““If there’s someone you don’t like, just bury him in the dark as he is.””
Using the Guardian Gem, swallowing one person whole without leaving a trace was nothing at all.
“Someone I don’t like?”
“The Cro....”
The Crown Prince, or that Crown Prince brat, or anything like the Crown Prince!
Camilla, who had been staring in brief puzzlement at Arsian opening and closing his mouth soundlessly, soon laughed again.
“Thank you.”
Arsian let out a short sigh and lightly patted her head.
“Don’t get hurt.”
Her smile deepened a shade.
Chapter. To the Gracia Empire
“Ah, ah, my ladyyy... Are... are you alriiight?”
You look way less all right than I do, though?
At Dorman’s chattering jaw as he tried to talk to her, Camilla couldn’t even spare a sigh. It felt like that breath would freeze solid as it was.
“How can this be?”
Watching the steady spill of white breath, Camilla shook her head. How was she supposed to explain this cold?
“Can a single border make this much of a difference?”
The moment they crossed the border, the surge of cold air made it impossible to collect her wits.
It was only a few steps. How could it make sense that over that tiny distance, over there was summer and over here was winter?
“Why is there no middle ground like this?”
Shouldn’t there be a middle temperature between hot and cold?
How can Africa and the Arctic be stuck right up against each other! It makes no sense!
“That’s why the Gracia Empire is called the land cursed with winter.”
At some point, Crown Prince Edsen had come up beside her.
“You would already have known this place is like this, wouldn’t you?”
“I didn’t know it would be this much.”
She had brought winter clothes as best she could, but now she learned that their winter wasn’t winter at all compared to here.
I absolutely hate the cold.
Brothers! Why didn’t you try a little harder to stop me!
Regret washed in already.
What glory was she trying to chase, coming all the way out here. She should’ve just been satisfied with what she was earning now!
TAP.
“...?”
Crown Prince Edsen, who had been watching Camilla constantly puff out breath, tossed something lightly to her as if doing her a favor.
It looked like a stone, but a warm heat seeped from it.
“Oh.”
A magic item?
“Let’s get moving.”
“Yessir!”
Before she could even say thank you, he moved off quickly, issuing orders to the people.
Camilla watched the neatly coordinated movements for a moment, then headed for the coach that had been prepared.
Up to the border region they had come comfortably by magic circle, but there was no magic circle here that went straight to the Gracia Empire’s capital. They had to move themselves to the city that had that magic circle.
“Phew....”
As soon as she stepped into the carriage—at least a place where the wind didn’t blow in—Dorman let out a long breath.
“Shall I make you some tea?”
It looked like an ordinary wooden canteen on the outside, but it was a magic item that could control temperature.
Ravi had packed it saying it would be useful on the road, and it really was a good thing they’d brought it.
[It’s the same as ever here.]
Zeno, the only spirit who had followed Camilla, slowly shook his head as he looked out of the carriage.
“Have you been here before?”
[Yeah. To look for the Guardian’s Sword.]
“The Guardian’s Sword was here?”
[You didn’t know? Lord Mars took care of those cult bastards who believed in the deity Eva and then disappeared—here, in the Gracia Empire.]
She had read books when she investigated the Guardian’s Sword, but she’d skimmed, so she didn’t know details like that.
“You must have been very cold.”
[I was. But the strange thing is, the place where the Guardian’s Sword was? It wasn’t cold at all. Just a bit foggy.]
That is a bit strange. Was the Guardian’s Sword protecting that region from the cold?
“Um, my lady....”
“Why?”
“By any chance, besides us, is there someone else here...?”
“Yeah.”
“Eek!”
What’s his problem? Camilla could only find Dorman’s shuddering ridiculous.
Didn’t he say he used to be a soul administrator? What kind of soul administrator is scared of ghosts?
“As I said before... I’ve lived as a human too long...? I’ve had all my abilities as an administrator taken, so I can’t even see spirits.”
Apparently embarrassed himself, he let out an awkward smile and slid his gaze toward the window to change the subject.
“Still, it’s a relief the wind isn’t blowing much.”
The temperature was extremely low, but the wind was calm.
“If the wind blew here and a blizzard came on top of it, it’d be just perfect for everyone to freeze to death, haha.”
“...Um, Lady Camilla?”
Dorman cautiously called to her under the stare—no, the glare—of Camilla, who was boring into him.
“This is all your fault.”
“What did I do!”
“What are you going to do about that blizzard!”
“Is the weather my fault now!”
“Your words became seeds!”
He had gone on about a blizzard like that!
Just as Dorman said, a situation just perfect for freezing to death had come about.
At first she thought the wind had gotten a bit stronger, but at some point, snow started blowing, and it became impossible to continue on.
The Gracia Empire people who had come out to greet them at the border and guide the way hastily put up tents and made a place, but it wasn’t enough to block the cold.
“We had planned to spend the night in a nearby city, but moving on in weather like this is dangerous. We’ll get moving again as soon as it’s light.”
At the words of Count Alton, who had come to welcome the Fable Empire delegation, Crown Prince Edsen stopped at once.
