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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Is there… only one tent…?”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
Swish.
Yerina said, hiding the backpack with the spare tent behind her back.
A single cramped tent.
In this situation where we had to spend the night on this deserted mountain with no one around, what kind of behavior would this man show?
‘He came all the way to Palana by transcontinental train just for sightseeing? All alone? That doesn’t make sense.’
No matter how you looked at it, it was suspicious.
Palana was a place with such inconvenient transportation that the number of tourists who visited in the past 10 years could be counted on one hand.
And he tried to walk this mountain path alone to such a Palana without a local guide?
It was unbelievable no matter how much she tried to believe it.
‘As the ruler, I need to test him.’
Yerina Frost, the Grand Duchess of Palana.
By chance, she had met this suspicious man while out collecting bear bile.
She had no clothes or accessories proving she was the ruler, and not even any weapons.
To this man, she would probably look like an ordinary village girl.
Yerina decided to take advantage of that and test this man.
“It, it gets cold quickly here at night. We should hurry and get inside the tent?”
“Tsk. Alright…”
Now that she had actually let the man into the tent, it became quite awkward.
The tent was so small that even if they tried to stick to the walls on either side, their backs would inevitably touch.
The tent was soon filled with the sound of the wind blowing in from outside and the rustling of sleeping bags.
“Can I use this sleeping bag?”
“Yes. Why? Do you have any complaints?”
“No. Not at all.”
She had deliberately thrown him a thin sleeping bag with poor insulation.
But the man accepted it without any complaints or dissatisfaction.
It seemed he wasn’t the type to make baseless claims despite being the recipient.
‘Even if he gets to sleep with a pretty, honest, cute, pure, and innocent-looking country girl like me, will this man really not do anything?’
The correct answer is to nip the buds of criminals in advance.
If he tried to do anything improper, she planned to immediately bind him and throw him as food for wild animals.
Yerina tightly closed her eyes and waited for the beast’s paw that would soon strike.
She waited, ready to crush the hand the moment a single hair touched her, but,
‘Huh?’
Even after a long time, nothing happened.
Feeling something was off, Yerina slightly turned around.
Then she spotted the man, who had already pulled the sleeping bag over his head and turned his back.
‘Am I crazy? To touch a woman who can tear a bear apart with her bare hands?’
At that moment, Yoo-jin was shivering in fear, his teeth chattering.
With a quick glance, it was clear Yerina was quite tense, her ears fully perked up.
Yoo-jin decided to just pretend to be asleep, as he could see his future of wailing like a girl if he so much as touched her.
When it became clear Yoo-jin had no intention of moving, Yerina also gave up and lay back down.
‘I can’t let my guard down. He might be trying to attack while I’m asleep.’
He might be trying to lull me into a false sense of security and do something improper in the dark of night.
Yerina thought that as she sniffled.
For some reason, her ears were drooping as if disappointed.
“Excuse me. Are you awake?”
“…”
Tap, tap.
Every time their backs occasionally touched, she could feel him flinch on the other side.
When she spoke to him about this, he flinched even more.
Yoo-jin, having been caught not being asleep yet, had no choice but to open his mouth.
“Yes. I can’t really fall asleep because it’s cold.”
“What’s your name? I haven’t asked that yet.”
“It’s Yoo-jin.”
“What about your family name?”
“Yoo is my family name.”
“Pff. That was a joke, right?”
“Yes, well… Let’s go with that.”
What an amusing commoner.
But for a commoner, his appearance, attire, and manner of speaking were quite dignified.
He seemed to have received a fairly good education.
She thought he might be the child of an employee of a noble family.
“What is your name, young lady?”
“My name? My name is… Yekatrina.”
“Heh. Yekatrina. A pretty name.”
Yoo-jin couldn’t help but laugh at the alias that seemed to have been chosen after some thought.
Originally, the name Yerina had come from Yekatrina.
In the initial setting, it was Yekatrina, but there was an opinion that it was too long, so it was cut short to Yerina.
The person in question had no way of knowing the behind-the-scenes story of her own name.
“Yekatrina. Can I ask you one thing?”
“Ask away.”
“You do intend to take me to Palana, right?”
“…”
A persistent question with all humor removed.
Yerina remained silent for a moment to choose her words.
There was no way she couldn’t understand what that question meant.
‘He noticed that I’m not going straight to Palana but wandering around.’
There seemed to be a hint of fear mixed in the man’s voice she had just heard.
From this man’s perspective, I must seem suspicious.
It must look like I’m trying to make him wander the mountains and kill him.
Realizing that belatedly, she bit her lip hard.
She couldn’t afford to be misunderstood.
“I’m, I’m sorry! I didn’t intentionally take the wrong path with malice!”
“Haa…”
“Yoo-jin?”
