Chapter 27.
Foreigner in the Frozen Land (2)
After starting the fireworks and waving to the people of the Duchy of Ruisenford, Peon instructed that plenty of meat and bread be distributed before heading back inside.
“Your Grace! Welcome back!”
“Ah, would you believe it? Her Grace the Grand Duchess said she couldn’t eat Ferenko, so we persuaded her and got her to try it! Hahahaha!”
The moment he heard the cursed word Ferenko, Peon lifted his head and looked toward Kaela, who was silently eating.
The moment he left, they had started again.
With her pale face, she simply chewed mechanically in a daze. Watching them force-feed the young Grand Duchess that dry, tasteless dish—which even the people here barely ate themselves—made his blood boil.
“It seems your plates aren’t empty either. Does it not suit your tastes as well? Shall I have it removed?”
The Grand Duke, who usually laughed things off, coldly sneered as he strode across the long table toward the Grand Duchess.
“Don’t force yourself to eat it. Stop eating.”
Ferenko. That damned Ferenko.
A giant venison dish from Ruisenford—tough and tasteless. People said it was something only eaten in times of poverty, but things were no longer that bad, were they?
Only then did Peon suddenly remember why he had grown to loathe Ferenko so much.
The Grand Duchess had always hated Ferenko. She never even touched it, not once.
And now she slowly swallowed a huge bite with difficulty and looked up at him with lifeless eyes.
Then she whispered softly,
“I’m fine.”
Fine?
What exactly was fine about this?
Was it fine for a delicately raised noble lady to be forced into eating something she hated for the first time in her life because of this barbaric bullying?
“Don’t force yourself. Stop eating. Now.”
He repeated himself firmly.
Disgust welled inside him.
Those nobles who risked life and death over a trivial dish they themselves disliked, forcing it upon a young Grand Duchess—while ignoring truly important things like honor, faith, and loyalty.
The lady-in-waiting, steward, and chef who should have been serving the Grand Duchess properly but instead acted however they pleased.
The natives of this castle.
In the end, all of his disgust turned back toward himself.
Before his regression, he had secretly found Kaela frustrating for lacking the tact to simply endure a few bites of venison and avoid criticism.
That version of himself disgusted him most of all.
If a noble lady raised on soft, flavorful foods disliked only one thing—Ferenko—then that should have been perfectly acceptable.
Seeing the disapproving expression on the head maid’s face, he finally understood exactly what had happened.
Ah.
Only now did he understand.
It felt as though a veil had finally been ripped from his eyes and his dull mind awakened.
And the reality before him was far more horrific than he had imagined.
“From the very beginning…”
He had promised himself he would never repeat the same mistakes and would treat her properly from the start.
Yet he was still such a foolish and pathetic man that he had failed again.
He should have taken the Grand Duchess with him even to the fireworks ceremony.
The head maid would have to be replaced immediately.
“Don’t eat it anymore. Really. It’s fine.”
Speaking quietly, Peon sat beside her and considered how to deal with these insufferable natives.
Technically, Peon himself had once been an outsider too, a stone that had rolled in from elsewhere, so he could not simply disregard those who had lived here for generations.
As Grand Duke, he had needed to govern them properly.
And it was true that people from Kraine had long looked down on and mistreated the northerners, so he had tolerated much and shown them consideration.
But none of that mattered anymore.
If she disliked it, then he disliked it too. They simply didn’t have to eat it.
If the Grand Duchess was easy to look down upon, then the Grand Duke should be too.
Anyone whose attitude changed depending on the person in front of them would be removed.
“Oh my. Your Grace, what’s wrong with your eyes?”
At that moment, a frivolous voice giggled mockingly.
“You look like you’ve been stung by a bee. Are there even bees in weather like this? Look at your eyes. Oh dear. How awful.”
One noblewoman, determined from the beginning to put the wealthy Grand Duchess from sophisticated Kraine in her place, pointed at Kaela’s face while laughing.
Something wrong with her eyes?
Peon immediately turned to examine Kaela.
She sat still.
No—not still.
Her entire body was rigid with tension.
“Oh my goodness. Your face is swelling, Your Grace.”
Amid the mocking voices, Peon reached out.
His heart dropped.
His blood ran cold.
“…Ghk…”
A strained groan burst out alongside ragged breathing.
“Kaela!”
In an instant, her face swelled so badly she could no longer properly open her eyes, and she collapsed backward.
“My lady!”
Marie screamed, and several people jumped to their feet.
Even to the very end, Kaela had desperately gripped the chair and table, trying not to scratch at her burning skin and trying to endure her worsening breathing.
