Essence of Snow (1)
...Daughter?!
Commander David's jaw dropped at Duke Lushan's words. How many times had that jaw fallen open today alone? He stared at Kenis with trembling eyes.
...Kenis is Duke Lushan's hidden daughter?
His gaze flicked back and forth between the duke's black hair and Kenis's red hair.
How in the world?!
The commander was thrown into complete confusion.
"Duke Lushan! The commander is misunderstanding!"
Kenis's face burned scarlet. Tears welled in her eyes as if the injustice of it all were too much to bear.
"Commander, that isn't true! The duke is not my father!"
She rushed to explain, her voice urgent.
"His Grace took a liking to me years ago and offered to take me in as his adopted daughter! I refused, telling him I had already devoted myself to the gods!"
"Even if you refuse, if I regard you as a daughter, then you are one."
"What kind of twisted logic is that?!"
Kenis shrieked at the duke. He only grinned.
"Kenis, no matter how much you dislike it, House Nix will always consider you family. Have you forgotten our family motto?"
Friga, who had been sitting quietly beside the duke, cut in.
"'For family and comrades.' Kenis, our house never forgets its comrades or its family."
Friga smiled—an exact mirror of Duke Lushan's, the smile of a fierce predator.
"Nice to meet you, little sister Kenis."
"I am not your little sister!!"
"Then do you want to be the big sister?"
"I don't want that either!!"
Kenis's scream echoed high into the night sky over Nix Castle in Montegros.
Once the not-quite-chaos had settled, the commander and Kenis took their seats at the banquet table. A place had been prepared for Kenis right beside Duke Lushan, but she firmly declined and sat next to the commander instead.
"You must be hungry. Eat first."
The duke rang a small bell, and servants entered bearing dishes. Northern cuisine filled the table—roasted reindeer haunches, steamed bear forelegs, and the like.
Hmm...
The commander ate while glancing around. The duke dined as if nothing were amiss, while Friga stared unblinkingly at Kenis.
Kenis, clearly unsettled by that gaze, only picked at her food. An indescribable, awkward atmosphere pressed down on the commander.
I can't even taste what I'm eating.
When the uncomfortable meal finally ended, the duke slowly sipped his wine and spoke.
"Hmm. Commander David. First, we looked into that 'Essence of Snow' the Pantheon requested."
"Ah, is that so? What did you find?"
Kenis straightened, focusing intently on the duke's words. The Essence of Snow was what they needed to save Cale and Hans, who had been frozen by the Lich. She listened carefully to what followed.
"It appears in rather old records. That 'Essence of Snow' is a flower that blooms on nights of the full moon. It drinks in the moonlight and opens ice-formed buds."
"Just from the description, it is clearly no ordinary spiritual plant."
"Indeed. The problem is that the place where it blooms is the Mount of Demonic Beasts."
"That... will not be easy."
The commander's expression grew grave. The duke continued at an unhurried pace.
"And that is not the only problem. In that vast mountain range, the records say there is only a single colony."
"It grows in only one place..."
"The one stroke of luck is that the location of the colony remains on a map. It seems a warrior long ago stumbled upon it by chance and recorded it."
"What a tremendous relief! To think a map still exists."
The Mount of Demonic Beasts rose so high it had once been called a dragon's nest and worshipped as such. Now it was a troublesome mountain that spewed demonic beasts instead of dragons, yet its height and sheer scale still ranked first on the continent.
The commander let out a sigh of relief at the thought that they had nearly been forced to comb every inch of the entire range.
"But there is yet another problem."
The duke's face hardened as he addressed the commander.
"For some time now, the demonic beasts of the mountain have been coming down far more frequently to attack."
"Have there not always been some degree of beast attacks?"
Kenis, who had been listening quietly, asked the duke. Even during her own northern deployment, Montegros had clashed with demonic beasts almost daily. Attacks of a certain level had been practically routine.
"True. Beasts coming down has always been a constant."
The duke nodded at her words.
"The problem is that even the apex predators have started coming down."
"Apex predators...?"
Kenis tilted her head. Had the beasts she had seen during her deployment not been predators?
"The ones that usually come down are the losers of the mountain's competition—the ones driven out with nowhere left to go, so they raid the villages."
"I see..."
"But these past few weeks, even the apex predators have been pushed down to the foothills."
Duke Lushan drained his wine in one gulp and continued.
"Creatures that would normally reign as the mountain's top predators are being driven down one after another, as if fleeing. This is a clear sign that something is wrong."
"...A grim situation."
"Yes. Either a stronger, more violent predator has appeared on the mountain, or someone is deliberately herding the beasts."
The faces of both the commander and Kenis grew heavy. Neither possibility was good.
"We noticed it too and sent scouting parties up the mountain several times. None of them returned. These were people who could navigate the Mount of Demonic Beasts with their eyes closed."
Friga spoke as if chewing the words.
"We still don't even know what the hell some bastard is doing up there. They all died for nothing."
"Lady Friga..."
