A Fleeting Peace in the Snow
In the novel, I—Rajen Bertus—was essentially the final boss. When it came to sheer martial prowess, I was the absolute strongest in the entire work. I was depicted as a monster who wielded a ferocious sword qi with exquisite precision, all while unleashing devastating Authorities. Even the Crown Prince, who was introduced as the most perfect male lead, couldn't defeat me in a one-on-one duel. That remained true right up until the final battle. It took several male leads working together, and even then, they had to go through absolute hell just to kill me.
It was only natural, then, that I possessed an innate talent for the sword. And I had never once neglected my training.
Blades clashed. Therion and I fought relentlessly, each trying to pierce the other's defense. The two pieces of steel shrieked as they ground against one another. At the precise moment our strength locked in a tense stalemate, I raised my hilt, shifting the trajectory of my blade. A sword strike is ultimately just a straight line. But our world is a three-dimensional space of width, length, and height. A slight alteration in direction is all it takes to create an opening.
The moment his defense crumbled, Therion retreated without hesitation. Backing away was a wise decision. If he had kept his blade locked with mine, it would have ended in my victory right then and there. Of course, even now, my advantage hadn't vanished.
"First, a distraction!"
Trying to land a sword strike on an opponent who was fully on guard was a fool's errand. Therefore, the priority was to break his posture. Closing the distance in a flash, I feigned a slash and kicked Therion instead. A clean hit. Then, one more time. My low kick swept hard against Therion's leg.
Watching Therion stumble back a great distance once more, Sirien's eyes went wide.
"Ooh! Go, Rajen, go!"
"Hey! Whose side are you on anyway?!"
"Rajen's, obviously! Why on earth would I cheer for you, Brother?"
"You're dead meat later!"
Sirien giggled. They say modern siblings are programmed to want to kill each other, but noble siblings of this era weren't all that different. Therion had been bursting with energy since he was a child, and Sirien possessed an innocent, playful streak. However, there were very few people around them who could serve as the target of their mischief. That reality ultimately became the siblings' tragedy. Well, to be precise, it was Sirien's tragedy.
Throughout history, a growing younger sister could never defeat her older brother in physical strength. Of all the tears Sirien had shed in her life so far, Therion was responsible for at least half of them...
"Focus on me, Rajen!" Therion barked.
"Rajen! Keep going, keep going!" Sirien cheered.
Once I broke his posture, I focused my assault on swordsmanship. Rather than locking blades and engaging in a battle of wits, I kept swinging to maintain the pressure. Therion didn't just defend, either. Every now and then, he launched an exquisite counterattack. Capitalizing on those counters was a skill in itself, but I couldn't always pull it off perfectly. After all, the one who displayed the prowess of the world's strongest was my future self, not my current self. There was a massive ten-year gap between us.
I made a mistake. Or perhaps it was more accurate to call it a lack of experience. Therion's lips curled into a fierce grin. He lunged at me like a beast of solid iron.
"Got you!"
Sirien let out a muffled giggle.
"Pfft, ahaha... haha..."
"So, how exactly did the two of you end up rolling around in the snow together?"
The voice was freezing cold. Hena still wore her usual kind and gentle smile, but her eyes held a blizzard harsher than any northern winter. Behind Hena, Sirien was munching on snacks, her face brimming with amusement. She sat leisurely in her chair, spectating our misery as if it were the most entertaining show on earth. That girl looked innocent, but she definitely had a sly, mischievous streak.
"Well, Rajen was being particularly annoying today..." Therion muttered.
"Wait, you're blaming this on me?!"
"Sir Rajen, do you have something you would like to say?" Hena asked.
"..."
Hena had appended "Sir" to my name. Normally, she just called me Rajen. After all, I was still just an Apprentice Knight, not a formally knighted one. We had known each other for so long that there was no need for stiff formalities. The only time she addressed me like this was when she was absolutely furious. And a furious Hena was a terrifying thing.
"No, nothing at all..." I mumbled.
The incident had unfolded like this: I had been swinging my sword with gusto when I left a brief opening, and Therion hadn't missed it. It was an undeniable fact that I was several levels above him in swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat. However, there was one area where Therion didn't lag behind me. To be precise, there was a discipline I was terrible at. Grappling.
Although swordsmanship and grappling were so closely related they could be considered two sides of the same coin, for some reason, my grappling skills refused to improve. Come to think of it, my novel counterpart was always spotlighted for his brilliant swordplay, sword qi, and overwhelming Authorities. No matter how hard I racked my brain, I couldn't recall a single scene where I subdued an opponent with grappling. There were only scenes of me cutting things down. Perhaps the author of Saintess, a Reverse Harem is Impure! didn't know that grappling was a basic requirement for a knight. Since it was never mentioned in the novel, I probably hadn't been blessed with any innate talent for it either.
