The moment the blizzard that had been split in two merged into one again and the moon regained its blue light.
"Kar— Tan!"
The Northerners offered up a shout all at once.
Even Harben joined in that oath, so there was no one to explain to me what 'Kartan' meant.
But I took the hint and judged it to be an oath of 'loyalty.'
Step, step.
The Northern Grand Duke walked up to me gracefully.
"My lord husband?"
Hm, not only were her looks splendid, but even her voice was clear and pure.
So this was what people meant by the sound of jade beads rolling.
"Ah, yes......."
"Please speak to me comfortably. Are you not the one who has promised to marry me, my lord husband?"
Every time words like 'lord husband' or 'marriage' came out of the Grand Duke's mouth, the Northerners' shoulders twitched.
I ignored that reaction as best I could and opened my mouth.
"In that case...... you should speak comfortably too, Grand Duke."
"I cannot do that. I am, after all, your subordinate, my lord husband."
"I don't particularly intend to order the person who'll be my wife around like a subordinate, or to divide a married couple into superior and inferior, though."
"It is a matter that comes before our marriage. It is a question of lord and vassal, between the First Prince and a frontier duke. And....... Hm."
The Grand Duke, who had been about to say something, quietly closed her mouth.
What was that about?
I was pointlessly curious now.
"......."
But she didn't seem to have any intention of answering.
At least not now, with so many eyes watching.
"Well....... Very w— no. All right."
I awkwardly corrected my speech and held out my hand.
"Abel Draco Whitelion. I have come hither for our betrothal."
Damn it.
I should've built up my vocabulary.
As a greeting for my missus-to-be, it was severely lacking in style.
"......."
Contrary to my worry, the Grand Duke was just staring at the hand I had held out.
"Um?"
"Ah, yes. Forgive my discourtesy."
Only then did the Grand Duke take my hand.
Through her thin leather glove, I could feel a warrior's calluses as they were.
"I am Freyja Berg. I look forward to our future together, my lord husband."
At any rate, hearing 'lord husband, lord husband' over and over made me feel oddly embarrassed.
I cleared my throat for no reason and looked behind the Grand Duke....... No, behind Freyja.
"By the way, where are your guards?"
Even though quite a while had passed since she arrived.
I couldn't sense anyone else.
"I came alone, though?"
"......The Grand Duke herself?"
"Hm."
Freyja swept her eyes around.
Ah, right.
I didn't have any guards either, come to think of it.
'Then again, who's worrying about whom here?'
The other party was the youngest Sword Master in history.
And she had shown off absurd skill earlier, too.
"......Hm?"
Just then, Freyja's gaze stopped at one spot.
I unconsciously followed her gaze as well.
It was the village chief.
"You are—"
Just as Freyja was about to speak.
"Ugh......!?"
My vision swayed.
At the same time, a wave of dizziness hit me.
"Prince!"
"Your Highness!"
The urgent voices of Harben and the village chief.
Eeee—!
But the ringing that assailed my eardrums swallowed the voices of both men.
"All of a sudden...... what......? Ugh!"
I lost my center of gravity and pitched forward.
Catch.
Fortunately, though, I didn't fall.
A soft sensation touched my face.
It felt like I was buried in something.
Before I could figure out what that comfortable thing was, the feel of a leather glove touched my forehead.
"Your body is burning hot. Magic power deficiency......?"
It seemed to be Freyja.
My eyes were already closed, but it was obvious that she had shifted her hold on me.
"Please rest for a moment. I will take you to the manor at once—"
The swaying lasted only a moment.
My consciousness cut out completely.
***
I smelled baby's breath.
A musty smell, close to the stench of grass.
The fragrance my mother had loved most in life.
But I wasn't particularly fond of it.
After all, it smells like grass.
You'd get a similar smell all over you just rolling around in any old weed patch.
"My son~? I can see everything you're thinking~?"
Whenever I harbored such thoughts, Mother would point it out in a gentle voice.
It was a voice brimming with mischief, of course.
"Mm......."
The feeling of sunlight pouring down onto my eyelids.
When I slowly opened my eyes, a familiar scene came into view.
The baby's breath garden inside the Imperial Palace.
In the middle of it, Mother and I were enjoying a picnic.
'How come this dream never changes?'
After Mother was poisoned to death.
I had regularly been having this strange dream.
The mother in my dream had kept her youthful appearance.
