Sea Monster Stew Chapter 22

“Is that your real name?“

 

Hildert slowly turned her to face him as he continued.

“The prestige of the Duke’s house was famous even in my homeland, Whecoca. The Akstain Ducal House… I had no idea such a… heterogeneous bloodline was mixed in.”

 

He chose his words quite carefully, but to Biche, everything he said sounded like an insult. 

 

Her face burned hot, and her eyes stung.

The term ‘heterogeneous bloodline’ dug deep into her bones. It was a phrase that reaffirmed she had no place in this world.

 

“Why did you inherit your maternal grandfather’s surname, rather than your father’s, Count Fione?”

 

Biche bit her lip and sharply turned her head away. She didn’t want to recount her painful past to him point by point.

Hildert watched her face, flushed red with shame, and curled the corner of his lip.

 

“Did your mother have an affair with a monster and give birth to you?”

 

“…It seems you’ve already finished investigating me. Why probe so persistently?”

 

“I’m asking because I simply cannot understand it with my own mind.”

He clicked his tongue briefly and cruelly continued without hesitation.

“How a noble lady from a ducal house, married to a Count from a prestigious family, ever came to think of bearing the child of a sea monster…”

 

“……”

 

“Did Duke Akstain know? The fact that a bastard child was born from his daughter and a sea monster?”

 

“…He must have known, since he passed the ‘Akstain’ name down to me.”

 

Biche retorted in a trembling voice, roughly shaking off his hand.

“Count Fione didn’t acknowledge me as his child. My grandfather took me in for my mother’s sake. Are you satisfied now?”

 

The moments she had vowed not to cry flashed rapidly through her mind. 

 

But tears have a will of their own. They streamed quietly down her flushed, red cheeks.

 

Seeing her tears, Hildert’s expression twisted for the first time. He frowned and slowly raised his hand.

Perhaps it was a gesture meant to wipe her tears. But that hand stopped abruptly before touching her cheek and was then slowly withdrawn.

 

Biche watched that hand quietly for a moment, then turned without a word and left.

 

‘…I went too far.’

 

Hildert couldn’t take his eyes off Biche’s hastily retreating back. He couldn’t understand why he had hurt her with sharp words he never intended to say.

 

The Head Maid quietly emerged from across the corridor and approached him. 

 

She bowed her head with a demure attitude, as if she had seen nothing.

 

“…I have prepared the incense you favor, Vice-Captain.”

 

It was a roundabout expression anyone could understand. It meant she would prepare Biche for him to share his bed.

 

Hildert looked toward the corner where Biche had disappeared, then shook his head.

 

“Never mind. Don’t wake her until dawn; let her sleep soundly.”

 

With those final words, he turned his back and walked toward the laboratory.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kisa had been burning with fever since morning. Even dousing his entire body with cold water the moment he opened his eyes did nothing to cool the fiery heat within him.

He went out to the outdoor training ground and hacked at the training dummies made of human skin, but his mood didn’t improve.

 

He lay face down on the training ground, surrounded by scattered pieces of skin, and tore at his hair. 

 

The scene that had tormented him all night replayed in his mind again.

Biche hiding behind Hildert. The white face, terrified the moment she saw him, was embedded in his chest and wouldn’t fade.

 

“You agreed to run away with me, so why! Why… every time you see me…”

 

He had already lost his reason after a night of continued anguish. So, he even forgot the fact that he had been wearing the Giant’s Skin each time she was terrified.

He forgot that the promise to run away together was a lie, and he forgot the fact that she was the hostage marked by the Captain.

 

The image of her trembling violently in the laboratory stuck in his mind. So did the image of Hildert treating her like a possession.

Unable to compose himself, his words and actions grew increasingly rough.

 

“Damn it, how pathetic! Just wait until you come whining again about how scared you are of the Vice-Captain. This time, I won’t even pretend to listen.”

 

He sprang up again and grabbed the sword he had planted in the ground. 

 

At that moment, a small figure entered his field of vision. A woman was cutting across the rear garden.

Kisa narrowed his eyes and examined the woman’s face. The distance between the training ground and the garden was considerable, but he could immediately tell who it was.

 

“What is she doing here at this hour…?”

 

Biche, wearing a thick coat, was walking briskly, surrounded by familiars. 

 

At that moment, Kisa was swept up by an emotion he couldn’t identify—whether it was gladness, surprise, or resentment.

So, without realizing it, he ran toward her, still holding the sword.

 

“Where are you going? Did the Vice-Captain really permit you to go out?”

“You’re trying to run away, aren’t you? Isn’t that it?”

 

“Get away from me!”

 

Biche kicked away the bear-shaped familiars surrounding her and flared up angrily. 

 

The familiars ignored her words and just kept chattering their own lines.

Kisa glared at the familiars as if he wanted to kill them. 

 

They were undoubtedly lackeys Hildert had assigned to watch Biche.

 

“Ah, she’s trying to run! She’s trying to escape!”

“Please, stop it… Huh?”

