......
"Squad back in…complete…good. Now go and rest, Sergeant Leo."
"Yes. Understood. Commander." It was late at night, when most shops were closing.
Leo and his squad, having returned from their reconnaissance mission, reported to the commander and headed to their quarters.
Some had families, some had comfortable homes, but none had time to go home for the foreseeable future.
To carry out their reconnaissance mission, which began at dawn and ended late at night, they needed to rest as soon as possible.
Leo, whose family lived not far from the lord's city, was in a similar situation.
"...Um, Commander."
"...I understand what you're trying to say, but the lord has his reasons. Obey orders."
"...Yes…" But for Leo, the change of sleeping location was completely irrelevant.
Even on days off, he spent more time in the quarters to save time seeing Cecilia.
What's puzzling is the sudden change in the search mission.
Why was their own squad, considered a core unit among the Radian soldiers, only assigned to search the area surrounding Radian? It's truly baffling.
With the appearance of the monster suspected to be a Hero Devourer, and the current situation of issuing missions to adventurers and mobilizing all soldiers for searches,
even though Radian is a city lacking knights and with a sparse number of soldiers, a squad of their caliber is certainly no less capable than an ordinary adventurer.
To inexplicably send such an elite squad into a search of the surrounding area that anyone could perform naturally raises suspicions about the mission allocation.
'...Moreover, Cecilia…' Adding to this, Cecilia was suddenly transferred from her military duties.
It's said that Lady Celestia gave Cecilia special instructions to correct her behavior.
While Cecilia's situation is indeed different due to her special status… there has never been such a sudden transfer before.
'...No. Perhaps it's a good thing.' Although Cecilia is exceptionally talented and growing rapidly, as the daughter of a lord, her occasional outings always cause for concern.
If anything were to happen to this only daughter, the generations-long lineage of Lady Cecilia as Lord of Ladia would be extinguished.
In the Kingdom of Leonhardt, where titles cannot be inherited through bloodlines, the position of Lady Cecilia, passed down through generations, holds multiple special significance, and this situation must be prevented.
Furthermore, Leo himself has long wanted to change Cecilia's easily agitated nature… Trying to correct Cecilia's behavior now seems like a rather good idea.
After all, marriage to Cecilia… is not a distant future.
'…She's probably stamping her feet in frustration right now, wanting to join the reconnaissance,' Leo thought, a smile unconsciously creeping onto his lips.
Having watched her grow up since childhood, Cecilia, in a sense, felt more like a younger sister than a lover.
He had never imagined he'd be engaged to the lord's daughter; he didn't know when his heart had become tied to that mischievous heiress.
With this longing to see Cecilia, Leo turned back from his dormitory and headed towards Cecilia's room.
......
"Ugh… Ugh… Damn it, that damn bastard…"
In her room, she cursed as she examined her throbbing abdomen.
Cecilia, who had been struck countless times in the abdomen by the monster today, could no longer hold back her tears.
Simply because it hurt too much.
Unlike when she had been beaten for kicking the monster in the groin before, today the monster's punches had subtly lost their strength.
If she had been punched like that before, the redness in her abdomen would probably never have stopped.
Even though it didn't hurt that much, Cecilia couldn't stop the tears from flowing.
Those were tears born of a rather complex mix of emotions.
"Damn it...damn it...! Why...!" I couldn't understand this complex emotion at all.
That disgusting, abhorrent monster that had defiled my mother.
The moment that monster's grotesque muscles were revealed, for some reason, something inside my chest started pounding uncontrollably.
Testicles larger than my fist flaunted above the tight shorts, a hideous sight of him completely naked except for the taut shorts.
Although I had seen countless scenes of men with bare upper bodies during training with the soldiers... Those muscular, veiny forearms, as thick as my thighs, menacing and menacing.
Those sharply defined pectoral and abdominal muscles, seemingly capable of deflecting swords.
Those angular thigh muscles, seemingly about to expand with every movement.
A gigantic body exceeding two meters. The bulging veins and countless fine muscles on that massive body.
These muscles, sculpted with perfect coordination, formed an idealized body proportion.
A monstrous body, menacing to the extreme. That was... unmatched by any soldier he had ever seen.
Even Leo, his fiancé and hero, was no exception.
His ferocious, lean muscles surpassed those of any male in Esendia.
The moment his fist struck those muscles, his body, sensing their elasticity, automatically drew a conclusion.
This male was unbeatable.
"Why...! How could this be...! Like this, Leon...!"
The moment the monster grabbed his foot, a strange sense of anticipation surged through his body.
The instant he saw the monster's massive fist, an indescribable tremor ran through his entire body.
