Chapter 9

“Ahh, the air is so fresh!”

When I arrived at the entrance to the Fedrika Mountains, I spread my arms wide and took a deep breath.

The air was so cold and sharp that it prickled my lungs, but the scent of trees and earth mingled within it, making my heart flutter with excitement once again.

Whoosh, haah, whoosh, haah.

After breathing in the familiar scent of the forest several times, I finally took in the sight of the enormous snow-covered mountains of the Fedrika Range.

“Wow…”

This was incredible.

A vast expanse of pure white snow stretched endlessly, filling my entire field of vision.

Brilliant snow clung to every overlapping mountain ridge, and whenever the wind swept past, powdery snow rose from the ridges and scattered through the air.

Just thinking about walking on frozen ground and climbing again after such a long time made the corners of my lips curl upward.

Hehe.

Contrary to the worries of the knights and the Grand Duke, I had arrived at the entrance to the mountain range without the slightest difficulty.

My breathing wasn’t even labored, and my legs and shoulders actually felt lighter.

As expected, people need to live with their feet on the earth.

With my heart soaring, I headed deeper into the mountains.

The two knights who had rushed ahead when the Grand Duke appeared were already nowhere to be seen.

But there was no need to worry about them.

A very clear path lay before my feet, one that the Grand Duke’s knights had carefully cleared.

No matter how rugged and merciless the northern mountains were said to be, this was a place where the Grand Duke’s knights climbed up and down constantly for training.

Perhaps because of that, it was obvious that the paths they used had already been touched by human hands.

“What a shame.”

I clicked my tongue and smacked my lips.

Medicinal herbs and rare poisonous plants don’t grow in places that have already been trampled by people.

On top of that, it seemed that the two knights who had gone ahead had continued clearing away the snow that had piled up overnight despite being in the middle of their punishment.

And it wasn’t just snow.

They had even pulled out all the sharp rocks sticking out of the frozen ground and the tough weeds, tossing them to the side of the path.

As if telling me to be careful and follow behind them.

Even if they don’t like me, knights are still knights.

The faces of the two men who had worried about me before we began climbing the mountain briefly came to mind, and I let out a small laugh.

They were rough and blunt, but I could clearly feel the quiet consideration ingrained in the northern knights.

I began properly climbing the mountain, following the path the knights had kindly cleared for me.

I liked the feeling of the solid ground beneath my feet.

Even the chill that seeped up through the soles of my feet despite the snow having been cleared away felt pleasant.

After being unable to climb a mountain for more than two weeks, it felt as though my body had finally returned home.

The winter mountains in the south couldn’t even compare to the harshness of this place, but thinking about all the poisonous plants that must be growing in such a barren environment only made me more excited.

Huff, huff, huff—

How long had I been climbing?

Naturally, I couldn’t sense the knights who had raced ahead in full battle gear.

Unless I happened to encounter them on their way back down after reaching the summit, there was no way I could catch up to them.

I stopped walking.

At this rate, there’s no point in climbing the mountain.

I hadn’t boldly volunteered to share their punishment just to follow this neatly cleared hiking trail.

I stood where I was and slowly looked around.

Outside the path the knights had cleared, the snow was still piled high enough to swallow me up to my knees.

Bare tree branches and nameless weeds, blackened and dried to death, poked grotesquely through the grave-like mounds of snow.

To anyone else, it would have looked like nothing more than the desolate scenery of a dead winter mountain.

But to my eyes, it looked completely different.

My mouth watered.

How many medicinal herbs and poisonous plants are hiding beneath that snow?

I swallowed hard and slipped my hand inside my cloak.

Then I pulled out a pair of gardening gloves and a small hand hoe that I had hidden around my waist.

A few days ago, on the day I was cleaning the windows on the outer wall, I had happened to discover them while watching Celine search for a four-leaf clover beneath the ladder.

It seemed that a gardener had left them behind while tending to the flowerbeds, and I had quietly taken them.

They were small and worn, but sturdy enough to dig through frozen soil.

I gripped the handle of the hoe tightly and abruptly turned away from the safe hiking trail, as though I had no attachment to it whatsoever.

Toward a place untouched by human footsteps.

Toward that perfect, unexplored area where rare medicinal herbs and deadly poisonous plants seemed certain to be growing in abundance.

For a moment, my bet with the Grand Duke crossed my mind.

It doesn’t matter even if I lose the bet.

In fact, I had never intended to win the bet in the first place.

Varkan was following the Princess from a distance.

At the same time, he couldn’t make any sense of her strange behavior.

Of course, understanding someone who was not in their right mind was probably impossible to begin with, but there was a difference between being mentally unstable and possessing physical stamina that completely defied common sense.

If the Princess of Delmar had truly been raised like a delicate flower in a greenhouse, then merely reaching the entrance to the mountain range while enduring the fierce northern wind should have left her gasping for breath.

