The Death Who Tried to Shake Off One Trouble and Caught a Bigger One!?
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"Having experienced Lady Katerina's strength firsthand, I see a great many things differently now."
Milena said this as she lightly turned her teacup with a fingertip. In her red eyes, a faint regret over her defeat mingled with something that looked oddly like satisfaction.
"A duel isn't a game. It's a way of confirming what's in someone's heart. Words can lie, but the moment blade meets blade, lies become impossible."
She seems slyly calculating on the surface, yet when it counts, she's surprisingly hot-blooded.
Come to think of it, maybe that was simply inevitable for the daughter of the Flame-Eyed House. Red, Milena's personal color, belonged to the hot-blooded heroine in every sentai show or magical girl series of my former world. By that logic, Milena being the passionate type was the more faithful reading.
Bielka brought in the second round of tea and set it carefully on the table. I noticed her hands trembling slightly. It seemed the excitement of watching the duel still hadn't worn off.
"What I mean is, I can now believe that you, Lady Katerina, will truly remain neutral."
Hm? Where did that come from, all of a sudden?
It was hard to grasp what she meant. All we'd done was throw off the handicap and spar once — how did that prove my political neutrality?
"And how, may I ask, does a duel connect to one's political position?"
I posed the question with what I considered reasonable common sense — only for Milena, and even Eliza, to flinch and look flustered.
Their reaction was... how should I put it. It felt as if I'd asked, 'Why does the sun rise in the east?' — as if I'd demanded the fundamental reason for some self-evident law of the universe.
Milena quickly recovered her composure and answered politely.
"Actions matter more than words, my lady. When you rode the Mountain King to aid Baron Trofimov, he tried to exploit the gesture politically. And you refused to permit it."
She took a sip of her tea and continued.
"And in today's duel with me... you defeated me, yet never once humiliated me unnecessarily. You showed your strength, but you showed respect alongside it."
"Ah~ I understand perfectly now! Thank you for the explanation!"
That was a lie. I didn't understand one hundred percent. Would it be right to assume that not pulverizing Milena into the dirt had somehow generated trust?
"Yes. And, to be honest with you... the fact that I lost was a shock, but in another way, it was a relief."
"A relief, you say?"
"Because the Grand Duke's daughter truly is as overwhelmingly powerful as the rumors claim. Seeing someone like you show the will to maintain balance means Sokolov and Dmitri can finally find stability."
"Ah..."
"All of this will be relayed to my father and Baron Dmitri as well. That the Grand Duke's daughter treats all her vassals with genuine fairness."
"I shall continue to act fairly, for the stability and prosperity of the Grand Duchy."
"I look forward to it."
Milena dipped her head slightly. Her red hair swayed gently above the teacup.
"And... there is something I can finally bring myself to tell you now. There is a matter of great importance that I must convey to you, Lady Katerina."
Milena's voice grew heavy all at once. She glanced around the room, then motioned her attendants to withdraw. Even Bielka, at my side, stepped back at a glance from Eliza.
"What is the matter?"
Milena drew a thick bundle of parchment from the satchel resting on the table. Across its surface, a map of the Northern Sea and the northern reaches of the Grand Duchy had been drawn.
"Strange things are happening in the north of the Grand Duchy."
She leaned forward slightly and lowered her voice.
Milena traced a circle on the map with her finger.
"For the past three years, the winters have been growing longer. This year, spring arrived a full month late. The climate has begun to change. The ice on the Northern Sea is drifting far farther south than in any ordinary year."
An abnormal climate...?
Milena unfolded a second document. It was a report on the coastal villages along the northern shore.
"More grave still — the Sergen tribes beyond the Northern Sea have begun stirring again. This past winter alone, three villages were raided."
The Sergen. According to what I'd studied since possessing Katerina's body, they were a clan of pirate-warriors who dwelled across the Northern Sea.
Blond and blue-eyed, they were giants averaging roughly two meters tall, known as cruel and ferocious fighters.
"You mean the Sergen? Why, all of a sudden...?"
They had raided this region frequently before the founding of the Eisenmark Grand Duchy, but I'd heard the last century or so had been comparatively peaceful.
"Their own lands have grown colder and their food scarce, so conflict came naturally — and word has it a chieftain has appeared who united the tribes that had once been scattered across many villages."
The moment I heard Milena's explanation, an alarm went off in my head.
Don't tell me... the Little Ice Age?