Then her hands fell limp.
A sharp ringing filled Peon’s ears.
As he caught her falling body, he forcibly dragged his own mind back from the brink of panic.
No.
He could not lose himself here.
“Get a doctor!”
Shouting loudly, Peon held onto Kaela, who was barely conscious, and forced her to vomit.
“Kaela, stay awake. Throw it up. Hurry.”
On battlefields against the evil dragon Quasalante, countless wounded soldiers had appeared, and Peon had not merely stood by giving orders.
Sir Wilberg and Sir Renar rushed over while the maids shielded Kaela from view.
“You need to vomit, Kaela.”
Dying was painful.
Painful enough to suffer before death came.
Kaela knew that better than anyone after living through her previous life, where she had exhausted herself completely and withered away.
So after painfully forcing herself to eat enough Ferenko, she had no desire to survive by vomiting it all back up.
In this place where kind people were crushed beneath loud voices, where no matter how hard one tried nothing ever changed—
she needed to die quickly.
But those rough hands stubbornly pressed down her swollen tongue and reached into her throat.
Kaela threw everything up.
Tears welled in her eyes from the violent convulsions wrenching her stomach.
“Well done. Don’t lose consciousness. Look at me.”
Her blurred vision was a mess.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not see.
Kaela surrendered herself to the darkness approaching joyfully.
“Open your eyes, Kaela!”
The newly arrived Grand Duchess had collapsed unconscious with her face horribly swollen.
And it had happened on the very first day she arrived in Ruisenford, during the welcoming banquet.
“My, perhaps she has a rather weak constitution.”
After the Grand Duchess was carried away following the forced vomiting, someone muttered carelessly.
It was serious, yes—but only that serious, in their minds.
“What do you mean?”
The muttering noble looked back at another noble glaring at him.
The man was normally quiet and had not spoken a single word all evening.
“Do you truly fail to understand the situation? If the Grand Duchess collapses on the very day she arrives, what do you think Kraine will say?”
“What would they say…?”
What would they say?
What did it matter if those soft Kraine nobles, who couldn’t even fight and only stuffed themselves with luxury, complained in some underhanded way?
Among the blinking nobles, the few with political sense and quick instincts—who had remained silent until now—had already gone pale and shut their eyes tightly.
“Everyone, remain seated! Stay where you are!”
At that moment, the Grand Duke’s knights blocked the entrance to the banquet hall and shouted.
“Until the situation is stabilized, remain in your seats. Do not touch the food.”
“Why the food?”
A knight answered coldly.
“By order of His Grace the Grand Duke, an investigation will be conducted regarding the threat to Her Grace the Grand Duchess caused by the food.”
The moment those words fell, several knights dragged away the head maid and steward.
The chef was hauled out from the kitchen as well.
The Grand Duke seized the complacent nobles by the throat and overturned everything.
Carrying Kaela in his arms, he laid her down in his bedroom.
“You’re saying it’s because of Tur berries? But Tur berries aren’t poisonous.”
The doctor who had been summoned and uttered such stupidity was immediately thrown out.
Another doctor was brought in.
“She consumed food incompatible with her body. To Her Grace, it was no different from poison.”
The physician who diagnosed her correctly at first glance remained to continue treatment.
But she shook her head gravely.
“Ferenko is prepared with a sauce made from Tur berries poured over it. Even a small amount would have been dangerous, but she consumed far too much. Did Her Grace simply not know because she had never encountered Tur berries before?”
That could not be true.
Having already learned that Kaela had repeatedly said the food made her itch and struggle to breathe—that it made her sick—Peon slowly shook his head.
Kaela had known.
She knew, and yet she ate it anyway.
“Then… are you saying she consumed it willingly?”
The physician looked at Peon in shock.
Peon’s face had gone completely dark, and he had no answer.
Why had Kaela done it?
Had she reluctantly eaten one or two bites because the nobles pressured her?
No.
Her plate had been completely emptied.
She had chewed and swallowed every bite.
Then perhaps…
had she tried to kill herself because she regretted marrying a bastard like him?
The physician nervously checked her surroundings again to ensure no one else could hear before speaking carefully.
“We have done everything we can, but I cannot guarantee her survival. At the moment, she can barely breathe properly…”
The nobles dismissed her because she was a low-born female apothecary, but the Grand Duke had ordered them to bring anyone with talent regardless of status.
A stable hand had recommended her as a famous healer.
She had been returning home after caring for a woman who had just given birth when the Grand Duke’s knights found her and brought her here.
Unused to dealing with high-ranking nobles, the physician trembled under the Grand Duke’s piercing gaze.
