Chapter 60

In truth, Lino hadn’t considered killing the Baron even once. Since escaping the estate, whenever he felt physically or mentally exhausted, he had wished the Baron would just drop dead, but he had never actually harbored the desire to murder the man himself. His inherent nature possessed a severe aversion to harming others.

The Baron, however, believed differently. He was utterly convinced that if Lino learned the secret of his body and the true reason he had been taken from the orphanage, he would undoubtedly murder him. Terrified, the Baron’s trembling hand stealthily shifted, trying to draw the gun from his holster.

Losing an arm or a leg should be fine. There must be far better medical facilities here than back home. The medical technology in this country was likely leaps and bounds ahead of Hestin; they could probably fix a few bullet holes without leaving a single scar. The Baron waited for a momentary lapse in Lino’s focus. Unfortunately for him, Lino caught the suspicious movement under the coat instantly.

“This secret… if I just continue living the way I have been, it doesn’t matter if I know it or not, right? Don’t try anything stupid and just tell me.”

“…”

Lino pushed the gun barrel slightly deeper into the Baron’s chest, simultaneously swatting the man’s hand. Startled, the Baron lost his grip on his partially drawn weapon. With a dull plastic clatter, the small black handgun hit the floor. The Baron squeezed his eyes shut in despair.

He had thought it was a brilliant plan. It started going off the rails early on, and now it was completely derailed. The truth was, he hadn’t known where it first went wrong, so he hadn’t been able to fix it. Reality, the very things he had desperately refused to acknowledge, began bubbling up to the surface of his mind one by one.

I never should have shared Arno’s secret with Iscazel in the first place…!

The Baron thought of his biological son, Iscazel Noth Haklan—a son who had once been terribly precious to him, but had now become simply terrible.

‘Father! We can just use that orphan bastard as collateral to gather business funds in advance, can’t we?’

He should have broken Iscazel’s legs to stop that delusional business disease. Looking back, perhaps the one who needed to be locked in a room wasn’t Arno, but Iscazel.

Staring down at the Baron, who kept his eyes glued to the floor and his mouth firmly shut, Lino let out a long sigh and spoke in a soothing tone. “Baron, I really don’t have time. There is someone waiting for me very anxiously.”

“Wh-Who would ever wait for the likes of you?”

“Who do you think? The person I am currently indebted to—”

CRASH—!

Before Lino could finish the sentence ‘His Highness the Duke,’ the dilapidated front door behind him tore open with an explosive roar. No, it didn’t just open; it was completely obliterated. Startled, both the Baron and Lino whipped their heads around.

Grrrrr—

A monstrous, guttural snarl echoed through the empty first floor. The violent blast of wind from the shattered door extinguished almost every candle in the room. Yet, the savage, murderous gleam of the Beast’s blue-gray eyes cutting through the darkness was terrifyingly vivid.

Meeting those feral eyes in the pitch black, the Baron instantly felt as if he had stumbled across an apex predator deep within the snowy mountains. The sheer, dizzying terror of becoming prey in an unknown territory untouched by human civilization seized him completely.

“H-Haaaa! M-Monster… A monster!”

Screaming in absolute horror, the Baron scrambled backward and plastered himself against the wall. Having spent his entire life behind a desk doing research, confronting a situation he had never even imagined possible seemed to completely short-circuit his cognitive abilities through sheer terror.

To Lino, however, even though Grondil had barged in with murderous intent, the man didn’t look like a monster at all. How could a monster be that handsome? Yet the Baron was thrashing and screaming about monsters. Contradicting the feral violence with which he had destroyed the door, Grondil approached Lino with calm, elegant strides.

Lino was certainly surprised, but recognizing the familiar Beast, he merely scratched his head with an awkward, sheepish expression. “Uh, Your Highness…? Did you happen to read the message I left…?”

As Lino asked the question in a rapidly shrinking voice, Grondil stopped in front of him, his blue-gray eyes flashing dangerously.

“Did you really think that note was a valid excuse?”

“Ah, well… haha, that’s why I sent a text message too.”

“That is not a valid excuse either.”

Grondil’s glare was so piercing that the crown of Lino’s head actually stung under the scrutiny. Ugh, a distressed groan slipped from Lino’s lips. What can I say to appease an angry Beast?

After a frantic moment of deliberation, Lino decided to simply deflect the Beast’s attention onto someone else.

“The gentleman glued to the wall over there is my adopted… father.”

“I know.”

“!!”

“Hick!”

A shocked Lino and an even more terrified Baron gasped simultaneously.

“Baron Ovel Lun Haklan of the Hestin Kingdom.”

Scowling heavily, Grondil glared at the emaciated man plastered to the wall before bending down to pick up the handgun Lino had knocked to the floor. “You raised him for eight years, yet you planned to shoot him?”

“…”

“I suppose so. If you had even a shred of affection for him, you wouldn’t have locked him up in the first place.”

Examining the gun in his hand, Grondil slowly closed his fist. Crunch. The sickening sound of hard plastic buckling and warping echoed in the dead silence of the room.

The Baron bit down hard on his lower lip, his entire body trembling violently. That is not a human. No human could crush a handgun with one hand. The mangled weapon, folded like a piece of scrap paper, rolled to a stop at the Baron’s feet. Eyes blown wide with terror, he looked rapidly between Grondil and the crushed gun.

