Chapter 82

Chapter 82 : There Is No One to Trust (2)

「(Excerpt omitted)……The lights glittered as though the stars of the night sky had been scattered over the ground. Ariti stared at the sight for a while, then turned to Karon, who had been dyed in the same color.

He had come under the pretext of teatime after dinner and pretended to be relaxed, but he did not hide that this was a kind of surveillance.

“Do you enjoy the scenery here?”

“I would be hurt if you believed I came here to look at that.”

“I know that is lip service.”

“Ahaha, surely not.”

Karon did not touch the tea that had gone completely cold. He only stared quietly at Ariti. The sight of him wearing a faint smile and draping himself in composure was enough to make even Ariti, the Ruler of the Spring, tense.

Ariti was the first to give up. With a sigh, she glared at Karon’s calmness and began speaking.

“How long do you intend to keep me tied here?”

“Were you tied here?”

Karon’s eyebrow rose. His somewhat startled face looked as though he were teasing her.

“Have you considered my proposal?”

At Karon’s calm voice, Ariti’s brow drew together. The proposal had come without warning and stolen the room she needed to think. More importantly, such a calm proposal, of all things.

“Do you intend to keep me tied here until I answer?”

“I have never tied you here. Occasionally, no, often, I do think about it, but I have not put it into action. Please, do not be frightened.”

“That is wordplay.”

“So your answer is? I gave you enough time.”

Ariti swallowed a hollow breath and glared at Karon’s relaxed face. Would there ever come a moment when cracks appeared on that face?

Ariti had no reason to refuse.

“That kind of confession is perfect for getting rejected.”

“So do you dislike it?”

“Fine. Let us have a contract marriage.”

That was acceptance of the proposal in a different sense from Karon’s……(Excerpt omitted)」

No sooner had the final letter disappeared than a drop of cold sweat slid down.

A lunatic who confessed in the middle of a battlefield had not gone anywhere. Now he was a male lead who kept someone confined and proposed a contract marriage.

I had wondered why there had been so many scenes of flirting and romance in the Original Work until now, and it turned out this was marriage first, romance later. That was why affection bloomed between two people in a hostile relationship who were itching to fight every time they met.

I lay flat on my back in the Execution Ground, looked up at the sky hidden by greenery, and thought.

The reason Karon proposed a contract marriage was clear.

Because there was something he wanted from Ariti.

She was the possessor of the production method, and even if not for that, Karon had been very interested in Ariti from the start. That was obvious just from the way he had singled out Ariti in the negotiation room.

The problem was Ariti.

“What was she so desperate for?”

Ariti had consistently put forward the maintenance of peace between the Surface World and the Underworld as her public reason. Was that not why they had even arranged an exchange between both sides?

I did not think she would naively overinterpret that and think being bound by the contract of marriage might be better.

But this was also a basic cliché of the Original Work’s genre.

No reason needed, just do it.

“Still, this is excessive.”

Ariti was the type to make a fair number of judgments here and there. It did not seem right to say that madman had simply swept her along.

That meant Ariti had a purpose too.

If not, then it meant Karon had caught some weakness of hers in that brief time, or had threatened her…….

“She said she was tied here, did she not? What method is there to tie someone’s feet without physically confining them?”

I knew a little about the Surface World now, but I knew nothing about the Underworld, so there was no way I would get an answer.

I decided to ask Quiro, who had belonged to the Underworld until recently, about this, and stood up.

The greatest problem in this situation remained.

“How…… do I tell Pan this?”

Do I get to see the second male lead lose his mind?

---

I could not tell Pan directly.

I could not pour oil on a situation where he was expressing gloom with his whole body even now.

“So, messengers?”

“Yeah. I heard they cannot cross the White Sea.”

So I decided to first look into the sequential problem of the messengers. The White Sea was at the edge of Underworld territory, and I thought Quiro, who had belonged there until recently, might know.

Quiro stroked their chin and sank into thought for a while, then nodded with a small sound of realization.

“It seems this is the season when storms come.”

“Storms?”

“Yes. In truth, there should be a few more weeks left, but there have been early cases before. During storm season, the White Sea turns over, so ordinary messengers cannot cross.”

“And? When does that end?”

“Usually, after it begins, it lasts one or two months…….”

A storm earlier than usual.

Could that be used to tie Ariti’s feet? The thought that suddenly came to me was quickly shoved into a corner by what Quiro added.

“But even during a storm, it makes no sense for all messengers to be cut off. One of the first things Lord Iwon fixed after stopping the war was maintaining the routes the messengers use…….”

“That timing is extremely suspicious.”

I pulled up the corner of my mouth and tilted my head back.

At the appropriate motion, the rocking chair tilted. It seemed Karon had done something, and the White Sea issue was in a position where it was difficult for this side to get involved.

It was strictly a region belonging to the Underworld, and whatever happened there was their business. It was difficult for the Surface World to interfere.

If things went wrong, we would be handing them justification to break the Nonaggression Pact we had worked so hard to sign.

But we were Underfolk.

The problem was that Murel was an Underfolk who had run away from home two hundred years ago, Quiro was an Underfolk officially visiting the Surface World, and I was an Underfolk who had been processed as missing for some reason and whom Karon was searching for with his eyes lit.

‘Why are all three Underfolk like this?’

I swept back my hair and asked Quiro,

“Is there a way to calm the storm or find out why the messengers disappeared?”

