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chapter 54
“…Am I the kind of person who would only come if I had business?”
“I suppose so.”
“……”
Odelle was wearing a dress resembling mourning clothes. Its design was different from yesterday’s, but the black, ink-like appearance didn’t sit well with me.
“Are you here to mourn my marriage?”
“Mourn? Isn’t it a blessing?”
“Well, I suppose for me, there would need to be someone’s funeral before there could be a blessing.”
Odelle’s green eyes darkened. Across from her, Cherilot met her gaze steadily.
“Do you really want to become my enemy now?”
Odelle was the first to speak again.
Cherilot barely stopped herself from scoffing. An enemy?
‘The nerve of her, after trying to cripple me… what is she saying now?’
Ah, of course, Odelle had been a kind, if somewhat curt, aunt while at the mansion. Not as much as my parents, but there was a time when I never thought she would persecute me.
If only the doctors who deliberately twisted my bones and muscles hadn’t been there when I fell down the stairs due to someone’s meddling…
As a child, Cherilot learned exactly what Odelle wanted from that moment on.
“You’re quite the actress,” she said.
And she never forgot it, not once.
“The truth is, it wasn’t me you wanted—it was the Northern Duke,” she thought.
Odelle tilted her teacup slowly.
“You seem to enjoy stirring trouble with pointless words. Did I teach you that?”
“I learned it myself. Otherwise, I’d have lost my arms and legs.”
“……”
Eventually, Odelle set her teacup down on the porcelain saucer.
“Do you really think the Pope will side with you? Or that the secluded Duke of Vaskalia, hiding because he lost at chess, will?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Duke Leonate fears that this marriage might unite the South and North.”
The green eyes of a rival glimmered.
“But would it really? I think you’re mistaken. Neither the Pope nor the Duke will help you. One is a sly man who thinks only of his gain, the other is a weak man suffering depression after divorcing his wife.”
“……”
“You chose this marriage looking only at Aeonian Vaskalia. You’ll be destroyed as the price for betraying me, bewitched by some man.”
Odelle Freilu had tried countless times to restrain Cherilot. Cherilot had once done something utterly insane to escape Odelle’s brainwashing and obsession.
But why… does she not scare me?
Cherilot stifled a laugh. Her palms were still slick with cold sweat, but this tension was not fear—it was anger.
“Destruction, you say.”
She swallowed the saliva heated by rage. Unprocessed anger becomes fury, but she remembered the hand that had helped her yesterday.
Anger could be the power to resist an oppressor seeking to exploit her.
“Who was it that tried to make the North a colony of the East?”
“……”
“Destroyed the climate, executed vassals, seized lands, planted spies, set up merchant guilds in Blancora to steal economic control…”
Cherilot looked at the dress Odelle was wearing and lifted one side of her mouth in a smirk.
“How is that different from destruction?”
Odelle’s grip tightened on her teacup. Cherilot continued nonchalantly.
“You’re barely at zero, Aunt. You’ve hit rock bottom; now all that’s left is to rise.”
“…Hah, you’re very different from your mother, who abandoned her duty. I don’t know whether to be pleased or irritated.”
“……”
“Come to think of it, after executing the Knight Commander, you actually increased military spending significantly. Any other incompetent lord would have considered it wasteful.”
Odelle let out a hollow laugh.
“Was the explosion at the mansion really your doing?”
She was speaking of the past.
Falling down the stairs, Cherilot had gone mad for the first time in her life to ensure the doctors wouldn’t touch her.
Her legs and arms were broken, so she couldn’t go far. Instead, she found a magic stone box in the room of a cousin who rarely visited the mansion…
“The souls of the dead already filled our mansion,”
…and performed necromancy.
What was the consequence?
“You’re a criminal. You’ll be detained.”
The magic tower arrested her for committing illegal magic. Cherilot had thus transferred to the Tower in the East as a criminal.
“Clever. I guess that trait comes more from your mother than your father.”
“……”
“Anyway, it seems there’s no chance of us getting along again.”
Odelle set down her teacup and rose from her seat.
She opened the window wide in place of her blind and deaf maid.
The cool wind brushed against Cherilot’s skin, widening her eyes.
“Then there’s nothing to be done.”
No, it wasn’t just cool. A painful chill cut into her skin.
Outside, a snowstorm raged.
“If it ever gets unbearable, take the ring I gave you and come find me.”
Pitter-patter…! The sleet grew into a flurry after a few blinks.
“Your aunt will always welcome you.”
