Bang! The Overprotective Duke's Rampage
Crash—! The solid oak desk in the duke's office let out a horrific scream on the verge of splitting in two.
"Sending my precious little girl to the front lines? The imperial bastards have all lost their minds! I'll lead my troops straight to the palace and chop off every last one of their heads!"
Duke Astrea was frothing at the mouth, rampaging like a wild boar. The head of the continent's mightiest warrior clan—and the empire's most hopeless case of a daughter-con—had begun his meltdown.
"Aigoo, you idiot. Put that sword away, for God's sake! Defying an imperial edict outright is treason. They've got the justification on their side. I'll handle the imperial checks and the paperwork cleanup, so just sit down and breathe."
Standing beside him was the duke's actual brain trust—and my father, Baron Evans—rubbing his nape in exasperation as he tried to calm the man down. In formal settings, he addressed him politely as "Your Grace," but in private like this, they were the spitting image of a "troublemaking little brother" and his "fix-everything big brother."
I stood by the office door, watching the absurd village drama unfold with utterly dry, impassive eyes.
It had just been after breakfast when I'd buttered up that oblivious, stiff-backed imperial messenger with a perfect business smile and politely seen him off. True to my Evans family heir status, I'd extracted the edict without any diplomatic friction—only for the duke, upon hearing the report, to charge around like a pissed-off boar.
As I watched the hulking man huff and puff, swinging his sword before pausing in indignant frustration, a familiar face from my past life naturally overlapped in my mind.
'Just like that over-the-top dad who came sprinting to the staff room after hearing I'd passed out from anemia during PE and gone to the nurse's office—bawling his eyes out, snot and all, convinced his precious girl was in mortal peril.'
He seemed to have completely forgotten that his daughter could turn half the empire to ash in an instant if she felt like it—a walking catastrophe, a strategic nuke in human form.
Here he was, just venting his rage and worry over his "pretty, delicate daughter suffering on those frigid northern cliffs."
A strange sense of déjà vu hit me at the same time.
The rampaging beast of a duke, barreling ahead recklessly. The baron sighing and coaxing him down. The scene eerily mirrored the daily routine between me and Reina.
Was this cursed lord-vassal dynamic just some hereditary family trait?
Fortunately, marking that weepy, overzealous father full-time fell to the veteran who'd reined in the duke for decades—the baron.
A homeroom teacher's job was to sidestep the parents' excessive doting just enough and focus on handling the actual problem child assigned to them.
"While the two of you discuss countermeasures, I'll go ahead and help the young lady prepare for departure."
I seized the moment as the duke slammed the desk again in fury, exchanged a brief glance with my father, and slipped out of the office without a second thought.
Leave the grown-ups' politics to Dad. The real ticking time bomb I needed to leash and soothe right now was out on the training grounds.
---
The Astrea ducal residence's first training hall.
The air hung cold and still, broken only by sharp whooshes slicing through it.
Reina swung her wooden sword, wearing the obsidian-black dragon leather gloves I'd given her as an adult ceremony gift yesterday.
Her strikes today felt somehow stiff and sloppy. To my eagle eye as a ten-year PE vet, it was clear as day: poor form.
"Stop. Hey, what the hell's that stance? You a wooden puppet or something?"
I pointed it out, arms crossed and leaning against the wall. Reina lowered her sword and shuffled over to me hesitantly.
"……Worried it'll get damaged."
She fidgeted with her gloves, as if afraid even a single wrinkle might form, peeking at me nervously.
The gift I'd slipped onto her hands myself on her coming-of-age day. She refused to take them off even for a second and had worn them out here—but now she was trembling, holding back her strength for fear of scuffing the leather.
That blind possessiveness refusing to remove the gift touched by my body heat for even an instant. That foolish attachment fretting over wear and tear.
Like a kid in new shoes, mincing along to avoid any dirt. Seeing the world's strongest being reduced to that blind, pathetic state, I couldn't help but let out an incredulous chuckle laced with a sigh.
"You think dragon leather rips that easily? Hell, if you're that worried about scratches, just take 'em off for training."
"……No."
"I gave you those so you don't hurt me in daily life. What if you fumble around with 'em on in a real fight and get yourself injured?"