“Speak plainly.”
“I apologize, Your Grace. But right now, the most important thing is whether Her Grace the Grand Duchess possesses the will to live.”
The man sitting like a stone beside his newlywed wife froze instantly.
Nothing outward changed, but the physician realized the Grand Duke had momentarily forgotten how to breathe.
And the atmosphere surrounding him, already terrifying enough, became even more volatile—as though on the verge of exploding.
“Usually, people speak of ‘the will to live’ only when there’s nothing left to be done.”
The physician lowered her head deeply.
“Yes, Your Grace. Even a strong man would struggle to survive after consuming so much.”
And the patient lying there in such terrible condition was not a sturdy man, but a frail young noble lady prone to illness and sensitive to the cold.
The treatment used on wounded soldiers from the battlefield had been used on Kaela.
Her horribly swollen, reddened face had been covered with medicinal herbs while they prayed for the swelling to go down.
And yet the physician was already speaking of the worst possible outcome.
“We have done our utmost.”
Peon squeezed his eyes shut.
Kaela’s mouth had been forced open to secure her breathing, her tongue pressed down as she hovered between life and death with ragged breaths.
“I do not think she will survive the night.”
The physician spoke the truth while risking her life.
And that truth shattered the Grand Duke once more.
At his feet surged sins so black they could never be washed away.
“…There’s no other way? No way to save her somehow?”
They said the Grand Duke from Kraine was fair and unwavering, unlike the sly and cowardly people of Kraine.
Even children playing in the streets of Ruisenford knew that story.
And now the physician witnessed that supposedly unwavering man completely shaken.
“I’ll use any means necessary. Is there truly no way?”
He could not lose her so meaninglessly.
His desperate voice trembled.
The physician lowered her head.
“…We can only rely on legends now, Your Grace. Such as the panacea said to exist in His Majesty the Emperor’s treasury…”
Everyone in Ruisenford knew that was practically a myth.
Seeing reason slowly leaving the Grand Duke’s eyes, she hurriedly added something more realistic.
“There is a medicine called Retilin that can immediately relieve symptoms like these, but… according to my teacher, it exists within the evil dragon’s territory. I apologize, Your Grace.”
To enter the domain of the evil dragon Quasalante beyond the border in search of medicine would mean battle once again.
Anyone living in Ruisenford knew what a devastating cost that would demand from the Grand Duke who defended the North.
The evil dragon must not be provoked.
The hellfire it breathed could reduce hard-earned crops to ash, and the terrifying creatures beneath the earth and forest said to serve the dragon could once again appear beyond the walls.
Hadn’t last autumn been horrific enough?
Strangely, conflicts had ceased as winter turned to spring, but no one knew when disaster might strike again.
The people of Ruisenford remained constantly on edge.
In such circumstances, sending people into the dragon’s territory was unthinkable.
“You said it was medicine—not an herb?”
“Yes. I heard it was a medicine created by spirits commanded by the evil dragon. It is a very old story.”
In Ruisenford, where merely mentioning Quasalante caused panic, it was considered best to stay as far away from the dragon as possible.
So the physician emphasized that it was merely an old legend.
“…Keep silent about this. Speak of it to no one.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Continue treating my wife. If you keep her breathing until dawn, you will be richly rewarded.”
Speaking decisively, Peon finally rose and left the bedroom.
“Wilberg. Renar. Guard the room. No one enters except the physician and the Grand Duchess’s maids. Do not follow me. Protect the Grand Duchess. Trust no one.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The few knights trusted by the Grand Duke bowed their heads.
Draped in a black cloak with his hood pulled low, the Grand Duke quietly mounted a black horse and left the castle.
He rode swiftly beyond the gates, and once outside, pushed even faster.
While the nobles remained trapped inside the banquet hall, the powerful warhorse thundered across the land until white foam gathered at its mouth.
Deeper and deeper into the rugged mountains it ran.
Snow still had not melted there.
The path was bitterly cold.
Though the road itself was wide, no humans dared approach this region.
Among the black branches, whispers of ominous beings seemed to echo.
The sensitive horse felt terrifying gazes watching from the darkness and repeatedly tried to veer off the path.
If not for its master’s calming hand, it would have fled long ago.
After riding for what felt like forever, plunging deeper and deeper into the darkness, the horse finally reared violently in terror.
Within the darkness, darkness itself gathered and took form.
“Calm down.”
Tightening the reins, the Grand Duke soothed his horse and stared directly at the figure before him.
“I need Retilin.”
The man who dared trespass into the dragon’s domain spoke with astonishing boldness.
