"......."
The golden eyes did not waver by even an inch.
They merely remained cold and still as they observed the man before them.
Those eyes were like those of a predator staring down its prey in the middle of a snowfield.
—WHOOOOOSH.......
A suffocating silence flowed through the reception room.
With every breath drawn and released, the heavy air seeped deep into their lungs.
No one dared move so much as a finger.
"......COUGH!"
At the same time, Crepin convulsed as a violent cough tore from his throat.
His brilliant crimson hair had long since become hopelessly disheveled.
Covered in marble fragments and dust, he was a complete wreck as he struggled to part his lips.
"You dare...... COUGH! Do you think...... you will escape unharmed...... after doing this?"
Crepin forced his eyes wide as he spoke to Walter, who looked down at him.
A ducal house of the royal capital.
The weight carried by that name was anything but light.
Selbirot.
No one dared act carelessly before that name.
That held true even for the master of the North, the Grand Duke of the North.
That was why Walter had never dared lay a hand on him before his regression.
In other words, this went beyond the matter of their debt.
If Walter rashly touched Crepin, the North itself would not remain unscathed.
And back then, Walter had valued the North far more than himself.
If the price of protecting the North was merely bowing his own head—
Walter could bow it a hundred times. No, a thousand or ten thousand times.
Crepin knew that fact all too well.
'If you cannot bite, do not bark so carelessly, you pathetic dog of the North.'
Crepin let out a snickering laugh and steadied his trembling body.
One day, I will repay this humiliation.
He repeated that thought as he rose.
Or rather, tried to.
But the instant he did—
"How amusing."
SHING.
Walter chuckled and drew a dagger from his waist.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, he drove it into Crepin's thigh.
SQUELCH—!
Crepin's eyes widened as though their blood vessels would burst, and he screamed.
"Aaaaaagh!!"
Walter clicked his tongue and frowned.
How noisy.
Walter gave a small sneer and brought his index finger to his lips.
"It would be wise not to raise your voice."
Then he slowly ground his foot down on Crepin's thigh.
"Before I tear out your throat and throw it to the wolves of the snowfield."
"......!"
Crepin's eyes shook violently.
Until moments ago, he had been certain.
The Grand Duke of the North would not dare touch him so easily.
—THROB!
But before anything else, the pain carved into his body told him that assumption had been unmistakably wrong.
"Do you understand?"
"Urgh......"
Crepin desperately swallowed the scream threatening to burst from his mouth.
The more he did, the more blood welled out as Walter crushed the wound, nearly causing him to lose consciousness.
Even so, he somehow stayed awake and gritted his teeth.
"Good."
Walter smiled faintly in satisfaction and nodded.
Then he looked down at Crepin and spoke.
"You said something a moment ago, did you not? You asked whether I thought I would escape unharmed after doing this."
"......"
"Then let me ask you the opposite."
Walter's golden eyes gleamed as he asked.
"Did you think you would leave the North alive and unharmed?"
Crepin's body, which had been trembling continuously, suddenly went still.
As though Walter had never intended to let him leave alive from the beginning—
From the moment they entered the reception room until now, Walter's eyes had not wavered in the slightest.
"......D-Do not be absurd."
No.
That could not be true.
Crepin desperately concealed the tremor in his voice and ground his teeth.
Walter tilted his head and looked at him.
"Do you think I cannot do it?"
More than anything, Walter's expression as he asked was as though he had heard an amusing joke.
A small smile remained on his lips.
Yet dense pressure continued pouring from around Walter.
The dissonance only confused Crepin further.
However, the air piercing his lungs and the pain carved into his body told him the truth.
Walter's words were not mere bluster.
"As you know, the North is such a remote land that rumors do not reach it easily."
Walter smiled pleasantly at Crepin.
"Even if a member of a ducal house from the royal capital were to die here in an unfortunate accident."
"......!"
Just as he said—
If they wished, disguising his death as an accident in the North would be all too easy.
They could kill every witness, tear their corpses apart, and scatter the pieces across the snowy mountains.
No one would ever find them.
And even if someone happened to find them by sheer luck, most of the remains would already be inside monsters' stomachs, making identification difficult.
Walter continued.
"Ah, your younger sister might even be pleased."
The second daughter of House Selbirot, Alice Selbirot.
She was the younger sister who constantly coveted his position as heir.
If he died in an accident, the position would naturally become hers.
"No. She might even take the initiative and invent every excuse imaginable to bury the incident."
"D-Do you think...... my father will stand by and allow this?"
"The head of House Selbirot?"
Walter shook his head and scoffed.
"As if that power-hungry old man would care."
The current head of House Selbirot.
He was bedridden and could barely move, but his hunger for power had never diminished.
That was why, even now, he had yet to formally hand the position of head of the house to his son, Crepin.
"Your father might instead welcome his daughter taking the position."
If he was forced to hand over the position, the second daughter, whose blood was mixed with that of an outsider, would be easier to control than the eldest son who directly inherited his blood.
Walter added that calmly.
"Crepin, it has already been well over three years since we first came to know each other, has it not?"
Crepin Selbirot.
Heir to a ducal house of the royal capital.
Including the time before Walter's regression, the man and the North had been bound by a truly tenacious ill-fated relationship.
Gray Castle had fallen into his hands because the North could not repay its debt.
The same was true for most of the North's rights.
Then the existence of Grand Alchemist Alkein's tomb became known, mana ore was mined, and the royal capital intervened.
There was no chance Crepin would simply stand by and watch.
The complete conquest of the North.
