19 – A Gamble

The second invasion, which had bestowed an unyielding despair upon the Northerners, had drawn to a close.

But the scars it left were deep, the wounds still festering from the excessive damage.

Yet, ironically, this tale did not encompass the key figures and nobles of the North.

For damage that fails to shatter the system applies only to those without power, not to those who wield it.

The less one possessed, the greater the devastation, whereas the power elite suffered only minor financial setbacks, living lives largely unchanged from before.

Thus, there were no particular problems, and there were unlikely to be, but.

A rumor spread by a young girl in a village began to shift the situation in a strange direction.

– The Brother who came from outside brought warmth. When I lift my hand like this, flowers bloom and the snow stops falling.

It was a reference to the one who brought warmth to the North.

At first, the Northerners speculated it was Dale, who had led the second invasion to victory.

The warmth’s arrival felt too distant from Dale’s appearance for him to be the one.

And above all, the child had spoken of a different older brother than Dale, so suspicion shifted to another.

That’s how ‘Damien’ was discovered.

Unlike Dale, the timing of the warmth aligned perfectly.

Moreover, rumors claimed snow began falling in the North after he departed, so no one but Damien fit the description.

“We, we must tell them to bring him back at once!”

“Aye! We’ll all die at this rate.”

“Mama, I’m hungry… *sniff*.”

Driven by hunger and the bitter cold, reason and patience had long since deserted them.

And with so many already dead, all that remained was resentment, laced with fury.

It was, in a way, only natural that throngs of Northerners marched upon the Winterhaven estate to protest.

*

“…Vile trash, making such a fuss.”

Elysia swallowed her retort, hearing the nobleman’s words beside her.

Opening her mouth in the current climate could lead to political difficulties, so she pretended not to hear, simply gazing at the conference hall, lost in thought.

‘What would be the best course of action?’

They demanded the return of the warmth Damien had brought, as if it had been theirs all along, voicing their rage.

Logically, it made no sense. But reason held no sway over them in their current state; such logic was meaningless.

“So, what shall we do? Should we deploy the troops to disperse them?”

Force could quell the unrest quickly.

But a harsh ‘backlash’ would follow. Though they might be silenced for now, a greater fire would ignite later.

That backlash could be forceful, or something else entirely.

Whatever form it took, it would likely be enough to shake the Northern system, which was already reeling from the invasion.

If the very foundations of the North began to crumble, the damage would be unbearable, so resorting to force should be avoided if at all possible.

…Hence, the meeting.

Most had come not to secure the North’s future, but to protect their own fortunes and prospects.

They possessed much, and they sat vying for position, glaring at one another, unwilling to yield an inch.

‘Disgusting.’

This was the North’s fundamental problem.

The insular North boasted strong unity, but when a crisis arose from within, that same unity could turn to poison.

And so, as accusations flew back and forth, the atmosphere reaching a fever pitch…

“If it was truly Damian who brought warmth to the North, isn’t the fault with Grand Duchess Elysia for breaking off the engagement?”

The leader of the Knights Order, one of the eldest son’s men, cast the blame directly at her.

As if they had forgotten all their past deeds, she responded in a low voice to his pronouncement.

“Strange. As I recall, the deciding reason Damian declared the engagement broken was because the Knight Commander held him responsible for the rifts.”

At her words, the Knight Commander smiled thinly, and spoke with practiced ease.

“Anyone listening would misunderstand, Grand Duchess. It was a reasonable deduction, and an issue to which ‘everyone agreed’, was it not?”

More important than truth was individual responsibility, individual gain, and so everyone cleared their throats and looked away.

Seeing this spectacle, Elysia felt viscerally that the blame would soon be shifted entirely onto her, and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.

‘Whatever I say, nothing will hold any weight.’

They needed someone to shoulder the blame, not the truth, and she had been chosen.

Perhaps because of her engagement to Damian, she should have been exiled from the heir competition long ago.

It seemed that the problem was not that she was used as a mere pawn for the advancement into the South, but that she had acted independently and grown her influence.

Most of the key figures around her avoided her gaze, their faces turned away, which meant that everything had already been decided behind closed doors.

‘…Resisting here will only give them more ammunition to use against me.’

The situation offered no solution, and yet.

Paradoxically, the answer she had to give was already decided.

If it were possible, an exceedingly simple method to not only counterattack those who sought to burden her with every problem, but also to resolve all the issues that could befall the North.

