Before her regression, Lucie had conducted various studies alone in an attempt to lift the Curse of the Snowfield.
After all, before becoming Queen, she had also been a mage who had earned the title of Grand Witch.
Various inventions had emerged during that process. There were magical devices, magic formations, and spells.
Although magical devices could not be used within the radius of the Curse of the Snowfield, magic formations and spells could still be used.
Before her regression, she had invented these things far too late.
By the time she had invented them, the curse had reached its peak, so she could not use the magic formations either, just like the magical devices.
In the end, the magic formations she had invented then fell into disuse.
But not now.
The hateful Grand Magic Formation Innocentia, which the Chancellor planned to install, was still only at the conceptual stage, and for that reason, the Curse of the Snowfield was much more stable.
‘I need to hurry!’
Taking a risk, she drew a magic formation on the floor of her bedroom.
In her head, she calculated the formulae.
She imbued the ice and crystals in her bedroom with her mana, turning them into magic stones.
HUMMMMM.
Before she knew it, the magic formation began to glow, and her bedroom shook faintly.
Lucie swallowed hard and stood at the exact center of the magic formation.
HUMMMMM, FLASH—!
Then, amid a brilliant light, her body vanished.
***
About ten kilometers from the Palace of Pure White, the royal palace of Luhan.
There was no one nearby, and a single red tower stood alone.
FWOOSH.
A brilliant light burst forth in an empty clearing, and Queen Lucifurne appeared.
CRACK, SHHHHH.
At the same time, the Curse of the Snowfield activated and froze everything within a ten-meter radius solid.
“......”
Lucie’s expression hardened at the sight.
Fortunately, it was an empty clearing. If someone had been there, it could have caused a disaster.
‘That was reckless.’
No matter how urgent she had been, it had been a short-sighted action. At the very least, she should have told the head maid, Vanessa.
‘How much time do I have left?’
With a grave expression, the Queen weighed the Blessing of the Snowfield against the Curse of the Snowfield in her mind.
‘Thirty minutes. Is it because I am close to the palace?’
If she left the palace for any longer, the Blessing of the Snowfield would weaken, while the Curse of the Snowfield would grow stronger.
“Then.”
Bearing both impatience and anxiety in her heart, Lucie began to walk.
‘Wow......’
On the other hand, the view outside the palace—something she was seeing for the first time since receiving the Curse of the Snowfield—was fascinating.
But her wonder and excitement were short-lived.
With every step she took, the Curse of the Snowfield moved with her.
After she had walked carefully for about five minutes, she spotted a mage in black robes ahead.
He did not look like a dark mage. His robes were dark and neat, as though he were dressed for mourning.
Lucie stopped when she saw the mage.
Then, the mage in black robes and a black hood slowly approached the Queen.
He stopped about seven meters away and soon fell to his knees.
“Your Majesty......”
The black-robed mage’s voice reached her. It was the voice of a middle-aged man.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.
Lucie’s heart fluttered at the sound of his voice.
“It has been a long time.”
A greeting that seemed to suppress something slipped from Lucie’s lips.
At the same time, her eyes carefully measured the distance between herself and the mage. It was seven meters, just as it had been with Chancellor Aria.
“It truly has been a long time.”
At last, Lucie’s voice trembled with emotion as she spoke to the mage.
“......Father.”
Before her regression, after the Succession of the Snowfield ended in failure, she had never once sought out her father, the former Royal Consort of Luhan.
After her regression, she had urgently summoned him, but her father had continued to refuse.
“I am merely a sinner. An incompetent and pathetic sinner who failed to protect both the former Queen and Your Majesty.”
Grand Duke Lucas Evergarden, the former Royal Consort of Luhan and Lucifurne’s father, replied in a powerless voice.
“Is that why you rejected my summons?”
“There is nothing I can do.”
“......”
His face was visible beneath the hood. He had red hair, red eyes, and dignified features that could be called handsome for a man of middle age.
However, his red eyes were dull.
He was not blind. They were simply the eyes of a person who had lost all will and fallen into self-loathing.
They resembled Lucie’s eyes before her regression.
“Even now...... Merely seeing Your Majesty bear that curse makes my heart ache unbearably. I feel as though I will lose my mind.”
A single tear streamed from Lucas’s clouded red eyes.
“What happened that day was not your fault, Father.”
Lucie shook her head as she looked at Lucas.
Ten years ago, during the Succession of the Snowfield ceremony.
Lucas, then the Royal Consort of Luhan, had prepared and guarded the succession ceremony for his wife and daughter.
