The Duke's Overwhelming Affection
The Grand Duke who commanded the entire North was currently using a tiny fork and knife in both hands to meticulously peel the shell off a small shrimp for me.
The banquet hall boasted a grandeur and splendor I had never witnessed in my entire life. On the long table stretched before us, rare delicacies were piled high like mountains.
“Oh! You’ve arrived, my brother!”
Gareth von Arteta, seated at the head of the table—the master’s seat—sprang to his feet the moment he saw me and spread his arms wide in welcome. Beside him sat Lady Rebecca, wearing a graceful smile. Both of them must have been out of breath from racing down the stairs earlier, yet they were putting on a flawless performance of perfect calm and elegance.
“Come, Bale! Over here! Since today is a banquet in your honor, you must sit right beside me!”
Gareth von Arteta patted the seat immediately to his right—the absolute place of honor normally reserved for the Grand Duchess or the heir—as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“......Pardon? No, Your Grace. How could I possibly dare to sit there……”
I waved my hands in horror. In noble society, seating at the dinner table was a direct reflection of hierarchy. Even a lowly soldier who had rolled around at the Northern Wall knew the common knowledge that the seat to the Grand Duke’s right belonged to his wife, Lady Rebecca, and the left to his only daughter, Veronica.
Yet here he was, trying to seat a commoner stray like me in that position.
“Nonsense! To my lifesaver and sworn brother, this level of courtesy is only proper! Now, sit down quickly!”
But the Grand Duke’s almost obsessive love for his benefactor showed no signs of stopping. Stubbornly insisting, he practically dragged me into the seat on his right.
Suddenly finding myself perched awkwardly at the head of the table, I broke into a cold sweat and glanced nervously at Lady Rebecca. She seemed slightly troubled by her husband’s excessive behavior, but soon smiled softly and took the third-highest seat to the Grand Duke’s left.
The problem was—
“.......”
The person who should have originally sat in the Grand Duke’s left seat, right beside her father, was Veronica.
When Veronica finished guiding me and tried to head to her own seat, I had already taken Lady Rebecca’s place, forcing her mother to sit on the left instead.
“That’s Mom’s seat… that’s my seat…”
In the end, Veronica was pushed to the spot beside her mother, Rebecca—much farther from her father than usual—and climbed grumpily into her chair.
“.......”
Veronica fiddled with the fork on the table, puffing her cheeks out like balloons while shooting me a gaze full of resentment. The frightened little girl who had hidden behind her rabbit doll earlier was gone. All that remained was the pure, childish sulk of someone whose seat had been stolen.
Hey, it’s not like I wanted to sit here…
I had felt relieved after saving the Grand Duke and preventing the original story’s tragedy. Yet because of his excessive affection, the peace of the banquet hall had gone off the rails from the very start.
I swallowed my sense of injustice and gave a bitter smile as I looked at the young lady’s small lips, which were jutting out in a pout.
Please, just let me sit like this for today, Your Grace…
It seemed life in this vast and luxurious Grand Duchy mansion would be far more dynamic and exhausting than I had imagined.
The table was covered with an endless array of luxurious delicacies that made one’s tongue tremble in awe. Tender fantasy beast meat releasing fragrant steam. Soup accompanied by rare mushrooms. Grilled fish glistening with oil. Even expensive seafood dishes supposedly freshly delivered from the warm southern seas of the empire.
My tongue, which had spent an entire year at the Wall chewing on rock-hard bread and stews that smelled of unidentified beast meat, was now drooling furiously as if it had finally found its purpose.
However—
“Here, Bale! Try this too! It’s a grilled dish made from precious pickled shrimp from the South. The flesh is incredibly sweet and plump!”
“Ah… Yes. Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Call me Brother!”
“Y-yes! Brother…”
I couldn’t fully savor the exquisite flavors spreading through my mouth. All because of Gareth von Arteta sitting right next to me.
“Is your throat not dry? Here, have some of this wine as well. I brought out the longest-aged bottle from the cellar.”
“Ah, I’ll pour it mysel……”
“Nonsense! When your older brother pours you a drink, would you refuse? Come, hold out your glass!”
I’m going crazy for real!
