MHDG 01

Chapter : 1

【1.】

How exciting.

This was so exciting.

It was Aspara’s very first time witnessing a landscape where the temperature dropped below -10°C even in broad daylight.

Ah, what a wonderful day!

As the carriage rattled violently over the stone road, her heart bounced just as hard, swelling with the joy of finally escaping the household she had grown so sick of.

For the record, the carriage was shaking very fast and very violently.

“It’s wonderful to be somewhere without siblings breathing down my neck.”

“My Lady… My Lady, you’re… you’re not here on vacation.”

The knight sitting across from Aspara replied.

To reproduce his pronunciation accurately, it sounded more like:

“M-M-M-My L-L-Lady… y-you’re n-not h-h-here on va-ca-aa-tion…”

Like Aspara, he also came from the southeastern island nation and was completely unaccustomed to this northern cold.

Unlike his mistress, who was wrapped in several thick coats, however, the knight wore nothing more than steel armor over a sturdy cloth tunic.

Aspara couldn’t help worrying that her one and only trusted retainer would chatter his teeth so hard that he’d accidentally bite off his own tongue and die.

“What can I do? No matter how miserable this weather is, it’s still warmer than the chill inside my family’s castle.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m just a lowborn man, but… I think our home castle felt warmer.”

Aspara considered gently scolding him, but seeing as he looked genuinely on the verge of freezing to death, she decided against it.

“I wish we could ask the coachman exactly how much farther we have to go.”

“He’ll just say ‘soon’ again. Even if I wanted to question him further, it’s not like I was hired for my tongue. Thanks to your orders, My Lady, the only language expert is lying dead.”

Driving the carriage was a brown-haired barbarian from the north who spoke nothing but the northern language.

Well…

There had been an interpreter from their side when they first departed.

But about four days after leaving home, Aspara had caught him writing a report addressed back to her family’s castle.

He had been secretly corresponding with her second older brother—the very man who had always treated her as a threat.

“Ah, sending me all the way to the edge of the world wasn’t enough? Second Brother really is a coward.”

Aspara remembered the day her escort knight, Jack, had neatly chopped off the interpreter’s head.

It had been the correct decision.

If all communication in this foreign land depended on that man, who knew how much he would twist her words?

Even if she had long since become the unwanted child of the family, sending her off to marry in the far north with only two attendants was absurd.

As a result, everyone surrounding Aspara now was from the north—including the coachman whom her future husband had sent to escort her.

“《—, —— —!》”

Just then, the small front window slid open, and the coachman called something out in the northern tongue.

To Aspara’s ears it was nothing more than an unfamiliar series of sounds.

Fortunately, she could understand one thing.

The direction in which he pointed.

Her gaze slowly lifted.

“So… that’s my new home.”

The top of the castle had come into view.

Unlike the whitewashed castles of her homeland, this one was built from dark bluish-black stone.

Its roof wasn’t flat either—it was steep and lined with sharp peaks, making the clustered towers resemble the gaping jaws of some enormous beast.

“Doesn’t look very warm inside that castle either.”

“Then you can stay here and live in the carriage.”

“…Just joking.”

A few more minutes passed before the horses gradually slowed.

“《—, — —!》”

The coachman shouted something again.

This time, the slow, deep cadence of the northern language somehow sounded welcoming.

The next moment, the carriage curtain was thrown aside.

The heavy door swung open.

Outside stood two orderly rows of waiting knights.

Unlike Jack, whose armor consisted of interwoven chains of steel, these knights wore thick leather armor.

Standing at the center of them all was an exceptionally large, fierce-looking man.

His cloak alone was far more extravagant than anyone else’s.

One glance was enough to tell Aspara that he was the lord of this castle.

…

…

“What? Why is he just standing there?”

The invited guest was the honored visitor.

Shouldn’t the host approach the carriage and escort the guest out?

That was what Aspara believed.

Granted, she had abandoned her family’s inheritance and been sold off through marriage.

But this treatment still wounded her pride.

Cold wind howled through the wide-open carriage door.

Castle Lord Gus was troubled.

Harsh winters and poor harvests were nothing unusual in this land.

But this year had been especially severe.

Every year, before winter arrived, his country would send letters to the wealthy southern kingdoms, desperately trying to obtain as many supplies as possible.

This year, however…

Something was different.

A nobleman from some southern country—whose name Gus could no longer remember—had proposed sending both a dowry and a young woman in exchange for a marriage alliance.