Her purple eyes widened at my scolding. I lightly tapped her gloved hand and laid down our new private rule.
"Listen up. From now on, when real combat starts, take off the gloves and hand 'em to me."
"……Hand 'em over?"
"Yeah. I'll hold onto them, so go wild and sweep everything away. When it's over and you come back, I'll put them back on for you."
Her violet eyes flickered wildly for a moment. "Handing over the gloves" meant unleashing her leash with my permission. "I'll put them back on" was the perfect reward—a beast returning to its master's embrace for rest after the hunt.
She couldn't possibly miss the meaning of this secret, violent ritual.
"……Yeah!"
The corners of her mouth curved up happily. Her stiff shoulders visibly relaxed.
"Good answer. Now come here. Fix that garbage form from earlier. I didn't say take 'em off for training."
I circled behind her and gripped her hands together. Purely instructional, dry and firm—no ulterior motives.
Just like correcting a high school girl's clumsy bat swing at the intramural sports festival in my past life.
"Relax your shoulders. Lower the angle."
"……Like this?"
"No, snap the wrist more."
Her back pressed against my chest. She was an adult at eighteen now, but in my arms, Reina still felt small and fragile.
But every time I recalled the continent-crushing energy coiled inside that slender frame, a chill ran down my spine.
Suddenly, her shoulders tensed visibly. Through our overlapped hands, her steady breathing began to quiver faintly.
"Focus. We're heading to the front lines in a few days. If you screw up here, my neck's on the line too—forgot that?"
"……Yeah. Didn't forget."
She nodded obediently at my stern reprimand. Her white nape peeking through silver strands seemed flushed hot, but I dismissed it as training exertion and gripped her wrist firmer to steady it.
I had no idea then what thrill this "sensation of control" gave her. How the casual touch of a master tightening a hunting dog's leash sent shivers of intense excitement through her.
Or that to this beast following only its master's fingertips, the "glove ritual" I'd just declared was the sweetest, most perfect restraint in the world.
---
A few days later.
The entourage departing the ducal residence for the north had been whittled down to the bare minimum after I relentlessly persuaded Reina.
She'd stubbornly insisted on just the two of us at first; I'd barely talked her out of it. Heading to the empire's northernmost hellhole without a coachman or servants? My nape already ached at the thought.
It wouldn't have been a subjugation—it'd be a damn elopement.
But the cramped carriage interior was an unavoidable trap.
The opposite seat was wide open, but Reina plopped right next to me, pressing her hip flush against mine.
Every jolt over gravel sent her slender shoulder bumping mine through thin fabric.
The sealed space, our body heat so close. Her cool lavender scent mixed with faint leather filled the air with every breath, leaving me oddly dizzy.
"……Motion sick."
She whined, then without asking, dropped her head onto my thigh.
"Ugh."
The sudden, defenseless contact made my thigh stiffen; I sucked in a shallow breath.
Mentally a late-forties battle-hardened teacher combining past and present lives, but this body was a hot-blooded seventeen-year-old boy's. A full-grown virgin—no, a breathtakingly stunning beauty—pillowing her head on my lap without permission? The instinctive twitch was pure physiology.
"Hey, what the—suddenly……."
"……For real. Feverish. Feel."
A guy who could chew up the whole carriage and spit it out, carsick? As I opened my mouth to tell her to get up, her cheek nuzzling my thigh and that pitiful whimper sounded genuinely forlorn.
Glancing out the window, we'd been bouncing through rugged mountains for a while.
Once my rational mind overrode base instinct, even knowing it was an obvious lie, a strange pang of sympathy and worry welled up.
Fair enough—she'd been hounded all day; she must be exhausted. I eased the hand I'd raised to push her away and let out a deep sigh.
Fine, just this once.
The rhythmic carriage sway. The rumble of wheels. The quiet interior.
Was it my past-life occupational hazard kicking in, or a decade of habits from handling this troublemaker? Without thinking, I reached out and began stroking her silver hair on my thigh.
Strands slipped silkily between my fingers. Drawn in by the pleasant softness, I petted her absentmindedly, affectionately—like fussing over a well-trained pup, no tension involved.
"……Hmhmhm~."
The instant my hand touched, she hummed contentedly. Like a cat, she burrowed deeper into my thigh, rubbing against it.