Kenis looked at her with concern, knowing Friga's deep trauma over the deaths of her subordinates. Friga noticed the gaze and gave a short snort of laughter.
"Ha! Are you worrying about me right now? Don't. I don't blubber like I used to."
"...I see. That is a relief."
Kenis smiled back at her with genuine relief. Friga suddenly wore a mischievous grin.
"Well, someone beat the living daylights out of me and snapped me out of it. I'm too scared of getting hit again to go back to that."
"...Beat you?"
The commander muttered in confusion. Kenis turned to Friga with a flustered look.
"H-haha! My lady, what are you saying! Who would ever hit you! Hahaha!"
Kenis laughed awkwardly and far too loudly. Duke Lushan swirled his wine glass and casually interjected.
"Hmm, I was quite shocked myself at the time. To think someone in Montegros would thrash the duke's daughter. And not just thrash her—she climbed right on top of her and beat her half to death."
"Waaaaah! Your Grace, what are you talking about!! Waaaaah!"
"...Kenis?"
The commander narrowed his eyes and fixed them on her. Kenis squirmed under that stare, her face as red as her hair, her eyes spinning in circles.
"What is the meaning of this, Kenis? You hit the lady? And climbed on top of her to do it?"
"N-no, Commander, you see... I didn't hit her on purpose, I mean—I did hit her, but there was a reason..."
"Ahahahaha!"
Friga clutched her stomach and burst out laughing at Kenis's panic, even shedding a tear from how hard she laughed.
"Ah~ my stomach hurts. Commander, go easy on her. I kind of deserved it back then. Looking back, I'm even a little grateful."
"...Is that so?"
The commander spoke with an expression that said he could not quite understand. Friga twirled a lock of hair and continued casually.
"I used to be pretty sensitive about my subordinates dying. I'd hear their voices, see hallucinations, go completely off the rails. Ah, I'll show you this too."
With a quick motion, Friga loosened her tight-fitting pants and tugged them down to her thighs. Her snow-white, soft thighs gleamed faintly in the flickering light.
"W-what are you—!"
The commander flushed scarlet and jerked his eyes away in shock. Friga frowned at his reaction.
"What are you looking at? Look at the scars, not my thighs."
"Scars...?"
With difficulty, the commander dragged his gaze down from the black undergarments that tempted the eye and looked at Friga's white thighs. Scars dotted the snowfield of her skin—marks left by something sharp, like a blade.
"What is this..."
"Old stab wounds from when the voices got bad. I'd drive a knife into my thigh. It helped a little."
"...Even when I fought alongside you, my lady, you harmed yourself like that several times."
Kenis spoke quietly, gazing at the scars.
"Then Kenis told me to snap out of it and beat me black and blue. She kept yelling about how long I was going to wallow in guilt while she pounded me."
"I did not beat you that badly..."
"Ha! Anyway. While she was thrashing me she said if I felt sorry for the dead ones, I should at least take care of their kids, and what would happen to the subordinates I still had if I kept falling apart like that."
"I see..."
"That was when it hit me. My remaining subordinates, the children of the dead, the people of Montegros... I still had far too much I was responsible for. It wasn't the time to be pathetic."
Friga's face flushed slightly, as if the admission embarrassed her.
"Hmm, saying it out loud is a little cringey."
"Haha. Lady Friga, your face is red."
"Hmph, no it's not. You saw wrong."
Kenis pointed at Friga's face with a small smile. Friga turned her head, trying to look nonchalant. The flush visible on the pale skin between her black hair only made it funnier.
"Heh. Friga never used to go around getting beaten by anyone. After that, she started following Kenis around demanding a rematch."
The duke looked at Kenis. Under that heavy gaze she shook her head.
"That was... closer to pure luck. Both of us were out of our minds at the time."
"Ha, please. Even if I was out of my mind, I don't just take beatings from just anyone. Among people my age, you're the first one who ever knocked me flat like that, Kenis."
Under Friga's intense stare, Kenis turned her head without thinking. That blazing gaze made the food she had eaten churn as if it would give her indigestion.
Why did I hit her back then!
Kenis bitterly regretted the moment she had failed to hold back her frustration and anger.
"So I kept challenging her to sparring matches with all sorts of bets on the line. And Kenis kept dodging me?"
"Of course I did! If I win I become the duke's adopted daughter, and if I lose my deployment gets extended! Why would I ever accept that duel!"
"Aren't both options fine? Once you get used to it, Montegros is a great place to live."
From Kenis's perspective it was a hellish choice—win or lose, she would be stuck in the north. So she had desperately avoided every sparring match with Friga.
Duke Lushan watched the two bicker, then turned his gaze to the commander.
"Hmm, Commander David. I would like to talk more, but the night has grown late. Shall we continue tomorrow?"
"Of course. Time has gotten away from us."
"Indeed. It is late, so go and rest. I will lend you a carriage. I will send someone around lunchtime tomorrow."
Duke Lushan declared the gathering over.
Friga watched Kenis leave the banquet hall with a wicked smile.
"See you later, big sister Kenis! Tomorrow!"
"I am not your big sister!!"