A Battle of Wills

I don’t like ice-attribute skills.

A skill should be gorgeous enough to blind the eyes, or so explosive with its effects that it makes you want to turn them off due to visual obstruction, or at the very least, colorful.

On the other hand, ice-type skills are all uniformly blue and white, and their effects are boring.

[<Karvan Baharga> has cast <Ice Shatter>.]

Under the skill with the boring effect, several of the Urf tribe were crushed to death without even being able to scream.

Drip, drip.
The streams of blood flowing down the huge ice fragments were like a work of art.

“…I didn’t know you liked hunting.”

Karvan was as unreadable as ever.
Cold, bored-looking eyes.
But I saw the flickering flame within them.
The man was enraged.

“But the cleanup is insufficient.”

His chiding voice was cold.
The rest of the Urf tribe, who had already grasped the situation, had already retreated.

The man, with an expressionless face, approached the pit and kicked over the half-crushed corpse of the Urf chief with his foot.
A fang-shaped dagger, which he had been hiding in his sleeve, rolled away with a clatter.

“He would have stabbed you in the back of the neck the moment you turned around. If he surrendered, you should have cut his throat first. Why did you show mercy?”

“It’s not mercy! Ahem, but what’s going on?”

“……”

“I didn’t steal anything. I even left the robe I had briefly borrowed on a tree…”

My voice trailed off at his expressionless gaze.
At some point, the man was staring intently at the fur coat I was wearing.

“……”

The fluffy, reddish robe that Ilai had lent me.
Unable to bear his arctic gaze any longer, I asked the main question.

“Why are you here?”

At my question, he stared at me intently and then chuckled.

Twisting his lips into a smile, he slowly closed and opened his eyes, then repeated my words.

“…Why, did I come.”

I couldn’t understand the man’s expression, which looked as if he were at a loss.
‘You were the one who pushed me away first. You were the one who slapped away the hand I held out for help. Why did you come back and look at me with such betrayed eyes?’

‘After pushing me into a corner like that, why are you looking at me as if I’ve abandoned you. As if I unilaterally betrayed you.’
Steeling my momentarily weakening heart, I glared at Karvan.

“……”

He also looked back at me.
With the same unreadable gaze as always.

In Bahalgras, I would have been scared of that gaze and prostrated myself, but I was not the same person anymore.

The Observer didn’t appear even if I used skills indiscriminately, and I wasn’t distracted by imprint sickness.

It meant there was nothing in the world to be afraid of.
Realizing that, I held my head high and met the man’s gaze.

Even at my arrogant gaze, Karvan just looked at me silently.
With a gaze that was still incomprehensible, cool, and seemingly helpless.

“Valta. I have committed a mortal sin by interrupting, but may I say just one word.”

Unable to watch the fierce exchange of gazes any longer, Tegen intervened.

“Shinbi-nim wanted to eat a certain dish, but the ingredients were not available, so after waiting for a long time, she must have gone for a walk alone out of boredom.”

“……”

“You know how it is. The Valtael is very curious and likes pretty things, so she must have wandered here and there and ended up here. Isn’t that right, Shinbi-nim?”

Tegen, who was behind the man, was desperately making eye signals.
He was digging a bomb shelter and telling me to come here, to take refuge here, finding a way for me to live.

“…You begged me to just say something.”

At those words, his frosty gaze seemed to soften.
He stared at me intently, as if asking if it was true, and then threw a question.

“And you, was it so hard to just say you were going for a walk?”

“I’m not, out for a walk.”

At my defiant voice, a despairing sigh came from behind me.
It must have been Tegen.
I felt really sorry for him, but I had no intention of going back.

It was already too late.
If that had been my intention in the first place, I wouldn’t have become a dog and crawled up a rocky mountain on all fours.

“If you’re not out for a walk, then.”

This quick-witted man couldn’t possibly not know that.
But he persistently met my eyes and demanded an answer.

“Why did you come so far? Without a word.”

‘…Because, I ran away.’
‘From you.’

But since I didn’t have the courage to say it out loud, I just wrinkled my eyebrows.
As if to say, ‘Are you really asking because you don’t know?’

The man, who was staring into my eyes, twisted his lips.
As a pale coldness formed at the tip of his long index finger, a coin-sized ice piece was created.