From the moment the banquet began, Gareth von Arteta hadn’t stopped for a single second. He kept piling my plate with mountains of food. Giving me the softest cuts of meat that he had personally sliced was just the baseline. The instant my wine glass showed any sign of emptying, he would snatch up the bottle at the speed of light and refill it.
And now it had reached the point where—
“Since this is your first time eating shrimp, peeling them must be difficult. Stay still. Your brother will take care of everything for you.”
“.......”
A bear-like giant of a man well over 190 centimeters tall. The Grand Duke who commanded the entire North. Was currently holding a tiny fork and knife in both hands, carefully peeling the shell off a small shrimp just for me. And with incredibly delicate, skillful movements at that.
Your Grace! This is way too much pressure! Please stop already!
I felt like jumping up from my seat at any moment, grabbing him by the collar, and shaking him while yelling, Hey! Grand Duke! Let’s just eat comfortably!
But the other party was both my patron and the absolute ruler of this mansion. If he told me to eat, I had to eat. If he peeled it for me, I had to obediently consume it. I held back my tears and forced a smile.
“Haha, Your… I mean, Brother, I don’t know how to express my gratitude for your kindness. It’s truly delicious.”
“Oh! I’m glad it suits your taste! Here, there’s another one!”
The instant I swallowed the shrimp, the Grand Duke carefully placed a second one—its white flesh already exposed—onto my plate. That gaze of his, filled with satisfaction as he watched nothing but food entering my mouth. Unable to endure this excessive obsession any longer, I subtly turned my eyes away.
The Grand Duke was focused solely on me, but my field of vision naturally took in the scene across from him.
“.......”
Lady Rebecca and Veronica, sitting side by side in the seats to the Grand Duke’s left. The two of them were currently in a very awkward situation.
“Oh my, these shrimp shells are harder than I expected. Ah, how slippery……”
The elegant Lady Rebecca was struggling with a southern shrimp, knife and fork in hand. Since the Grand Duke was the master of the house and a man, he could use his bare hands a little. But the Grand Duchess, who had to maintain her dignity, had to dismantle the thick, slippery whole shrimp using only fork and knife, which took quite a long time for each one.
“Mmm… Mom, I want to eat shrimp too.”
Next to her, Veronica licked her lips while staring longingly at the tip of her mother’s fork.
“Just a moment, Veronica. Mom will peel it nicely for you. Hng… There!”
After struggling for quite a while, Lady Rebecca finally managed to extract the shrimp meat and placed it on her daughter’s plate. Veronica’s face brightened as she stabbed it with her fork and popped it into her mouth.
But—
“Ouch.”
Veronica’s face twisted. The sharp tail shell that Lady Rebecca hadn’t fully removed was still there. The child stopped chewing, pushed the sharp fragment out with the tip of her tongue, and made a troubled expression.
“Oh dear! I’m sorry, Veronica. Mom didn’t peel it enough. Spit it out, quickly.”
Flustered, Lady Rebecca hurriedly brought a napkin to her daughter’s mouth. Watching this pitiful scene made even my heart feel uncomfortable.
That guy isn’t even glancing at his wife and daughter struggling like that.
Originally, this should have been the moment when the Grand Duke lovingly peeled shrimp for his wife and daughter, creating a harmonious family scene. But because his attention was 100% focused on me, the uninvited guest, his real family members who should have been cared for were being completely neglected.
I resolved to somehow redirect the Grand Duke’s burdensome gaze back to its rightful owners. As I quickly racked my brain, a rather plausible excuse came to mind.
Crunch!
“Wait, Bale, why are you eating it with the shell……”
I picked up an unpeeled shrimp from my plate, tossed the whole thing into my mouth, and chewed roughly. The sound of the hard shell breaking echoed through the banquet hall. The Grand Duke looked at me in surprise. I laughed heartily as if it were nothing and spoke.
“Haha! Your Grace, please don’t mind it. Actually, there was a soldier from the South in the Wall barracks. According to him, in the South, the proper way is to eat shrimp with the shell on! He said the crispy texture of the well-roasted shell combines perfectly with the soft flesh inside, making it an absolute delicacy!”
I nodded exaggeratedly while chewing and swallowing the shrimp shell and all. There was no longer any need for him to peel shrimp for me. So I was silently signaling him to turn that gaze toward his wife and daughter.
“Therefore, Your Grace, please enjoy your meal comfortably. There’s no need to go through such trouble for me.”