There’s nothing as dangerous on a strange road as ignoring the advice of locals.
“I beg your pardon on the very first day. Please, come inside.”
Following Edsen, Count Alton came close to her and pointed at a tent that had been set up to one side.
“It will be uncomfortable, but it will be warmer than the carriage.”
His first impression wasn’t bad. In his early thirties, his smiling eyes and natural smile put those who looked at him at ease.
I heard he earned huge merit in this last civil war.
Wasn’t he the cherished subordinate of the duke who is the Second Prince’s closest aide? People really do need to stand in the right line. At that age he was already successful.
“Thank you.”
The tent he guided them into was cozier than expected. Whatever special material they’d used, no wind came into the tent at all.
“This might be rude to say, but I didn’t expect the owner of the Ghost Trading House to be such a young lady.”
Count Alton smiled benignly and spoke.
“Lord Kais is very much looking forward to meeting Miss Camilla.”
Kais? Ah! That Kais.
Kais Escra. You could say he was the one who had put the Second Prince on the throne this time. The person whom Count Alton served as though his lord was him.
“His personality is a bit prickly.”
...A bit? A biiit? I did my own digging, you know?
“He is, in his way, upright and fair.”
Up... what?
“He’s a very pleasant man, so you needn’t worry too much.”
Did I investigate some other person? Did [N O V E L I G H T] Chris give me the wrong brief?
Barely suppressing the laugh that wanted to burst out from sheer disbelief, Camilla nodded lightly.
“I’m very much looking forward to it as well.”
Fine. So what if the other side is a thug or a villain. As long as we finish the deal well and go home, that’s that. Yep!
*****
“Welcome, all.”
They finally arrived at Gracia’s capital.
The weather was so very different from the Fable Empire’s that it was a bit startling, but the trip had been more comfortable than she’d expected.
Only the road to the city with the magic circle had been a tad rough, and after that it was smooth sailing to the capital.
“Thank you for your hard work coming such a long way.”
Upon entering the imperial palace, the Second Prince came out personally to greet the delegation.
In his mid-twenties, he had a very gentle impression for one who had fought a long war against his brother, the First Prince.
“While you are here, I hope you will stay as comfortably as in your own home.”
“We are grateful for your consideration.”
Crown Prince Edsen also wore a smiling mask that could easily win favor from those who didn’t know him and accepted the greeting lightly.
Could that be....
Meanwhile, Camilla had set her eyes on one person. The man standing closest to the Second Prince—surely others were in the same situation as she was.
A man who looked in his early forties stood with a blank face, simply and quietly, but his presence was stark.
Those around him reacted more flinchingly to his gaze and movements than to the prince’s.
From that alone, Camilla could easily guess who he was.
Duke Kais Escra.
If she summarized Chris’s report on him simply: a villain with no blood or tears—exactly that.
If he judged you an enemy, he spared neither child nor woman, they said.
He looks perfectly fine, though.
Her aesthetic sense, which had risen sky-high thanks to being surrounded by people who were each “something,” kept dragging her eyes back to him.
Staring at that handsome face somehow sent a chill down her spine. Just looking at him felt like your energy was being steadily sucked out.
Flinch!
For an instant, their eyes met. Seeing his piercingly cold eyes, Camilla couldn’t show any movement for a while.
“Shall we go?”
Only after she heard the voice of Count Alton, who was personally in charge of guiding them to their quarters, could Camilla tear her eyes away from him.
What was that?
She felt it even as they left that spot. Duke Escra’s gaze kept following her.
Irritated to a bizarre degree by that stare, Camilla hurriedly got herself out of there.
*****
“My lady! Lady Camilla!”
Dorman, who had gone outside, came dashing in. Wondering what was going on, Camilla lifted her head—and something was suddenly thrust right in front of her face.
“A snowman.”
“...”
“A snowman in this season, ha-ha!”
...Why did I bring this guy? I should’ve just told him to work himself to death at the café. I brought him because I was afraid he’d slack off there, and now—
“Cute, right? I made—”
Drip. Drip. Driiip.
In the warm air of the room, the little snowman on his palm began to melt in an instant.
“Wipe up the fallen water clean.”
“Yeees...”
Should I send him back even now? In weather perfect for freezing to death, I couldn’t kick him out.
“Ugh.”
Looking out the window, snow was still piling up softly. It really came down like mad.
[You know something?]
Zeno slid a little closer to her and, looking out the window with her, continued.
[They say it wasn’t like this in the old days.]
“It wasn’t this cold?”
[Yeah. They say it suddenly became like this one day. And that day was exactly the day Lord Mars died.]
That name again, here?
[So people also call this cold the Curse of Mars.]
“Yikes.”
Someone revered as a hero in the Fable Empire was, here, called the one who laid down a curse? Why is everything so extreme.
“What curse?”
[Some say he was betrayed by an old friend, some say he died at the hand of the woman he loved.]
“Why do you know that so well?”
This was the first she’d heard of it. She hadn’t seen anything like that in the books, either.
[Because he was the one I respected most.]
