Previously
Henrietta meets Duke Kalinin and requests to enlist as a soldier, citing her desperate financial situation and lack of other options. The Duke initially refuses her due to her noble status and the dangers of the Monster Forest, but Henrietta piques his interest by claiming to possess a unique Monster Encyclopedia.
Henrietta offered a bright smile.
‘Well? Can you really resist after hearing that?’
“I don’t just have the Monster Encyclopedia. I have a rough map of the forest, too. It even records which types of monsters appear in each area.”
“…Now I find myself questioning the authenticity of that information.”
It was a reasonable doubt.
Instead of answering right away, Henrietta toyed with her empty plate.
With an impassive expression, Kalinin summoned an aide and ordered more tea and pastries.
“Have you ever heard about my maiden family?”
Taking an elegant sip of her tea, Henrietta broached the subject.
The Duke of Krakow scoffed, as if asking why she was wasting his time with such nonsense.
“Until this very moment, I have paid no attention to you personally, Ms. Matyas. Even if I had heard of it before, I would likely have forgotten.”
“That almost sounds like you plan on paying attention starting today.”
“Yes. You are far more beautiful than I anticipated.”
“…”
Depending on who spoke them and under what circumstances, those words could have sounded utterly romantic. Yet the Duke of Krakow delivered them as though he were simply appraising a gemstone.
Thanks to his clinical tone, Henrietta took no offense and replied smoothly.
“I was quite famous in the capital as a trophy wife.”
Like an imposing mounted lion.
Like a stag mounted with magnificent antlers.
A trophy wife who existed solely to showcase beauty.
She felt no shame in voicing the phrase.
It belonged to the past, and she had shattered that trophy with her own hands.
Now that she stood entirely on her own and free, there was no reason to be bound by what used to be.
“I see. I have no interest in trophies, so I was unaware.”
Kalinin drew a line, mildly put off by the term trophy wife.
“Let us return to your point. Is there something special about the House of Matyas?”
“The Matyas earldom—my family—were originally local nobles rooted in Oldham Province. Then, for reasons I do not precisely know, they moved to the capital during my great-great-grandfather’s generation. That was, well… roughly eighty years ago.”
“Eighty years ago?”
The duke frowned as he pictured the map in his mind.
“Traveling from Oldham to the capital eighty years ago must have been rather perilous. There was only one road.”
“Yes. Back then, passing through the Monster Forest was unavoidable. But at the time, that place wasn’t the Monster Forest. It only had wild predators like boars and bears. That must be why my great-great-grandfather thought he could move the entire house.”
“It is true… monsters have inhabited that forest for less than a century. Still, it hardly would have been safe. The woods were remarkably dense even before that.”
“Indeed. They were deep woods. And that is why my family fell from grace. We were provincial nobles, but we were thriving. Perhaps they were attacked by wild beasts; my great-great-grandfather died in the forest, and only my great-grandfather barely managed to emerge alive. Our order of knights was annihilated then as well.”
The Duke of Krakow crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly.
Henrietta thought his black eyes, half-hooded under his lids, carried a strange, inscrutable quality.
It was a relaxed gaze looking down from an advantageous height, yet it strangely lacked condescension or arrogance.
Even so, the sheer intimidation it carried was undeniable.
Kalinin stared at Henrietta with an expression that asked what any of this had to do with him.
A brief silence descended between them, but neither found it awkward.
“Am I expected to pay damages to the House of Matyas?”
“Hardly. One does not sue the umbrella merchant just because it rains.”
“Fortunately, your discernment remains intact.”
Tapping his fingers against the table, the Duke of Krakow asked,
“Then is what you seek a sort of revenge, Ms. Matyas? Against the monsters?”
“Something like that.”
In truth, her real purpose for entering the forest was to recover the lost fortune—the locked chest that matched her key.
She would annihilate the monsters in the forest, then safely locate and retrieve the Matyas family’s wealth.
It would take time, but she could endure that.
So long as she could secure her livelihood in the military in the meantime.
Once all the treasure was recovered, she planned to restore her family name back in Oldham Province, where the Matyas lineage belonged.
As a powerless, impoverished girl, Henrietta had been forced into an unwanted marriage, and even getting a divorce had been an ordeal.
If changing the world was too difficult, she would simply seize the power and wealth necessary to bend it to her will.
With those in hand, she would never again be helplessly tossed about by the world’s oppression.
Yet Henrietta had no intention of revealing such ambitions to the duke.
‘How could I trust someone I just met? Trust a nobleman, of all people?’
Not even a child would believe the claim that nobles had too much to covet another person’s wealth.
Those who possessed everything were consumed by the sordid greed of wanting more and constantly trembling in fear of losing what they had.
Whether it was fortune or power.
Count Salt was living proof.
Desperate to cling to his position among the central nobility, he had attempted to subject his own wife to what amounted to prostitution.
Of course, the Duke of Krakow seemed cut from a different cloth than her ex-husband.
For a high nobleman to scrupulously address an inferior noble as “Ms. Matyas” and show consistent deference was rarer than one might think.
His manners and his speech bore the clear marks of a refined upbringing.
Even so, there was no telling how such an upright gentleman might change when faced with money.
The fact that the Duke of Krakow was sufficiently wealthy brought no comfort.
One could never have too much money, and nobles were an especially ravenous breed.
“I offer my condolences for the misfortune that befell your family, Ms. Matyas, but that hardly guarantees the veracity of your information. Are you perhaps suggesting that your great-grandfather, who barely escaped with his life, drew this Monster Encyclopedia himself?”
“Why do you assume I am the only one who wanted revenge?”
Henrietta mustered the most bitter expression she could manage.
It was not difficult.
All she had to do was recall her wedding day.
“Then…”
“My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my uncle, and even my father all sought vengeance, and every one of them failed. Probably.”
In an instant, Henrietta turned every man in her lineage into an avatar of vengeance, but she felt no remorse.
Frankly, ‘three generations threw their lives away for ancestral revenge’ sounded far more honorable for their legacy than ‘three generations threw their lives away trying to find lost treasure.’
“Probably?”
“The late Duke of Krakow issued a decree forbidding entry into the Monster Forest, didn’t he? Officially, my grandfather and father are simply missing.”
“Ah.”
In short, driven by a hopeless pursuit of vengeance, they had broken the decree, crept into the forest, and vanished without a trace.
“If they managed to compile an encyclopedia, it must not have been just once or twice.”
“They pushed forward little by little.”
The Duke of Krakow clicked his tongue.
“I will have to tighten enforcement against illegal entry.”
“If you permit my enlistment, you won’t need to tighten anything.”
“I am the supreme commander here. Not you, Ms. Matyas.”
His cold rebuke silenced Henrietta. The back-and-forth between them came to an abrupt halt.
Anxiety crept into Henrietta.
The duke’s posture, with his arms folded across his chest, looked thoroughly guarded.
‘Did I fail?’
No, she couldn’t have.
“Hmm…”
Her instincts were not wrong.
Kalinin was definitely enticed by her proposal.
Allowing her to enlist, however, was an entirely different matter. A woman who had lived as a countess could never adapt to military life.
“Enlistment is out of the question. Instead, I will purchase the encyclopedia and the map. Name your price, and I will pay it.”
“I’m afraid that won’t work.”
“I was under the impression you needed money.”
“I do. I need it desperately. But you see…”
Henrietta tapped her temple lightly with her finger.
“Both the encyclopedia and the map are entirely in my head.”