Chapter 35

He remembered the exact moment his interest in Lino Cliff had ignited. It had been a short while ago, upon discovering the knight sprawled out in the library, sleeping with infuriating peacefulness.

On paper, he had hired two escort knights. One was behaving like a desperate whore dying to spread his legs, to the point where merely catching a glimpse of him from afar induced a spike of profound irritation. The other knight, however, barely showed his face beyond brief morning and evening appearances, remaining so thoroughly cloistered somewhere within the estate that Grondil had genuinely forgotten he had even hired someone named Lino Cliff.

His body had felt incredibly stiff that particular day. Had he been in his own Principality, he could have simply remained in his true form and bypassed the discomfort entirely. However, stranded in a society composed exclusively of humans, doing so would invariably spawn a cascade of tedious complications. Thus, he had been forced to endure the suffocating constraint of his human guise.

Yet, even with that pragmatic compromise, his tolerance had limits. He didn’t even want to calculate how many years he had wasted on this ridiculous errand for the Emperor of the Cartia Empire.

‘It would be wonderfully convenient if I just killed him,’ Grondil often mused.

While he generally harbored substantial grievances against the Cartian Emperor, his irritation that day had been exceptionally severe. Because the Cartia Empire served as a critical buffer, filtering the humans attempting to infiltrate his Principality, Grondil had tolerated a mountain of unreasonable demands from the man.

And this latest demand was arguably the most egregious yet.

‘This truly is my final request,’ the Emperor had sworn. The man had an irritating habit of affixing the words ‘truly’ and ‘final’ to every single plea. The adage that a ruler’s word was heavier than gold emphatically did not apply to the Emperor of Cartia.

‘It is deeply humiliating to reveal my shame to another, but despite being wed to the Empress for five years, we have yet to conceive. The atmosphere in the parliament is growing toxic.’

‘I absolutely refuse to bear the horrific stigma of divorce. The Empress and I… we are destined souls who have navigated a path of thorns together. We cannot be torn apart simply because we cannot conceive.’

‘I will never abandon my Empress.’

‘Therefore, favored of the gods, I implore you. Please find the Letia.’

To the casual listener, it was a sweeping, tragic romance: an Emperor deeply in love with his wife, facing an unwanted divorce due to a lack of an heir, desperately seeking the ‘Letia’ to save his marriage. However, even a moment of critical thought revealed the plea to be utter nonsense.

Grondil had deciphered the truth the exact moment the Emperor uttered the word ‘Letia’.

The infertility lay not with the Empress, but with the Emperor himself. In the ancient tongue, ‘Letia’ referred to a male capable of bearing children.

The Emperor would never, under any circumstances, allow his own impotence to become public knowledge. Therefore, the inevitable barrage of political stones would almost entirely target the Empress. The dramatic drivel about ‘navigating a path of thorns’ was merely a calculated performance designed to exploit Grondil’s nonexistent sympathies.

‘Not that I need to care about any of that,’ Grondil concluded.

Regardless, he had spent the last several years scouring every corner of the Terne Continent for the Letia. Given that the target left virtually no clues or physical traces, he had embarked on the mission with absolute zero expectation of success.

Grondil fully intended to draw the line here; even if he failed to locate the Letia, this would be the final favor. He still had to maintain the charade of searching, of course. He had even scripted his final farewell: I suffered through a few years of this and found nothing; look for it yourself; I hope we never have to see each other’s faces again.

Time had dragged on, leading him finally to the Zetina Kingdom, the designated terminus of his Letia hunt. Perhaps because he viewed this as the final stretch, Grondil’s patience and self-control were fraying dangerously close to the breaking point. His judgment had grown uncharacteristically clouded, nearly allowing him to stumble into Yuneria’s deceitful trap.

Concluding that his prolonged confinement within a human vessel was dulling his senses, Grondil felt an overwhelming urge to seek out a secluded corner of the estate where he could revert to his true form, even if only briefly.

His chosen sanctuary was the estate’s grand library.

That day, he had mercilessly swatted away Yuneria’s persistent attempts to drag him outside. Surely he was entitled to a single day of rest. While he was physically fine, enduring the constant presence of Yuneria—whose malicious schemes were transparently obvious—triggered violent, spontaneous urges to grab the youth by the collar and hurl him into the horizon. It was mentally exhausting.