Before becoming Royal Consort, he had been a High Mage and the Master of Luhan’s Mage Tower.
But the security he had prepared was breached with absurd ease. In the end, the Succession of the Snowfield ended in failure.
The former Queen of Luhan, Lucifurne’s mother, sacrificed herself to save Lucie’s life.
However, Lucie came to bear the Curse of the Snowfield.
In an instant, Lucas had lost his wife and caused his daughter to bear a curse through his own incompetence and mistake.
He fell into despair.
Half-mad from self-loathing and guilt, Lucas built a crude red tower in a secluded corner of the royal palace and confined himself there.
‘Before my regression, I resented you. Foolishly.’
Before her regression, Lucie resented her father, Lucas, and never once sought him out.
‘I wanted to see your face so badly...... But neither you nor I had the courage.’
Lucas’s end had been suicide.
The moment he heard that Lucie’s Curse of the Snowfield had worsened, he had taken his own life.
Putting aside her brief thoughts, Lucie stared at Lucas, who stood seven meters away from her.
Only now did she realize that he, too, could approach as close as Chancellor Aria.
“What happened that day—the failure of the Succession of the Snowfield ceremony—was not your fault, Father.”
Lucie slowly opened her mouth.
“It was all the Chancellor’s...... Aria Desmo’s scheme. She was a subordinate of Evil Empress Octana, the Grand Witch of Lies.”
“!!”
At her words, Lucas’s head snapped up for the first time. His eyes were still clouded, but they trembled violently.
“Did you not find it strange? How could the Empire’s envoys have so easily broken through the barriers cast by you and the Mage Tower?”
“......!”
“The composition of an envoy delegation made up entirely of royals was strange as well.”
“Are you saying that the Chancellor is a spy?”
If the Chancellor was a traitor, it was entirely possible.
The only witch who knew the formula to break the barriers cast by Lucas and the Mage Tower’s mages was the Witch of Ashes.
“But she proved her innocence through the Mana Oath......”
“Who did I say she served?”
Chancellor Aria was a subordinate of the Grand Witch of Lies.
The Grand Witch of Lies could tell lies in any situation. She had used that power to sow chaos throughout the continent for a long time.
“Does that mean the Chancellor received the authority of the Grand Witch of Lies? Is such a thing possible?”
There was more shock than disbelief in Lucas’s voice.
Whether it was the Authority of the Snowfield or the Authority of Lies, the noble authority of a Grand Witch could never be shared without performing a succession ceremony.
That was the common understanding of magic in this world.
“The Grand Witch of Lies seems to have found a way to share the Authority of Lies to a limited extent without holding a succession ceremony.”
Lucie nodded with certainty. She had personally confirmed it before her regression.
“How does Your Majesty know that?”
At that question, Lucie considered telling him about her regression, but decided against it.
“When one is confined alone in the royal palace...... one begins to imagine all sorts of things. Then I began to have doubts, and after secretly looking into them for a long time, I reached this conclusion.”
“......”
Lucas said nothing in response to Lucie’s words.
But even without speaking, his eyes and expression revealed everything.
Rage.
That single emotion filled his face.
“Please help me. Become my Regent.”
The Queen’s request.
“......!”
Lucas’s eyes widened.
At the same time, someone strangely came to mind.
Not his wife or daughter, but a certain man.
For a brief moment, the events of that day unfolded in his mind.
The succession ceremony thrown into chaos by the sudden invasion of imperial royals.
The Authority of the Snowfield running wild.
Himself, helplessly despairing and unable to do anything.
Unlike him, a man desperately trying to stop the Snowfield’s rampage.
A mysterious man who always wore his hood pulled low over his face.
“......”
After his brief recollection, determination settled in Lucas’s eyes.
The father’s red eyes and the daughter’s blue eyes reflected one another.
“......Of course. This Lucas Evergarden will become Your Majesty’s shield.”
The father did not refuse his daughter’s request.
Before long, thirty minutes had nearly passed.
The two continued to exchange this and that afterward. Though they had met again after so long, an awkwardness lingered heavily between them. Their conversation was neither plentiful nor long.
“It is almost time.”
Lucie spoke as she looked at the magic formation beginning to glow beneath her feet.
“Your Majesty.”
“Yes?”
As Lucas looked at his daughter, he considered telling her about that man.
Lucie had been unconscious at the time, and within the rampage of the Snowfield, only Lucas and that man had been there.