Her gloved hand clutched my knee tight, breathing heavily like a beast wishing to etch this warmth into eternity.
But the fragile peace of casually stroking her soft locks didn't last.
"Hnn."
Her hot, excited breath hit the inner thigh through my thin pants, and I nearly gasped.
Separate from my ironclad veteran teacher rationality, this youthful, virile teenage body was betraying me, on the verge of erupting.
My mind clocked this as "annoying kid on a school trip bus," but the fresh flesh recognized the lap-warmer as a "gorgeously suffocating beauty" and reacted fiercely.
'Shit. No—this is a real crisis.'
If I didn't separate from this dangerous, beautiful monster now, I'd lose my last shred of educator dignity in an irreversible disaster.
I swallowed a forced cough, slapping my stiffening body into the strictest, driest "homeroom teacher mode."
"A-al... alright now. Get up. Sit over there. Seat's too small."
I nudged her silver hair off my thigh and issued a firm eviction notice.
"……Tch."
At my deliberately stern tone, she pouted visibly with regret, grumbling as she sat up. Her sulky retreat to the opposite seat looked just like a pup robbed of its snack.
But even seated, she stared at me fixedly, gloved fingers delicately fussing with the hair I'd just stroked—like trying to trap my warmth inside those gloves.
At that obsessive gesture, I suppressed a shiver and turned back to the map.
My veteran teacher's gut screamed a warning. This girl had evolved way more cunningly and dangerously than I'd thought.
---
The rugged mountains darkened swiftly at sunset. I called a halt and ordered camp.
Thick forest shadows blanketed everything, but I picked a gently sloping hill—open sightlines all around, flat enough for the carriage, low ambush risk.
My ten-year habit of obsessively scouting safe spots for kids' safety held firm even in this world.
As the escorts set vigilant perimeters with practiced skill, a crackling bonfire spat orange flames in the center.
Bathed in its glow, I pored over the terrain map and the gold-embossed edict I'd snagged from the messenger.
The more I read, the more absurd it seemed—a chuckle escaped me, closer to laughter than anger.
"The imperials really racked their brains on this. Straight-up herding us to a deathtrap."
The route led through northern cliffs with zero supply lines, swarming with high-risk monster packs. The imperials, lacking confidence against Reina this "off-spec" strategic nuke, had brazenly plotted mutual destruction with the beasts on paper.
But to me, it was just ignorant fools flailing, clueless to this mad beast's true caliber.
Like tossing a gas can into a fire and hoping it goes out.
Their trap wouldn't kill Reina—it'd just pour oil on her pent-up slaughter instinct.
And I'd be the one cleaning up the mess, wiping the blood, yanking the leash tight.
'Feels like summer cram school with the delinquents.'
The homeroom teacher's fated fatigue washed over me—preventing student mishaps preemptively.
Even mopping up after these clueless imperials? The hassle chilled me deeper than the northern gale.
"Hey, Reina. The imperials are shoving us into a hellhole, and you're just gonna spectate?"
At my question, she looked up slowly from poking the fire.
Bonfire light gleamed in her purple eyes—eerie, beautiful, ice-cold.
She replied coolly, indifferently, as if terrain, imperial plots, or national welfare meant nothing to her.
"Doesn't matter. As long as Cadel's by my side."
"Must be nice, living just to stare at my face 24/7?"
My jab curved her lips happily. Her gloved foot slyly pinned my shoe—like binding my ankle to prevent escape.
"Yeah. If they get in the way, I can wipe the empire off the map tonight."
"Don't erase any maps, problem child. No environmental damage, remember."
I cut off the nonsense, flicked her forehead lightly, and pulled my foot free.
"……Ow. Tch!"
Clutching her forehead, she glared with puffed cheeks, flushed orange by the firelight.
I ignored that fraudulent beauty and the madness lurking within, snapping the terrain map shut irritably.
The imperials' shallow monster trap was irrelevant.
The real, survival-level issue for me was enduring this beautiful, blind monster's obsession—clinging to my sleeve, refusing to let go—in the biting northern cold.
I'd thought I had the hunting dog's leash gripped tight. But a chill premonition whispered that the other end might be eternally bound to my wrist, riding the night wind.