Otherworlders might not know it, but by the knowledge of a modern person like me, these were unmistakably the first signs of a Little Ice Age.
Historically, the Little Ice Age brought plummeting temperatures and long, brutal winters that slashed crop yields. The resulting famine fed social unrest — and war.
Didn't the ancient era see the division of Rome and the fall of the Western Empire, not to mention the collapse of the Later Han? And in the early modern era, didn't it help drive the Ming-Qing transition...?
"How severe is it?"
"Still within manageable bounds, for now. But if the abnormal climate continues as it is — if the winters keep growing longer and colder..."
Milena set down her teacup and sighed.
"Sokolov faces the Northern Sea directly, so we are under the most immediate threat. Our fishermen have already spotted Sergen longships many times, and some of our fishing villages have abandoned their homes entirely and moved inland."
Her red eyes wavered.
"My father has no real countermeasure beyond focusing on trade and shipbuilding and building up our military. Holding the enemy at bay matters, of course — but it solves nothing at the root."
"Hmm..."
Something was off here. Even if signs of a Little Ice Age were appearing, it shouldn't be anything that would bring famine crashing down tomorrow morning.
Granted, if years of catastrophic harvests piled up with no proper preparation, a chain of deadly famine and civilizational collapse would follow. But I'd never heard it said that successive famines had already struck because of the climate.
She's exaggerating to some degree, I'd wager. Trying to stress the crisis facing Sokolov so she can ask me for help?
I could feel Milena's quick-witted cunning at work. Even so, the facts she'd delivered seemed no lie.
If the first stirrings of a Little Ice Age truly were visible, then in the long run this would cast a dark shadow not merely over the Grand Duchy but over the future of the entire continent.
I glanced out the window and saw the sun sinking low. A deep red sunset poured into the drawing room, making Milena's hair blaze like fire, brighter and fiercer than ever.
"For now, I've ordered shelters built in every village and food stockpiled. But on its own, that won't be..."
Milena's voice trembled faintly.
She certainly is good at acting.
Her plight was none of my business, and my heart stayed perfectly calm. So long as no full-scale invasion from an outside power materialized, we'd be fine for the present. Not that I intended to sit back and do nothing — it simply meant we had time to prepare, starting now.
And so I resolved not to react to Milena's little performance.
And yet, deep within me, something began to stir. The duty of the Deathsworn young lady — no, of the Grand Duke's daughter — was welling up. It was Katerina's instinctive sense of obligation: not mine, and yet mine all the same.
No — why, all of a sudden?!
I was bewildered, but my heart was already moving. This is my territory. Sokolov, Dmitri — all of it is land of the Grand Duchy, land I must protect. That thought swept over me like a tide.
Eliza must have noticed the change in my expression, for her brow furrowed slightly — but she did not step in.
"If the winters keep growing colder, they'll raid with ever greater fury. You said a man has emerged within the Sergen who united the tribes. If his rivals within the Sergen vanish, he will turn his blade outward before long — precisely toward our Grand Duchy."
The words poured out of my throat on their own. I tried to stop them, and could not.
"That is so. They will come to plunder our livestock, our grain, our wealth — our women and our men. If the Sergen begin a true invasion, Sokolov alone could not hold for even a moment—"
"Sokolov — and the Grand Duchy itself — cannot be allowed to fall, that is what I say!"
At the cry that burst unbidden from my lips, Milena, Eliza, and even Bielka all wore startled expressions.
"L-Lady Katerina?!"
"If an outside threat comes, I shall defend us! I will not let a single corner of the Grand Duchy crumble!"
At my declaration, Milena's eyes went round. For a moment she couldn't find her words, and a hush fell over the drawing room.
Aaargh! This blasted Deathsworn young lady, again!
But words once spoken could not be taken back. Milena wore a stunned look for a heartbeat — then her whole face broke into a radiant smile.
"Lady Katerina! Truly... thank you so much!"
Joy, genuine and unfeigned, welled up in her voice. Whatever her earlier words had been — calculated performance or plain truth — the reaction on Milena's face now was pure, unmixed gratitude.
"I thought you might already be aware of the threat to the north, even here in Eisenfels. But I never dreamed you would promise direct aid like this."
Milena stretched out both hands as if overcome with emotion, and clasped my own. Warmth radiated from her palms.
Th-this... did I just make a colossal mistake? Am I going to be okay?