Craaaack—! Kaaang!!
The first-floor drawing room of the Rothschild ducal residence was already no longer a space where a human could breathe.
As the deep-blue Aura unleashed by Ellara, the youngest Sword Master in the Empire, swirled like a storm, the glass ornaments of the finest chandelier screamed and shattered to pieces.
The counterattack from Sylvia von Kraus, heir to the Northern Magic Tower, was just as horrific.
The absolute-zero chill that began at the tips of her feet rapidly froze the drawing room floor,
and as the moisture in the air froze, dozens of sharp ice spears floated up into the air, aiming for Ellara’s heart.
“A vulgar bastard knight bitch dares draw her sword before whom?”
Sylvia’s blue eyes gleamed like frost.
“A flower raised in the greenhouse of the Magic Tower. As the price for offending my lord, I’ll slice off that arrogant tongue of yours.”
Ellara, too, flashed her empty silver-gray eyes and lowered her sword toward the floor.
Shrrrring—! Paaaat!
It was at that very instant, just as the two disasters were about to collide head-on.
“You’ve got to be…… fucking kidding me……!”
A scream mixed with clots of blood burst from between my lips.
Gripping the handles of my wheelchair hard enough to break them, I squeezed out every last bit of strength I had left and shouted.
“Both of you…… stop right now!!”
Bang—!
The moment I slammed my fist down on the wheelchair’s armrest, the blood I had been holding back surged up my esophagus and splattered onto the floor in heavy drops.
Cough, khak!
“Young Master!!”
Benjamin, who had been holding the wheelchair behind me, cried out with a face drained of color.
At my desperate coughing of blood and scream, the mana and Aura of the two women, which had been on the verge of exploding, miraculously faltered.
“My lord……!”
Still holding her sword, Ellara anxiously took one step toward me.
“Kailan! You’re bleeding……!”
Sylvia, too, withdrew the ice spears she had suspended in midair and stared at the bloodstains with a face filled with shock.
I gasped for breath. My vision flickered terrifyingly, and my lungs hurt as if I had inhaled powdered glass.
But I forced my eyes open wide and roughly wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand.
If I collapsed here, or showed weakness, it was over. Either the system’s penalty would burst my heart,
or Ellara would lose her reason and slaughter Sylvia. I had to be thorough. I had to become the most arrogant, insane “tyrant” in this area.
“……Who told you to start a dogfight in my house without my permission?”
My cracked voice rang low through the drawing room, which was like a sheet of thin ice.
Leaning my swaying upper body against the backrest, I coldly ordered Ellara.
“Ellara. Put away your sword.”
“But, my lord, that mage insulted you……”
“Don’t make me say it twice. Put it away.”
At my icy glare, Ellara bit her lip hard. Her silver-gray eyes filled with rage and frustration,
but in the end, with a shrrring, she slid her longsword back into its sheath.
A hunting dog cannot disobey its master’s command. No matter how dissatisfied it may be.
I then turned my head toward Sylvia.
Looking like a terminally ill man about to breathe his last at any moment, I tilted my chin at an angle and glared at her as though looking down on her.
“Sylvia von Kraus. I personally tore up the annulment papers earlier, so that should be answer enough.
My condition is disgustingly terrible right now, far too terrible to indulge your petty whims.”
I swallowed a cough and smiled acridly.
“If the stink of my blood bothers you, then crawl back to that precious North of yours at once. But don’t think of leaving behind the title of my fiancée. Until the day I die, you will be my possession.”
Silence.
A perfect silence, one in which not even the sound of breathing could be heard, ruled the drawing room.
[Status: You have successfully acted out “the villain’s obsession and arrogance.” Penalty has been waived.]
I survived. Inwardly shedding tears of relief, I wanted to pass out right then and there.
After having spewed such abuse, the prideful Sylvia would at least slap me across the face and say, “I’m done with trash like you!” before leaving in her carriage.
I desperately hoped she would.
However.
Sylvia’s reaction completely exceeded my imagination.
“……Ha.”
A breath like a hollow laugh escaped her lips.
Sylvia alternated her gaze between the dark-red bloodstains scattered across the floor and my two eyes, which were staring straight at her even as I leaned against the wheelchair, gasping for breath.
(Sylvia’s automatic brain translation)
‘With a body that ruined. In a state where it wouldn’t be strange if he collapsed at any moment after coughing blood…… and yet he’s still determined not to let me go?
He pushes me away, telling me to return to the North and save my life, yet still calls me his fiancée. Just what is that terrifying possessiveness?
Even with a knight bitch like Ellara protecting his side, why do the eyes he looks at me with seem so desperately lonely?’
Cognitive dissonance.
Inside Sylvia’s mind, which had hated Kailan like an insect throughout the original work, the image of the “villain like a martyr” standing before her now violently collided with that hatred, paralyzing her reason.
Sylvia slowly moved her feet and approached the front of my wheelchair.
“……Don’t come closer, mage.”
Ellara once again radiated killing intent and tried to step in front of me, but this time Sylvia snorted.
“Move, mad dog. Your master says he won’t break off the engagement with me. His fiancée is going to her fiancé’s side, so what right do you have to stop me?”
“What did you……!”
Sylvia lightly ignored Ellara’s killing intent and came right up in front of me.
Then her white, slender hand suddenly reached toward my face.
‘Huh? Is she going to slap me?! Fine, just slap me and leave!!’
I squeezed my eyes shut.
