Why the Northern Duke Wanders the Snowfields - Chapter 4

Kay blinked his sore eyes as he stared out the hazy window where the blizzard still raged.

‘It’s morning.’

He hadn’t slept a wink all night, tossing and turning in self-loathing.

Yesterday, he didn’t seem to be in his right mind.

Even though he’d spent quite a long time alone in this cabin, it wasn’t as if he’d been so starved.

‘This is absurd.’

Do I lust after any woman I see?

As he brooded over the possibility that his past self had been sexually depraved, he suddenly felt a gaze.

Sparkle, sparkle.

Sky blue eyes, shining like jewels, were staring straight at him.

It was the first time he’d looked at the baby so closely.

While Kay observed the baby’s deep blond hair and sky colored eyes, the baby also swept Kay’s face here and there with its round eyes.

The baby didn’t completely resemble its mother’s appearance, but it was lovely.

The woman’s hair was brown tinged with wheat, and her eyes were like crystals dyed with red.

‘It must take after its father.’

Just what kind of man would abandon such a young son and think of marrying another woman?

Is the man a noble?

Then the woman was likely a commoner.

‘With such a beautiful appearance, it’s not strange for a noble to set his sights on her.’

The Kingdom of Trilan was tolerant of premarital relationships and keeping mistresses for both men and women. However, noble marriages were major matters between families, so they avoided producing illegitimate children. If a mistress became pregnant with a bastard, she was sometimes sent far away.

As they stared at each other for a moment, the baby opened its mouth and babbled.

“Ah, ah. Ooh.”

At even that small sound, the woman reacted with a flinch and moved her body gently. The woman’s body, with its breathtaking curves, turned over, and her hand rested on the baby’s body. His gaze was naturally drawn to the hand patting the baby’s squirming belly.

With those white fingers, she’d wrapped and rubbed his penis.

Just the thought made his lower abdomen ache painfully as his penis swelled.

Kay groaned and pushed himself upright.

If he stayed lying down any longer, he felt like he’d pounce on the woman like a beast, baby or no baby.

Hiding his impatience after losing his composure, he put back on the clothes he’d taken off yesterday.

“Where are you going?”

Aubrianna asked as she squinted her eyes, looking back and forth between the window where snow was pouring down madly and Kay, who was fully dressed.

Kay was generally diligent, but on days when the blizzard was severe, he avoided going out as much as possible.

But judging by the fact that he even grabbed the fox fur hat, it looked like he was going somewhere quite far.

“You were grumbling a few days ago that you wanted to eat rabbit meat.”

Aubrianna’s face reddened. After eating nothing but bland soup for a week, it was something she’d muttered without thinking.

At the time, the blizzard had been so severe that it was hard even to open the door.

After hooking the snare at his waist, the man pulled on gloves woven from the leftover fur from making the hat.

Though its strength had lessened compared to a few days ago, snow was still falling so heavily that it was hard to see ahead.

“Are you really going to catch a rabbit?”

Worry crossed the woman’s face.

Tightening his clothes firmly with his belt, the man tapped the jar containing the dried spices he’d brought back yesterday.

“I might be late.”

“It looks like you won’t even be able to see in front of you.”

“Are you worrying about me right now?”

The man let out a small laugh and pulled the hat down low.

“Worrying….”

Aubrianna repeated the word quietly to herself.

It felt a bit strange to worry about the strongest man in the north.

Before she could sink into other thoughts, the door flew open, and a fierce gust of wind whipped the blizzard right into the entryway.

“Then I’m off.”

At the sight of the man about to leave, Aubrianna’s chest suddenly tightened.

“W-wait a moment.”

The man, who had already stepped forward, pulled his foot back and turned his head. His face was hard to see, hidden behind the thick fur.

“Why?”

Aubrianna hurriedly shook her head. “No. It’s nothing.”

The man, who had been wearing a puzzled expression, soon curved his lips into a smile. “Look forward to it.”

The door slammed shut, and the snowflakes swirling in the air slowly fell to the floor, leaving damp trails behind.

‘I should’ve told him to be careful….’

When she’d been heavily pregnant, her relationship with Kaeloc had been heading for its worst after news of his engagement.

So she hadn’t even properly said goodbye to him when he went off to participate in the battle before his disappearance.

Placing her hand on the window frame, Aubrianna’s eyes wavered as she searched for traces of the man who had already vanished into the blizzard.

‘I decided not to live like my previous life. I should express myself more.’

She couldn’t keep clinging only to pride anymore. Above all, what mattered most was her and the baby’s safety.

Aubrianna bit her lip hard and turned her head away.

***

Kay had to walk for quite a long time to get out of the area around the cabin where snow had fallen all night.

After walking for several hours, he finally found a region where the snow was thinner and stopped.

Snow was still drifting here too, but it wasn’t piled up to waist height like around the cabin.

He narrowed his eyes and looked around.

If he was lucky, he could sometimes spot a brown rabbit that hadn’t yet changed the color of its fur.

‘Today is not my lucky day.’

No matter how much he scanned the area, the snowfield was filled with stillness. He couldn’t even hear the chirping of common wild birds.

They seemed to be staying inside their own warm nests because of the cold weather.

“Tch.”

No matter how warmly he wrapped himself in fur, the tips of his fingers and toes were already frozen. The snow clinging to his beard was hardening like icicles.

He grew irritated at himself for confidently telling the woman to look forward to it.

Seeing her pale face as she drank thin soup and asked if there was anything else to eat made him want to offer her all the delicacies in the world.

“Well, she’s raising a baby.”

He tried to make excuses to himself as he trudged along, but Kay knew.

When he’d removed the hood attached to her cloak and saw her pale skin, he’d first thought she was dead. His heart had dropped because he believed she was a corpse.

