03. Yes. Not Once, Ever.
I walked down a silent corridor.
Every so often the sounds of staff still at work drifted through the quiet manor, yet even those sounds felt unbearably still.
When I reached my father's study—not far from Zek's room—I let out a small breath and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
Zek's room was just that—my little brother's room—so I could wander in without a second thought. But if I did the same with my father's study, my skull might genuinely end up cracked open.
"Enter."
My father already knew I'd come to see him. News of my return to the manor would have reached him before anyone else.
The knock had been purely a formality.
The study was vast.
Before the enormous wooden desk, an artifact far larger than the one I'd shattered of Zek's sat glowing with a soft light.
Seated beyond it was a massive man.
Blond hair and piercing blue eyes, his gaze fixed on a mountain of paperwork—
Geron Devert.
Head of the Count Devert family, and my father.
"I'm home, sir."
When I greeted my father with all the courtesy I could muster, he glanced up from his documents and answered flatly.
"So you do know you've done something wrong."
"...I wouldn't say I consider it a mistake, actually."
I'd lowered my head on the off chance he'd go easy on me, but as expected, he showed no intention of letting anything slide.
I let out a small sigh, dropped the act, dragged a chair over in front of my father, and sat down.
"Causing an incident like that, and still so composed."
"Well, that is who I am."
"What possessed you to do such a thing?"
I answered him evenly, met his eyes, and cut straight to the point with no roundabout preamble.
It would be my answer to his question anyway.
"I intend to enlist in the military, Father."
Silence.
Hearing my words, my father frowned as if he'd misheard, staring hard at me.
To be fair, those were not words that should come out of the mouth of a noble family's eldest son.
In this era of peace, the army and the frontlines were places reserved for nothing more than a family's good-for-nothing sons—shipped off to be hammered into shape as human beings.
Had this been the original story, I couldn't say. In this world, he surely thought it was no place for me.
And yet, regrettably.
It was exactly where I had to go.
"That wasn't an answer to my question, though it's an interesting one."
"I'm heading to the frontlines. I'll bury my bones there."
I brushed off his remark and continued in a level tone.
It wasn't a lie.
In the end, to hold back their invasion, I would have to go to the front. And if I managed to stop the world's end... there was no telling where the front would be.
I couldn't even promise myself I'd make it back.
"So you can't take Elina with you. She is the Leonhardt family's treasured jewel, after all."
"Ho. So you've prepared your excuse."
My father nodded, watching me with eyes that found this intriguing.
I didn't much care that my excuse had been seen through.
I had no intention of deceiving him in the first place—I'd simply wanted to hand him a justification to fall back on if the Leonhardts happened to lodge a complaint.
"I suppose I can take you at your word, then."
"...Yes."
There was something faintly odd about my father's tone, but since that had been my intention all along, I nodded, feeling slightly rueful.
My father studied me with a strange look for a moment, then let out a quiet breath and went on.
"When do you plan to depart?"
"I'll depart once the report is submitted, so within a month, I'd expect."
The military wasn't the sort of place that would take you the moment you declared you wanted to enlist.
"You've spoken with Zek, I take it."
"Yes. He's better suited to family matters than I am."
Even though everything had apparently been arranged without his knowledge, my father showed not a trace of displeasure.
He only sat at that desk now because he was the head of the count's house, forced into the role. The truth was, my father and I were cut from the same cloth.
Men of the sword, of the body—not the sort adept at using their heads. If anything, Zek, who was more skilled with his mind than his body, was the odd one out in this family.
Well.
That was precisely why the family could be entrusted to Zek without worry.
The reason Zek had already been handling the estate's affairs was because he could manage the work my father found so burdensome with ease.
"Good. Understood."
"Yes."
At my father's brief reply, I nodded and rose from my seat.
Finally, some rest.
From preparing for the banquet in the early morning, to everything inside that hall, and then the moment I got home—
I hadn't had a proper moment's rest.
I'd managed a little sleep in the carriage, but that hardly counted as genuine rest.
Pressing hard at my eyes where fatigue was pooling, I was just about to leave my father's study when his question followed me out.
"And so, what is your heart's true answer?"
Probably another question about Elina.
I had no idea why my father was so fond of her, but I gave my answer plainly.
"As I've told you before, I have never once held such feelings for Elina."
"...Is that so."
"Yes. Not once, ever."
Having given that answer with a deep breath, I left my father's study without a shred of regret.
I'd said this much, so surely he understood by now that I had no intention of changing my heart.
Loosening my tie with a long pull, I kept walking.
Exhausting.
Even as I moved my leaden, weary legs, my mind kept churning.
Only a month left until I departed for the frontlines.
And in that month, there were things I absolutely had to settle.
Where, exactly, were the empire's frontlines?
East, west, south, north.
Each corner of the empire had its own far-flung edge, but if you asked every soul in the empire to name the harshest, most treacherous of them all, the answer would be swift and certain:
The North—barren and blasted, where snow and wind never ceased, in any season.
And if you were to name one of the most famous figures of that North.
One name would be spoken first, every time.
The saying that flowers could bloom even in barren soil—it was all because of her.
Heir to the Grand Duchy, the Ice Princess of the North.
The Flower on the Cliff—Asilie Haliogrant.
Today, as ever, she stood atop the northern walls, where a wind sharp enough to flay flesh swept past, gazing at the world beyond.
Her pure white silver hair streamed in the wind.
"...Who are the new recruits coming in this time?"
With a face like carved ice, and a voice every bit as cold and brusque, she asked her adjutant.
The adjutant standing behind her calmly read through the documents she'd brought.
"Same as always, Commander. Mostly the ones called the wastrels of their families."
"...I see."
Even with the war ended and an era of peace declared, the North was still at war.
Not a war against men, but an endless war against the Demonic Beasts beyond the Great Northern Wall.
They could not seize the beasts' nesting grounds, and the beasts could not cross the northern walls.
But that did not mean the fighting, the war itself, had grown stagnant.
Every single day, countless people were wounded. Countless more died.
None of that meant a thing to the empire's leadership and its nobles.
To them, the North was nothing more than a school for knocking sense into their own foolish, spoiled children.
Nothing more than a tiresome border territory that guzzled down an enormous budget every year.
Even so, the soldiers of the North silently fulfilled the duty assigned to them.
Because if the North fell, the entire empire would fall with it.
"And the supply reinforcements?"
"...The same words, repeated as ever."
The real problem was that the Demonic Beasts' movements had grown unsettling of late.
Their numbers were steadily swelling compared to before, and each individual beast seemed stronger as well.
As a result, the North's casualties were creeping upward, little by little.
Yet no matter how many times she reported these facts to the empire, the reply that came back was always the same: we will consider it.
"Understood. It can't be helped."
Asilie bit down lightly on her lower lip, then nodded and donned her usual expression once more.
The North was a land of eternal ice.
And guarding that barren land was the work of House Haliogrant.
As the direct bloodline of that house, Asilie simply carried out her duty in silence.
Until her last breath, she would likely do so.
No matter how the empire she protected scorned her people—no matter how it insulted their life-and-death struggle by calling it mere character education.
Closing her eyes briefly, then opening them, Asilie fingered the hilt of the sword at her hip and turned away.
She had no intention of defying the fate that had been given to her.