Ulsro Kingdom - Tying Up Loose Ends and Preparations (3)
After spending some pleasant time with the two sisters—and, as a little bonus, seeing to Elsa as well—Valdes headed for the training grounds right on schedule. He had been going back and forth there so often for Serenia’s practice that the route had long since become second nature.
He felt a little guilty about it, but Mercedes and Elsa had agreed to tell Ethylene and Grette who he really was. There was nothing to be done about it; both of them had been busy with their recent training, and thanks to the advice Valdes kept slipping them from time to time, they were on the verge of breaking through to the next wall.
He had also been relieving his own stress through their bodies, which had only sharpened his usual training efficiency. He was in excellent form lately. For that reason, he hadn’t made time to see them much either, using the excuse that they should stay focused on training.
When Valdes arrived at the training grounds, Serenia was already there, waiting for him as expected.
The moment she spotted his face, hers lit up.
"Ah… husband…♡"
Ever since what had happened in the bath, she had treated him as her husband in private.
"You came."
"Yeah. Want to spar right away?"
"Yes!"
The woman who had once hungered for her husband’s love became, the instant she took up her sword, a knight and instructor at the peak of her craft. Truly, she was a woman who drew a clear line between public and private.
"Today, I’m going to be a little more serious, Master."
"...More serious? Are you saying you weren’t serious before?"
"Let’s just call it a different kind of seriousness."
"Hmm. Fine."
Her brows tightened at his cryptic reply, and she felt a faint stab of annoyance.
She loved this young husband enough to give him everything. But right now he was her disciple, and she was his master. And yet the attitude of that disciple was far too insolent.
"As your master… I’ll teach you a lesson."
The instant she finished speaking, her leg slammed into the ground.
They sparred every day, so she knew Valdes’s level well—his dynamic eyesight, physical ability, swordsmanship, even the way he handled mana. On those matters, she believed no one knew him better than she did.
She swung her sword with exactly enough force that he could see it, but not react to it with his body, aiming for his shoulder.
But the one standing before her now was Valdes, the Demon Prince, the same man who had already decided to reveal the truth to Serenia as well.
Clang!
"?!"
"You’ll need to bring out your real strength this time too, Master."
"...."
She couldn’t answer.
Her disciple had blocked her blade with such effortless ease. And yet if he had truly been revealing hidden strength, the power he had shown until now should have looked nothing like this.
Just to test him, she slashed again at the same speed, but every strike was deflected. Only then did she realize something was different.
This wasn’t merely superior physical ability or swordsmanship. Something fundamental was different. So different that it felt as though he were almost another person entirely. And yet this was not the mark of a curse, nor of some evil spirit having taken possession of his body.
"I’ve got a lot of questions for you."
"Then ask them with your sword."
"...Right."
She swallowed the unease and focused her mind.
She soothed her taut body even as she wrapped that tension around herself. Too much tension would make the body shrink back, but in the right amount, it could be used in all sorts of ways.
For example.
BOOM!!
"Kuh!"
"Good reaction!"
Like a canary in a mine, her body moved reflexively. Even against an attack as dangerous as this one.
"W-what...?"
Serenia felt cold sweat running down her back. If she had let her guard down even for an instant, she might have taken a direct hit. In fact, it was almost as good as taking the hit. If Valdes hadn’t deliberately controlled his strength in the middle of the strike, that was.
As if proving that he had not simply stepped into the Master realm by accident, she could clearly feel the overwhelming aura rolling off him. At the very least, he was beyond Master. That was the level Serenia felt from her disciple.
What on earth is going on?
This was a realm impossible to reach at such a young age. As far as she knew, there had only ever been one person who reached Master in his mid-teens: the Hero, Pedro.
He’s been hiding his realm all this time? Why?
Questions she couldn’t understand kept surging through her head, but she had no time to think through them one by one.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Ugh!"
"You really have improved a lot compared to before!"
Before she knew it, their positions had reversed.
