The Taste of Kindness
“Kuooh—!!”
Clank!
Clank-clank!
The Wild Big Boar thrashed its fangs through empty air, frustrated by the length of the chains that held it.
“Shit! Now’s our chance!!”
“Let’s take that bastard down first!!”
The same men who had shoved and clawed past one another while death chased them now suddenly discovered a spirit of cooperation the moment death’s feet were bound. They were always perfectly in sync when creating a crisis, and an absolute rabble the moment one actually arrived. Truly the most cunning, opportunistic breed of creature imaginable.
Even a giant monster became vulnerable to ranged attacks once its legs were shackled. And a short-range, four-legged charger like this one was nothing more than a thrashing target dummy. Archery was basic education for noble sons, and these three had already proven their skill in the preliminaries. The arrows loosed from three bowstrings began to find the Wild Big Boar’s vital points one after another.
“Kuooh—!!”
Clank-clank!
The boar fought back even harder, but it was nowhere near strong enough to snap those thick chains. An arrow sank into one of its eyes and the beast staggered heavily. If I had been their target instead, I wasn’t sure I would have survived the sheer speed of that volley.
The sight of a desperate struggle against a giant monster—even if it was really just a one-sided beatdown of a chained animal—still set something boiling in my blood. Watching was different from fighting yourself, of course, but for a man who had always dreamed of medieval fantasy adventures, it was more than enough to stoke the old fighting spirit and longing. It looked worth challenging. Worth risking death for.
Especially since Elden Raphelion’s original character was a battle maniac. If I trained properly, I might even be able to hunt high-rank monsters someday.
And then—
If I cook whatever I hunt right on the spot… it’ll taste incredible, won’t it?
Yeah. Dad, I’m gonna be one badass adventurer.
With that ridiculous thought floating through my head, I sat down and leaned my back against a tree trunk.
Crunch.
I took a big bite of the fruit in my hand and watched the Wild Big Boar gradually lose strength under the rain of arrows until it finally collapsed.
…By the way, I never expected that sealed confession letter from last night to actually be a death threat.
Granted, Elden Raphelion—the one with the best physique and the most freakish physical ability among the four regret-route candidates—was unlikely to fall to a straight-charging monster whose speed and range were already limited by giant chains. But bad luck could still have changed everything. Trip over a root while running and you’d be looking at serious injuries. Get stepped on by a body the size of two elephants and your ribs would melt like butter.
I understood the intent. She wanted them to taste the terror she had once endured, to remember how they had tormented a certain woman nearly to death, and then, at the final confrontation, to maximize their regret and repentance. Still, the method felt excessive. It was pure luck that I had withdrawn before the final evaluation even began. The fact that the marriage tournament rules contained no clause forbidding withdrawal was pure luck as well. Lumiang Winterfell’s approach struck me as a bit much.
Yes, the chains halved the monster’s combat power as a safety measure. But I hadn’t asked to be transmigrated into a villainous character. I had been dragged into this body without a word of explanation. From where I stood, her methods didn’t look all that different from theirs—ruthless ways of using status and justification to seize whatever they wanted. In the original story the core of this revenge was supposedly guidance and enlightenment, but I was starting to find that claim a little hard to swallow.
Anyway.
That’s one more reason never to get involved with the heroine.
I could have been murdered today by the female lead for sins committed by the original character—sins I never even did. Feeling resentment was only natural. I made a firm resolution to play the role of the withdrawn candidate even more thoroughly from now on. Lumiang herself would want the marriage tournament to proceed quietly and safely on the surface, so she wouldn’t keep poking a withdrawn candidate who refused to make a scene.
Boom!
At that moment a tremendous crash announced the fall of the Wild Big Boar. At least fifty arrows bristled from its hide. It really had become a thrashing target that swept up every arrow aimed its way.
“Haa… haa…”
“Huff… huff…”
Only then did the three regret-route candidates collapse to the ground or drop to their knees, gasping for air. Like the aftershocks of an accident that only hit after nightfall, the ragged terror of that deadly game of tag finally caught up with them.
“Huff… a-are you insane? A giant monster at a young masters’ hunting tournament?! Are you trying to tear us apart?!”
And the moment the cooperation born of crisis vanished, the cracks that would create the next crisis began to form. For villains, crisis was the very reason they existed.
Deron shot to his feet and seized Blund—who had been ranting—by the collar.
“Shut your mouth, Blund! You dared shove me aside and run?!”
“What? W-when did I ever do that?”
“What? Now you’re going to deny it? The little bootlicker who used to crawl around acting like a loyal retainer finally shows his true colors and still tries to weasel out of it?”
“I-it’s a misunderstanding! Why would I ever do something like that?”
Deron and Blund argued heatedly over the death sprint that had just ended. And while they were distracted, Kyle quietly unhooked the Grand Duchy’s emblem that had been tied to the Wild Big Boar’s tail and broke into a full sprint.
The second game of tag began.
“Ka-Kyle!? You insolent little—! Stop right there—!!”
“We agreed the emblem would be offered to Young Master Deron! Kyle! Hand it over this instant!!”
Deron and Blund shouted as they frantically chased after him. Of course, the sprint of a villain who had been waiting for exactly this opportunity only grew faster.