“Since I cannot crush a person, I suppose crushing the gun will have to do.”

Hearing the cruel implication—I originally intended to crush you like this—the crotch of the Baron’s trousers rapidly darkened with a spreading stain. The Beast, possessing highly sensitive olfactory senses, scrunched his face in disgust.

“It would have been fine if you just crushed him, Your Highness.”

A familiar male voice drifted down from above. It was Enoch.

“The Haklan estate has fallen so far into ruin that they can’t even file for bankruptcy. No one would care if he died a sudden, violent death.”

Enoch descended the stairs, casually carrying the two armed mercenaries from the second floor under each arm. At Enoch’s arrival, Grondil’s scowl deepened. The stench of cheap liquor, stale cigarettes, and rancid sweat rolling off the mercenaries assaulted his nose.

“Ack!”

A thick arm suddenly wrapped around Lino’s waist just as he was bowing to greet Enoch. Yanked seamlessly into Grondil’s embrace, the cool, refreshing scent of winter radiating from the Beast instantly began to soothe Lino’s chaotic mind.

“Haa… I feel like I can finally breathe.”

Grondil felt exactly the same. When he received the report that Lino had run away, he had nearly shifted into his true Beast form. If he were in Isberg, it wouldn’t have mattered, but revealing his true nature in a land populated entirely by ordinary humans was strictly forbidden. He had barely managed to suppress the transformation, but his residual, unquenched agitation had left his body trapped in a liminal state between human and Beast. Round, furry ears poked through his hair, his canines had lengthened into sharp fangs, and the distinct, feral markings of his Beast form faintly patterned his skin.

Despite Enoch’s desperate pleas to hide his Beast features, Grondil hadn’t complied. Or rather, he couldn’t.

It was bizarre.

Grondil, who had never once lost control over his own body, was currently experiencing something entirely unprecedented, all because he was told his human bodyguard had run away. It was only natural he felt so thoroughly displeased.

Why? Why am I experiencing this level of displeasure over a human bodyguard? Because he’s a Letia? Sure, the Letias from those ‘Once upon a time’ fairy tales meant for children were amazing and mystical… but so what?

He was originally meant to be shipped off to the Emperor of the Cartia Empire. 

As he drove like a madman to Lino and the Baron’s meeting spot, Grondil had interrogated himself endlessly. But that chaotic festival of ‘Why?’ and ‘For what reason?’ abruptly ended the moment he stepped into the abandoned building.

It was a space devoid of any decent light source. Tonight’s thick fog even blocked out the moonlight. The dust-choked room, permeated by the damp, foul odor of the fog, had violently assaulted Grondil’s senses with pure displeasure.

‘Uh, Your Highness…? Did you happen to read the message I left…?’

The moment that slightly higher-pitched voice pierced his eardrums, a sweet, fresh scent of crushed grass tickled Grondil’s nose. In that instant, Grondil experienced the absolute miracle of the suffocating, concentrated displeasure vanishing without a trace.

His endless internal interrogation finally yielded a thunderous answer.

‘He is not just a ‘so what’.’

It was an almost hollow realization.

From the moment he took an interest in the human named Lino Cliff, he had been experiencing emotions he had never felt before and acting in ways he never thought possible.

And after all that… he had asked ‘So what?’ Grondil severely reprimanded his own foolishness.

Lino was a Letia. Yes, he was originally meant for the Cartia Emperor, but now Grondil found him so special that he was plotting to hand over a fake and steal Lino for himself. He was his Letia, his bodyguard, and a hopelessly clumsy scammer.

Inhale—

Grondil buried his nose deeply into the crook of Lino’s neck and inhaled deeply. Holding the startled, flinching body tightly against him, he lowered his head further and extended his tongue. The thick, long muscle dragged a wet trail from Lino’s collarbone, up the sternocleidomastoid muscle, to the tender skin behind his ear.

“Y-Your Highness. Hnngh…”

Was he always this sweet? Or does he just taste sweeter because this place is so full of filth? Or perhaps my Letia ripened a little more in the short time we were apart?

Grondil gently bit down on Lino’s earlobe, chewing softly as he pondered the source of this intensified sweetness. He didn’t even realize he had just mentally claimed Lino as ‘my Letia’. The possessiveness had surfaced so naturally, so inevitably.

The hand wrapped around Lino’s waist slid lower, gripping a firm, round buttock. I really picked out a phenomenal uniform for him, Grondil praised his own impeccable taste, kneading the flesh in his hand. The feeling of those tight glutes yielding beneath the thin, soft fabric made his mouth water.

“Your Highness, Erin just contacted me to say she has finished cleaning up.”

Grondil’s impromptu taste test was interrupted by Enoch’s report. He wanted to savor the flavor longer, but this filthy location was hardly the place. They needed to continue in his clean, cozy sanctuary.

“It’s a shame, but let’s continue this when we get back.”

“Hah… Excuse me? Continue what…?” Lino asked, looking up at Grondil with slightly unfocused eyes.

“My bodyguard is quite mischievous. Do I really need to explain the details in front of your adopted father?”

“…Excuse me?”

Lino’s eyes, rapidly regaining clarity, began to swirl with panic.

“Ah, I see. Since we’re all here, you want to officially introduce our relationship to him. My apologies, I can be quite oblivious sometimes.”