I, on the other hand, kept setting foot in this garden at whatever age I had grown to.
Thanks to that, the sense of incongruity was no joke.
After all, my age was already catching up to the age Mother had been when she was alive.
"You're spending a long time lost in thought by yourself today, my son?"
But Mother treated me exactly like the snot-nosed kid I'd been as a child, as if her grown-up son's appearance didn't even register with her.
Well, of course she did.
After all, it was the Mother I remembered.
"I suppose so."
"Is my son trying to become a grown-up?"
"I already am one."
"Hehe, yes, yes. If you want to become a grown-up fast, you have to eat well, don't you? Here, say ahh~."
Mother smiled radiantly and held out a sandwich.
"No. The sandwich is a bit......."
"Can a future emperor be a picky eater?!"
That's not it.
Mother, you're a godawful cook.
Just look at that.
What sandwich in the world was tinted dark green? On top of that, black smoke was billowing out from between the bread.
And this damned dream faithfully recreated the taste of the sandwich I had once eaten.
Under no circumstances was I to put that bomb in my mouth.
"Tch....... Mom worked so hard to make it. Fine, Mom will just eat it all instead of her picky son, then."
As an aside.
Mother ate those sandwiches just fine.
Her stomach could put a Barbarian's to shame.
Munch, munch.
While watching a thoroughly sulking Mother scarf down the sandwiches, I opened my mouth.
"Mother."
"Mom."
"......Mom."
"Yes, my son."
"What were we talking about just now?"
I casually broached the subject.
There was one truly strange thing about this picnic dream.
"My son was asking me for advice...... about what to do when someone hates him."
Every time I had the dream, the topic Mother and I talked about changed.
It was a conversation we had never actually had.
To be precise, there was no way we would have had a talk like this inside the baby's breath garden.
After all, whenever Mother and I came here, we had promised to talk only about happy, fun things.
That was why.
"Lexion bullies you a lot, doesn't he?"
There was no way she would have brought up the name of my half-brother, that bastard of a Crown Prince.
Thanks to that, it felt all the more real.
"Yes....... Well."
"Hehe."
Mother laughed gracefully, then soon put on a serious expression.
"Hmm....... Mom doesn't really know. Mom was always clumsy at dealing with people, you see. Whenever I got into a tough spot, your gruff father would show up and solve everything for me."
"Ah, I see......."
"Goodness, you're hearing about Mom and Dad, so won't you relax that face?"
It couldn't be helped.
After all, to me, that man was closer to 'the Emperor' than 'Dad.'
I had never felt anything like a father's love.
Not in my previous life, and not in this one.
'If that man had really meant to act like a dad.'
He would never have suddenly vanished, saying he had an important duty.
Leaving even the throne empty, no less.
Well, he might have had a truly important reason.
But if he didn't explain his circumstances, from where I stood he just looked like an irresponsible man.
'At the very least.'
He should have come running when Mother had taken the poison and was barely clinging to life.
"If there was one thing Mom did on her own, maybe it was being kind to everyone?"
Not knowing what was going on inside me, Mother kept talking.
Her skill at bantering back and forth all by herself was extraordinary.
"Kind?"
I clumsily climbed back aboard Mother's conversation.
"Oh, come on, Mom knows. If you're kind to everyone, people think you're a pushover, right?"
But Mother seemed to have interpreted my reaction differently.
Anyway, she did have a surprisingly foul-mouthed side.
Since it didn't match her graceful smile, its destructive power was all the greater.
"But that's Mom's way, and I think my son...... Abel can just do as his heart tells him. Of course, isn't that right?"
Mother folded her arms.
"You're the Crown Prince, aren't you? If anyone says weird things, you can just crush them all with your power!"
What a fiery mindset.
It wasn't the kind of advice you'd expect to hear in a hazy dream with baby's breath fluttering about.
'And yet when she was dying, she told me to become a benevolent ruler.'
As I watched her put on a bold front for her son's sake.
"Heh."
A laugh slipped out of me on its own.
The talk of Lexion and the Emperor had spoiled my mood for a moment, but....... As expected.
Nothing beat this dream for lifting my mood.
"So...... what do you want to do now, Abel?"
My face was reflected in Mother's golden eyes.
At the same time, I could see snow falling from the sky far off in the distance.
"I'll have to survive somehow."
The dark clouds scattering snow drew steadily closer.
Gazing at the darkening garden, I murmured.
