The air in the square froze over in an instant. The children who had been giggling and singing their lord’s praises fell silent, and the elderly who had been eating stopped mid-bite and began to tremble. It was the kind of silence that felt like being thrown naked into the heart of a midwinter blizzard.
The ruler of the North, Calix Drac.
The pressure he exuded was not simply the aura of authority. The cold radiating off his body genuinely made people shiver. With every step he took, it almost looked as though white frost was creeping up through the cracks between the cobblestones. Even the steam rising from the boiling soup pots subsided.
Thud. Thud.
The crowd parted on its own, making way. At the end of that path stood Elian. Elian watched the approaching human freezer with cold sweat running down his back.
Couldn’t have picked a worse time.
Just moments ago he’d been being hailed as a mage and cheered with cries of “long live our lord” — and now a genuine monster had walked in. His heart felt like it was shriveling up, but there was nowhere to run.
“You seem to be having quite a good time.”
Calix came to a stop right in front of Elian’s face. The man was absurdly tall — this body was already above average height, and Calix still had a full head on him.
“While your guest goes unfed.”
“S-sir. You skipped your meal? It was all laid out warm in the dining room—”
“Does food go down well when the host is nowhere to be found?”
Calix’s crimson eyes bored into Elian without blinking. Elian swallowed dryly. That phrasing is oddly off. It doesn’t sound like a complaint about the food — it sounds like he came looking for someone to take his irritation out on.
“I apologize. The residents were starving, and I was in such a rush that I—”
“Hm.”
Calix’s gaze swept over Elian’s face. The bright, open smile that had been there just moments ago as he laughed with the children was nowhere to be found — replaced once again by a face tight with nerves and careful attention. That pleased him. And simultaneously, it grated on him.
Then something else caught Calix’s eye. A crumb of bread on Elian’s pale cheek.
“Walking around with crumbs on your face. Careless.”
Calix reached out without warning.
“Hm? Eek!”
Elian flinched in surprise, but Calix’s hand was faster. Ice-cold fingers grazed Elian’s cheek and passed over it. His thumb pressed gently into the soft skin and brushed the crumb away. In that instant, Calix’s pupils dilated ever so slightly.
…Warm.
The warmth at his fingertips surged up through him like a current. The joints of his fingers, which had been aching to the bone, felt like they melted in an instant. He had only pressed the tips of his fingers to a cheek — and yet a languid heat spread through him, as though he were holding his hands up to an open fire.
Without quite realizing it, he didn’t pull his hand away. He brushed Elian’s cheek one more time. Soft. Warm and soft at the same time. An impulse rose in him — he didn’t want to let go.
Ding―!
The System Window flickered to life before the eyes of Elian, who had been staring at Calix in a daze.
[System Notice: Light contact!]
[10 BP acquired]
Huh?
Elian’s eyes went wide. Even through the fear gripping one corner of his heart, a capitalist’s mental calculator had started running.
10 Points? Wait — that’s 20kg of flour? In eggs, that’s three full trays?
One brush of the cheek and it was 10 Points. Even in this tense, razor-edged atmosphere, Elian found himself quietly, obediently offering his cheek up. He wanted to shout: Go ahead and touch more. Do the other side too.
But to the residents who had no idea what was going on between the two of them, the scene was simply beyond comprehension.
“Heavens…”
“The Grand Duke just… caressed our lord’s cheek.”
“The atmosphere between them is strange. Are the two of them… involved?”
“Come to think of it, food appeared the moment the Grand Duke arrived. There must be a reason for that.”
The whispers spread like waves. The fear had vanished, replaced by a flood of curious, rosy-cheeked gazes trained on the two of them.
Calix seemed to snap back to himself then, and withdrew his hand — though with a reluctance that was unmistakable. He found it deeply unpleasant that all these eyes were fixed on his personal furnace.
“Too many eyes here. Let’s move.”
“Ah — yes. I’ll escort you to the office.”
* * *
Second floor of the lord’s manor. The office.
The moment the door closed, Calix got straight to the point.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
He stood by the window, looking down at the lively scene in the square below.
“When I arrived yesterday, this domain was dying. Not a scrap of firewood, not a single piece of bread.”
Calix slowly turned and fixed his gaze on Elian. A sharp look cut right through him.
“And yet overnight, premium anthracite coal appeared, along with enough food to feed hundreds. All while the northern supply routes are completely cut off by the blizzard.”
“…”
“Where did it come from? Baron Valeria.”
Cold sweat ran down Elian’s back.
Here it comes.
The Grand Duke was no fool. There was no way he wouldn’t question this impossible acquisition of supplies. But it wasn’t as though he could say: I earned Points by touching you and bought it all from a shop. One wrong move and he could be branded a black mage or suspicious smuggler — and lose his head. Elian reached for the excuse he had prepared in advance.