Yes, considering her personality, one could have assumed that she had somehow endured the journey through sheer stubbornness and made it to the entrance.

But the moment the Princess began climbing the mountain, she had been excited the entire time.

Literally.

She was as exhilarated as a puppy stepping on snow for the first time, yet as nimble as a fox racing across a snow-covered mountain as though it were its own home.

Her steps were light, and her breathing was unbelievably steady.

Was that even possible?

As Varkan watched the abnormal Princess, he found himself wondering exactly why she was abnormal in the first place.

A considerable amount of time passed as he quietly followed behind her.

They had already climbed halfway up the mountain.

Varkan narrowed his eyes.

She has extraordinary stamina.

He suddenly remembered Hendrick’s report that the Princess could perform even her duties as a maid without becoming tired.

At the time, he had merely interpreted it as meaning that she was surprisingly capable for such a frail princess.

But now that he saw her in person, that wasn’t it at all.

The stamina she possessed simply did not seem possible for such a delicate frame.

Varkan looked up toward the summit.

The ones who went ahead must have already reached the top and be on their way back down.

Varkan surveyed the terrain of the mountain before continuing to follow the Princess.

Then—

The Princess, who had been moving forward without hesitation along the path, suddenly stopped.

She then reached inside her cloak and began rummaging around before pulling something out.

Varkan’s brow furrowed slightly.

…A hoe?

It was an object that looked completely out of place in her small, white hands.

Where on earth did she get that…?

Haah.

Varkan pressed a hand against his throbbing forehead and sighed.

Before that sigh had even ended, the Princess looked around, stepped off the path the knights had cleared, and abruptly changed direction.

Following behind her, Varkan thought,

So it’s finally starting.

Yes, he had thought it strange that she had been climbing the mountain so quietly.

He silently followed the Princess.

If a dangerous situation arose, he intended to use it as an excuse to take her back down the mountain.

If it were up to him, he wanted to snatch the hoe from her hands immediately and drag her back to the Grand Ducal Residence.

But then—

Whack! Whack-whack! Whack-whack-whack!

“……”

The Princess began rapidly clearing away the snow piled beneath a dead tree.

What in the world is that…?

Then—

Thud! Thud! Thud!

She struck the frozen earth with the hoe.

Varkan was left speechless.

A woman who looked more beautiful and perfectly composed than anyone else was using a weapon-like hoe to tear into the rock-hard frozen ground like a beast.

If any of the other knights or servants had witnessed the scene, it would have sent chills down their spines.

But Varkan was bewildered for an entirely different reason.

…She’s skilled.

The ground had frozen and thawed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times.

Digging it up with a tiny hoe—and with the strength of those slender, delicate hands—could not possibly have been easy.

Yet the Princess changed angles repeatedly, breaking apart the soil with practiced movements.

Her hands moved with an unnecessary familiarity.

After digging for quite some time, the Princess picked something up and placed it into a pouch she had prepared beforehand, then moved to another spot.

She dug again, unearthed something else, and then smiled brightly as though she had gained the entire world, carefully sweeping the things she had found into her pouch.

Watching her, one old memory suddenly came to Varkan’s mind.

His own mother, who had lost her mind after being abandoned by his biological father.

Not everyone was like that, but generally, people who lost their reason after suffering a terrible shock often developed an obsessive fixation on something.

Varkan’s biological mother had been the same.

When dawn broke, she would go out to the winter seashore wearing only thin clothes and gather useless little pebbles.

Without even realizing that her fingertips were turning black from frostbite, she would lovingly embrace those shabby stones as though they were jewels, piling them into boxes and pouches.

Perhaps the Princess, too, had suffered some terrible loss for some reason and had become obsessed with meaningless stones or weeds.

As the Princess blew warm breath over her dirt-covered fingertips and walked away, her retreating figure somehow overlapped with the image of his mother’s final days.

The corners of Varkan’s eyes softened slightly.

Feeling an inexplicable sense of desolation in one corner of his heart, Varkan silently followed the Princess’s bizarre behavior for quite some time.

Then the Princess began climbing a steep slope.

Varkan’s brow furrowed faintly.

That’s dangerous.

The direction the excited Princess had headed toward was a steep section of the Fedrika Mountains infamous for its unstable ground.

It might look like level ground because it was covered in snow, but beyond its edge lay a dizzying area that led to a sheer thousand-foot drop.

It’s time to take her back down.

Varkan decided that he had given her more than enough time.

He was just about to step toward her when—

“Wow!”

With a short exclamation of admiration, the Princess suddenly lurched forward and vanished from sight as though she had fallen straight into the air below.

“……!”

Startled, Varkan instinctively sprinted forward.

He raced across the snow toward the edge of the hill where the Princess had been standing moments ago.

“Princess!”

Varkan’s voice tore sharply through the snow-covered mountain range.