Usually it was Serenia who pressed Valdes with her blade and forced him to reveal the limits of his ability, but now her disciple was overwhelming his teacher. And he was doing it with the air of someone testing her.
Before? Talking casually?
Even so, she wasn’t completely out of composure, so Serenia racked her brain to make sense of the situation.
She couldn’t immediately grasp it, so she traced her memories from before she had met him. If she judged by his mid-teens age, it could only have been about ten years ago at most. But except for missions, she had almost never left the capital, and even then she had already been a Master.
Is there something I’m forgetting?
"Having trouble? Then I’ll give you a hint."
Seeing Serenia sweat over the puzzle, Valdes spoke up.
And then, in the very next instant, his sword changed.
"This is...?"
The knight’s eyes widened in shock.
Until now, his attacks had been nothing but brute force. It was less swordsmanship than violence.
He would draw back, then smash down again with overwhelming force. Repeated horizontal slashes with almost no variation in their starting point. Even though Serenia was taller than he was, Valdes easily drove his blade at her head and shoulder time and again.
But no longer.
A law began to dwell within the wild storm. As if the storm itself had been brought under control, nature was forced into an artificial shape, taking on a different form altogether. Too savage to be called mere swordsmanship, too beautiful to be called violence. She could see the destructive power of magic drawn in the shape of a blade.
The swordsmanship of the man she had once admired and loved.
Bang!
Both hands shook violently from blocking his sword.
So did Serenia’s voice.
"H-Hero...?"
The word escaped her lips before she even realized she had thought it.
And then she saw the smile on her disciple’s face.
"Correct."
The spar ended there.
Valdes told the bewildered woman the same story he had told the princess sisters. But Serenia found it far harder to accept than they had. Not because she had grown old and was afraid of change like some middle-aged woman.
Her head was simply overflowing with shame.
"Uwaaah…."
"You okay?"
He even asked after her with concern when he saw her sink to the floor, hiding her face in both hands. She couldn’t bring herself to lift her head from sheer embarrassment.
"I’m... fine...."
She answered without showing her face.
Unlike the princesses, who had barely any connection to the Hero Pedro, Serenia had spent nearly two years by his side. As part of the Hero’s party, she had shared his days and nights, and there had even been times when they stood back to back and cut down enemies swarming in from all sides.
And yet she had never noticed. That was what made her feel most ashamed.
Of course, Valdes’s acting had been superb, and with the common sense of an ordinary person it was almost impossible to imagine a half-demon body producing such an absurd situation. In truth, it would have been stranger if anyone had noticed. Still, for Serenia—who had once regarded the Hero as her first love and honored him like a master—it was more than enough to burn her with shame.
Not only that, but she had also presumed to play the master for a swordsman who had already reached the pinnacle of human swordsmanship. It was as if a child had lectured an adult about life. Every piece of advice she had ever given him came back to mind one by one, tormenting her.
"...Hero."
"Just call me like you always do. Husband."
At his words, the knight’s body twitched in embarrassment. But that didn’t mean she refused to obey him.
"H-husband...."
"Yeah."
"You must have... had it rough. No, I mean, you must have had it rough...!"
"Huh?"
Serenia lifted her head. Her eyes were already half-damp with tears.
Unlike her head, which was full of shame, her heart was overflowing with regret and guilt for the pain he must have endured.
"I’m sorry. I should have stopped Lady Beatris...."
"Forget it. It’s in the past. Whatever happened, I’ve already forgiven Beth now."
"Even so...."
"Sigh."
Valdes bent his knees and lowered himself to her level. His face came close enough that if she had fallen forward, their lips would have met, and her heart began to pound. He had been this close to her before, during the daytime sparring at the training grounds and the nighttime contests in the bedroom, but every time she saw his face up close, all she could think was how handsome he was.
"That issue has nothing to do with you."
"Really...?"
"Yeah. Beth was the main target, and I did say you were more of a bonus. But the reason I took you was because I liked you."