Terrible cold returned to the North. Odelle’s hair fluttered in the icy wind.
That morning
“What is going on here?”
“My goodness… we came to see a wedding and now we’re all trapped.”
“Trapped? We’ll freeze to death!”
The cold wouldn’t dissipate easily.
After October, the North became harsh. Once autumn passed, people might have to stay here for months.
“Isn’t this actually the Northern Duke’s scheme?”
Those who realized this felt not just confusion, but fear and anger.
Especially Southern nobles, unaccustomed to the snow, didn’t recognize the danger and stayed outside longer.
“Some Southern nobles and peasants even got frostbite from exposure.”
“The treatment?”
“All healed by holy power. But since they were still uneasy, we sent them to the hot springs.”
Hearing Aeonian’s report, Cherilot glanced at a distant volcano emitting faint smoke and the hot springs drawing heat from it.
She had built a public hot spring using birch trees in preparation for winter while there was still time to work.
“If anyone wants to use the hot springs, let them. It was built for winter anyway.”
“Yes, but we need to consider why the cold returned…”
Aeonian opened a window slightly. Before the wind scattered papers, he extended his hand and used holy power.
The holy power left tiny scratches like abrasions, only perceptible to Aeonian, and the emanating cold disappeared.
…Like a very small crack.
“Of course, it’s a dispersal-linked magic array. Removing it makes the surrounding weather temporarily normal.”
“…Small for a dispersal-linked array, but yes, similar.”
Odelle had likely done this herself.
“Liam, what about the Eastern retainers acting strangely?”
“They were all outside the mansion, some captured by the knights, but even if brainwashed, they didn’t reveal their masters.”
“Thorough, as always.”
Three days left until the wedding. Not much time. Then…
“Perhaps the priority is to reveal the situation and predict where cracks will appear, then defend in advance.”
“…What?”
Startled, Aeonian twisted his body.
“Wait, Cherilot. Don’t. It’s good to say you’ll handle it, but if you tell them the situation, the guests won’t stay calm.”
“No, we can’t hide it. We don’t even have a sure solution yet.”
“I destroyed the mines that owl guy set off before. If necessary, I could handle it myself…”
“Aeonian.”
Cherilot raised her hand.
“I acknowledge your ability, but you know there are more people here who don’t trust us.”
“……”
“Do your part, but we need to go by the book for now.”
Aeonian’s lips closed, and she adjusted her coat.
“The guests don’t know why a blizzard suddenly hit the North. Later, they might just assume the North is like that and hold biases.”
“So?”
“We’ll tell them the reason and explain the measures going forward. Info may leak to the East, so we won’t reveal the ultimate solution.”
Aeonian checked the time. Lunch was approaching. Guests would come down to eat, talking all the while.
“…So you plan to speak in front of the guests at lunch?”
“Yes.”
“If anyone tries to throw an egg at you, let me know.”
“There won’t be any raw eggs. They’d be frozen anyway.”
Cherilot hesitated briefly, staring at the office floor. After a long pause, she spoke.
“…Oh, and—”
“Ask me to check if your classmates are downstairs?”
“What? How did you know?”
She blinked widely, and Aeonian shook his head helplessly.
“What do you mean by ‘going by the book’?”
Aeonian pointed to the floor below.
“You’ll ask your wizard friends to seal any cracks that have already appeared, right?”
“……”
“And that includes hundreds, maybe thousands, of cracks around the city.”
Cherilot wriggled her eyebrows, controlled her expression, then gave a sheepish smile. She had been hit right on target.
“…They wouldn’t want to do it voluntarily, would they?”
“……”
“They don’t like boring tasks like this.”
She gave a bitter smile.
“I’ll provide compensation and give them my magical tools with predictive models, but if I tell them it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance, maybe I can persuade them… maybe.”
Though she explained how to persuade them, her tone lacked conviction.
“Well, I can use the magic tools alone anyway, so somehow…”
“Cherilot, then how is that different from me sealing them? It’d take much longer, right?”
“……”
At a loss for words, she twisted her lips. Aeonian snorted and shook his head.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Come in. Don’t just eavesdrop outside.”
Outside?
Liam opened the office door.
“Eek!”
“Gah!”
“Ugh!”
Rodie, guarding the office, sacrificed himself as a stepping stone, and the staggering wizards piled onto him, their robes flapping wildly, enveloping their heads like sacks.
“…What are you guys doing?”
“……”
“Have you been listening this whole time?”