The relief he’d felt when he brought his tightening fingertips to the tip of the woman’s neat, straight nose and sensed a faint breath.

After that, he’d had a strange experience.

At the sudden clarity of the small face drawing close, Kay felt the space around him distort, along with an unknown longing and hunger.

He’d heard that there were perverts who felt lust toward sleeping women, but he’d never imagined he’d be one of them.

Thud.

Roughly smacking the snow-laden raspberry branches aside with his hand, Kay kept walking.

But that bizarre sensation evaporated in an instant when the baby in the woman’s arms burst into tears.

Seeing the traces of how tightly she’d bound the baby so it wouldn’t slip, he couldn’t suppress his disappointment.

The existence of a baby meant she was someone else’s woman.

To fall in love at first sight with a woman who had given birth to another man’s child.

Sudden irritation flared up, and he clenched and unclenched his numb hands inside his gloves.

“He’s marrying another woman soon.”

What if that idiot who’s marrying another woman suddenly comes to his senses and comes here?

If he comes here looking for the woman and the baby, I’ll beat that faceless bastard until he’s completely broken. And right in front of him, I’ll strip her and forcibly….

Damn it.

He couldn’t believe he was the one having such violent fantasies.

‘Was I really such a depraved man before?’

He mulled it over, but there was no way to know. Or had he gone mad from being trapped in this snowfield for so long?

He was a man with a healthy body, and it had been a long time since he’d seen such a beautiful woman, so he thought this desire might be natural.

The snow continued to fall soundlessly. It wasn’t so heavy that he couldn’t see ahead, but it kept coming. He occasionally turned his body to check the direction of the wind and where the snow had piled up.

The most important thing right now was not to lose the path back to the cabin somewhere in the snowfield.

The snowfield was an extremely vast terrain spanning the border where the northern territory of the Kingdom of Trilan met the land of the Carnu tribe.

It was a barren land where the snow only melted for two months out of the year, and winter was so harsh that snow fell without stopping for months.

If someone were left behind alone in a place like that, they’d lose their sense of direction and wander deep into the snowfield, or worse, cross into land ruled by the barbaric Carnu tribe.

Either way, survival would be impossible.

They’d freeze to death or be killed.

Survival was impossible.

Those born and raised in the north knew the snowfield’s infamy well, so from childhood they learned how to find their way here.

He instinctively grasped his direction, forgetting that he’d even lost the memories of learning such things.

Kay glanced at the faintly visible Mount Winterholden and decisively moved his feet.

Mount Winterholden was a massive mountain located at the northernmost edge of the Kingdom of Trilan, serving as a landmark when one lost their way.

“If you lose your way in a blizzard, stop moving, wait for the blizzard to pass, then look for Mount Winterholden.”

It was something people of the north heard until it was drilled into their ears from the moment they were born.

Kay walked on in silence.

Spotting a low hill where rabbit burrows were likely to be, he strode over and took out a snare.

He memorized the position of the snare he set and moved on again. Whenever he found rabbit tracks, he placed traps there.

Judging the rabbit’s weight from the tracks, he found a stone of a similar size. Then he dug into the ground, placed fragile small branches over it, and covered them with snow and fallen leaves.

When the stone was placed precariously at the end of the hole, the trap was complete.

He straightened up and looked at the fifth trap he’d made.

“Perfect.”

For a moment, Kay wondered if he really had been a hunter in his lost past, but he soon shook his head.

That couldn’t be it. The accuracy of the daggers he threw at prey and the longsword he carried at his waist were clearly weapons used by soldiers.

‘Then was I a soldier?’

Or a hunter who somehow obtained a longsword?

He wanted to know his identity, but the deeper he dug, the more his head began to ache.

Shaking his head, Kay this time returned to where he’d set the snares.

“Nothing?”

Frowning at the empty snare, the man turned his head and looked around.

Before he knew it, the sun was setting. To make matters worse, the snowfall was starting to grow heavier.

At this rate, in another hour or two, he’d be trudging through knee-deep snow without being able to see ahead.

As the rabbits weren’t getting caught as well as he’d thought, and hunger and cold hit him at the same time, Kay started to grow irritable.

‘Why on earth did I even decide to do this?’

He couldn’t understand it. Before she came, he’d been at peace.

On days when the blizzard was this bad, he wouldn’t step even one foot outside the cabin.

If he hunted for just half a day on a clear day, he had more than enough to live on.

Food, firewood, water.

Since she arrived, they’d been dwindling several times faster.

“It’s not because it’s a waste,” he muttered. “There’s no way I’m that narrow-minded.”

She was a frail woman, and the baby was still young. Even someone who wasn’t generous should be able to open their arms wide and take care of them.

“Then why?”

He kept muttering as he walked.

“Why? Why?”

No matter how much he questioned himself, only emotions he couldn’t understand kept surging up.

‘I should just give up on the rabbits and go back to the cabin.’

What could he do about rabbits not getting caught because of bad weather?

No one would be able to blame him.

But his hesitant feet wouldn’t move.

Her lips, faintly moving as she weakly lifted soup, kept coming to mind.

“This is driving me crazy.”

Even his muttering mouth was freezing up, the words not coming out properly.

‘That woman’s probably warm and full, using up my firewood and meat with that clueless look on her face!’

With the rabbit hunt not going his way and his unquenched desire for her, Kay grew angrier and angrier.

He looked around. The day was growing dim, and with the strengthening blizzard, he could no longer see where he’d set the snares or placed the traps.

Deep wrinkles formed over the bridge of the man’s nose. Everywhere his gaze reached, it looked as if even the air was stiffening solid.

“Aubrianna Morel.”

He muttered the name of the woman who’d caused this whole situation.

It was fucking cold, and he was fucking aroused.