* * *

“Have you arrived?”

Edwin’s gaze briefly shifted to the butler before returning. Although all the employees had shown their respect to Edwin, he seemed indifferent to their presence, showing no reaction as he entered.

As soon as Edwin returned to his room, the door closed behind him. The minimally lit room exuded a gloomy atmosphere filled with shadows. Edwin slowly crossed the room and approached the couch.

Leaning against the couch, Edwin opened the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out a bandage.

Lifting his shirt revealed a thin but notably sharp cut on his side—a wound from a sparring match.

Although blood had seeped into his clothes, it went unnoticed due to their dark color. Edwin had also kept his condition hidden from everyone. This had become a habit as a result of his manefesting.

Before his manefesting, Edwin had been a boy with expressive emotions. He was sometimes flustered when Henry couldn’t hide his feelings, and he often smiled with pleasure when sparring with William.

However, everything changed with his manefesting.

The brief joy of becoming a rare extreme Alpha soon faded, and Edwin couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

Despite becoming an Alpha, something seemed wrong. He couldn’t sense other people’s pheromones.

Edwin tried desperately to sense others’ pheromones, rationalizing it as a temporary reaction and exerting all his effort. But when he realized that all his efforts were in vain, he was overwhelmed by despair.

The disappointment from his parents and those who pretended to be concerned while mocking him behind his back made Edwin feel as if he was completely abandoned by the world.

It was from that point on that he began to hide everything about himself. He lived as if he couldn’t feel anything, not just pheromones.

As he bandaged his wound, the weak light of the candle flickered on Edwin’s face.

The shadows on one side of his face and his blue eyes had deepened to an inscrutable extent. Edwin recalled the sparring match from earlier in the day.

“Why are you attacking so fiercely today? Tell me what you gained from swinging your spear as if to kill me.”

Prince William complained, raising his lightly cut arm. He had asked for a sparring match, not a fight to the death. He grumbled, blowing on the wound.

If it hadn’t been for the long hours spent sparring, the small cut would have been much worse; Edwin’s hand had been unusually sharp today.

In response to the prince’s question, Edwin quietly planted his spear on the ground and took a breath. However, William noticed Edwin’s gaze shifting to Henry and smirked.

“Anyway, you can’t hear from this distance. So, why don’t you say exactly what you’re thinking?”

“I will go as well.”

“Ah, I didn’t expect your mind to change so quickly. Is it because of Henry?”

The prince’s eyes glimmered, encouraging Edwin to say more, but Edwin only returned his spear to its place without offering any other response.

He then took a seat next to Henry with a calm expression as if the earlier sparring had never happened.

Henry briefly glanced at Edwin before turning away indifferently. He then drank from his cup while looking at the sky. Afterwards, they all returned to their carriages.

With the gaze that had always seemed to glance at him with pretense now gone, Edwin felt a mix of relief and unease. Yesterday, Henry had appeared as if he was going to reveal a great secret, but all he did was sing a song.

Normally, Henry’s feelings were transparent, but starting yesterday, he seemed strangely blocked off. The Henry who had hidden his affection was gone, replaced by a stranger. Whether this was part of Henry’s new scheme or if he had truly lost interest in Edwin was uncertain.

Having no intention of accepting Henry anyway, Edwin moved his halted hand. This outing was merely the final test for Henry.

---

“I’m curious.”

“What do you mean?”

“Edwin Laurence and Henry Timothy.”

William recalled the two men who sparked all his curiosity. One was an extreme right-wing Alpha, while the other was an ordinary Beta.

One seemed to embody shadows, while the other resembled light. Their only commonality was that they were the only heirs to the ducal family in the empire and were of the same age.

“If it’s those two, Your Highness the Crown Prince knows them better than anyone.”

“Yes, that’s true. But now, I’m not so sure.”

William spun around from where the duel had taken place. He stopped, lifted his head, and looked at the table.

“They were sitting right there.”

After the duel, Edwin walked over and sat next to Henry. It was a single table, so they had to sit together, but Henry and Edwin sat as if they were complete strangers.

“Henry, pretending not to care, didn’t even look at Edwin, and Edwin… well, he never did. It was strange.”

“Couldn’t it be that there was some specific reason for it today?”

The guard wondered if there was some deeper meaning to what had happened today, but William shook his head firmly.

“No. There’s definitely something going on between them.”

Whenever the three of them were together, Henry would always pretend not to look at Edwin, and Edwin never directed his gaze toward Henry.

William was well aware that all of Henry’s affection was directed toward Edwin.

William, who had always feigned disinterest while observing their relationship with intrigue, now looked slightly disappointed.

He should have gone to Edwin’s birthday party yesterday. If he had, he could have witnessed the changes in emotions up close.

The subtle shift in the atmosphere between the two, which had changed overnight, made William’s eyes sparkle.

“I think I’ll need to adjust the plans for this outing a bit.”

“Are you saying you want to change something that was already planned?”

Despite the guard’s anxious question, William waved his hand dismissively.

