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“Stay in Erelle until the social world calms down. It’s a quiet place with no one around. It’s a perfect place to stay quietly and reflect on your wrongdoings.”
When rumours spread throughout the whole kingdom that I, Evaria Oberon had tried to kill Catherine, the Duke of Oberon sent me to Erelle, one of the estates belonging to the Oberon family. It was a pretty sudden order, but I wasn’t surprised at all. In the original story, the Duke sent Evaria to Erelle with the same lines.
‘If I look at it closely, it’s a little early.’
Originally, Evaria refused to admit her fault and persisted until the end, but was kicked out of society with her engagement broken with the Crown Prince. It was only after that that Evaria went to Erelle.
But I broke up with the Crown Prince myself and left society before being forced out. Thanks to this, the timing to leave for Erelle has been pushed forward a little.
Erelle was a small estate attached to the northern end of the kingdom. It was a very boring neighbourhood for a delicate aristocratic lady to spend her time because the cold weather was the daily life of that region. Perhaps if I were the ‘real’ Evaria, I would have felt considerable distress just thinking about going to Erelle.
But from the Duke’s perspective, he was sending Evaria to the cold land as a punishment. Unfortunately, I was not a very delicate aristocratic lady. So what if the estate is in the North? Rather than staying in the messy capital, it was enough to live a relaxed life while being lazy in the cold northern part.
‘Besides, there are no Catherine’s fishes who want to hack me to death whenever they see me. It’s not a punishment, it’s a present.’
I definitely thought so, but.
“Achoo, it’s so cold!”
Erelle was cold. It was really, extremely cold.
It was cold, colder than I had ever imagined. The air was so cold that I shivered just sitting in the room. Despite being indoors, I wore a thick coat and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, but I was helpless against the bitter cold. At this point, I was beginning to wonder if Evaria’s cause of death was actually cold, not suicide.
No, this is not a doubt. Evaria must have been frozen to death in this cold. Really.
“E, everyone, always bears this cold?”
I couldn’t believe it, so I asked Emma, the maid standing next to me. My jaw trembled and I couldn’t even speak properly, but the maid, who had come to serve me here at Erelle Castle, was pouring tea nonchalantly in a light maid’s outfit.
“Hot tea will warm you up a little.”
“Drinking tea isn’t going to solve the problem. Isn’t it very cold? Emma, aren’t you cold?”
As I drank warm tea while shaking, the tremor soon subsided a little. But that was really it. My whole body was still chilling, I think I’m going to come up with a terrible cold if I stayed like this.
“I’m cold, too. But I was born and raised in Erelle. Everyone from here is used to enduring the cold. It gets hard to endure at night, but it’s still warm because it’s still daytime.”
“This is warm? If it gets colder than now, I’m sure I’ll die…… I’m really going to freeze…….”
Even the verb ‘cold’ would lose here. It was ridiculous.
‘I need some sort of countermeasure.’
I looked around desperately to survive the bitter cold. Fortunately, there was a fireplace in the corner of the room.
“Why did no one light up the fireplace? I need to start a fire.”
“I’m sorry, Miss. There is no wood in the estate to make a fire at all. The remaining wood we have is for cooking in the kitchen. It’s a relief that I can warm up the water for you and you can drink even hot tea.”
“What?”
That was ridiculous. No matter how rural this place is, they couldn’t have no wood to light up a fireplace in the estate owned by a Duke, not anyone else. Emma, who was able to read my absurd expression, bowed her head as if she was ashamed.
“The wood from Erelle is a Black Ironwood* that grows through the cold. It’s too hard to grow and doesn’t burn easily, so it can’t be used as firewood.”
[T/N: Ironwood is a common name for many woods or plants that have a reputation for hardness, or specifically a wood density that is heavier than water.]
“Then we can buy wood that burns from another territory, right?”
“The place where we used to buy wood for our territory is Okal Merchandise. We’ve been in a trading relationship for more than a hundred years, but they’ve recently broken the deal, so the firewood delivery from there has been cut off not only in the mansion but also in the whole estate.”
Emma continued her explanation with a rather sorry face.
“It’s not easy to get firewoods right away, and it is also difficult to get the right people to buy the firewoods from. The butler is doing his best to find a new merchant group, so please hang in there.”
The basis of a deal was trust. Why would someone unilaterally destroy a long-standing trading relationship based on trust? Of course there must be a good reason.
Above all, this world is based on social status. The power of status is higher than the logic of the market. Even for good reason, it was not easy for a single merchant to unilaterally cut off the deal with the Duke.
“Erelle belongs to the Duke. Isn’t it hard for the merchant to cut off the deal unilaterally? Don’t you think there’s a reason?”
Emma looked at me for a moment when I asked such a natural question.
“Emma.”
When I urged her to answer, she hesitated before opening her mouth.
“Okal Merchandise belongs to Earl Meriol. Therefore….”
A face immediately popped in my mind as soon as I heard the name Meriol.
The first Prince Lyndon, one of Catherine’s fishes. His mother is the daughter of Earl Meriol.
Meriol’s power was no match for Oberon, but it was connected to the royal family. It was difficult for a family to do anything recklessly to a family that has connection to the royal family, even if it’s the Duke.
‘That means the background is pretty strong.’
I had a rough idea of how things ended up like that.
“Was it exactly a week ago that the transaction was cut off?”
“……yes.”
“The First Prince’s influence must have played a significant role.”
It was obvious that he cut off the deal with Oberon dukedom because he was resentful towards Evaria for trying to kill Catherine.
