Why the Hell Is That Bitch Popping Up Here?
Anyone who longs for fantasy will fall for the North at least once. A snow kingdom where the entire world is draped in pure white. Bone-chilling cold. Monsters grown massive and savage to survive that frost. And the proud knights standing at the front line, holding the horde back.
Of course, actually living that story isn’t the least bit romantic.
Looks like I’m gonna freeze my ass off chasing romance.
I woke up in a fantasy world I’d never seen before. Naturally, it had to be the North. The most cliché plot imaginable.
“Edrick! Your strength is still lacking! You think a half-assed swing like that can crack a monster’s skull?!”
“This is straight-up child abuse!”
The first day after my possession, I was dragged out at dawn, shivering, practicing downward strikes with a wooden sword. I genuinely wondered if the original owner of this body had been insane.
But after a few days, once I got a grip on the situation, I realized this was actually a pretty decent start for a reincarnator.
Even if I’m a bastard, I’m still a member of the Northern Grand Duke’s family. This is basically a jackpot.
People usually assume bastards get treated like trash, right? Not in the North. Not even close.
“Remember this well. The blood you shed while stacking monster corpses is far nobler than any blood that simply flows through your veins.”
Those were the words my father, Grand Duke Bernhardt von Heiden, repeated like a mantra. And he lived by them. Whenever monsters appeared, he always charged to the very front without hesitation, carving through them like a storm.
Yeah, I take back everything I said about no romance. If this isn’t romance, what the hell is?
It’s like the military. The units that actually see combat tend to be less full of bullshit than the safe, cushy ones. The North was exactly like that. Legitimate son or bastard? Those labels didn’t matter.
What mattered was whether you carried the blood of the Heiden family—the Ice Wall of the North—and whether you had the balls to stand against the monsters.
Besides, from the perspective of a former modern Korean guy, climbing to a position like Grand Duke just sounded like a massive pain in the ass. Still, if I’m going to travel around this fantasy world someday, being a bastard is way more convenient.
That thought came naturally after watching my father, Bernhardt von Heiden.
His days were brutally packed. He rose at five every morning to train with the sword he’d practiced his entire life. After breakfast, he sat at his desk from eight o’clock onward, wrestling with paperwork. And it was never glamorous work.
“Your Grace, the barley reserves in the third warehouse have reached a critical level. It’s the aftermath of the supply wagons being attacked by snowmen during the last blizzard.”
“How much is left?”
“Roughly two weeks’ worth for adult males. At this rate, we’ll run out of food to distribute to the citizens before the next supply run.”
“What about the request for emergency funds sent to the capital?”
“No reply whatsoever. The imperial family claims blizzards are an annual occurrence in the North and is instead pressing us to hasten the tribute deadline.”
Without a flicker of emotion, my father issued his orders as if sentimentality were a luxury he couldn’t afford.
“Suspend all scheduled repairs to the Grand Duke’s Castle until next spring. Redirect the entire budget to purchasing grain from the nearby free cities. If it’s still not enough, open my personal vault.”
“But then Your Grace’s living expenses for next year…”
“The North won’t collapse if I go hungry. But if the soldiers starve, the walls will fall. Dismissed.”
By afternoon, he would toss aside his pen and head to the training grounds for real combat sparring with the knights of the duchy.
“Your Grace, here I come!”
Knight Commander Karl charged with his greatsword held at an angle. Metal clashed against metal, scattering sparks as the piled snow on the ground exploded outward from the shockwave.
Karl’s blade came down heavily toward my father’s shoulder. Instead of dodging, Father met it head-on, then slid along the sword like a ghost and closed the distance.
Clang!
With a deafening metallic ring, Karl’s greatsword bounced backward. Father didn’t miss the opening. He swept Karl’s legs out from under him with a kick, then pressed his own blade to the knight’s throat.
“Your sword tip is trembling. Did your fingers freeze in the cold? In a real battle, your neck would already be a monster’s snack.”
“…As expected of the man called the Ice Wall of the North.”
Leaving the panting knights behind, Father threw on his coat without even wiping away his sweat. Next came handling citizen petitions and inspecting the border wall.
Outside the gates, a line of territory residents who had lost livestock to monsters waited.
“Your Grace, my two precious cows… my farming for this year is finished.”
“Where did they die?”
“Near the western forest.”
“That area was declared a danger zone. Since you ignored the warning, I’ll only compensate you for half the value. In exchange, the remaining meat will be confiscated for military supplies.”
It might sound cold, but this was the North’s brand of fairness. Both the Grand Duke and the citizens knew that handing out charity based on emotion would only bankrupt the entire territory.
Only when the sun began to set did Father finally stand atop the border wall. A massive ice wall dozens of meters high. He ran his hand over the lime mortar filling every crack, then pointed toward the snowy plains beyond.
“Edrick, burn this sight into your memory. The darkness beyond does not swallow us because we are noble. It is because we fill these cracks every single day and keep our blades razor-sharp.”
The freezing wind stung my cheeks like knives. Even dinner was a waste of time to him. Standing on the wall, Father chewed on bread that had frozen solid and began reading the night patrol report his secretary had brought.
That day, I truly understood. The authority of a Grand Duke didn’t come from a fancy crown. It came from the calluses on his palms and the endless stack of ledgers he battled every day.
