Chapter 13

“I had no idea it was like that, ”Reinhardt grumbled, covering Wilhelm’s sleeping shoulders with a blanket.

Dietrich cleaned the last parts of the bow and wrapped them neatly. Reinhardt flinched at the peculiar clang of iron.

“I’m going to go to sleep since I won’t be able to sleep for a few days if I go hunting.”

Hunting in this season was like a preparation for death. He wouldn’t be able to sleep in the snow for three days and he would have to wander with frozen hands and feet. Dietrich tied the bow and a single spear in one place and sat in front of the long chair where she sat, which is on the other side. Their eyes level matched.

“Let me ask you a question, Viscountess.”

“What?”

“You remind me of the Marquis.”

Reinhardt shut her mouth. Dietrich’s green eyes stared at her and didn’t flick away.

“I was six years old when the Marquis brought in a four-year-old child. He was an unidentifiable child, but we all knew one thing. The Marquis loved the child he picked up from the street.”

“Dietrich,” Reinhardt sighed.

“Hu Linke raised a son in his family with his daughter and did everything he could. I remember being on the bed when they would read fairy-tale books.”

Reinhardt habitually flipped her shiny long blond hair behind her ears, then flabbergasted, brought her hair back towards the front of her face. Dietrich was looking at her like that, with his elbows on both sides of his knees, and turned back down.

Dietrich continued to stare at Reinhardt as he reminisced about the times when he was younger.

Dietrich had remembered how he had marveled at the sleeping Reinhardt who had rolled out of Hu Linke’s arms in her sleep. As a child, he had even pushed her back into the blanket.

Old Hu Linke always told Dietrich that he had to protect Reinhardt. Hu Linke’s cherished daughter was a child he picked up on the street when he was young. None of the children from the Linke home was related to the Marquis.

His wife also did not dislike the child that Hu Linke brought. Everyone who saw Hu Linke giving his daughter the family name didn’t oppose him.

Some people speculated that Hu Linke brought an illegitimate child. Of course, it was a very small number of another faction, because everyone knew Hu Linke’s hard and brittle sex lifestyle. Hu Linke was a benevolent father only to Reinhardt.

Dietrich knew everything about Reinhardt. He knew where she came from and recognized what she was giving to Wilhelm now. Holding hands, kissing on the forehead. Hugging in the fire and telling a fairy tale.

It was all things that Hu Linke did to her.

“My Lady.”

“……I know. My father is dead.”

“No.” Dietrich shook his head, “If you want to forget about the little child and just honor him, then so be it.”

The man’s green eyes were as sweet as she had seen throughout her childhood. His tenderness resembled her father. Like her father who always gave her a big hug, and would call her with a sweet nickname: “My apple pie!”

Her golden eyes shone in the candlelight. Hu Linke had always looked at her beautiful golden eyes and likened them to golden apples in autumn.

“Your eyes are like an apple with glossy honey,” Hu Linke had told her when he first picked her up.

“Thank you, Dietrich. You’ve opened my eyes.”

“……I wonder if I said something unnecessary to your tranquility.” Dietrich burst into a dry smile.

Reinhardt leaned back against the chair. She gently twisted Wilhelm’s hair with her fingertips. His black hair curled around her fingers.

Bill Corona

Dietrich was right. She treated Wilhelm as if he was her brother or child. It was also true that Wilhelm, who gained weight and became pretty, acted as if he had forgotten for a while because he is cute when he follows her.

But she didn’t forget.

She should not forget why she has this child next to her.

“I would have done it a long time ago if I could forget that son of a bitch’s broken leg.”

She gritted her teeth. The heartbreaking sadness looks like it is about to overflow from inside her throat, so Reinhardt bowed her head and buried her face in the blanket.

“……I don’t know what to say, but I don’t know if you would understand. Should I say that I have good eyesight?”

Dietrich turned around as if trying to revive the atmosphere.

“What do you mean?”

“The black serpent in my arms.”

A viper. Reinhardt glanced down at the little boy. Dietrich shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve had as many as five broken swords in the past week.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know how strong this young child is.”

Dietrich reached out and pressed lightly with his thumb, a faint smile float around Reinhardt’s mouth, while saying so. Reinhardt was shaken and smiled. Because he didn’t even know why she was smiling, Dietrich laughed.

“Wake up.” Dietrich straightened and shook the boy awake. The boy opened his eyes dimly.

