HEO 124

But Silver’s face?

It was impossible to forget, even if he wanted to. How could he forget a face so beautiful?

His jaw throbbed. He had been clenching his teeth too hard while lost in thought.

Wolf closed his eyes.

Think.

Everything has a cause and effect. If he dug deep enough into this bizarre situation, he would find a clue.

Wolf broke the problem down piece by piece, just as he would when opening a pocket watch: opening the back casing, examining the components, and searching for the gear that wasn’t meshing correctly.

Hypothesis one: Silver had gone mad.

His mind had detached from reality. While Silver’s rage was real, the truth surrounding his father’s death was unfortunately a fiction woven by a shattered mind. Wolf had encountered many such cases in the real world. There was, for instance, an old warrior who insisted his son had been abducted by a sea serpent. His fellow warriors said the boy had simply fallen overboard while trying to save his father. Grief shatters the mind. Sometimes, it constructs a perfectly logical fiction to mask the truth.

Fine. That sort of thing happens often enough.

But why me?

He couldn’t fathom why, out of countless people, Silver had singled him out as the man who killed his father. Didn’t he say his father was a hired assassin? There must have been plenty of people who held a grudge against him. So why pick him, someone with whom he had absolutely no connection?

Fuck, I don’t even know what your father looked like. Before you told me you had a father, I was dead certain you’d grown up as some beggar brat on the docks!

Hypothesis two: Silver’s father had died.

The truth behind that death was something Silver simply could not accept. So, he needed a villain. And he happened to latch onto some guy he’d crossed paths with right around that time. An oaf from Atania who had risen from servant to prince overnight. He had once accidentally stepped on the hem of Silver’s robe at a tavern but, being clueless about proper etiquette, failed to apologize and simply wandered off in a daze.

Offended, Silver had decided to cast this fool as the man who killed his father. Since Silver had been wearing his hood pulled [stolen content]low at the time, the unfortunate oaf had no memory of what Silver’s face actually looked like. That was the whole story.

No matter how he looked at it, Silver’s claim was nothing but a delusion. However, the fact that he knew the name “Wolf” bothered him. That was a name known only to the warriors under his command. Had Silver picked it up somewhere?

Well, I suppose it wasn’t impossible.

One thing was certain: he had to clear up Silver’s misunderstanding. But how?

With a pocket watch, you could simply reassemble the parts and close the back casing. With dough, you just knead, fold, and roll it out again. But a person’s delusions were far harder to fix.

It only left him feeling restless. Wolf swallowed a sigh and buried his face in his hands.

Damn it all. How did things end up like this?

He knew the truth: no one can predict the future. Reality is full of unimaginable events, like suddenly being dragged into the lair of a skeletal evil spirit. That could happen at any moment.

Even so, this situation had become excessively tangled. He’d ended up nursing Silver back to health, sharing a bed with him, and discovered that he’d been framed for his father’s murder. He hadn’t the slightest idea where to start untangling this mess.

His chest felt tight, as if he were wearing a garment that was too small. Eventually, Wolf rose silently, careful not to make a sound. Just before leaving the room, he looked back. Silver was fast asleep, one arm dangling off the bed and his face half-buried in the pillow.

Sleep tight, you strange fellow.

He closed the door and stepped into the hallway. Wolf sat down by the entrance and tilted his head back. The cloudless autumn sky was a blue so brilliant it was almost blinding. A carefree expression, if it were a person. Somewhere, a dog barked as if it were mocking him, and a white parrot circled in the sunlight before swooping down.

“Wolf!”

Red Eagle landed on Wolf’s forearm. Wolf pressed a finger to his lips.

“Shh.”

There was no chance Silver, deep in a drug-induced slumber, could hear them. But Wolf indulged in the amusing notion that, being a Thunder, the young man might possess uncanny hearing. Red Eagle tucked in his head and hopped onto Wolf’s shoulder.

“About last night… do you have any idea how shocked I was? You…”

“What about it, Your Highness? A man’s bound to lose his virginity sooner or later. Is it because the partner was a guy? Did a law banning sodomy get passed in Stoll while I wasn’t looking?”

