Chapter 0
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 0
Chapter Title: Prologue
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On a day when a fierce snowstorm blanketed the earth.
Inside the black mansion that stood proudly defiant even amidst the storm, the air was as cold and quiet as ever.
If not for the faint traces of tidying left by the servants, one might have mistaken it for an abandoned ruin long forsaken by any human inhabitants.
But it was unmistakably a house where people still lived.
Tadak. Tadak.
With his back to the fireplace burning semi-permanently through magic, a certain man was glaring at someone.
Saeak.... Saeak....
Across from the man, a woman haphazardly dressed in ragged clothes lay sleeping.
Her outfit was so thin and threadbare that in this storm-battered northern region, she looked moments away from freezing to death—but her condition appeared healthy enough, with no major issues.
That was thanks to the massive bear pelt the man had hastily draped over her just moments ago.
Because of it, she looked for all the world like she was about to be devoured by a bear, but at least he had succeeded in saving the woman from the brink of death.
"......Yelena Astria."
The man quietly murmured the woman's name.
He had repeated it to himself in his mind countless times before finally letting it slip past his lips, and it wasn't an unfamiliar name by any means.
After all, it was one he had confronted for what felt like an eternity in the past.
But actually calling that name aloud and facing its owner in person—this was the first time.
"Cassius Winterguard."
The man uttered another name.
This was none other than his own.
The eternal winter of the great Estia Empire.
The mighty guardian of the Empire's northern frontier.
The current head of the Winterguard Duke family, Cassius Winterguard.
But such simple titles could never capture the full measure of this man.
"......The deranged villain from that romance fantasy novel. The criminal who botched kidnapping the heroine. The Northern Grand Duke who can't even manage his own territory."
Cassius Winterguard, laying bare his own pathetic reality, let out a deep sigh.
"I'm screwed."
No matter how you sliced it, possessing the lunatic villain from a rofan was just... fucked.