara, sharp-eyed yet dense, looked back and forth between the ears of Eisen, who was sensitive to the cold, and Kyren’s ears.
* * *
Outside the store.
The cold evening air cooled Kyren’s heat.
His escort knights greeted him nervously.
“Young Master... Are you truly all right? Perhaps you should return to the territory and undergo a detailed examination...”
“Enough. I don’t even have a scratch.”
Kyren calmly brushed the dust from his clothes.
Then he looked at the escort knight.
“And... from now on, don’t call me Young Lord.”
“Pardon? What do you mean by... Then what should we call you?”
The escort asked back in confusion.
It was both the pet name he had been called by since childhood and the customary title for Kyren, who had not yet undergone his coming-of-age ceremony.
Kyren looked up at the sky and spoke quietly.
“Just call me Lord.”
“......”
“The day when my elder brother inherits Father’s position will come soon... I can’t be treated like a child forever. I’m entering the academy, too, so now I should... do my part.”
The childish sulking from when he had been tailing Kara was gone.
His words carried the weight of someone who had become aware of his position and duties.
The escort stared blankly at Kyren for a moment, then soon lowered his head deeply with a pleased smile.
The immature young master had crossed the threshold of death once and returned as an adult.
“Understood, my lord.”
“Good.”
Kyren took the lead and began walking.
Then, suddenly, as if something had come to mind, he stopped.
In his mind surfaced the image of Varg’s back from earlier.
That explosive leap as he hurled himself toward the carriage.
The toughness with which he did not let out even a single groan as his back was torn open.
And, most decisively, the rough, massive axe hanging at his waist.
A symbol of wild power entirely different from himself, who wielded a sword.
“Hey, Sesk.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Maybe I should... try using an axe too?”
“......Pardon?”
Sesk’s eyes widened.
“A-An axe, you say? My lord, you are a genius of the sword! The one who will become the youngest Sword Master in the history of the Empire...!”
“No, I mean, just because. A sword looks a little... sneaky, doesn’t it? A man’s got to hit with one blow, right? Heavy and solid—bam! The feeling of chopping something down.”
Kyren mimed swinging an axe through the air and muttered seriously.
Sesk nearly fainted.
The future of imperial swordsmanship was becoming fascinated with some axe-swinging and attempting to change careers.
“You must not! Absolutely not! My lord! Please don’t take away my job as your swordsmanship instructor! If His Grace the Grand Duke finds out, I’m dead!”
“It was a joke, a joke. Look at your reaction.”
Kyren cackled at Sesk, who looked appalled.
But his eyes did not look entirely joking.
As Kyren disappeared into the evening glow, he clenched his fists tightly.
‘Even if an axe is too much... at the very least, I want that strength.’
The boy’s growth had bounced off in a strange direction, but in any case, it had begun.
* * *
Thanks to Kyren coolly charging the cost of the clothes to a blank check, Count Eisen’s budget had room to breathe.
No, not just room to breathe—space had opened up like a dam bursting.
For now, instead of going far, we decided to have dinner with the home cooking provided by Closer, the owner of the clothing store.
The tailors had cleared a corner of their worktable and set up a dining table, but it was better than most restaurants.
Clean, quick, and above all, the quality of the meat was good.
Though before the meal was prepared, I did see Closer’s wife hurriedly buy meat and return gasping for breath.
“Phew... When else would we get to buy meat with the Young Lord’s money?”
I did hear the whisper of embezzlement, but compared to the cost of the clothes, it was not even a speck of dust.
“Mm... Excellent.”
Count Eisen wiped his mouth with a napkin, looking satisfied.
“As expected... saving on clothing costs changes the quality of the meal. Thanks to that, my son’s nagging should decrease as well.”
He tilted his wine glass and savored his ease.
“Please eat plenty. Even if we hurry, it will take a full two days to reach the territory. We’ll rest along the way, but you’ll spend a long time inside the carriage.”
“Thank you for the meal.”
I picked up my fork and served Kara plenty of tenderly cooked tenderloin steak and fresh salad onto her plate.
“Honey, eat a lot. Our baby says they’re hungry too. The food here is clean and good.”
“Mm, it’s really delicious. I didn’t know a clothing store owner could cook this well too.”
The food seemed to suit Kara’s taste as well, and she accepted it happily, chewing away.
There was nothing as happy as watching my wife eat well.
After finishing the meal and stepping outside, a line of carriages ready for departure was waiting for us.
However.
“......?”
It was not the cramped four-seater carriage we had ridden in earlier.
There were as many as three carriages lined up.