The moment she hurriedly turned around to clear up the misunderstanding,
Yerina found Yoo-jin making a strange breathing sound and placed her hand on his forehead.
It was cold.
His breathing and pulse were irregular, and he didn’t respond even when she called his name several times.
“Hypothermia…!”
He had lost a serious amount of body heat.
Only then did Yerina remember that humans were much more vulnerable to the cold than demihumans.
Because she didn’t take him straight to Palana.
No, it turned out like this because she threw him the thin sleeping bag.
“Please don’t die…”
Yerina quickly made a tearful face.
She had to save him somehow.
Because if this man died, it would all be her responsibility.
“Ugh… Hup…”
There was no time to even consider other methods.
Yerina quickly pulled Yoo-jin out of the thin sleeping bag and moved him into the thick one.
But this alone wouldn’t be enough to raise his body temperature.
“Haa. Haaa. Hold my hand. What do I do? It’s so cold…”
Without hesitation, Yerina shoved her own body into that cramped sleeping bag.
In the narrow tent, in the even narrower sleeping bag, a man and a woman tangled together to share body heat.
She wrapped Yoo-jin’s cold legs with her fluffy tail fur.
Yoo-jin’s hands were as cold as ice.
Yerina earnestly prayed for him not to die and fiddled with those blue-tinged hands all night long.
***
“We’re almost there…”
“It was closer than I thought?”
“I’m really, truly sorry…”
“Haha. No. It’s alright.”
Early in the morning, with birds chirping.
Two hours after departure, we finally arrived at Palana.
I smiled awkwardly at Yerina, who had been repeating her apologies like a parrot since waking up until now.
It was really okay.
If I were to die from something like hypothermia, I would have already become a cold corpse during the frigid training.
Thanks to that, I was able to sleep well while in close contact with Yerina’s warm, even hot body.
In fact, I was conscious at the time, but I intentionally pretended to be asleep because it was embarrassing to be shivering from this level of cold…
I never dreamed an event like this would occur.
“Oh.”
Passing through the rough forest and pushing aside the branches, the view was filled with the cityscape.
Just seeing the smoke billowing from the chimneys of the densely packed wooden buildings made it feel like the heat was rising.
It was a place that differed from the square, modern-style city of Petenburg or the Renaissance European-style city of Hameln.
As expected of an Oriental-style city, the high population density made it seem like the smell of people living there was strong, which I liked.
“By any chance, could I ask you to show me around the city a bit?”
“Yes, well. Since I’m partly at fault too, I can do that much… Ah, oh! Of course, I’m just a naive country girl who doesn’t know much about every corner of the city!”
“…”
Was she still going to continue this act?
It was getting a bit tiring.
Under Yerina’s guidance, I walked around various parts of the city.
Of course, everything was just as it was in the game settings, but I couldn’t be careless in my exploration.
There might be settings that had changed or been added in the name of the system filling in the gaps in plausibility.
“Palana exports numerous natural resources, including iron, sulfur, and gems. Many powerful nations have invaded countless times, coveting those resources, but we have repelled them all. All citizens of Palana receive basic military training.”
“…”
It reminded me of the setting of a certain country in Northeast Asia that implemented conscription for all adult males.
“And this is the palace. It’s where the Grand Duchess, Yerina Frost, lives.”
“Is it okay for us to come in this far?”
“Of course it’s okay. Because…”
“Your Grace. You have returned.”
Finally arriving at the palace, attendants who came out to greet Yerina hurriedly dressed her in a gorgeous fur coat and crown.
And then, turning around, Yerina’s eyes were filled with smugness as she looked at me.
Her expression seemed to say, “Surprised, aren’t you?”
“Wow. Woah. So you were the Frost Duchess. I never imagined.”
“You’re not surprised at all!”
“I was surprised.”
“Liar!”
I was surprised indeed.
By Yerina’s acting skills that were more dismal than I imagined.
What was most surprising was that she really thought it would work.
“Ugh…!”
Yerina seemed to feel somewhat insulted by my reaction, her face turning bright red.
Yerina glanced at my waist and opened her mouth.
“You. You seem to know how to use a sword?”
“Yes. I have learned swordsmanship.”
“Then have a match with me. Of course, you can back out if you think you’ll lose.”
It seemed our Frost Duchess wanted to vent her anger on me.
While legally beating me up, that is.
The opponent was one of the world’s strongest, who could tear a bear apart with her bare hands.
On the surface, there seemed to be no chance of winning at all.
No matter how you looked at it, backing out here and becoming a coward seemed better than getting beaten to a pulp.
“Alright. Let’s have a match.”
But I readily grasped the hand Yerina extended.
Yerina’s eyes gradually widened, as if it was a response she hadn’t expected at all.
I had it all planned out.
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Awake the entire time.