Far in the north, in the afternoon, in a blizzard-shrouded castle…

Sitting at a desk side by side, Damian is leaning into the thick tome in front of Tisha, sliding his finger along the text and reading through it with her.

「Right… As I thought, you are supposed to feed the bulk of the mana at the end, not-」

「Aaaahhhhnnnn!… Let's have a break.」

Just as he begins explaining, Tisha lets out a loud, pleased moan as she throws her arms up and stretches out. Pushing her chest forward, Damian's eyes are naturally drawn to her curves.

「But I literally just figured out what was wrong. You want to stop now?」

He replies, quickly turning his face away.

「Sure. Do you have no sense of self-preservation, or something? If you teach me everything too quick, you'll outlive your usefulness.」

With a particularly fluffy, fuzzy, oaken-brown animal fur wrapped around her as a cloak, Tisha shrugs her shoulders. With her elbow on the desk, she then rests her cheek on her hand.

「Don't word it like that! I have to balance my sense of self-preservation with my drive to get money here!」

Thud!

Clenching his teeth, Damian slams his hand on the desk, scowling at Tisha's smug grin. It grows larger.

「He he… Still upset about that little joke?」

She asks, narrowing her ice-blue eyes…

…

「Welcome back, princess.」

Inside the castle, a steel-helmed man standing guard by the door notices Tisha enter.

「Mhm.」

She replies with a smile, though not directed at the guard. She dusts the light coating of snow off of her thick hide clothes, and walks further into the grand hall.

「Hufff… Hufffff… Wait!… I can drop it off here, right!?…」

Damian asks, struggling with Tisha's baggage and terrified by the large, wide stairs in front of him as he trails behind her.

「Nope! All the way to my room!」

She shakes her golden head without bothering to glance backwards, nonchalantly climbing the steps.

「Huh!?… All the way up these stairs!?」

Damian's jaw drops, and his brows furrow at the thought of pulling both of their luggage up.

「You don't have to if you don't want to… You can always climb the wall outside!」

Briefly pausing her climb, Tisha smirks at him over her shoulder then quickly resumes, and disappears over the top.

「Who are you, kid?」

The helmed man asks, furrowing his barely-visible brows behind his enclosed nose protector.

「I'm her tutor… But it looks like I'm a slave for the time being…」

Damian replies, and his shoulders slump as he sighs out a grumble.

「Looks heavy… Let me help you with that, at least up the stairs.」

The guard comments, and walks up to Tisha's baggage in his hand.

「Hnnnnngghhhh!…」

「Ah! Thank you! That's going to be so much-!」

The guard begins lifting, and a great, grateful smile appears on Damian's face.

「…Nggh! Oh shit!…」

Thud!

Red-faced from exertion, the guard lets go of the baggage and shamefully shambles back to his previous spot. Damian's expression inverts back into horror in an instant.

「…Nevermind. Good luck.」

The helmed man says, and quite conspicuously avoids eye contact from that point onward. Damian clenches his teeth in dismay and begins slowly making his way towards the stairs in tiny steps.

「Daddy, I'm back!」

Tisha proudly announces as she walks around the large and rectangular hearthfire burning in the center of the great hall. The courtiers and councilors swarming the jarl step aside, all turning around to look at Tisha. The huge, bored man sitting in a beautifully carved, ornate throne immediately perks up.

「Tisha!… About time!」

He exclaims and jumps out of the throne, rushing towards her. Still smiling, she rolls her blue eyes and spreads her arms.

Fwap!

「Aaaaaaahhhhh!… Finally my princess is back!…」

「Yes, yes…」

The huge jarl picks Tisha up, squeezing her into his large body and spinning her around. With a tight-lipped grimace, she waits to be allowed down while the room spins.

「…I was in a shitty mood thanks to that rabble, but I'm all better now!…」

「…That's great to hear. Let me down…」

Held tight to her father's body in his thick arms, Tisha's legs remain unsupported and flail limply with the centrifugal force.

「…I was so lonely! I struggled to sleep without you here!…」

「…Okay? Put me down already. I can tell you downed an ale…」

The longer the room spins, the more irate and demanding Tisha's tone becomes. The jarl continues spinning as if in a mad dance.

「…What else could I have done when you were gone!?…」

He asks, and his voice booms throughout the grand hall with ease.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

「…Let me go already you shitty idiot bear!… Or I'll go for your eyes!」「…Ahahaha!…」

Thud! Thwack! Thwack! Thwap!

Tisha shouts while punching her father in the side of his head without holding back. He laughs, apparently uninjured and unbothered, despite his head recoiling from the force.

「…Sorry, sorry! I just missed my precious heir!」

Her father says with a large smile, finally setting Tisha down.

「Now I feel like I just drank too much ale…」

She wobbles slightly, struggling to keep her eyes from spinning further.

Tfwap.

「So… How much will you need to pass the entrance exam again? Was that southerner Neela there with you?」

The jarl asks, placing his huge hands on her small shoulders. A smug smirk powers through Tisha's slightly ill grimace.

「Heh… I passed the term.」

She replies, grinning with her fists on her hips.