Where is the most desolate place in this entire estate?

Rolling his stiff, aching shoulders, he had taken long, purposeful strides toward the library. While he now knew that Lino practically lived in the archives, at the time, he had let the reports go in one ear and out the other. He naturally assumed the room was deserted. Enoch had trailed behind him, warning that the library might be occupied, but Grondil had ignored him. The prospect of finally shedding his disguise in an empty room drove him forward, his pace quickening. It was a miracle he hadn’t broken into a dead sprint.

Nevertheless, he retained enough presence of mind to check for presences before throwing open the doors. Sweeping the area hastily, his rushed senses detected nothing. He pushed open the heavy double doors and initiated the transformation the moment he stepped inside. As his physical form rapidly expanded and contorted back into its true shape, the suffocating, invisible pressure that had bound him vanished like a mirage.

“Your Highness, Sir Cliff is in the library!”

Enoch, having scrambled after him, made a desperate grab for Grondil, but he was far too late. Grondil had already fully transformed. Returned to his original body, he felt his muted senses sharpen to an agonizing degree.

“Hm?”

A presence that had eluded him while standing before the doors suddenly registered with faint clarity now that he was in his true form.

“Sounds like breathing.”

Grondil twitched his large, rounded ears, zeroing in on the faint sound. The slow, impossibly deep rhythm of an inhale and exhale pierced his auditory canals with increasing clarity.

“It is likely Sir Cliff.”

“…Cliff?”

Grondil searched his memory for a ‘Cliff’. He recognized the name but couldn’t immediately conjure a face, leading him to assume it was one of the estate’s staff.

But why ‘Sir’? Did they hire a noble as a servant? He had explicitly ordered them to only hire commoners, precisely because dealing with nobility was a massive headache.

“Sir Lino Cliff, Your Highness.”

At Enoch’s clarification, the image of the timid, socially awkward youth he had hired alongside Yuneria finally surfaced. Only then did he recall the forgotten detail that his escort knight was a frequent denizen of the library.

“Please revert to your human form immediately.”

“Hmm… I don’t believe that’s necessary.”

“Even if it is suffocating, it is far better than being discovered and causing an uproar—”

“There will be no uproar. He’s fast asleep.”

And asleep deeply, at that. He looked as though he wouldn’t wake even if vigorously shaken. Grondil pointed a long, thick tail toward the reading lounge. Following the gesture, Enoch spotted Lino slumped over a book, dead to the world.

As Grondil noted, Lino was submerged in profound unconsciousness. His breathing was so shallow and slow he could easily be mistaken for a corpse—albeit an unusually rosy-cheeked one.

“I can’t tell if I hired an escort knight or a professional vagrant,” Grondil muttered softly as he approached the sleeping figure.

Despite his colossal mass, he prowled around the mattress without generating a single decibel of noise. He swept his tail directly over Lino’s face, a test to ensure the knight wasn’t merely feigning sleep. Initially swaying in a gentle arc, the tail gradually accelerated when Lino failed to react. By the end, it was slashing through the air with a menacing whoosh, yet Lino didn’t so much as twitch.

“Enoch. Is the boy ill?”

“His medical evaluation indicates he is in perfect health.”

“He hasn’t ingested sleeping pills?”

Enoch hesitated, a low hum of thought escaping him. Something clearly bothered him. “He has been exercising extreme caution recently, so it is highly unlikely to be sedatives. I believe it is merely a daytime nap.”

“…Recently?” Grondil’s thick brow furrowed. Enoch’s phrasing heavily implied that previously, the boy hadn’t been cautious and might have ingested something suspect.

“Are you not aware, Your Highness?”

“Aware of what?”

“That Sir Disson has been relentlessly harassing Sir Cliff.”

“Ah. I did think that rat-faced bastard behaved exactly like a rat. Was he slipping drugs into the boy’s food?”

Despite the lowered volume, the proximity of the two conversing men seemed to finally register. A crease appeared between Lino’s brows, bringing the conversation to a temporary halt, though he showed no actual signs of waking.

