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Rendler, head butler of the Raphelion baronial household, was an old and loyal retainer who could truly be said to have shared in the family's rise and fall.
He had entered service as a footman at twenty-two, become a full butler at twenty-six, and by the remarkably young age of thirty-six had risen to head butler assisting the lord himself. Nothing of consequence in the Raphelion barony proceeded without passing through Rendler's hands; his role was that central.
Watching over the growth of the family's sole heir, Elden Raphelion, had therefore been inevitable. With the baron so often away on official business, Rendler had taken charge of the boy's noble education in his place, and it was Rendler who cleaned up every mess Elden made. The lady of the house had been far too frail to rein in or discipline a boy who ran wild in every direction.
An often-absent father, a mother confined to her sickbed—filling those empty places had naturally been beyond him, yet Rendler cared for Elden with the utmost devotion. He regarded it as the duty, the responsibility, and the plain obligation of a man who drew the family's salary.
Of course, guiding a child who shared not a single drop of his blood, and whose world was so utterly alien, had been a near-impossible task. Still, Rendler never stinted in his efforts.
Yet year by year those efforts began to fade, and once Elden entered the Royal Academy they dissolved like foam. Running with a bad crowd, the malice he had long suppressed finally spread its wings. He received academic warnings; more than once he clashed so violently with classmates that blood stained the floor. Even so, Rendler never once reproached him. He took pride in the boy who, amid all the scandals, still graduated first in his class.
The flame of malice in Elden had simply been destined to blaze; it was the irresistible order of nature. Only then did Rendler accept that a man born to a certain fate must walk the path that fate had laid.
"You've worked hard, Young Master. Congratulations on graduating at the top of your class."
When Elden returned to the family after three years, he was already lost to pleasure and dissipation—wine and women. Instead of the glory of a top graduate that should have filled the carriage, he brought home nothing but a male animal's raw instincts. Instead of that glory he handed Rendler only empty bottles. Instead of that glory he stepped down from the carriage leading a string of wine-soaked harlots.
"Hahaha! You filthy bitches. Is the taste of money that sweet? I'll toss a gold coin to the one who barks like a dog—catch it in your mouth and it's yours. Hahaha!"
In place of a valedictorian's honor, the gardens of Raphelion Manor rang with the shrill laughter of courtesans and the scatter of coins. In the short span of three academy years he had fully awakened, and from the moment he returned to the city he began collecting every foul epithet imaginable: "worthless wastrel," "drunken noble thug," "black-haired beast."
Rendler was forever scrambling to clean up the endless incidents, yet he never scolded his young master. What was meant to happen simply happened. Having chosen to accept the natural order rather than defy it, he worked on in silence for the Raphelion house. Then, the year Elden turned twenty-two, disaster struck.
The baron died in an accident; the lady of the house succumbed to her long illness. The world went black before his eyes. A crushing weight of responsibility fell upon the sole heir who had never cared for the family fortunes, and Rendler's anxiety grew as heavy as that weight. It did not take long for the anxiety to become reality.
Trading partners who distrusted Elden began severing ties; unpaid debts forced them to sell off businesses one by one. The family's fortunes declined. The glory of House Raphelion dimmed, and Rendler quietly prepared the remaining household retainers for what was coming. Once the last few enterprises were sold there would be nowhere left to collect revenue, and the final items would be the manor itself and its grounds. The collapse of a house already tilting seemed a foregone conclusion.
But then—
"Rendler."
One day Elden woke clear-headed for once and called for him. What he said next was wholly unexpected.
"I hear the Third Northern Grand Duchess's Marriage Tournament is being held. Send in an application."
"...Pardon?"
"I believe I told you not to make me repeat myself."
"Ah—yes, yes. At once."
It made no sense. A man who preferred chaos to marriage, who treated women as nothing more than tools for satisfying a male animal's urges, now wanted to enter a marriage tournament for one particular lady—knowing full well how the name Elden Raphelion was spoken in the streets. Simply being allowed to compete in the preliminaries would have been miracle enough; advancing past them was unthinkable.
So Rendler submitted the application. When Elden was chosen as a final candidate, Rendler felt less that a miracle had occurred than that some prearranged farce was unfolding. Incomprehensible events always hid their own reasons.
That was why, when the young master announced his withdrawal, Rendler's true feelings slipped out unbidden.
"Forfeiting, is it? Heh heh. An excellent decision, Young Master Elden."