‘It’s indeed the work of Lyndon Geraint.’
I wasn’t surprised because his character is the same as I’ve read through the book. Lyndon Geraint is the first prince, but the Crown Prince’s position was taken by his younger brother, Cassian Geraint. It was an unusual situation in this world, where most of the time the eldest son is the successor, but there was a reason for this.
Lyndon’s mother died as soon as she gave birth to him. And when the King married another Queen, the other woman gave birth to Cassian after only a year of the marriage. As soon as she got crowned as the Queen, she used her royal power to make her son the Crown Prince. It was also the Queen who pushed the engagement of Evaria and Cassian to get the backing of the Duke of Oberon on her son’s back.
Now, let’s think about it. The eldest son lost his mother early, and his mother’s family is a powerless Earl. On top of that, he also doesn’t have the right to inherit the throne. Doesn’t the death flag look too clear on his head?
Fortunately or unfortunately, Lyndon was an intelligent man. So he noticed the danger he was in early on and started to deal with this situation. He shows a pitiful and timid personality to the people outside, but in his heart, he was filled with evil and hostility, like a snake.
‘An ordinary black bellied character.’
Under these circumstances, Lyndon Geraint and Evaria, the Crown Prince’s fiancée, inevitably became enemies. Not only did they not get along well in the first place, but Evaria even bothered Catherine, whom Lyndon had come to like, every day, making the two’s relationship the worst. Of the five fishes in Catherine’s fishing grounds, Lyndon was the one who had the worst relationship with Evaria.
‘But how could they break the deal!’
The royals were really incomprehensible people.
‘Why is his grudge so big?’
If he was dissatisfied, he could vent it on me, the person involved. But by breaking the deal, he put the whole of Erelle state in trouble just because I was staying.
In fact, it didn’t matter to me that the deal between Erelle and Okal Merchandise was broken. But because of this, the extremely important wood that would keep me warm was gone. It was really annoying to rush around to restore the broken deal, but if I don’t do that, I would freeze to death.
‘He said it was a country estate with nothing here…… So I could just stay quiet as if I was dead…….’
The quiet and comfortable life that I imagined in my head was destroyed.
I was going to stay really quiet after leaving the society. Who wants to interrupt the flow of the original? I had such a good reasoning.
I had neither the desire to make amends for what I had not done nor the willingness to make great achievements here, which is just a world in a book. I possessed a noble lady with good fortune, so I didn’t want to work hard for nothing.
‘It’s too annoying to work hard.’
But now, it wasn’t a matter of wanting, but the matter of survival. Don’t you think you should live first so that you can enjoy it?
I sprang to my feet with the blanket tightened around me.
“I have no other choice. I need to use the cheat key.”
“……cheat key?”
Emma tilted her head at the unfamiliar word she had never heard.
What’s a cheat key you ask? A cheat key is a device that instantly turns complex games that require a high level of strategy into simple games such as treasure hunting. No matter how difficult the game is, it was no problem as long as you had a cheat key.
“Emma, why am I shivering in this cold weather without a fire?”
“That’s of course because there’s no firewood and because the Okal Merchandise broke the deal……?”
“No, you’re wrong.”
“What?”
“Erelle has firewood. The Black Ironwood. Aren’t there a lot of them?”
“There are, but it doesn’t burn easily and can’t be used as firewood.”
“That’s probably the case with ordinary fire. But what if there was a very, very, very strong fire?”
Emma couldn’t even answer back now. As the direction of the conversation became more and more strange, she seemed to be wondering if I had finally lost my mind because of the cold.
“Emma, you know that, right? the legend of Blue Flame. The story of the Great Wizard, who was so powerful that he burned all his enemies.”
“Of course. Everyone in the kingdom knows this story.”
Geraint’s founding myth begins with the Blue Wizard. The Great Wizard of Blue Flame, who helped Ephron Geraint, the founder of the kingdom, to wipe out his enemies. He was the most powerful ally to stand by the king, but with the death of Ephron Geraint he completely disappeared from the history of the kingdom.
Like a wisp of smoke. As if he didn’t exist from the beginning.
The name of the Great Wizard was not recorded in the history book. All that remained was the words that the Great Wizard left before he disappeared.
“If anyone calls my name again, I will ignite the Blue Flame for him.”
He helped the king founding the country, but that was all that’s left in history. No one tried to find the Blue Wizard.
It didn’t matter. Nevertheless, isn’t it just the founding myth? Originally, ‘myth’ was bound to contain some exaggeration to emphasize the greatness of the founder. The people of the kingdom regarded the existence of the mythical Great Wizard as a kind of exaggeration.
“If the fire is as strong as the Blue Flame of the Great Wizard, wouldn’t it be possible to burn Black Ironwood? Then we can have a warm night.”
“But the Blue Wizard only exists in the myth. The same goes for the Blue Flame.”
Emma did not believe in the existence of the Blue Wizard because she was one of the citizens of the kingdom who doesn’t believe such a legend. But I knew the truth because I’ve read this world through the book. Not only do I know the existence of the Great Wizard real, but his hidden stories as well.
That would be my cheat key for now.
“Emma. Fill the fireplace with Black Ironwood.”
“But Black Ironwood really doesn’t burn, Miss. It would be useless to bring them here.”
“I’ll take care of it, so just fill the fireplace with Black Ironwood. Come on.”
Emma stopped talking because of my determined attitude. She bowed her head in an exhausted voice as if she had given up everything.
“Yes. I’ll bring the Black Ironwood as you’ve ordered.”
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