Wolf looked up at the hole in the cave ceiling.
Light scattered in disarray. Like white feathers pouring all at once from a pillow with a torn corner.
“That fight the other day was pure luck. I’ve never fought anyone in my life. I’ve never learned combat either, and the battle training I started this year—I mostly just killed time.”
“You’re being too modest, Wolf. I watch first-rate knights compete in martial matches at the court all the time. I know the difference between real and fake. Besides, you said you exercise every day.”
“That’s because I’m a baker’s apprentice. You can’t work in a kitchen without stamina. These calluses came from kneading dough.”
Wolf spread both hands.
The Red Eagle Prince seemed struck speechless and couldn’t respond.
“Back then I just used a trick I happened to hear about. A famous back-alley fighter from my neighborhood—he’s like an older brother to us kids. Whenever he told his war stories, all the boys gathered around him. I was one of them. Those stories were way more exciting than the hero novels sold in back alleys. Whenever I heard one, my chest would be so full I couldn’t sleep that night.”
Whenever fights broke out at school, Wolf had always been just a spectator.
He had never once stepped in as the main actor.
Wolf Bell had always been Bystander No. 1.
“They say people can show incredible strength when they’re desperate. My friend Roy told me once that his mom—she’s tiny, barely bigger than a chick—picked him up and ran all the way to the hospital.”
“When?”
“Well… I think he said when he was seven…”
“Wolf, I… ah, I don’t know what to say to this…”
The Red Eagle Prince raked both hands through his hair.
“Wolf, what you’re saying doesn’t sound like a lie. But a mother carrying her sick son to the hospital and an ordinary baker’s apprentice skillfully fighting warriors are as different as a ball and a stick. That precise stance being ‘luck’—I can’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense.”
“You must’ve been pretty shocked. Honestly, I was surprised too.”
That was true.
In the chaos afterward he hadn’t had time to think about it, but at the moment it happened Wolf had been more than surprised—he had been stunned.
In that brief instant when the opponent thrust a spear toward him, the neighborhood fighter’s story suddenly popped into his mind.
His eyes caught the opponent’s movement instantly.
At the same time, the seventeenth illustration from the book Anatomical Diagrams of the Stol Races, which he had secretly looked at in a back-alley bookstore, overlapped with the opponent.
The full body of a Stol warrior drawn with only the muscle bundles painted red.
And the single line written below it.
“If the shoulder girdle collapses, the weight line shifts forward past the toes, and the pelvis and knees twist in a chain reaction.”
His body moved first.
Wolf stepped forward and drove his elbow straight in.
The more Wolf recalled that moment, the more uneasy he felt about himself.
His body had selected the most suitable fighting technique for the situation like choosing the right recipe.
Then executed it with the precision of pulling bread from the oven at exactly the right time.
As a result, the opponent’s face had caved in.
Like a lump of dough punched down with a fist.
From beginning to end, just as the Red Eagle Prince said—
None of it made sense.
Damn it, my head hurts. Let’s stop thinking about it.
Wolf let his shoulders slump and stood up.
“Anyway, Your Highness. Let’s keep it a secret from Silver that I can’t fight.”
“Huh?”
The Red Eagle Prince jerked his head up.
“Sorry, Wolf. I was so surprised by what you said that I blanked out. Yes, we should definitely keep this from Silver.”
“Yeah. It’s a risk factor. With his personality, the moment he finds out my real fighting ability he’ll immediately lose interest.”
Suddenly a sharp pain shot through him, like a sickle tearing into raw flesh.
Wolf clutched his chest with one hand.
Ah.
So that’s why.
The reason he had felt miserable and sad the moment he learned why Silver liked him.
Because Wolf Bell wasn’t the “warrior” Silver liked.
He was just a common baker’s apprentice, as ordinary as ivy.
And once Silver knew the truth, the interest would disappear.
Wolf began to understand a little how the Red Eagle Prince must have felt earlier when he was baffled by the idea that Wolf couldn’t fight.
That strange feeling when something appears right in front of you that your common sense can’t explain.
It wasn’t just absurd—it was empty.