「What? You did!?」

The large man's brows rise, and his ice-blue eyes widen in pleased surprise.

「Yup!… And it's all thanks to him!」

She nods her diagonal braid, then looks over her shoulder and presents her father the empty stairs with her hand.

「…Wait for it.」

Tisha looks up at her father with a large, forced smile as she returns her hand back to her hip. He tilts his light-brown head, furrowing his brows.

「…Huffffff!… Huffffffff!… Aghhhh… Huffff!…」

Damian climbs over the top of the stairs, huffing and puffing, and lifts Tisha's baggage over the last step, covered in sweat and red-faced from fatigue.

「…And it's all thanks to him!」

Tisha points her hand at Damian, presenting him to her father. Confused, he looks back at the two while wiping sweat off his forehead.

「Hey! Pants-shitter! Come over here and say hi!」

「Pants-shitter?…」

She shouts, waving her arm for Damian to come closer. The jarl furrows his brows.

Damian looks at Tisha. Initially puzzled, he sees her expectant ice-blue eyes staring at him. Damian then glances at the eyes of the large man, who looks at him with gently furrowed brows and a lightly tilted head. When looks back at Tisha, Damian's red face turns pale in an instant, and he turns his gaze back to the large man's ice-blue eyes.

Damian sprints up to the two, abandoning the heavy luggage at the top of the steps and alarming some of the guards standing at the sides, until Tisha calms them with her hand.

「Yes!?」

He exclaims, staring up at the bear of a man with a tight-lipped grimace on his face.

「Who is this?」

The huge man asks as he looks at Tisha, pointing his hand at him.

「This is Damian. He helped me pass the term…」

Tisha replies with a smug grin on her face, placing her hands back on her hips.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

「…And that's my dad.」

She turns her smug face to Damian, and nods at her father. Standing just beside him, she's merely half his height, and Damian is barely above that.

「Is that right?… Why are you called pants-shitter?」

The jarl asks, furrowing his brows at Damian, rubbing his chin while his ice-blue eyes size him up.

「It's… It's a really long story!」

He replies, glaring at Tisha while as she suppresses snickers with a smug grin on her face.

「Is that so? You'll have to tell me sometime over ale, but…」

Tisha's father nods. His brows rise gently, and he turns his ice-blue gaze to hers.

「…Who is he? I'm glad he helped you pass the term, but don't tell me you brought a southerner all the way here just for that.」

He asks, and shrugs his huge shoulders. Tisha grins.

「He's my slave!」「Wha-!?」

She declares and glances at Damian, whose face turns pale again as his jaw drops in shock.

「Ah, I see.」「Wh-!? Wha-!?」

Her father nods, apparently not taking any issue with her declaration. His reaction shocks Damian further. Tisha snickers, and after a few seconds, outright bursts into cackling.

Tap!

「Khahahahaha! Daaad! Don't just believe everything people say! I'm joking! Just joking!」

Laughing like a hyena, Tisha delivers a forceful slap to her father's stomach. He doesn't react, tilting his head.

「If he's not a slave, then who is he?- He's not your man is he!? Some weak southerner-!」

The jarl asks. Suddenly, his ice-blue eyes widen in panic, and spit flies from his gaping maw as his screams echo across the entire grand hall.

「Dad, no! He's a tutor! A tutor! He'll help me graduate the Academy!」

Tisha's golden head perks up in surprise, and her smug smirk quickly turns into a tight-lipped grimace. Heavily contrasting her lightly blushed face, Damian is entirely pale.

「…A tutor, huh? Is he any good, at least?」

Tisha's father blows air out of his nose like an angry bull, once again sizing Damian up as he towers over him.

「He's the best! He helped Neela and Redwing queen pass too! I'm friends with her, I'll tell you about it once I unpack!」

She replies, grinning again to appear nonchalant.

「Redwing queen too? That's pretty prestigious… You some sort of a southerner noble, young man?」

The jarl's demeanor changes, and he nods his brown head in approval with a little grimace. With his lips pressed into thin lines, Damian shakes his head.

「No?… A magnate, then?」

Lightly surprised, the large man asks another question. Damian hesitates to answer, but then shakes his head again.

「Dad, he's just a peasant boy. What does it matter?」

Pat.

Tisha slaps her pale hand down on top of Damian's head, and scrunches her mouth to the side as she looks up at her father.

「…It doesn't. If you say he's good, I believe you.」

The jarl sighs, then replies with a resigned shrug of his broad shoulders.

「I already told him you'll pay! You won't go back on my word, right!?」

Tisha crosses her arms with a smug smirk and glances at Damian.

「Tsk… Tisha… Gold doesn't grow on trees… And even if it did, we'd still have to be picky about spending it.」

The large man puts his gigantic fists on his hips, and looks at Tisha with his mouth slanted in disapproval.

《Eh? So why was she throwing money around in that case!?》

Damian's eyes snap to Tisha with a shocked and perplexed expression on his face.

「He's already here! What are you, poor!? Do I send him away because we're poor!?」

Taking on an outraged tone, she asks and points her hand at Damian.

《Don't word it like that! I'm starting to feel bad for him, and I need the money!》

Damian stares at Tisha with a tight-lipped grimace while her father rubs the back of his neck with his bear paw-sized hand.

