A few months after Balthazar’s failed invasion of Brigandia and the subsequent conquest of Sylvario.
I had taken an unexpectedly long time dealing with something non-work-related and arrived home much later than planned.
“Welcome home, Lord Ark.”
“I’m home, Nia. Y’know, I’d really like it if you dropped the ‘Lord’ at home too soon.”
“Huh... Um, wait, Lord Ark!”
When I said that with a very serious expression, Nia immediately started panicking. Cute.
After the ceremony unveiling Nia as the Saintess a while back, I’d started talking more casually to her. And Nia did too; she was dropping the “Lord” honorific and speaking in a more casual tone more often when we were alone.
Honestly, hearing her talk to me so intimately was unbelievably cute, so I was split between the feelings of wanting to hear her talk to me like that normally and wanting her to only speak that way when she was with me. I knew it was a pretty luxurious problem to have, but a worry was a worry. But even after I said that, if she found it too embarrassing, then I wasn’t going to force her to do it.
“Anyway, what was your business tonight?” Nia asked, trying to change the subject with a rather forceful diversion. For her sake, I decided to go along with it.
“Oh, yeah, Gale wanted to talk,” I answered. “He wanted advice on marriage and running a household.”
“I see. So it was what you might call a ‘man-to-man’ talk?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
Nia seemed to infer a lot from that little back-and-forth.
While there hadn’t been any proper fighting during the last military expedition he’d been on, Count Barracuda’s group of retainers had seen Gale’s skill at coordinating the army as the count’s adjutant, and they’d accepted that he would be marrying into Barracuda County and become its next head of house. Thanks to that, preparations for his wedding to his fiancée, Count Barracuda’s daughter, Miss Emilia, had suddenly started speeding up, and his anxieties and worries over various things had increased.
So, as I was his senior in the field of suddenly being made head of a noble family, he came to me for advice.
“Gentlemen have their own problems, huh,” Nia said. “I’ve heard things from Emilia, but...”
“Yeah, I heard you ladies have it rough too. I’m sure Miss Emilia appreciates being able to confide in you.”
Really, there was no way Nia wasn’t being asked for advice when she was so much better at it than I was.
After all the postwar cleanup was done with, Nia and Miss Emilia had started meeting up quite frequently. Not only were their intellects at similar levels and their conversations thus lively, but Miss Emilia had a lot of worries, and Nia’s replies to them must’ve been really clear and helpful.
I’d been shocked when I’d realized they’d stopped adding “Lady” in front of each other’s name. In noble society, that basically meant they were best friends. While the wall between the wife of a viscount and the future wife of a count was surprisingly thick, it seemed that Miss Emilia didn’t care about things like that. And anyway, by the time she really did become a countess, that problem would be gone.
“Soon enough you’ll be the one needing her advice on how to run a count’s household, so it wouldn’t hurt to butter her up while you can.”
“Oh my, so it’s finally been decided?”
“In a couple years, at the very latest,” I confirmed. “According to His Highness, it might not even take a year if we speed it up.”
Nia’s eyes widened a little bit in surprise. Cute. Wait, no.
It wasn’t strange that Nia was surprised. I’d just been raised to the rank of viscount, but I was saying that my rise in peerage to a count was practically guaranteed to happen in the near future. Moving up at this speed definitely wasn’t normal.
But having a mere viscount be the Saintess’s spouse was bad for looks, and plus, I’d done so much in our conquest of Sylvario that my promotion had been decided on in an instant. Well, mostly it was because of His Highness spearheading the whole thing.
A small part of me knew this was happening so fast because it was His Highness, Count Barracuda, and Count Farlon all wanting this to happen. They might’ve just wanted me to owe them, though.
“Things’ll be getting even busier, so I’d like to rest for today, And,” I said, “Laura is out tonight.”
When I said that, Nia gave me a little troubled smile, her cheeks red.
Laura had finally given in, and she was currently attending a ball with His Highness. So, if we married folk wanted to relax in our room, then we’d be all alone, without Laura.
While the maid wasn’t staying the night there, she’d taken the next day off because she knew she wouldn’t be back until late. This was at Nia’s orders. Since Laura was from a former royal family and servant to the Saintess, she’d probably spent a lot of time at the ball being bombarded with questions, enough to exhaust even her. If Nia hadn’t ordered her to rest, she probably would’ve ignored her exhaustion and tried to serve Nia instead.
While I was thinking about that, Nia whispered something quietly.
“Hmm? What did you just say, Nia?”
“Er, um, I mean, uh...”
When I asked her to repeat it, she couldn’t reply immediately. That was rare. But I couldn’t blame her. My ears were sharper than a normal person’s, so I had heard what she said loud and clear. And despite this, I was still asking her to repeat it. Even I thought that was a nasty bit of work.
“Um. I don’t have any plans for tomorrow. So, um...”
“Ah, um. I see.”
I couldn’t say any more than that. I’d gotten embarrassed myself.
She had no plans for tomorrow. Which meant she could stay up late. And that meant... Yeah, you get it.
Nia knew I would get what she was saying, so this was her doing her very best at seducing me. Which meant that it’d be mean of me to tease her too much, and anyway, I didn’t have the presence of mind to tease her.
We’d spent the night together a number of times by now, but I still couldn’t get used to it. At all. But I guess it was nice in itself that every time felt like the first.
“So no one can get between us tonight,” I said.
“R-Right.” Nia nodded bashfully. Cute.
I couldn’t be more thankful to spend my life by this angel’s side—to be her husband. It was something I never, ever wanted to lose. And for that reason, I’d go all out, as much as needed; the Black Wolf’s fangs would always be bared. And they would surely never be dull.