Chapter 2

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 2

Chapter Title: How to Survive as the Wife of the Monster Duke

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‘What if I end up leaving Biplten?’

Our relationship might sour after the first night.

It was written right there in the bride recruitment notice.

If they weren't satisfied, we could just go home.

Still, she had no intention of returning to this mansion.

No one would welcome her back anyway.

Her father, Viscount Arlen, didn't love her enough to accept a jilted bride.

He'd probably cast her out, complaining that she'd tarnished the family's honor.

Bam!

The knight slammed the door shut, the sound echoing through the room.

Judging by his attitude, she might have to wait a while, but sending someone else would be far quicker than running around herself.

The first night was inevitable anyway.

The lady of House Biplten was already decided.

There was no need to get impatient.

Ilrin calmed her nerves once more.

It was still early dawn, before the morning sun had fully risen.

The faint light barely outlined the shadows of people and objects.

A dozen or so figures moved busily around the wagons.

Without even a torch to light their way, one might expect collisions or small commotions, but they moved with sharp precision and utter silence.

They loaded mostly rice and fruits onto the large wagons.

They selected only the finest quality, packaged them carefully, and hid them beneath tarps.

The tarps bore the crest of a soaring hawk in green—the color of trust.

[Esid]

That was undoubtedly the name of the merchant group handling these goods.

“Hurry up! We leave before the sun rises!”

The merchant leader's voice rang out.

Ilrin turned toward it.

Someone rushed up to the leader and bowed.

“Leader, if we leave too early, the kids might freeze.”

“If we go now, we'll arrive at the Biplten Territory entrance right at two in the afternoon. It'll be fine.”

Biplten?

Ilrin watched as the leader lifted the tarp to inspect the cargo.

Thick cotton padding lined the inside.

It was meant to protect the food from the cold, more than from bumps.

“All set!”

As the merchant group moved in perfect unison, the leader checked the last wagon's tarp.

That's when Ilrin saw it clearly.

Tucked oddly among the food supplies was a mobile adorned with ornate decorations in ten different shades of color.

Ilrin's eyes widened.

“Ah……”

It seemed her dream was urging her to reach Biplten quickly.

In the fall when she was seven—her first precognitive dream.

The image of her little brother falling from the terrace on a snowy day was still vivid.

‘Syd……!’

The young girl had no idea what the dream meant and clung to her parents.

Unlike Viscount Arlen, who dismissed it as just a dream, Viscountess Arlen recognized it for what it was and lived in terror of winter.

Soon, as the weather grew colder, she descended into madness.

‘Syd falls to his death from the terrace on a snowy day.’

Those words seemed etched into her mind.

The viscountess would have fits if Syd went anywhere near the terrace and forbade him from leaving his room on snowy days.

It was a desperate bid to avert his death.

‘No!’

But then Syd tumbled down the mansion's stairs instead.

The unusually high third-floor emergency stairs were the culprit.

Unfortunately, the stair's sharp edge struck the fragile boy's head hard. He lingered, wasting away, and died on a snowy day.

No matter how she thrashed about, the precognitive dream couldn't be escaped.

“Haven't you dreamed about me?”

After Syd's death, Viscount Arlen grilled Ilrin every time he saw her.

The young Ilrin was terrified of her father like that.

In front of her constant head-shakes, the viscount fretted endlessly about whether he'd meet with an accident soon, badgering her without mercy.

“You madman!”

Finally, Ilrin's grandmother slapped him across the face.

After that, instead of prying into his own future, the viscount treated Ilrin like something horrific.

Seeing the future was a cursed power.

Ilrin's grandmother despised that curse passed down through the maternal line.

Ilrin felt the same.

As a child, she'd wanted to believe her dreams were nothing special.

But those dreams that stayed vividly clear even after waking always came true.

They invariably showed the future, and that mobile was always with them.

The one that had hung by her bedside as a child.

Gazing at the mobile her mother had given her, Ilrin sometimes thought of her mother before the madness.

She had been a loving mother.

Until Ilrin prophesied Syd's death.

‘Why did you have to dream something like that!’

Her resentful cry at Syd's funeral still echoed in Ilrin's ears.

‘You cursed dreamer blood…….’

Ilrin's grandmother pitied the viscountess, who had lost all reason.

She hated the precognitive dream ability.

“Lady, it's Bread.”

A knock came at the door.

“Come in.”

The door flew open almost the instant she spoke.

He would've barged in even without permission.

It was the knight from her family whom she'd tasked with looking into the merchant group last time.

“Good work.”

The words slipped out automatically.

The knight left the room without a word.

Just like a week ago, the door slammed with a loud bang that shook the room.

The list was only three lines long.

