Full-Fledged Househusband Life
It was warm. And soft.
"……Mm."
When I opened my eyes, a luxurious crimson velvet canopy filled my entire field of vision. The unfamiliar surroundings left me blinking blankly for a moment as I tried to piece together where I was.
Ah, right. I got dumped. And then kidnapped to the North.
Yesterday's events came flooding back at once. Having slept deeply for the first time in ages, my body felt light enough to float away.
In the three years I had been run ragged for the Empire, I had never once managed more than three consecutive hours of sleep.
Yet the moment I arrived at the northern castle, I had passed out for a good half-day as if I had simply died.
How long had it been since I last enjoyed genuine rest—no assassin hunts, no magic-beast subjugations, no endless document approvals?
"You're awake."
"You startled me."
When I turned my head, Carla was sitting with her chin propped against the back of a chair.
She was dressed in comfortable loungewear.
"Were you that exhausted? You were out so cold you wouldn't have noticed if someone carried you off. The maids who came in to bathe you made noise with their footsteps, so I chased them out. No one is allowed to disturb your sleep."
The casual way she said it was downright chilling. If I had actually woken from the sound of footsteps, the maids' lives might truly have been forfeit.
"Before breakfast arrives, let's whet your appetite a little. I wasn't sure what you liked, so I brought some fruit grown in the magic greenhouse. Up here in the North, these cost more than gold."
Carla approached the plate set on the table. She speared a neatly sliced piece of melon with a fork and brought it to my lips.
"Ah, I can feed myself…"
I reached out to take the fork from her. Carla simply drew her hand back toward her chest.
"Open wide. Didn't I promise that my husband wouldn't have to lift a single finger?"
Her eyes said, If you don't eat it right now, I will force it into your mouth.
I had no choice but to part my lips and accept the fruit she offered. Sweet juice flooded my mouth. The flesh was so soft it was easily the finest melon I had ever tasted in my life.
Back in the Empire, every time that spoiled princess demanded some, I had to buy them with my own money to cover the holes in the budget.
The irony was almost funny.
These were the expensive fruits I could barely bring myself to taste while I was propping up the Empire from behind the scenes.
And now, simply because I had become the husband of the Northern Grand Duchess, I was enjoying them without a care in the world.
…This is better than I expected.
No—honestly, it was fucking great.
A woman with money and power was feeding me fruit by hand. I had escaped the hell of document approvals and was lying in bed, lazily accepting fruit. Wasn't this exactly the perfect unemployed life I had always dreamed of?
"Your Grace! Are you inside!"
The peaceful breakfast was shattered by a booming shout from beyond the door.
"Your Grace! It is Knight Commander Hector! I failed to stop the retainers who forced their way past your summons! They are the elders of the North—I could not bring myself to use force against them! I beg your forgiveness!"
Sounds of a scuffle rose outside, followed by the agitated voices of elderly nobles that punched straight through the door.
"Stand aside, Commander! We must see the Grand Duchess ourselves and demand answers! How dare you take in some unknown riffraff as the consort of the Grand Ducal House!"
"Exactly! You must expose that fraudster's true identity at once and cast him out!"
They were the conservative elders of the North.
Their mistress had spent her entire life reeking of blood as she strode across battlefields.
For that same mistress to suddenly bring home a frail-looking man as her husband overnight—of course they would rebel.
"…You dare raise a ruckus in front of my door?"
Carla, who had been tenderly feeding me fruit only moments before, set down the fork and stood. Crimson aura bloomed from her fingertips.
Ah, seriously, so loud first thing in the morning.
All I wanted was quiet, peaceful rest, yet whether it was the Empire or the North, people were equally good at being a pain in the ass.
The fact that the elders outside were insulting me didn't particularly anger me.
They were right that I was some unknown riffraff, and looking like a useless freeloader was exactly my goal.
But interrupting my precious sleep and rest? That I could not tolerate.
I let out a long sigh and scratched my head.
"Haa… You're really noisy. I'll go quiet them down myself."
The moment I rose from the bed to deal with the elders, Carla's body went rigid at my words.
When she looked back, her gaze locked onto my eyes.
My husband has shown his displeasure. Before he reveals the true power hidden behind that gaze and erases them completely, I must clean them up myself! I will not allow my consort's hands to be stained with the blood of such insignificant creatures!
Before I could even move, Carla wrenched the door handle open.
Bang—!!
The door nearly flew off its hinges as Carla strode out into the corridor, radiating terrifying aura.
"Hiiik…! Y-Your Grace!"
The elderly elders who had been about to barge in staggered backward under the weight of her killing intent.
"Shut your mouths, you insolent fools."
Carla's razor-sharp voice rang all the way to the far end of the hall.
"Did I not say my husband is tired?"
Bang—!
She stamped her heel into the floor. A crack spiderwebbed across the corridor tiles. The elders collapsed onto their rears in terror and meekly looked up at her face.
"If anyone makes even one more sound that disturbs my husband's mood, I will rip out your tongue on the spot—northern elder or not. Get out of my sight this instant!"
"Guh…! Khh, y-yes, Your Grace!!"
The elders who had swaggered in moments earlier now prostrated themselves on the floor, pale with fright at the tyrannical Grand Duchess's genuine killing intent.
Then, with frightened eyes, they stole a peek through the open crack of the door.
Inside sat the unknown man who had driven the Grand Duchess to such a state.