At the front was a cargo carriage packed full of the luggage we had brought from the tribe and the goods we had purchased at the border.
In the middle was a private carriage for Count Eisen to ride alone.
And at the rear was—
“What’s that...?”
A special carriage of majestic size, easily twice as large as the others.
A large VIP bed carriage.
A gasp of admiration burst out inside me.
‘Wow... So this is the taste of capital.’
Just a few hours ago, we had arrived crumpled up like luggage, and now a limousine had been brought before us.
Just as I was beginning to feel the power of the signet Kyren had left behind, Count Eisen looked at the carriages with a relieved expression and spoke.
“To tell the truth... these three carriages had already been arranged even before the Young Lord gave his signet.”
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yes. But to be honest, the hit to the budget was too great... So I was rather passive back at the clothing store. My emergency funds were strained if I had to cover even the Behemoth leather.”
He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses.
But there was a strange sense of liberation in his expression.
And the corners of his mouth were faintly raised.
“Regrettably... because the Young Lord paid the full cost of the clothes, my son’s workload has been reduced. He has lost the chance to nag me while processing the receipts, so what a filial son he is.”
Eisen pretended to be regretful, but the corners of his mouth were still stretched up to his ears.
To be honest, he had apparently been worried inwardly because the rental fee for the bed carriage was no small sum, but now that the greatest expense—the clothing cost—had been taken care of, he could breathe again.
“Of course, even just this carriage will probably make them faint when they see the receipt back in the territory... Well, they’ll manage somehow. I’m practically a retired old man in the back room now, after all.”
It was a small act of revenge and deviation from a retired head of household.
I chuckled and played along.
“Haha, that’s certainly fortunate news for your son. Shall we depart, Count?”
“Let’s depart! The night road is dark, so light the lamps!”
Count Eisen whistled as he slipped the coachman a generous tip, one he would have given stingily in the past.
It seemed the luxury of shirking family duties was quite thrilling.
Following the guidance, we climbed into the third carriage.
The interior was beyond imagination.
All the ordinary seats had been removed, and the entire floor had been laid with a soft mattress and the finest fur blankets, turning it into a sleeper compartment.
“Wow... It’s really a bed.”
Kara exclaimed in admiration as she took off her shoes and climbed in.
I climbed in after her.
Of course, because of my huge build, I could not fully stretch out my legs and had to either bend my knees or raise them toward the window, but compared to the coffin experience from earlier, this place was heaven.
Rattle.
The carriage set off smoothly.
Moonlight seeped in through the window, illuminating Kara’s face.
Kara wriggled closer, rubbing her face against my chest and burrowing in.
“Mmm... This is nice. Warm.”
“It is. We should’ve done this from the start.”
I wrapped one arm around Kara’s waist and, with my other hand, carefully stroked Kara’s lower belly.
Rub, rub.
Since it was still early, all I could feel were her firm abs, no different from usual.
Feeling playful, I spoke in a serious voice.
“Huh? You ate so much earlier... Has our baby already grown this much? Your belly seems to be sticking out a little.”
Smack!
Kara slapped the back of my hand.
“Don’t tease me! And that’s... because you kept feeding me, Varg. I was full, but you kept putting more meat on my plate.”
“If it’s delicious, you should eat a lot.”
I snickered, then put away my mischief and gently stroked Kara’s stomach.
A faint warmth transmitted beneath my palm.
“Mm... That tickles, Varg.”
It did not show on the outside yet, but my child was inside here.
My family.
My blood.
The warmth touching my fingertips traveled all the way to my heart.
An endless sense of responsibility and affection welled up in me, as if I could beat down the Empire, the Demon King, or anything else to protect this tiny life.
“...You have to eat well to grow strong. Both of you need to be healthy. I’ll protect you no matter what.”
At my quiet vow, Kara burrowed deeper into my arms and nodded.
“Mm. I believe you, honey.”
The three carriages ran along the border road, where darkness had settled.
When I looked out the window, the snow mountains of Norheim in the distance were buried in darkness and could not be seen.
Instead, ahead of us, the lights of the imperial interior began to sparkle like stars.
Now it truly begins.
The academy.
The high-nosed imperial nobles.
And the twisted currents of the original story.
But I am not afraid.
Because I have the warm presence in my arms, and 「First Snow Flurry」 strapped to my back.
‘Sleep well, my baby. Daddy will take care of everything.’
I kissed the forehead of Kara, who had fallen peacefully asleep.
The sound of the carriage wheels cutting through the night rang out like a march toward a new battlefield.