Chapter 25
The Margrave of Valmberg in the western Schwartzgald Empire was famed for his valor and daring, and was a master swordsman.
When war broke out with the neighboring Kingdom of Ridill, Count Valmberg himself stood on the front lines, holding back the enemy's fierce assault at the very border and contributing to the Imperial Army's victory.
From his ferocious fighting style, which saw him race across the battlefield and bite at the enemy's throats like a wolf, he earned the title of 〈Wolf of the West〉, or 〈War Wolf of Valmberg〉.
People even said that, in another age, Count Valmberg could have become the king of an independent nation. Even so, he never once desired independence and continued to pledge his loyalty to the Empire.
The emperor held the Margrave of Valmberg in high esteem and granted him the title of 〈Sword Saint〉, held by only a handful of people in the Empire's history.
...That was all more than fifty years ago.
The 〈War Wolf of Valmberg〉 had only been able to shine because there were wars to fight.
In an era when wars were frequent, one could earn military honors and receive rewards. But in the relatively peaceful present, that was no longer possible.
Conflicts with other peoples still flared up here and there in the south and east of the Empire, but in the west, there had been no real war for decades since the last one with the neighboring Kingdom of Ridill.
To make matters worse, Valmberg was hardly fertile land, and dragon attacks were not uncommon, either.
After more than fifty years had passed and two generations of margraves had come and gone, Valmberg was now treated as nothing more than a backwater count's territory.
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"Brother! Brother! Brotheeeeeer!"
Frieda Blanke, younger sister of the current Margrave of Valmberg, ran down the corridor with a broom in one hand, her apron hem flaring behind her.
Because Valmberg Castle also served as a fortress, it was sprawling and needlessly labyrinthine.
Frieda hitched up her skirt and charged up the stairs two steps at a time.
Frieda, who would turn twenty that year, was a tall, rail-thin woman.
On top of that, her sharpish eyes and short, neatly trimmed dull-blond hair meant that the village children often teased her, saying that anyone seeing her in men's clothing would mistake her for a man.
"B-brotheeeeer!"
Frieda flung open the door to her brother's office.
Her brother—Henrik Blanke, the Margrave of Valmberg—was seated at his desk doing paperwork. His shoulders jerked, and he looked at Frieda with a stiff expression.
"W-what is it, Frieda? Why do you look so frightening...?"
Henrik was six years older than Frieda, making him twenty-six. The young margrave, who had inherited his title several years earlier, was a tall, rail-thin young man much like his sister.
The siblings had similar dull-blond hair and gray eyes, but while his sister had a bold, dignified gaze, her brother exuded an air of vague unreliability.
Henrik seemed unable to understand what had angered his sister, but then his eyes widened as though he had thought of something.
"Are you angry because I secretly gave Edda in the kitchen a gift to celebrate her first grandchild? It came out of my personal savings, so could you let me off the hook...?"
"That's not what I'm angry about! I'm angry about my engagement!"
"...Yikes."
Henrik conspicuously looked away and began whistling a clumsy tune. It was such an old-fashioned attempt at evasion that even a child would not use it these days.
Frieda strode toward her brother's desk and slammed both hands down on it.
The whistle stopped with a foolish little squeak.
"I hear you kept the fact that I'd received an engagement proposal from me, didn't you?"
"Well, I figured that if I was going to turn them down anyway, there was no need to go out of my way to tell you, Frieda..."
"Why would you need to turn them down!?"
Henrik pursed his lips when Frieda shouted at him.
"I had four marriage proposals, but every one of them was a bit of a problem..."
"Four?!" Frieda's eyes bulged, and Henrik continued awkwardly.
"The first was Count Tsari, who turns fifty this year..."
"Count Tsari, who owns all those estates! Isn't he richer than us!?"
"The second was Baron Mauritz, who already has four wives, so I'd be sending you there to become nothing more than a mistress..."
"Baron Mauritz, who owns a mine! Isn't he richer than us!?"
"The third was Lord Einhart... He hates me, so it would be the worst possible scenario—marrying my sister just to spite me and torment her..."
"Lord Einhart, a promising young officer of the Imperial Guard! Isn't he richer than us!?"
At his sister's reaction, Henrik finally clutched his head and screamed.
"Oh, come on! Most nobles are richer than us!"
"I know that! Which is why I have no room to choose a husband, do I!?"
"Then pick one for me! I absolutely refuse to sell my sister off just to get money!!"
Good-natured Henrik was always concerned for his sister and prayed for her happiness.
But that alone could not rebuild House Valmberg, which had fallen into dire financial straits.
Their younger brothers, who were serving other houses, were mocked for wearing hand-me-down clothes and riding farm horses. The castle could not afford to hire enough servants, so Frieda, the count's sister, handled the cleaning and bookkeeping herself.
She had even sold the few dresses she owned for going out and the hair she had spent years growing so that she could at least buy proper swords for her younger brothers.
There was little left to sell except herself.
"Brother, please don't worry. Ever since I was born into a noble family, I have understood that I would not be free to choose whom I married."