But what touched my cheek was not a fierce palm.
Cool, soft fingertips were carefully…… very carefully wiping away the blood clinging to the corner of my mouth.
“……Sylvia?”
When I opened my eyes in surprise, I met Sylvia’s blue eyes head-on as she wiped my face.
Her gaze was complicated.
Anger, confusion, and something I had never seen before…… a strange heat and sympathy were mingled within it, wavering.
“Don’t misunderstand, Kailan.”
Sylvia looked down at her own fingertips stained with my blood and whispered coldly.
“This doesn’t mean I won’t give up on you. If you want to become my possession that badly,
no, if you insist on claiming me as your possession…… then I’ll have to confirm it clearly with my own eyes.”
“Confirm what?”
“Whether you really are a rotten piece of trash dying away, or…… whether you’re hiding something in this disgusting ducal house and struggling alone.”
Sylvia showed me a smile that was both enchanting and arrogant.
“I’m not going back to the North.”
“……What?”
“You just said it yourself. That I’m your fiancée until the day I die. Then as your fiancée, I should stay by your side and clearly watch whether you die or live.
If it’s the ducal estate, surely you can spare me one room?”
My mind went blank.
No, wait. Why aren’t you going back? Why are you settling in here? You’re the heir to the Northern Magic Tower! Won’t your grandfather scold you?!
“Sylvia. What the hell are you saying……”
“I can’t trust that mad dog serving you either.
And it would be even more unpleasant if my fiancé coughed up blood and died without my permission. From now on, your treatment and recuperation will be handled by the magic of the North.”
At Sylvia’s declaration, the air in the drawing room froze cold once more.
“You dare…… a witch of the Magic Tower dares say she’ll keep my lord by her side?”
From behind my back, Ellara’s voice scraped out like a vengeful spirit crawling up from hell.
“Why? Got a problem with it? His fiancée says she’ll nurse him, so what are you going to do if you have complaints despite being nothing but a guard knight?”
Sylvia whipped around to look at Ellara and provoked her.
“The moment your vulgar mana touches my lord’s body, I will slice off your wrist.”
“Try it. Before you can draw your sword, I’ll freeze you whole and turn you into an ornament.”
[Warning! The “possessiveness” of the First Heroine and the Second Heroine is colliding!]
[Kailan del Rothschild’s survival difficulty has risen to .]
Fuck.
I no longer had the strength to endure, nor the mental fortitude to settle this insane situation.
Before my eyes, deep-blue Aura and white cold air began to spark and cross once again.
Slowly, I rolled my eyes back and let go of the thread of consciousness.
“Ahh…… just kill me instead……”
As I fainted, the urgent voices of the two women shouting, “Young Master!!” and “Kailan!!” rang in stereo by my ears.
That was the last lullaby I heard before losing consciousness.
How much time had passed?
When I opened my eyes again, I was facing the ceiling of my hospital room, engraved with the familiar black rose pattern.
“Ugh, uuugh……”
When I groaned and turned my head, an astonishing sight unfolded before me.
It was an illusion, as though the spacious VIP hospital room had been split exactly in half.
On the right side of my bed sat Sylvia, having pulled up a chair, her arms crossed as she glared sharply out the window.
Beside her, top-grade healing magic stones that seemed to have been brought from the North floated in the air, infusing my body with warm mana.
And on the left side of the bed.
With one knee on the floor and my left hand held tightly in both of hers, Ellara bowed her head like a knight praying before a holy icon.
‘……This is hell. This place is hell.’
Sensing that I had woken, the two women simultaneously whipped their heads around to look at me.
“Kailan! You’re awake?”
“My lord! How is your august body!”
Their voices overlapped at the same time.
Then Sylvia’s brow furrowed sharply as she glared at Ellara.
“If you’re a knight, why don’t you act like one and shut your mouth while standing guard outside the door? A patient just woke up—can’t you understand that the sight of that garish blue armor of yours only adds to his stress?”
Ellara did not back down either and replied coldly.
“The rat of the Magic Tower should crawl back to the North. That vulgar, arrogant voice of yours itself is defiling my lord’s ears.”
“What? Vulgar?”
“Why? Shall I cut you down once more?”
Seeing signs that mana and Aura were about to clash across my bed yet again, I desperately waved my hand.
“Stop……! Please, both of you shut up and let me rest!!”
At my scream, the two women flinched, then soon showed me gentle smiles—though killing intent toward each other dripped from them.
“All right, Kailan. You must be tired, so rest well. I’ve decided to use the guest room right next to yours. If anything happens, call me anytime.
If that insolent dog bothers you, I’ll freeze her on the spot.”
Sylvia carefully wiped the cold sweat beaded on my forehead with a handkerchief, then rose.
After Sylvia left the room, Ellara pressed her lips close to my ear and whispered coldly.
“Rest assured, my lord. That woman may have crawled in using the shield of being your fiancée, but when night comes, I will cut off her head without anyone knowing and remove her for you.
An arrogant witch like that will only hinder your grand plan.”
‘No! Please stop killing people, you insane murderer!!’
The scream in my heart could not leave my mouth.
On the right, the witch of the North. On the left, the silver murderer.
This hospital room, where I, a terminally ill patient, was supposed to recuperate, had now become a brutal territorial dispute zone between the two supreme beings of this world.
Praying to God to let me faint again instead, I pulled the blanket all the way over my head.
The full-fledged catfight harem survival story had just raised its curtain.