Chapter 128

...What’s gotten into him?

Knox hurriedly leaned toward the person responsible for Kyle’s sudden change and whispered,

“What did you say to make him act like that?”

“Classified.”

“Classified?”

“When you’re around eighteen, you’re allowed to have at least one secret, aren’t you?”

“What does that even... Wait, Kyle is eighteen?”

“I don’t know. I’m eighteen, so I just figured he probably is too.”

Knox stared blankly at him after that utterly baseless and shameless answer.

There were plenty of things he wanted to say in response, but he was too physically exhausted, so Knox simply took off his monocle and nodded, bringing the conversation to an end.

Teenagers.

***

I saw Aisha.

From the moment he heard Asbon say those words, Kyle already knew exactly what he was going to ask.

“Aisha. How is she doing?”

“Hey. We haven’t seen each other in ages. Aren’t you going to ask me anything? Like how I’ve been?”

“You came back alive. So you must’ve been doing fine.”

“My God.”

Asbon’s mouth fell open.

I stayed awake for several nights and went all the way to the ducal castle for my friend, and this is the damned reception I get?

“That answer just made me regret choosing you as the guy I’ve been most fond of lately.”

“Disgusting.”

Kyle frowned.

But exchanges like this were routine between them, so Asbon merely looked completely unaffected.

Kyle would never have kept him this close in the first place if their personalities had not been compatible.

Pink hair. Pale, lightly pigmented eyes.

With his albino-like appearance, Asbon was a snow-dweller, born and raised in the snowfield.

A snow-dweller.

To people of the Frozen Kingdom, the term had actually referred to something closer to a monster—an abnormally tall creature covered in white fur.

Until now, the people of the Frozen Kingdom had been too occupied confronting monsters and fighting to keep themselves safe.

Because of that, it had never even occurred to them that a different kind of “human” might also be living at the end of the world.

But thanks to Kyle, the two men had been able to venture deep into the snowfield, where they happened upon a small village that appeared to have been built by people.

That was how they met Asbon, one of the villagers.

Kyle had established a fairly satisfactory symbiotic relationship with him.

In exchange for sharing the duties of Asbon’s occupation—“monster hunting”—Asbon provided Kyle and Knox, who had previously wandered from place to place without a permanent residence, with shelter and food.

They had {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} been living like this for roughly three months now, so in practical terms they were already residents of the village.

“Oh, Asbon. Kyle. You’re back?”

“You both made it back before sunset today!”

Kyle answered the villagers’ greetings with brief nods.

He sometimes thought about it.

Maybe I was born to protect the people of this village.

Unlike hostile humans elsewhere, no one here feared or despised him even after learning that he was a demon.

But.

“So how is Aisha doing?”

He had never once thought of this village as home.

They were merely companions bound together by mutually beneficial circumstances.

The person he truly wanted to protect was in the Kreutz duchy, and in the end, there was only one place he could return to.

Those blue eyes that had given him a reason not to die.

Even though the color of those eyes had changed, he thought of her every day, as though the name Aisha had been branded into him.

Aisha. Aisha.

My home. My warm home.

And yet, for someone thinking about the person he loved, his expression was as cold as the snowfield.

“Her letters were definitely arriving normally three months ago. They only stopped after that.”

It was because Aisha’s letters had not arrived for several months.

Whenever Kyle sent ten letters, Aisha would answer at least four of them, each written in her meticulous handwriting.

Then, at some point, the letters stopped.

At first, he assumed it was merely some kind of delivery failure.

But then Knox, who had said, “The messages seem to be arriving a little late,” was caught secretly reading a letter in his bedroom.

That was when I realized he was deliberately intercepting Aisha’s letters.

After that, Kyle understood that some strange secret had developed between him and House Kreutz.

Even after sharing hardships for ten years, Knox was still a man of House Kreutz.

Kyle could understand that much. After all, one of the reasons Knox had followed him in the first place was to keep watch over him.

In his earlier letters, Duke Kreutz had seemed concerned about him, but ultimately, he had tried to separate Kyle from Aisha.

Neither of them could be trusted.

But Aisha was different.

“I trusted her. Aisha isn’t the kind of person who wouldn’t answer my letters.”