That was to reverse the annulment and bring Damian back to the North.

‘…Difficult, but perhaps possible.’

For reasons she didn’t understand, Damian had always blindly adored her.

If she ‘used’ that, even Damian, who had proclaimed the engagement finished, would be forced to undo the annulment.

And so, using this notion, she calmly laid the groundwork.

“Then, if the annulment is reversed, all problems will vanish.”

It was a declaration that any Northerner should naturally welcome.

And yet, most of them showed an unwilling reaction, trying to mask their expressions.

There were two reasons why they did not object.

The first was that they had no justifiable reason to refuse.

The second was that if she made such a declaration and failed, she would have to shoulder even greater responsibility than before, which made it a risky, yet worthwhile gamble, from their perspective.

Once that assessment was complete, she spoke briefly to them.

“Instead, if I bring Damian back, I will have him directly involved in managing the estate. This is to utilize the warmth Damian generates more efficiently, so I ask for everyone’s understanding.”

He had previously only hinted that he was participating in the heir competition indirectly.

But with this declaration that he would be fully integrating himself into the matter, he surveyed those around him.

‘The possibility of becoming the head of the family is still extremely low, but…’

If he used Damian, who had now become the lifeblood of the North, he could expand his influence within the family more easily.

So, no matter what it took, he had to overturn the annulment and bring Damian back, he thought, pondering how to achieve it.

* * * * *

“Did you not hear from the head butler that the North sent a message, wanting to reverse the annulment?”

After so vehemently demanding the annulment, and desperately trying to expel me from the North, now they wanted to take it back? The absurdity of it struck me.

A hollow laugh escaped me, and my expression hardened.

The head of the family, watching me, demanded an answer.

“So, what are your thoughts?”

“…I don’t think there’s a need to reattach myself to something that’s already finished.”

“I see. I will respect your opinion.”

“Thank you.”

Judging by the fact that he didn’t even ask for a reason, let alone why, it seemed the investigation into what happened in the North was already complete.

He was a man of few emotional changes, so it was impossible to know what he was thinking.

But by saying he respected my opinion, it felt as if the head of the family was subtly telling Damian, ‘I am always on your side’.

“Then why have you come at this late hour?”

I had momentarily forgotten, shaken by the shocking news I had received.

I composed myself, took out the document I had been carrying, and presented it to the head of the family, saying,

“I have discovered the black mages’ plan.”

The details were written in the document anyway, so there was no need to elaborate.

Rather, it was better to speak plainly at times like this, so I handed it over to the head of the family without further explanation.

The head of the family read through the document, his expression turning somber.

Perhaps because of the excessively shocking and radical plan written within, he studied the document for a long time.

Then, deciding he wanted to verify the document’s authenticity, he rang the bell to summon the head butler.

“You summoned me, Lord?”

“I want you to investigate the authenticity of this document, as discreetly as possible.”

“Understood. I will investigate as quickly as possible and report back.”

As the Lord of the House nodded, the head butler offered a courteous bow and exited the study.

Seeing this, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it fortunate that the Lord had taken it seriously.

‘If he had glanced at the document and deemed it too absurd to even bother understanding, things would have become quite complicated.’

Of course, this alone wasn’t enough to declare the assassination attempt completely over.

But at least the family would try to protect Lilia, my sister, more seriously… at least the danger would be noticeably reduced.

‘And the Lord now knows about the dark magic.’

This also meant that the massive surge of dark magic that would lead to the downfall of the Carsaril family could be prevented.

I could sense that handing over this document had dramatically altered the fate of the Carsaril house.

“You’ve worked hard.”

“Yes.”

“Then rest for now. The matter of compensation will be discussed later.”

There was nothing more for me to do here anyway.

I gave a respectful bow, decided to wash up and sleep immediately, and headed towards the bathroom.

*

After finishing the preparations for bed, I returned to my room.

It wasn’t difficult to notice that the spirit was shining brighter than usual.

Like a lightbulb flickering on and off, the spirit was brightening and dimming, and as I stared in confusion…

The spirit simply ‘Myang Myang’-ed and smiled nonchalantly at me.

‘What’s wrong?’

It didn’t seem sick, but its condition was different from usual, and worry began to surface.

And so, as I examined the spirit from this way and that to understand its condition.

Suddenly, a thought bloomed in my mind.

Perhaps it was about to evolve.