TSS 07

The moment Paul tried to “exterminate” us, my mind had actually been racing furiously.

What if I went straight to Count Hamilkar and exposed the insolence of his overseer?

It didn’t seem like a bad way to establish contact.

But in the end, I chose not to. Because that would only create a small connection with the Count himself. What I needed was a connection with Hamilkar as a whole.

Left alone in the room after Boeshel departed, I recalled everything I knew about Count Hamilkar.

William Hamilkar. Head of House Hamilkar. Count Hamilkar. Forty-one years old.

Naturally, he had been married before. His first wife had been the daughter of a powerful family within Hamilkar territory. She died not long after giving birth.

That part was common enough.

What wasn’t common was that he married three more times afterward.

Yes, the Count had been married four times in total.

But the fourth wife also died, leaving him single once again.

Naturally, ugly rumors spread.

To use rat-overseer Paul’s style of expression, people whispered that perhaps they had all been “exterminated.”

Of course, from my perspective, Hamilkar being unmarried made fulfilling the revelation much easier.

And honestly, while my body was twelve years old, the age gap between my soul and Hamilkar’s was only six years. Even by modern standards, that was technically acceptable.

Still, regardless of how old my soul was, the thought of marrying a man who could see someone twenty-nine years younger than himself as a romantic partner disgusted me.

I’ve always had a weak stomach for these things.

Ah, of course, from Hamilkar’s perspective, that was somewhat unfair.

Most people married at fifteen or sixteen, eighteen at the latest, so finding a marriage partner appropriate for Hamilkar’s age wasn’t easy.

In modern Korea, age was an extremely important factor, but in this world, family lineage and political conditions mattered far more.

Besides, Hamilkar only had one child.

In other words, if this sole heir died for any number of reasons, the Hamilkar territory would be left without a successor.

As was often the case with border territories, Hamilkar’s relationship with the central government was poor.

The center—meaning the King—believed Hamilkar had grown far too powerful, threatened royal authority, ignored the King’s requests at every turn, and behaved arrogantly.

(None of that was wrong.)

Meanwhile, Hamilkar believed the King acted as though granting autonomy to defend the frontier had been some grand act of generosity, while caring nothing for whether Hamilkar’s people lived or died. Yet whenever even the slightest trouble arose at the border, the King threw hysterics, enforced pointless discipline, and tried to crush them under authority.

(Again, not wrong.)

Both sides were sincere, and so was the hostility they felt toward one another.

The people of Hamilkar territory had no desire to submit further to the King, and would likely revolt if forced.

Which meant thickening the Count’s line of succession was an extremely important matter.

Yet among Count Hamilkar’s wives, only the first had barely managed to produce a son before dying. The others had never even become pregnant.

People had begun casting suspicious eyes even on Hamilkar’s heir.

What if Count Hamilkar was actually infertile?

What if he had quietly disposed of his wives because he feared that truth becoming known?

I had gathered rumors about the Count for some time now, and they were awful.

That he was a madman who enjoyed killing.

That he enjoyed torturing his wives under the guise of punishment.

Nothing but horrifying stories.

They sounded exaggerated because they were so terrible, but still—

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And Gerka expected me to become the fifth-fifth-fifth-wife of that lunatic.

Is this really a god? Is this what a god is?

Even my harsh Korean mother, who had never once gone easy on me, would split Gerka’s skull open with an axe if she met her.

Ah, no. That’s wrong.

My mother would drown Gerka in lawsuits and lawsuits and more lawsuits until she went bankrupt. She’d wage a public opinion war too.

Axes belonged to this world’s customs.

I’d lived here twelve years already, so I’d become far too used to them.

By now, Hamilkar might have become thoroughly sick of marriage.

To put it bluntly, as long as he remained alive, Hamilkar territory would survive in most cases.

And after his death?

Would he honestly care?

He already had one heir, after all.

So Hamilkar might well want to say, “This is enough already.”

But for the territory’s people—especially Hamilkar’s native nobles and influential families—that would be unthinkable.

To them, Hamilkar’s marriage was an absolute necessity.

And naturally, that marriage had to be with the daughter of a native noble house.

An outsider like me would never do.

The entire point was protecting Hamilkar, so what meaning would there be in marrying someone connected to the King’s faction?

That was why, when Paul spoke of extermination, I couldn’t drag him before the Count just to create a connection.

Becoming Count Hamilkar’s wife didn’t simply mean earning the Count’s favor.

In this situation, all of Hamilkar had to accept me before I could become Countess.

The more I thought about it, the more absurd it became.

Me.

Trying to become the wife of a man twenty-nine years older than me.

And needing to convince an entire territory to approve of it.

Ah, enough thinking.

Stress isn’t good for the body.

I lay down on the bed and tried to sleep.

Surely when I woke up, this irritation would disappear too.

The morning after tomorrow, Paul arrived carrying armfuls of supplies.

Well, not personally. Young men around his son’s age carried everything while Paul came empty-handed.