"T-took me...."
Serenia blushed at an oddly specific part of that sentence.
"I won’t say there wasn’t a political reason too. Still, I swear what I feel for you isn’t just simple lust."
"...."
Not knowing what to say, she only rolled her eyes around helplessly.
"I love you, Serenia."
"Ah… yes, husband…♥"
Valdes kissed the lips of his dazed, blissfully smiling master. It was a short, shallow kiss, but in that fleeting moment the two of them exchanged more than enough feeling. Serenia looked disappointed when it ended, but she didn’t pout or throw herself at him.
"I have a question. Maybe... when did you find out?"
"About what? That you liked me?"
"...Yes."
"Not long ago. I only started getting a sense of it recently. Even then, I wasn’t completely sure."
"Hmm... that somehow makes me feel a little strange."
She honestly had no idea whether she should be happy now, ashamed, or perhaps doing something else entirely.
Seeing her struggle with that confusion, Valdes found her adorable and reached out to pat her head. Naturally, she objected, but that was as far as it went; she neither dodged him nor pushed him away. It was only awkward to be petted at her age, and given her nature, she was actually closer to pleased than anything else.
"Anything else you want to ask?"
"About our master-disciple relationship...."
Of course she would ask about how they were meant to define things from here on out.
"For now, let’s keep it like this in public."
"Yes. It’s not as though I’ll be showing anyone how I teach you, anyway."
"Right. If you’re my master, then people will be less suspicious even if your skill keeps shooting up."
"...Are you planning to show more of your power?"
Even now, he was far from weak for his age.
His swordsmanship rivaled that of the heir to a renowned sword family, and he was younger than her besides. He was still at the age where one should be training hard, not treated as a full battle asset. Any house that didn’t obsess over bloodline would find him an irresistibly attractive talent.
"Yeah. I’m thinking of becoming a knight, but there’s a pretty big event coming up."
"I don’t know what it is, but be careful."
"I will. But even setting aside the fact that I’m Pedro, you’re awfully quiet about the fact that I’m the Demon King’s son."
That was what Valdes had really been worried about. Even Mercedes and Mari had agonized over that part a great deal. It was true that they were royal princesses, but the divide between humans and demons was not something that ordinary love could usually bridge.
"I do have a grudge against demons, but that’s a grudge against enemy soldiers. A lot of people around me died because of them, yes... but I got my revenge for all of it. And the one who helped me do that was the Hero... no, my husband."
"...."
Her voice was soft.
Not the voice of a stern knight commander, nor the voice of a woman relieving her lust.
It was the voice of a woman soothing the man she loved.
"Serenia is... more of a woman than I expected."
"...What does that mean?"
"Just that you’re beautiful."
"Hehe. I already know that."
This time, she was the one who leaned in for a kiss.
As they shared a gentle kiss, Valdes thought once again that taking Serenia for himself had been the right decision. Had this been back when she was in the midst of her blazing prime, perhaps it would have been different, but as things stood now, she was far too good a woman for Viscount Hermeng.
At present, he had already been driven out of the mansion. He was sent away with his few belongings and a small amount of money added on top. Thanks to that, word of their marriage’s collapse swept through society in the blink of an eye. Naturally, public opinion leaned heavily in Serenia’s favor.
Since there was no official marriage registry or anything like that, divorce would be swift if the two of them simply agreed to it. In an ordinary case, it would be more complicated because two houses would be splitting apart, but Serenia’s power was overwhelming, while Viscount Hermeng had nothing at all.
The viscount might have tried to spread rumors about the two of them, but Serenia said she didn’t care. More than the gaze of high society, more than anyone else’s opinion, she would put Valdes first.
And, on top of that, she had a rather naughty thought that this was the perfect chance to stake her claim on Valdes.
But Valdes was not sitting still.
He was already keeping watch over Hermeng through one of the demon spies stationed in the capital. There was no reason to move first, but if the man tried anything foolish, Valdes intended to kill him on the spot.