Crunch.
The strawberry burst in her mouth.
Kara, wearing a blissful expression, hurriedly picked up the strawberries on the plate and ate them.
One, two, three...
In the blink of an eye, the plate was being emptied.
Watching her, I let out a sigh of relief.
‘Thank goodness.’
Seeing my wife, who had shed tears over experiencing morning sickness for the first time, eating so deliciously made a corner of my heart ache.
Count Aizen, too, smiled warmly from behind his glasses, and Alina, swept up in the mood, clapped her hands.
“Sis, is it good? Does our baby like it too?”
“Yeah, they love it. They say Daddy and Big Sister Alina are the best.”
Kara took my hand and smiled with her eyes.
“Thank you, Varg. Thank you so much.”
Her warm touch and happy expression.
All the hardship I had gone through with Count Aizen and the servants to recreate frost strawberries felt as if it had been blessedly rewarded by that one smile.
Yes, this was enough.
Feeling as if I possessed the whole world, I reached out to stroke Kara’s hair.
But.
Happiness was cruelly short-lived.
“Urk...!”
All of a sudden, Kara’s face turned pale, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Kara?”
Her shoulders heaved violently.
Sensing the situation instinctively, I hurriedly brought a basin over.
Thankfully, the head maid, likely having plenty of experience, had brought one in preparation for just such an emergency.
“Uweeeek!”
Kara vomited up all the “frost strawberries” she had just eaten.
The red strawberry flesh poured out, mixed with gastric fluid.
“Cough! Cough! Ugh....”
She clutched at her chest in pain and continued to retch.
The happy smile from moments ago was nowhere to be seen; all that remained was a wretched face stained with tears and snot.
“......”
I was at a loss for words.
I take it back.
Finding something she wanted to eat may have been a blessing, but this morning sickness was no blessing.
It was torture.
My wife’s back as she suffered, vomiting up everything she had finally managed to eat.
The corners of her eyes reddened from nausea.
Seeing Kara suffer through her first pregnancy at an age when others would still be attending the Academy was a tearing pain for me as her husband.
‘Damn it.’
I clenched my teeth.
The hands that could shatter a snow bear’s bones and smash in the skulls of barbarians from other tribes felt utterly powerless now.
My beloved wife was in pain, yet I could not suffer in her place, nor could I solve it with strength.
This time, when all I could do was pat her back and watch, felt harder and longer to Varg than any battle.
“It’s all right... It’s all right....”
With trembling hands, I stroked Kara’s back.
This pathetic comfort was all I could offer.
After a round of vomiting like a war had ended.
Kara lifted her head with a pale face.
She rinsed her mouth and spoke in a weak voice.
“...I’m sorry. You went through all that trouble to make them... What a waste.”
“What do you have to be sorry for? This isn’t your fault, Kara.”
My voice rose a little from how upset I was.
When she had been whining earlier about wanting strawberries, she had seemed exactly like an immature young girl, but now she was worrying about me instead.
Seeing my stiff expression, Kara raised a weak hand and caressed my cheek.
“Relax your face, husband. I’m not going to die.”
“......”
“Our baby is protesting to show they’re alive. It’s proof they’re healthy... so don’t worry too much.”
And even through her exhaustion, she smiled faintly.
The one in pain was comforting me instead.
Kara was becoming a far stronger mother than I had imagined.
I swept Kara up into my arms.
“Let’s go to the bedroom. You need to rest.”
Kara did not resist and wrapped her arms around my neck.
Her eyes closed in exhaustion, and there were still stains at the corners of her mouth that had not been wiped away.
The bedroom.
I laid Kara down on the bed and carefully wiped her mouth with a warm towel.
The red stains disappeared, revealing her pale lips.
On impulse, I pressed a short, deep kiss to those lips.
Chu.
Kara looked at me with startled eyes.
“Varg? My lips must taste sour... I threw up everything earlier....”
“No?”
I cut off Kara’s words and smiled.
“It tastes like frost strawberries. The sourness, I mean.”
“......Hmph.”
Kara’s eyes grew moist.
With a gaze mingled with emotion and love, she pulled my neck down.
This time, Kara kissed me first.
Chuup—.