"Frieda..."
"Whether he's an impotent old man, a greasy lust-crazed degenerate, or a sadist who enjoys tormenting his wife, I am prepared to sweet-talk him and play the part of a good wife as best I can."
"You don't have to make that kind of resolution! Think of a way to become happy more easily!"
Henrik covered his face with both hands and burst into tears.
Watching her brother, Frieda voiced a question that had been bothering her.
"By the way, you said there were four marriage proposals... Who was the fourth one from?"
As Frieda thought that, ideally, the family would be as wealthy as possible, Henrik's face grew even more tragic than before.
He looked right, then left, and finally down, hemming and hawing with a long "Aaaahhh..." before finally naming the fourth prospective husband.
"The fourth is... the head of House Albright in the Kingdom of Ridill..."
House Albright. Frieda tilted her head at the unfamiliar name.
To begin with, the Kingdom of Ridill was the neighboring country of the Schwartzgald Empire and had been its opponent in the war fifty years earlier.
Since Valmberg lay along the Empire's westernmost border, it was actually closer to Ridill than to the Imperial capital, at least in terms of distance, and the two countries also maintained trade ties.
But Frieda had never been to the Kingdom of Ridill and knew little about its internal affairs.
"Is House Albright a famous one? Do they own, say, a lot of estates or mines?"
"...No, that house is rather unusual. It's... a family of curse mages who serve the royal family..."
"Curse mages?"
When Frieda frowned at the unfamiliar term, a loud voice rang out behind her.
"Curse mages are baaad! They're no good! No good at all!"
Frieda turned around and met the eyes of a gaunt old man seated in the corner of the room.
His body was as thin as a withered branch, and he had a long beard jutting from his chin. He trembled all over simply from sitting there, yet his gaze was fierce and piercing.
This old man was the very man who had been called the 〈Wolf of the West〉 and the 〈War Wolf of Valmberg〉, a key figure in the war fifty years earlier.
He was Theodor Blanke, the margrave two generations before the current one and one of the few people in the country to hold the title of 〈Sword Saint〉. He was Frieda's grandfather.
"Oh, Grandfather. I didn't realize you were here."
"Curse mages are baaad! Absolutely no good!"
"Grandfather, do you know about House Albright?"
When Frieda asked, Theodor's trembling body began to rattle violently.
"It was ten years ago—when I was marching forward, I was caught in a pincer attack and charged through a rain of arrows. Then the most vicious 〈Thunder Mage〉 in the Kingdom of Ridill appeared... I cut my way through that fiend's lightning-fast attacks with this one sword..."
While noting that her grandfather's memory seemed highly suspect—he was describing a war from fifty years ago as having happened ten years earlier—Frieda asked questions between her polite responses.
"Yes, yes, Grandfather. I've heard about your exploits in the war so many times that my ears could grow calluses. But what kind of family is House Albright? Are they wealthy?"
"You're not hiding that very well, Frieda..."
Henrik murmured in distress, but Frieda ignored him and pressed her grandfather for an answer.
"Please tell me, Grandfather. What kind of people are House Albright?"
"They use terrible curses! Terrible ones! Especially the second 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉—I suffered so much at his hands... Oh, how I suffered! He placed a curse on me that could never be lifted...!"
Frieda had heard countless tales of her grandfather's heroic exploits since she was little, but this was the first time she had heard the name 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉.
When Frieda looked bewildered, her brother explained who the 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉 was, filling in the gaps in their grandfather's story.
Apparently, the 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉 was a terrifying curse mage with more than a hundred curses engraved upon his body, and in the Kingdom of Ridill, he was considered one of the foremost mages—the pinnacle known as the Seven Sages.
The Seven Sages also held the noble title of Magic Count, which was apparently equivalent to a Court Count.
"The current 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉 is the third to bear that title, and he's twenty-three years old. Apparently, about two years ago, he lifted a curse placed on the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Ridill. The king is quite fond of him, and his skill with curses is highly regarded throughout the country."
At twenty-three, his age was close to Frieda's twenty, so it did not sound like a bad arrangement.
But for Frieda, her prospective husband's age, personality, and appearance were not what mattered most.
"So, is House Albright wealthy?"
"...As part of this marriage, House Albright offered this much as a marriage settlement..."
Frieda worked out the amount her brother indicated on an abacus in her head.
The sum House Albright had offered was extraordinarily large for someone marrying Frieda, who was neither young nor possessed much of a dowry.
(With this much money, we could repair the castle and stable and hire more servants! We could even put rye bread on the table alongside our roasted potatoes and bean soup!)
Frieda raised her head, looked straight at her brother, and declared,
"I'm marrying into House Albright. Thank you for everything, Brother."
"Isn't that a little too quick a decision!?"
Her brother cried out at her declaration, while her grandfather trembled and insisted, "Curse mages are scary!"
But neither her brother's nor her grandfather's voice reached Frieda's ears. Her mind was already filled with thoughts of the farming equipment she would replace.