His breathing remained long and deep. Grondil leaned in, his blue-grey eyes gleaming as he practically pressed his face against Lino’s. Just before his damp, black nose could brush against the tip of Lino’s rounded nose, Enoch frantically yanked Grondil back by the scruff of his neck.

“Please, let him sleep. His body is severely depleted; he is likely using this nap to desperately recover his stamina.”

“Exactly what kind of harassment leaves a man this depleted? We are talking right next to his ear, and he remains unconscious. Even when I poke him like this.”

Grondil casually flopped down beside Lino, pressing his massive back flush against the knight’s. Despite the violent shudder that ran through the mattress as the colossal weight settled, Lino continued to sleep peacefully.

Seeing Lino fail to stir even after that, Enoch clicked his tongue in sympathy. Upon closer inspection, the shadows under Lino’s eyes were stark. His lips were chapped and peeling, and his cheeks had noticeably hollowed since his arrival at the estate.

“The acts themselves are petty, but when subjected to relentless, uninterrupted harassment several times a day for over a month, even the most resilient individual will eventually break.”

“Which is why I asked you to detail how he was harassed. Do not make me repeat myself,” Grondil growled, irritated by Enoch’s vague generalizations. Simultaneously, his tail continued to gently stroke and occasionally poke Lino’s shoulder and waist. He wasn’t trying to wake the boy; he simply found prodding him amusing.

“It appears he was lacing the food with laxatives, destroying garments sent for laundering, and placing tacks inside his boots.”

“What utterly pathetic, juvenile antics.”

A violent snort of hot air blasted from Grondil’s snout. The schemes were, quite literally, laughable.

“Once or twice, perhaps. But sustained over a month, it would grind down anyone, no matter how thick-skinned.”

“Hmph. Is it truly that severe?”

“There is also the matter of his nutritional intake. Since discovering his meals were compromised, Sir Cliff has refused all provided food. He occasionally slips down to the kitchens when it is empty to subsist on self-made sandwiches or raw fruit.”

“Can a man survive on that?”

Sandwiches and fruit? That’s it? Grondil wasn’t intimately familiar with his estate’s culinary operations, but he knew for a fact that the pantries and cold storage were overflowing with a vast array of premium ingredients. Yet, out of all that abundance… sandwiches? Fruit?

A low, vibrating growl rumbled from Grondil’s throat. His displeasure was palpable.

“I have managed to slip him proper meals on occasion, but Sir Cliff appears to possess a nature that abhors causing a fuss or drawing attention. If he cannot access the kitchens discreetly, he simply skips the meal entirely. Given that his time at the training grounds has also drastically decreased… I suspect his stamina has plummeted dangerously due to severe malnutrition.”

He’s this exhausted over something so trivial? Grondil tilted his massive head in genuine bafflement before abruptly surging to his feet.

“Nghh,” Lino groaned, curling tighter into a fetal position as the radiant heat from Grondil’s back vanished, leaving him suddenly exposed to the chill.

Grondil nudged Lino from the center of the mattress, rolling him onto his side. Enoch nearly had a heart attack, terrified the rough handling would wake him, but absurdly, Lino merely rolled over and continued to sleep. Even Grondil, who had initiated the roll fully expecting the knight to wake, let out a soft chuckle as he watched Lino wiggle to find a comfortable new position.

“He truly is an incredible piece of work.”

“We absolutely cannot allow Sir Disson to discover this,” Enoch stated grimly. If Yuneria—who was already dedicating his life to tormenting Lino—learned of this comatose sleeping habit, he would undoubtedly exploit it.

Grondil flopped back down beside Lino. With a massive paw, he hooked Lino by the waist and dragged the knight securely against his side. Having meticulously retracted his razor-sharp claws, there was no risk of shredding Lino’s clothing or the mattress.

“Your Highness… what about your dignity…?”

“You are the only one here. Why should I care about dignity?” Grondil retorted, his gaze fixed on the knight currently tucked neatly against his side.

Despite the substantial weight of the massive forearm draped over his chest, Lino let out another deep, contented sigh, snuggling deeper into the embrace.

“This one should seriously avoid making enemies,” Grondil observed.

“Indeed. If he were ambushed in his sleep, he would likely die without ever knowing what happened…”

“Not that his survival is any concern of mine, obviously.”