The moment that ferocious fist struck his abdomen...
"Damn...! What's going on! Really!" An inexplicable pleasure surged from his abdomen.
Where did that anticipation come from?
What caused that pleasure?
Each time the enormous fist slammed into his abdomen, accompanied by the gurgling sound as if his internal organs were being churned, a strange desire to be beaten even harder welled up, rendering him utterly unable to retaliate.
To be beaten so brutally by the monster I despise, and yet feel pleasure? How could this be? For the first time in my life, I experienced an indescribable shame and unease.
Shame. Humiliation. I couldn't even understand myself; my mind was in utter chaos.
Because of all this, even though I tried to hold back tears, they still streamed down my face, and I couldn't control the trembling in my body.
It was as if… I harbored some strange feeling towards this monster.
This fact was both terrifying and utterly humiliating.
"Damn it…! Mother, why did you have to fight that monster…!"
I had absolutely no idea what to do.
No matter how I thought about it, I didn't believe I could defeat that monster.
The weapons stored in the training grounds had been confiscated on my mother's orders, and my beloved sword was now being kept separately in the soldiers' armory.
I couldn't even enter the armory without the corps commander's permission, and the commander had already received orders from my parents; he would never grant me permission.
If I could go out, at least I could buy more weapons. Cecilia, however, forbade even going out, as if she had known everything all along.
Today, Cecilia found her mother utterly detestable.
'To fight that monster bare-handed... every single day...?' Cecilia's instincts trembled with fear.
She heard herself screaming a warning: if she continued to be beaten by that monster like this, she would eventually be completely twisted.
How could she escape this predicament? As she sobbed and pondered...—*Ding! Ding!* With the sound of something hitting the window twice, Cecilia's tears and trembling stopped abruptly.
It was the signal Leo had given her, one she had heard several times before.
The instant she heard it, Cecilia opened the window and jumped...
"Whoa!? Cecilia!?"
"Brother Leo!!!" She rushed to Leo, who was waiting below, and hugged him.
To catch Cecilia as she fell from the second floor, Leo fell to the ground.
This was an escape jump that Cecilia had almost never made recently. "Ah, Cecilia. That was dangerous..."
"Brother Leo. Brother Leo..." Cecilia sobbed, rubbing her face against Leo's chest.
Leo, unaware of what had happened to Cecilia, assumed she was acting this way because of her class tantrum and gently stroked her head.
"Just how much do you hate class...? It's been so long since I've seen Cecilia like this."
"Whatever! I hate it so much... that monster bastard..."
"Huh? Was it the Divine Beast's class?"
"That guy isn't a Divine Beast, he's a monster! Ugh... so annoying..." She immediately wanted to tell him what that monster had done to her.
She wanted to ask Leo to just kill the monster.
If she told him she'd been attacked, given Leo's personality, he'd probably rush over and chop the monster down right now.
But Leo hadn't yet obtained a noble title; acting rashly could lead to disaster.
Cecilia knew this all too well, and though unwilling, she could only bury her face in Leo's chest, unable to utter a word.
"Hmm... Is the Divine Beast going to teach etiquette...? Well, I guess I'll learn properly first. Now that I'm an adult, I should swear less."
"...Haa. It's not like that..."
"Haha... Come on. Stand up first." Leo propped himself up, helping Cecilia, who was clinging to him, to sit upright.
As Cecilia slid off Leo's arms, muttering something, she suddenly noticed the sword at his waist.
In an instant, Cecilia grabbed the hilt and stared straight at Leo.
"Brother! This sword...!?"
"Huh? Uh... I just rejoined the unit. I was going to store it before going to the dormitory."
"Brother! Can I borrow this sword for a day!?"
"What? Borrow a sword...?" This wasn't standard military equipment; it was a sword Leo had privately purchased, and it wasn't under the unit's jurisdiction.
The sword only needed to be temporarily stored before checking into the dormitory.
In that case, borrowing the sword from Leo was naturally no problem.
"Really!? Please! I promise I'll return it immediately after I'm done!"
"Uh, well... well, it's not impossible..." Faced with Cecilia's incredibly urgent expression, Leo nodded hastily.
Cecilia smiled sweetly as she took the sword from Leo.
'That bastard... he's really finished...' Things had come to this point, and now she had no choice but to resort to drastic measures.
She would come empty-handed tomorrow; all she needed to do was hide and defeat that monster.
As a nobleman, even if she caused trouble, she could at least cover it up somewhat.
Completely unaware of Cecilia's thoughts, Leo scratched his head, thinking about borrowing weapons from the soldiers' corps for tomorrow's exploration.