Chapter 88 - Love Letters and Green Eyes
"Scalfarotto-sama!"
"What is it?"
After finishing a meeting about the training exercise, Volf was walking down the hallway when a woman’s voice called out to him from behind.
Though he found it troublesome, he stopped in his tracks, keeping his face expressionless.
When he turned around, he saw a young girl in a pale yellow dress trembling as she clutched an envelope. Her face was entirely unfamiliar to him.
The man beside him, Dorino, gave Volf a pat on the shoulder and walked off with an indescribable expression, leaving Volf alone to deal with the situation.
"Scalfarotto-sama, u-um! ...Could you please read this?"
"I'm sorry, but I cannot accept it."
His immediate refusal made the girl’s blue eyes fill with tears in an instant.
She was likely in her late teens, and judging by the design and quality of her dress, Volf guessed she belonged to a mid- to high-ranking noble family. Moreover, someone capable of bringing a daughter or granddaughter into the royal castle must be her guardian. It was clear that he couldn’t afford to handle this poorly.
He couldn't help but wonder what her attendants were doing, but the only one standing in the hallway was this lone girl.
Her resolve to personally deliver the letter was commendable, but had she considered the potential consequences?
Just being seen speaking with her could spark troublesome rumors.
And if this interaction somehow led to scandal, her parents would likely lay all the blame on him, no matter the truth.
However, the girl before him seemed to not have even thought of such risks.
"I don’t need you to reply. Just please, at least take it?"
"If it concerns me, please go through the Scalfarotto household. Due to my busy schedule, any correspondence is reviewed by my family first."
Wanting to wrap up the conversation quickly, he indirectly said, "Since the letters are subject to inspection, if you have the face to do so, then address it to the Scalfarotto family."
In truth, no one would send a love letter through his family, and even if they did, it would simply be returned.
Any reasonable parent would vehemently oppose marrying their daughter to someone like Volfred, who had no external magic despite being from a Count’s family and was plagued with rumors.
"Go through your family? That’s..."
The girl looked as though she was about to cry, but Volf was determined to get away.
Young girls of her age were far more troublesome than the grown women who flirted with him. Their intense emotions and determination often caused problems.
"I’m in the middle of work, so if you’ll excuse me."
He bowed slightly and took a path that deliberately avoided her as he walked down the hallway.
From experience, Volf knew that about 20% of the time, women like her would try to grab him if he got within arm’s reach. His priority was ensuring his own safety.
He heard faint sobbing behind him, but he quickened his pace without looking back.
"Volfred-senpai, don’t you think that was a bit harsh?"
As soon as he turned a corner, one of his juniors in the squad looked at him with reproachful eyes.
It seemed the earlier exchange had been overheard.
"You could’ve at least accepted it..."
"I’ve been instructed by my family not to accept such things."
"Is that so..."
"For now, it would be best for us to put some distance between us and her."
While continuing to walk, Volf consciously kept as much distance as he could from the girl.
Turning to his green-haired junior, who followed beside him with a dissatisfied expression, Volf spoke with a tone of genuine exasperation.
"It could lead to trouble if I accept letters like that."
"Love letters from girls her age are just something you read and move on from, aren’t they?"
"It’s not always that simple, which is why I can’t accept them."
"Ah, something like, 'Make me your bride,' right?"
Ordinarily, Volf wouldn’t bother explaining further.
But with the tailing from the previous day and now this letter, he couldn't help but feel a bit weighed down.
Against his better judgment, he found himself venting.
"From girls her age, I’ve received mandatory invitations to tea parties, compulsory requests to escort them to evening balls, and some have even set specific dates to meet their fathers to discuss courtship."
"That sounds pretty intense..."
"That’s not even the worst. I’ve had letters saying they’d die if I didn’t date them, or ones containing locks of hair or nails. Others were full of insults about their fiancés, begging me to steal them away. Oh, and there was one who wrote out her wedding date and asked me to abduct her during the ceremony... I didn’t even know what she looked like!"
"...That's scary..."
In front of the hollow-eyed Volf, his junior trembled slightly.
He probably hadn't expected it to go that far.
Young girls didn’t always pour innocent, sweet emotions into their love letters. Sometimes, the passion burned too intensely, and other times, the contents were downright dangerous and best avoided.
"It’s hard to say with the recent ones. I usually don’t accept them. Even when they’re forced on me or sent to my house, I make sure to return the letters through their family. Even so, sometimes their families or fiancés end up holding a grudge against me.”
"...I see. In that case, there really wasn’t any other option. Giving them any false hope would only make things worse."
The junior’s expression shifted entirely, moving from reproach to sympathy.