There’s no way in hell I could live like that.
I still didn’t know which fantasy novel I’d fallen into, but one thing was clear: this was an brutally low-power world. There was only one thing that bothered me.
“Karl. Where’s my brother? I haven’t seen him around.”
“Sir Cedric has taken command of the Ice Troll subjugation force and departed on campaign.”
“That bastard’s too pretty for this frozen wasteland.”
That was my first impression upon seeing Cedric von Heiden, the legitimate heir five years my senior. The man who would one day inherit the position of Northern Grand Duke and suffer in my place.
He’s the legitimate son? Just looking at him, I look more like the heir and he looks like the bastard.
My father, Bernhardt von Heiden, was a man whose entire body screamed I am the Northern Grand Duke. Nearly two meters tall, with a chest and arms thick enough to remind you of trolls or orcs.
His face was almost entirely covered by a wild beard that made him look more like a bandit than a noble. Even his hair and beard were pure white, a trait of the Heiden bloodline, giving him an overwhelming charisma.
Yet my older brother and the legitimate son, Cedric von Heiden, shared none of those features.
At the annual social gatherings held between Northern noble families, the young ladies would often whisper things like this:
“I visited the capital’s social scene recently, and even there it was hard to find anyone as handsome as Sir Cedric.”
“Truly. He possesses a refinement that can’t even be compared to those rugged Northern knights.”
To put it bluntly, Cedric was beautiful. He had the tall stature of the Grand Duke’s bloodline, jet-black hair, skin like white jade, and features that looked like they’d been sculpted by a master artist.
Once, out of curiosity, I asked Knight Commander Karl.
“Hey, Karl. Was my father also a pretty boy when he was young like my brother?”
“Lord Bernhardt? Hahaha! Even as flattery, no one could call him handsome.”
When I later found a portrait of my father from his youth, it confirmed it. He was a robust, good-looking man, but definitely not a pretty boy.
“Compared to Lord Bernhardt in his younger days, you, Lord Edrick, will grow into quite the handsome man. Hahaha. Ah, but this must remain a secret from Lord Bernhardt.”
“Really? So will I end up as good-looking as Cedric?”
Karl shook his head as if that was the most ridiculous question he’d ever heard and answered firmly.
“That would be rather difficult.”
“Did you have to say it like that?!”
“It cannot be helped. It is what they call ‘throwback genetics.’”
“Throwback? What about my brother’s maternal family?”
“Unlike your mother, who was from the North, Sir Cedric’s mother came from the Eckart family, a noble house of the capital.”
“So he got the pretty-boy blood from his mother’s side.”
“Hahaha! In any case, Lord Bernhardt must be proud. He has both Sir Cedric—the greatest beauty and warrior in the North—and you, Lord Edrick, who inherited his blood thickly. Together, you two will protect the North.”
Well, it wasn’t impossible for one kid to pop out looking like his mother’s side of the family. In reality, Cedric didn’t seem to care about his pretty-boy looks at all. He quietly devoted himself to the studies required to become Grand Duke.
It stings a bit that he’s so handsome, but at least he’ll do all the hard work in my place.
Life in the North was always a desperate struggle for survival, but things were slowly improving. At least until I turned eighteen.
“Your Grace!!”
“If His Grace is gone… sob…”
“Do not show such disgraceful behavior… With this, you have saved the lives of many citizens…”
That winter, the most powerful monsters in the North—the Frost Giants—attacked the Grand Duchy in a horde. As always, Father bravely led from the front, slaughtering the giants, until he crossed a river from which there was no return.
“Cedric, Edrick. Remember this well. The Heiden family has existed upon the blood and sweat of countless citizens. At any moment, you must place the peace of the North above your own lives.”
“…Understood, Father.”
And just like that, at twenty-three years old, Cedric ascended to the position of Northern Grand Duke in his father’s place. Up to that point, it was simply another page in the North’s harsh history.
But then…
“I will visit the capital. While I am gone, guard the North well.”
“Understood, Your Grace.”
“Edrick. I’m counting on you.”
“Leave it to me, brother.”
To announce our father’s death, Cedric headed to the capital. And he didn’t return for over three months.
“Lord Edrick. Has His Grace sent any other messages?”
“None. What the hell is that guy doing that he can’t even send a single letter?”
At first, the backlog of work that couldn’t be handled without the Grand Duke began pouring onto me, the acting Grand Duke.
I thought being a bastard would spare me from the worst of the suffering, but what the hell is this lightning bolt from the blue?!
Even while cursing under my breath, I somehow managed to plow through the endless pile of Grand Ducal duties every day. There was only one reason.
Because I had watched from the side as my father—romance personified—fought his entire life for the peace of the North, only to die.
And because the noble blood flowing through my veins had struck my heart so deeply that I was willing to die from an overdose of romance if that was what it took.
I realized something had gone horribly, catastrophically wrong on the day my brother finally returned from the capital.
“Is this the place? Aah, a land completely covered in snow. How beautiful. How romantic, Sir Cedric.”
Standing beside Cedric as he returned to the Grand Duchy was a woman I knew far too well.
No, what the fuck? Why the hell is that bitch popping up here??
The romance fantasy novel my little sister in my previous life had read ten times and tried to evangelize to me. The heroine of that very story—Miliela—was standing right there.