“......Was that spell newly developed by Your Majesty?”
But in the end, the words that came from his mouth were entirely different from what he had been thinking.
“Yes.”
“A spatial teleportation spell this clean...... It is remarkable.”
Lucas looked at the Queen as though he were proud of her.
“However, Your Majesty.”
Then, setting aside that proud gaze, he reached into his robes.
“Did Your Majesty truly come here only to tell me the truth and make me Regent?”
“......!”
Lucie hesitated at Lucas’s words.
“Well......”
In truth, she had another request.
She had intended to ask, but when she saw his face, she could not bring herself to do so.
Seeing the father she had not met in so long, she felt awkward about abruptly asking him for that.
“Your Majesty...... Are you perhaps in love?”
“!!”
It seemed Lucas had noticed something as he dealt with Lucie.
“W-what are you talking about......!”
Lucie was visibly flustered by the utterly unexpected remark.
“I do not know who he is, but I approve.”
Watching his daughter’s reaction with delight, Lucas smiled as he pulled his hand from inside his robes.
Along with a magic formation signifying a Subspace Inventory, a blue sword appeared.
“The Royal Consort’s Sword, ‘Winteira.’”
Luhan was a country ruled generation after generation by the Grand Witch of the Snowfield, who became Queen.
And the Royal Consort, the Queen’s partner, possessed a treasure passed down through the generations.
It was the sword worn by each of Luhan’s Royal Consorts: ‘Winteira.’
“So......!”
When Lucas drew out Winteira, Lucie became flustered.
Normally, Winteira was passed to the next Royal Consort only when the current Royal Consort died.
That was why asking Lucas for Winteira now would have been deeply rude. He was still alive, and Lucie had not even married yet.
“Please take it.”
But Lucas threw Winteira to Lucie as though it did not matter.
The blue sword settled into the arms of the Queen, who would soon return to the royal palace.
The spatial teleportation magic formation glowed brightly beneath Lucie’s feet.
“But......”
Lucie, holding the sword, looked at Lucas.
“I am fine. Before long, I will become Regent and appear before Your Majesty in audience.”
Lucas smiled as he saw off his daughter, who looked at him with a dazed expression.
FWOOSH.
Then, a dazzling light erupted.
The Queen vanished, and only the frozen ground proved that she had been there.
“......”
After his daughter disappeared—
“Aria Desmo.”
Lucas’s face, which had worn a gentle expression until moments ago, hardened with rage.
FWOOOOSH.
Flames surged around his body.
‘Her Majesty told me to leave her alive. She said that she should be used to our advantage instead.’
His robe and hood, which had been entirely black, turned red in an instant.
It was as though they symbolized his rage.
‘Consider yourself lucky, Desmo! If not for Her Majesty’s warning, I would have burned you, you bitch, on the spot.’
His daughter had grown so admirably in the time he had not seen her.
‘First, I will visit the Mage Tower. I should also see whether there are any witches in the Royal Witch Council untouched by the Chancellor’s influence.’
Lucas Evergarden, the Northern Grand Duke and former Royal Consort of Luhan, resolved to set everything ablaze for his daughter.
***
After returning to the Palace of Pure White, Lucie had trouble calming her still-racing heart.
‘Love...... Love? I love Solacius......!’
It was not particularly surprising.
What she felt for Solacius truly was love.
It was simply the first time she had acknowledged it aloud.
‘Does someone like me even deserve to love him?’
All that came to mind were thoughts that needlessly lowered her self-esteem.
After feeling dejected for a while, Lucie suddenly looked at herself reflected in the crystal mirror in her bedroom.
‘Was I that obvious?’
How had her father known that she was in love?
She had no idea.
How her father had known remained a mystery, but Lucie decided to let it go for now.
‘In any case, this worked out well.’
She had a great deal to do immediately. She ran her fingers over the sword in her arms.
She needed to adapt the spatial teleportation magic formation to deliver this sword to Solacius.
‘Winteira.’
It was a sword she had not seen in a very long time.
Before she received the Curse of the Snowfield as a child, her father Lucas had often worn it at his waist.
Before her regression, when Lucas committed suicide, Winteira—which he had possessed—had also gone missing.
“......”
Longing filled Lucie’s eyes as she looked at Winteira.
Within those longing memories, the images of her mother and father appeared.
Then, their faces changed into Lucie’s and Solacius’s.
Solacius wore a knight’s uniform and carried Winteira magnificently at his waist.
FLUSH!
The Queen’s face turned as red as a ripe persimmon.