"I've got a lot to do. I need to find out what the [Shop] is, and about my newly awakened....... No, the power I originally had? I need to look into that too. And I'll have to think of ways to win the Northerners' favor."
"And after that?"
At Mother's words, I looked around for a moment.
I could see the Imperial Palace.
"......I'm not sure. I think it's still too early. The place I'm in right now doesn't have just one or two problems."
"My son is having such a hard time."
"I suppose so."
Before I knew it, the dark clouds had arrived overhead.
The snow that had begun to drizzle down piled up on the baby's breath petals.
I slowly stood up.
"Aren't you cold?"
"No."
I answered without turning around.
Whoosh—!
"I don't think I could get cold now even if I wanted to."
"I see......."
Mother's laughter lasted only a moment.
"Be careful not to catch a cold."
Her worry reached me, growing faint and distant.
Leaving it behind, I walked forward.
In that moment, dark red flames bloomed.
A pillar of fire soaring high into the sky pierced the dark clouds.
At the same time, my consciousness, which had sunk to the bottom, slowly began to float upward.
"I'll be off."
There was no answer.
The musty stench of grass....... No.
Only a fragrance full of a mother's love pushed at my back.
***
When I opened my eyes, I saw an old-fashioned ceiling.
"This isn't...... the village chief's house."
I sat up.
The various symptoms I'd felt before passing out had vanished without a trace.
"She said it was a magic power deficiency."
A symptom mages suffered from using magic too abruptly or too much.
"I did fail to control my strength, after all."
Considering I didn't even know my exact total mana, I figured passing out was a good way for it to end.
I'd heard of mages who went beyond magic power deficiency all the way to a rampage and ended their careers as mages, after all.
"......Was that really dangerous?"
Thinking that I should check my total mana first before using magic again.
I got out of the bed.
"So where am I?"
I looked around the interior.
With marble walls and mahogany paneling, it was clearly finished with fairly high-end materials.
The problem was.......
"It's kind of bleak."
Was it because this was the North?
Everything was gray overall.
It felt as if the building and furniture had had their original colors sucked out of them.
But there was exactly one piece of furniture that proudly showed itself off, as if to say, 'I'm brand new.'
The double bed I had been lying in until just now.
A king-size bed, in modern terms.
A bed with room to spare even if three or four adults lay in it at once, hung with a blackout canopy woven from the finest silk.
To anyone's eyes, it reeked of encouraging 'that kind of use'.......
"But why is there only one pillow and one blanket?"
I poked at the pillow embroidered with the 'Black Tiger,' the crest of the Berg Grand Ducal House.
It was soft.
Better quality than what I had used in the Imperial Palace.
"I'll sleep well, at least."
Cracking a joke, I set the pillow down.
"It looks like this is the Grand Duke's manor."
It seemed she had moved me here while I was unconscious.
"Should I go find the Grand Duke first....... No, Freyja?"
Since Freyja wanted me to speak comfortably with her, I intended to match her as best I could.
I lightly straightened my clothes and stepped out of the room.
Hssss.......
A chilly wind was blowing through the hallway.
Was that all? There wasn't a sign of anyone, either.
Just as I began to doubt whether this was truly the manor where the highest person in the Empire, apart from the Imperial Household, resided.
"......What?"
I looked out the window.
No, I ended up seeing it.
And I.
"......This crap is the North?"
I passed a harsh judgment.
This time, it didn't matter whether my standard was the splendor of the Imperial Palace or whatever the hell else.
As soon as one crossed the boundary of the Grand Duke's manor where I was, the wretched state of the North was laid bare.
Houses shattered to pieces, with only fragments rolling around.
The carcasses of livestock that no one had managed to clear away, frozen solid.
Emaciated territory residents and soldiers with injuries large and small.
Now that I looked, even the Grand Duke's manor wasn't in one piece.
The walls guarding the manor had all crumbled, and icicles had sprouted here and there.
In other words, there wasn't a single intact spot anywhere my eyes could reach.
And above all.
"Is that...... the 'Black Tiger Wall'?"
The Black Tiger Wall.
The impregnable wall carved with a black tiger that protected the Northern front.
It had been cleanly and completely destroyed.
There were two problems here.
One, why had the wall, which even an all-out assault by the Imperial Knights would struggle to breach, ended up like that?
Two, why were the Grand Duke's manor and the Northern front located so close together?
