episode_0063

While preparing to spar with Ascal in the training ground. Johanna suddenly burst into the training ground.

“Senior Johanna, are you alright?” I was talking with Ascal when I spotted Johanna and approached her. My voice, tinged with a mix of worry and welcome, addressed Johanna, whose gaze and atmosphere were different from usual.

“…What is this situation?” Johanna spoke in a stern voice I had never heard before, neither in games nor in reality. Did I do something wrong? Johanna’s eyes, usually shining like blue jewels despite her naivete, were now filled with murky darkness.

“Senior-nim, are you alright?” This time, I spoke to Johanna with a voice filled purely with concern.

“I’m fine. More importantly, what is this situation right now?” Johanna said decisively.

“What happened was…” I explained to Johanna how I ended up sparring with Ascal.

* * *

The dining table Johanna had left. “…………………………………………” Only silence flowed at the dining table Johanna had suddenly left. Even I, who talked a lot, and Ascal, who was serious about teasing Johanna, said nothing.

Tap. “Shall we eat first?” The Duchess Freya broke the silence and spoke.

“Yes, let’s eat first.” Ascal also spoke after hearing the Duchess.

I paused, about to remove my mask to eat. ‘No!’ “Excuse me, but may I eat with my mask on?” Recalling Johanna’s shout, I couldn’t bring myself to take off my mask and asked for Duke Freya’s understanding.

“…Johanna… so coldly…” However, Duke Freya mumbled softly, too quiet for me to hear.

“Of course. Please eat comfortably.” The Duchess, looking at Duke Freya, said, ‘He’s doing this again,’ before looking at me and speaking.

“Thank you.” True to a ducal family’s meal, every single dish was delicious. However, I couldn’t properly enjoy the food because I was worried about Johanna.

As time passed, conversations flowed at the dining table, which had been silent. Duke Freya remained stiff and still after Johanna left, then kept mumbling to himself. Duchess Freya told me not to mind it, saying he often did this, but I couldn’t help but worry.

While conversing with the Duchess and Ascal, an abrupt remark popped out of Ascal’s mouth.

“Loki, let’s spar.”

“Huh? Suddenly?”

“There’s still plenty of time left. Let’s spar~.”

Honestly, I didn’t really want to fight. I didn’t like fighting in the first place, and I hated losing even more.

My opponent was none other than Ascal Freya. In Croaca, Johanna had the highest talent for swordsmanship. But that didn’t mean Ascal’s talent was lacking. In Croaca, Ascal was later described as reaching the same level as the current Freya patriarch.

I didn’t particularly want to fight a losing battle where I gained nothing. So, just as I was about to refuse.

“Ascal, if you say it so suddenly, Loki will be flustered. And it’s rude to suddenly challenge someone to a spar.” Duchess Freya said to Ascal. Ascal only mumbled, ‘But…,’ after hearing the Duchess, and didn’t say anything more to me.

Just as I was about to seize this opportunity to refuse.

“A spar… that’s not bad.” Duke Freya, who had been silent since Johanna left, opened his mouth.

Ominous words flowed from the Duke’s mouth.

“Right? Father, you think so too, don’t you?”

“But won’t it be a bit much to spar when we invited him here?” Ascal smiled after hearing the Duke’s words, and the Duchess wore a worried expression.

“If you win the spar against Ascal, I will give you an elixir.” Ascal and the Duchess, who had shown different reactions just moments ago, now showed the same reaction.

“Dear…” “Father… doesn’t that just mean you won’t give it to him?”

An academy student couldn’t possibly defeat an Imperial Knight. Although I was crazy about elixirs, I had money from the Emperor and knew of dungeons where elixirs appeared; I could obtain high-grade elixirs on my own.

Just as I opened my mouth to refuse, the Duke spoke faster than me.

“A top-grade elixir.” My heart was swayed.

“And I’ll give you a weapon you like from the armory as a gift.” My body moved.

I took Ascal’s hand, which was beside me, and opened my mouth.

“Lady Ascal.”

“Hmm~. What if Johanna sees? And ‘Lady’ is too stiff~. Just call me Noona comfortably.” Ascal said, the corner of her mouth curling up.

“Ascal Noona.”