As I shrank back, thoroughly cowed by Hena's glare, Therion's confidence suddenly surged. Did he think Hena was taking his side? In truth, today was a momentous occasion for Therion. His win rate in our spars was utterly disastrous, but today, he had managed to secure a draw!
"So, I grabbed Rajen's arm, right? When knights clash, you see..."
Once my arm was caught, I had to struggle desperately to avoid his blade. My own sword was locked, but Therion was still free to swing. In that situation, my best option was to throw him to the ground. In the process, both of us had to let go of our weapons. The moment we hit the ground, it degenerated into a literal mud fight. We wrestled fiercely for dominance, trying to either pin the other down or retrieve a sword first. Therion had performed exceptionally well today. But there was a problem.
Snow, fundamentally, is just frozen rain. Beneath the snowy field lay dirt, not grass. To the cold snow, our heated bodies were essentially giant lumps of radiating warmth. Under the body heat of two growing boys, the snow quickly melted away. Naturally, the snow turned to water, and the water-soaked dirt turned to mud. And what Hena truly cared about wasn't how we had sparred, but rather how on earth we had managed to return with our precious, expensive clothes caked in thick mud.
With every excited word that spilled from Therion's mouth, the corners of Hena's polite smile sank lower. Her eyes were already dead.
"I managed to pin Rajen's legs first, but he rolled over and broke free. Still, I had the upper hand, so..."
Therion. Stop.
"But I'm stronger, right? And then I saw Rajen trying to reach for his sword!"
Shut up.
"So I grabbed his arm like this..."
Please. I'm begging you. I was only pleading in my head because I was too terrified of Hena to speak aloud, but surely my sheer desperation could reach him?
"Young Master."
"Even I think today was seriously... Huh?"
"I have a few words to say to you. Shall we head up to the second floor?"
"Uh? Uh, okay?"
"I will go up first."
Therion was subjected to Hena's relentless scolding for a solid hour. Fortunately, she spared me, letting me off with a mere ten minutes. Before we knew it, the sun was slowly sinking below the horizon. A thoroughly defeated Therion was pretending to read a book while casting anxious glances at Hena, who was downstairs clearing the table.
On the second floor where we sat, there was a window in the attic. Looking out, one could see the sun setting somewhere deep within the forest. A vibrant orange bled across the melting sky, and the shadows of the conifers stretched long and distorted in the fading light. Sirien seemed to have taken a liking to that window. Or perhaps she simply found the scenery incredibly novel. Her beautiful red eyes gazed blankly at the distant sky.
"It feels strange. Come to think of it, I think this is the first time I've ever slept outside the castle."
The sunset spilled through the window, dyeing Sirien's white hair in the same warm hue. Even in a shabby place like this, her pale, pristine skin did not lose its luster. She was a delicate, lovely girl—one destined to be adored by everyone, both now and in the far future. The servants of Leheim often whispered that in a few years, when Sirien made her debut into society, she would steal the hearts of every man in the Empire. They weren't wrong. In the novel, even though Sirien showed her cruel side without hesitation, countless men were still so bewitched by her beauty that they willingly became her loyal followers.
While the original novel's heroine was described as a gentle, warm sunflower, Sirien was often depicted as a beautiful but deadly poisonous plant. Even her official illustrations reflected this: a delicately sculpted, pure white beauty, but always set against a dark background splattered with blood.
"Have you ever slept outside the castle, Rajen?"
"I have."
"When?"
"Well, back when I joined the knights' training camp."
"What was it like? Tell me, tell me!"
The Sirien of the novel had never been capable of wearing such a beautiful, pure smile.
"It wasn't easy. It was training, after all. The senior knights went easy on me, but my body was already exhausted. The moment it was bedtime, I passed out instantly."
"Well, you do fall asleep the second your head hits the pillow, Rajen."
"How do you know that?"
"Uh... Nanny told me!"
"Really? Well, I suppose Nanny would know."
Sirien stretched. Her cheek, squished against her arm, looked quite adorable.
"Mmm, I miss Nanny. I wonder if everyone is doing well."
"We can go visit them in ten days."
"Yeah. Let's definitely do that."
As we chatted about this and that, the sun, which had seemed to set so slowly, was now almost entirely gone. I had worried that Sirien might have trouble sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, but she drifted off before the first verse of her lullaby could even finish.
For those ten days, we spent our time in a way that was fulfilling yet utterly unproductive—simply laughing and playing around. And Count Roxen did not come.