At this point, the Grand Duke would surely burst into laughter, say something like Is that how they do it in the South?, and then go peel the shrimp for his struggling daughter across the table.
However—
“......A soldier from the South, you say.”
The hearty laughter and chatter vanished instantly from Gareth von Arteta’s face. He quietly set down the knife he had been holding, and his eyes grew heavy with solemnity.
“Ah… You’re talking about that friend, Bale.”
Excuse me? Who?
The Grand Duke murmured in a low, bitter voice.
“His name was Goda. A very diligent and brave young man from the South who volunteered for that freezing Wall and served our North with excellence……”
......Huh?
What? I didn’t even know that. Was there really a soldier from the South in our unit?
No, even I was stunned by my own words. I had simply thrown together some southern clichés that popped into my head to divert the Grand Duke’s attention. Yet here he was, reciting the actual story of a real soldier, complete with a specific name.
More importantly, how does the Grand Duke even remember the name of a mere foot soldier?!
There were thousands of soldiers defending the Wall. No matter how much the Grand Duke cherished his men and personally patrolled the battlefield, it was logically impossible for him to remember the name and origin of a low-ranking soldier so clearly.
But Gareth von Arteta’s eyes were already clouded with deep nostalgia and sorrow.
“That friend would always tell us stories about the warm seas of his homeland. He used to joke to me, the Grand Duke, that once the war ended, he would invite all his comrades from the Wall to his hometown……”
The Grand Duke closed his eyes tightly and let out a deep sigh.
“In the end, he never saw the sea of his homeland again and was buried in the cold snowfields of our North along with the other northerners……”
The heavy reminiscence turned the atmosphere of the banquet hall in an instant into a solemn memorial for fallen soldiers. I froze, unable to spit out or swallow the shrimp shell still lingering in my mouth.
I’m screwed. I touched something I really shouldn’t have.
My shallow lie had struck directly at the deepest trigger in the Grand Duke’s heart—his camaraderie with his comrades and the scars of war. The result was disastrous. It was true that he stopped peeling shrimp for me, but the situation had flowed in the complete opposite direction of what I wanted.
“You remember him too. Of course, how could anyone forget the winters at the Wall?”
Lost in sentiment, Gareth von Arteta turned his entire body toward me. And for the rest of the banquet, he dove headfirst into reminiscing with me.
“Bale, do you remember? Last winter, when the barbarians launched a night raid on the third fortress. The one who created the breakthrough at that time was……”
The Grand Duke looked only at me. He began reciting an epic tale of the hardships at the Wall, stories about his comrades, and how I had miraculously saved his life.
Between me and the Grand Duke, an impenetrable barrier of unbreakable brotherhood had formed that no one else could penetrate. While I occasionally responded with “Ah, yes, that’s right,” and “Indeed, Brother,” I desperately kept an eye on the people across from us.
“.......”
Lady Rebecca and Veronica were still being left out. Rebecca maintained a forced elegant smile as she silently poked at her salad, but the real problem was Veronica.
Throughout the entire banquet, her father hadn’t spoken a single word to her, hadn’t given her even one glance, and was only chatting with the scary-looking, scar-covered uncle. She stared at him.
“Tsk……”
Veronica’s cheeks were puffed out twice as much as before. The fork in her small hand was mercilessly smashing a poor roasted potato. The tantrum of the young lady whose father had been stolen from her was clearly swelling toward its limit, visible only to my eyes.
Please, Your Grace. Stop already. There’s probably a huge hole in your back right now…
But my desperate wish didn’t reach the Grand Duke. On the contrary, the more the conversation deepened, the more serious and profound his gaze became.
Gareth von Arteta swirled his wine glass for a long time before slowly opening his mouth.
“Bale. You may have wondered this inwardly.”
“Pardon? What do you mean, sir?”
“Why I treat you with such special regard. I know full well that even though you are my lifesaver, inviting someone I’ve just met into the private quarters of the Grand Ducal family, calling him my brother, and seating him at the head of the banquet table goes against common sense.”
“.......”
You knew that and still did it?
I kept my mouth shut and waited for the Grand Duke’s next words. To be honest, I was dying of curiosity about the reason myself. After all, pouring out this much favor just because I had taken a stab in the back for him was clearly abnormal.