Another Notification Window After Dumping Two Heroines (1)
“The more I look at you, the more you look like a sculpted masterpiece.”
It was all about looks.
Even in the original story, this woman had preferred Kyle’s appearance over Eugene Caesar’s.
“B-Big Sis...!”
At Veronica’s sudden, unfiltered outburst, Thomas—the administrative clerk and effectively her personal secretary—flustered visibly. From the perspective of the man who managed the corps’ finances and secured contracts, this had to be his worst nightmare: offending a prospective patron and ruining the deal before ink ever touched paper.
“What? He’s gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man this handsome in my life. That pretty-boy vice-commander of the White Bears can’t hold a candle to him.”
Classic Veronica—utterly undaunted.
The vice-commander of the White Bear Mercenary Corps was widely renowned as the best-looking sellsword in the business. He had made a brief appearance during a quest in the original game—solely as a measuring stick to highlight how attractive Eugene Caesar was.
Even back then, Veronica had said something along those exact lines: that Eugene was far more handsome than that White Bear vice-commander. Only now, the poor bastard was being repurposed to showcase my looks instead.
“To hear such praise from a lady as lovely as you, Lady Veronica—I can’t help but feel a little flattered.”
I played along, returning the compliment with smooth banter. In truth, this brazen side of hers was precisely why I had always liked her. That was why it had felt so frustrating back when I played the game as Eugene: seeing Veronica show a clearer preference for Kyle’s features.
At her core, the woman was an unapologetic sucker for a handsome face. Yet rather than the androgynous, pretty-boy aesthetic, she had a soft spot for tall, well-built men with chiseled features. Eugene was a pretty boy of an androgynous sort, standing at 179 centimeters.
“Ohoho! You hear that, Thomas? Just because your big sis is pushing spinsterhood doesn’t mean I’m washed up!”
For context, within the world of The Swordsman the Young Ladies Are Obsessed With, the prime marrying age for women was twenty-one to twenty-six; anything in the late twenties was branded an ‘old maid.’ Veronica had turned twenty-nine this year, and in the game, she harbored a massive complex about being labeled a spinster.
“Hrmmm... So rather than just escorting you as sellswords, it sounds like we’ll have our hands extraordinarily full?”
The conversation soon transitioned to business. The broad strokes had already been hammered out between Thomas and me before today’s meeting. However, the scope of what I intended to entrust to them went far beyond standard mercenary work, which was why I had arranged this private sit-down.
So what was the underlying subtext of her remark?
“I might have to take back what I said earlier, Mr. Advisor. The sum we’re being offered isn’t generous by any stretch. If anything, it might be downright meager.”
In short: the pay was too low. And truth be told, it really was.
Of course, for ordinary mercenary duty, it would have been more than ample. But I intended to demand far more than basic security from the capable leadership of the Red Fox Mercenaries.
I have no one trustworthy to rely on. I combed through Kyle’s social circle just in case, but found nothing. Kyle, you absolute moron, living up to expectations as always.
As a newly appointed lord, I possessed not a single loyal confidant to serve as my hands and feet. Friends who followed Kyle? Servants? Acquaintances? Every last one of them was a flattering parasite. If I dragged bastards like that to Salvatore, they’d only stir up more trouble. There were a few decent, upright folks in the Imperial Knights—not close aides, but people of integrity—yet shaking them off was the whole reason I was rushing off to Salvatore in the first place.
“You’re right. It won’t be enough,” I conceded smoothly. “However, during the initial phase, there is no avoiding it. Salvatore is notoriously barren, so every available resource must be poured into stabilizing the territory.”
“Now that puts us in a bind... No matter how handsome you are, business is business...”
“Once our foothold is established, your compensation will increase exponentially. I give you my word.”
“And when exactly might that be? Let’s be honest, Young Master—turning a wasteland around isn’t something that happens in a few years.”
Damn... Big Sis Veronica really knows how to drive a hard bargain.
The playful charm from a moment ago had completely vanished, replaced by an unmistakable aura—the commanding presence of a true mercenary leader. Part of me wanted to blab right then and there that veins of Lumina meteoric iron and pure gold would burst forth within a year and a half, but I bit my tongue.
Because...
“......”
A crisp, deliberate silence settled over the table.
I didn’t want to squander this crucial moment on cheap promises. I needed to bind these sharp, capable people to my side once and for all. Resting my chin on clasped hands with maximum theatrical flair, I held her gaze in silence.
“What’s with that look? Why are you staring at me like that? It won’t work. If you’re trying to flutter my heart to push your terms through, forget it. When it comes to business, I’m strictly professional.”
Her playful coquetry was lethal. True to her moniker ‘Red Fox,’ she was wickedly captivating.
“I have a massive family to look after, you see. And I intend to make sure they’re well-fed and provided for. If I were the type to get swayed by a pretty face, I would’ve been married off ages ago.”
There it was. Veronica’s true charisma.
She possessed a fierce, unwavering sense of responsibility toward the comrades and mercenaries who tied their fates to hers. A leader who charged into the fray right alongside her vanguard just to keep her people from getting hurt on brutal contracts—playing as Eugene Caesar back then, she had been such a reliable pillar of support.