Why?

His nation had recently enjoyed a string of victories in war.

But those had merely been conflicts between barbarians.

The southerners had always pinched their noses and looked down on them as uncivilized savages.

So why would they suddenly offer one of their precious daughters?

His closest advisor had spent all day grumbling.

“It’s obvious. They’re trying to swallow us from the inside through politics.”

Truth be told, calling this place a country was almost embarrassing.

Just as the southerners liked to say, it had begun as nothing more than wandering barbarians and exiles slowly piling stones together until they had built walls and formed a city.

As a result, very few of Gus’s retainers—including Gus himself—were skilled in politics.

Forget diplomacy.

Not a single one of them even spoke the southern kingdoms’ language.

To the people of the south, they were nothing more than barbarians.

Using what few connections he had, Gus had discreetly investigated the young lady named Aspara, who was supposedly to become his wife.

According to the information he received…

She didn’t seem to be an ambitious noblewoman capable of wielding political influence.

Quite the opposite.

She appeared to have been half-abandoned by her own family.

The informant’s conclusion was simple:

She had most likely lost a power struggle within her household and been sent away through this marriage almost against her will.

How tragic…

Gus thought.

So…

He had become the villain in someone else’s story.

And not even an interesting villain.

Just a painfully old-fashioned one.

Yet when he thought of his suffering people…

He had neither the ability nor the luxury to rescue that poor, fragile young lady.

With a heavy heart, Gus reluctantly pressed his seal onto the marriage contract.

That had been fifteen days ago.

Today…

His bride, whose face he had never even seen, had finally arrived.

And yet she refused to come out of the carriage.

Surely, if the honored guest greeted the host first, proper etiquette required the host to bow and welcome the guest in return.

Although it would be terribly rude…

Gus suddenly feared that perhaps the southern bride had become so overwhelmed with grief that she had simply died inside the carriage.

Unable to suppress his worry, he carefully peered inside.

Bending his enormous body to fit through the doorway, he looked in.

“By the snowy plains…”

The bride was buried beneath an enormous cloak, trembling like a tiny field mouse caught in early autumn.

As the Lord of the North unconsciously stepped closer…

She suddenly looked up at him with her small eyes.

Those eyes were filled with venom.

At that instant…

Gus felt as though his heart had been pierced clean through.

And he made a solemn vow.

The moment I signed that marriage contract, I committed an unforgivable sin.

I will spend everything this barren land of snow can offer to atone before this lady.

Aspara was irritated.

Inside the carriage, she and her escort knight had finally managed to warm the cramped space with nothing but their own pitiful body heat.

Then, without warning…

Someone flung the carriage door wide open, allowing freezing air to pour inside.

And after opening the door…

The culprit simply stood there, staring blankly instead of welcoming her.

How long does he intend to keep me waiting?

These barbarians…

Do they think that, just because I was abandoned by my family, even the youngest child of a foreign noble house ranks below their own castle lord?

The power struggle she had hoped to leave behind seemed to have followed her all the way here.

The excitement she had felt at escaping her homeland quickly vanished.

After standing motionless for quite some time, the man finally approached, as though admitting defeat.

Finally, Aspara thought.

She glared angrily up at the giant before her.

Like most northerners, his complexion was pale, and his skin looked thick and weathered.

His gray eyes met hers.

She watched his pupils contract sharply before returning to normal.

“Hmm. His face is acceptable.”

By Aspara’s standards, he wasn’t handsome.

Every part of him—his height, width, and build—was a handspan larger than necessary.

His hair was coarse.

His fingers were long, but every nail looked as though it had been broken at least once and had grown back crooked.

One index finger had no nail at all.

His opposite little finger was missing entirely.

Still…

Aspara felt relieved.

She had worried that the man she was to marry might be an old man, or bald, or have three eyes…

Or perhaps only one.

“He’s exactly my level.”

Aspara was unemployed.

Though she was technically the daughter of a royal house—albeit a minor one—she had absolutely no chance of inheriting anything.

She wasn’t unintelligent.

She was simply unlucky.

Even more than that, she lacked the desire to fight.

And even beyond that, she possessed absolutely no talent for flattery.

Aspara liked to think she had always sought a quiet, peaceful life.

But a small sailboat sitting motionless upon a stormy sea is tossed about more violently than anything else.

By the time she realized it…

The sea around her had turned pitch black.

And when she looked around…

She found herself shipwrecked upon a shore she had never seen before.