“Well… the previous lord left behind an emergency reserve.”
“An emergency reserve?”
“Yes. A set of magic scrolls and… a few valuables, kept for a moment of crisis. They were my late father’s belongings, so I hadn’t been able to bring myself to use them until now.”
Elian arranged his expression into one of the utmost loyalty. He added a faint reddening at the corners of his eyes for good measure — and it looked convincingly genuine.
“With you here as my guest, I couldn’t very well let you sit in the cold with nothing to eat, could I? So I made the decision to part with them. Your well-being matters more than any family heirloom.”
“…”
Calix’s eyes narrowed. A lie. There was no way a crumbling barony had reserves like that still sitting around. If there had been, they would have been used long ago to save the domain. But the shameless flattery of it — I spent everything for you — was, strangely, not unpleasant to hear.
He wiped himself out for my sake.
In truth, the source didn’t matter. Smuggled goods, black magic, whatever. What mattered was that this Baron posed no threat to him — and more than anything else…
“Ngh.”
Calix pressed his fingers to his brow and let out a short, strained sound.
“Sir? Are you alright?”
Elian instinctively stepped forward, then stopped. Cold was radiating off Calix’s body again. The longer he had been separated from Elian, the more the Mana’s chill had begun to reclaim his veins. The temperature in the room dropped sharply, and frost began to creep across the windowpanes.
“…Damn it. It’s starting again.”
Calix exhaled roughly and sank down onto the sofa. The warmth from last night felt unbearably distant. Having tasted it once, the withdrawal was all the more brutal. He made his decision.
“Elian Valeria.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I intend to stay in this domain for a while. Until the blizzard clears and the roads open up.”
Elian’s inner voice was screaming please just leave — but what came out of his mouth was something else entirely.
“My, what an honor. It’s humble here, but please make yourself at home.”
“There are conditions.”
Calix raised his head and looked directly at Elian. There was something in those crimson eyes — a relentless fixation that bordered on possessiveness.
“When I call for you, appear before me within thirty minutes. Anywhere, any time.”
“…Pardon? Thirty minutes?”
Elian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This is insane. Being summoned at any hour with no warning — and on thirty-minute standby at that? This was worse than a clingy ex calling in the dead of night asking are you awake? No — this was worse than a manager demanding you come on a weekend hiking trip. Because in this case, the manager was the Grand Duke of the North.
“No exceptions. Asleep, eating, in the middle of taking a dump — when I call, you come running.”
“But, sir. I have duties as a lord—”
“You’d rather not?”
Crack.
The armrest of the sofa Calix had been gripping froze solid and splintered. It was a threat. A very blatant display of force.
“N-no! I’ll do it! Thirty-minute standby! Understood!”
Elian yelped. Ending up like that sofa sounded far worse than cutting short a bathroom break to come sprinting over.
Ding―!
Right on cue, the System chimed with an infuriatingly triumphant fanfare.
[Unexpected Quest Triggered!]
― Quest Name: Become the Grand Duke’s Personal Furnace.
― Details: Faithfully respond to Grand Duke Calix’s summons and absorb his Mana.
― Reward: Grade S Domain Defense Wall Blueprint
Grade S defense blueprint…!
Elian’s eyes lit up. A Grade S blueprint. His former civil engineer’s heart started pounding. The monster wave season was coming before long. With that, the survival rate of his residents would skyrocket. He could build a fortress that wouldn’t so much as get scratched when an orc charged headfirst into it.
He already needed to earn Points anyway — and now there was an item reward on top of that. There was no reason to refuse. He’d do it on three-minute standby if he had to. Pride? Human rights? The right to a decent night’s sleep? What did any of that matter when his people’s lives were on the line?
Fine, I’ll be a human furnace. I do run pretty hot, after all.
“Understood. The deal is made.”
Elian gave a resolute nod. At that, Calix rose from the sofa as if he had been waiting for exactly those words, and crossed the room toward Elian.
“A deal made must be honored.”
“What? Right now? You just said you wanted to eat—”
“There’s something more urgent than food.”
Thud.
Calix’s cold hand snapped around Elian’s wrist. The point of contact was ice-cold enough to sting. Without another word, he yanked Elian straight toward him.
“I need to recharge. Right now.”
“W-wait, sir! We’re in the office! There are people outside!”
“You said within thirty minutes. Right now, the distance is about one second.”
Calix hauled Elian along like a piece of luggage and headed toward the break room attached to the inner office. The door closed behind them, and the click of the lock echoed through the hallway of the lord’s manor.
The life of a full-time personal furnace had officially begun.