“What is it?” But upon hearing my next words, the corner of Ascal’s mouth, which had been rising, halted.

“May I win the spar?”

“Hmm~ That sounds like you’re saying you could defeat me if you just set your mind to it?”

Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes weren’t smiling at all.

I asked myself: ‘Can I defeat Ascal right now?’

The answer was, ‘There’s a 99% chance I’ll lose.’

“Huh? Do you really think you can defeat me?”

Nevertheless, my mouth worked hard for that 1% chance.

“Well. It doesn’t seem particularly difficult?”

* * *

Duke Freya watched Loki, who was saying this and that to his lovely daughter in the training ground, alongside his wife. He had heard stories from both Duke Adelian and the Emperor. Both of them were teaching Loki. Duke Adelian got angry upon hearing that, claiming Loki was already his disciple, but the Emperor smoothly brushed it off.

At the time, he hadn’t paid much attention. Because he already had two lovely daughters as disciples.

He began to pay attention yesterday.

‘The Necromancer has reappeared.’ The Emperor contacted him via a communication device and said.

It was surprising enough that the Necromancer was alive, but upon hearing that Johanna had fought the Necromancer, he almost lost his mind. According to the Emperor, she hadn’t fought the Necromancer but his subordinate, but it was all the same. The fact that his daughter was in danger remained unchanged. The Emperor told him to calm down, saying the Necromancer was already dead.

‘And the one who single-handedly killed the Necromancer is Loki, whom I am teaching.’ The Emperor spoke as if proud, but at the time, it didn’t really register.

After finishing his communication with the Emperor, he immediately contacted Johanna. Johanna, who answered the call a little later, seemed to have no injuries, but she was different from usual. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were glazed over as if recalling something.

‘…Yes?’ She couldn’t answer his questions during the call, as if her mind was elsewhere. His wife, who was watching from beside him, whispered something so Johanna wouldn’t hear.

‘That’s the same expression you had when you first saw me, isn’t it?’ Upon hearing that, he immediately demanded that ‘that guy’ be brought over, but his wife told Johanna to invite him tomorrow, saying she must be tired from fighting the Necromancer today. Johanna still nodded with a dazed expression.

Loki, whom Johanna brought, didn’t appeal to him from the first impression. How dare he lie on Johanna’s lap! If his wife and daughters hadn’t been there, he might have truly cut him down.

Still, there was one thing he found appealing: Loki had withstood the aura he emanated. He hadn’t used mana, but precisely because of that, mana couldn’t block the aura. Though his expression couldn’t be seen due to the mask, he could tell he had endured it with ease.

But then…

“Johanna seems jealous right now, doesn’t she?” Duke Freya, who had been recalling the earlier situation, snapped to attention upon hearing his wife’s words.

“Jealousy! What would our daughter lack to be jealous?”

“Then what did you lack back then that you tried to imprison me?”

“That was…” Duke Freya, hearing his wife’s words, became flustered and broke into a cold sweat. Whenever that topic came up, he became utterly speechless.

There was a secret of the Freya family that others didn’t know, and only a very small portion of the Freya family knew it. It was that their obsession with their lovers was pathologically severe. If the obsession had been moderate, it wouldn’t have been a secret. Because of that obsession, the family had almost been annihilated once, and they had even destroyed a kingdom.

The current Duke Freya also didn’t allow his wife to speak freely with other men until she gave birth to Ascal. When they were lovers. Duke Freya tried to cut down a king of a kingdom, simply because he had exchanged words with the Duchess. Fortunately, the Emperor, who was nearby, noticed it and stopped him, so the worst-case scenario didn’t happen. After the Duchess gave birth to Johanna, his obsession almost disappeared, and now the Duchess would often bring up stories from those days when teasing the Duke.

No one knew why the people of the Freya family had such a characteristic. The family had only discovered two things. One was that if there were siblings. Only one of them would exhibit that characteristic. The other, though absurd, was that the higher their talent for swordsmanship, the stronger their obsession with their lover.

And unfortunately for some, Johanna’s talent easily surpassed that of Duke Freya, whose talent was called heaven-bestowed. There wasn’t a separate ‘number’ for talent, but if talent could be expressed numerically, Johanna’s talent was more than twice that of the Freya patriarch.

Unfortunately for some, indeed.