 

Biche, who had been pushing the familiars away with an angry face, met Kisa’s eyes. Kisa reflexively hid the longsword in his hand behind his back.

If he were caught holding a longsword in his guise as an assistant, the entire act he had maintained until now would be for nothing.

 

‘That place.’

 

Kisa signaled to her by pointing his chin toward the main stronghold. 

 

It meant for her to come to the secret meeting place he had told her about when they went to the mint beach.

Biche nodded cautiously and quickly dashed into the stronghold. The familiars screeched and chased after her.

 

“She’s running! Catch her!”

“She can’t possibly escape! There’s no way Lord Hildert would let go of a woman who might be carrying his child!”

 

Kisa stared at the familiars chasing Biche, let out a hollow laugh, and then snorted.

 

‘The Vice-Captain’s child? Fools… Spouting such nonsense.’

 

He gritted his teeth and moved into the stronghold’s food storage room. 

 

The moment he sat down on a rum barrel, Biche opened the storage room door and entered with a bright face.

 

“Muir! Good morning!”

“…Yeah.”

 

He awkwardly returned her affectionate greeting.

 

 Biche smiled broadly and scurried over to him where he sat perched on the rum barrel.

 

“Where have you been since morning?”

“Me? Ah, I just went outside the stronghold for a bit.”

“Outside the stronghold?”

 

Kisa quietly studied her, beaming. Her excitement was unmistakable.

It was her first real outing using ‘her own two feet’ to go out into the world, incomparable to looking down at the capital from a carpet.

 

“I was running an errand to an herb shop. It was the first time I went out on my own feet… It was really amazing. I’d only ever gone out by bird before.”

 

Kisa stared intently at her as she murmured excitedly. 

 

Lost in who knows what thoughts, she didn’t even seem to notice him glaring at her with a sullen face.

He desperately wanted to ask, ‘Why did you have a fit when you saw me yesterday?’

But he couldn’t ask. 

 

If he misspoke, he might reveal that he was ‘the real Kisa’.

 

“Remarkable. I didn’t think the Vice-Captain would allow you to go out.”

“He sent me on the errand on the condition that I absolutely wouldn’t run away and that the familiars would come with me.”

 

Biche fell silent for a moment, then snorted and muttered.

 

“I guess he suddenly felt bad about treating me roughly yesterday.”

 

The moment he heard ‘treated roughly,’ Kisa’s heart sank.

 

Thinking the Vice-Captain had finally forced himself on this woman, his face hardened terrifyingly.

 

“Treated roughly…? What do you mean?”

 

Kisa immediately grabbed Biche’s shoulders and urgently inspected her body. 

 

Biche blinked with a bewildered expression.

 

“Muir, what’s wrong all of a sudden…?”

“The Vice-Captain didn’t lay a hand on you, did he?”

“What? No, nothing like that. I slept in the maids’ quarters yesterday.”

 

Biche waved her hands frantically, utterly surprised. Kisa felt a wave of relief, then frowned.

 

“Then, ‘treating you roughly’ means…”

 

“…What else? He wounded my feelings with his usual wretched words, as always.”

 

She sank into thought for a moment, then snorted and added.

“He’s always been like that, but I don’t know why it was so shocking yesterday that I even cried… It’s really mortifying.”

 

Kisa hurriedly suppressed the corner of his mouth that threatened to curl up. 

 

He hadn’t realized he would be this happy that nothing had happened with Hildert.

The anxiety and jealousy that had gnawed at him all night melted away. 

 

Finally, the world began to right itself.

 

He stifled the urge to grin and deliberately put on a stern expression. 

 

Then he gently rubbed her cheeks, reddened by the cold wind.

 

“Good for you. To think he can’t even drag the assistant he fancies into his bed. Your master must be absolutely miserable.”

 

‘And I can touch and caress you like this.’ He smiled bitterly inside and cupped her soft cheeks with both hands.

 

“I doubt he’s miserable. He doesn’t lay a hand on me because of his own arrogant nature.”

She held his hands and smiled softly.

“He said he would absolutely never hold me.”

 

“Really?”

 

So, did that mean he had never held this woman, not even once? Kisa struggled to suppress his twitching lips and spoke with a composed, dignified face.

 

“If your master breaks his promise and beastly pounces on you, just sneer at him and ask if he’s man enough to keep the words he himself spat out.”

 

“Would that… work?”

“Men are all fools by nature; they’d rather die than do anything that damages their pride.”

 

“Hmph, I’d be dead if I sneered at him.”

 

She snorted and wrinkled her nose. Kisa grinned and pressed firmly on her cheeks with both hands.

 

“That won’t happen. Unless you run off with another man, you will absolutely never die by your master’s hand.”

 

“Then, if I get caught running away with you this time, I’ll really be a dead woman, won’t I?”

 

Biche pulled his hands down and laughed brightly. Then, naturally, she buried her face in his chest.

 

Startled by this sudden action, Kisa stared blankly into space for a moment before unconsciously pulling her small body tightly into his embrace.