“
Erik glanced sidelong at Emelline, who had gone silent for a long while, and asked softly,
“Was my confession truly that shocking?”
At the word
confession
, Emelline jolted upright like a startled spirit beast.
“D-Don’t call it that! That word is… way too explosive!”
Even her speech faltered.
Erik could tell right away—she wasn’t lying.
“…Then what would you call it?”
“Well… maybe… just…”
With a look of panic, she muttered,
“…An emotional outburst?”
Watching her fumble like a squirrel that had stolen a satchel of spiritual chestnuts from another sect and then dropped the whole thing off a cliff, Erik couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“W-What’s so funny?!”
“No, it’s just…”
He barely managed to suppress his chuckles, shaking his head.
Emelline, embarrassed by her own outburst, peeked up at him and asked cautiously,
“W-Why are you looking at me like that…?”
“You looked like someone who tried to pull off a little mischief… and failed spectacularly.”
Caught red-handed.
That was the look on her face.
Erik gazed at her, tempted to tease her further—but restrained himself. Soft-hearted men didn’t push. Instead, they said things like this:
“If you have no intention of ever sharing that kind of emotional ‘outburst’ with me… not today, not ever… it’s fine, Emelline.”
She frowned, arms crossed sharply.
“Wait. Don’t tell me you’re doing that ‘whatever, never mind’ thing again?”
Seriously? After all that, this is your big confession? You’re just poking around again like you always do!
Just as she was about to say exactly that—
Erik shook his head.
“I’ll just… like you secretly. Without showing it.”
A faint blush rose again on his face. Seeing it, Emelline’s brown eyes filled with exasperation.
“You’re telling me… you want to start
pining
for me now?”
He nodded.
“Is that not allowed?”
She narrowed her brows.
“And if I say no…?”
“Then I’ll just hide it even better.”
He smiled.
Emelline looked genuinely bewildered.
“Then why even
tell
me in the first place…?”
“Because I
want
you to know.”
He smiled bitterly.
“I want you to think about me too, once in a while. Because if you don’t…”
“…?”
“…It would drive me mad.”
He rose to his feet, a look of serenity on his face as though he’d just completed a difficult cultivation task.
Emelline, however, remained seated, staring up at him as if she’d been caught in the middle of a fog array.
Erik could tell.
She had
never
thought of him like this before.
Not once.
Even though she’d begged him for a kiss. Even though they’d shared a bed, and she’d touched him when she thought he was asleep.
He was already burning with frustration inside—but he managed a smile as he looked down at her.
“Well… come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He glanced around the dusty old room.
“There’s nothing left here anymore, after all.”
Still, he was glad they’d come.
Even if this place held no secrets or revelations—
Stepping into it had somehow given him the strength to walk forward.
But instead of stiffening, Emelline looked like all her strength had drained away as she shook her head.
“Ugh… my legs gave out… Could you go ahead and leave first…?”
—
The northern region known as the
Land of Ice
—a known troll habitat.
While the capital was still in the heat of a late summer season, with passersby fanning themselves, the North was a different world entirely. Early winter had already taken hold, and anyone foolish enough to camp outdoors without a fire during daylight hours risked their life.
Because of that, the seasoned Grand Duke of Gerda had, for the first time since entering the Land of Ice, given permission to kindle fires even during the day.
Even so, burning birch wood was strictly forbidden—it agitated the trolls. Any other wood was acceptable, but birch, in particular, would almost certainly draw them in.
Trolls, while not especially powerful individually, lived in tribes, possessed intelligence comparable to humans, had deft hands, and—critically—could wield basic elemental arts.
Due to this, the troll territories remained unconquered, unlike those of other spirit beasts. Humans and trolls had formed an unspoken pact: they would not invade each other’s domains. Even the Grand Duke’s household, known for its xenophobia and aggression toward outsiders and beasts alike, had upheld this accord. If trolls were to rise while the duchy was engaged with foreign invaders, the Grand Duchy of Gerda would effectively become an isolated island surrounded by hostile forces.
But the last twenty years had seen great change.
The Gerda Duchy, once the absolute sovereign of the North, was now forced to acknowledge that the North could no longer be unified under a single banner.
In such turbulent times, the new Grand Duke, Garinus, had allied himself with Prince Robert. Together, they stepped into the Land of Ice—determined to reclaim the North’s supremacy under the Gerda banner.
But trolls weren’t the only threat in these lands.
Just days earlier, in his first battle, Prince Robert had utterly razed a tribal village. As a result, the surrounding tribes were now growing increasingly hostile.
The destroyed village had been selling crops similar to those grown by duchy citizens, but at a lower price. It had long been a thorn in the eye of the Grand Duchy. However, it had also maintained friendly relations with other neighboring tribes who depended on that produce. Now, with the village gone, resentment toward Robert among the northern tribes only deepened.
The Grand Duke had foreseen this outcome. During the slaughter, he stayed behind, offering nothing more than a faint smile as the carnage unfolded.
He had scoffed at the sight of the so-called prince who couldn’t even wield a sword properly.
Instead of a blade, Robert used a spirit-forged musket—but even then, most of his shots went wide. It hardly mattered. His subordinates finished off the foes his bullets missed and reported all the kills as the prince’s glory.
The real problem wasn’t Robert’s combat ability.
The massacre had been based on intelligence claiming that rare spirit metals lay hidden beneath the village. But the intel turned out to be false—just baseless rumors spread by certain locals.
In the end, the expedition had accomplished nothing but the meaningless destruction of a peaceful tribe.