He was leaning casually against the headboard, leisurely popping fruit into his mouth.
That merciless Grand Duchess… moved this far for a single man like that?!
Just how extraordinary must he be?! Was the idea that he was some pretty parasite only our misunderstanding? Does that man possess power great enough to make even Her Grace obey?!
They scrambled to their feet and fled down the corridor in a panic.
Having neatly resolved the situation, Carla returned to the room, smirked, and stroked my cheek.
"The noisy ones have all been cleared out. Want to sleep more?"
"…No. Let's just finish the fruit before breakfast."
Still completely clueless, I accepted the fruit she offered and waited for the morning meal.
I had merely hidden my power and done nothing but lounge around.
I had not the faintest idea that my standing in the North was somehow skyrocketing.
Around the same time Ian was enjoying his sweet northern morning, the Empire—unlike the peaceful North—had spent the entire night under magic-beast assault and was little better than a living hell.
"Hold them! Hold them by any means necessary!!"
On the outer defense line of the Imperial Palace, atop walls slick with magic-beast blood and knights' sweat, the vice-commander was screaming himself hoarse.
Yet with the barrier gone, the Empire's walls looked ready to collapse like a sandcastle at any moment.
Inside the secure underground secret fortress of the palace, Elena watched the carnage outside in full through a magic projection orb.
She gnawed at her carefully manicured nails under the rising tide of anxiety.
"How… how did it come to this…?"
The moment Ian left, every magic communication network in the Empire went dead.
The national treasury was completely empty. The barrier that had held back the magic beasts had shattered into pieces, and assassins who threatened the Empire night after night came flooding in.
All of it had happened in a single day after she had mocked that man as incompetent and driven him out.
"Ian… I can't do this without Ian…."
Elena had finally realized what she had done and was drowning in regret.
Only too late did she understand that the work he had been buried under mountains of documents doing had actually been propping up the crumbling Empire.
Just then, one of the administrators she had sent to ransack Ian's office came sprinting in, clutching a single sheet of paper.
"I-I found it, Your Highness! At the very bottom of Chief Assistant Ian's desk drawer—a copy of the permanent standby contract for a northern-bound carriage he signed a month ago with a major merchant guild on the outskirts of the capital! He took the original when he left and left the record copy undeleted!"
"A northern-bound carriage?!"
"Yes! There was a receipt for a fortune paid for a direct northern route that departs within ten minutes of being summoned. It's certain he called that carriage the instant he was expelled and fled straight to the Grand Duchy!"
Complex emotions flickered across Elena's face at the report.
Relief at finally knowing his whereabouts tangled with fury that he had meticulously planned his escape from the Empire a full month in advance. The two feelings churned together until her stomach burned.
And the fact that he had fled to the North, where the Empire's reach did not extend, ground her teeth even harder.
But this was no time to dwell on such things.
She seized the hand of Kyle, who sat swathed in bandages.
"Sir Kyle! Leave for the North at once! I just learned through the information guild—that bastard Ian fled to the North!"
"Y-Your Highness… but my wounds have not yet healed, and I don't even have the funds or a carriage to reach the North right now…."
"I'll give you the entire jewel box I brought when I fled here! Take it to the Magic Tower Master and beg him to open a disposable gate if you have to! I'll hold the line with mercenaries as a shield—you do whatever it takes to drag Ian back from the North!"
Elena screamed in desperation. Kyle bit his lip hard enough to draw blood from sheer humiliation.
He, who had prided himself as the Empire's finest knight, now had to bow his head to the orphaned assistant he had once scorned as worthless and driven out.
"…I will obey, Your Highness."
Kyle clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white and rose from his seat. Potions had barely managed to set his broken bones; every movement still sent waves of pain through him.
Ian von Clemens…. You dare put Her Highness in this predicament and humiliate me like this? Just you wait. Hide in some northern corner all you like—you're still nothing but a pen-pusher who can't even handle a scrap of mana. I'll go myself and drag your ass back.
Filled with twisted desire for revenge, he took the jewel box the princess thrust at him and set off along the secret imperial escape route that led to the Magic Tower.
If I just release a little aura, that coward will drop to the floor on his own.
Walking the dark passage, he hurried his steps while imagining forcing Ian to kneel before the princess.
But Kyle could not even begin to imagine what kind of existence the incompetent assistant he intended to drag back was currently becoming in the North.
Crack, crack—.
After the elders had been swept away, peace returned to the highest-grade guest chamber.
I climbed down from the bed and settled onto the plush carpet in front of the fireplace.
Logs burned cheerfully in the hearth.
I buried myself deep into the fluffy belly of Noir, who had taken the form of a giant wolf.
Thanks to the way the creature had fluffed its shadows into soft down, it was more comfortable and luxurious than the finest sofa.
"Ahh, this is the life. This is living."
In my hand I held a cup of fine black tea, gently warmed.
Outside the window, the fierce blizzards unique to the North raged without mercy.
Yet inside the room, protected by heating barriers, it was so warm and peaceful that the cold outside seemed almost unreal.
I blew on the teacup, took a sip, and gazed out the window.
"I wonder if the Empire bastards are panicking by now?"
The barrier must have shattered long ago, and the underworld rebellions I had been suppressing every night were probably erupting one after another.
And most of all, since I cleaned out the entire national treasury, they must be in complete chaos.
Well, none of that had anything to do with me anymore. My unemployed life had only just begun.