Namgung Se-ga, the warrior, was reincarnated in Romance

The carriage continued on its way toward the academy without stopping.

The darkness settled heavily on both sides of the open window. The moonlight and starlight brushed the tear-streaked cheeks of the children, their faces lit by the soft glow. When I apologized, the children eagerly apologized as well, each trying to take the blame.

“No, it’s because I said I was struggling…”

“…It’s because of me.”

“I made the wrong judgment.”

Before more sobs could break out, Damien weakly shook his head and smiled.

“No, I made excuses too. Everyone knows it’s nobody’s fault.”

“…But because of me… because I tried to protect you… up front…”

“That was how it had to be at the time.”

Damien cut off Jenny’s words.

“Everything turned out fine, so it’s okay.”

Though Damien didn’t look okay, since he said it was fine, everyone nodded gloomily.

No one wanted to argue with the children, who were already exhausted and dealing with enough.

Damien struggled to walk on his own, so I carried him to his room.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast, when Damien didn’t show up in the dining hall, Shaiden and I gathered some food and headed to his room.

Damien opened the door with a haggard look on his face. His pale complexion made my heart drop.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“No, I’m fine. I just had a strange dream, so I didn’t sleep well.”

“I brought breakfast. Do you want to eat in bed?”

“Mm… yeah, that would be nice.”

Shaiden supported Damien and led him back to his bedroom. I followed behind them with the food tray.

We pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed, offering him juice and a sandwich. Seeing Damien make light of it with a joke, we all chuckled.

“At least it’s not during exam season, right?”

“Is that really something to say?”

“Still, it would be so unfair to have to study while being in pain.”

Damien forced a bright smile and took a big bite of the sandwich. It was clear he was eating with exaggerated enthusiasm to reassure us that he was okay.

I watched him slowly drink the juice that Shaiden had given him, still feeling sorry for him.

I couldn’t shake the thought that there must have been a reason for putting one person from the warrior group in each squad when we were organizing. I could have chased away hundreds of wolves if I had been there.

It was all in the past, and I was grateful that Damien hadn’t lost the use of his leg, but I still couldn’t shake the regret.

Realizing that my gaze kept drifting to Damien’s leg, he smiled and lifted his pajama pants.

His white legs were smooth, like a deer’s.

Just yesterday, he had almost been dragged away by the wolves. There wasn’t even a scar to show for it.

“See, Mikael? I’m really fine.”

“…Yeah.”

It was a relief that we lived in a world with magic.

Had such a wound been inflicted in the Central Plains, he wouldn’t have had such a clean leg. I would have been frantically applying herbal poultices, worrying if it would rot away.

“How’s the phantom pain? Is it still bothering you?”

“Haha… well, I still limp a little. It’s the first time I’ve ever hurt like this, so it still feels a bit warm… That wolf’s head was as big as my torso.”

“…Right.”

“I really thought I was going to die.”

Damien smiled and reached out his hand. I saw it tremble slightly. When I extended my hand, Damien gripped it with both of his, smiling.

“Thanks to you, I’m alive, Mikael. I realized I haven’t thanked you properly.”

Tears welled up in my throat, and I couldn’t answer. I just shook my head and swallowed the words I wanted to say—*no, it’s my fault*.

After finishing the meal, Damien said he wanted to rest, so I took the tray and left the room.

Shaiden and I headed to the library, but my mind was too clouded to concentrate.

I spread out the handouts but did nothing, just staring blankly. Seeing this, Shaiden tried to cheer me up by pulling me to the academy’s cafeteria.

The table was full of sweet foods, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it.

“Who’s going to eat all this?”

“Why are you saying such weak things, Mika?”

“It’s not that I’m complaining…”

“You barely ate breakfast. You can eat all this. I know it.”

Shaiden, acting like he was comforting a child, made me give in and pick up the fork.

As I poked at the sweets, I noticed a familiar presence approaching from afar.

I turned to look at the entrance, where I saw a disoriented Ruber, his necktie loosely hanging as he fiddled with it, making his way toward us.

Our eyes met, and I nodded to him as a greeting. Without hesitation, he walked straight up to me.

“Mikael! Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“Yeah.”

Even though Ruber was also no stranger to danger, his concern was a little too much, and I felt uncomfortable as he scrutinized me carefully.

Before I could say anything, Shaiden quickly spoke up before me.

“Would you like to sit down, Your Highness? I’ve ordered quite a few desserts.”

“…Ah, Rosé Youngsik.”

“Yes, it’s a pleasure to see you too.”

“Uh, well… It’s good to see you. Shall we sit for a while?”

