MTEF 05

Chapter 05

Jeynar, now in a better mood, spoke in a coy tone.

“So then, there’s only a week left until the wedding, is there? It’s really just around the corner now.”

Ronin remained silent. Jeynar—his adoptive mother—looked pleased, but not yet satisfied. Her eyes, as red as her hair, gleamed with vivid malice.

“Do you know anything about Callion Leofric, the man who is to become your husband?”
“I do not know much.”
“Then it seems I, as your mother, must teach you that as well.”

Jeynar, who loved the sound of her own voice, began telling him about Callion Leofric. If one stripped away the malice, it was actually rather useful information.

“It’s a famous rumor that House Leofric is obsessed with war. And among them, they say Callion is the most deranged of all. Apparently he’s so mad for battle that he spends more days on the battlefield than in his own territory. They say he even went off to subjugate monsters during the funeral of the previous Leofric, his own father. Isn’t he exactly the sort of alpha who can’t live without the sight of blood?”

Ronin slowly nodded.

This much was common knowledge among the nobles of the capital, but Ronin, who had been raised like a flower in a greenhouse, had never known it.

Before he manifested as an omega—or rather, before he was expected to—Ronin had been educated solely about the current Emperor, Charles.

What positions he preferred, what qualities in an omega aroused him more than others… things like that.

Now, instead of Charles, Ronin carefully committed information about Callion to memory.

“Seduce Leofric by any means necessary. Make him hold you, make him love you, and bring me his weakness.”

That was what his father had said. Even if, as Jeynar claimed, love was impossible, learning Callion Leofric’s weaknesses would still help.

When Ronin stayed quiet, Jeynar’s mood soured again. Her voice sharpened as she finally got to the point.

“If only you were an omega, you might at least have been able to ease an alpha’s urges…. But unfortunately, you’re a beta, aren’t you?”
“…….”
“So be careful. Try not to get devoured by that black wolf. Your dowry cost quite a fortune, after all. Surely you ought to be worth the price.”

Even at such malicious words, Ronin merely nodded meekly, as he always did.

Callion turned his head and looked toward the pure white building.

The temple stood there as elegant as ever. He stared at it with a complicated expression, and only after a long while did he finally turn away.

‘So he really did manifest as a beta.’

He had spent the past while secretly looking into one thing after another, trying to confirm whether the Alistair he was to marry was truly a beta.

Among all the methods available to him, the temple had been both the surest and the most dangerous choice.

Every trait-bearer had to have their trait verified by the temple. For those with power, it was little more than a formality, but even so, without the temple’s confirmation, one could not receive official recognition.

That was why Callion had taken the risk and gone there.

And just moments ago, the temple had confirmed once more what he already knew.

“Ronin Alistair is unquestionably a beta. The most devout priest examined him, and in the name of the most holy archbishop, his trait was formally confirmed.”

The temple, which claimed to serve the gods, had always maintained strict neutrality in worldly matters. There was no way they would start lying now to take someone’s side.

Lost in thought as he walked, Callion eventually found himself on the central street. The people of the capital were busily carrying on with their lives.

“Buy some flowers! A fresh, full bouquet for only four pennies!”
“Freshly grilled pork skin, glistening with fat, just out of the pan! High-protein, high-nutrition grilled pork skin—come and get some!”

Callion’s gaze swept over them all. Wrinkled faces, sun-darkened forearms. They looked neither as solid and imposing as alphas nor as delicate as omegas.

‘Someone like them came out of Alistair?’

Impossible. Callion remembered that there had been quite a stir when Ronin Alistair was born.

‘They made such a fuss because he was excessively beautiful, apparently. Though I’ve no idea what “excessively beautiful” is supposed to mean.’

He had heard other things as well, from a source he trusted.

‘That he had been intended as a future concubine for the Emperor…. Of course, one does not win a place as the Emperor’s concubine on looks alone, but Charles Ermengarde is a greedy man. He’s always reaching for things beyond his proper measure.’

If anyone else had heard him thinking such things, it would have been grounds for an accusation of insulting the imperial family. But Callion’s expression did not change in the slightest.

Tap, tap.

His fingers drummed against the scabbard at his side. Baldwin, who had been watching him carefully, realized that this was the moment he ought to step in.

“Commander, we should get moving soon.”

Even visiting the temple today had been a strain on their schedule. They could not postpone the rest of their plans any longer.

At Baldwin’s words, Callion emerged from his thoughts.

“Ah… right. We should go. To the Alistair estate.”

On this day, the day before the wedding, Callion Leofric was due to visit the Alistair estate.

It was an imperial custom for the alpha, on the eve of the wedding, to spend the night at the omega’s family home.

After changing carriages several times, Callion and Baldwin headed for the villa in the capital.

After some time spent dressing and preparing there, Callion transformed from the commander of a knight order back into the Duke of Leofric.

He rode in a carriage bearing the black wolf, the symbol of his house, and headed toward the Alistair marquisate.

Inside the carriage, the atmosphere was as tense as if they were heading to a battlefield.

How long had the two of them traveled in silence? At last, the carriage came to a stop.

Just before the carriage door opened, Callion spoke.

“This is more dreadful than walking into a monster’s den.”

Baldwin, understanding the omitted subject, whispered softly,

“Your Grace.”

“I know. I’ll mind my words.”

At last, with a creak, the carriage door opened. Waiting before it was the Marquis of Alistair, who stepped forward.

“Your Grace, welcome to the Alistair marquisate.”

The marquis looked far too young for a man who already had a grown son.

It was not merely his appearance. The very aura the marquis carried was untouched by age. Behind silver spectacles, his blue eyes gleamed like a finely honed blade.

A smooth smile curved his lips as the words of courtesy flowed from them.

“We have known each other for many years, yet I believe this is the first time I have welcomed you to the marquisate. I do apologize.”

At first hearing, his tone was so natural that it might have sounded sincere.

But Callion knew him too well to take those words at face value.

Richard Alistair—the biological father of Ronin Alistair and the man who currently held the real power within House Alistair.

He had the sort of face that invited goodwill, but beneath it, he was darker than any other Alistair.

‘They say he locked away the wife he had shared a bed with for years in a tower, then married her relative instead. Even though the shock drove his wife mad.’

And after that, he had gone and gotten the new wife pregnant as well. Alistair’s hunger for power had made them cast aside even the feelings that any human being ought to possess.

Callion smiled, suppressing the disgust rising instinctively inside him. Whatever else he was, he too was a noble of the empire. Hiding one’s true feelings was something he had been trained in harshly since childhood.

“You flatter me. It is entirely due to my own inadequacy, so I beg you not to trouble yourself over it, Marquis Alistair.”