Side Story.3

So, after a few days—  

The knight order led by Kallion was in the midst of their mission, sweeping up the bandits.  

Now, about half the work was done. At this faster-than-expected pace, it seemed they could cut about a week off the original schedule.  

Before moving to a new area the next day, the knights were resting in a temporary camp to recover their strength…  

“What? Your wife cheated on you?”  

“Ugh, while I was away from home, she got involved with another man.”  

Hearing his subordinates’ conversation, Kallion abruptly stopped in his tracks.  

One knight was crying bitterly, tears streaming down his face. It seemed a few other knights were trying to comfort him.  

“That’s just too much, really.”  

“Another man? When did this happen?”  

“I-I don’t know, sob!”  

“Was your wife always the same? It couldn’t have happened out of nowhere.”  

“Th-thinking about it, at some point, even when I was leaving…”  

The knight paused, as if recalling an uncomfortable moment.  

“Even when you were leaving?”  

The other knights asked again. They seemed to have guessed the answer.  

“She didn’t look sad anymore…”  

The knight replied gloomily.  

“So she already had someone else by then…”  

A senior knight spoke in a sympathetic voice.  

“Sob, I feel so lost now. I don’t know what to do!”  

As he listened to his subordinate’s wailing, Kallion’s expression hardened.  

‘Not sad when leaving?’  

It was a situation he’d heard somewhere before.  

That was…  

‘Agnes too, to me…’  

His wife was the same, wasn’t she.  

Memories of Agnes’s recent changes, which he had pushed down for a while, resurfaced.  

Recently, from some point, Agnes no longer seemed so upset when he left.  

Agnes, who always looked regretful when he went far away, hadn’t done so this time.  

Come to think of it, even when he came back from the last deployment—  

“I missed you, Agnes.”  

“…Huh? Oh, Kallion, you worked hard.”  

Her response when greeting him had seemed a bit lukewarm.  

That night, Agnes fell asleep first. Unlike usual.  

And the next morning, even though he was heading to the Imperial Palace for training, she didn’t come out to see him off.  

“Mmm, be careful, Kallion.”  

That had never happened before.  

And what about this deployment?  

“I’ll come back as soon as I can, I promise.”  

“I told you, it’s fine. You’ll hurt yourself if you rush. Take your time coming back.”  

Where had the wife gone, whose eyes used to be full of regret? Instead, she smiled and even looked a little happy as she told him to take care.  

As if it didn’t matter if Kallion left.  

‘No way.’  

A foreboding thought flashed through Kallion’s mind.  

Did she have another man?  

No, that couldn’t be. Agnes would never do that.  

Kallion immediately shook his head.  

He must not doubt Agnes.  

But the seed of anxiety that had already sprouted only grew larger.  

Agnes was attractive.  

He couldn’t stop other men from approaching her. Not from this far away.  

The expected schedule at the eastern border was a month, but Kallion gritted his teeth.  

‘I need to go back quickly.’  

***

Meanwhile, at the Bishuern Earl’s residence, Agnes was having a busy day admiring her husband.  

“Haa, life is good.”  

These days, Agnes felt like she could finally breathe.  

Indeed, Kallion was Agnes’s nourishment.  

‘So this is what it means to feel full even without eating.’  

For several days, Agnes had been playing and replaying the videos she’d collected, analyzing them over and over, and finally today—  

She had, for the first time, tried her hand at a slightly different field.  

She was no longer the naive girl in her early twenties.  

“It was about this big, I think.”  

Agnes slightly modified an adult magic device she had once secretly made on commission through a noble lady.  

“A-hem, hem.”  

Looking at the finished product, Agnes cleared her throat alone, her face flushing red.  

She had managed to make a replica of her husband’s, in a similar size, and the result was quite satisfactory.  

With this, she thought she could be quite content.  

Actually, Agnes hadn’t intended to go this far from the start.  

She thought she’d be satisfied just collecting and watching the videos.  

However—  

It had been a long time since she’d been with Kallion, almost like living alone.  