Upon hearing the truth, the king grew restless, fearing rumors would leak to the capital. Publicly, he praised the prince’s “heroic deeds,” but in private, he warned that unless Robert produced real results before the next Assembly convened, he would withdraw his military support entirely.
The Grand Duke, who had been pleased to wipe out a troublesome village under the prince’s banner, now found himself in an annoying situation. He had tied himself to a rotting vine.
Damn that king. Why should the death of a few outsiders matter? Is he afraid of being called a ‘butcher’ in the newspapers?
The Grand Duke ground his teeth.
He despised that so-called monarch—always so refined, always chasing the favor of the nobles and the press. While northern men fought tooth and nail, gripping their blades forged from northern mithril, the king lounged in the capital, parroting nonsense about ending wars and preserving peace.
“Tch. Back in the day, when knights marched under the Grand Duke’s banner, no one dared act up,” grumbled the commander riding beside him, lost in nostalgia.
A short while earlier, the general who had gone out for reconnaissance encountered an elder from a neighboring village. Recognizing them as troops under Lord Robert, the elder didn’t even bother to hide his scorn and mocked the general openly.
The general, enraged, nearly struck the elder down on the spot, but the Grand Duke intervened. They were deep within the trolls' territory—unnecessary bloodshed could provoke a calamity. Still, the Grand Duke himself was not pleased with the elder’s insolent demeanor.
“These days, there’s not a single village that doesn’t rely on mercenaries. Most of them take the long road through distant ports just to avoid paying tolls. Hmph… is this what the world has become?”
The Grand Duke clicked his tongue in disdain.
Ungrateful wretches.
The House of Gerda had fought off beasts and demonic cultivators for generations to protect the northern regions. The tolls they collected on roads across the North were but a meager recompense for the blood they’d spilled. And yet, even that small payment was something more and more villages were now refusing to offer. Naturally, fury rose within the Grand Duke like a blaze fed by spirit fire.
He had lost a finger in one of the great wars against the feral beasts, and he wore that fact like a badge of honor. His sons, too, were distinguished martial cultivators, having carved their names into legend battling barbarians and night beasts.
All except for that disgrace Kai…
The Grand Duke’s expression twisted as he recalled his second son, who had vanished right after the send-off ceremony. He felt no personal loss at Kai’s disappearance—he had always been a disappointment. But if word got out that a son of the Grand Duke’s house deserted not in battle, but at the very start of a campaign? That would bring eternal shame.
He must be found and dealt with before that happens.
With that in mind, the Grand Duke had already sent a covert message to the Duke of Orléans.
Valdek Orléans.
He was the very image of a capital noble—polished, calculating, full of flowery words—but he had one talent: he knew exactly which side to stand on to survive.
After all, it wasn’t Lord Robert who first set this battle in motion. It was Valdek.
“How long do you intend to crouch in the cold northern mud, Your Grace? What has the Denik Dynasty ever done for the North?”
Valdek’s words were meant to provoke, but they barely stirred the Grand Duke. The truth was already plain to him: the Denik royal family had never lifted a finger for the North. If anything, they viewed the northern lands as savage and beneath them.
From the warmth of the capital, feasting and indulging in luxuries, the Denik kings had let the North rot. They saw it as little more than a wild land, filled with frost and filth.
And the Grand Duke? He held the capital nobles in the same contempt.
He glanced in disgust at Robert’s pale, pampered fingers—hands that had never held a blade, never known blood or slaughter. That delicate brat would never stand shoulder to shoulder with a warrior clan like the House of Gerda. If anything, that red-haired girl he’d met in her younger years—Princess Ella—would’ve made a far better warrior. Perhaps even a ruler.
She had once come north to settle the tax dispute over the mithril mines. The Duke had set a trap to test her resolve, causing her to fall off a cliff. But she survived—staggered across the frozen land for twenty days before confronting him face-to-face.
She had said:
“…Sh
t. This place is freezing. Let’s make this quick—I don’t want to waste another second in this damned land.”*
With frost clinging beneath her nose, she’d thrown a pauldron marked with the Gerda sigil at his feet and coldly declared:
“I brought proof that you tried to kill me. If you wanted me dead, you should’ve done it right. You probably conspired with my brother or my father. But once they see this evidence, they’ll try to cut off your tail to save their own hides. If you don’t want to be the tail that gets chopped, pay your damn taxes before the royal court accuses you of treason and marches an army to your door. This was your debt from the start, wasn’t it?”
The only flaw was that she had been born a woman.
She had the cunning of a strategist and the boldness of a king. In the capital, people with such gall were rare indeed.
Still, the Grand Duke knew that for now, siding with Robert was the most advantageous choice.
Why?
“Let us support Prince Robert. You and I, Your Grace—if we join forces, what could possibly stand against us? I possess the Grave of the Merfolk.”
The Grave of the Merfolk?
The Grand Duke was well-acquainted with that legend—an ancient site said to house veins of magic crystals and the remains of the sea’s first cultivators. It was said that whoever claimed that place would rule the realm for generations.
If Valdek truly had control of that land… then he effectively held the mandate of kingship itself.
In this fractured succession, where the leading heir Ella was burdened by the flaw of being a woman, the scales would tip decisively in Robert’s favor.
But what did any of that matter to him?
“And now I’m expected to involve myself in the Denik family’s petty inheritance quarrels? For what?”
The Grand Duke recalled the smirk Valdek had given him then—those crimson eyes, slick with ambition, gleaming like blood-soaked rubies.
Chapter 99