“There is, but considering our current position and situation……. I think it would be a little difficult.”

“Right. You think it would be difficult, but it is not nonexistent?”

“That…… yes. Correct.”

“Understood.”

I stood up. By this point, Pan should have looked into the Forest Messengers too, so it would be better to put our heads together and think.

Pering was still suspicious, but if an enemy was in front of you, they could not stab you in the back.

---

Pan was grilling the Elders in the ruler’s castle.

The Elder in charge of messenger management, who had been involved with the traitor last time, was being wrung out even harder. The moment his hollow eyes met mine, he had a fit and foamed at the mouth.

‘What did I even do?’

I shrugged and approached the sagging Pan.

In that gap, the Elder, who quickly realized this was his chance to escape, bolted outside. Pan’s sharp, bloodthirsty eyes turned fully toward me.

“Ah…… what did you find out?”

As soon as Pan saw me, he seemed to know why I had come. He shook blood from his hands and grinned.

Is this a horror story? Is this the position of a second male lead obsessed with the heroine?

“Tsk, tsk. Taking out your anger?”

“It is a justified interrogation. That bastard was involved in the last incident, but he survived because he is the only messenger manager left.”

He was not the only one, was he? Pering was practically a veteran in that field too.

―was what I swallowed inwardly as I followed Pan, who suggested we move somewhere suitable. I also wanted no part of a place with bloodstains clinging here and there.

“The messengers are refusing.”

“The White Sea?”

“No. The entire Underworld. Let us go to the office first. It will be easier to explain with a map there. You forgot all about the Underworld too, did you not?”

“I did not forget because I wanted to.”

“Yeah. So let us go first. What about you? What did you find out?”

“A storm.”

“What?”

Pan’s feet, which had been moving briskly, stopped abruptly. An expression of disbelief crossed his face, and soon I heard the sound of his teeth grinding.

“It is not the season yet.”

“It means it could be that. Until we check directly, it is only a guess.”

“Karon, that fucking―.”

Everything after that was profanity, so let us ignore it.

After controlling his anger with a round of curses, Pan curled up the corner of his mouth and headed toward his office again.

“The storm of the White Sea is not only a problem for that place.”

Pan flung open the office door and barged in. Ignoring the map that covered one wall, he took a map of the entire Surface World from a drawer inside and roughly spread it over the table.

“This is the Black Forest, and this is the White Sea.”

The pure-white sea was drawn in a region directly bordering the pitch-black Black Forest. It was far too enormous to be called a simple sea, as if it swallowed half of the Surface World.

“The storm of the White Sea is the greatest abnormal weather of the year, stretching from here to here.”

Pan traced a hand along the boundary I assumed belonged to the Underworld and explained that the entire range would be affected.

It was only that the Black Forest directly bordered the most of it and could travel there directly. In effect, it was close to a large-scale disaster, touching everywhere from the nearby Mist all the way to the far edge of Spring’s Domain.

“No wonder the official dispatch route was blocked.”

“You already tried sending one?”

If personal messengers did not work, I had thought of an official route, a higher-grade messenger system, but he had apparently already failed.

“I sent one long ago, before I started digging holes in the ground. Sending it went smoothly, but none returned. I did not even expect a reply, but messengers sent out should return, and yet they all disappeared in the White Sea.”

This situation was not ordinary.

The reason the messengers were not working and the reason Ariti was stuck in the Underworld felt the same, but there was no way to resolve it. Right now, this side had not even properly identified the cause.

Karon intended to hold Ariti there against her will, use that to threaten her, and even stamp approval on a schemed marriage, yet this second male lead was floundering without even finding the cause.

Of course, I could not deny that this was a gimmick meant to bind the main couple of the Original Work together, but was this side not too pitiful?

Besides, I had never seen a coercive contract like that take a good path.

Karon was probably planning to commit the act first and notify us afterward, and Pan would not simply stand by and watch that happen.

I looked at Pan’s serious expression and scratched the back of my neck.

Even if I told him right now that those two were about to enter a schemed marriage, he would never believe me, so how was I supposed to persuade him?

“Then the certain thing is that we need to start by confirming whether a storm has occurred in the White Sea or not, right?”

“By season, it is at least ten days early. It is not an abnormal weather event that could change just because one person did something.”

“What if it is not the usual storm that sweeps across the entire area every year, but a localized storm occurring only in the region bordering the Black Forest?”

Pan’s eyes gleamed.

“……That would be possible.”

“Right.”

Since I only had to guide him toward that cause without directly persuading him. My eyes gleamed in the same way.

“Is there not someone on this side who would know best about an abnormality in the White Sea?”

“Do not tell me…….”

“Correct. Pering. The very person who sent a messenger to the White Sea not long ago, and the one acting as a double spy.”

I smiled brightly at Pan, who was moving briskly now that a solution had become visible.

See? A traitor is a traitor, no matter where they attach themselves.

---

“Ah, haha, what did you say?”

I grabbed Pering by the collar as he awkwardly laughed and tried to dodge, then shoved him into the office.

We could not shove Murel and Quiro, who knew the most about the White Sea, into the ruler’s office, so this side would have less opposition.

“You are asking me to send a messenger to the White Sea? Are you openly telling me to betray them?”

Pering could not hide his disbelief and resisted, then belatedly looked around the office and became even more stunned.

“My lord? What in the world are you doing, joining hands with the Underfolk?”

This was the beginning of a kind of White Sea Storm Resolution Team.