“Sleep in your own bed.”

“Diedrich…”

“Hey, that’s a bad accent.”

Reinhardt swept the boy’s forehead and smiled. The boy narrowed his eyes, then raised himself.

“Rin.”

“……?” Wilhelm had just woken up and was confused.

“Call me Rin. When you get back.”

With those words, the boy’s eyes twinkled as he nodded.

“I never imagined she’d raise a baby like you either,” Dietrich commented as he clicked his tongue.

The pair went hunting with five guards early the next morning. The hunting period, which was said to be three days, increased to a week, but the seven reindeer were very large. Among them, the most impressive was the head of a cut reindeer. When he heard that Wilhelm had cut it at once with Dietrich’s axe, Reinhardt kissed Wilhelm on the cheek.

Reinhardt stuffed the reindeer’s head, whose horns stretched out like branches, and used it to decorate her room.

***

Time flew by like an arrow.

There were a couple of big snowstorms, and Luden rolled peacefully. There were snowstorms everywhere, but everyone was coping well because they are so experienced in preparing for winter.

Reinhardt was struggling to put what she thought into practice before spring came.

A few years later there will be a big fire in the northeast.

It was so cold and dry that the Northeast was always exposed to the dangers of winter forest fires. But what Reinhardt came up with was a big fire around here three years from now.

Since they are territories that have a history of preparing for winter, they were always preparing for forest fires. But three years later, the Leilan wildfire would be a bit different. The fire was on such a huge scale that it took more than a year to extinguish it.

Thus, the northeastern part of the empire became practically barren. It was also an opportunity for the father of the current crown prince, Mikhail Allanquez, to lose public sentiment.

There was only one reason why Reinhardt, who had drowned herself in alcohol at this time, clearly remembered the fire.

I had to lose my drinking habit.

At first glance, it would not seem that the forest fire and Reinhardt’s alcoholism had anything to do with each other, but they did.

The Leilan forest fire was a fire that spread to the Leilan wetland. One might ask how a fire could spread in the wetlands, but the reason is simple.

Leilan wetlands are mountainous areas of mud.

Over the years, fallen leaves, soil, and floats become solid and hard, making them easily susceptible to being burned.

They are called mud pits. Their nature is similar to black coal from the mountain. Using the black coal-like mud, liquids can be made by burning the mud. The result of these efforts is Leilan Alcohol.

Leilan Alcohol had a unique odor with a mixture of the smell of burning pit from Leilan. This type of alcohol intrigued enthusiasts.

However, when the Leilan forest fire broke out, Leilan Alcohol was completely out of production. The fire that burned in Leilan’s ground was nothing less than a fire maintained by a burning pit.

“We need to stop the forest fire. Of course, we’re not just going to stop there.”

She had no intention of creating and managing a Leilan Alcohol production base. Hard distillers take a long time to produce, and she doesn’t know how to make alcohol. There are many young people who made and drank alcohol in this cold area, but they are not good people.

She was just thinking of turning the Leilan wetland into its own production place and selling the pit.

Leilan Alcohol was not originally produced within the Leilan wetlands. A brewer was passing by had accidentally found a pit in Leilan’s wetland. On his way, he had secretly scooped some of the mud, and burnt it, made it, and sold it within ten days using a wagon. He had called it Leilan Alcohol and proclaimed that the scenery of the Leilan wetland was expressed in its taste.

Lord Nadantin, who was the owner of the Leilan wetland, believed that the wetland was completely useless and left it unattended. He was unaware that there was a large amount of wealth around the Leilan Alcohol business from the brewer.

If it wasn’t for the brewery, she would never have known that the Leilan wetlands were a pit wealth.

No one could easily guess that a pile of mud piled up under the wetland would burn into a wonderful tasting alcohol.

But I know.

The problem is that Leilan wetlands were not hers. If she told Lord Nadantin she’d scoop up the dirt from Leilan’s wetlands, he’d be suspicious and would not authorize her.

What would be a plausible excuse?

There was another problem. It’s manpower. She wouldn’t be able to find people who would be willing to help dig up mud even if she wanted to. The people recruited would remember that she was a crazy woman who had stabbed the crown prince.

At the time she hit her head on the desk and moaned, there was a squeak, and the door was opened.

“Rin, Dietrich..….”

Reinhardt grinned at the familiar voice.

It was the boy who had chopped off the neck of the reindeer in the winter and ate all the spring seeds that just sowed.