The Missing Lady (1)

Tessen’s winter was harsh. With a brief gust of wind, a brutal cold wave swept across the world. In the biting wind, the feet that had kept walking came to a stop.

“Ugh.”

The footsteps that had paused for a moment headed toward Tessen Castle again.

Crunch, crunch.

Listening to the sound of snow being trodden beneath feet that now had no sensation, the woman blew warm breath onto her stiffened hands.

“Haa….”

She could not believe the cold, ice-chunk-like air being drawn in through her nose. It was still only November. When she had heard the warning that winter had already begun in Tessen, so she should be careful, she had scoffed, and now the pain of her own foolishness cut to the bone.

The feet that had continued their heavy steps suddenly stopped. Before the woman who had halted, the enormous Tessen Castle and a vast plaza revealed their majestic form.

“Wow……”

The great Tessen central castle, all the more oppressive and noble because of its sheer size, had torches lit all along its walls as though it would illuminate the whole world. Bright lights had apparently been lit inside the castle as well, for warm and brilliant light was leaking out from beyond the high walls.

Before the majestic Tessen Castle, which looked down upon the world, an endless plaza stretched out. The plaza, connected to Tessen’s largest boulevard, lay empty in the deep night.

“It’s huge…….”

That short impression was belatedly breathed out from the woman’s frozen lips.

Tessen, the land of death.

To the world, Tessen had been known as the land of “death and gold.” But that had become an old saying. Present-day Tessen was called the land where gold and salt flowed.

The richest land in the Empire. A nation at the edge of the world, with the strongest border.

The world chattered that when the Grand Duchess of Tessen came to Tessen, Tessen became a new land.

What could just one person change?

“Hoo.”

The lips that exhaled a breath to consciously steady herself pressed firmly shut.

There was a rumor in Tessen that if nobles merely attended a banquet held at Tessen Castle, they would be showered with gifts.

As if. No way.

It was truly absurd. But she had set out on her journey relying on that ridiculous rumor.

Breaking through the cold that numbed her hands, the woman walked toward Tessen Castle. Before the great gate of the main castle, knights wearing fur hats, fur coats, and leather gloves rolled only their eyes as they watched the outsider approaching the castle.

The knights, armed with spears and swords, had their faces buried in winter gear, making their expressions difficult to read. After watching the movements of the knights guarding the castle with solemn intensity, the woman walked toward a protruding attached space on one side of the enormous castle. It was probably the guards’ sentry post.

Thump, thump, thump.

The woman’s hand, reddened and stiff with cold, knocked on the sentry post’s door.

“Excuse me, is anyone there?”

Like the enormous Tessen Castle, the guard post of the castle guards was finer than most ordinary homes. Standing before the grand Tessen Castle, the woman felt that her own appearance looked even shabbier.

Whoooosh.

The biting wind scattered the woman’s tied-up hair as it passed. Just as she tried to catch her hair, which was becoming disheveled, the thick and heavy door of the sentry post opened.

“Who are you?”

A wave of pleasant warmth poured out from the open door. The guard on sentry duty, upon discovering the woman who had been battered by the winter cold, was startled by her condition and first brought the guest inside.

“Ah, did you walk here in this cold? Please come inside first. I can’t believe you were walking around without even a hat.”

The sentry, who had a cold and stern impression, brought the frozen woman inside, draped a soft blanket over her from head to toe, and handed her a leather pouch filled with warm water.

At the attitude of the sentries, who kindly looked after her without even seeming wary of an outsider, her face, frozen by the cold, turned toward them with a dubious gaze.

‘……It must be because I’m a small-built woman, so I don’t seem threatening, right?’

As the woman tried to speak, another soldier inside the sentry post waved his hand and handed her a large wooden cup filled with warm water. His gesture clearly said not to talk nonsense and to drink this first.

“Please have some of this. It’s hot, so be careful.”

“Thank you…….”

The sentry firmly pressed the wooden cup to the woman’s lips as she tried to give thanks.

“Shall we call a physician?”

“We can call one after she warms up a bit.”

The sentries lifted the woman, who was wrapped tightly in the blanket and trembling, chair and all, and carried her before the fireplace.

“Excuse me….”

The woman, who had been slowly going limp with the warmth of the sentry post and the kindness of the people of Tessen Castle, put strength into the corners of her lips, steeled her resolve, and spoke again.