“No, the current plan won’t do. It’s been set too comfortably. It needs to be a bit rougher and more challenging.”

“But that would increase the risks.”

“Well, what’s the problem with Edwin coming along?”

William was fully prepared to accept Edwin’s conditions from earlier. Even if it wasn’t a demand from the duel, the journey had to include all three of them to continue observing this relationship.

---

In the training ground, the knights were practicing. The sound of their shouts was quite sharp, and the tips of their swords were as keen as one would expect from the ducal family’s knights.

However, it seemed that not everyone was satisfied. The commander in charge of the training, dissatisfied, kept frowning and eventually lost his temper.

“Why are the tips of your swords shaking? Where is your focus? If you don’t concentrate, today’s training won’t end.”

The sharp sound of swords cutting through the air grew louder with the commander’s shouting. As the knights’ sword tips continued to falter, the commander’s scolding became relentless.

The reason for this unusual discord between the commander and the knights was simple.

The presence of Henry Timothy, who had seemed unlikely to ever visit the training ground in his lifetime.

Although he had become the heir early on, Henry, who had shown no interest in the family’s martial traditions, had always found the smell of sweat in the training area unpleasant.

Henry, who viewed knights merely as swords to protect oneself, had no interest in the process of how they became knights.

And now, this heir was sitting off to one side of the training ground. Naturally, the knights couldn’t concentrate on their training because of Henry’s presence, and their inability to show their best resulted in an increasingly harsh cycle of the commander’s scolding.

“Will you continue to watch, Young Master?”

Jun, the trainee knight who had been nervously brought along by Henry’s question about the training ground, asked cautiously.

If the knights knew that Jun had guided Henry, they would not let him off easily. Jun’s anxiousness was evident in his fidgeting fingers.

However, Henry seemed uninterested in leaving and continued to sit on the stone steps, watching the knights.

“The training is a mess.”

“That’s… just today. Only today. Usually, they perform much better than this. They’re quite impressive.”

“After all, the young master is watching,” Jun thought to himself as he swallowed his complaints. Meanwhile, Henry leaned his chin on his arm, resting it on his leg.

“Even with my lack of expertise in swords, it looks terrible.”

Jun pouted in frustration. Despite the fact that the instructor was scolding him more than usual, he didn’t think it was that bad.

With just one knight from the Duke’s family, he felt they could handle ten knights from nearby regions.

However, Henry’s harsh criticism made Jun surreptitiously clutch his chest, silently protesting that he had the ability to prove himself if only the young master wasn’t present.

“If I’m here and causing such a commotion, they can’t be considered knights of the Duke’s family.”

Jun blinked, worried that he had spoken his thoughts out loud. But despite his concerns, he was sure he hadn’t voiced any complaints.

“I understand.”

Henry chuckled at Jun’s ever-changing expressions, finding it amusing that Jun was contemplating whether he had spoken out loud. After all, one doesn’t always have to express their opinions verbally.

“Anyway, I wanted to see the skill of a ‘knight.'”

Henry, who had only read about this world, was eager to see things firsthand.

Experiencing being a servant, which he had only read about as a mere description of serving the young master, was like a new world to him.

Having seen the experience of a three-year-old child guiding him around the mansion, dressing him, and feeding him, he was curious about what it would be like to see a knight wielding a sword.

“By the way, there’s someone I particularly like.”

Though Henry had not seen every knight, it had been a worthwhile experience. He couldn’t take his eyes off a person who seemed like a gem among the dozens of knights.

“Well then, young master, I think it’s time to—”

“Go on.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re free to go.”

Henry waved his hand dismissively, indicating that his interest in Jun’s training had concluded. He then stood up from the stone stairs and slowly descended.

As Henry moved, the knights’ agitation became noticeably more pronounced. They exchanged confused glances, unsure of how to handle Henry approaching them.

“Young master, it’s dangerous while we’re still training.”

The instructor, seeing this, blocked Henry’s path, preventing him from entering among the knights. Since they were training with real swords, any mistake could result in one of the family’s knights being injured or worse.

“Don’t worry.”

Henry lightly patted the instructor’s shoulder and passed him by.

“Whether in practice or combat, if you can’t protect your master properly, then you’re unqualified.”

“But…”

“Even if it’s a mistake.”

At Henry’s cold words, the knights tightened their grips on their swords to avoid letting them come close to the young master’s clothing.

This created a path between them, allowing Henry to pass through with ease. His movements were calm and deliberate, like a curious cat entering a space, and only ceased when he reached his intended target.

The one Henry had been observing.

Apart from the instructor’s reprimands, this was the person who maintained his focus and wielded his sword consistently from start to finish, even now that Henry was watching him.

“Young master.”

Realizing who the young master was interested in, the instructor hurriedly called out to him, but Henry raised his hand to stop him. He watched the man’s movements closely as he continued his training.

The man’s blue hair, soaked with sweat, darkened. Although he appeared older than Henry, who was 20, by ten years, Henry knew from his serious demeanor that he was not that old in reality.

‘Well, I can tell who he is even without asking his name.’

* * *