"If you went back now, there’s a good chance that young lady would come crying to you. If she’s your type, comforting her might not be a bad idea, though."
"I already have a fiancée, so I’ll pass."
When Volf replied with a hint of sarcasm, his junior shook his head so fiercely it looked like it might snap.
"To be honest, I’d heard you were really popular, Volfred-senpai, and I was jealous..."
"If that’s something to envy, feel free to take my place."
"I’m sorry, I won’t think that again. I misunderstood. There were rumors that... well, you were quite the player, Volfred-senpai. That it didn’t stop you, even if the other person had a fiancée..."
"Getting involved with young ladies who already have fiancés or lovers is like dancing in front of a fire-breathing monster. The monsters we hunt are more than enough trouble."
"True. Besides, you don’t even need to go for ladies who are already taken, right, Senpai?"
"If anything, I’d rather have peace."
Perhaps because he’d been talking with Dahlia lately, Volf found himself accidentally speaking his true feelings.
His junior froze for a moment, then burst into laughter, unable to hold it in.
"...I never thought you could be such a serious yet amusing person, Volfred-senpai."
"So, which is it? Do you think I’m serious or amusing, Leonardi?”
"Sorry, I think you’re equally both. Oh, and please, just call me Kirk."
"All right. Then just call me Volf too."
Switching from using someone’s surname to their given name was often a gesture of wanting to build closer ties.
Over the past month, there had been a sudden increase in people calling him Volf or addressing him without honorifics. It might seem like a small thing, but he felt truly happy about it.
"Your body enhancement is incredible, Volf-senpai."
"Thanks. But honestly, I'm more envious of you, Kirk, for being able to use magic."
With his green hair and eyes, and a considerable amount of magical power, Kirk was practically a prodigy of wind magic. Yet instead of joining the Mage Division, he had chosen to serve in the Monster Subjugation Squad.
"Well, it’s just wind magic. Since I can’t use body enhancement, I can’t get too close to monsters, and I end up getting hurt a lot... I always dreamed of being a knight like my father, who could slay monsters, but reality isn’t so kind."
"Your father was part of the unit too?"
"Yeah. He retired a while ago and works at home now. When he's drunk, though, all he talks about is monster hunting. He's got a rotation of a few stories, and I've heard at least a hundred of them."
Knowing that Kirk’s father had retired for reasons other than death gave Volf a small sense of relief.
After all, the mortality rate in the Monster Subjugation Force was notoriously high compared to the rest of the Chivalric Order.
"Since my father excelled at it, I always wished I could use body enhancement magic instead of wind magic."
It seemed that people often long for what they didn’t have. Standing before him was someone who desired the very opposite of what he wished for himself.
Then a thought crossed Volf's mind.
The sköll bracelet worked by harnessing wind magic, allowing him to extend his jumping range and move faster. If Kirk could use wind magic, couldn’t he replicate the effects as a substitute for body enhancement?
"Kirk, you’re able to jump quite far with wind magic, right?"
"Yeah, I’d say a decent distance."
"What if you controlled the direction of the magic you cast on yourself? Couldn’t you use it as a substitute for body enhancement?"
"Control the direction?"
"When you jump now, I imagine you send wind against your back from behind. What if you did something similar but focused it on just your arms while swinging a sword? Or only on the sword itself? Or, when escaping, you could push yourself sideways with a gust of wind. It seems like it could be useful to assist those kinds of movements...?”
Having worked with Dahlia on magical swords, Volf had developed a habit of exploring hypothetical ideas.
Thanks to that, ideas of "what if" scenarios kept coming to mind, and he ended up saying them out loud.
For someone like Kirk, who actually used magic, the idea might have sounded absurd. The young man stared at him with his mouth agape, completely at a loss for words.
"Sorry, I don’t know much about wind magic, so I might be way off."
"Volf-senpai!"
Suddenly, Kirk grabbed Volf’s arm tightly and shouted his name loud enough to echo down the corridor.
"Please explain that one more time! And let me try it out—can you join me at the training grounds?"
"Well, I was just about to have lunch..."
"Then let’s eat in five minutes and head straight to the training grounds there!"
Volf considered saying that meals should be taken at a proper pace, that he would have to head straight into the afternoon drills with no proper break. Various excuses ran through his mind.
But the gleam in Kirk’s green eyes reminded him of Dahlia.
And with that, he found himself unable to refuse.
"Thank you! All right, let’s go right now!"
"After we visit the dining hall first."
Kirk’s dazzlingly bright smile drew a resigned laugh from Volf in return.
For some time after that day, the unusual sight of Volf being dragged around by his junior became a popular topic of conversation.
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