As the young master himself had said, final victory was not even a remote possibility. Better to return home now than endure another day of discomfort in the Grand Duke's castle and waste further effort. Truth be told, the young master was not someone he could proudly present to the Grand Duchess. No—he was not someone he could proudly present anywhere in the world. He had pitied the Third Grand Duchess's judgment for selecting such a finalist; now it seemed just as well.
"I shall prepare the carriage at once."
"...You're not going to ask why?"
"What right would I have to question Your Young Master's decision? As you say, there is no need to cling to a fight we cannot win. Heh heh heh."
Rendler withdrew with a bright smile. For reasons he could not name, Elden felt strangely unsettled; he took a sip of the wine still in his glass. It was the first thing he had tasted since the transmigration.
"...Bitter."
It was bitter. Extremely.
The Winterfell Northern Territory, lying at the continent's northern extremity, lived up to its name: winter fell there in every season. Soft snow blanketed the broad earth; blue conifer forests wore white scarves; white foxes dug through snowbound mountains. Even that land of bitter cold, that frozen land, began to see rain once May arrived. The icicles hanging from every eave turned to droplets and fell upon the thawing ground.
And when that season came, the lord of the North—Grand Duke Logan Winterfell—was forced to bury himself in documents piled as thick as the snow. Frozen things cause no trouble. Melting things do. Moreover, May was the month of the family's long tradition and the North's great festival, the Grand Duke's Marriage Tournament, held to celebrate the budding of new life. It was a month in which even catnaps were a luxury if one hoped to manage both house and realm.
This year's tournament, starring the Third Grand Duchess who had long remained veiled from the world, had the entire North in an uproar.
"...What? He forfeited?"
The news that a final candidate had withdrawn inevitably threw the carefully apportioned hours of a man already stretched thin into further confusion. The blue eyes that had once been like the Azure Dragon of the battlefield still carried undimmed spirit; Central Aide Gelwood's head bowed of its own accord.
"Yes, Your Grace. Candidate Elden Raphelion has declared his forfeit."
"And his reason?"
"He claims he lacks the qualifications."
"Lacks? A man who spent a fortnight enduring every trial and reached the final gate now withdraws, citing qualifications?"
"Yes."
Faced with an incomprehensible withdrawal, Logan leaned back against the chair and folded his arms. The powerful forearms that had once swept the northern battlefields with a massive halberd still proclaimed their vigor.
"There must be another reason."
"I tried to dig, but nothing particular came to light."
"No unusual signs either?"
"..."
Unusual signs—faint ones, yes. But they remained unconfirmed, abstract impressions not yet verified, so Gelwood had hesitated to report them. He chose his words carefully.
"Well... nothing that rises to the level of a true anomaly, but..."
"Speak freely."
"He seems... a little changed."
It was the only word that fit, absurd as it sounded. He seemed changed. Yet at that single remark from Gelwood, Logan rose with an intrigued expression and walked to the window. The exceptional eye of the Central Aide he himself had appointed had never once been wrong. Gelwood could read what lay behind a man's pupils, map several moves ahead, and sift gold from dust. If he said the man had changed, then the man had changed.
Into Logan's eyes came the snowscape of snow that had not yet fully melted.
"For example?"
"A voice that once howled like a fierce blizzard has grown quiet. Eyes that were merciless have softened. A bearing as rigid as bamboo has thawed—almost like the North in May."
"...Hmm. The Iron-Blooded Wastrel, like the North in May."
Logan murmured the words while sweeping his gaze across the snowscape. To compare the man to the North in May, when frozen things melt away, was to hand the Snow King of the North a topic of genuine interest—even if the metaphor was somewhat strained. Gelwood's insight was peerless; foreign kings had tried to poach him as a strategist. Logan would not revise his entire assessment of Elden on a single remark, yet a man who had clawed his way to the final candidates only to become the first forfeit in the tournament's history was more than enough to prick the curiosity of a retired veteran general.
Logan turned his upper body and looked at Gelwood.
"I know private meetings with final candidates are strictly forbidden before the joint lodging begins, but exceptional circumstances call for exceptional rules. Arrange a meeting."
"Understood. There is a gathering among the candidates this evening; I shall schedule it afterward."
Gelwood withdrew. Alone, Logan continued to gaze out the window. He knew Elden Raphelion well—or rather, he knew all the final candidates well. They shared a single common trait.
Stroking his white beard, Logan whispered,
"Elden Raphelion... a strange fellow."
A man who had struggled so hard to climb only to step down so lightly. Whether external pressure had been applied or some genuine realization had struck him, Logan could not yet say—but the public reputation was clearly right: this was a man whose next move no one could predict.
Logan gave a bitter smile, returned to his seat, and began approving the backlog of documents.