Age Difference Doesn't Matter in Our Relationship
Age Difference Doesn't Matter in Our Relationship
Not Asilia.
My master and I headed back to where the others were.
Thud. Thud.
Our footsteps echoed through the cave.
Her teaching came back to me. Don't just stare straight ahead—pay attention to your surroundings, she'd said.
I was curious.
What was running through her mind?
The woman who normally seized every chance to smother me with maternal affection was different now. Her brow was weighed down with concern.
"Is something troubling you?"
"Mm."
So she can be serious when the moment calls for it.
Until now, she'd always seemed like someone's young, pretty, approachable mom.
But with her mouth set in silence, lost in thought... she radiated the presence of a true master. The kind that made you understand exactly why she was called the Snowblade Swordmaster.
'I apologize for doubting you.'
Just as I was reflecting on my disrespect, she spoke.
"I've been agonizing over what I ought to teach my disciple first... eep."
Thunk.
The sound of forehead meeting stone.
Apparently, she'd walked straight into a stalactite hanging upside-down. Tears welling up, my master rubbed her forehead.
"I was trying to look cool in front of my disciple, honestly...!"
Right. She does have her scatterbrained moments.
Times like this, you really had to wonder if she was truly the Snowblade Swordmaster...
Suddenly, Asilia thrust her face toward mine.
"Disciple. Your master is actually a very impressive person, you know? You shouldn't doubt me, alright?"
"Of course."
My gaze kept drifting to her reddened forehead.
"... Disciple. You were doubting me just now."
"I wasn't."
"Your eyes clearly said, 'This person is the Snowblade Swordmaster?' Be honest."
"......"
Sharp as ever.
A sudden crisis had befallen our master-disciple bond.
Rolling my eyes, I fished for a plausible excuse.
"The stalactite must be the greatest under heaven."
My master's cheeks instantly puffed up. As I soothed her and dispelled the heavy mood, we soon arrived where the others were waiting.
"—The legal wife is me!"
Danya stood facing Rina, shouting some kind of declaration.
"Legal wife?"
At my echo, Danya's head creaked around. Her eyes went perfectly round, then she jumped.
"Ian? W-when did you get here?!"
My eyes landed on the book in her hands.
[The Ducal Lady Wears a Collar Every Night]
"I-Ian? L-look, this is..."
She frantically hid the book behind her back. Her face was absolutely scarlet.
I had a rough idea of what was going on.
'Looks like they were doing some acting.'
Watching plays was a fairly mainstream hobby in the Empire. A lot of people playfully reenacted scenes from novels like that, as if putting on a performance.
Anyway, a lady who wears a collar...
Now that I thought about it, plenty of beastfolk had a thing for wearing collars, didn't they? Not being species-discriminatory—that was genuinely the case.
'Sure enough, you notice a lot more when you actually pay attention to your surroundings.'
I supposed this counted as part of my master's teachings.
Nodding to myself, I quietly patted Danya's shoulder.
"I respect all preferences."
Pshoo...
Danya sank. As she melted into a completely wrecked puddle, our strategic ally entered the fray.
Smile.
Wearing a radiant, approachable grin, Rina spoke.
"You two seem to get along very well."
"Ah."
"Well."
Asilia and I were visibly flustered. Watching us, Danya revived.
"Yeah! W-what exactly is your relationship?! Explain yourselves!"
Her ears stood straight up. Her tail curled. Eyes narrowed to slits, Danya leveled suspicion at us, as though she'd already made up her mind about something.
But I was more worried about my master.
"Hmm..."
She touched a finger to her lips, deliberating. Why exactly did she need to draw this out? My unease was, naturally, not unfounded.
"I suppose you could say we're in a relationship where we've promised each other our futures?"
"F-futures?"
"I'm older, so I've walked the road ahead. I can fill in this child's weak points. And Ian..."
Asilia looked at me and smiled softly.
"...I'd simply like it if he accepted me as I am."
Silence stretched.
"Uh. Uweh..."
Danya made a pained noise. She pressed on.
"H-have you two even made a marriage vow...?!"
The deepest imaginings of male-female relationships in Danya's mind apparently stopped at marriage. At her question, Asilia's face turned red.
"Oh, dear me. I'm getting carried away at my age..."
At this point, I felt the need to clear things up.