“What I wish to offer the Red Fox Mercenaries,” I spoke calmly, “is a dream.”
That was my gambit to win her over completely.
“A dream?”
Her head tilted, her expression screaming: What kind of nonsense are you babbling out of nowhere?
“I have heard that those who form mercenary bands share a common dream.”
My silver tongue shifted smoothly into high gear.
Mercenaries fell broadly into two camps: those belonging to an established company, and freelance wanderers who worked alone or in pairs. Their temperaments were night and day. The latter despised being tied down, while the former valued camaraderie, forging lasting bonds with their brethren in arms.
And those in the former camp usually took up the blade because their homelands were wiped off the map.
Some had their villages swallowed by war; others lost their families to monster incursions; still others grew up in squalid slums and took to sword-for-hire work, discovering familial warmth for the first time within their mercenary company. So what was their ultimate aspiration?
“A village of your own.”
A mercenary village where they and their comrades could finally put down roots.
“......”
At the mention of a mercenary village, Veronica fell silent for the very first time.
There was only one reason: my strike had hit dead center.
“If you do not reject the desolate soil of Salvatore, I will support you to the very end so that a village for the Red Fox Mercenaries may be built there. We will clear the land and pioneer it together.”
Most members of the Red Fox Mercenaries were souls yearning for a new home. That shared longing was precisely why they were so disciplined. None of them wanted their reckless actions to bring harm to their companions; they knew all too well the crushing trauma of losing a brother in arms. And no one understood or nurtured those wounded hearts better than Veronica.
Thus, my promise to make Salvatore their sanctuary.
...Or so that bastard Eugene said in the original story, kekeke!
Those were the exact words Eugene had used to recruit Veronica to Salvatore. Since Salvatore was going to be mine now, of course I was going to steal his lines.
“Suspicious...”
She had said that to Eugene in the original, too. I already had a pretty good idea what was coming next.
“How do you know so much about us?”
Bingo!
Game, set, match. Those words meant my pitch had struck a deep chord in her heart.
“Fine. I’ll dance to your tune. In other words, our hard labor will serve as the foundation to win over the hearts of your fief’s people—is that it, handsome Young Master?”
“Precisely.”
The reason building a mercenary village was so difficult came down to two hurdles: first, the exorbitant cost of purchasing land; second, earning the trust of neighboring locals. Trust required a massive investment of time, yet sellswords were rarely even granted the chance to prove their goodwill. Who in their right mind would extend such grace? A single misstep could see your throat slit in a mercenary betrayal.
Yet I—Kyle de Rosen, the undisputed sovereign of Salvatore—could grant them both the land and the opportunity.
“Then our business is settled. I take it I just sign the contract in front of you, Young Master?”
And just like that, I snatched away the original protagonist Eugene Caesar’s future companion.
“......”
Rejected by Kyle, Victoria Wallenstein—the Sword Princess—stood motionless under a drizzling rain.
Father...
Before her lay the grave of her father, Ulysses Wallenstein.
“The Sword Saint has fallen!”
Fifteen years ago, the continent’s greatest blade, the Sword Saint, met his end. At the time, three great Sword Masters walked the continent, and looking down upon even them from the absolute apex was the Sword Saint. Yet the peerless, supreme star of the continent was no longer among the living—he had become just another distant star in the night sky.
“It was your cowardice that killed the Sword Saint Ulysses!”
His name was Ulysses Wallenstein—the heir and pillar of House Wallenstein, a noble lineage veiled in ancient mystique.
Fifteen years ago, an anomaly erupted across the northern Permafrost Mountain Range, rapidly escalating into a catastrophe-class monster wave. Though it was a calamity unseen in three thousand years, the continent’s response had been the real disaster. Petty political bickering led the factions to pass the buck back and forth, failing to mount any coordinated defense. The Sword Saint waited for the leadership to unite, but when all hope faded, he marched forth alone. Yet even a Sword Saint could not stand alone against a catastrophe-class wave of monsters.
“I am sorry, my dear friend... I swear your sacrifice will not have been in vain...”
Awakened by his companion’s noble martyrdom, Constantine, alongside another lifelong friend, Duke Van Basten, ruthlessly purged and reformed both the imperial clergy and the political sphere. Empress Marianne von Darmina was the monarch enthroned in the wake of that upheaval.
“I can’t believe it... Father... The strongest man in the world...”
To eight-year-old Victoria, raised solely by her father without a mother, the shock was unfathomable. In truth, that was why Ulysses had hesitated to depart in the first place. Knowing the perilous risk, he could not bear the thought of leaving his beloved daughter behind. Yet in the end, Ulysses chose his duty as the Sword Saint.
A sword without Father has no meaning... The ache in my heart is unbearable...
It was Ulysses who had placed a sword into Victoria’s small hands, and Ulysses who had guided her from the fundamentals to the family’s secret arts. To Victoria, the sword was Ulysses itself. The moment he was gone, the meaning of the blade and every motivation to pursue it vanished from her life.
