Karin surfaced from her brief thoughts and perched on the edge of the bed. She ran through the sequence in her mind, recalling the lessons she had received.

The fact that her partner was a barbarian had already doomed things from the start, but this was something that had to be done.

‘No need to be nervous. Just do it the way I was taught……’

She settled herself in the center of the bed and reached to untie the ribbon at her front. She could have undressed calmly, had he not grabbed her ankle.

“What?”

“Don’t bother.”

Karin looked up at him, now positioned over her, and opened her mouth.

“I’m not fully undressed yet. Because of you my clothes are all bunched up……”

“You don’t need to take everything off. All that matters is getting it in.”

“Don’t talk like something cheap. I’m not doing it that way……”

The hand that grabbed her exposed thigh was rough.

Karin was about to stop him, a strange sense of shame rising in her, when her thin undergarment tore away easily.

“Wait…… Aaah!”

What followed was searing pain. Karin barely swallowed the curse that tried to force its way out and grabbed Feron’s shoulder. Her nails dug in on their own.

“Ugh, ngh……”

“Stop?”

He twisted his lips watching her gasp out a moan through shallow breaths.

Karin clenched her teeth at Feron’s expression, which was plainly mocking.

“When did I…… tell you to stop? It’s nothing…… Ah!”

When he drove in to the hilt in one motion, white flooded her vision. Something unreasonably large was splitting her open.

If you have no manners, at least have some consideration. Slowly, at the very least……!

She drove her raised nails into his shoulder. She could feel them breaking skin, yet his expression did not change. Even that made her sick.

“Nngh…… Ack…!”

Karin clawed at his shoulder and arm and endured the pain. Showing tears would wound her pride, so she could not bring herself to cry.

She thought it might help to look away from this infuriating man’s face, but that too felt like losing, so she forced herself to hold his gaze. Feron looked no more pleased than she did.

‘Infuriating, so infuriating!’

She took it all out on her own lips, worrying them back and forth.

Feron, watching every bit of this, found it equally absurd.

Those swollen eyes on the verge of tears, glaring at him, were both ridiculous and faintly amusing.

What was the point of any of this?

There was nothing to be gained by either of them, so finishing quickly was the better option.

When he picked up the pace, her expression only worsened.

She had tears clinging to the corners of her eyes, and apparently her own lips were not enough, because she ended up biting down on the arm he had braced against the bed.

“Ugh….”

The force was incomparable to being scratched by nails. She had apparently decided to bite the flesh clean off, clamping her jaw shut and trembling on top of it.

What the h*ll.

“Mmph!”

“……”

And that was how our first time ended. A connection that had started in shambles had reached its limit here. All that remained was blood.

Only after he pulled away did she release his arm. She had bitten down that hard, so her jaw must have ached. She curled in on herself, cradling her lower jaw, and let out a low groan.

‘Torn to shreds.’

His forearm, that is. Her canines had sunk in cleanly enough that the bite mark looked just like a snake’s. Where both canines had pressed down would certainly leave a scar.

A pointless thing to do.

Truly pointless. Why had he gone and married a woman like this, against his own will?

It felt all the more pathetic because it had been his own choice.

But at least the clashing would end here.

It was bound to. With that pride of hers, after a first time like this, she would never come to him again. Even if she wanted to invoke that worthless obligation of hers.

But this woman had a strange way of defying expectations. She appeared in his room without warning, and what she set down on his desk was a book on the subject of education.

Two volumes. With detailed illustrations of positions included.

“If you do it the same way you did yesterday, I won’t let it go. Read this right now.”

He had no idea who she thought she was performing for. Peace only came after he pressed her face-down onto the bed while she chattered away trying to instruct him.

“Hey. Are you going to let go? I told you to move!”

Considering he had been subjected to this for hours, the voice he heard now was closer to a whine.

He pulled the blanket up over her head, and the throbbing in his own head finally began to clear.

She had shoved the book in front of him repeatedly. When he did not respond, she forced it into his ear.

This should be done this way, that should be done that way. Such and such goes like this and like that.

He had listened to so much lecturing he felt sick, and the dizziness was setting in.

He had never received this kind of instruction before battle. It had always been live experience first.

Which meant a book like this was completely useless.