At Wolf’s sullen retort, Red Eagle’s beak gaped.

“It’s not about gender. I mean… that… eccentric fellow? How could you with a guy who looks like that…”

“Ah. You never saw his bare face.”

Wolf nodded.

“That mask certainly makes even most warriors lower their eyes instantly. Don’t worry, his bare face is decent enough to look at.”

“No, but…why… did you suddenly turn into a beast like that…”

Red Eagle mumbled as he ​Read on​flitted between Wolf’s head, forearm, and shoulder. Wolf felt a twinge of annoyance.

“Why? Am I not allowed to fuck? You lost your virginity at sixteen, Your Highness. Are you telling me I have to stay a virgin until the day I die, like an Atanian monk? Where’s the sense in that?”

“That’s…”

Red Eagle landed on Wolf’s forearm.

“You’re right about that. I was just… surprised because you suddenly acted like a completely different person. The atmosphere between you two was almost too embarrassing to watch But Wolf… were you really, actually a virgin?”

“Not anymore.”

“So you were a virgin up until the other day? Wolf, I thought you were enjoying a grown man’s private life whenever I wasn’t around.”

It was absurd. You stuck by my side almost day and night and that’s the stupid thing you thought?

“You were mistaken, Your Highness. Only my body grew; until the other day, the part between my legs had never been used visit our sitefor anything other than peeing, just like a newborn baby’s. Even when the warriors were all screwing together, I’d just sit in the corner sipping my drink. My body was a siege weapon, but my crotch was a sanctuary. I was the guy everyone whispered was a eunuch. The only one who didn’t know that was you, Your Highness.”

Red Eagle looked speechless. He awkwardly lifted one short leg and one wing.

“…I see. So, how did your first time go?”

“No good. It was a disaster.”

The white parrot closed his eyes. Wolf let out a sigh as his shoulders slumped. His pride was plummeting into an endless abyss of darkness.

“Don’t be discouraged, Wolf. You can make up for it next time. You’re handsome and have a magnificent physique, so that eccentric fellow will surely give you another chance.”

Handsome. That single word brought back memories of last night. The question Silver had asked while staring at him: How old are you? Thirty?

Wolf’s mood grew more somber.

“Your Highness, I’ve… grown ridiculously big over the past year.”

“It’s not ridiculous. Some people might find it a bit overwhelming, perhaps, but it’s a perfect physique for a warrior. It’s a blessing, Wolf.”

“My face has changed too.”

“It’s become incredibly handsome. Don’t you marvel at it yourself every time you look in the mirror?”

“Silver asked if I was a thirty-year-old man.”

“What?”

Red Eagle’s eyes went wide, and he spread his wings.

“That’s nonsense! Absolute nonsense! Honestly, it’s true that your face has matured a bit compared to a year ago. But your face back then looked far younger than your peers’! Now, you look exactly your age. You have the face of a dignified young man. Let me emphasize this: you absolutely do not look like a thirty-year-old man. I mean it.”

Red Eagle’s words only made Wolf feel even more hollow.

“Just yesterday, you kept telling me every chance you got, ‘Your face looks as young as a seventeen-year-old’s, Wolf!’ Now you’re changing your tune?”

“Well… it seemed like you were feeling down about the changes in your face…”

Red Eagle, who had been hesitating, hopped up onto the top of Wolf’s head.

“Have some confidence, Wolf. Looking down from here, the bridge of your nose looks even sharper and more handsome. Besides, your mother likes this more mature look of yours.”

“Hearing you say that just makes me hate this face even more.”

He wasn’t joking. It was his own mother, White Deer, who had been the mastermind behind it all; she believed her son wasn’t being recognized by the warriors because he hadn’t shed his “Atania baby-face,” so she had hired a tattooist to scrawl markings all over his upper body. As the tattoos were etched into his skin, Wolf had understood how livestock felt when being branded by a butcher.

Red Eagle hopped back down to perch on Wolf’s forearm.

“Look on the bright side, Wolf. At least ​unauthorized copy​you avoided the disaster of getting tattooed on your lower body too.”

“Shit. That’s true.”