“Do not feel pressured, Victoria. One day, the sword will find its way back to your heart. For now, it is enough simply not to let go.”
Pained by her grief, the Sword Master Constantine took Victoria in as his disciple. In practice, she was his adopted daughter. Though nothing could ever fill the void left by her father, he believed his fallen friend would never want Victoria to abandon swordsmanship entirely.
It’s too easy... So dull... This isn’t the sword I shared with Father...
Even barely past the age of ten, ordinary knights of the Imperial Order or holy knights of the church could not match her. What hope did peers her own age have? Everything was too easy, utterly devoid of spark. Even as the years passed, Victoria could find no flame to rekindle her passion. The sword inherited from the Sword Saint was slowly withering away.
Then, one fateful day, a blade born of a completely different spirit than her father’s struck a spark against Victoria’s dying talent.
“No! I haven’t lost to you yet! I can still swing!!”
A sword steeped in venom. A sword rabid with competitive obsession. A sword of desperate, clawing ambition to be the best—the sword of Kyle, her peer in age.
“Damn it! DAMN IT ALL!!”
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“Hahaha! Calm yourself, Kyle. Your journey has only just begun.”
The ducal genius swordsman had challenged Victoria first, only to be thoroughly and mercilessly trashed. He had wanted to show off before his father, only to be crushed under the duke’s very eyes. Kyle had slammed his fists into the dirt, nearly driven mad with fury.
“I’ll beat you today! I’ve seen through all your moves!”
He kept coming back. Defeated, humiliated, and pulverized again and again, his spirit never broke; instead, he only grew more vicious, lunging at the superior Victoria with bared fangs.
His sword has no beauty whatsoever...
Ulysses’s sword had been magnificent—composed, benevolent, enlightened. In contrast, this venomous boy exuded a quality that felt downright vulgar: a petty, desperate depravity willing to stoop to anything just to snatch a victory.
And yet... I am holding my sword. I am swinging it just to defeat this boy.
On the flip side, it was rivalry. Rivalry was something Victoria had never learned from Ulysses, nor was it a drive she had ever experienced herself, gifted as she was with overwhelming strength.
I want to know. I want to understand the fire consuming Kyle. I want to burn like that too.
And so, through Kyle, Victoria’s talent and blade stirred back to life. The results were nothing short of breathtaking.
“The Sword Princess! The youngest female Sword Seeker in history! Victoria, you will surpass even your father’s blade!”
First came an absurd, unprecedented rate of growth. Yet more than anything...
I will become the greatest... I will chase down Father’s sword... I will complete the Snow Flower Twelve Swords.
Victoria had gained a sense of rivalry. She had found a clear, unyielding purpose to guide her forward. Her blade was resurrected—all thanks to that relentless bastard Kyle.
And yet...
“The sword isn’t a tool for competition to me anymore. It’s a means of survival.”
Kyle had changed.
What did he say?
The very Kyle who had ignited the fire of rivalry within her... The Kyle who had driven her to grasp the hilt once more... Had casually dismissed that burning drive as worthless.
“I don’t want to waste my emotions.”
He had degraded the very fire that brought her sword back from the dead as an ‘emotional waste.’
Stop talking nonsense. I know you better than anyone, Kyle. It was through you that my sword became what it is today!
Refusing to accept this sudden stranger, Victoria had unleashed the Snow Flower Twelve Swords—a technique she had never once drawn against him since reaching adulthood. She intended to corner him so ruthlessly that his true self would be forced to the surface.
“Hup!”
Swoooosh!
Yet what burst from him was a pitiful yelp and a pathetic flail of steel that felt unthinkable coming from the vicious Kyle of her memories.
“I yield... A complete and total defeat... Ow, that hurts...”
Not only had he surrendered with his own lips, but he had even whined about the pain.
No... This can’t be... You can’t be like this, Kyle...
And then, Kyle plunged the final dagger:
“I don’t want to beat you anymore, Victoria. What I’m saying is, I’ll never give you any motivation as a rival again. That is who I am now—Kyle de Rosen.”
Craaaack!
Her fragile psyche shattered to pieces, exactly as it had on the day she learned of Ulysses’s death.
Please show me the path, Father...
For days on end, Victoria had shut herself away in her chamber, denying reality—denying the fact that the driving force she had finally reclaimed was gone once more. Yet finding no answers, she had fled to her father’s resting place like an abandoned soul clinging to faith.
Ah...! Of course...!
And faith only ever granted enlightenment to those driven to the brink. A sudden light flared to life in her half-dead eyes.
Father is gone beyond my reach... But Kyle is still right here!
The blade known as Ulysses had departed this world, leaving her with no way to pursue him. The blade known as Kyle, however, was different. Kyle had flesh and blood, breathing beneath the very same sky. She could cling to him and never let go—just as he had done to her in their youth.
I will revive your sword, Kyle... Just as you revived mine...!
The gaze of the Sword Princess, Victoria Wallenstein, gleamed with an obsessive madness disguised as determination.
And right at that very moment...
“Huh? What the hell is this now?!”
Kyle’s eyes went wide as saucers at whatever had just appeared before him.