Was there not only one outcome to be had from any of this.

“You, you…… what are you trying to do right now……”

“It was in the book.”

His only thought was that if it had to be done, he wanted it over with quickly.

And if it meant hearing this woman’s voice a little less, that was perfect. That was why he had chosen this position.

“Don’t.”

“……”

“I said don’t! You really…!”

“What’s the difference? I’ll finish fast, so stay still.”

Her hips were lifted into the air.

The sudden cold made her thrash with everything she had, but unfortunately she lacked the strength.

She was huffing and trying to throw off the blanket covering her upper half, so he pulled it back up for her.

Much better than yesterday.

That was the extent of his impression. The annoyance remained.

The greatest advantage of this position was not having to meet those eyes that resented him. Seeing her like this, hating it, did pull at something in him, but she had forced this on him just the same.

If he thought of it as each of them giving a little……

“Die.”

“……”

“Just die.”

He had thought she would not come again, but she came the next day too. This time without the useless books.

The short dagger in her right hand spoke to her resolve. The blade was dark with jewels set thickly into the handle, and dull enough to be unsuitable for stabbing anything. Even so, the look she was shooting at him was close enough to a predator’s.

“If you do it like yesterday, I’ll kill you.”

“Haa……”

It felt like all the accumulated exhaustion came crashing down at once. Every time he faced this woman, he felt a weariness with life itself.

Had he rolled around on battlefields for this? To spend every day bickering and perform the role of a happily married noble couple, all smiles and harmony?

Now that he had lost his purpose. He wanted to do nothing at all.

Even breathing felt like a chore, and on top of that he had to deal with this woman. He could not understand what she wanted from him when she found him so utterly distasteful.

Has she ever even held a sword?

“Can you actually stab someone?”

He flicked the tip of the blade, and she bristled like a cat with its fur on end.

“Nothing stopping me.”

“Oh?”

He stepped one pace closer and brought the tip of the blade to the area near his heart. She flinched, her already large eyes going even wider.

Then she composed herself and lifted her chin again. So what, that expression said.

Even this, her attempt to hide her fear, was nothing but laughable. It was equally absurd that she had brought something she did not know how to use as a threat.

So he grabbed her by the neck. He tilted that slender nape, which fit in one hand, back with measured force. He poured the overflowing anger into her mouth.

The tip of the decorative dagger seemed to press into his skin, but that was all.

She had never torn into another person’s flesh, and even as her eyelids trembled, she could not put strength into the hand holding the blade.

The same went for that insufferable tongue.

You said you were educated. But is this all you have?

Even the tongue that knew nothing beyond stirring food on a plate, she seemed intent on keeping refined, receiving him stiffly.

He lifted her lightly and set her on the nightstand. Again he entered her without preparation, and still the blade did not find him.

“What are you doing? You said you’d kill me. I suppose this way is fine with you?”

He said it to provoke her, but nothing changed. Only the contempt reflected in her eyes deepened somewhat.

“If you’re going to stab someone, you hold it straight like this. If it was an empty threat, you shouldn’t have brought this in the first place.”

He was the one who applied the force. He wrapped his hand over hers on the blade and pulled it toward his chest. The crushed skin finally drew blood.

“What, what are you…!”

She startled and tried to drop the blade, but he would not allow it.

He wondered, briefly, whether he was being too cruel, but felt that if he did not do at least this, the anger inside him would never settle.

He could not even tell himself where that anger came from.

Crackle. Crackle crack.

The skin did not split cleanly but tore in a ragged, ugly way. A truly wretched blade.

“……!”

She had never seen anything like this in her life, and she pressed a hand over her mouth. The wound, cut sloppily at a downward diagonal, welled with blood in waves. The thick scent of iron rising from it brought his reason back.

“Get out.”

Every other time, she had refused to move no matter how many times he had told her to leave, but this time she moved without resistance.

Tap, tap. The small sound of her feet coming down from the nightstand reached him.

Once at the blood-stained blade. Once more at the open wound on his chest.

Her gaze moved between them, and she pressed her small lips together. She stayed deep in thought for a moment, then looked at him and spoke.

“I’ll call a physician for you.”

That was all. He watched her leave the room and sank down onto the sofa.