"Hold on, Danya. I think you're misunderstanding something. We're not in that kind of—"
"'We'? You're already calling each other 'we'?!"
... This is insane.
The more I talked, the deeper the misunderstanding grew. I gave up on speaking.
"But there's a huge age gap between you two..."
"Well, our Ian was rather aggressively seductive."
"When did I ever...!"
"I-I won't accept this relationship!"
"Don't be like that, Danya. I may be older, but that means I can teach him so many things."
"Huh?"
"Rich, deep experiences that young people could never show him."
My head was spinning. Was my master actually enjoying this?
Right as the thought crossed my mind—
"Asilia. You have terrible taste in hobbies. Stop teasing them."
Yergina's voice came from behind us.
◆
I turned. Yergina was walking in.
Securing the weapon she'd been holding back onto her thigh, she continued.
"Even when I was young, Asilia would often tease me like that."
"Oh my. You remember that?"
"A few things came back to me as I walked."
But her manner of speaking hadn't changed a bit. Dignified, as befitted the next Grand Duke of the North.
Yergina swept her gaze over us and spoke.
"So, I see you two have formed a master-disciple bond."
... How did she know that? My questioning look prompted Yergina to point at my collar.
"There's a snow blossom drawn on your collar."
I looked down at my clothes.
'When did she put this there?'
Just as Yergina said, a flower-shaped snow blossom had been embroidered on. When exactly had my master sewn that on? Her movements were frequently impossible to track.
"You're as observant as ever, Lady Yergina."
"Do you call that observant? Anyone would notice. It practically screams 'this one's mine.'"
"Oh my. You too, Yergina? Did you also sense this child's talent?"
"It was enough to make me consider teaching him a few things."
"Hmm. And what sort of things were you thinking of teaching him?"
Why were these two suddenly at odds? The friction between two masters made my skin prickle.
"If you want to see genuine growth in skill, there's no place like the battlefield. The border skirmishes with the barbarians have been fierce lately. I was thinking of taking him along for a few months."
I exhaled inwardly.
'That was a close call.'
She'd be even worse than an actual university professor. Thank goodness I took Asilia as my master.
Scratching the back of her head, Yergina was the first to retreat.
"... Well, even if I hadn't made the mace my primary weapon, I would've sought your teaching, Snowblade Swordmaster. I've no regrets."
"Oh my. How kind."
"I mean it."
Shrugging, Yergina stood among the group.
"More importantly, I discovered a few things while looking around outside."
"You discovered something?"
At my question, Yergina nodded.
"I went out for some exercise and climbed the cliff this cave is situated in."
What did she just say?
Exercise... climbing a blizzard-swept cliff?
I decided to just accept what she said rather than gawk.
"Once I'd climbed high enough to survey the surroundings, I spotted it. There appears to be an enormous formation laid out with this cave at its center."
"A formation?"
"Yes. Something like that barrier at the cave's entrance encircles the entire snowy plain. Corpses were piled up near the vicinity. I don't know its purpose, but the formation clearly carries some form of intent."
Yergina's expression turned grave.
I glanced toward my master. Her expression was utterly unchanged as she focused on Yergina's words.
"We'll examine that step by step."
Yergina continued.
"The second matter concerns our method of escape. Ian."
"Yes."
"You said this place is Lihart's dantian."
"Correct."
"In that case, there should be a connection point to the outside somewhere on this snowy plain. A dantian, after all, must allow energy to flow in and out."
I nodded. It was a reasonable deduction.
"I had a feeling it might be connected to this cave. This space has many peculiar points. There's none of the biting cold you'd expect—instead, there's a hot spring to warm your body. It appears small at first glance, but the structure is complex, with many deep recesses. A proper exploration seems warranted."
I shut my mouth.
Not because I disagreed. Far from it. Her words carried genuine insight. She might not be on my master's level, but Yergina was one of the North's finest warriors.
But.
That was precisely why a different question arose.
Had my master truly been unaware of these things?
What was her reason for settling here? And if she knew, had she simply not found a way out? Every doubt traced back to her.
Quietly, I looked back at my master. Asilia looked back at her disciple. Our eyes sank deep into each other.
Asilia's lips parted.
"I know the way out. However..."
She didn't finish her sentence. But I could hear the words she'd swallowed. Not everyone would be able to leave this place.