By Wolf’s own common sense, the experience he was having right now made no sense at all.
How could his chest hurt this much just because he might lose the attention of some boy his own age?
Why.
Why?
Even the male protagonist in the boarding house owner’s novel hadn’t suffered this much when the woman he had loved for years married his arch-enemy.
At least that guy had time on his side.
I’ve only known Silver for a few days.
Am I crazy?
Or… did someone cast a spell on me?
Wolf steadied his breathing and looked again at the gray sky.
Even if the ground were flat, walking from here to the cave opening would take about the time it took for a candle to burn down the width of a fingernail.
Climbing the cave wall would take even longer.
And yet Silver had reached it in an instant, like running down an alley…
Once again Wolf felt the difference between himself and Silver.
He was the cave floor where sunlight pooled.
Silver was the sun scattering light in every direction.
They were painfully different in every possible way.
The only thing they shared was a name.
Suppressing the hollow feeling, Wolf trudged toward the cave wall.
He absentmindedly brushed the stone with his hand.
Then his brows furrowed.
Huh?
This…
When he touched it directly, the wall was actually quite uneven.
It felt rough, like sandpaper.
Wolf placed his foot on one of the protrusions.
It was wide enough that he wouldn’t easily slip.
“Not dangerous.”
Silver’s short reply echoed in his ears.
Wolf swallowed and ran his hand along the cave wall.
Indeed.
Not dangerous.
I could probably try it too.
“Once we had a courage contest. We put a narrow plank between two three-story buildings and walked across it. Oh, what happened? Well, if I’d screamed and fallen off, I wouldn’t be here bragging to a bunch of dumb kids now, would I?”
The neighborhood fighter’s voice continued in his memory.
Wolf listened as if hypnotized.
“I told you fighting is about guts, didn’t I? Ask anyone to walk along a straight line drawn on flat ground and nobody would fail. It’s the same thing. When I walked that plank, I just imagined I was walking on flat ground.”
Imagine…
Wolf slowly scanned the cave wall from bottom to top.
He got the idea.
“W-Wolf?!”
When Wolf suddenly began climbing the cave wall, the Red Eagle Prince nearly fainted.
“What are you doing?! That’s dangerous!”
“It’s not dangerous.”
“What are you talking about?! Get down here!”
“Your Highness, on the ship heading to Stol I slept on the top bunk, remember? You had to climb a ladder.”
“I said get down!”
“This is the same as that ladder. Just much longer.”
The sensation at his fingertips no longer felt like stone.
Staring at the sun in the gray sky, Wolf climbed stubbornly upward.
Reaching the cave opening in one go would be difficult.
Today he would climb partway up and come down repeatedly, letting his body adapt.
If he imagined it as climbing a somewhat long ladder, it wasn’t difficult at all.
“Wolf… why are you doing this?”
The Red Eagle Prince’s voice sounded distant now.
Wolf kept climbing, teeth clenched.
Why?
I don’t know.
I don’t even care.
He had always watched from the sidelines, but he had seen countless boys his age throw themselves into reckless and dangerous games without any real purpose.
Right now he simply wanted to run toward the sun without thinking.\
* * *
“Old hag!”
Black Weasel kicked the door open violently.
An elderly white-haired man flipping through a book at an old desk in the corner frowned.
“Half a year already? If that door breaks, I’ll use your hide to pay for it.”
“Nice greeting. Thanks.”
Books were stacked everywhere—overflowing the cabinet and piled across the floor.
Black Weasel had to kick aside several stacks just to reach the desk.
“Take it.”
He slammed a chest onto the desk with a heavy thud.
The old man closed the book.
“I’ll accept it with gratitude… but how is your young master?”
“The same.”
Black Weasel answered shortly, glaring at the old man.
“My investment isn’t free. How far have you gotten in six months?”
“Two dissections of female variants completed. Essentially trial surgeries. Rare case—twin sisters in their early twenties. They committed joint suicide out of despair.”
“That’s it? So you still haven’t even put a scalpel to a spruce?”
“Damn it, you know as well as I do. Variant corpses are hard to secure. Especially male variants!”