Before she belonged to House Kreutz, she belonged to him.

“Duke Kreutz must have intercepted them somewhere along the way. Aisha isn’t the kind of person who wouldn’t answer my letters.”

“Ah. I see.”

Faced with Kyle’s utterly certain tone, Asbon’s expression stiffened awkwardly.

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you look like you just ate shit?”

“...Well.”

The way Asbon scratched the back of his neck could not have looked more suspicious.

Kyle narrowed his eyes, silently demanding an answer.

Eventually, unable to withstand his stare, Asbon sighed and confessed.

“That girl Aisha. I think she’s going to get married soon.”

“?”

Kyle did not answer.

More accurately, he could not answer because the words were so completely unexpected.

But Asbon mistook his silence for anger and immediately began explaining the situation in painstaking detail.

“I’m serious. There were more than a hundred marriage proposals piled up around her. There were bouquets, jewelry, all kinds of stuff... Duke Kreutz and that girl were sitting there holding huge stacks of proposals and talking about them. It was complete chaos...”

“What exactly happens if she gets married?”

“What?”

“If she gets married, what exactly happens to Aisha?”

Kyle suddenly came back to himself and asked the question quietly, chewing over every syllable as though grinding the words between his teeth.

The pale pink eyes facing him slowly widened.

Only then did Asbon realize that Kyle was far more shaken than he had expected.

“...Why are you asking when you already know? Marriage is marriage.”

He was right.

Kyle knew.

Marriage meant living together until death, having children, sleeping together and waking together, just like the married couples in this village.

But to Kyle, marriage meant something greater than the surface definition of the word.

Which meant that if Aisha—

“...Usually people do it because they love each other.”

—as Asbon muttered cautiously, had found someone she loved...

Then does that mean I can’t live with Aisha? Does that mean I can’t go home?

“...Bullshit.”

“What?”

Kyle spat the curse under his breath and wrapped the robe he had just taken off around himself again.

Seeing him look ready to leave, Asbon’s eyes went wide.

“Hey, what are you doing? Where are you going now?”

“I don’t care if Aisha likes another man and marries him.”

“What?”

“I heard House Kreutz has started raising monsters like family these days.”

The words he said with an utterly nonchalant expression were shocking.

“I’m a monster too. If I have to, I can live as Aisha’s dog.”

“What?!”

What the hell did he just say...?

While Asbon stood there stunned out of his mind, Kyle was already walking out the door.

“So what are you planning to do? Where are you suddenly going?!”

“Tell Knox. I’m going to the ducal castle ahead of him.”

“Hey! At least eat before you go!”

But by the time Asbon rushed outside, Kyle had already vanished.

“If you go out without eating again, my mother is going to yell at me!”

Asbon’s panicked scream echoed through the dark night sky.

***

Unaware of Kyle’s sudden departure, the Kreutz ducal castle was enjoying a warm atmosphere for the first time in quite a while.

“The maids are delighted. They keep saying they never imagined they would get the chance to burn such expensive paper as firewood, and they’ve been feeding it into the fireplaces enthusiastically.”

At Dorian’s report, Calypse gave a faint nod.

A few days earlier.

There had simply been too many marriage proposals for Calypse and Aisha to dispose of all at once.

While they were wondering what to do with the rest—

Father. The fireplace in your office isn’t the only fireplace in the castle, you know?

Sharp-minded Aisha had suggested using the remaining marriage proposals as firewood in the servants’ quarters.

Even the way she thinks is so efficient.

Rather than letting anything go needlessly to waste, she had found a practical way to dispose of the proposals.

“She really is clever.”

“Pardon?”

“My daughter.”

When Calypse raised his head, Dorian visibly flinched.

He had done nothing more than lift his head, yet even after ten years, Dorian had never grown accustomed to the particular pressure produced by the man’s massive build and gaze.

“Princess Aisha certainly is intelligent.”

He answered cautiously while watching Calypse’s expression, only for Calypse to slam a hand onto the desk, rise to his feet, and declare emphatically,

“She’s beyond merely intelligent. She’s a genius. Accepting a hundred marriage proposals just so she could secretly intercept correspondence from a friend? What other young lady could possibly do something like that?”