That had been his true goal.
Crepin never stopped.
He had constantly tried to seize even Walter's final remaining rights by any means necessary, desperate to place the entire North within his grasp.
Walter had fought just as desperately to prevent that.
In the end, he had died from overwork.
That was why the current Walter knew.
Crepin would never give up on the North.
Even if the North repaid its debt—
He would certainly try to interfere with the North through whatever filthy scheme he could devise.
And if Crepin became head of the house, that would become even more certain.
That was why Walter had made his decision.
Here and now—
Before Crepin gained full authority over House Selbirot, Walter would tear him out by the roots.
"Certainly. The old me would have been different."
Walter lightly tapped the dagger embedded in Crepin's thigh as he spoke.
Before his regression, Walter could never have touched Crepin's thigh.
He could not even have laid a finger on him.
But now, things were different.
The North was not merely a barren and desolate land.
The North no longer starved.
The North was no longer isolated.
One day, the North would extend all the way to the royal capital, and people would regard it not as the worst land, but as the Best Land.
No.
I will make it so.
And for that—
I intend to finish you here and now, Crepin.
Walter looked at Crepin as he spoke.
"The North was far too precious to me. That was why, if it meant protecting the North, I could cast aside something as trivial as my dignity as a grand duke and bow my head without resistance."
But after experiencing regression, I realized something.
Bowing my head alone cannot protect the North.
If anything, the more I do so, the more hands reach out to seize it.
From now on, I will cut off every one of those hands without mercy.
Walter opened his mouth.
"Of course, the fact that the North is precious to me has not changed. However, after giving it some thought, I found that bowing my head to a petty man was not particularly helpful."
Walter clenched his fist and murmured.
"This land is my home, and the people of this land are my people. I was born on this land, and I grew up alongside them. But it is not the same for someone like you. To you, this land and its people are nothing more than livestock you covet. Is that not so?"
His cold golden eyes looked down at Crepin.
"So I have decided to change my way of thinking. As the master of the North, I will never bow my head to someone like you. Nor will I ever entrust this land to someone like you. But even so, if someone with neither the qualifications nor the ability tries to take my North—tries to take what is precious to me—"
—CRRRUNCH!
Walter gripped the dagger's hilt where it was buried in Crepin's thigh and twisted it deeper.
"Nghhhhh!"
Crepin desperately gritted his teeth and twisted his body.
"Even if you do not wish to know, you will learn what kind of man I become once I cast aside the cumbersome thing called dignity."
"Urgh, ngh...... Aaaaaagh!!"
Unable to endure the pain any longer, Crepin's scream filled the reception room.
Walter did not stop.
Instead, he tightened his grip further as he spoke.
—GRRNNNNNCH......!
"So never again reveal your greed for this land before me. No—do not even allow a rumor that you harbored such greed to reach my ears."
"......"
"If that day ever comes, I will drag you back to the North and hang the shredded pieces of your flesh from every snow-covered mountaintop."
"......"
"You may borrow the hand of the royal capital if you wish. I will gladly bear the stigma of being branded a traitor. But remember one thing without fail. Even if I must drag the entire kingdom and all its nobles down with me, I will find you."
Then I will scatter your severed limbs across the North's snowfields.
I will scatter your white bones over the North's snowy mountains and feed them to the monsters.
So if you ever covet the North again—
"Then I will personally crush your windpipe."
Walter murmured in a low voice.
"......Do you understand?"
It was the vow of the master of the North, the one who had inherited the Heart of Winter.
Crepin nodded desperately.
"I understand! I understand perfectly! So please...... Please......."
Spare my life.
Just spare my life.
He shouted desperately in a hideously cracked voice.
Walter yanked the dagger from Crepin's thigh and stood.
"Take it."
At the same time, Walter threw something toward Crepin.
It was a necklace with a silver chain and a black jewel set into it.
Walter tilted his head toward it.
"Put it around your neck."
Crepin flinched and looked back and forth between the necklace before him and Walter.
He had definitely heard of such things in the pleasure district.
Some nobles forcibly fitted devices onto slaves purchased from slave markets in order to tame them.
In other words, it was a kind of binding restriction.
And such devices usually took the form of ornaments like rings or necklaces.
Walter flicked the red blood from his dagger and spoke.
"You may refuse."
"......"
"In that case, I will put something else through your neck instead."
CLACK.
Walter adjusted his grip on the dagger.
Crepin hurriedly snatched up the necklace from the floor.
No! I will put it on at once!
—CLINK......
With trembling hands, Crepin somehow managed to fasten the necklace around his neck.
Whatever restriction had been placed on it, escaping the North alive came first.
That was the only thought in Crepin's mind.
"Yes. It suits you rather well, Sir Crepin."
Walter smiled and nodded.
Then he straightened his black fur coat with a flap and sat down.
Walter slowly opened his mouth.
"Come to think of it, you said something to me long ago, did you not?"
"......"
"If you receive a favor, you ought to show proper sincerity."
Those were the words Crepin had spoken in the middle of the cold snowfield on the day Walter borrowed money from him.
And now—
—RISE.
Walter looked down at Crepin and repeated those same words.
"Kneel."
"......"
Crepin ground his teeth.
Then, clutching his bleeding thigh, he slowly dropped to his knees.
In the study of Gray Castle—
—THUD!
Crepin lowered his head to the floor and spoke.
"I express...... my gratitude for Your Grace's kindness."
And so, beneath Walter's feet—
Crepin bowed his head.
At last, it was the moment that brought their long-standing debt relationship to an end.