Shaiden pulled a chair from the adjacent table for Ruber, who had been standing awkwardly.

Ruber thanked Shaiden once again and sat down. Shaiden placed an order for a drink on his behalf.

I had no idea when Shaiden had gotten so familiar with Ruber’s preferences.

Ruber, clearly thirsty, quickly drank half of the lemonade. Only then did the boy seem to calm down enough to engage in a proper conversation.

Seeing him come to me like this, it was clear that Ruber must have heard about yesterday’s events. Without bothering with pleasantries, he immediately asked the question on his mind.

“So, what was the problem?”

“…Actually, there wasn’t really a problem.”

“…”

I couldn’t hide my dissatisfaction.

A wild beast had appeared out of nowhere, attacked people, and caused chaos, but there was no problem?

Ruber gave me a quick glance before pushing a plate of cake toward me.

I picked up the fork without hesitation and started eating the dessert.

Ruber continued speaking.

“Recently, there have been more monsters in the Yuye Mountains. However, the Imperial Knights have been working steadily, and Wesley Kiadris is fighting on the front lines, so controlling the monster population hasn’t been a big issue.”

“So, this time…”

“…The wolves weren’t exactly monsters, they were just wild animals, so they ‘partly’ allowed them to flee. There was nothing wrong with the manual.”

He went on to explain that the food chain among forest creatures was delicate, and if one species declined, problems would arise.

If the number of wolves decreased too much, the herbivores they preyed on would overgraze the young shoots in the forest, causing the forest itself to be destroyed. Therefore, not all carnivores were to be killed.

However, recently the number of monsters had increased, and since the Imperial Knights had been active in the upper part of the Yuye Mountains, the aftermath of their battles had caused animals to move downwards, along the mountain ridges.

“Even though the wolves live in packs, the knights have been consistently controlling their numbers and ensuring they don’t venture out of the forest, so for the past hundred years, they haven’t attacked humans. I suppose this time, they didn’t pay much attention to the wolves’ movement.”

“…”

“After the incident, the Empire concluded that the wolves had mixed with dire wolves and regular wolves. Last night, half of the Imperial Knights from the palace were sent to hunt down the unusually large wolves in the Eldos Mountains.”

“Won’t the wolves’ hostility toward humans grow?”

“It’s a process to teach them what happens when they attack humans. The decision to hunt down young humans, instead of herbivores, is likely because the number of wolves has increased. They’ll be controlling it under that pretext.”

I remembered the large wolf I had seen yesterday. Its eerie blue eyes and the long howl, like they were communicating among themselves, came to mind.

They had mixed with monster blood.

The idea of teaching wild beasts something felt strange, but considering that the Empire was so brutal in its education methods, I thought it might be possible.

Though I believed it was the law of Cieran to be lenient with the beasts, I still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.

If I had been just a little later, Damien might not have been alive anymore.

It felt frustrating knowing that things I didn’t know about were already being handled, as if everything had been neatly tied up without me.

The fork in my hand felt still too short.

Because I was young, I knew that the people of the Cieran Empire wouldn’t assign me to solve any major problems, but the anger brewing in my chest wasn’t something that could be easily erased.

When I came to my senses, I realized that Shaiden and Ruber had pushed all the dessert plates toward me. They were looking at me expectantly, so even though I had no appetite, I ate everything.

After I’d eaten my fill, Ruber asked if I wanted to practice water magic to lift my spirits. I agreed.

Shaiden said he’d go off to rest, so I saw him off and then entered the water magic practice hall with Ruber, where we practiced throwing daggers from a low stance.

I could tell Ruber was trying his best to cheer me up, and I laughed a few times at his efforts, but my mind was troubled, and I couldn’t focus.

After having dinner with the kids, I returned to my room.

Once alone, the children’s screams echoed in my ears.

Damien’s collapsed figure overlapped with the faces of my nephews.

A swordsman was always on the lookout for their own death, but there was a certain way to go about it.

Even in the Central Plains, notorious criminals would only target those of their own level.

The young nephews would fight off third-rate bandits, while people like me would cut down first-rate criminals.

But after the Great Demon War broke out, all that was lost, and the dignity of such practices became irrelevant.

The masters of the demonic sect who came down from Xinjiang were no longer concerned with the rank of martial arts— they cut down anyone who stood in their way, treating it as a game.

Everyone was eager to make a name for themselves.

I couldn’t clearly remember which of my nephews had been the first to die—Ajeong or Ahwa. I couldn’t recall clearly.

What came to mind first was their laughing faces.

Lying in bed, I closed my eyes. The warmth of tears hid under my clenched fists.