Count Georg Salt finally made up his mind.
“Henrietta, I have something to tell you.”
He would offer his wife, Countess Henrietta Salt, to the Emperor.
“His Majesty wants you.”
“…What?”
To tell the truth, his decision had been settled the very moment the imperial offer arrived.
How else could a provincial nobleman like him be appointed Vice Minister of Finance, the very core of the imperial administration?
So the decision he made today was simply deciding to tell his wife about the plan.
“You understand, don’t you? For country nobles like us to survive in the capital, we have to constantly prove our worth to His Majesty. In that respect, you will be a tremendous asset. Whatever else you may lack, no one can deny your peerless beauty.”
He persuaded his wife with utmost care.
He did not forget to sprinkle in a fitting amount of flattery.
After all, what woman on earth disliked being called beautiful?
In a way, it wasn’t even flattery.
It was an undeniable fact that his wife was a peerless beauty.
She had luxuriant golden hair with a soft reddish tint and fresh eyes that were the very essence of blue.
Her flawless, translucent skin, so delicate you could trace the faint veins beneath, went without saying.
Her large eyes and slender, oval face alone were enough to earn her praise for her youthful beauty, while a sharp, straight nose grounded her features, lending her an air of intellect.
Viewed from the left, she was a youthful beauty; straight on, an intelligent and mature lady; from the right, a frail, pure maiden.
Even the archetype of beauty crafted from the imagination of humanity’s greatest sculptors would have fallen to its knees before Henrietta.
She was perfection itself.
Had it not been for that appearance, he never would have taken a woman from a fallen house as his wife in the first place.
“You know His Majesty has a weakness for beautiful women. He is a noble man, so he won’t even spare a glance for anyone who isn’t highborn. And it’s not as if you’re a virgin, yet he specifically singled you out! If you just put in a little effort, we could become true central nobles.”
The effort Count Salt spoke of was, of course, effort in bed.
Her husband seemed to have finally finished his long-winded persuasion.
Henrietta nodded slowly and crossed her arms.
“I thought it was strange that someone as incompetent as you had a meteoric rise out of nowhere…. Turns out there was a reason.”
Undisguised contempt flared in Henrietta’s eyes.
Yet she wasn’t disappointed in her husband.
Disappointment was merely an emotional reward that followed expectations.
She had always known he was this kind of man.
Shallow, cunning, servile to the strong and cruel to the weak—a shameless opportunist.
If her house hadn’t fallen, if her uncle hadn’t virtually sold her off into marriage, she never would have crossed paths with such a creature.
“Incompetent? What a thing to say to your husband! This wasn’t a stroke of dumb luck. His Majesty recognized my talents—”
“Stop spouting nonsense. I won’t bother giving you a logical rebuttal, since someone like you wouldn’t understand anyway. I’ll only say this once. I have no interest in becoming a central noble, so if you want it so badly, offer your own backside to the Emperor.”
“Wh-what—how vulgar!”
Count Salt turned red and covered his mouth.
Henrietta let out a cold snort.
“And sending your own wife as a mistress to a man in power isn’t vulgar?”
“…Shut your mouth, Henrietta. You have no say in this. No matter how much you hate it, you will become His Majesty’s mistress. Even if I have to tie your hands and feet and roll you up naked in a carpet, I will send you to him.”
From what Henrietta knew of her husband, he was more than capable of doing just that.
And he was right that she had no choice.
She had nowhere to run.
Her family had collapsed long ago, and her uncle, who had boasted endlessly about taking in a penniless niece before marrying her off to this scoundrel, would never take her back.
No, if Count Salt gave him this explanation, her uncle would jump at the chance and hand her over to the Emperor himself.
Running away blindly wasn’t an option either, as her first and last name were stamped clearly on her travel permit.
<Henrietta Salt (Countess Salt)>
Fallen though her family was, she had lived her entire life as a noblewoman and lacked the connections or capability to forge a permit.
Even if she managed to procure a fake, it was doubtful she could successfully evade the Emperor once his sights were set on her.
In the end, she resolved to escape the clutches of her husband and the Emperor through the most legitimate means possible, without a single blemish on her name.
Just as her husband had made up his mind to inform her, Henrietta made up her mind to give her own notice.
“Let’s get a divorce.”
It was the only option left to her.
Count Salt sneered at Henrietta’s choice.
“You don’t have just cause for a divorce. Are you going to tell the court that you were coerced into becoming the Emperor’s mistress?”
Of course she couldn’t say that.
The Emperor’s debauchery was something everyone knew, yet no one was allowed to speak of.
“Did I ever strike you? Did I fail to give you living expenses? Did I squander our wealth and threaten the family’s livelihood? Or did I ever have an affair?”
“…”
“You seem to have forgotten that we were wed under a priest’s blessing. The priest gave his blessing that you would find complete happiness. Com. Plete. Hap. Pi. Ness. Do you think women receive blessings like that every day? That was only possible because you married me. I am the perfect husband.”
Her husband puffed out his chest like a frog in mating season.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
Outwardly, Count Salt was the model husband.
With his recent rapid promotion, he was beyond reproach in high society.
Even if the hidden price of that promotion was a dirty bargain to offer his wife to the Emperor.
“Right. You do look perfect.”
So Henrietta decided to create just cause for divorce.
“I doubt I will be, though.”
By beating her husband to a pulp.
Thwack!
“Guh!”
A magnificent spinning back kick landed squarely against Count Salt’s temple.
A groan slipped unbidden from the count’s throat as he staggered.
The strike was so entirely unexpected that he couldn’t put up any defense.
“Haah….”
With just one blow, Count Salt’s eyes glazed over.
Henrietta did not miss the opening.
“I’m!”
Wham!
“Guh-ack!”
One to the gut.
“Going!”
Crack!
One to the jaw.
“Aagh!”
“To kill you today, even if I rot in hell!”
And finally, one right between his legs.
“…!”
This time, Count Salt couldn’t even scream.
Leaving the count shivering violently as he clutched his groin, Henrietta turned away and threw open the bedroom window.
Drawing a deep breath and bracing her core, she shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Countess Henrietta Salt just beat her husband!”
The cathartic shout, surging straight from her gut, echoed all across First Avenue in the heart of the capital.
***
About seven days’ journey by ordinary mail carriage from the capital lay the Krakow Duchy. Its lord, Duke Kalinin Marc Krakow, was young, handsome… and utterly in a rut.
Everything around him was an endless bore.
The cheerily identical faces of the knights he saw every day?
Dull.
The trivial jokes they cracked?
Tiresome.
The routine of soldiers undergoing the exact same training day after day?
Monotonous.
The monsters that crawled out on cue just to get slaughtered?
Uninspired.
Weren’t there any novel monsters around?
Setting aside the occasional monster appearance—though one really shouldn’t set that aside—his lands were mostly peaceful, and Kalinin was exceptionally capable.
That was precisely the problem.
He was so competent that he resolved even the thorniest dilemmas in no time at all.
Mired in boredom, Kalinin’s mind restlessly sought fresh stimulation.
And as everyone knew, nothing was quite as stimulating as juicy gossip.
“Have you heard, Your Grace? The wife of the Vice Minister of Finance has filed for divorce.”