A little longer.
More deeply.
Sharing each other’s warmth and breath, we forgot, if only for a moment, the pain of morning sickness.
A long while later.
Kara fell asleep from exhaustion, and I carefully left the bedroom.
In my hand was a single sheet of memo paper.
【 Smoked reindeer jerky, snowflake mushroom soup, ice honey preserves.... 】
It was the list of foods Kara had murmured that she wanted to eat before falling asleep.
All of them were crude and rough, yet full of human warmth and steeped in nostalgia for Norheim.
In the corridor, Count Aizen was pacing with a worried expression.
“How is Lady Kara? Has she calmed down?”
“Yes, she just fell asleep. Thanks to you, we made it through the crisis.”
“That is a relief. Phew....”
Count Aizen stroked his chest.
After hesitating for a moment, he spoke with a bitter expression.
“To tell you the truth... when I was in Norheim as part of the delegation, it happened to be around the time Lady Kara was in her mother’s womb.”
“Ah....”
“Lady Flina’s morning sickness was quite severe back then as well. I remember Gorgon turning the snowy mountains upside down in the middle of winter to find wild strawberries for her.”
Aizen narrowed his eyes as if recalling a distant memory.
“They say the severity of morning sickness is often inherited. Lady Kara may suffer because she takes after her mother.”
At those words, my heart sank.
Kara’s mother had died in a difficult labor.
Could Kara also...?
Perhaps noticing my anxiety, Count Aizen hurriedly added.
“Ah, of course, the medical environment is different now from back then. The Empire’s finest medical staff are on standby, so please do not worry.”
“...It had better be so. Thank you.”
Forcing down my unease, I held out the memo in my hand.
“For now, these are the things Kara says she wants to eat. Can you obtain them?”
Count Aizen took the list and looked it over.
His expression turned strange.
They were all Norheim local foods, difficult to procure and not even handled in the Empire.
“...Lady Kara is quite modest, isn’t she?”
Aizen chuckled.
“Knowing Lady Kara’s personality, it isn’t that she deliberately named things difficult to obtain. It’s just that the only foods she has eaten are from her homeland, so she named those.”
His words made my heart ache.
My wife longed not for splendid imperial cuisine, but for the taste of her barren homeland.
“Understood. I will contact the trading company and arrange for them as best I can. And....”
Count Aizen’s eyes gleamed.
“When Lady Kara wakes up, we must also show her the taste of true imperial strawberries. Sweet real ones, not the sour fakes we made.”
“Haha, sounds good.”
We looked at each other and smiled bitterly.
The war against morning sickness had only just begun.
There was still another problem remaining.
“I will provide as much support as I can until enrollment... but the problem is dormitory life after enrollment.”
Count Aizen spoke seriously.
“As a rule, the Academy dormitories are separated by gender, and there are no family dormitories. It would be too much for her to live alone while pregnant.”
“I suppose so.”
“If she meets a good roommate, that would be fortunate... but if not, I will have to use my influence to arrange for her to share a room with you, Varg.”
“Is that possible?”
“Under imperial regulations, it is impossible in principle, but if it is for the health of a pregnant woman, there is sufficient justification to create an exception. Who am I? If something cannot be done, making it possible is the work of an administrator, is it not?”
He grinned and pushed up his glasses.
He was reliable.
Though there were still many mountains to cross, from the entrance exam to dormitory assignments.
With this man, and with Kara, I felt we could manage it.
“I’ll be in your care, Count.”
“Leave it to me.”
In the dark corridor, the firm resolve of two men crossed.
It was then.
A clamor rose.
The front gate of the mansion suddenly grew noisy.
A huge freight wagon was rolling in with a heavy rumble.
It was the owner of the clothing shop from the border region, the chief tailor Closer.
He jumped down from the wagon carrying a carefully wrapped clothing box.
“Count! Lord Varg! Lord Varg’s trousers are complete, so I have come to deliver them in person!”
“Good work, but... why is the freight wagon so large just to deliver one pair of pants?”
Count Aizen tilted his head and pointed at the wagon.
For an ordinary freight wagon...
It was a wagon with magic stones attached, meant for transporting special goods.