“Elden said it himself! Retaliation is forbidden no matter the reason! So I’ll become the Grand Duke’s son-in-law by any means necessary—!!”
It was pure, magnificent chaos. The classic end of any organization held together solely by mutual [profit]. The moment profit ran dry, the moment a greater profit appeared right in front of them, an organization without righteousness or loyalty would plant knives in each other’s backs. As if to prove the point, even without anyone shoving anyone else, a second deadly game of tag unfolded—villain chasing villain.
Thinking it a thoroughly villainous turn of events, I hopped lightly down from the tree.
“Alright.”
The situation was over. Time to head down the mountain. If I walked at a leisurely pace, I would arrive at the venue just as everything was wrapping up. Biting into my fruit, I started down the mountain path.
And when I finally reached the starting point, I found Kyle on his knees with a hollow expression, picking up something that had been scattered across the ground. Lumiang and Gelwood were already gone. Only a chilly silence filled the now-desolate venue.
Whoooosh—
A bleak wind swept past.
Crunch.
I took another bite of fruit and asked from behind Blund and Deron:
“Something happen? The atmosphere feels pretty bad.”
Afternoon. The blazing sun had long since passed its zenith.
Growl.
……
Rachel, waiting outside the carriage, rubbed her empty stomach. She had completely forgotten to bring any snacks.
Personal escort knights of noble houses rarely ate on a proper schedule. They had to be ready whenever their employer ate, so they usually made do with quick bites or only managed a real meal after their employer returned home and they could temporarily switch with another guard. That was why Rachel always packed simple provisions whenever her master went out. It had been a habit for years; she never forgot unless the situation was truly urgent.
Today, somehow, she had forgotten.
Skipping a meal was nothing unusual, of course, and a little hunger never interfered with an escort knight’s duties. Yet today the emptiness in her stomach felt especially sharp. Probably because she had been eating properly at regular times lately. Her employer Elden kept insisting that an escort knight performed better on a full stomach and practically forced her to join him for meals.
Breakfast and dinner were fine. She could eat alone in the annex. The problem was lunch with Young Lady Ariel. Eating at the same table as her employer in the Great Hall was improper for an escort knight, so she had tried to slip away to the annex for a quick meal. But Elden kept repeating that “villains are unpredictable” and insisted she stay. Young Lady Ariel had cheerfully pulled out the chair beside her, fluffing the cushion and saying, “You can sit right next to me!” In the end Rachel had been eating proper lunches with them for several days running.
It was almost funny. Just a few days of regular meals and she had forgotten a habit built over years.
Growl.
Four carriages waited at the entrance to the snowy mountain—all belonging to the final candidates—each with its personal escort knight standing guard in front. Now that lunchtime had passed, the other knights one by one took out dried jerky, fruit, or other snacks and began to ease their hunger.
Watching them only made Rachel’s own stomach feel emptier. She looked up toward the mountain. And there, coming down the path, was Young Master Elden.
Tap, tap.
He descended with light steps and soon reached the carriage.
“You’ve worked hard, my lady.”
Rachel bowed her head politely in greeting.
“Hard work, nothing. Rachel.”
“Yes.”
She lifted her head at the call—and something came flying toward her.
Thud.
She caught it. A fruit of a rich, luminous red.
“…?”
Rachel looked at Elden in confusion. He was already chewing an identical fruit, walking past her with casual indifference as he answered:
“You must be hungry. Eat it. It’s pretty good.”
“…Did you bring this for me?”
She asked, watching his back as he climbed into the carriage.
“I noticed earlier you hadn’t brought your snack pouch. An escort knight can’t go around starving. Who knows what might happen on the way back to the Grand Ducal Castle.”
“……”
Rachel stared at him with a dazed expression.
What is this? Why is he like this?
Lately he kept doing things he never used to do, and now he was even worrying about the empty stomach of a mere commoner escort knight. The old him would never have bothered picking wild fruit just because he was hungry, and even if he found one he liked, he would have stuffed it straight down his own throat. His own hunger always mattered more than anyone else’s. Above all, he had never known how to look after other people.
There was an old saying that when a man suddenly starts doing things he never did in his life, it means his time is nearly up.
Did he get some terminal diagnosis or something…?
Rachel shook off the idle thought and looked down at the fruit. It was one she knew well from countless battles across the northern territories. A fruit that grew only on the sunny slopes of the northern mountains, prized for its sweet-tart juice and firm-yet-tender flesh—the Roseapple.
Crunch.
She bit into it for the first time in ages. Long wars always came with hunger, and the Roseapples she had found back then had been so bright and sweetly refreshing that they washed the thick exhaustion right out of her. Of course, nothing tasted the same as when you were on the brink of starvation. Rachel chewed without much expectation.
And yet—
“How is it? Taste alright?”
Strangely, it tasted exactly the same as it had then. Exactly the same as the ones she had eaten in the depths of desperate hunger.
“…It’s delicious.”
Rachel still had no way of knowing that this was the first time she had ever been given the taste of kindness—this woman who, ever since her father’s death, had fought alone her entire life, enduring nothing but contempt and mockery, and who had overcome it all by fighting in solitude.
“What are you doing? Get in already. The evaluation ended early, so we still have time for the training we missed, don’t we? Master.”
“Ah. Yes.”
And so the carriage carrying the two of them set off toward the Grand Ducal Castle.