“Even so, it would be preferable if no unsavory incidents occurred while he resides within your estate.”

Grondil nodded in agreement. He despised anything tedious or noisy. Logically, he should dislike this boy who was a magnet for such trouble. Yet, strangely, the sight of him sleeping so peacefully, buried within his fur, was highly agreeable.

Perhaps it was due to his transformed state, but Lino’s frame appeared incredibly fragile. By human standards, Lino’s height and build were comfortably above average, but measured against Grondil, he was drastically undersized.

Still, the faint, clean scent radiating from his body, and the firm swell of his pectorals—which yielded yet pushed back when Grondil pressed a paw against them—were decidedly to his liking.

It was during this stealthy, tactile exploration of Lino’s body that a rather loud sound suddenly tore from the knight’s throat.

“Mmngh…”

“!!”

Enoch lunged forward, ready to snatch Lino away, but Grondil froze him with a sharp glare. The sound was loud, but he didn’t seem to be waking. As Grondil predicted, Lino remained asleep. However, he began to whimper and pant, clearly overheating. It was an inevitable consequence of being smothered by thick fur radiating Grondil’s unnaturally high body temperature.

Lino tossed and turned, eventually reaching out to blindly stroke Grondil’s thick forearm before settling down again. Or so Grondil thought. Suddenly, Lino’s jaw locked tight, and he bit down viciously on his own tongue. It wasn’t a gentle nip; he bit down so violently that a trickle of dark blood immediately spilled from the corner of his mouth.

“Oh dear. That is… rather aggressive for a mere sleeping habit,” Grondil noted, eyeing the crimson droplets now staining his fur with deep irritation. Because he was in his beast form, a low, menacing rumble naturally underscored his words.

Lino’s body trembled weakly in response. It seemed the instinctual terror of a predator’s growl bypassed conscious thought entirely. To feel that even while comatose… fascinating.

“This is entertaining in its own unique way.”

Grondil noticed the crease between Lino’s brows deepening. Biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood seemed to be a desperate, subconscious attempt to force himself awake. Grondil slowly rose to his feet.

Enoch mouthed silently, ‘Are you leaving?’ Nodding, Grondil stepped off the mattress, executing a long, luxurious stretch before turning his attention back to Lino. Seeing the knight left in an awkward, twisted position due to his sudden departure, Grondil effortlessly scooped him up and laid him flat. After studying the supine figure for a moment, Grondil repeatedly grasped and released Lino’s shoulders and waist with a massive hand. He then ran a paw over Lino’s sweat-dampened forehead, gently brushing the clinging strands of golden hair away from his face.

“Tsk. Look at that face.”

Despite Lino’s sweat transferring onto his pristine fur, Grondil showed no signs of disgust. Instead, he gently pressed his thumb against the deep crease between the sleeping knight’s brows, smoothing it out.

“He’s truly hideous. And his sleeping habits are atrocious. Still, the fact that he is enduring this level of pressure without even opening his eyes is somewhat commendable.”

He hadn’t intentionally projected his aura, but the fact that Lino merely trembled slightly while enduring the beast’s voice at point-blank range strongly suggested that he was a far more likely candidate for the Letia than the pathetic Yuneria.

“…What are you saying…”

“Oho. Now he speaks?”

Perhaps irritated by the constant prodding of his face, Lino mumbled grumpily in his sleep. How far will he go if I keep bothering him? Just as Grondil prepared to escalate his harassment, Enoch stepped in.

“Hmm. I would like to observe him a bit longer.”

“You absolutely cannot.”

“Tsk. So rigid.”

Faced with Enoch’s unyielding refusal, Grondil had no choice but to back away.

“I suppose I will have to wait for the next opportunity.”

“If you must.”

“Yes, I should be going.”

His brief stint in his true form had successfully burned away the worst of his stifling irritation. He briefly wondered if holding his escort knight in his arms had contributed to the relief, but that thought was instantly annihilated by the news that Yuneria was waiting for him in the dining hall.

“Investigate him further.”

“Investigate who, Your Highness?”

“Lino Cliff.”

“Ah… Yes, understood.”

Grondil smoothed his disheveled hair back into place and strode out of the library.

***