The Northern Duke's Ruthless Bargain
The reason the Northern Duke could stride about bearing the title of King of the North lay with his ancestors. It began roughly five hundred years ago, when the Red Dragon of the Yugna Mountain range vanished without a trace. Niberia’s great-grandfather, Halfiam, had been appointed commander of the northern military, and that single appointment had made everything possible. The entire north had once been little more than the Red Dragon’s personal garden; tax collection there had been notoriously brutal. Yet Halfiam seized the dragon’s absence as an opportunity and staged one more grand spectacle.
Leading a massive army to the empire’s northern border, he turned instead upon the enemy nation of Bratan. The result was the historic “Return from the Rval Plains.” In the aftermath, the Halfiam family stormed the estates of countless northern military nobles, seizing their lands and titles by force. The crown eventually recognized their power, elevating them to the rank of archduke. Thanks to that legacy, the current archduke’s house now controlled roughly one-fifth of the entire Lusa Empire—some 720,000 square kilometers, territory on the scale of a mid-sized kingdom.
“What must I give you? Tell me plainly how I can make Seira mine.”
While Seira slept soundly nearby, the archduke had quietly summoned Puyor and was now coaxing her with honeyed words rather than open threats.
“Your Grace… this humble one only wishes to live quietly with Seira, as we always have.”
A vein pulsed across the archduke’s forehead like a serpent. “Do you want a title?”
“N-no, Your Grace!”
“If you wish it, I will raise you from baroness to viscountess.”
Granting nobility to a commoner was already an extraordinary favor. A landed viscountess would stand among the top thousand privileged souls in the entire empire. “I-it is quite all right!”
The archduke stared, stunned. He had just offered her a place among the wealthiest, most honored, and most powerful thousand people in the nation, and she refused? Was the woman mad?
“Then take the entire lower reaches of the Kowon River—the lands once held by the Selton viscounty that treated you like a slave. All of it shall be yours.”
Even that lavish promise failed to move her. “No, Your Grace! This humble one only…”
Puyor, once merely a village headwoman and a commoner, was now refusing him with every fiber of her being. The archduke’s fists trembled. He glared at her with terrifying intensity, yet in the end he exhaled, thinking of the sleeping Seira, and forced his expression back into calm.
This was the last patience he could spare during the marriage negotiations.
“I will give you as much wealth as you desire. Do you think I have only wealth to offer? Not merely the lower riverlands—I will grant you every village and city along the lower reaches of both the Basra and Kowon rivers. You and Seira shall be raised to countess at once, and I will bestow upon you full judicial and administrative authority, plus exemption from all wartime taxes.”
Wartime taxes were the heaviest burden in any medieval realm, especially during active conflict. Promising exemption from them was tantamount to handing her entire territories as legal property. Yet Puyor still refused. A landed countess was rarer still—only about a hundred existed in the whole empire. Even a viscount could not meet a count’s gaze without permission, let alone speak to one.
While dangling this magnificent prize, the archduke caressed the hilt of his sword with a murderous glint in his eyes. Accept, and live in luxury. Refuse, and die.
Still Puyor shook her head. “Your Grace! How could this humble one ever repay such profound affection? Sob… yet this marriage cannot be allowed. Please, simply kill me instead. Hic, hic, hic…”
Watching her continue to defy him, Niberia felt the last thread of reason snap. Film out.
BOOM!
Before Puyor could even blink, her body was hurled into the air and slammed to the floor. The archduke’s massive hand—large as a pot lid—clamped around her throat. Agonizing pain shot through her neck and back; gooseflesh raced across her skin.
“Kill you? Kakakak! You’re right. A mad bitch like you deserves to be toyed with and then slaughtered. And that precious daughter of yours—”
Niberia was perfectly capable of doing exactly that. “Raised by a lunatic like you, Seira can’t possibly be normal either. Shall we see what sort of condition she inherited down below?”
“No—!”
SLAP!
His rock-hard palm struck Puyor’s cheek, silencing her faint protest. “Not just you two. Every last villager will be violated as well! After my soldiers have had their turn, I’ll flay them alive—”
“Stop… please stop! Hic, hic, hic, hic…”
At last the sheer horror broke Puyor’s mind. She collapsed unconscious. Only then did Niberia smile in satisfaction and order her taken to the finest physician in the area for careful treatment.
Left alone in the tent, the archduke muttered to himself with the expression of a delusional patient. “Seira, forgive me. I love you. Someday you’ll forgive me for using such violent methods on your mother… because you alone will be cherished by me in the most certain way possible. Uheheheheheheh.”
Through such methods, Niberia had finally obtained consent for the marriage.
Once Puyor was gone, Niberia summoned another woman—a silver-haired girl who closely resembled Seira. “Heh heh, have you been well? Behave yourself today, just like yesterday. Otherwise the whip of love will mark that pretty body of yours until dawn.”
“Hic… yes…”
“Haaah, then let’s begin, shall we? Seira…”
“Ugh, haaang…”
Niberia placed his hand upon her chest. She was not Seira, of course—only a stand-in actress. While waiting for the wedding day, Niberia had chosen to preserve Seira’s virginity out of genuine affection, an unusual restraint for him.
“Hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo! Seira!!! I cherish and love you so much that I even hired a double just to sate my desires!!”
Yet even in bed the cruel and vicious archduke was far too rough. Despite the stand-in’s desperate pleas, he showed no sign of stopping. Eventually the girl went limp beneath him and breathed her last.
“Haaaah, temporary Seira. Already dead? The real Seira wouldn’t break so easily…”
Niberia reminded himself to be gentler on the actual wedding night. “Even though she was only a substitute, I got too excited imagining she was Seira. Damn it!”
He made a new resolution. “Heh heh, at least I forced consent for the marriage. There’s nothing left worth seeing in this backwater. Once I return to the capital, I’ll have to search for more genuine silver-haired beauties instead of wigs.”
Until the real Seira arrived, he would continue amusing himself with these stand-ins, picturing her face. The archduke Niberia laughed uproariously.
“Kyahahahahaha! Seira! Seiraaa! Once you’re mine, I won’t need any other pleasure on this earth! Kyahahahahahahat!”