“Have you eaten? We only have rolls of bread, but shall I give you some? Anything that could really count as a meal got eaten by those boar-like fellows outside. Have this first. We should be able to get some food from the castle.”

The sentry lightly referred to the knights solemnly guarding the main castle of Tessen as boar-like fellows. It seemed his rank was not low.

Gulp.

A dry swallow slid down her throat in tension. The woman, who had almost laughed along with him, came to her senses and opened her mouth. But the roll bread kindly offered to her had already somehow ended up in her hands.

“I am Lady Combat’s attendant. The carriage broke down, so the rest of the party remained on the forest road, and only I came first to Tessen Castle. The rescue of my party…….”

After explaining her difficult situation, the woman set down the kindness of Tessen that she held in both hands, then fumbled about and pulled out a crumpled invitation and handed it over.

“My name is Dalia Swan. I-I came as the attendant of Lady Lily Combat of the Combat family.”

“Are you saying Lady Combat’s party is stranded on the forest road?”

There were two invitations Dalia held out. One was Lady Combat’s invitation, and the other was the invitation Dalia herself had received. The gaze of the sentry checking the two invitations sharpened.

“Yes, yes….”

At the sentry’s words, Dalia nodded repeatedly. It seemed, indeed, that the other party’s rank was not low.

“I’ll inform the central castle.”

“Lady Dalia, is the forest road you mentioned the one on the way from Restoe to Tessen?”

“Yes, there….”

Dalia nodded toward the sentry, who looked as if he was about to head out at once.

“I will go and take a look first. It may be difficult to repair your party’s carriage, so please tell the group following after us to prepare a spare carriage and bring it.”

It was not that he merely looked as if he would head out—the sentry put on the fur coat and hat he had taken off, gathered his weapons, and immediately went outside.

Where was he going……?

An invitation sent by the Grand Duchess of Tessen to a noble was by no means light. Even so, in an ordinary noble house, it was almost unheard of for a knight to head out immediately in the middle of such a late night just by hearing a few words asking for help.

She had seen plenty of people pretending to be thorough and dragging out time, saying that because it was a dark night and the weather was cold, they had to prepare properly before heading out.

“…….”

Dalia stared with strange eyes at the chilly air from outside that had grazed across her face.

“Lady Dalia, I know you must be tired, but please go into the castle. You must help inform the Grand Duchess of the situation. I will also report to the castle and prepare to help the party that met with the accident.”

The sentry carefully wrapped his own thick blanket around Dalia’s body and tied it with a fur muffler he had apparently procured from somewhere, so that the blanket would not fall off.

This quickly…?

Dalia blinked in confusion at how the help she had asked for was accepted in an instant. Tessen, ruled by the axe-wielding devil Grand Duke of Tessen and the angel-like Grand Duchess, handled matters with tremendous speed.

“Hold tight to the water pouch. It’s cold outside.”

“Yes, yes….”

There were still three whole days left until the banquet.

She had thought Tessen Castle would be terribly chaotic with banquet preparations, or that they might use the Grand Duke of Tessen’s lofty status to suppress an uninvited guest who had come early without permission and tell her to get lost at once.

Following the sentry’s guidance, Dalia stepped back outside, where the harsh wind blew. Tessen Castle was in the northern part of Tessen. She thought the biting winter wind would strike her face again.

Creak.

The sentry had Dalia enter through a side gate of Tessen Castle used by guards and workers.

Thud.

Once inside the castle, the sentry led Dalia into a corridor. The corridor had a roof, but since it had only elegant pillars, it was open on all sides. Yet the moment she stepped into it, a warm current rushed against her face.

“Ordinarily, when attending to a lady, we should have taken a carriage and gone to the residence, but I apologize that, because it is an emergency, I cannot escort you by carriage now. If it were only me in this urgent situation, I would ride a horse, but since you walked here through the cold, my lady, I have brought you through the corridor.”

Dalia listened to the sentry’s words with a dazed face. From the large and luxurious braziers placed throughout the corridor, sparks crackled and rose. And from that warmth alone, it felt as warm as indoors.

Not long ago, rumors had circulated in the Imperial Palace that Tessen was wealthy and lived extravagantly. The one who spread those rumors was the Emperor, the brother of the Grand Duke of Tessen.

At the time, she had thought that even if they were extravagant, how different could people’s lives really be? How extravagant could it possibly be?

The Tessen she had actually come to see was an astonishingly wealthy nation.