It seemed he hadn’t slept during the last two days, likely because he had spent them thinking. Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes, though his gaze itself looked steady enough.

It seemed he had finished calculating matters.

And probably confirmed who I was as well.

“I once again apologize to the young lady of House Danyer.”

Yes. Definitely.

As I accepted the greeting with proper noble composure, Paul immediately began explaining.

“It may be summer down here, but as you ascend the corridor, the seasons change. During your climb, you’ll witness all four seasons. Summer below, then spring, then autumn, and finally winter. The peak of the Mountain of Light remains covered in snow all year round.”

That much I already knew.

“That is why special equipment is necessary. And these two men are skilled climbers. The overseer above often calls for them. They know the Grand Hall well too. I brought them as guides.”

He really was sharp.

Yes, after seeing him bluff confidently even while surrounded by armed swordsmen, I had suspected he wasn’t ordinary.

“Well done, Paul.”

I handed a small pouch to Boeshel, and he glanced sideways at me.

The look in his eyes clearly said: Why are you giving the money I worked so hard to win to that bastard?

So I had no choice but to resort to force.

Why are you still standing there?

I stepped on Boeshel’s shoe heel with mine, and he lightly grimaced before tossing the pouch toward Paul.

One of the men beside Paul leapt up and caught the carelessly thrown pouch in midair before respectfully presenting it to him.

Wow.

Is that physique even real?

I thought he was a basketball player.

Paul checked the contents of the pouch and grinned.

When he smiled, he really did resemble a rat.

“It seems the young lady has commands for a lowly man like me.”

Having smelled the possibility of a transaction—a continuing transaction at that—Paul had become enthusiastic.

“Ah, yes. I’ll likely be staying at the Temple of Gerka for quite some time, so—”

“Excuse me?!”

Paul’s expression changed strangely.

With a face full of disbelief, he asked again, “The Temple of Gerka? Not another temple?”

The two young guides beside him also tried persuading me otherwise.

“There are… other temples there too.”

But I couldn’t change my mind.

The King’s elder sister wasn’t at the other temples.

“It must be the Temple of Gerka.”

“Ah…”

Paul looked at me with pity before letting out a deep sigh.

“What a shame. I thought a noble young lady might show mercy to lowly folk like us… but it seems our farewell will come sooner than expected.”

“A noble young lady showing mercy to lowly folk” meant entering into business with a noble.

And “a quick farewell” meant that business would be short-lived.

The problem was that I had absolutely no intention of making this a one-time arrangement.

Of course not.

I was going to live atop that freezing mountain peak.

Naturally, a famous temple wouldn’t be completely inconvenient, but there was no guarantee they would provide everything I needed.

So my plan had been to build ties with the sharp-witted overseer of the mountain village below and create my own personal traveling supplier.

And now my personal delivery service was suddenly threatening to shut down.

Why?

In the end, Paul never explained why he sounded regretful while still predicting the end of our arrangement.

While climbing toward the Grand Hall, I tried asking various questions, but the two village youths acting as guides answered none of them.

As a “young lady,” it was difficult for me to keep pestering serfs with conversation. Even the knights disliked speaking casually with peasants, treating them with disdain.

So as we climbed the mountain—through spring, autumn, and eventually the snows of winter—I learned nothing from the youths.

And then I truly understood the meaning of the saying:

Seeing once is worth more than hearing a hundred times.

A blizzard raged around us.

Was that why it felt so cold?

Even wrapped in monster-fur clothing famous for its warmth, was I freezing because this place was simply such a brutal winter?

No.

This coldness was flowing from somewhere deep within my soul.

“This… is the Temple of Gerka?”

Watching me ask for the third time, one of the guides sighed as though he had expected this reaction.

“Yes. This is the Temple of Gerka.”

Ha.

It looked like the Parthenon.

The twenty-first-century Parthenon, specifically.

Meaning that perhaps long ago this had once been a religious structure, but now it was little more than ruins.

There was no roof.

Only pillars remained partially intact.

How could this possibly be called a temple?

No, wait.

With blizzards this fierce, there was no way people could actually live here.

“Then where are the priests of the Temple of Gerka supposed to be?”

Others aside, one person absolutely had to be here.

The King’s elder sister, Saintess Pythia.

She could not possibly be absent from this place.

If she had died in conditions like these, and Hamilkar had hidden it—

As the worst possibilities began surfacing in my mind, one of the guides pointed deeper into the temple ruins.

No, in a place without even a roof, how could there possibly be any—

Looking more carefully, I saw something sitting alone amid the ruins.

A hut.

Inside the ruins of what had once been a towering, magnificent temple, someone had built a tiny little house.

Hey.

Don’t run away too, soul.

Mine already left my body. What happens if you leave too?

For a moment, I considered abandoning everything and simply going home.

But then—

“I trust that you will certainly obtain Lady Pythia’s support.”

Remembering my mother’s terrifying voice, I forced myself to walk toward the temple.

Or perhaps—

Perhaps I simply lacked the courage to return home.