"I heard the Grand Duke's manor was in the center of the North?"
No, was this even the Grand Duke's manor in the first place?
I didn't know the specific circumstances.
But what was certain was that Freyja had deliberately brought me right up to the front line.
In other words, it suggested that this place was highly likely to be my residence from now on, too.
If there had been a truly safe place, she would have taken me there.
'It means that right now, this is the safest place in the North, relatively speaking.'
There was also evidence to back up my hypothesis.
The goblin horde that had raided the village chief's village.
'If monsters were openly running rampant even at the entrance to the North.'
Then there was a chance that other villages, and even the center of the North where the Grand Duke's manor should originally be, had all become a godawful mess.
"So...... she brought me to where she herself, a Sword Master, and the knights handpicked by the Grand Ducal House are."
It all added up.
If there was a problem.
It would be that the Black Tiger Wall, which was supposed to keep the front line safe, had been smashed to pieces.
"Should I just pretend I didn't see it and go back to sleep?"
I was itching to escape reality.
Of course, after saying I had a lot to do to survive.
I wasn't shameless enough to go straight back to see Mother's face.
Let's try something, at least.
"I should hear what Freyja has to say first...... after all."
It was the moment I was about to leave the manor to grasp the situation first.
Ding!
A familiar sound rang out.
===『Quest - Earn Their Trust』===
- 'Abel Draco Whitelion' has finally arrived in the North, no, at the Northern front. Even before arriving at the front, you succeeded in earning the recognition of some Northerners. However, that is not yet enough. Earn the recognition of the Northerners within the time limit.
- Time limit: 2 days
.......
======
Another strange thing had popped up.
"Hah."
So now there are even quests?
Scratching the back of my head, I read its contents.
And then.
"What's this?"
At the very bottom of the quest.
The 'Reward' section caught my eye.
A very important reward that would make up for my lacking magical skill.
===[Sorcerer A.I]===
- An auxiliary function for those born with an innate talent for handling 'magic.' Supports assistance and learning across all elements related to magic.
======
"Oho."
The description itself was so vague it was like grasping at clouds, so I couldn't picture it clearly.
But one thing was certain.
"Then can I check my total mana with this A.I?"
[Possible.]
If it would solve my most pressing problem, I absolutely had to succeed at this quest.
"That's a relief. To measure total mana, you're supposed to visit the Magic Tower."
The Magic Tower was located in the capital.
And right now, I was in no position to come and go from the capital as I pleased.
'After all, it's obvious Cassandra would foam at the mouth trying to get in my way.'
Being able to skip that troublesome process alone made this reward's value skyrocket.
'I was at a loss anyway.'
I had immense power now.
Enough to sweep away a horde of ferocious goblins in one go.
But handling that power properly was a separate problem.
After all, I knew nothing about magic.
Even when I used <Fireball>, I had relied on instinct alone.
Unless I wanted to pass out from magic power deficiency again, I needed to learn about the power I had first.
And then, with perfect timing, a reward to help with that work had appeared.
"Well, what functions it has is something I'll have to try out after I get it."
To do that, I'd have to clear the quest first.
The time limit is a mere two days?
That's way too short, you bastard.
"......Isn't the first quest usually something anyone can clear easily?"
If time was this tight, I had to move right away.
But there was one more problem.
The quest's objective itself was far too abstract.
"Earn their recognition......."
What on earth was I supposed to do?
It couldn't mean just blindly helping the Northerners.
"Hmm......."
It was the moment I was lost in thought.
Rumblerumble—!!!
Suddenly, a sound that shook the whole land rang out.
At the same time, the ground began to quake violently.
'An earthquake!?'
Not satisfied with the abnormal weather, now natural disasters too?
Barely keeping my sanity from packing its bags, I hurriedly grabbed the window frame.
At the moment I was struggling to keep my balance.
I saw it.
The reason the quest had given such a tight deadline.
Rumblerumble—!!!!!
Beyond the destroyed wall, a thick cloud of dust....... No, a huge cloud of snow dust rose up.
The phenomenon looked like a giant wave.
And here and there within that white wave, deep blue lights gleamed ominously.
I recognized it at once.
"A Monster Wave......!"
At the same time, I understood what the quest was really about.
'Stop the disaster crashing in like a wave.'
If I succeeded, I would earn more than enough recognition from the Northerners.
And if I failed, well.......
"Fuck."
It was obvious I would die.
Along with the entire North.