When she couldn’t even see his face, she missed him so much that her desire didn’t even rise, but after watching his perfect form in the videos every day, she started remembering the nights they spent together.  

Seeing his firm chest muscles reminded her of being held tight in his arms, shuddering with pleasure.  

When she saw his strong forearms, she remembered how he would lift her up in one movement and lower her onto his length again and again…  

“Ahem, ahem!”  

Shaking off the endless stream of memories, Agnes lowered her gaze to the adult magic device—the replica.  

She understood that Kallion was busy, but she also had to take care of herself in her own way.  

Looking at the finished device, Agnes smiled in satisfaction.  

Now that she had both the videos and this device, she wasn’t so worried about waiting for her husband anymore.  

***

About two weeks had passed since Kallion left. He would probably need at least as much time again before he returned.  

But—  

Step—step—  

Kallion, breathing heavily, strode into the garden of the Earl’s residence.  

He had arrived in the capital much sooner than expected.  

Tap—tap—  

His hurried footsteps betrayed his impatience.  

‘Is Agnes in the bedroom?’  

Kallion’s mind was filled with thoughts of Agnes.  

Even while on his mission, his anxious thoughts had kept spiraling. In the end, he’d even started imagining some stranger attacking Agnes.  

He felt like he was going crazy with anxiety.  

Kallion had pushed his knights almost to exhaustion, cutting the mission time in half.  

The knights had complained bitterly, but he hadn’t heard a word.  

Thus, after eliminating the bandits much faster than expected, Kallion rushed home without rest.  

Kallion knew. It was all just worry. But the tight feeling in his chest would only go away once he saw Agnes.  

He missed his wife.  

With long strides, he entered the mansion.  

It was late at night, when almost everyone was asleep.  

None of the servants had expected their master to return tonight, so the hallways were quiet.  

When he reached the second floor where he and Agnes’s bedroom was, Kallion’s steps grew even faster.  

Seeing the bedroom door, he felt relieved.  

Yes, there was no way Agnes would do that.  

She wouldn’t leave me for some other bastard…  

“Ugh, ah…!”  

He froze.  

‘…What?’  

Squish—slick—  

“Mm, uh…!”  

At the forbidden sounds coming from beyond the door, Kallion stopped in front of the bedroom. He felt his whole body go cold from the top of his head down.  

Why was I hearing Agnes’s heated m*ans?  

His fingertips trembled.  

Who dared, who dared to touch Agnes—  

Kallion’s anger split in two. One half was directed at the man who was inside that room, for whom today would be his last day alive.  

The other half was at himself.  

Kallion blamed himself.  

For leaving her alone all the time.  

Had I made her lonely again and again? Was that why Agnes…  

But he had to check. He could have turned away, too afraid to see the truth with his own eyes, but he couldn’t do that.  

Kallion needed Agnes.  

There was no way he could let her fall for another man.  

‘I can’t live without Agnes…’  

All sorts of thoughts tangled in his mind.  

What if she said she loved another man, that she wanted a divorce? Could I accept that?

‘That can’t be.’

Kallion could not accept it.

If that was the case, should I just pretend not to know and keep Agnes by my side anyway?

With a confused expression, Kallion raised his palm and swept it down his face.

A deep sigh leaked through his parted fingers.

A forbidden space that should not be opened.

Would he step into it, or not?

Kallion finally made up his mind.

He had to see it with his own eyes after all.

Hadn’t he and Agnes promised? Not to misunderstand each other anymore.

To do that, it had to be opened. Whether what unfolded before his eyes was heaven or hell.

Kallion barely managed to move his unmoving hand and slowly pushed the door open.

“Mm, ah……”

At the sound of Agnes’s m*ans leaking through the crack in the door, Kallion tightly closed his eyes.

He barely managed to open his reluctant eyes and looked for the man who had enchanted Agnes…

‘…No one?’

There was no other man in the bedroom.

If one wanted to be technical, there was a man.

Reflected on the large magic device screen was Kallion himself.

His own image, shirtless and sweating as he devoted himself to training.

The one who had enchanted Agnes was, in fact…

“K-Kallion……”

It was himself.