Even in the capital, if he'd prioritized large merchant groups over the riffraff, it shouldn't have taken a week to investigate.

They clearly hadn't done their job properly.

[Esid Merchant Group]

But she had the information she wanted.

She noted the location of the Esid Merchant Group's capital branch and stood.

It was time to move.

“Who might you be, ma'am?”

“Ilrin de Arlen.”

A few people knew of House Arlen, but hardly anyone knew what position Ilrin held in the family.

The Esid clerk eyed her suspiciously.

He was clearly sizing her up, wondering if she was impersonating a noble.

Unless one was a cultured noble who memorized every house's lineage, there was no reason to know her name.

Their family rarely ventured out anyway, and her father—who did—treated her like she didn't exist.

Ilrin spoke up.

“Ilrin de Arlen. Isn't that enough to say I'm from House Arlen?”

“Then please wait just a moment.”

The clerk couldn't ignore a noble outright and went inside.

Asking to see the leader right away had been too much, after all.

After a long wait, the clerk returned.

“He'll be back in half a day.”

Predictable.

As if they knew where the leader was, telling her to wait half a day?

No, telling her to wait half a day without even offering a chair was just a polite refusal.

If that's how they played it, she had only one option.

Confirming no one else was around, Ilrin said softly,

“I hear you have a lot of goods heading north soon.”

The clerk replied indifferently.

“Of course. Boro Territory is one of our main routes.”

Boro Territory was north, but much closer to the capital than Biplten Territory.

Closer to the central capital region than the imperial north.

“Much farther north.”

She added with firm conviction.

“I know you have wagons loaded with food for Biplten. A place with almost no outside contact wouldn't deal with many merchant groups, would it?”

Without her precognitive dream, even Ilrin couldn't have pinpointed this place.

If a mere viscount's daughter could easily find out, Biplten wouldn't be called an isolated territory.

People lived in Biplten too.

But crops couldn't grow in a land where even summer was colder than the capital's winter—365 days a year.

So where did their food come from?

Stockpiling a year's worth in the brief thaw of summer?

Impossible.

Territorial management had too many variables.

There had to be paths to Biplten even in winter.

Known only to a select few.

It wasn't winter now, but the weather was plenty chilly.

Biplten was probably already a blizzard hell by now.

“……Please wait a moment.”

The clerk's face turned serious in an instant as he ducked back inside.

She'd found the right place.

Ilrin was certain.

“This way.”

The clerk, his expression now subdued, led her down a twisting corridor.

A gaudy sign reading “Merchant Leader's Office” appeared.

But he passed it and opened a small door farther in.

“Leader, I've brought her.”

“Good work.”

As the clerk left, the merchant leader welcomed Ilrin with a smile.

“You're Ilrin de Arlen, correct?”

He was far from the flashy image one might expect of a merchant leader.

In a plain white shirt and practical pants, he looked unassuming.

Just like in her dream.

“Yes.”

“This is a delicate matter, so I hope you'll forgive us talking in private.”

The leader bowed deeply and continued.

“We don't do business with Biplten.”

That couldn't be right.

Ilrin's eyes narrowed slightly.

“Our wagons don't go to Biplten at all. I'm not cruel enough to send carters into that land of biting winds.”

His smile was natural.

“It's true we ship large quantities of food north. But that's for Boro Territory and the surrounding areas. The north is vast, as you know.”

Without the dream, she might have let it slide.

But Ilrin knew the truth.

“If you don't believe me, want to check the wagons yourself? They're being prepped right now.”

“Sure.”

The leader personally escorted her to the loading area.

It was exactly as in her dream.

Just late afternoon instead of early morning—the wagons were stuffed with cotton padding.

As Ilrin eyed the padding, the leader smiled faintly.

“Essential for the northern regions. The roads aren't smooth enough for wagons otherwise.”

“I know, but—”

Ilrin pressed down into the padding.

The wagon was deeper than expected; her hand sank in considerably.

“Even if it's chilly, it's still too warm to transport fresh goods like this. Circling around Boro with all this cotton would spoil everything inside.”

She withdrew her hand from the padding.

The leader responded smoothly.

“I don't know what sparked a lady's interest in our cargo, but—”

“However.”

Ilrin cut off his elegant words.

“It makes sense if it's headed to the Winter Lands.”

The Winter Lands.

Another name for Biplten.

People called that eternally wintery place the Winter Lands.

A far more dignified term than forsaken-by-god land or monsters' domain.

Ilrin pulled out the letter she'd brought.

One was written by her.

Overlapping it was the bride recruitment letter from House Biplten.

She showed the leader the House Biplten-sealed letter.

“What if I said I want to become this man's bride? Would that change your mind a little?”