The cargo hold was sealed two and three times over with thick waterproof cloth and leather.
On top of that, white cold air was leaking from the gaps.
“And what is that...?”
Closer gave an awkward smile and pulled back the cover of the cargo hold.
Then.
“......!”
Count Aizen and I doubted our eyes.
The cargo hold was packed full of white snow.
“What is this? You delivered snow?”
“Ah, well, you see.”
Closer wiped away his sweat and explained.
“Before I set off, at the border checkpoint, there was a massive foreign tribesman named Gorgon von Wintersword arguing with them.”
“My father?”
“Yes. The checkpoint soldiers were blocking him, saying they could not know what might be inside the snowballs and that they could only let them through after the proper procedures. Then he explained the circumstances and begged them to please send this cargo to Aizengard quickly... practically in tears.”
Closer clicked his tongue in astonishment.
“I happened to be headed this way, so after hearing the situation, I loaded it up in his stead. I even used magic stones so it wouldn’t melt.”
“No, what about the cost of those expensive magic stones?”
When Count Aizen asked in surprise, Closer took a crumpled receipt from his breast and waved it.
It was none other than...
A receipt and seal bearing Young Lord Kairon’s signature.
“Do not worry! I still haven’t returned this all-purpose payment voucher bestowed upon me by the young lord. I made very good use of it for this delivery fee and the rental fee for the freezing magic stones!”
“......Hah.”
“Thanks to the young lord, I am living well. While I was at it, I even replaced all the wagon wheels with top-quality ones! Hahaha!”
Closer roared with laughter, looking prouder than anyone in the world.
It was a level of shamelessness that left even Count Aizen, the Empire’s greatest administrator, speechless.
But to me, that shamelessness was salvation.
My father’s request.
With trembling hands, I brushed away the snow piled in the cargo hold.
Rough leather pouches and jars buried beneath the cold snow were revealed.
I took them out one by one and checked their contents.
Dried reindeer meat.
Frost strawberries.
Pickled root fern.
Snowflake mushrooms.
They were the very foods Kara had just told me she wanted to eat.
Not a single thing was missing; everything had been prepared perfectly.
“Ah....”
My chest grew tight.
Father had not forgotten, not for a single moment.
The foods his wife, Kara’s mother, had craved when she suffered from morning sickness.
The memory of shedding tears of blood because he had been unable to procure them for her back then.
Foreseeing that his daughter would seek the same foods, he had prepared them in advance and sent them.
The love of a father and husband, arriving across decades of time, had come packaged in snow.
With reddened eyes, I gathered the cargo into my arms.
* * *
At the same time.
The encampment of Norheim’s Winterclaw Tribe.
On a hill where a biting cold wind blew.
Chief Gorgon stood draped in a bearhide cloak, staring blankly toward Aizengard beneath the southern sky.
“Are you spacing out again? Pathetically sentimental, aren’t you.”
Old Lady Baba tapped Gorgon’s shin with her staff.
“Ah, Granny... I was just wondering if what I sent arrived safely.”
“It’ll have arrived and then some. Making such a fuss.”
The old woman clicked her tongue, but Gorgon merely smiled bitterly.
“Thank you, Granny. For remembering all of that.”
“Hmph. Remembering, my foot.”
The old woman snorted.
“I just didn’t throw away the scraps of paper you wrote on while crying every night.”
After Kara’s mother passed away.
Gorgon had suffered for decades under the guilt that his wife’s death might perhaps have been caused by the foods he had fed her during morning sickness.
So he had obsessively recorded the foods his wife had eaten during morning sickness, the foods she had vomited, the foods she had liked, and had tried to find the cause.
Those desperate records had been used today for his daughter.
“Tsk. At any rate... that Varg brat is going to have a hard time.”
Old Lady Baba muttered meaningfully as she looked toward the southern sky.
“Why? The food has gone now, so won’t things be all right?”
“Food merely helps. Like mother, like daughter—her morning sickness is going to be vicious. Looks like your son is going to taste the same living hell you went through.”
“......”
Gorgon’s face turned pale.
He quietly made the sign of the cross toward the south.
‘Stay strong, my son.’
The longing and worry of an old wolf rode the snowstorm toward the Empire.