“Surely you’re not thinking of betraying me and running away now, after even finishing the full moon ceremony.”

Ting, ting.
He tossed and caught the ice piece in his hand.
Just like that day, the day he had pulled out the Nemea’s heart.
Expressionlessly.

“Was it coerced.”

-Thud, the man, who had snatched the piece that was floating in the air, slowly turned his eyes.
His cold eyes landed on the Fox tribe, who had all come out at some point.

“…G-great, ch-chief of the Varg tribe.”

The Fox tribe, who were huddled in a corner, watching the situation, flinched and lowered their heads.
Hiding their claws so they couldn’t be seen, flattening their ears, and tucking their tails between their legs.

It was the beast-kin’s expression of surrender.

‘I have no intention of fighting you, I will obey you unconditionally.’
In human terms, it was like throwing down their weapons and raising their hands.
A sense of guilt washed over me at their servile appearance.

“…It seems they kidnapped you.”

“N-no! How could a lowly being like us!”

“Yes, it’s not like that! I…!”

A sharp gaze landed on me.
It was like a blade at my chin, and my breath caught, but I managed to finish my sentence.

“…I, decided to stay here on my own.”

“Why?”

“I like it here.”

I could see Tegen and the other Sura, who were standing like statues behind the man, squeeze their eyes shut.

A silent horror echoed back.
I didn’t care about Karvan, but I felt sorry for them, who must have been dragged out in the middle of a meal.

“So. Are you going to live here or something?”

His eyes, full of ridicule, began to scan the Fox village.

A thatched-roof house that wouldn’t be strange if it collapsed under a pile of snow at any moment.
A primitive structure, haphazardly built and plastered with mud, with leaves added on top.
It couldn’t even be compared to his city, which was so exquisite and splendid it looked as if a palace made of a traditional Korean house had been brought over.

“I didn’t know you had such a taste. If you want, I’ll have a similar one built in Bahalgras.”

“It’s not that…! I, I’m more comfortable here.”

The Fox village was small and old, but my heart was at ease.
If in Bahalgras I felt like I was surrounded by an invisible wall, here I was just free.
Especially, I liked that they didn’t treat me like an outsider, but just like the old me.
The player ‘Shinbi.’

“Of course, I’m not saying Bahalgras was bad! It was good there too! Everyone was good to me, and kind, but…”

Seeing Tegen’s ears droop behind me, I quickly added.
I wanted to end on good terms.

“I, I like it here.”

“Then rest for a few days and come back. I’ll assign the Sura to you.”

But Karvan seemed to have other ideas.
He didn’t seem to have any intention of ending the relationship with me in the first place.

“…Hey. I think you’re misunderstanding something. I…”

As I was wondering where to start explaining, I decided to simply bring up our old promise.

“As we first promised, you and I are…”

“As long as you are alive, you become my weakness.”

But the man cut off my words mercilessly.

“That’s what a mate is. I can’t help but be on edge about you, and if someone were to grab you and shake you, I would be dragged around like a leashed dog. Just like now.”

He said, looking down at me with a condescending gaze.
As if he had been waiting for me to bring it up, without a hitch.

“So choose. Either come back to my side quietly.”

“……”

“Or I’ll have no choice but to cut out the weakness myself.”

With one hand in his pocket and the other holding a sword, tapping his shoulder with the tip, he was no different from a gangster.
Dumbfounded, I looked at the man with my mouth agape.

“Where does it say that! Of course, it’s true that I ran away without a word. But this is completely different from our promise!”

I pulled the man closer and, so that the Sura standing behind him couldn’t hear, I gritted my teeth and whispered.

“…You said it. That a mate wasn’t that important, and since you didn’t have one before, it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t have one now!”

“Did I?”

The man, who had obediently bent his body and brought his ear closer, raised an eyebrow.
As if he were hearing it for the first time.

“Yes! You did! You definitely, said you didn’t need one…!”

I gasped at the hand that was suddenly stretched out.

“A Varg who doesn’t need a mate.”

His long fingers touched my frozen cheek.
He slowly removed my disheveled hair and continued.

“Where, in the world, is there one?”

The man looked at my frozen eyes and asked back.
As if he had heard a very strange thing.