「…Tsk. Tisha, you really need to stop spending money that's not in your hands. The steward is chewing my ear off about the coffers. Your spending money is another story.」

The jarl clicks his tongue and lets out a troubled sigh, briefly pointing his hand at the gaggle of officials and courtiers still waiting for him to return to his throne, none daring to approach the jarl.

《Spending money!? That was her spending money!?》

Damian's jaw drops, and his eyes dart between the two casually discussing matters of more money than he ever saw in his life.

「I'll pay, but…」

The jarl relents, shrugging his arms with his mouth scrunched to the side. Tisha's angry face softens into a victoriously smug smirk.

「…It really would be cheaper to just enslave him.」

He adds, rubbing his chin.

《Eh?》

Damian blinks up into the large man's ice-blue eyes, convinced that he misheard him.

「That's a good idea! He could work just for the price of meals that way!」

Grinning slightly with an enlightened expression on her face, Tisha drops her fist onto her waiting palm, then turns her ice-blue eyes to Damian.

《…Eh!?》

「W-!? What!?」

He exclaims as his eyes jump between Tisha and her father, both of them grinning maliciously and staring at him with their piercing, cold gazes.

「Wh-!? That wasn't what we agreed to!」

Damian exclaims at Tisha as he takes a frightened step back away from the hulking beast of a man in front of him.

「Come on now, kid… You came here all the way north without knowing how things work around here? Poor thing…」

The jarl says, stretching his huge hand out towards Damian. Tisha watches on with her arms crossed and face smug.

Panicking, Damian looks around himself for ways to escape. The stairs are too long to quickly run down along, not to mention, guarded at the bottom. In front of him there is a giant of a man, and at the sides, the castle guards are watching on with their brows inquisitively raised. Damian clenches his teeth when he sees the hand approaching.

Tfwap!

「Ow!…」

「Khaaaaaaahaaaaahaahahahahaaa!…」

Tisha's father slaps Damian on the back side of the shoulder, nearly dislocating it. He winces heavily. Confused and with his teeth clenched in pain, Damian looks up at the jarl.

「…Haaahahaha! You should have seen your face! Guess I know why you're pants-shitter now! Hoooooohoooooohaaghaaahaaaha!…」「Khihihihihihi!…」

Completely and utterly filling the grand hall with his belly laughter, the jarl points at Damian's face with his thick finger, grinning. Tisha giggles alongside him, covering her grin with her hand.

「Khhhkkkk!…」「…Khahaha!」

《…The apple didn't even get a chance to fall off the tree before it rotted!》

Damian clenches his fist in fury as Tisha continues cackling…

…

Damian clicks his tongue and lets a frustrated huff out of his nose.

「…I didn't know he was joking! I seriously thought I was done for!」

He turns his angry face to Tisha's smug grin as she's resting her elbow on the desk.

「Oh come ooon… I told you he's more civilized than most! He also likes jokes and booze is his weakness!」

Dismissing his anger, Tisha rolls her eyes and shrugs her hands along with her shoulders.

「It was an off-hand comment! Half the stuff you say isn't serious!…」

Thud!

He replies, slamming his hand on the desk. The stack of tomes in its corner gets very gently thrown out of its perfect alignment.

「…Besides, your father may have been joking, but the guards here are either somewhat nice, or complete bastards. I have a feeling a half of them would stab me if they'd get away with it.」

Damian crosses his arms as he adds, turning his gaze away towards the nearby door.

「…And they probably would have, if they not for the fact that I'd do the same to them if they do it without my permission.」

「Geh… So your permission is all that's in the way?」

Tisha nonchalantly replies with a shrug of her shoulders, and Damian winces in response, looking back at her with an incredulous and slightly concerned grimace.

「Hm? What are you surprised by? You know most everywhere else, if you greeted the other jarls like my dad, they'd order your head cut without giving it much thought?…」

With her arms crossed, she tilts her head and blinks her ice-blue eyes at him. His face twists into a deeper cringe. Tisha turns her gaze to the narrow window behind them.

「…Brrrr. I'm getting kind of chilly. Are you not cold?」

She shivers, then looks back at Damian. He glances down at his new, warm pants, shirt, and jacket of animal hide suitable for the weather of the north.

「…Not really. For how much of a pain you are, at least you picked out nice clothes for me.」

He shrugs, and returns his eyes back up to hers. Tisha's face gains a smug smirk.

「Heh. You look like a proper northerner now… If only you didn't look so weak and fragile, but we can fix that later…」「Tsk…」

She replies, then turns her gaze to her bed.

「…What do you say we get into the bed so you can properly warm me up, hm?」

Tisha tilts her diagonal braid with a mischievous grin. Damian's head perks up, and he leans away with a tight-lipped grimace.

「…Stop making fun of me already.」

He says quietly, turning his lightly blushing face away to the door.

「Gahahaha!… The winters here are brutal, though! Don't be surprised if I really mean it one day!」

Throwing her golden head back, Tisha cackles. Mildly frustrated, Damian returns his eyes to her and stares at her with his mouth aslant…